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Omnistorm wrote:

This should be a must read for the balance team. Everything is here in the google doc Clay made this last night live with some of the community.

https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/13Apxobl-RrbQ1HV1NL14LAT6GiWPdF6-4qAu0aYPHwA/mobilebasic

This is also being talked about here in my original post on Steam forums.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/2183900/discussions/0/4763208113394084808/

Pretty much sums it up.

I think Bulwark should have some sort of ability to taunt. It is geared around receiving aggro. It just needs a better way to force enemy attention to itself

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rohking wrote:

I think Bulwark should have some sort of ability to taunt. It is geared around receiving aggro. It just needs a better way to force enemy attention to itself

I don't know why it can't taunt by default.... It works well in both Darktide and Vermintide for the tank specs.

There are a number of good things, but I think a chunk of this is community overreaction/pandering to an audience.  Some stuff I disagree with:

* SOME health/damage scaling makes sense to me to make things less punishing on-mistake at lower levels and require more precision on higher difficulty levels.  Difficulty that's purely swarm-based in a game like this sounds like it would get old, I want things at least a little spicier too.  Also, more health gives more reason to get weapon upgrades and feel their difference at the higher tiers (even if getting those upgrades reduces the hits-to-kill back to a baseline, there's a reason to do more damage).  This isn't Helldivers 2.

* HP overheal bug should absolutely be fixed, and saying it shouldn't be fixed in larger font and all caps makes the whole document questionable, imo.  I agree 1000% that contested health degenerates far too quickly, as sometimes you're barely recovering from the hit you took before it starts going down.  Let me at least get back in there and swing.  That said, there should not be some mystical mechanic that lets you chunk your health above contested just because a weapon was bugged at release.

*  I kind of don't think you should get health back on execution.  I can see an argument for something like 5% health for executing majoris, maybe 10% for extremis, but you shouldn't get any for executing minoris imo.  With damage to armor tuned differently, getting armor back will still be really strong.

* I don't really think they need to worry about more unique executions.  If there are 3 animations, people want at least 5.  If there are 5, people want at least 8.  If there are 8, people want at least 10.  Everyone is going to get bored of X animations and want X+Y pretty much every step of the way once they play enough.  Plus, there are unique weapon-based executions for majoris enemies already, so there's a pretty wide variety in place.

* I kind of don't think Zoanthrope should float closer to the ground for melee, and I exclusively play Assault.  I like an enemy that tests your comp's ability to pump ranged damage, just like how sometimes players who want to be ranged have to deal with melee.  

* For the Lictor's QTE, it stipulates "if you don't have a teammate to help", and I think that's a really unstable foundation to provide feedback in a team-based co-op mode.  It would be like asking in Left 4 Dead to allow you to break out of binds yourself in case teammates aren't around to help.  It's part of the game, sure it's really punishing, but there are multiple steps to avoid it already.  Not everything has to be balanced around being a lone wolf.  Same feedback for Ravener.

They also don't call it out in the prio fixes, but I absolutely think minoris melee damage to armor being nerfed is a #1 fix.

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Omnistorm wrote:

This should be a must read for the balance team. Everything is here in the google doc Clay made this last night live with some of the community.

https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/13Apxobl-RrbQ1HV1NL14LAT6GiWPdF6-4qAu0aYPHwA/mobilebasic

This is also being talked about here in my original post on Steam forums.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/2183900/discussions/0/4763208113394084808/

we will get too little, too late. the game is dead by then.

i don't get why there hasn't been a small balance patch already. some thing are so underpowered, you can't do anything wrong there.

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crispy_64 wrote:

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Omnistorm wrote:

This should be a must read for the balance team. Everything is here in the google doc Clay made this last night live with some of the community.

https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/13Apxobl-RrbQ1HV1NL14LAT6GiWPdF6-4qAu0aYPHwA/mobilebasic

This is also being talked about here in my original post on Steam forums.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/2183900/discussions/0/4763208113394084808/

we will get too little, too late. the game is dead by then.

i don't get why there hasn't been a small balance patch already. some thing are so underpowered, you can't do anything wrong there.

Because that isn't how software development works.  It's been a little over 1 week since the official, full release.  That's barely enough time to start collecting feedback, let alone triaging, allocating stories to sprints, doing the dev work, testing, then pushing out to the production product.  So much of the feedback is knee-jerk emotional reactions, and the landscape has been changing so quickly that one day Sniper is a terrible useless class and a day later it's OP lol check out this broken build class.  People are also bad at actually explaining what they don't like about an experience, so you get feedback like "it feels boring" and "I have to spam X" and "all I can do is spam dodge roll", none of which actually gives you any indication as to what should change in order to improve the experience, or if it NEEDS to change (because not everyone is going to like your game).

I work in analytics implementation for a large company, and even if a code change takes me all of 5 seconds to make, the process of getting that change out to production is at least 2-3 business days.  We don't publish on Friday because no one is in the office in case something goes wrong, so in a 4 business day work week, it's often 7 or so actual days before a 5 second change makes it live.  And that's the simplest change in a simple implementation that only I work on.

Expand that to a massively complex project like a video game across multiple teams with millions of people playing, and if you make a wrong move and the experience breaks, *millions* of people can't play.  Patience is difficult, but it's necessary.

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FatherGoose wrote:

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Because that isn't how software development works.  It's been a little over 1 week since the official, full release.  That's barely enough time to start collecting feedback, let alone triaging, allocating stories to sprints, doing the dev work, testing, then pushing out to the production product.

stop making excuses for an incomplete unpolished full price title. i don't have to wait weeks or months to get the most critical things fixed. i paid $60 for it.

people like you are the problem.

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crispy_64 wrote:

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FatherGoose wrote:

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Because that isn't how software development works.  It's been a little over 1 week since the official, full release.  That's barely enough time to start collecting feedback, let alone triaging, allocating stories to sprints, doing the dev work, testing, then pushing out to the production product.

stop making excuses for an incomplete unpolished full price title. i don't have to wait weeks or months to get the most critical things fixed. i paid $60 for it.

people like you are the problem.

This is a gross exaggeration of the scale of the issues.  Servers/matchmaking are the only “critical” things that need fixing asap.  Balancing will and should take time to do it right.

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Maelwolf wrote:

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This is a gross exaggeration of the scale of the issues.  Servers/matchmaking are the only “critical” things that need fixing asap.  Balancing will and should take time to do it right.

it should not take time. it should already exist and work well. this is not some F2P game, it's a full price title.

Well, I definitely don't want the game to feel like Darktide or Vermintide. That aside, most of these look accurate.

Something I'll point out is that in the difficulty section, you focused entirely on regenerating health as a solution. Which I don't think they will do, nor should they. Armor not being armor is the actual problem, which you never point out. I was showing the game to others over discord, and demonstrated this by grabbing an armor boost item and then allowed a gaunt to melee strike me. They all gasped and laughed when they saw it completely obliterated the entire segment. One of them even said "I was considering it, but there's no way I'm buying this game if it's this bad." Armor isn't armor in SM2.

Basic enemies deal WAY too much damage, and there's no armor regeneration mechanics outside of targeting elites and gunstrikes (which do not protect you against damage during the animations). Ranged spam damage is also almost impossible to avoid, so there needs to be a sustainable way of tanking damage outside of ignoring the armor mechanic entirely and 100% focusing on restoring health. Otherwise, just get rid of armor as a mechanic, as it doesn't do anything any differently from health. 

So anyway, yeah, you didn't cover any of that, but it's the biggest issue with how the game's combat works. It has nothing to do with the overheal bug, which could be safely removed if armor worked. Your suggestion here seems to orient around just preserving what's working now in error instead of helping to fix the design. That's the one section you completely lost me, but other than that, this is fine. Some things I don't think would be possibly feasible to do in the engine, or would require new animations and so on, so you wouldn't ever see them in pipeline.

I will say that I'd want "block" weapons to have some other feature so there's a reason to use them. Just being able to block orange attacks isn't enough. Maybe something (again) relating to armor regen or building up hyperarmor or so on. The fact that even the game shows "Blocking" as a red downgrade is telling. It's not balanced, it's just trash, currently. The game lets you know it's trash meant to make the game harder while you're getting mastery points. It definitely needs something more.

I'd also would like the distinction between power sword's modes to be more obvious. I find myself accidentally switching them and squinting to see if it's sparking just a little or a lot, or if there's a difference. I don't like switching the modes based on holding the first attack; it feels bad and happens accidentally. Bulwark also should have some ability to taunt or corral enemies, considering it's a tank class that can't tank. Especially in a game where armor doesn't work.

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crispy_64 wrote:

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FatherGoose wrote:

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Because that isn't how software development works.  It's been a little over 1 week since the official, full release.  That's barely enough time to start collecting feedback, let alone triaging, allocating stories to sprints, doing the dev work, testing, then pushing out to the production product.

stop making excuses for an incomplete unpolished full price title. i don't have to wait weeks or months to get the most critical things fixed. i paid $60 for it.

people like you are the problem.

No actually people like me are the only ones providing actionable feedback that might make the game better.  Your disrespect has no place here. 

Plague nails it imo.  Armor damage is the source of many problems that suddenly probably won't feel like problems when they fix it. 

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Maelwolf wrote:

​Servers/matchmaking are the only “critical” things that need fixing asap.  Balancing will and should take time to do it right.

I share the same sentiment. Anything that presents a barrier to players actually participating with the game should be of the utmost priority; balancing, cosmetics, miscellaneous changes are all secondary issues.

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I can barely take this community post seriously based on his opinion of melee weapons alone. Melee weapons are not shit tier. They are absolute god tier. They do less damage than ranged. Yes. But you know what else they let you do? Be in constant range of executions. Managed efficiently, you are immortal. Take a bit hit, shoot a minoris in the body, and it goes into execution state. And then you get all your lost health back.
You know what else melee weapons are great at that ranged weapons (barring melta) suck ass at? Cleave damage. Sure, you're dealing 20 damage per hit as opposed to the 80 headshot damage of the stalker rifle. But I'm hitting 8 things at once. I am outpacing every ranged weapons damage. 

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DelusionEnjoyer wrote:

I can barely take this community post seriously based on his opinion of melee weapons alone. Melee weapons are not shit tier. They are absolute god tier. They do less damage than ranged. Yes. But you know what else they let you do? Be in constant range of executions. Managed efficiently, you are immortal. Take a bit hit, shoot a minoris in the body, and it goes into execution state. And then you get all your lost health back.
You know what else melee weapons are great at that ranged weapons (barring melta) suck ass at? Cleave damage. Sure, you're dealing 20 damage per hit as opposed to the 80 headshot damage of the stalker rifle. But I'm hitting 8 things at once. I am outpacing every ranged weapons damage. 

If that's your logic, just use a melta. You're in close range and cleaving everything. By your own admission, melee weapons are terrible with no advantage besides... being closer.

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PlagueOfGripes wrote:

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DelusionEnjoyer wrote:

I can barely take this community post seriously based on his opinion of melee weapons alone. Melee weapons are not shit tier. They are absolute god tier. They do less damage than ranged. Yes. But you know what else they let you do? Be in constant range of executions. Managed efficiently, you are immortal. Take a bit hit, shoot a minoris in the body, and it goes into execution state. And then you get all your lost health back.
You know what else melee weapons are great at that ranged weapons (barring melta) suck ass at? Cleave damage. Sure, you're dealing 20 damage per hit as opposed to the 80 headshot damage of the stalker rifle. But I'm hitting 8 things at once. I am outpacing every ranged weapons damage. 

If that's your logic, just use a melta. You're in close range and cleaving everything. By your own admission, melee weapons are terrible with no advantage besides... being closer.

No, that's just melta being overtuned. One weapon being too strong does not equal an entire class of weapons being bad.

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DelusionEnjoyer wrote:

I can barely take this community post seriously based on his opinion of melee weapons alone. Melee weapons are not shit tier. They are absolute god tier. They do less damage than ranged. Yes. But you know what else they let you do? Be in constant range of executions. Managed efficiently, you are immortal. Take a bit hit, shoot a minoris in the body, and it goes into execution state. And then you get all your lost health back.
You know what else melee weapons are great at that ranged weapons (barring melta) suck ass at? Cleave damage. Sure, you're dealing 20 damage per hit as opposed to the 80 headshot damage of the stalker rifle. But I'm hitting 8 things at once. I am outpacing every ranged weapons damage. 

Username checks out. We should be getting overwhelmed by numbers not sponges. The current balance doesn't make ruthless hard it makes it a chore for melee.

i agree that there are issues with how difficulty is implemented, but a lot of the solutions suggested to fix them seem very misguided or just miserable to implement into the game. I think fathergoose stated the issues with this document very well