Feedback For Equilibrium verse Release

[Morax]

Ithilis,

Could you outline for us how you handle feedback on Equilibrium balance and mechanics verse Zock and others on the official release?

How would you feel if people gave a lot of criticism to something you are passionate about that you like in your mod/balance? Would you honestly and good-willed make a change based on the voice of shared opinion?

I'm just curious because with the equilibrium tournament series it does not seem like a bad idea to seriously discuss whether it get used. As someone who has played the mod and balance with Ithilis a number of times I do have to say I am quite impressed with the dedication and work put into it.

Signed,

Morax

May the ever-debated game balance one day reach peace among players (the mission).

[Morax]

And to all who read the above, especially Zock, I just want to point out that although I do appreciate the work done so far one thing is clear: equilibrium gets more attention at a FAR greater speed and "time to launch" than almost any official balance release.

Given that fact, even though you may not like Equilibrium as is right now, chances are it would get re-worked and pushed quicker than in the current system.

Just my 2 cents...

[Ithilis_Quo]

Hi Morax,

When i was read this first think that come to my mind was, log into FAF and immediately tell Exotic_Retard to not write reaction in my name. He was very eager to answer and describe how awesome we are and similar shit . And the second think was come to my mind was that rather as me or retard i let Epson to answer on your question. This is what he say about year in past and it very well describe how me/we work:

Spoiler: show

I'm just going to put something in here that people seem to overlook.

Download this mod, play it and then rip it to shreds with things you have found based on evidence.

I was playing it with Ithlilis and co and made an offhand comment about something, I can't even remember what. And Ithilis says "You're right I should change that". I replied "No don't go changing your project based on that" and he said "No. I also think the numbers are incorrect I will tweak it for next version."

He is not emotionally attached to this mod.
He welcomes constructive criticism.

Follow Apofenas's comments. He criticises it without giving any specifics. Why? Because in every other FAF balance discussions using specifics just get you nowhere. Literally everyone ignores them and starts posting their own, untested random numbers. (Which are promptly ignored by the balance team thank god). I personally think people like arguing about that shit because no one can be 'wrong'.

Ithilis on the other hand wants you to criticise his mod with all the specifics you can. Apofenas then started offering stuff like this:

"Take spearhead for example. In your balance mod it costs 532 mass just because you wanted it to cost equal as absolver or sera t3 shield. You also adjusted its DPS to 300(less dps per mass than was). So now you need to invest 30% more mass to overwhelm tmd. You also removed natural HP advantage of this unit compare to t3 arty which is really usefull both in standing turtle war and in mobile group with percies. Didn't think about that?"

And guess what? He listened. Go play the mod, join our games test it and and say what you think. Use evidence and numbers if you can. Even if they are just rule of thumb (T3 MML was perhaps too strong relatively but nerf made it weak compared to T3 arty for examaple; here is replay).

He will listen to your opinion if supported by fact.
He will respect that opinion. And this is the important bit. He may or may not implement what you have said into the mod. This does not mean he does not respect your opinion. He has just decided on a different direction for the mod or feels that his (extensive) testing has yielded countering statistics.

What he will not listen to. "Mumble mumble vague opinion about how I feel". Ithilis doesn't give a shit how you feel and he doesn't give a shit what you feel about him. He isn't making this mod to impress he's here to make logical changes. Yes some of them are bat shit crazy (engineers capture from transport...cause why not?) but they are based of evidence and facts.

I have also said "Man I wish the experimentals weren't nerfed to be built so slow" Ith "Why?" "Cause I like experimentals"
That comment he ignored.

Here is Ithilis posting a balance suggestion, realising he was taking the wring angle of looking at it and retracting and closing the thread. forums/viewtopic.php?f=67&t=11110 Where the f*** else have you seen that?

Why do the [e] team seem to be 'fanboys' of Ithilis and defend him quite often? Because he genuinely knows his shit. We have talked enough on TS to learn this where rather ironically he speaks perfect English and grammar. He is a rare breed of human who welcomes logic in arguments and looks for reason in debates. I noticed that when I also had a discussion over EU immigration with him. Granted it was typed and I didn't understand like 40% of it. He is a great resource for this community. Use him. And don't hate his ideas if they are too out the box. They probably wont get implemented anyway. Think of this mod as an R&D deparment of FAF. The best and workable ideas will make it into the base game. The weird shit wont.

Ok so how does we work and react on feedback is quite simple:

Spoiler: show

-first we have to determine whether its a genuine concern - this is quite hard to do, since a lot of the time we get complaints that are already non-issues in equilibrium!
-we may sometimes seek the opinions and thoughts of other people to have more of a discussion on this matter, to give every change the best chance it can get.
-next, if its determined to have even the slightest chance of being an improvement over what we currently have, we put it in our extremely long to do list. This is very important to do right away so we dont miss anything out and every piece of feedback is accounted for.
-from there we determine whether we should monitor the situation, release a fix next patch or release a hotfix as soon as possible.
-patches are released every few weeks, while hotfixes are released the next day usually.
-however, it doesnt end there. we continue to monitor the changes over a period of time after release to ensure they are working correctly. this period varies depending on the change - bugfixes are usually monitored for shorter periods than large balance changes
-we may return to a change multiple times and ask the person who raised the concern if they are happy with the changes they made and whether they address their concern. the goal here is to create a great balance, and a great way to do that is to maintain contact before, during, and after deployment.

To your concrete question:

How would you feel if people gave a lot of criticism to something you are passionate about that you like in your mod/balance? Would you honestly and good-willed make a change based on the voice of shared opinion?

For example capture on aeon transport nowadays doesn't exist. And im really sad about that because i loved it. The reason why it was removed is that people complained about how strange it is and i didnt have enough arguments to keep it in game.
There are things that i dont like, even when i was the one who made it (kinda strange), but i know that i/we are not doing to ourselves, but for the whole community so that we can play and enjoy it. And we should not be right all the time. So when something should be better than it is, then we change it to that better state. We simply want it as good as possible, doesn't matter what, so when you have something that is better, come with it and we change it to better state.


lastly, as mentioned before you can leave feedback anywhere we will see it, but the best places are:
-in PM to either me or Exotic_Retard
-in the equilibrium subforum: viewtopic.php?f=79&t=13773
-in the equilibrium thread on the balance discussion forum: viewtopic.php?f=67&t=10004#p100601

[Morax]

Wish I could play the tourney this weekend.... hopefully next time. It would be thrilling to see how it plays out in competition.

[IceDreamer]

And to all who read the above, especially Zock, I just want to point out that although I do appreciate the work done so far one thing is clear: equilibrium gets more attention at a FAR greater speed and "time to launch" than almost any official balance release.

Given that fact, even though you may not like Equilibrium as is right now, chances are it would get re-worked and pushed quicker than in the current system.

Just my 2 cents...

They are held to a far, far lower standard. EQ does something people don't like, that person just keeps playing elsewhere. Zock does something controversial the entire universe implodes.

[TheKoopa]

And to all who read the above, especially Zock, I just want to point out that although I do appreciate the work done so far one thing is clear: equilibrium gets more attention at a FAR greater speed and "time to launch" than almost any official balance release.

Given that fact, even though you may not like Equilibrium as is right now, chances are it would get re-worked and pushed quicker than in the current system.

Just my 2 cents...

They are held to a far, far lower standard. EQ does something people don't like, that person just keeps playing elsewhere. Zock does something controversial the entire universe implodes.

Because we're forced to play with that balance and have no choice?

[PhilipJFry]

Because we're forced to play with that balance and have no choice?

yes

I don't even want to imagine the rage that would occur if EQ would become the regular patch.

[Sprouto]

While I myself do not use FAF to play my games, I would imagine they could have had the 'balance' unit database as an option to the 'standard/original' unit database. It would have given users a choice and side-stepped the apparent controversy.

[Ithilis_Quo]

Because we're forced to play with that balance and have no choice?

yes

I don't even want to imagine the rage that would occur if EQ would become the regular patch.

I cant imagine it as well. Why someone should rage about that, what should be a reason for what you will rage, if you will rage?


Because i realy dont know, alredy there was equilibrium tourny, Exotic_retard was ask every participant what they like or dislike about equilbrium and if will they like to change something (doesnt mather what). And we dont get any negative feedback. Mechanism that was for some people controversary (Anti-Air planes that are not able to fire on land) will be out in next version. So where should be a reason to rage about?

What you not like, and how we should change it (and why) ?

While I myself do not use FAF to play my games, I would imagine they could have had the 'balance' unit database as an option to the 'standard/original' unit database. It would have given users a choice and side-stepped the apparent controversy.

Units database of equilibrium units you can found in mod folder (changelog and then excel file with name "units stats") Or easier was when you start a eq loby, units units restriction you have every eq units with they new stats). But will try to implement units stat folder also into equilibrium web changelog to make it more clear and easier accesible.