21 Jun, 2012, Runter wrote in the 21st comment:
Votes: 0
First of all, I'll say this type of thing is would infinitely more forgivable if it were a game like a mud charitably being ran. So players should keep that in mind when they complain, but I guess for me I've wanted to do things the right way even when my services were free. In fact, I took even more pride in doing it the right way. It has my personal name on it.

That being said, exploits that aren't bug related are because you didn't do your due diligence. We know we can't catch all bugs, but we should be able to have sound logic. Complex synergy can have results calculated in tests. So I think it's more than just a perception, I think it's reality. If your game has so much synergy and open ended abilities that you can't anticipate an ability making a character able to just solo content intended for groups (or much less write a test suite for it) then you've got design problems.

I'm talking about putting in an ability that reduces all damage to 35% of your health pool, adding static +hp per second regeneration on items, and being shocked that players have decided not to get vitality, run with a minimum health pool, and totally regenerate all damage instantly. (Happened on diablo 3 before they fixed this "exploit.") Apparently years of internal and beta testing didn't catch this, but writing a simple test suite vs typical incoming damage would have. I don't even want to talk about how the diablo 3 team decided to fix this, but let's just say… the head designer recently said when asked a question about the way they solved it that he wants to post the unintended results of their fix on his bathroom mirror so he can remember what not to do each day. Having to solve problems that shouldn't have made it to production have their own cost associated with it. Adding broken stuff with the assumption you will just fix it later once you gauge how broken it is, is not a good strategy. First of all, you can't humanly see how broken it is. You need numbers, and anecdotes about how many people are successfully doing a build isn't the numbers you need.

So I take issue with the term exploit here, because it's not only predicable, it's what the mechanic demanded. So it's not exploiting anything, it's just playing the game. Their test suite should have looked at a variety of extremes in character build to determine survivability vs a wide tier of enemies. Running those tests could have told them very quickly that this is a build that only makes popular builds even more powerful (glass cannons). It's not the players fault if the designers added stuff without examining the consequences.

And I know sometimes writing tests is a pain the ass, but it's one of those things that if you do once properly you can just switch out stuff to test other mechanics with the same code. Just coding something and eyeballing the results on your mortal character is setting yourself up for unintended consequences. Basically you're just waving the white flag and saying the consequences are unknowable to the code we write. I don't think that's the case. It can be calculated.
21 Jun, 2012, plamzi wrote in the 22nd comment:
Votes: 0
Runter said:
If your game has so much synergy and open ended abilities that you can't anticipate an ability making a character able to just solo content intended for groups (or much less write a test suite for it) then you've got design problems.


Hmm, I don't get this. If you have complex interrelations, then it seems to me you are in greater need of beta testing with actual play. It doesn't necessarily follow that you have design problems.

Runter said:
Apparently years of internal and beta testing didn't catch this, but writing a simple test suite vs typical incoming damage would have.


I don't know the details of this particular issue but aren't you judging others with hindsight 20-20 here a bit? It's easy to imagine that in a game with dynamic difficulty and hundreds of factors, different stats may float to points where something 'breaks through the roof'. I don't know that writing a test case to catch this particular issue would have been simple necessarily.

Runter said:
And I know sometimes writing tests is a pain the ass, but it's one of those things that if you do once properly you can just switch out stuff to test other mechanics with the same code. Just coding something and eyeballing the results on your mortal character is setting yourself up for unintended consequences. Basically you're just waving the white flag and saying the consequences are unknowable to the code we write. I don't think that's the case. It can be calculated.


Both extremes are perilous, in my book. I've seen developers virtually lock themselves into 0 productivity because they are afraid they haven't regression-tested a each tiny new feature 110%. I've also seen careless coding that unfairly puts the burden of testing on end users. Personally, I try to practice agile development combined with a reasonable degree of pre-release testing. Even huge companies practice agile development in the fast-paced tech software world of today. After all, a released game is better than a game that would be perfect if we had 5 more years to test it…
22 Jun, 2012, Izmar wrote in the 23rd comment:
Votes: 0
plamzi said:
That's all very good advice, and a lot of it I try to follow already. For instance, in the case of stackable curse, which had been going on quietly for a while, I pointed the person to our by-class leaderboard, which showed that over 50% of high-level chars being made are class Crusader. The person still refused to see my point even though it was transparent (to everyone except a few mortals) that we have a balance issue rendering most of our other classes useless. (I believe that from a mortal perspective, what makes some people clamor against a balance patch is that they feel others have exploited it much more than they got the chance to.)

I think that any reasonably intelligent game designer understands that listening to a certain set of complaints is dangerous–because they shorten the careers of even the players who are campaigning for them. The whole point of trying to balance features is to make multiple builds viable and extend the average player career. But if I had listened to some of the mortal 'feedback' regarding classes, I believe even the people who go on complaining now will have quit a long time ago. And if you leave imbalanced features in for the "clever" to exploit them, then you also risk turning off those who want to immerse themselves in the game, figure out everything there is to figure out, and basically experience its fullness–but then see someone get rewarded much more for doing the same thing again and again.


What I'm getting at is that often times I feel players should be careful what they wish for. I know that as a player I always dreaded the moments when I found an exploit (or even a very strong edge), because I knew I'd be tempted to hammer at it until I'm totally disgusted with the game experience and need to take a break. And that break can get really long if the developers are afraid to take the appropriate measures.


It's true, often times players don't see the full implications of their requests and complaints. I know the devs at my company often have up anti-nerf-backlash shields whenever they need to adjust someone's damage downward… but in my opinion, even if you already know that the players shouldn't be able to argue their way out of a particular nerf, it's still important to engage with them and explain changes to them as thoroughly as you're able. Even if the players don't agree in the end, you'll establish that you are willing to dialog with them in general, and that builds trust.

This is especially important for building up credibility for future discussions, because you can't always convince every player that a nerf was the necessary and right thing to do at the time. The rest of the game is always watching, and if you make it clear to them that you're using good practices and acting in good faith when nerfing this time through not only your words but also your actions, you'll make it easier for yourself the next time nerfing is necessary for a different class and different people. =)

I'm a Community Manager full time, so this is kind of my obsession, but it really helps the long-term health of the game.
22 Jun, 2012, Hades_Kane wrote in the 24th comment:
Votes: 0
I've been very fortunate that we've had a ton of players that come through offer honest and thoughtful input. This may change once we are officially open, but I've had more players suggest toning down something they relied on rather than the opposite.
22 Jun, 2012, plamzi wrote in the 25th comment:
Votes: 0
Hades_Kane said:
I've been very fortunate that we've had a ton of players that come through offer honest and thoughtful input. This may change once we are officially open, but I've had more players suggest toning down something they relied on rather than the opposite.


I've got some of those, too. They're worth their weight in gold.

Izmar said:
This is especially important for building up credibility for future discussions, because you can't always convince every player that a nerf was the necessary and right thing to do at the time. The rest of the game is always watching, and if you make it clear to them that you're using good practices and acting in good faith when nerfing this time through not only your words but also your actions, you'll make it easier for yourself the next time nerfing is necessary for a different class and different people. =)


This is a fine point. The image you project to the community as a whole (comprised mostly of good eggs) is much more important than persuading those who cannot be persuaded. A few cool heads among players will be more effective at persuading their peers than you will ever hope to be.

What I think gets me down sometimes is people working overtime to create an 'us vs. the dev' mentality among fellow players. I'd like to believe that we're all embarking on an exciting journey, and that all of us together help make the game more fun. And whereas I try to always use a soft touch, nowadays very few players themselves use a soft touch when they talk to me about their concerns–they don't understand that I'm a player, too, and I'm not out to ruin their fun–quite the opposite, in fact. But I think some people just enjoy being adversarial–even with those that created the game they are supposed to be playing for entertainment.

I used to be a teacher, and I'm very familiar with that kind of dynamic. No matter what you do, you will be in the opposing camp, even for the 'nice guys'. And some bad eggs will always have 'clout' among their peers that they don't really deserve to have. As the person in charge, we don't get that kind of love, ever :)

Sometimes I wonder what keeps me going. Maybe the hope that someone, somewhere, is secretly entertained.
22 Jun, 2012, quixadhal wrote in the 26th comment:
Votes: 0
Wut R Playurz? :devil:
20.0/26