Saturday, March 10, 2012

Stealth nerfs and game complexity

While i'm all for iteration(whatever that means), a lot of the changes CCP has been making lately make no sense at all. Jester recently wrote an article about the many stealth nerfs that CCP continually implements because its a topic that doesn't get much attention and more disturbingly contributes to the increasing complexity  to the game that is EVE.

You wanna know the worst part about these changes?  Jester's article while well written even missed out on some nuances on the game mechanic, such as how sec gains are actually shared IF you're in a fleet.  Though, to Jester's credit, this is actually what just about everyone i've talked to lately about this seems to think and the only reason I know otherwise is because a lot of the people I fly with enjoy figuring out game mechanics as much as they do making pixels explode.

THATS HOW CONFUSING THESE CHANGES CAN BE!!!one

Regarding the NPE one of the most maddening thing is trying to find information thats current about game mechanics.  If its a major game mechanic then its pretty easy to find, but if its something slightly more obscure or you want to find out a detail on a variation of a known game mechanic then good fucking luck.  Part of the reason this is so difficult is because CCP continually insists on making stealth nerfs or changes that never make it into any patch note.  The reason that this is a problem is pretty obvious, which is that now if you're searching for information on a specific game mechanic not only are you not likely to find any information about it, any information you do find is old and no longer valid.  Additionally, since no one really knows exactly how they changed it, people are even less likely to figure out what the new mechanics are because they don't even have a direction to look.

Probably the most recent "major' stealth nerf was the Orca one, where they nerfed the ability of the Orca to serve as a mobile station for highsec gankers using that tactic.  Except it was never in the patch notes, so now the industrial guy has one less thing he understands about his most expensive ship because he has never had any interest in doing highsec ganks and doesn't read the forums.

In this case, it probably doesn't affect him, but how many other stealth changes to other game mechanics have gotten someone killed or made the game that much more confusing?  How often do situations happen where several stealth changes eventually act upon each other to form an even bigger and more confusing black box than they would have beforehand?

This is why I supported Widders for CSM, because as a frequent bug reporter and "griefer" that understands more about game mechanics than just about anyone out there, he actually understood some of the real reasons behind game complexity and some of the real issues that the NPE is such shit.

If CCP is going to continue to rely on the player community to write their wikis and game mechanic writeups, the very least they could do is make this easier for them instead of more difficult.

tldr:  Its disturbing how many stealth nerfs and changes take place that people never realize.  Its even more disturbing that these stealth nerfs and changes add more to game complexity than people realize.

4 comments:

  1. Also, Jester is kind of a wanker. Just throwing that out there. I've gotten sick of his writing lately, he just doesn't have anything productive to say and whinges about all the wrong things.

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  2. There's never any excuse for any change to not make it into a patch note. Everything should always be documented.

    By the way, I think that CCP should allow CSM vote write-ins. I want to vote for Widders.

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  3. heh, and here I was floating along blissfully unaware of this. :-/ Then again when I can be bothered to rat/plex, it's virtually always solo anyways.

    Well, like I keep harping about, CCP keeps making "arbitrary mechanics are arbitrary" with no "story" reason or rhyme.

    ...and here I was going to post a big long entry praising CCP for their :new idea: to revamp ALL ships, by giving EVERYTHING a role and a way to be useful, not just "well tier 1 stuff sucks and just something to use till you can fly tier-3". You know, create 'stories' for the ships, some are big slow brawlers, others are fast and nimble, others kinda in-between... and re-write the bonuses/slots to fit that role.
    Personally I would LOVE to fly Atrons as nimble fast 'fighters' that run circles around everything else -- mini-ceptors, sorta. :-) Why not?

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  4. "Well, like I keep harping about, CCP keeps making "arbitrary mechanics are arbitrary" with no "story" reason or rhyme."

    Amen brother, amen.

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