Counselors - Marine/Xeno sides for the Dev Team

[Kesserline]

It appeared to everyone that some dev updates were completely disconnected from the game, in the past, and kinda recently.

It's not a judgement or anything else, it's just a fact. If you're developping a game, you do not have the same point of a view of a simple and only user of said game.

What about selecting 3 players for each side (from staff and/or playerbase, bound to confidentiality on subjects shared to them).
3 Marines Mains or "Experts" (Mostly Robust and RPer in the same time, the robust, or at least a great knowledge of current gameplay mechanics is important. We are talking about tweaks and updates)
3 Xeno Mains or "Experts" (No real RP side here, but we need experts too).

Those players will act SOLELY and PURELY as counselors for the Devs about potential outcomes of potential updates.
Devs, if they feel the need, could ask to those players their feelings/point of view about a detailed update and what could happen :
- potential powergame exploits
- potential negative outcomes
- risks/counter-measures to prepare
- potential adjustments to prepare

Counselors will have to keep their penises in their pants, it's not about defending their sides or anything, it's about discussing facts about updates-subjects shared by the devs to them. No philosophy, no e-penis, just facts.

What'cha think about that ?

[Sleepy Retard]

it's been suggested before and denied, but with whitelist councils now it could happen

though with the state of staff and how little they play, and how much they claim they know about the state of the game, i doubt they'll implement this (@slc97 + emerald blood )

[Karmac]

Amongst the staff team at least, a team of testers had been suggested by myself and driecg36, has been made and had presumably been working with BMC and the dev team on updates before I'd been removed from staff. I'm unsure of if it's still an ongoing thing or if it ever amounted to anything.

[Dolth]

though with the state of staff and how little they play, and how much they claim they know about the state of the game, i doubt they'll implement this (@slc97 + emerald blood )

[spookydonut]

it's been suggested before and denied, but with whitelist councils now it could happen

though with the state of staff and how little they play, and how much they claim they know about the state of the game, i doubt they'll implement this (@slc97 + emerald blood )

Truth.

There is/was a devtest team but since selection of it was a staff vote it ended up with 5 people each with a different timezone which made it all but impossible for me to feasibly use it.

[NethIafins]

the talk is there, however I personally (can't speak for the team) have worries about who will be picked.

Will it be generally great players that are very skilled? Well then we might have issues with changes that simplify stuff for those not so skilled.

Will it be "greater than life" personalities? Then we might get less information about actual issues.

Will it be players that use "borderline powergaming"? Well then they won't tell us the abusive mechanics and keep them to themselves fearing our usual "that's why we can't have nice things"


I'd like to have each of those personalities on that list and probably some run of the mill players, but I doubt that public vote will give us good distribution.
As for why whitelists worked - well, you have 1 question for them - are you great as THAT role. Not "are you good as marine" "Are you good as medic" "are you good as queen" "Are you good roleplayer". I hope you see the point

As for "Staff plays little". Guys... I appreciate the "state of staff" report, but right now just two headmembers and only few devs do not regularly play the game. This is the best "stats" we ever had tbh.


But this is all just my opinion.

[Sleepy Retard]

blabbering

Unfortunately, it's the people who don't play that make the choices. It's not up to moderators to develop new policies, and enact new things (player balance council.)

Don't be naive.

[Grubstank]

The devs are more in touch with the server now than they have ever been before -- I don't think the difficulties of introducing a marine/xeno counsel is currently worth the benefit.

[NethIafins]

Unfortunately, it's the people who don't play that make the choices. It's not up to moderators to develop new policies, and enact new things (player balance council.)

Don't be naive.

There is no way I can prove my point to you, so there is no point about arguing and telling you about my so-to-speak "naїvety"

we shall see how it goes

[Sleepy Retard]

There is no way I can prove my point to you, so there is no point about arguing and telling you about my so-to-speak "naїvety"

we shall see how it goes

Your point is irrelevant. It does not matter if the small fry play the game. The ones who make the choices do not. Which is why, funnily enough, I pointed out their names.

[Karmac]

bro you literally just said the heads and some of the devs barely play

come on chief

[Dolth]

As stated above by my fellow toxic budies, a player will always have a different point of view than a developper. Therefor having a council involving devs AND active players with experience will always bring good feedbacks and a more wide-minded point of view.

Don't you think?

[KingKire]

I honestly feel having a group of player liaisons for the dev team would be nice to have. I know sur used to voice his opinion on here pretty heavily till he finally got a chance to "touch the clay" and moved on to dmca, taking alot of good player feedback out of the loop. He's a okay coder, but he is a really good digger of statistics.


Some people don't want to be coders or mappers, or don't have the consistent time schedule to put towards moderating, and would just like to have a stronger opinion on possible positives and negatives of how the game changes. (Or would like to have a step up into the side of programmer or mapper)

I feel like removing the suggestion area of the forum lost a little bit of the nice back and forth arguments on suggestions. Gitlab is a great piece to load up finished suggestions, but having the raw formulative arguments felt great inside the forums. Cm13 is the house for legislature, while gitlab is the Senate.

[spookydonut]

Going open source would probably be a more direct solution.

[kastion]

How do you form a xeno council when xenos have no idea who each other are? Only the moderators/admins/whatever have any idea who a given xeno is on a consistent basis.

[Dolth]

How do you form a xeno council when xenos have no idea who each other are? Only the moderators/admins/whatever have any idea who a given xeno is on a consistent basis.

That too, yeah. Links to the other topic dealing with naming Xeno with nicknames or Byond ID, at least something to identify.

[ThesoldierLLJK]

I'd rather see something that the devs did the other day. They did a stealth test when I was a queen leading the hive and told me "order someone to become a *classified T3 caste*

Which we did and the developer in question was testing a change to the caste and didn't tell us what it was until the alien eventually died.

Why do I agree with that test style

1. The player had no idea what was really going on and was playing as normal allowing the developer to observe their balance changes unabridged

2. What better way to test things live than having to setup a thunderdome or test server.


We average 100-200 players, do we really need a council for this and council for that.

[Kesserline]

I would say : let the devs chose the ones they want to work with.

They are the ones working, while we are just truely playing.

They should try to make contact with specific people answering some criterias and make sure they can work with them.
You can't ask someone to be someone else advisor by forcing them to have said advisor.

For Xeno mains or at least xeno experts ? Just look on the forums who are talking seriously on the Hive part and on the Update thread.

_______________________

Marines mains should be 3 :
1 - One known RPer who could advise mostly about shipside matters (especially RPer because gameplay shipside is not really stressful, therefore allowing more time to RP)
2 - One nown Robust/Soft powergamer marine, who really knows the mechanics bound to the core of the round. (Reminder : the game is focused on Marines Vs Xenos)
3 - Third one should be a staff (confirmed mod or maybe admin if possible), because maybe certains updates should require new policies to enforce for staff.

______________________

Xenos main should be 3 too :
1 - (at least) One regular Queen player
2 and 3 - Regular Xenos mains

______________________

This "council" is just there to inform the devs of what the outcome could be from an update.

For example, any devs would have thought about what would be the outcome of the rifle buffs ?

As a reminder, for example for Marines :
- M37 PB is still gorgeous, but to prevent EVERY single marien to play with PB, accuracy and bullet scatter on M41 was buffed
- Result ? There is one ULTIMATE loadout of attachments that wreck havoc upon the hive.
- M39/M4A3/M44 were buffed, but ultimately are still virtually useless compared to M37 and M41

As a reminder, for examples for Xenos :
- Removing dragging bodies but turning off lights reduced dick moves
- The cost ? Robust marines are more revived, therefore, staying longer in rounds

Those are easy discussions, but these are the examples of outcomes that can lie beneath a potential tweak/update.
Those are not really testers, they are just people knowing what happens in everyday's round.

[Simo94]

oh no........

how about implementing better stat gathering tools like that bullets fired per round thing and make updates solely based on raw stats like monthly or bi-monthly, that would be much better than 3 ppl deciding for 1000+ rotating players if an update is good or no.

[Kesserline]

oh no........

how about implementing better stat gathering tools like that bullets fired per round thing and make updates solely based on raw stats like monthly or bi-monthly, that would be much better than 3 ppl deciding for 1000+ rotating players if an update is good or no.

What part of "advising" don't you understand ?

[Simo94]

What part of "advising" don't you understand ?

the part where casual players opinions holds less and less value the more these elite councils, advisors and whitelists groups keep popping up.

[CABAL]

Well... People were afraid of "elitism" when there was "advice" to give xenos nickname/byond keys. Now there is an idea to form "council".
I will have to pray to Kane that those from Marine side aren't secretly xenomains who would throw shit after shit about how they "feel" that they have too much power. Or they are so "robust" (with "soft powergamer") and out of touch (with "Great RP'er") in terms of gameplay so that they don't see sturgles on "normal" marines.

As a standard marine about year ago I couldn't kill a single beno for weeks, not so long ago killing me first was direct nerf for benos, becouse I couldn't break chests, or roast marines.
You are telling me that robusto who kills about 10 xenos in single round and some "great soft ERP'er" would know better what is good for grunts? What about some "forum council" who would read those threads like:
"Marine Metarush", "What Xenos Need", "What spec loadout would you want in the game?", "So... Idea Thread for Shits and Giggles", "Tank: A Nerf to marines, or xenos?", "how op are predators?", "Queen Mass Gibbing", "The Absolute State of Armor Encumbrance", "Which faction is the underdog now?", "A Real Discussion: Xeno Meta Gaming" etc.
Fish out some neat ideas and confront them. I guess staff has even less time to read forum than they have to play. Make it so that 10, or 20, or 30 players will check those threads and Gitlab for all ideas and talking about them. Right now Gitlab is designated to put ideas there, but it's ignored and when not, ideas are closed and marked as "joke" if somebody will find even slight sight of humor.

[Grubstank]

As a standard marine about year ago I couldn't kill a single beno for weeks, not so long ago killing me first was direct nerf for benos, becouse I couldn't break chests, or roast marines.
You are telling me that robusto who kills about 10 xenos in single round and some "great soft ERP'er" would know better what is good for grunts? What about some "forum council" who would read those threads like:
"Marine Metarush", "What Xenos Need", "What spec loadout would you want in the game?", "So... Idea Thread for Shits and Giggles", "Tank: A Nerf to marines, or xenos?", "how op are predators?", "Queen Mass Gibbing", "The Absolute State of Armor Encumbrance", "Which faction is the underdog now?", "A Real Discussion: Xeno Meta Gaming" etc.
Fish out some neat ideas and confront them. I guess staff has even less time to read forum than they have to play. Make it so that 10, or 20, or 30 players will check those threads and Gitlab for all ideas and talking about them. Right now Gitlab is designated to put ideas there, but it's ignored and when not, ideas are closed and marked as "joke" if somebody will find even slight sight of humor.

I think this is the better solution -- I know a lot of players are demoralized and completely shy away from Gitlab, and the 'average' player (or at least, a better representation of an average player than what a counsel could offer) will make their opinions known on the forums. The forums are accessible to all players, and are already used to hash out ideas/qualms in the same way that a counsel might. Players have been using the forums to give their input for ages -- all that remains is a way to highlight the good from the bad.

[MattAtlas]

I think this is the better solution -- I know a lot of players are demoralized and completely shy away from Gitlab, and the 'average' player (or at least, a better representation of an average player than what a counsel could offer) will make their opinions known on the forums. The forums are accessible to all players, and are already used to hash out ideas/qualms in the same way that a counsel might. Players have been using the forums to give their input for ages -- all that remains is a way to highlight the good from the bad.

the forums are barely ever used to make balance changes is the thing, you can post on the forums but at the end of the day whatever you post on the forums has absolutely zero bearing on what devs do and you cannot tell me this is not the case, look at like every thread in The Hive

if you want changes to be made more directly either go open source (but dmca already has all the good non-developer CM coders so lol) or get 4-6 people that give the dev team balance suggestion directly

[Simo94]

or add a staff position whos sole job is reading the forums, call him community manager.