{{
`${userDetail.user.displayName}${userDetail.user.cachedBungieGlobalDisplayNameCode ? `#${standardizeBungieGlobalCode(userDetail.user.cachedBungieGlobalDisplayNameCode)}` : ""}`}}
{{getUserClans()}}
Edited by Leogan:
10/16/2014 12:00:11 AM
233
The Kill Volume on Templar is the worst part of the Hotfix, and I'll tell you why (Constructive Feedback inside)
EDIT 1: I want to thank everyone who participated in the discussion so far. I didn't expect this topic to take off when I posted it last night, but I guess I wasn't alone in my thoughts. Special thanks to people who educated me about the Bonus Chest fact which you can't get through the platform Cheese, and everyone who maintained a positive, constructive tone (as well as stayed on topic).
EDIT 2: Spelling and grammar, 'cause it was driving me nuts.
There's been a lot of noise about the weapon nerfing/balancing during the 10/14/14 Hotfix. Most of it was pretty predictable. This isn't the first time [url=http://kotaku.com/death-threats-follow-small-call-of-duty-tweak-888324886]weapon stats have been tweaked in a FPS game[/url]. Arguments for and against have been pretty standard fare. Overall the changes seem fairly well calculated to balance the experience and extend enjoyment for the broadest subsection of players possible. To these I say 'Hoorah!'. I always liked Scout Rifles, now I am more justified in doing so.
But the Kill Volume on the sniper platforms in the Templar encounter bothers me. It bothers me a lot. Please allow me to explain.
I'm not against adjusting risk vs. reward. A true Cheese Strategy which makes a challenge trivial consequently trivializes the rewards that come after, and that is not good for games (this is why Atheon probably should have been patched first, but maybe solving that one is trickier and will take a bit of time). However, the "4 seconds until we kill you for playing the game incorrectly" solution to this is wrong on so many levels. An easy fix, yes, but quite possibly the laziest, and least fun way to patch the encounter. I worry about its implications on the overall philosophy behind what the game is supposed to be about.
My problem is that it's almost always better to incentivize than to penalize. Invisible walls and kill zones are extremely heavy-handed penalization. They are a slap in the face, a clear message that you are trying to do something you were not intended to do. But finding an easy way to meet a challenge isn't always an exploit. In fact, finding a cool way to accomplish a task can be just as satisfying as getting loot for completing it, especially if you've been banging your head against the wall, failing constantly ahead of the suddenly successful idea. This is why my clan initially said we didn't want to watch Raid guide videos; we wanted the thrill of finding our own way.
This stuff is gold, in terms of design. It isn't loot you have to make models, art, and stats for, but it can be just as essential. Slamming the door on it is, in my humble opinion, far worse than nerfing a cool weapon's damage. It's more like hacking players' inventories and [i]deleting[/i] that cool weapon, leaving a note saying "You are having fun incorrectly. You are playing [b]wrong[/b]" in its place.
The sniper platforms were made. They were made reachable through our cool flight/jumping abilities. They included strategic cover. How could anyone [b]not[/b] anticipate players not wanting to try and use them? If we are worried about Cheese, here are some alternative ideas:
[i]Make it tougher, enemies adapt[/i]
- Goblins throw more grenades, target the platforms
- Harpies fly out to platforms
- Templar can hit platforms from longer range
- Templar teleports one random player from platform instead of himself back into the arena
[i]Make it cooler not to Cheese It[/i]
- Include an achievement and/or additional rewards (shaders, emblems) for completing the encounter without anyone being marked by the Oracles (something you can't avoid by hiding on the platforms during the last phase, you just have to cleanse constantly because Oracles aren't dying).
Patching how the encounter reacts to player strategies, rather than just killing them for using part of the map you designed and made available leaves the choice in the players' hands. They can still do it, but will probably choose a different strategy not because they feel forced, but because they will now figure out something that works better, and it will still feel rewarding because A) verisimilitude is maintained (of course hyper-intelligent robots are going to be smart enough to counter my camping), and B) you didn't have to slap them right in the ego with a kill volume which just seems to broadcast: [b]We didn't think of this! We will now wave a wand and you will play how we intend, your creativity is not the goal here, ours is[/b].
I like raiding. I want to keep figuring out new raiding mechanics and strategies with the friends I've made in this game. I don't want kill volumes to be the go to hotfix tool for future raids where players will inevitably find the paths of least resistance. Please keep this in mind and leave me my illusions of choice. They are really fun.
Thank you for your time.
-
When you put it that way, I can't disagree.
-
Brilliant! Thank you for the well thought out post, voicing many peoples thoughts!
-
Edited by JDubsH: 10/15/2014 2:01:46 PMSeriously though, they can't just limit us to shooting at what pops up, there needs to be depth. There needs to be strategy. BTW Ducking behind cover in Bungie's intended spots is not strategy. *Cough Nexus *Cough
-
I totally agree. It is always better when a goal can be accomplished by more than one way. Just look how Deus Ex is approaching this. Almost every mission there can be accomplished by many ways. Here is either Bungie way or the highway.
-
5 RepliesSimple fix. Add Templar teleportation to the platforms. It only triggers when players are on the platforms, cannot be blocked, and the Templar calls level 30 Axis Hobgoblins to counter snipe. Boom. Challenge.
-
4 RepliesHello one and all but I have played MMO's for quite sometime now, and was for a time part of the EverQuest guild Ascended Dawn. I understand many of you will not understand who or what I am going to refer to so here is a simple explanation; 10 Years ago me, my guild were one of the top rated guilds in a game known as EverQuest - many of you have undoubtedly heard of it. Anyway Sony released a supposedly unkillable boss, it effectively 1 shoot everyone, had something akin to 1 billion hit points. For reference for none EQ players, a snake has 10 HP, a dragon 100,000 and a god 1-2 million. So what happened? Well my guild and three others put our differences aside and arranged to dedicate the day of 16th November to rising to the challenge of defeating Kerafyrm aka The Sleeper. After numerous wipes we eventually mixed up our strategy... After almost 3 hours we had managed to bring down the 'unkillable' boss down to 25%ish health. Using a simple yet equally difficult strategy. In simple forms we had countless DPSers and Support characters who simply revived those we fell to the Sleepers attacks. Anyway once we hit this point the Sleeper disappeared, mysteriously. The reason being Sony's dev team realized what we were doing, players were going to do what was meant to be impossible. They effectively removed the boss from the instance believing it to be 'bugged'. Regardless of what people believed we was given a second chance on the day following, thankfully many of us still had the monday free. Moving on we killed the unkillable. Since that day I learned something about games... Games are about challenges, about hurdles or puzzles or fights overcome. To some players, the biggest hurdle or challenge is how to do what you (the designer) said couldn't happen. If you are making a game, accept this. If players find a weakness or strategy that works, do not punish them, congratulate them on their achievement. After all isn't that the point of the game? Gamers can make unique individuals who are not afraid to rise to challenges individuals claim to be impossible. The same concept has always applied in a game I am very fond of DnD. If anyone has ever experianced a true game of DnD they know what I am talking about, players will often go off the rails finding ways to deal with the challenges you put before them that you never expected. As a DM do you then kill all your party because they just ruined your entire encounter by out smarting you at your own game? Hell no! You reward them, with experience points. DnD might I remind you all player or developer alike is ultimately the origin of the RPG and MMO. The same thing applies to the loot caves... nerfing them serves only serves to disincentives your player base.
-
Its all about the money and cheap fixes.
-
-
Beating difficult bosses in games like this has always been about good players and good strategies. Using the platform is just another strategy like any other. In fact using the platform actually makes the process of killing the Templar both more difficult and slower. They are not killing the oracles, the team are taking all the shots and the Templar often moves out of view. The minute the platform was changed they basically said "play the game you payed good money for our way or else". The weapon changes were no different. I feel some of these changes were just plain stupid and punished people for playing the game the way people want to. An easy fix to the platform idea would just be to make missing oracles kill. Then people can adjust their strategy to become more involved in what happens below. People can remain on the platform while 2 split up and watch over oracles adding an air of danger to the match. One of these people fall then the rest fall. What i find most annoying is they have gone ahead and removed communication from the game and yet made raids require a huge amount of team work and communication. No communication in a team work heavy raid is just plain retarded. The platform change forces communication even further in a game that has none. If it wasn't for PSN/Xbox communication features we really would be stuffed in these raids. Bungie has become royally lazy now that they have made their money back i think. On to weapons the issues with the Mythocast and shotguns could have been fixed by only applying the changes within pvp. Weapons are already dumbed down to suit a even playing field. Assault rifles really didn't require any change at all. For some reason i sat and watched some retard on Twitch go on and on about how OP AR's are yet admitted he never used one in favor of hand cannons. Going through the lowbie areas he was one shotting everything no matter where he hit at the same damage level as my own AR.
-
1 ReplyThe kill wall is a direct slap in the face of the raiding community. But the community can slap right back. Warlock and titan grenades that linger can be thrown into the sheild of the templar and force the NPC to walk itself off the edge. Is it lame? Yes it is lame that their team has provided us with broken encounters that can be reduced to pushing them off the edge. Yes It is lame that an NPC(hobgobs) can go where players cannot. Honestly vault of glass has been attacked by Bungie. Be it the loot, or the kill wall. They have made great strides to make VoG hard mode just not worth it.
-
[quote]EDIT 1: I want to thank everyone who participated in the discussion so far. I didn't expect this topic to take off when I posted it last night, but I guess I wasn't alone in my thoughts. Special thanks to people who educated me about the Bonus Chest fact which you can't get through the platform Cheese, and everyone who maintained a positive, constructive tone (as well as stayed on topic). EDIT 2: Spelling and grammar, 'cause it was driving me nuts. There's been a lot of noise about the weapon nerfing/balancing during the 10/14/14 Hotfix. Most of it was pretty predictable. This isn't the first time [url=http://kotaku.com/death-threats-follow-small-call-of-duty-tweak-888324886]weapon stats have been tweaked in a FPS game[/url]. Arguments for and against have been pretty standard fare. Overall the changes seem fairly well calculated to balance the experience and extend enjoyment for the broadest subsection of players possible. To these I say 'Hoorah!'. I always liked Scout Rifles, now I am more justified in doing so. But the Kill Volume on the sniper platforms in the Templar encounter bothers me. It bothers me a lot. Please allow me to explain. I'm not against adjusting risk vs. reward. A true Cheese Strategy which makes a challenge trivial consequently trivializes the rewards that come after, and that is not good for games (this is why Atheon probably should have been patched first, but maybe solving that one is trickier and will take a bit of time). However, the "4 seconds until we kill you for playing the game incorrectly" solution to this is wrong on so many levels. An easy fix, yes, but quite possibly the laziest, and least fun way to patch the encounter. I worry about its implications on the overall philosophy behind what the game is supposed to be about. My problem is that it's almost always better to incentivize than to penalize. Invisible walls and kill zones are extremely heavy-handed penalization. They are a slap in the face, a clear message that you are trying to do something you were not intended to do. But finding an easy way to meet a challenge isn't always an exploit. In fact, finding a cool way to accomplish a task can be just as satisfying as getting loot for completing it, especially if you've been banging your head against the wall, failing constantly ahead of the suddenly successful idea. This is why my clan initially said we didn't want to watch Raid guide videos; we wanted the thrill of finding our own way. This stuff is gold, in terms of design. It isn't loot you have to make models, art, and stats for, but it can be just as essential. Slamming the door on it is, in my humble opinion, far worse than nerfing a cool weapon's damage. It's more like hacking players' inventories and [i]deleting[/i] that cool weapon, leaving a note saying "You are having fun incorrectly. You are playing [b]wrong[/b]" in its place. The sniper platforms were made. They were made reachable through our cool flight/jumping abilities. They included strategic cover. How could anyone [b]not[/b] anticipate players not wanting to try and use them? If we are worried about Cheese, here are some alternative ideas: [i]Make it tougher, enemies adapt[/i] - Goblins throw more grenades, target the platforms - Harpies fly out to platforms - Templar can hit platforms from longer range - Templar teleports one random player from platform instead of himself back into the arena [i]Make it cooler not to Cheese It[/i] - Include an achievement and/or additional rewards (shaders, emblems) for completing the encounter without anyone being marked by the Oracles (something you can't avoid by hiding on the platforms during the last phase, you just have to cleanse constantly because Oracles aren't dying). Patching how the encounter reacts to player strategies, rather than just killing them for using part of the map you designed and made available leaves the choice in the players' hands. They can still do it, but will probably choose a different strategy not because they feel forced, but because they will now figure out something that works better, and it will still feel rewarding because A) verisimilitude is maintained (of course hyper-intelligent robots are going to be smart enough to counter my camping), and B) you didn't have to slap them right in the ego with a kill volume which just seems to broadcast: [b]We didn't think of this! We will now wave a wand and you will play how we intend, your creativity is not the goal here, ours is[/b]. I like raiding. I want to keep figuring out new raiding mechanics and strategies with the friends I've made in this game. I don't want kill volumes to be the go to hotfix tool for future raids where players will inevitably find the paths of least resistance. Please keep this in mind and leave me my illusions of choice. They are really fun. Thank you for your time. Its clearly Bungie is working together with activision, instead of patching conectionproblems , lag in the raid and sound problems nope lets fix the way people play the game. Did we get Vonderhaard't lol😂😂😂
-
Some seem to be missing the point. The raid is supposed to be hard. And however you beat it is fine the exception being any exploits. The problem here is interfering with how players want to play the game. I don't understand the need to "fix" the encounter with the Templar. Instead of fixing things like this how about Bungie add MORE STUFF to the game. All of these fixes just show poor planning on how gamers would use the game. Nerf exploits. But stop ruining how we play the game.
-
-
-
Templar-"So... Wanna come over here, maybe work a little for a reward?" Players-"No thanks, we can kill you from here." Bungie-"$@$@'em up!" Bungie staff-"Yes sir!"
-
I like it
-
17 RepliesI'm sorry but the Templar fight is still really easy. First time we ran it without jumping to a sniper platform and we downed the Templar first try.
-
I wish we had more of a insight of what they are thinking of fixing in the future. This idea as well as other is brilliant. I find it sad that the community is CONSTANTLY coming up with better small fixes than Bungie. Props to us though.
-
Epic win agree in full bungie take notice
-
That would involve effort and paying for that effort thus thus fix which is in line with their mentality of the entire damn game.
-
This^. I agree that the player should never be penalized for being creative with an encounter as long as it isn't an exploit. And, I'm pretty sure I'm right about this but correct me if I'm wrong, using the terrain to your advantage has NEVER been an exploit. The soft kill zone shouldn't have been implemented. Your suggestions to change enemy ability/AI to counter people from sitting up there the whole time is right on point. Kudos, OP.
-
There are always ways around man just use your brain
-
3 RepliesEdited by SilentKarma: 10/15/2014 4:08:56 PMMy thoughts exactly. I was more mad about this than the weapon nerfs. There is still risk involved in that method and it isn't an instant win. Oracles WILL mark you unless you are on different platforms and hit every oracle every time. A lot of the platforms you would wanna use to hit the adds and the templar are in range of the templar and even the minotaurs so it's still pretty dangerous. But what pisses me off is they are basically telling me I can't use and entire weapon type for that portion of the raid. Sniping is a strategy I like to use when I can but you don't snipe on the ground near your enemies with more waves of them showing up every second. You definitely don't snipe with 3 minotaurs spawning behind or in front of you so that just eliminated an entire style of play for the most part. I find that annoying considering if they even tested that with a Warlock they'd see you can reach every damn platform in the room no problem. I was thinking the hobgoblins got us from here now it's my turn to use it to my advantage. But no, Bungie wants us to play close quarters the way they tell us, where they tell us.
-
34 RepliesAs far as 'fixes' go, adding more areas which kill you for no apparent reason is pretty much the laziest design decision I can think of. Oh, no, I forgot invisible walls. I'm not sure which is lazier though... They might be tied.
-
Well put. I've not run the VoG, but from this post I can now visualize both the fight in question, and the result of the changes. /hatofftoyou I'm a little disheartened by your casual dismissal of the implications of the weapon changes, however. Not to derail the thread with another conversation entirely, but I think something you said here sums up the way I felt about the (repeated) decisions to move towards pvp "balance" without any concern for the knock-on effects to the rest of the game world: [quote]I worry about its implications on the overall philosophy behind what the game is supposed to be about.[/quote] In any case, best wishes. I hope to see more of your feedback in the coming months.
-
100%;agreed. Bungie is butt hurt were not playing the way they intended. Angry that we want more then 6 hours of story. Surprised we want more then two regular PvP types. Ashamed they didn't come up with these ways of beating their own fights. Certainly the worst part of all of these things is the impunity with which they'll take our money promising one thing only to deliver far less. With every update were reassured this is part of their plan, sit tight, nothing is wrong, all while digging through 2500 words of theatrics and spin. Bungies step into the mmofpsrpg world has sent them reeling a dozen steps back. Can they recover? Absolutely. Will they? I would be surprised.
