Balance..
Дата: 11.01.2019 17:09:32
Alzamon, on 09 January 2019 - 10:26 PM, said: Then why the F is there still a +2 spread in the mm. There is
literally no reason for this kind of spread. Other than the obvious
one that is greed. You wanna know why this game is dying? +2
matchmaking, artillery and overpowered premium tanks that for some
reason is never balanced. eekeeboo: There is a reason, just one I can think of - queue times.
Next would be the way the game is balanced. And by greed do you
mean create an element of challenge to encourage players to grow
and also invest in the game? I hope you are aware of how Free to
Play games make money and keep being Free to Play.
LordMuffin, on 11 January 2019 - 12:25 AM, said: eekeeboo: You can read what I said about data (or not), what will and
can be provided and what your conclusion will be. Doesn't change
the fact. MM is important if your concern is meeting
tier 8's, meeting less of them than before would be a solution to
fix the complaint you meet too many, for instance.
Arty got changed, not buffed, buffed would say they got better,
they just changed in their effect in the battle. Mechanics have
changed A LOT from autloaders, reloaders, physics, armour, the way
spaced armour is now more of a thing than it used to be etc.
In terms of map changes, it was mentioned a long time ago
that there would be an attempt to make it so every tank class could
perform on a map, having an all or nothing map design lead to
complaints from one tank class or another. Many complaints were
maps too open, heavies can't do anything, for instance.
And I have made the statement, I've also suggested things
that you do now, that you did then and have always done, you appear
to have chosen to selectively not read them. If you're
going to summarise my statement incorrectly (it's stated as
literally as it can be), then there will be little to no point in
my typing an answer for you to also not read but then misinterpret
what you do. WoT has always sold premiums, they have always had
accusations of P2W and OP (Type 59 onwards). Just because your
player base naturally declines as with any game, doesn't mean you
should change to not selling competitive premium tanks. Why would
anyone sell a tank that doesn't perform as well or is no different
to a previous tank. You are making an assumption about the
reason for the player decline on numbers you have, not all the
numbers. Effect does not determine cause. Just because 98% of
prisoners eat bread, doesn't mean 98% of people will be
prisoners. A little for everyone is the same as a lot for
everyone, it's just proportionate reduction. For shrinking
server numbers, I am going to assume (please correct if I'm wrong)
that you still haven't researched natural game life cycle and about
player churn. You give an example of teamwork in dota,
now increase the team size, change you don't know the people and
add more mechanics to master. And that's how *you*
judge a player, is it accurate though? No. Why? Because PR and WR
can be vastly affected by just player comfy tier 6 and below tanks
and always playing in a platoon. Always playing with people who are
good and getting carried. I hope this should highlight and point
out to you the importance of a full picture. Lemming
trains will fail if they don't keep pushing or progress, they have
worked on beach, including moments when people say "OMG beach rush
worked!". Going solo on a map, good player or not, won't help you
in the engagement you say you shouldn't be forced in to. You're
making the decision to go there not being forced there. You can go
with your team for help or go head to head with the defender, if
you choose to go there alone.. is that game design? So like you say
you don't go solo anywhere, and how do you do this if your team
literally just kemps bush or lemming trains, would you consider
"not solo" still a thing if it's still only you and some tier 6s vs
tier 7/8s. Knowing they too will go for the strong point.
And by just making it so you can do damage doesn't mean you
can do "more stuff" it just means you can do more damage. You can
see this effect by giving people HE high damage, do they consider
doing more things, or just take what they can get by hitting you i
the face and taking the easy approach. Players (as is human nature)
will take the path of least resistance and the easiest effort for
maximum outcome. Balance is not making it easier for
people to make no effort for maximum outcome. By making it so you
can do damage, look what happens with noob tubes, snipers and HE
spamming tanks. Diversity in principle is different to diversity in
practice.
kubawt112, on 09 January 2019 - 11:33 PM, said: There are very good reasons indeed - to make sure that
everyone can get a 'memorable experience'. Apparently it wasn't
enough to allow 'casual' players the occasional 'memorable
experience' due to RNG and general randomness. Most of the
misbalance in WoT is heavily obfuscated by the high variation in
the matchmaker, players, tanks, maps and RNG itself. That makes it
hard to prove anything, especially since there are only unofficial
(no comments!) global server statistics. It's a matter of fact that
most of the issues in WoT are very obvious, but generally easy to
"disprove". Like that a T6 doesn't meet T8s that often (in
particular a Defender), isn't supposed to fight the Defender
(alone), is supposed to flank/support and/or have premium ammo as
an option. Those are all vague non-arguments that doesn't do jack
to prove that the game is enjoyable as a result. Wargaming's
thinking is well illustrated by the good old Thaine Lyman joke:
That the TVP VTU (considered to be the weakest T8 by many) can
defeat a Defender. It's of course 'techincally true'. It won't most
of the time, though there are certainly situations where a TVP VTU
would do better than a Defender. On that note it's also worth
including the good ol' non-argument that a Defender isn't an actual
problem because it doesn't ruin every game it's in (it's not
top-tier too often and it's "not pay2win because you can't win
every game"
. (Fun fact: WoT is really random - to the point
where you'd likely end up with a 20-25% winrate even if every team
you were on had, say, 10-12 instead of fifteen players - and I
don't mean missing 3-5 of the bottom-tier tanks in a 3-5-7 setup,
rather 3-5 in a one/two-tier setup. Just like even the best
platoons can't manage a 100% winrate.) Lots of
pandering to casual players. Wargaming's claim is that they have a
core group of players that will stay no matter what. Apparently it
doesn't quite work that way. I doubt most forum members are
surprised about that. It follows logically that gradually reducing
how much personal skill matters is bound to have an effect on the
playerbase. Heck, the simplification of maps is bound to be boring
for everyone - good luck sneaking a tank around the heavy flank to
harass them nowadays. Personally, I'm mostly surprised to see a WG
staff member eager and invested enough to participate in the forums
like this - though I'm intrigued why it's suddenly a priority.
Also, I really wanted to post this picture. Yes, it's an
actual quote, and that is our dear Ph3lan stating his personal
opinion about the Defender on stream. I'm sure he appreciates that
I'm representing him after his lateral promotion, refocusing of
skills or whatever it's called in France (I'm sure there's a nicer
term for it, but I don't speak corporate - though I suspect
Wargaming doesn't either). eekeeboo: For the staff investment and interaction is that I'm new to
the WoT team, I believe it's all down to the way a CM is and how
they envisage interacting with the community. As someone who's been
on the forums and run them on other games, I understand how
important it can be to get this information in modern era gaming,
in the old days you just took what you got ! 
m1x_angelico, on 11 January 2019 - 01:25 AM, said: I'm proponent for balancing in-game. I understand it is not easy.
in fact, it can be quite hard, and any new change in-game can
disrupt already achieved balance. Still, it has its rewards, and it
is not by accident that balancing is the holy grail for most of the
games. From what I see on the forum, we have a "big" divide
in the player base - 1) some players are just focused on winning
(winrate), and dont care about anything else, 2) some are focused
on grinding being hard (so not all can achieve some tanks and
accomplishments), 3) some are focused on WN8 (dmg), and 4)
there are those who play this game purely for fun and dont care
about other things. It appears that for the first 3 groups,
balancing is really not that significant, in fact, for the first
group it can seem counter-productive. It is hard to assess
based on forum how much players there is in each of these groups.
Based on my experience as a gamer and posts on this forum I think
that the there are lots of players in the "fun" group. However,
what is the real question is whether this group is also the profit
group - do these players buy more boxes, tanks, prem time, compared
to the other 3 groups. The sheer number of threads on the
forum tells us that people are upset when the only option is
between being the meat grinder and meet grindee, or a seal
clubber and the seal. eekeeboo: The thing to balance, and by balancing that is easily
misunderstood is that it shouldn't be about balancing making
everything easy to do or even, but balancing the challenge with
output that's the core game design to keep players engaged, not
make everything even that leads to player boredom. For
the "casual" gamers you mention, the thing is from the forum, these
people generally (simplification and generalisation) don't come to
the forums and contribute, why? Because they're here to relax and
fun, they don't want or really care about the massive changes
required for skill based pro leet plays etc. These people though
can be extremely high spenders as they are also the people who view
their time as valuable with expendible income. (Another stereotype
and generalisation but hopefully it can show you how a player base
demographic breaks down further). And these player numbers and
spend values etc are all gathered by WG and influence the decision
making process, it's dangerous to look at just the forums, because
they are usually there for complaints not praise. I
will say there are some rare eggs who wear their "waller warrior"
badge with pride and I feel like empowering them. It's their money,
their time, you can do with it as you please, you've earned
both.
Somnorila, on 11 January 2019 - 10:21 AM, said: Unlikely. My experience tells me that there is an increased
chance to sell to people who are invested rather than to people who
throw money for fun. Sure it's possible that a "whale" will hear
about the game, log in and first buy some premium things. Thing is
that it's not really certain that he would remain your customer.
Usually this type of players migrate to what it's hot right now and
are easy to be influenced by popular subjects. Such as arty
"issues" or like it happens on US market, WoT has the image of a
pay to win game and people stay away. i'd say that you will
probably sell more down the line to some free player who keeps
playing. I'd say that is more probable that from the RU market or
EU market where number of players are high, small fish are the ones
who fill the nets and not whales. Of course if they keep playing
and feel invested in the game to at least spend that 10 euros every
month or once every several months, occasionally buys a tank, maybe
some gold. In time it adds up way more than what a whale would
spend for a few months then take his attention on other things.eekeeboo: For the most part the pay-to-win image is actually a more
"new player" perspective and comes from those who don't truly
understand what pay to win and as the lines have been grayed over
time on the way Free to play games monetise. Like gold ammo, if it
was real money only, that's pay-to-win. If it's for in-game
credits, it's not really pay-to-win you can grind those with more
time. But people still argue pay-to-win because people can get
credits easier with money..... but is it really?
Balance..