Dunpeel Posted June 10, 2003 Share Posted June 10, 2003 They should follow Blizzard's lead and allow players to beta test the patches before they release it. Jedi Outcast fans got screwed coz every patch release was just too radical of a change to the game... Hope Raven learnt from that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
txa1265 Posted June 10, 2003 Share Posted June 10, 2003 Originally posted by Dunpeel They should follow Blizzard's lead and allow players to beta test the patches before they release it. Jedi Outcast fans got screwed coz every patch release was just too radical of a change to the game... Hope Raven learnt from that. I assume that you are asserting that the knowledgable JKII audience - as represented here by people who whine, complain, flame, and disagree about virtually everything - would have done a better job in shaping the patches? I am not saying you are right or wrong, but given we've simultaneously seen 'make the saber single-hit lethal' and 'remove all 1-hit kill moves' ... it seems unlikely. I'm not a big MP player, and likely won't be for JA (or HL2 or EF2 or whatever), but it seems to me that people thought the first patch took care of the major balance issues, the next threw things out of balance, and the next was instantly ridiculed by some (some of whom seem to instantly ridicule everything) and rejoiced by others. Balancing weapons is not easy. Balancing weapons, plus 3 classes of sabers, plus two 'sides' of Force with multiple powers each becomes even more difficult. One thing I will say - I hope they decide on a 'balance framework', and I don't care if it is 'fair' or 'right' or 'canon', but pick one, and stick with it. Only patch bugs and things that obviously break that 'balance framework'. Some of the more thoughtful posters here have said things I'll paraphrase as 'I don't care which gameplay mode you choose, just don't mess with it when the game is already out there'. Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StormHammer Posted June 10, 2003 Share Posted June 10, 2003 Patches that alter gameplay mechanics are often very contentious, and inclined to split gaming communities. I've seen it happen with other games, and I saw it happen with JO. So I echo Mike's sentiment that any patches should only address obvious bugs, and not alter fundamental features that affect how the game is played. There will always be people who will complain how a game plays, no matter what the settings, but if the majority of people are happy with it, I don't see that there is a major problem. As long as Raven play test it and are satisifed that the game plays how it is meant to play, then I hope they leave it alone... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
txa1265 Posted June 10, 2003 Share Posted June 10, 2003 Another thing ... and I say this as a huge Star Wars fan since seeing the first one at 11 in 1977 ... [yes, I know - Fossil!] Star Wars fans are under the impression that they own the context of the saga. They are wrong. George Lucas owns the overriding context, and whether or not we like it, Star Wars is ultimately what he says it is. Likewise, Raven and (more importantly) LEC owns the context for the DF/JK game series. They decide what is right and wrong, and we either like it or not. But it is not ours. I like the basic decisions Raven and LEC made with the franchise last time out, and hope they will make more judgements that fall in line with my opinions of the SW universe this time But again, make a decision and stick with it for MP. Otherwise someone's 'fix' becomes someone else's 'nerf' (no, not the football ...) Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Minstrel Posted June 11, 2003 Share Posted June 11, 2003 It didn't seem to me like there were all that many changes in the patches. Of course, I didn't play much before the 1.4 patch, so that may just be my own misconception. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spider AL Posted June 11, 2003 Share Posted June 11, 2003 Huge changes Minstrel, huge changes. Back in the days of 1.03, I was lobbying almost constantly for gameplay-changing patches to be eradicated. They never do any good. But as long as there are people around as there were in the days of 1.02, who are too ready to whinge and whine about things at the top of their voice, we'll get gameplay patches. Woe unto us. How can Raven avoid screwing the game up? Don't change it after it's released. That way, if it's crap, it's crap. But if it's good... then we're assured of a great experience for years to come. Star Wars fans are under the impression that they own the context of the saga. They are wrong. George Lucas owns the overriding context, and whether or not we like it, Star Wars is ultimately what he says it is.While I detest Lucas and the fact that he's spending all his time and the fans' money destroying the very marvel he helped to create in the late seventies, I am forced to agree with you on a legal basis. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BloodRiot Posted June 11, 2003 Share Posted June 11, 2003 Yup... I agree that the patches should not mess with gameplay. Indeed as stated, not everybody likes the same things and what is perfect to some is junk to others. If all players grasp the thought that even though it isnt perfect according to their standards, the game WONT change, they probably will eventually adapt to the system and accept it. if it gets changed once... then they think : hey... i'll just voice my opinions.. maybe they'll listen... if not.. then i'll scream my complaints for making it worse than ever. finish the system for SP... use the same for MP... final version??? ... cool!... keep it final. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shock ~ unnamed Posted June 11, 2003 Share Posted June 11, 2003 Well the thing is if raven gets 90 million e-mails a day saying "OMFG THIS HAS TO BE CHANGED" chances are they will forward the info to Lucas Arts and say something like "Look we are getting tons of complaints about X. Can you authorize us to do a patch?" LA will see a potential to fix a problem that may hurt sales and grant permission for a patch. That’s what happened before and will happen again I fear. Now unless Raven simply deletes all complaint e-mail, which I doubt they will do because it's a very customer friendly company, the rest of us have to speak up just as loud about how the game is not broken. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HertogJan Posted June 11, 2003 Share Posted June 11, 2003 So am I the only one who thought that drain was too powerfull, the DFA shouldn't be able to be aimed, the backstab was abused too much and you shouldn't be able to avoid falling damage with a lunge in mid-air??? C'mon guys, those were problems, some move that is overused isn't nice and those pull-backstabbers really began to annoy me Yeah sure, some of you might think; "if it's there, I use it", and I agree, but without those moves dueling could be alot more fun... The patches, unfortunately, "fixxed" a lot more then they needed to But Raven did NOT screw this game up. I still like saber combat and think t hat most of the ppl who claim the 'professionals' left because of the changes are no different from the 'saber off = peace' lamers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matariel Posted June 11, 2003 Share Posted June 11, 2003 after playing 1.04 for a long long time, then going onto a 1.03 server, i must say that the patch is a GODSEND! 1.03 is really really crap, the backstab for one, but also force push or pull pretty much pins you to the ground because it can be repeated very rapidly. The patching of JO didnt make 'major changes' to the game, they fixed exploits that some people were using to give themselves an unfair advantage. Balancing a game so that everyone has an equal chance of winning on a server is really hard. Ideally, a balanced game will have a server full of completely unexperienced players all with the same score (approximately), but as i said, thats really really hard to do. Things like the backstab and push/pull exploits had to be removed, it was simply a balance thing..if everyone had an even chance of doing it (like if it was a documented skill) then maybey it couldve been left in, but its a pretty bad design move really. Also, Blizzard does not test its patches publicly, no company that im aware of makes beta patches public unless it fixes a hardware problem that only a relatively small amount of people will suffer from. Blizzard have been running public betas of their full games since Warcraft3, but this is only for Battle.Net play, and only the release version of it. Patches are later brought out in repsonse to the community, just like with JO and JA, they are tested in-house first though. Believe me, in house software testing is a heck of a lot better than public testing for gameplay changes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spider AL Posted June 11, 2003 Share Posted June 11, 2003 Originally posted by Matariel: after playing 1.04 for a long long time, then going onto a 1.03 server, i must say that the patch is a GODSEND! 1.03 is really really crap, the backstab for one, but also force push or pull pretty much pins you to the ground because it can be repeated very rapidly. The patching of JO didnt make 'major changes' to the game, they fixed exploits that some people were using to give themselves an unfair advantage. Ugh! wrong. 1.03 was the patch that the whiners wanted and received. 1.04 was made to try and fix all the problems that the silly whiners caused! Surely you've been playing since 1.02? Maybe not... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Khaza Posted June 11, 2003 Share Posted June 11, 2003 Ravens only mistake was they listened "community" too much.. they shouldn't have tweaked the gameplay at all ! After 1.03 came out I stopped using saber as a normal weapon, it became simple shield against blasters because I didn't like running backwards while pressing one mouse button. *sigh* Not only they changed damage of saber but the whole movement was different ! Yes I WOULD go back playing 1.02, but there really isn't many servers like that out there.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prime Posted June 11, 2003 Share Posted June 11, 2003 Raven really made two mistakes IMO, and I hope it is avoided this time around: 1. They made patches that involved altering (however drastically) the gameplay itself. Most of the time people complained because they couldn't be bothered to figure out what the counter was. The patches should have addressed bugs only (like the DFA collision box issue). 2. To try to balance things, they nerfed stuff. This made many things less effective (like the lightsaber), and less fun. If you are going to try and "balance" something, provide an equally powerful alternative. Raven should really try and wait a month or two before listening to complaints about gameplay issues. Give people time to find out what the counters are. Then, hopefully (naively?), the complaints will die down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
txa1265 Posted June 11, 2003 Share Posted June 11, 2003 Originally posted by Prime Raven really made two mistakes IMO, and I hope it is avoided this time around: 1. They made patches that involved altering (however drastically) the gameplay itself. Most of the time people complained because they couldn't be bothered to figure out what the counter was. The patches should have addressed bugs only (like the DFA collision box issue). 2. To try to balance things, they nerfed stuff. This made many things less effective (like the lightsaber), and less fun. If you are going to try and "balance" something, provide an equally powerful alternative. Raven should really try and wait a month or two before listening to complaints about gameplay issues. Give people time to find out what the counters are. Then, hopefully (naively?), the complaints will die down. I agree with your two points, but I think your first and 'third' points are somewhat contradictory, and were something I tried to address before. Namely, I'd like to think that Raven would come up with a MP spreadsheet for each gametype, and cross-matrix attacks and counter-attacks and defences including weapons and force powers. Once they decide how that matrix works in a way that they believe it is balanced, put it 'in ink'. Any patch would only be to address bugs/exploits that voilated those 'rules' in fact, or in spirit if there was a compelling case. Perhaps by providing more of a sense of what is *supposed* to happen they can avoid 'noob confusion' (in this case, we're all newbies when a game just is released). A personal thing I'd like to see is more 'reverence' for the lightsaber. By this I mean that if I have a saber and you haev an E-11, and you're 2 meters away from me ... unless I am doing one of those useless blue twirl attack nothing moves, I should never die. As stated in various places of semi-canon, up close, there should be nothing more lethal than a Jedi and his/her lightsaber. Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sargasso Posted June 12, 2003 Share Posted June 12, 2003 From where I sit the multiplayer implementation of JO was unsuccessful. Painfully obvious bugs were present at launch and subsequent patches were drastic enough as to be divisive to the community. Whatever methods Raven used to develop/balance JO mp it is clear these methods need to be approached differently, replaced, and/or expanded for JA mp. This will become even more important given the increased complexity class/objective play will bring to multiplayer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
txa1265 Posted June 12, 2003 Share Posted June 12, 2003 Originally posted by Sargasso From where I sit the multiplayer implementation of JO was unsuccessful. Painfully obvious bugs were present at launch and subsequent patches were drastic enough as to be divisive to the community. Whatever methods Raven used to develop/balance JO mp it is clear these methods need to be approached differently, replaced, and/or expanded for JA mp. This will become even more important given the increased complexity class/objective play will bring to multiplayer. While I agree that the patches were divisive, I would characterize JKII's MP as a 'mixed bag'. I believe it would have been more successful without the divisive patches, which created a sh*tstorm (mainly of whining but I'll leave that for someone else to say ) right when the game was at its' fastest selling pace / greatest hype factor. I'm not a big MP person, so it didn't matter much to me, but it did tend to largely keep me away from these forums for some months. On the other hand, I think that aside from team combat type games, and UT2003, JKII is still right there with other games of its' class. There wasn't anything to make it more appealing to squad based players. Hopefully JA will deal with this as well. Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spider AL Posted June 12, 2003 Share Posted June 12, 2003 I believe it would have been more successful without the divisive patches, which created a sh*tstorm (mainly of whining but I'll leave that for someone else to say )While the patches did create a heated debate, as a dedicated MP player, I have to say that most of the whining occurred prior to the patches. They whined about getting killed, so 1.03 was created. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
txa1265 Posted June 12, 2003 Share Posted June 12, 2003 Originally posted by Spider AL While the patches did create a heated debate, as a dedicated MP player, I have to say that most of the whining occurred prior to the patches. They whined about getting killed, so 1.03 was created. Thanks for the correction ... as an outsider, I just saw the sh*tstorm Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prime Posted June 12, 2003 Share Posted June 12, 2003 Originally posted by txa1265 I agree with your two points, but I think your first and 'third' points are somewhat contradictory... I guess I didn't explain that very well. I feel that patches shouldn't introduce gameplay changes. But if you are going to make a gameplay patch, at least allow some time after the game comes out to find out what the problems really are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
txa1265 Posted June 12, 2003 Share Posted June 12, 2003 Originally posted by Prime I guess I didn't explain that very well. I feel that patches shouldn't introduce gameplay changes. But if you are going to make a gameplay patch, at least allow some time after the game comes out to find out what the problems really are. That is why I said 'somewhat' ... I thought I understood what you were saying (and was pretty much right). My thought is that they should be more anal - once they have decided the balance strategy (even if it is 'we want a**fighting everywhere ... it may be lousy but it's hilarious to watch), then stick with it. Patch what is broken only ... not when people say Red is too strong - even if itt's true ... only if it is uncounterable and you designed it to be too strong but counterable. Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emon Posted June 12, 2003 Share Posted June 12, 2003 I think patches should alter gameplay if necessary. I think what happened with 1.03, is that Raven didn't realize the new problem created by their patch. They obviously fixed this in 1.04. You may think the sabers are totally nerfed in 1.04, and you may be right. A few good server cvars can make it all better, however we shouldn't have to set those ourselves. I think Raven would have gone on to make another patch, but LEC didn't think it was necessary. At that time, they probably thought, "Well this JA expansion of ours is going to be out in no time, and is going to redefine the MP anyways, no point in making a patch." And they were kind of right. Remember at that time JA would still have been an expansion, not a full game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spider AL Posted June 12, 2003 Share Posted June 12, 2003 I think patches should alter gameplay if necessary. I think what happened with 1.03, is that Raven didn't realize the new problem created by their patch. They obviously fixed this in 1.04. You may think the sabers are totally nerfed in 1.04, and you may be right. A few good server cvars can make it all better, however we shouldn't have to set those ourselves.Don't forget the Dark Side and Heal nerfing... 1.04 didn't fix that. As you say, Raven may have gone on to sort it out in another patch, but frankly why bother? One bugfixing patch would have been fine, instead we got two gameplay-altering patches which, to an extent, spoiled the game for a lot of people. In fact I can't think of a single gameplay-altering patch for any game I've ever played, CS, UT, that has improved it in any noticable way. Anyway, here's hoping JA is as excellent as 1.02 was. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HertogJan Posted June 13, 2003 Share Posted June 13, 2003 Spider Al, what do YOU think Raven should've fixxed in the patches then?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shock ~ unnamed Posted June 13, 2003 Share Posted June 13, 2003 Originally posted by Spider AL While the patches did create a heated debate, as a dedicated MP player, I have to say that most of the whining occurred prior to the patches. They whined about getting killed, so 1.03 was created. Yep. I registered here the day the game came out and within the first week people already started flipping out over "heavy swing whoring". People never even gave the game a chance or tried to learn counters before they started complaining. The 1.03 days were the worst of this. Literally the *day that patch came out they started in with the "THIS MUST BE FIXED OR I QUIT!!!11" (any of you vets remember all the "retirement threads" from disgruntled players?) Now I admit going from a total dark to a total light was a little tough to adjust to... it took me all of a week to learn/adapt. Although I'm not a big fan of 1.03, the point is before you start preaching the death of JA give it a chance to friggen *come out first... Sure things may seem unbalanced or overpowered at first but remember, we will *all be noobs in the beginning. With a little time/strategy/ingenuity those "cheap" moves and powers will seem trivial in no time if you actually put some effort into learning the game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HertogJan Posted June 13, 2003 Share Posted June 13, 2003 It was the same with 1.04, a lot of ppl refused to play in competition with that patch And it was only the nerfing of the backstab that made them say that... It's just too bad JO suffered from whiners On one side, you have the RPGing fanboys who whine that Raven should add all those RPG **** and that all moves that can be 'whored' should be removed. On the other hand you have the so-called 'L337' ppl who wanted to DFA and backstab like their lives depended on it (er... ) and who were mad because of what the patches did. Thos two groups ruined the community every time, all patches were bad, even before they came out... BTW, I must say I admire Raven for the fact that they released some sort of unnoficial 1.04 patch... Not that the patch was everything I hoped for, but it showed to me that at least they care... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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