Suggestion - Forum Project - Discussion Weeks [Careers]

Well, this is as good of a moment as any. But seeing the ripples the GK is striking I think it is a suggestion which has some merits as currently the discussions are once again all over the place.

As it is tradition in any gaming forum we spend far to much time arguing which each other about stupid stuff. The most discussed threads are usually those concerning balance (weapons, talents, difficulties, just take your pick). Some are discussed more often than others. With the coming summer hole (due to Swedish holidays and vacation time) I would suggest a forum project:

Discussion Weeks [Careers]

The idea is simple. Starting on a date, yet to be determined, one of us creates a thread about one of the careers. While I don’t think a template is necessary it should cover the following points.

  • General blabla, strenghts and weaknesses, active skill
  • Talents row by row: Thoughts on current state and primary suggestions for change
  • General thoughts concerning talent, passives, synergies,
  • Thoughts about changes which have been dismissed or not chosen as primary suggestion

General idea for talent discussion is formost to tweak the existing ones (as in less work for FS). Only if you can’t imagine any niche situation where the talent has its place you should suggest a rework over a tweak. Also please avoid suggesting reworks just because the talent is “lackluster”. Also general idea is to tone something down if certain talents or careers overperform because they are filling more than just a niche (too god in to many things).

As said earlier, I would suggest that one community member makes a pitch for his analysis and vision in a thread he opens (label: Discussion Weeks - Mercenary for instance). And each community member should do at max ONE pitch, so we would need 15 people in total preparing this. Based on the initial pitch the rest of us can weight in on the discussion for one week. After this week, the thread will be LOCKED.

How do we determine who does which career? Well, since I have neither the means nor the motivation to organized this to detail level and to check if person xyz has ample enough experience with said career we will go with the most classic and traditional way of solving this: Dips on … With this said, IF we are doing this I call hereby dips on the pitch for Unchained (because I sure as hell will get a brain aneurysm if I have to read this from someone else). You can of course negotiate with dips holder if he wants to forfeit his pitch or do this together.

What would still to be discussed (aside from people claiming spots right here and now) is the timetable as when to start (I would say earliest 13th of July and latest 1st of August) and how many threads per week we want to manage. To keep some kind of sanity and overview I would suggest a limitation. Possible are:

  • One per week => Which would mean this takes 4 months, that is quite long
  • Two per week => Meaning 2 months which seems appropriate to me
  • One character per week => 5 Weeks but speaking about all three of Kerillians or Krubers careers in one week seems exhausting, I would personally prefer some variations

So, why so complicated you ask. Simple, as said before balance threads will come and go naturally. But it makes sense to these things which belong together in one giant concerted action where we know when which discussion will appear (and which we can easily search up due to a shared label). Additionally, there are some classes which are nearly never discussed in detail (like did we have a dedicated thread in the last nine months concerning just Shade/Mercenary/Zealot?). Also it gives different people the chance to make a pitch and to get different perspectives instead of only the same three or four people complaining about something.

With this said, let’s make some polls because I never did a poll here in the forum:

Is there a general interest in a concerted balance related career discussions

  • Yes, this seems like an interesting approach.
  • No, we will do our threads like always

0 voters

We should do

  • One career per week
  • Two careers per week
  • One character per week

0 voters

We will start

  • As early as possible on July 13th
  • Later, so the first pitchs have some time

0 voters

So, after reading through all this, feel free:

  • to ignore anything I said
  • to do some comments
  • to call dips on career xyz

Again, I call dips on Unchained (I think for most part she is good, but if we are doing this anyway, I do it myself).

Special Sidenote: Don’t you find it weird how so many of us say that they have no interest in PvP, yet we argue each day/week in this forum. It’s weird, isn’t it? Also, I finally understand those bad action movies where characters change “teams” every five minutes.

2 Likes

Is this more of a thread where everyone posts his opinions about a certain career/talents/weapons?
It can’t be a discussion if we are only allowed to have one ‘pitch’, thats more of an opinion.

Also where would you find players knowledgable enough that know every weapon, every situation that career can be in, every talent combination, every playstyle,…, thats sooo much. i’d say i’m pretty knowledgable about pyro but i can’t know everything, every combo, and i’m sure there are plenty of players who know way way more or have different playstyles, different difficulties or gamemodes, etc.

Why wouldnt we be allowed to suggest reworks just because something works or has a niche? do we have to suggest nerfs or tweaks if a talent or weapon can fill multiple niches? it feels like we get forced in what we are allowed to suggest or discuss in a certain direction.

Good suggestion, but its not something for me. so i’ll pass for now.

Edit; also making threads about talents/weapons/careers all combined is alot and it would be very hard to follow. i think it should be split to make it easier

I start with the last point i think. The discussion would be about talents of the career. While weapons have an influence they should be discussed separately. If weapons are necessary to make a point, I think it is enough if you just reference to the important characteristic (like high stamina, fast attacks, crowd control, etc…)

Also, you don’t have to know everything, every combo, etc. Just some dozen to hundred hours with a certain career so that you have seen most stuff. The pitch is also just an opening for discussion. People can still post their own suggestions below and can add or “correct” if some information is missing or wrong. It would be an ongoing discussion. But it needs some kind of opening and I think a basic analysis even if incomplete or with a few details incorrect would help for this. Also, you don’t “have to” suggest nerfs or buffs. The opening would of course be an opening and other users will have a different opinion. That is the basis of discussions.

As for reworks, I am not here to dictate anything. It is merely a suggestion as to keep changes as minimal as possible. There is indeed a problem with personal playstyle and what FS envisioned. And I would people first to try getting the idea of what FS has planned instead of directly adjusting each and every talent to their own style. At least for the pitch I would prefer to concentrate on tweaking while in the discussion the suggestions could be more wild. But again, I have not the means nor the motivation to dictate how it is going.

The main idea is to create a concerted action under a common lable to discuss each and every career (talent-wise) in a certain time-frame.

1 Like

So for example if i would make a thread it would be something like this:

“list every pyro talent + passive”
“list important breakpoints if there are any”
“any other objectivly true stats or info”


then say my personal opinion about pyro (difficulty or game content i play mentioned)(also mention what gamemodes or difficulties if its only good in certain setups, qp or premade)
“opinion about every talent their usage, where they can be used, with what weapons, good synergies”
+

“opinions about what talents i find lackluster and why, what weapons i find lackluster and why, what combinations of weapons/talents i find lackluster and why”
+

“what team comps those builds or talents might be good in, and in which they wont, or maybe required careers to make it work”


Finally

“suggest personal ideas of changes that could be made to the things i didnt like or i thought were to strong”
“maybe add my personal bias here aswell, or how i envision the game should be balanced”
“define what i find “good” “too strong” “bad”, actually try and define everything with proof of videos”


That would be a very big thread, imagine explaining everything in depth. It would be nice if it could work but i’m a bit skeptical to be honest. And you probably didnt mean it in such depth, but balance discussion should be very in depth and have everything taken into consideration, otherwise you get missunderstandings, personal biases, personal attacks, discussing about different things without even noticing or understanding the other persons view point, etc., and i don’t think that works in a public forum on the internet. I’m again,prob looking to much into in. The idea of keeping everything centralised is good tho and i agree. I don’t think it would be for me personally. i think the intention is good but it won’t be what you expect it to be, i think.

edit: i also made a talent post a while back, where i listed all the talents i found underwhelming or outclassed. it didnt have much explaination, it was mostly just set up like: ‘x talent: i dont like cuz 5% as gets outclassed by x’, its was already pretty huge, imagine me having to explain every scenario etc

You are going deeper than I intended :stuck_out_tongue: I thought more or less concentrating on talent side. Something like:

The weapon balance is really another discussion and I think for the most parts these two CAN be separated. I mean we had such threads in the past and it worked out. Maybe I will just do the Unchained thread so (although there is part of discussion I would like to avoid -_-).

As for

This will happen anyway in about every balance discussion. I haven’t seen yet a thread where this does not happen, mainly because of different stand points on balance and sometimes language-wise.

Detail discussion if necessary can be transferred to the follow up comments. It is really just a focus on talents and which could need some tweaking, nerfing, buffing in context of the careers role.

Also checked the thread you mentioned. Wouldnt call that huge to be honest. But along those lines in depth. Like these talents are there, they do this. Choice 1 and 3 are good (for playstyle xyz), Choice 2 needs tweaking. Suggestion …

But yea, considering the participation in a preparation thread I guess you are correct that this will not work out like this. It is probably easier to just start with posting the opinion and then get people agitated -_- like most balance threads. Then again, there really are careers which are never discussed throughly.

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Yes i agree, but sometimes you cannot talk about a talent’s viability without mentioning weapons, so mentioning weapons in regard to the talent would have to be included, but not purely weapons stats or weapon balance.

Yes that could work. The downside to this is that it would be split again and would have to explain everything in depth to someone alone, and most don’t read discussions between other people, they just wanna engage in their own (even if it already got answered) which leads to repeating arguments and reasonings. (but yes, thats unavoidable in forums)

you probably already know from my post above, but its mostly this i have an issue with. What is the role of a career? Can there be a set role? Can roles flucuate depending on playstyle, comp, build?

Other things i see alot in balance discussion are things like “alot of cc”. which people assume we know what they mean. But everyone has another understanding of “alot of cc”, it’s not defined in most or even all balance discussions. ( derailing mb)

Yes, i mean i find it ‘huge’ for not going into detail even, but its not a huge thread indeed.

:frowning: . I think the best ‘forum’ way is to just let the devs ask questions about certain ‘obvious bad weapons’ (sienna mace), like they did and everyone gave suggestions.

The better inbetween would be like you said tho, have just list all talents and explain why you think something would work, why it wouldnt, how niche it is, etc. to try and look at the class in a broad view and keep alot in mind and keep playstyles or viable builds in mind which you wouldnt normallly play with, then follow it all up with your personal views and opinions. but maybe that would take away from the discussion aspect then, idk.
God it’s so hard to discuss balance, its hurting my brain. Why do i take this so serious f$ck me.

Edit: pressed enter to quickly

edit: Your idea is good and its always better to have a discussion then to have no discussion. ignore my ‘perfectionist way’ to try and discuss balance. Didnt want to sound negative or diss your suggestion. I think its overall great and i support.