Discussion Thread: direct commits of balance changes without player input

[babayetu83]

disregard, put foot in mouth

there is just one change i dislike and that is the removal of traitor pipebombs

[pali6]

a problem i feel is that a lot of changes i see being pushed through are treating symptoms rather than the problem itself

What is the problem itself which hasn't been treated in some recent changes?

[KikiMofo]

a problem i feel is that a lot of changes i see being pushed through are treating symptoms rather than the problem itself

What is the problem itself which hasn't been treated in some recent changes?

Not enough anime references.

[Technature]

a problem i feel is that a lot of changes i see being pushed through are treating symptoms rather than the problem itself

What is the problem itself which hasn't been treated in some recent changes?

Not enough anime references.

^

[Katzen]

I generally think PRs should be used for organisation and simplifying feedback but on the flip side I also think it's fine to change things and try the changes live and not spend days arguing hypotheticals.

[Theunsolved-puzzle]

So, I was provoked to start this thread by a large number of significant changes made by developers without Pull Requests* and without asking for player input, with this one directly impacting me:
https://github.com/goonstation/goonstati...9e3de9eb01
This direct commit** makes it so that instead of having 100u or more ethanol in you(normally enough to overdose) meaning that you can shrug off 40% of attacks in normal melee combat(any melee hit with a force less than or equal to 15), it is now limited to defending against 40% of punches.
I only learned of this now because of the wiki page, where it was updated what appears to be one day after the change; it was communicated in, as far as I know, no other player-visible place.
https://wiki.ss13.co/index.php?title=Che...01#Ethanol

While defending against punches would be effective in a boxing match with no chairs around, it doesn't even help against a shattered bottle, let alone a fire extinguisher or air tank.
I haven't played recently and so don't have direct experience with current ethanol use, but I used to be one of the few people that used the Career Alcoholic trait and got stuffed with ethanol.
Back then, ethanol did nothing against a projectile of any sort, which means that someone could wreck you just by throwing floor tiles at you or shooting you, although this did not happen often; I believe that providing feedback to the one that attempted to hurt the drunk spaceman would be a good cue to resort to ranged options.
From what I've heard, the only thing I could think of that would provide a reason to nerf ethanol this hard would be drunken rampages being too effective against melee weapons allowing someone to punch their enemies just too well.
if I was given opportunity to give input on this change, I could have included stuff like ethanol being made to be an actual painkiller, or providing defense against item hits instead of completely deflecting them, or only deflecting blunt damage, but that was not the case.

TL;DR: Some devs make changes without informing players and without allowing players to give input, which can be very bad.

What are some direct changes that impacted you, and how could the developer(s) involved have handled it better?






*A Pull Request is a request to add code to the game; for developers it would be a way to let the community know what the change is and why it is necessary, and allow the community to comment on it.

** A Direct Commit is when someone with code access directly changes the game code without going through a Pull Request.

lets begin. nitroglysirin, aerosol, port-a-sci, curare, probably many others ive forgot about. just WHY? these werent additions, of which i have no problem with, these were tweaks and changes to long exisiting systems.

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https://mikemcquaid.com/2018/03/19/open-...u-nothing/

wow. just wow.

this response shows nothing except disrespect for the community, dude. you're just flat out telling everyone that you don't care about the people who play your damn game. nobody's telling you that you owe them anything. we just want you guys to not make balance changes without even telling the damn people who play the game first.

your players owe you nothing either. they don't have to play the game, especially when you're being an ass to them over them being unsatisfied with the direction you're taking it.

Yeah, that's how it works. Devs make the game the way they want to make it, and they don't *have* to listen to feedback or make balance changes without telling players. You're absolutely right, if the users are unsatisfied with the product produced then they won't play it, that's the incentive to make a Good Game. I don't see a particularly large dip in playercount though, in fact I've seen the opposite over the last few years; this leads me to the conclusion that the devs are doing a Good Job at making this game, and that most complaints about the game being Ruined or the Direction of the Game being wrong are outliars.

If you see this Fact of Development as disrespectful or don't like the direction of the game, I dunno what to tell you. That's how its always been and how it will always continue, and our playerbase hasn't all left over it before. They don't owe it to us to stay if they don't like it, but I'm pretty sure they do actually like our game overall, statistically.

okay, here's the thing

player count =/= player satisfaction. people won't instantly leave if changes they disagree with are made; usually, they'll criticize these changes and, depending on how things are going, the overall direction of the game's development and developer attitude towards their playerbase and their concerns with the game. what i've seen from most developers is a lack of regard for the players. most complaints are met with either "go to the forums" or Nothing, and most complaints on the forum are met with either "actually the devs do whatever they want anyways" or Nothing. in my opinion the general vibe is that most developers just... don't care what the actual players have to say, not to mention very rarely even being seen playing the game themselves.

i know people who have stopped playing the game because they're dissatisfied with the direction of the game and the devs' attitude towards the community. i've seen a lot of double-standards exercised by admins and devs alike and, from my point of view, been banned from the discord for expressing discontent towards the state of the game's development and how the developers treat the players. i do admit a lot of it could have been worded better to be expressed as what i've personally noticed rather than raw fact, but the point still stands.

it certainly does have a corolation that much you cant deny

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a problem i feel is that a lot of changes i see being pushed through are treating symptoms rather than the problem itself

What is the problem itself which hasn't been treated in some recent changes?

shitters not being taken care of, or the culture of goon to kneejerk respond to something when people have done a gimic for over two weeks

[Mordent]

lets begin. nitroglysirin, aerosol, port-a-sci, curare

the culture of goon to kneejerk respond to something when people have done a gimic for over two weeks

What makes you think any of these changes were "knee-jerk"?

[Theunsolved-puzzle]

lets begin. nitroglysirin, aerosol, port-a-sci, curare

the culture of goon to kneejerk respond to something when people have done a gimic for over two weeks

What makes you think any of these changes were "knee-jerk"?

many of them are in reaction to trends that are recent, and not long standing issues the community had (if they had any issues with them in the first place) aerosol and nitro's removal specifically. They were spammed yes, but they were also relatively recent occurrences, I agree they were a nuisance, but I don't think gutting the system's entirely was a constructive response to the problem's. It could have possibly sorted itself out, or perhaps admin interventions could be used, even a temporary suspension, but that wasn't what was done (from the perspective of a player). It is true to say I'm not entirely within the loop, but I know many who were... disappointed to say the least when they saw these changes.

[aft2001]

As someone who has been playing for 4 years, I HIGHLY disagree with the notion that aerosol has not been a long-standing issue. For years nerds have been using it to just melt the AI Upload/Armory walls and waltz on in with 0 issue or delete blobs instantly or ruin Medbay for the entire round. The fact that it *duplicates* chems *and* applies them to the floor *and* applies it to people via TOUCH and even inhalation was frankly absurd and allowed for the spamming of hellmixes over a very large area and through walls.

Nitro always just seemed like a 'once or twice a week a nerd will discover nitro and for the next few rounds chemistry will be unusable' and I rarely ever saw any practical use of the stuff, since everything else is just better than an overly sensitive explosive that only has an effective range of a 3x3 area.

[Mordent]

many of them are in reaction to trends that are recent, and not long standing issues the community had (if they had any issues with them in the first place) aerosol and nitro's removal specifically. They were spammed yes, but they were also relatively recent occurrences, I agree they were a nuisance, but I don't think gutting the system's entirely was  a constructive response to the problem's.

If you think aerosol being spammed is a recent occurrence, you and I have very different perceptions of the game. I don't have much anecdotal evidence for nitroglycerin other than "nitro explosions happen frequently enough to cause eyerolls when I see them".

The joy of open source is that if you would like to try to work out a way of re-adding something in a way that is better than it being removed, you are welcome to do so. You can collaborate on that with members of the community, solicit for ideas, get feedback, iterate, etc.

At this time I personally (with the note that I didn't do any of the changes you listed) think their removal is an improvement over them not being removed, for the sake of keeping the game fun. I don't personally find "haha a new chemist made nitroglyercin but didn't know how to not explode and now chemistry is gone" a particularly engaging game mechanic.

[Theunsolved-puzzle]

If you think aerosol being spammed is a recent occurrence, you and I have very different perceptions of the game. I don't have much anecdotal evidence for nitroglycerin other than "nitro explosions happen frequently enough to cause eyerolls when I see them".

The joy of open source is that if you would like to try to work out a way of re-adding something in a way that is better than it being removed, you are welcome to do so. You can collaborate on that with members of the community, solicit for ideas, get feedback, iterate, etc.

At this time I personally (with the note that I didn't do any of the changes you listed) think their removal is an improvement over them not being removed, for the sake of keeping the game fun. I don't personally find "haha a new chemist made nitroglyercin but didn't know how to not explode and now chemistry is gone" a particularly engaging game mechanic.

aerosol was used all the time absolutely, it was one of the building block chemical reactions, something would be wrong if it weren't, as for nitro, chemnerds killing themselves with it was a common occurrence sure, but that's because it was a relatively easy death chem to make. scientists still kill themselves with chems regardless of nitros existence, just as staffies will kill themselves with biblefarts, is it annoying, depending on your perspective yes, but it was part of everyday life on goon, it gave it flavor, made it interesting. What I'm referring to is the dual removal (yes they were separate removals, but so close together in removal of each other they might as well be paired) of nitroglyercin and aerosol which seemed more like a reaction to the trend of nitro-aeroing the shuttle than it was a removal based on long standing grievousness towards the chems themselves.

[Mordent]

Assuming your statement is true (namely that their removal was in response to them being used to nitro-bomb everyone in the shuttle more regularly), I would argue that "the {feature/system/item/combo} is overpowered and people have caught on and are doing it much more" leading to "that system being removed or nerfed" is just patching a hole that wasn't previously easily visible. Assuming (again, if) this was the thing that sparked the change, why is that inherently bad?

[Theunsolved-puzzle]

its far too drastic a reaction to the problem, and it cut content from the game instead of looking for other ways to remedy the situation

[Lady Birb]

chemistry has been massively unbalanced for years. any chemistry nerfs are 100% justified.

[Mordent]

its far too drastic a reaction to the problem, and it cut content from the game instead of looking for other ways to remedy the solution

Balance is a balancing act. If the scales tip too far one way, sometimes it's easier to tip them the other way to see how that feels, then resolve to something in the middle. Aerosol, for instance, had received a nerf to reduce its effectiveness not too long before (making being further away reduce the amount of chem that affected you), but it didn't really alleviate the problem.

"Cutting content from the game" is not in itself a bad thing if that content is deemed to be bad/unfun/poorly balanced/etc.

Developers have the ability to make changes directly because we (the staff) think they have a good head for what are good changes. Sometimes things get reverted, sometimes things get tweaked a bit after introduction, sometimes there's a bunch of knee-jerk negative feedback (I feel that "knee-jerk" is correct here because it's generally immediately following the change rather than "hey, this change has been in for a few weeks now and I don't think it's working out, here's how it could be improved...") but people adapt and things end up fine.

Sometimes, removing content is adding to the game.