So what happened to 1.3?

[† Trinity †]

After all that time and work what was the real downfall of the 1.3 patch? Why have most folks elected to stay with 1.2? It can't be just the flying issue that seemed at the root of all the animosity.

[sabrebattletank]

here are my thoughts:
the whole flying issue gave the patch a bad rep. so other players heard all the talk about how it was bad and how more people were playuing 1.2 anyway. so they didnt get it.

now most people are on 1.2. so, when newer people get in to mplayer, they see 1.2 is the mainstream patch, so they get it.

[Avatar]

In a small community like this the players 'on the field' are those that have been playing for a long time.  Well, 'long time' as games go...

They've developed their entire skill set in 1.2, and 1.3 brings just enough changes to balance and tactics that it upsets their play style.  Toss in some controversy, some board bashing, and take away one of their main enjoyments and they find very little reason to move to 1.3...

-Av-

[Bull Dog]

In a small community like this the players 'on the field' are those that have been playing for a long time.  Well, 'long time' as games go...

They've developed their entire skill set in 1.2, and 1.3 brings just enough changes to balance and tactics that it upsets their play style.  Toss in some controversy, some board bashing, and take away one of their main enjoyments and they find very little reason to move to 1.3...

-Av-

Very vell put, Av

[PhoeniX-FlamE]

Avatar you make it sound sooo bad, but your forgetting preaty much few other main problems....

we couldnt play 1.3, it was never finished and still isnt, when we did tried to play it was unplayable, the horriable warp and the targted stuff that jerk around, also - that game style seemed slower, and people do like their speed very much, I'm sure that quite alot of player would've played 1.3 if they could (yes, im not one of them i did try helping in some bug hunting at one point though)
so, if your having fun in something, and preaty much suffer in the other
and you got a choice, which one will you pick?
and come on, its in humans nature to
1. stick with whats famailer and known
2. when its not importent to think of the short-run and not the longrun and the "easy way"

besides that, your getting trashed at, spitted, bashed, unheard etc' - with that atitude you'll even find it harder to appericate a patch, or one's work(even before checking)

[DarkFox]

I believe it was purely due to the devs attitude to the established and regular players. The whole concept of 'I know, I just don't care' is an almost gauranteed way to design a failed patch.
Blizzard entertainment, arguably the masters of balance and patch releases, listen more to the advanced players than they do to the new ones. Their primary concern is making the game balanced at high levels. That way, if there is a strategy that a new or intermediatte player cannot beat, he always has an answer - get better. If the game is balanced for vets then every player has a way of working around a strategy, even if it is just 'improve your skills'. Balancing for the beginners makes the vet game flawed.
Furthermore, deciding that the devs should have more of a say than the players is a clear sign of bad after-sale support. If I produce something I generally try to tailor for their neds, since they're the ones that are paying me. It's understandable that if they had already payed me years ago then I don't need to listen to their views, but it will ascertain players not using my new code if they have the option.

In short, 1.3 adds some incredible new features, but it also slows the game down too much. I'll say hands-down that the reason the vets don't like 1.3 has nothing to do with their fixed playstyles. In fact I'll gaurantee that any vet will defeat the 1.3-lovers on their own turf (in a 1.3 game). The reason the vets don't like it is nothing to do with established tactics, it is because it is slow, and a lot of the fun is removed with the sluggish ship handling. Shame really.

I'm still hoping that when/if 1.3 is finally released it will fix many of these issues. Normally if I didn't like a beta patch I'd remind myself that 'it's only in beta' and reserve judgement, but due to the 'I know I just don't care' attitude in 1.3 I don't expect the final release to resolve the issues people have with it.

[Avatar]

Um...

As usual language fails me...

The 'just enough changes' part was meant to cover the broad range of changes 1.3 brings, including game pace and overall balance.  I was trying to paint a broad picture of a patch that changed many things rather than just the bugs.  1.3 is a very different game than 1.2 to long time players and those differences make 1.2 more attractive to many of them.

I guess I need to be more lawyer-like...

"The 1.3 patch brought changes including but not limited to overall game pace, unit speeds, weapons strengths, ammo usage, shot duration, ship maneuvering, building strengths, building usage, multiplayer options, exploits availability, moddability, etc..."  


Now, bringing up Blizzard as an example is a good choice, as they've been very devoted and attentive to their audience.  The fact that they're HUGE and commercially motivated to supporting their still active games while 1.3 is entirely the work of two volunteers working on what is certainly a commercially DEAD game should be mentioned...  I know that doesn't carry any weight with a lot of people but to me it's a major point.

Then there's the idea of balancing a game for the vets.  This is fine for a legacy game that's been out for a while.  One that isn't expected to generate huge numbers of new players that will become extremely discouraged when they can't last two seconds against a vet.  To me that's what happened with Tribes.  It got to the point where a newbie going in alone wasn't able to even get a shot in before being toasted by someone who'd mastered the game.  Of course, Tribes was about Teams, and Teams should take care to nurture and train their own players, but still...  a game shouldn't be patched to the point where there's an overwhelming advantage to having been playing the game for years.  

(Lawyer-talk here:) by 'overwhelming' I mean just that.  Total dominance.  Newbs don't have even a glimmer of a chance to progress.  They're shut down before they can learn even the basics.  That sort of thing.

-Av-

[DarkFox]

Inbteresting points avatar, and well thought out.
One of your points, however, about balancing the game towards high-end players, doesn't seem to make much sense. As you stated battlezone2 is a 'dead game' sales-wise. Hardly anyone is buying it nowadays, it's very old, and thus the influx of new players is tiny, which if anything should be *more* of a reason to balance the game for the experienced crowd.
Furthermore, I disagree with the idea that new players should be given a big chance against vets. When I want my friends to have a chance of beating me at a computer game, I play more luck-based games like wario inc. or dead or alive on the consoles. When I want to compete seriously at a game in a competitive environment, I'm more inclined to play street fighter alpha 3, tekken 4, or other more skill-based games.
PC games, as a whole, especially those played competatively online, tend to be less luck-based and more skill-based, in order to reward good players and allow players to match their skills against one another, rather than just have a bit of a laugh with friends.
I do recognise the need for new players to have a chance in a game, but I don't think making reducing the skill=success formula is the way to go about it. I'd much sooner see games for new players, or training for new players, which does go on in the BZ2 community.
Finally, as you mentioned BZ2 is a team game, and the nature of the game means that even if a player is completely new, in at the deep end in a vet 1.2 game with hovering allowed, the new player will still have a chance of winning due to team balancing, and will still find ares of the game where she destroys enemy scavengers, extractors, turrets, or even a few vet players who are retreating low on health. I think it already caters for the new players just fine, and there is no need to adjust the game to balance it at the low-end. Most games you'll join online are pretty high in general skill level, which steels my resolve in stating BZ2 should be balanced at this level. New or uncompetative players can have their fun regardless of game balance, the issue is only there if a new player joins a vet game, and then, no matter what you do to BZ2, the vets will stomp on the new players like it's going out of fashion.

Still, I completely agree with you on one thing - the fact that the devs are working on after-sales support after all this time is commendable. It's just a shame they have to 'spit' on their players, or flat-out tell them that they don't care what they think, because it's produced a lot of members of the community who dislike the devs despite what they're doing for the game.

[† Trinity †]

How is 1.3 slower?

I tried BZ2 the other day and I was surprised that even on 7MB DSL it still warped like the original version.

[Avatar]

I didn't say such balancing would be wrong for BZ2, I only outlined when such balancing is appropriate.  BZ2 is a good example of a 'legacy game that's been out for awhile and is not expected to draw in tons of new players."  If that's not BZ2 I don't know what is...

I also tried hard to define 'overwhelming'.  There may be a fine line between 'skill' and 'experience'.  I may not be overly skillful, but if I've been around long enough to learn every last exploit/trick/weapon stat I'm going to dominate someone just walking into the game.  I agree that skill should win out, but not such that a newbie might as well not even try...

All I'm saying there is imagine a newbie Stratting against a vet in 1.2 BZ2 right now.  How long would he last? 2 minutes? There's got to be a decent play experience even in losing, so that the loser learns something.  Many games patch themselves to where this doesn't happen.  

If 1.3 took the game down a notch and provides the newbie with a chance to actually watch how a vet takes him down it's not a bad thing and the vets should realize this.  If it failed in this and all it does is slow down the vet game then the Devs should realize this.  Best of all would be to enable the options necessary to set gameplay at various levels, so that all are happy.  This last is what I always fight for, the options necessary to tailor gameplay to the player's personal taste.

In this 1.3 succeeds, giving MP play more options than anyone could ask for.  There's no reason there can't be Recys\units available for MP play to make everyone from the newest newb to the grittiest vet happy.

-Av-

[Spacecomber]

Trinity, if you are refering to v1.3, the warping is indeed not significantly better than it was in v1.2 , but it has nothing to do with your connection speed (obviously, I guess).  The warping that you are seeing is more related to how the game tries to integrate the so-called visual world with the game world.  (And, I probably shouldn't try to explain it any better than that, because I'll probably get it wrong.)  This may be something that can be improved upon, if the programmers ever can get back to it.  I say this, because I've seen wide variations in how much things seemed to warp and do other odd things over the course of various v1.3 builds.  Hopefully, this means that things might be tweakable to a degree that would be an improvement over v1.2.  Maybe.

[Juvat]

Avatar wrote

In this 1.3 succeeds, giving MP play more options than anyone could ask for. There's no reason there can't be Recys\units available for MP play to make everyone from the newest newb to the grittiest vet happy.

Very True Avatar couldn't agree more with option of Recy lists surely a recyler varaint to bring back the style of play vet's want could be created just needs someone to do the work.

I just can't play 1.2 FE it just crashes all the time I have to use 1.3 ( I think its all the errors in the FE weapons )

Cheers

[PhoeniX-FlamE]

All I'm saying there is imagine a newbie Stratting against a vet in 1.2 BZ2 right now. How long would he last? 2 minutes? There's got to be a decent play experience even in losing, so that the loser learns something. Many games patch themselves to where this doesn't happen.

ok then, lets try and divide bz2...

1 - stratergy...

take for example any game you can think of, i know starcraft personaly, so ill take that as example, i started playing with my school friends, we all sucked exept 1... and he was a gosu (elite in bz2 terms)

so at first all of us , the newbs played alone... then we played with him once...
we did like a 4v2 or a 5v2... he slaughtered all of us like we're *nothing* for him... in like 5 mins...

sooo, on every startergy only game you'll get bashed horriably (if the game allows 'rushs')

2 - FPS / action

lets take CS for example... one of the older versions... i used to play CS - and one game i joined in and it was like hmmm 7 v 2... me and another one... all i remember is that he picked a sniper and all he did was jump and shoot them in the head, he barly missed and he slaughtered ALL of em preaty much alone...


so there combine those 2 and you get bz2...

Very True Avatar couldn't agree more with option of Recy lists surely a recyler varaint to bring back the style of play vet's want could be created just needs someone to do the work.

after the vet rec was made there were talking and attemps to kill flying for good, we made our own flying scouts and what did we get?
and again, its making no sense to work on it, it got some / more bugs that 1.2 has, warp is preaty bad and why work so hard to try and get our 1.2 style of we can just play 1.2?

what ur saying is that we should make our rec to be like a 1.2 one...
why not just play 1.2 then?

[Juvat]

what ur saying is that we should make our rec to be like a 1.2 one...
why not just play 1.2 then?

ehehe yes that was the only flaw in my argument

Cheers

[Jwk the Hemp Monkey]

...another big factor is that FE is not compatiable with 1.3 yet....and if the editor isnt improved then it could become very difficult to get the FE '1.3ised' properly....

also, 'slower ships' are not more fun, even for a newer player.