Risky business?

[Armus]

Anyone else feel that perhaps implementing tons and tons of changes over a relatively short period of time like proposed makes it next to impossible to predict how everything will play out?

Sometimes even seemingly small changes may cause big problems.
Ppl take advantage of things in ways that wasn't predicted or stuff just won't work as intended.

With all these changes we will have a different game for sure.
Isn't there a fairly big risk that we will have to roll back alot of these changes as time passes and we realize it didnt turn out for the better? And in doing so causing alot of ppl to be displeased because they have to remake their toons over and over?

Creating balance is no doubt very hard. I think everyone agrees on that.
Doesnt that warrant a more subtle approach?
Imo every change should be tested and analyzed thoroughly on it's own befor implemented.
So how do you test and evaluate something if there are hundreds of changes made to the enviroment in which you are testing in simultaneously? Sounds impossible to me at least.


What I'm trying to say is.. Wouldn't it be better to try to finetune things over time with fairly subtle changes as opposed to the throwinahandgrenadeandseehowitturnsout way that we seem to get now?

I'm quite aware that there are a few really BIG balance issues that need serious attention asap. I'm not denying that at all. In fact that is where the devs should start.

But how do we know how things play out if we change too much at once?
How do we know that things won't get grossly worse? Because that's what a fairly large portion of ppl seem to feel about alot of these changes already.

Personally I don't want a "new game". I want AO. Just tweaked a bit away from rock scissor, paper pvp. That's all. No need to change everything and I don't intend to spend hundreds of hours rebuilding my army of toons.
I just don't have any energy left for that at all.

Ty for reading my wall of text

ps. Not trying to piss on anyones parade or the efort in general, not at all. Just being genuinely concerned.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

Big changes = throwing everythign up in the air, and everyone standing around gawking at what precipitates.

It's good.

It's not that AO is a bad game. It's a great game. It's just that there have been so many retarded and bandaid fixes made in the game that.. it's like our current state of pvp is BUILT on bandaids. Think about this:

The most common PVP weap in game: AS pistol (was a bandaid)
The most commonly cited PVP problem: nemesis nanos, BR, GTH (all of which are supposed FIXES to previous developers' cited problems)

Now, most of the issues that are in game are a result of the ill-thought out implementations at an earlier date.

Yes, with big changes, there will be a LOT of shakeups. Yes, there will be those who find weaknesses and exploit them. But, it takes time to find these, and that is what is called "ironing out" the issues.

I think it's all good in the hood. AO needs a shake up.

[Hacre]

We don't have a timeline do we? I pretty much assumed it'd happen after a fair few months of us crunching it on the beta server...

Am I drinking backwards Evian again?

[Technogen]

IDK how long it's planed for the beta servers, but the fact is they are thinking out things pretty well and listening to feedback from the profs about everything they are coming up with. The Bserver would pretty much make this a stable thing before it's rolled out.

[Flyingengi]

It's called test server.

[Technogen]

It's called test server.

No, I have to say this again, it is not Test Server, it is a completely new server farm. This is not test, do not start transferring to test in hopes of beta testing.

[Flyingengi]

No, I have to say this again, it is not Test Server, it is a completely new server farm. This is not test, do not start transferring to test in hopes of beta testing.

I wasn't commenting on your comment, nor did I even read yours.

It was a reply to the OP, meaning that the content will be thoroughly tested before it hits live and it won't just be "thrown" into the game.

[Technogen]

Oh Ok, well I still wanted to get that out of the way. There have been a few people in game talking about it and I had to correct them on it.

[Armus]

We don't have a timeline do we? I pretty much assumed it'd happen after a fair few months of us crunching it on the beta server...

Am I drinking backwards Evian again?

Testing just one change at a time on the test server is hard enough.
The exploits, bugs and patches we sometimes get is proof of that.
The test server also isn't the same as live.
The only way to test the dynamics of mass pvp is on live with "live" numbers.

Personally I don't have a toon on test but I somehow doubt they have many massive bs rounds or massive NW going there.

So personally I can't see how this can be tested in a valid way when the test environment is so different from live.

[Neon_1]

So personally I can't see how this can be tested in a valid way when the test environment is so different from live.

Where have you been for the last 8 years or so ? =P Usually live servers ARE the testing ground. Test-server is there to get rid of major bugs(if even those on most part) and then the patch is fed to live. Then the procedure goes like this;

6h planned downtime ----> extends to around 20h downtime ----> major lagg, cant log in -----> another 4h downtime ----> lag reduced, some exploits found ----> another 4h downtime -----> sploits gone, lagg is back -----> well, deal with it ----> start to try new stuff out, where half of it is usually more or less borked or bugged, so again -----> 4h downtime for fixing new stuff

[Reids]

Where have you been for the last 8 years or so ? =P Usually live servers ARE the testing ground. Test-server is there to get rid of major bugs(if even those on most part) and then the patch is fed to live. Then the procedure goes like this;

6h planned downtime ----> extends to around 20h downtime ----> major lagg, cant log in -----> another 4h downtime ----> lag reduced, some exploits found ----> another 4h downtime -----> sploits gone, lagg is back -----> well, deal with it ----> start to try new stuff out, where half of it is usually more or less borked or bugged, so again -----> 4h downtime for fixing new stuff

When did this happen last? Problems like that are a rare event these days with FC. Don't be so negative and only remember the bad stuff

[Parranoid1]

When did this happen last? Problems like that are a rare event these days with FC. Don't be so negative and only remember the bad stuff

this is true, in recent memory its been "scheduled downtime is 4hrs"

*1 hour 45 mins later servers are back up*

"wooooo we <3 u funcom!"

etc. etc.

[Mastablasta]

Not doing it all at once means you have all the problems currently present to contend with. When the changes are meant to solve these problems, it wouldn't make sense to introduce one set of changes without another.

[Esproc]

I can't help but notice a distinct lack of Tom Cruise given the title.

[Frubaliscious]

lol, man it's going to be a mess!! I can't wait!

it'll be AOhell, and my guess is that it will actually be fun working some of it out

In the end, 1 of 2 things will happen, either FC says "F-it!" walks away and hands us the keys (picture sledge hammers and junkyard cars) or we get thru it and end up playing a brand new game in many respects. guess we'll see ^^

[Omutb]

Anyone else feel that perhaps implementing tons and tons of changes over a relatively short period of time like proposed makes it next to impossible to predict how everything will play out?

The amount of changes in one go is irrelevant.

The vital factor is how fast things are dealt with once they're live, and for how long they keep updating them.

All too often there is the initial post patch fixing for a week or two after its deployed, followed by nothing.
If the same happens after such a huge change as rebalancing, and unless its right first time lol, then they will need to keep paying attention and fixing for a lot longer than two weeks I think.

[Dancingrage]

IT's massive and ambitious, I'll give the developers that, and they're looking at everything from the ground up, so it's really a terrifying prospect to look at this with the intent of rewriting for all intents and purposes the entire game, from the ground up.

More importantly however is the fact that instead of just looking at the end result and slapping on band-aids the developers are looking at the whole profession, and coming up with sort of an idea of what this profession should be doing, and how they should go about doing it without dying. The bits released so far point to this much at least. The rest is really just numbers after that once they get this part down.

[Frubaliscious]

ok, all joking aside. what I DO have confidence in, is Means and Friends ambition to improve upon, and determination to keep this game alive. I think this, above all the BS, has been proven an asset to AO. The guy honestly cares about the future of Anarchy Online imo. We have improved, the game is better (speaking of general consensus over content, not population). You also have to consider the possibility that they might know a little more than the rest of us about how things will play out. It's a nice dream to have players influence the life, and content of a game, but I have my doubts about whether we actually know for sure what's better for us than the peopel actually doing the work. hopefully we're in good hands, if not.. well, let's not go there I'm willing to stick around and see what happens.


damn that was hard to type

[IHaveHugeNick]

Its a lot better then doing it in many parts, although LOL @ people who think putting it all through special beta server is any kind of quality guaraantee, it just happens that regular changes go to the same routine and it never stopped King Kong size flawed content from hitting live servers even when scale of changes was 0.1% of what they are planning now.

[Omutb]

Fixed it!™

I'm investing in Band-aids, anyone with me? I have this feeling, I'll be rich!

nah nah...seriously...it'll be fun oO!

we'll be finnnnnnneeeeeeeee.

lol, nothing is ever right first time and I wouldnt expect it to be.

No doubt there will be bugs and exploits and crashes and hamsters dying.

But in the end, if its just "release, fix a bit, move on to next patch" it will FAIL, worse than a fat chick in a bikini.