Don't dive too deep into the driver vs bridge engineer metaphor. If we're trying to measure the expertise required to build a stable bridge, then there's going to be a continent-wide chasm between what a driver can offer and what an engineer can offer. Keep in mind that the metaphor itself is a gross oversimplification because building bridges is a massive undertaking involving many disciplines.
If you want a more effective metaphor then I'd move away from a metaphor where there's just two parties and instead include a third.
Parties:
A company that makes mountain bikes called "Developerz"
Elite mountain bikers who represent the best mountain bikers around
Weekend warriors who use their mountain bikes occasionally, and when they do use them, they're mostly on roads
If Developerz wants feedback to push the limits of their product, then they are best served listening to the people who are pushing their product to the limit.
I hear you, but that company would build two bikes.
Can we stop the metaphors please? *Really Please*. I'm saying the metaphors are broken and misleading.
You asked for someone to argue against them and I obliged (why use the internet if not to argue? Oh wait, I know why )
I'm trying to get the point across that balancing to elite players cos they are somehow 'more qualified', doesn't solve the issues the game has.
Hawken doesn't have a comp that brings all the players to the yard.
Elite players will adapt to the meta. They'll whine, but they'll adapt.
Hawken needs new pilots, and needs to retain them and needs them to monetize.
When thousands of these players are happy playing the game, they will become elite, and form a comp and ask for top tier balance. When that happens I will wholeheartedly support top-tier-first balance. Its just not that time yet. I really hope it comes though.
Well how about you try EOC Rocketeer in a high-mmr lobby and see how it goes? :)
You can achieve the balance in multiple ways, I prefer to have a lower number of Mech which all have a competitive use, another way is to assume the imbalance and realease shitton of mechs and only try to keep a balance for a few builds (as collectible card game does).
This is a real point to discuss and that require some communication.
Is it assumed that higher tier balance is made to have merely one build per Mech, and that G2 aren't made for competitive play ?
Nah, of course not. Your build depends on your personal style, the map, the game mode you're playing and what you know about the enemy team.
I do agree that builds may have slight variation. But I'm not talking about personnal skill and taste, but game design for high tier competition.
I mean : is the dev team OK with the current balance as long as organized play rules lead to team compo with 3 or 4 variations ?
(rules such as "no orblord, no scanner, no composite armor, unique Mech, no more than 2 of each class")
if so, there is no need to argue as IMHO there is a good choice between : Assault, Vulgren, Flak Brawler, Hawkins Brawler, PPA incinerator, zerker, breacher predator. (correct me if I'm wrong)
If you Automom guys had to make a serious roflstomp compo against other top tier players what would it be ? would Kopra go T32 raider ?
I played a lot of table top gaming when I was younger and the game design was clearly not made to be balanced. In addition the organized play was not made by the company, but by an association of fans. And we had a lot of work to try to create game mode and manage the limitations that could be balanced.
If reloaded wants to do it that way I'm a bit disappointed but I'll deal with it.
But I think that it implies that they have to communicate about it, and we'd have to promote TPG / KOBALT stuff so that pple get used to the limitations.
i mean i dont know what else needs balancing besides the incin sare dmg output. like seriously that thing does bonkers amount of dmg. honestly thinking about hawken feels like its in a really good place.
You don't think that EOC or Hellfires deserve tweaks? ISMs? Turrets? Power surger? Extractor? Those are commonly cited pain points, so I'd be interested in hearing a counterargument in why they don't need to be balanced to be more useful.
Or are you saying they're something other than balance issues?
You don't think that EOC or Hellfires deserve tweaks? ISMs? Turrets? Power surger? Extractor? Those are commonly cited pain points, so I'd be interested in hearing a counterargument in why they don't need to be balanced to be more useful.
Or are you saying they're something other than balance issues?
The Battle Turkey needs just a bit of a bump. Fo Sho
DeeRax likes this
Come on Crafty, you have been officially called out on your lies. Your online reputation is at stake here, this is just like an old school street race running for pink slips. Its run what you brung and hope its enough. Put up or shut the fuzzy bunny up.
Well how about you try EOC Rocketeer in a high-mmr lobby and see how it goes? :)
wouldnt go too well because i dont use that mech combo. total hours having tried it in the last 4+ years ive played this game is probably in the single digits. again its a player issue. cant remember if its poopslinger or loc_tr but they are pretty damn good with eoc on raider. clusterbombman is actually really good with eoc too on infil. maybe you remember balweo and his bruiser? to this day i have not seen a better hellfire user. this is a git gud problem. but i have said in the past that eoc does need a buff. a faster reload time would go a long way for cqc fights. but other than that and sare dmg i dont really so what els needs to be fixed
You don't think that EOC or Hellfires deserve tweaks? ISMs? Turrets? Power surger? Extractor? Those are commonly cited pain points, so I'd be interested in hearing a counterargument in why they don't need to be balanced to be more useful.
Or are you saying they're something other than balance issues?
eoc does need a faster reload time. in cqc it falls apart. you can dodge hellfires with a timed dodge. ISM is a joke weapon. are you saying it needs a buff or nerf? either way its a joke and honestly its useful like .01% of the time anyway. is the problem wiith power surger having assists mess up the timing for it? i cant remember. if so yea that should be fixed but thats more of a glitch than a balance patch. i think turrets are fine too. only thing i would change is not being able to step on them to destroy it. you should have to shoot it. extractor is only a problem in DM where you can potentially stack like 3 or more orbs on top of eachother
wouldnt go too well because i dont use that mech combo. total hours having tried it in the last 4+ years ive played this game is probably in the single digits. again its a player issue. cant remember if its poopslinger or loc_tr but they are pretty damn good with eoc on raider. clusterbombman is actually really good with eoc too on infil. maybe you remember balweo and his bruiser? to this day i have not seen a better hellfire user. this is a git gud problem. but i have said in the past that eoc does need a buff. a faster reload time would go a long way for cqc fights. but other than that and sare dmg i dont really so what els needs to be fixed
I do remember Balweo and Mexi, but hellfires' behavior has been changed a lot since when these guys played, and now HFs are as terrible as it gets: you can dodge them at mid- and long- range quite easily, and in CQC you can mitigate some of the damage (you guessed it: by dodging).
To give you an idea, as an EOC Rocketeer, you lose in CQC to almost any other combination of mech/weapon. Mid-range and long-range, you do close to nothing against anyone who knows how to play around hellfires (use cover or simply side-dodge) and EOC (the pucks are so slow you can dodge them entirely).
I do remember Balweo and Mexi, but hellfires' behavior has been changed a lot since when these guys played, and now HFs are as terrible as it gets: you can dodge them at mid- and long- range quite easily, and in CQC you can mitigate some of the damage (you guessed it: by dodging).
To give you an idea, as an EOC Rocketeer, you lose in CQC to almost any other combination of mech/weapon. Mid-range and long-range, you do close to nothing against anyone who knows how to play around hellfires (use cover or simply side-dodge) and EOC (the pucks are so slow you can dodge them entirely).
slug ss loses to pretty much everything in qcq too. and tech too. but nobody is asking for a buff based off that. nobody wants to put in the time to learn how to play it effectively its as simple as that. its not a numbers issue its a player issue. i know that sounds like im not considering anything else but its hard for me to articulate why i feel that way. all i can say is that its based off the couple thousand hours i have in the game. ive seen so many situations in this game ive probably forgotten more than what most players know right now. you guys just need to git gud. its not a cowinkadink that scout and gren are my best mechs and ALSO have the most hours on my account
In regards to turrets and ISMs and such, I was trying to point out that there's superior loadout choices 99% of the time over choosing those items. I might have an unrealistic expectation of balance in a game, but when I think of a "balanced" game, I think of all items having roughly equal utility. There are effectively no times where I would choose three turrets over three orbs, for example. I would never pick ISMs over EMPs. As a result, I'd imagine that they need to be modified to be more worthwhile choices; otherwise why have them?
The same thought applies to internals like repair kits and extractors. There are few internal loadouts that can grant the utility, survivability, and general advantage that those two internals (combined) provide. I'd argue that the advantage of that internal combo is strong enough that there are almost no other comparable loadouts, or at most there are very few. I don't know enough to say that those internals need to be debuffed, or other items need to be buffed, etc.
Basically, anytime there's an obvious item or loadout choice to take across multiple maps, mechs, and gamemodes because nearly every other choice is a step down, then I think that's a sign that the loadout composition is worthy of being balanced in some manner. I don't want to do away with optimal loadouts for a narrow set of mech / map combinations, but having an optimal loadout that applies in nearly every scenario makes me beg the question.
PS You still owe Kirk and I a picture of your toilet.
Edited by TheButtSatisfier, 24 March 2016 - 12:43 PM.
battle turkey is one of those sleeper mechs that took a long time for people to appreciate. like hawkins brawler. now thats all you see in TDM.
this is a player issue. have you ever fought clusters battle turkey? its not fun
Its the slowest boost speed apart from its 10 seconds of ability.
2nd slowest walk speed (15.5, brawler says 15)
Lowest health pool C Class
With the slowest and hardest to use secondary (Corsair, no remote det and dumb range limit on mirv.)
T-32xt is its only primary, which is like the high priest of the RNG gods
Its ability (its only good point) makes you appear on radar diminishing any chance of surprise or escape. (If this was fixed the mech would be fine, fuzzy bunny your no solutions idea CLM.)
If any of those points were adjusted it might be in a good spot. You just have a lot of hours in the only mech the G2Raider can kill reliably.
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Come on Crafty, you have been officially called out on your lies. Your online reputation is at stake here, this is just like an old school street race running for pink slips. Its run what you brung and hope its enough. Put up or shut the fuzzy bunny up.
Its the slowest boost speed apart from its 10 seconds of ability.
2nd slowest walk speed (15.5, brawler says 15)
Lowest health pool C Class
With the slowest and hardest to use secondary (Corsair, no remote det and dumb range limit on mirv.)
T-32xt is its only primary, which is like the high priest of the RNG gods
Its ability (its only good point) makes you appear on radar diminishing any chance of surprise or escape. (If this was fixed the mech would be fine, fuzzy bunny your no solutions idea CLM.)
If any of those points were adjusted it might be in a good spot. You just have a lot of hours in the only mech the G2Raider can kill reliably.
all ill say is go fight cluster in his battle turkey. youll be begging for a nerf afterwards.
*Edit* You've failed - at least from my perspective - to address my largest issue with your position: that game designers have arcane knowledge beyond the scope of their game's most dedicated players. You can't simply dismiss that with "you're biased and not a game designer".
That is a straw man fallacy because you have taken that sentence out of context from the rest of my post.
Game designers do have knowledge beyond what the games most dedicated players know about the game. If they don't, in this case, I'd love to see the game design document, change log, code source, asset pipeline, business strategy, market data (conversion rates, ARPPU, etc.), and general live server data that the most dedicated players apparently have access to.
Its ability (its only good point) makes you appear on radar diminishing any chance of surprise or escape. (If this was fixed the mech would be fine, fuzzy bunny your no solutions idea CLM.)
If any of those points were adjusted it might be in a good spot. You just have a lot of hours in the only mech the G2Raider can kill reliably.
Confirmed bug, at least that is what josh said in one of those teamspeak interviews ,going to be fixed. I think that will be a huge boon to the G2 Raiders effectiveness. As hestoned said it is already pretty good...I have seen Cluster in action with it, fuzzy bunny terrifying. Also, my post was about curtailing expectations that your suggestions will be used by designers/developers. Not that you should not make them at all, just your suggestion is probably bias based on your own experiences as a player so don't take it so personally if it doesn't happen. The designers/developers just see the game in a different perspective and mindset then players. Using information, we are not privy to, to inform their decisions, on top of considering player feedback.
Xacius I am sure you will make a swell game developer, you are a pretty good player and a pretty smart guy. Maybe after I graduate from my game design program next year, which happens to be one of the best in North America, we'll get to work together some day.
Btw if you think you have so much more knowledge and answers than any of the designers/developers working on Hawken you should put in a job or internship application. I am sure they would give you college credit, recommendations in the industry, and a handsome paycheck for fixing all of the games ailments in one fell swoop.
P.S. I think the discussion in this thread is pretty nice. I think that hestoned has some pretty good points, as well as hyginos, thebuttsatisfier, and poopslinger.
Edited by CounterlogicMan, 24 March 2016 - 02:24 PM.
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Confirmed bug, at least that is what josh said in one of those teamspeak interviews ,going to be fixed. I think that will be a huge boon to the G2 Raiders effectiveness. As hestoned said it is already pretty good...I have seen Cluster in action with it, fuzzy bunny terrifying. Also, my post was about curtailing expectations that your suggestions will be used by designers/developers. Not that you should not make them at all, just your suggestion is probably bias based on your own experiences as a player so don't take it so personally if it doesn't happen. The designers/developers just see the game in a different perspective and mindset then players. Using information, we are not privy to, to inform their decisions, on top of considering player feedback.
Xacius I am sure you will make a swell game developer, you are a pretty good player and a pretty smart guy. Maybe after I graduate from my game design program next year, which happens to be one of the best in North America, we'll get to work together some day.
Btw if you think you have so much more knowledge and answers than any of the designers/developers working on Hawken you should put in a job or internship application. I am sure they would give you college credit, recommendations in the industry, and a handsome paycheck for fixing all of the games ailments in one fell swoop.
Where are you studying? Please tell me it's at an actual University, lol.
The problem with joining a company as a game designer is that you normally need to have skills in another discipline. That's the thing, it's not nearly as difficult as you're making it out to be, nor is its practice mandated by the completion of a 4- or 8-year program.
I'll support that point with the following: for my EAE curriculum�which is currently the 2nd highest rated undergraduate program in the nation (University of Utah)�there are an optional 8 units for game design. Most of the coursework is engine work, AI design, and animation work. Game design isn't that big of an emphasis because it's not that hard to do.
Is it difficult to get right the first time? Certainly. This is why balance patches in multiplayer games are so common. The developers normally get things wrong and have to change some numbers.
That is a straw man fallacy because you have taken that sentence out of context from the rest of my post.
Game designers do have knowledge beyond what the games most dedicated players know about the game. If they don't, in this case, I'd love to see the game design document, change log, code source, asset pipeline, business strategy, market data (conversion rates, ARPPU, etc.), and general live server data that the most dedicated players apparently have access to.
Keep in mind that giving specific solutions to problems is typically invalidated by your bias and lack of user data/design knowledge of the game.
No, it's not a strawman. Your sentence - a summation sentence, no less - reasserts one of your main arguments: that game designers possess arcane knowledge and ability beyond their game's most dedicated players. You're poisoning the well because you automatically evaluate suggestions based on their source. Instead, suggestions should be evaluated based on the quality of the suggestion.
For something that was just supposed to be a "word", there sure is a lot of pages of words being thrown around and some puffy chests.
I got a better solution to this stalemate problem.
To all of you that feel qualified, go out and take the time to get a computer science degree or two, and then actually apply and get a job at Reloaded games so that you are ACTUALLY in a position to make those sort of suggestions/changes. Let Reloaded do their fuzzy bunnyng JOB. If they ask for help, then by all means reply, but if not, they don't need your input AT ALL.
For the turkey i feel its ever so slightly under-powered, i cant say for after the on radar bug is fixed, but its really close to OP, with no misses only the brawler or a turret vanguard will win the dps race if the bird gets first burst, rip any A class and most B's, any addition to health or damage would make it really, really, nasty.
"but the dead horse has been beaten so many times it's practically a pulpy mess in the barn by now."
For something that was just supposed to be a "word", there sure is a lot of pages of words being thrown around and some puffy chests.
I got a better solution to this stalemate problem.
To all of you that feel qualified, go out and take the time to get a computer science degree or two, and then actually apply and get a job at Reloaded games so that you are ACTUALLY in a position to make those sort of suggestions/changes. Let Reloaded do their fuzzy bunnyng JOB. If they ask for help, then by all means reply, but if not, they don't need your input AT ALL.
You're assuming that Reloaded is reading all of this? And taking notes?
You're assuming that Reloaded is reading all of this? And taking notes?
No, honestly I don't think Reloaded has read anything on the forums in over 6 months, and that includes Tiggs.
The point of my comment was that the players of this game however familiar with the game mechanics they may be are not in any position to make or even offer such suggestions. They are just users, with no actual rights. They think they might know best, but its not up to them, its up to the people who's JOB it is. They need to just let those people do their job.
No, honestly I don't think Reloaded has read anything on the forums in over 6 months, and that includes Tiggs.
The point of my comment was that the players of this game however familiar with the game mechanics they may be are not in any position to make or even offer such suggestions. They are just users, with no actual rights. They think they might know best, but its not up to them, its up to the people who's JOB it is. They need to just let those people do their job.
Yeah, but with Hawken not getting any less stale than it already is, think of all this back and forth "I know better" conversation as part of the "Hawken experience", like a side quest in an aging MMORGPFPSF2PNP2Wsomethingsomething.
I know I've made my fair share of suggestions, but I also know that Reloaded certainly isn't paying attention to what I have to say. I just see this as another form of entertainment for the community by the community while we wait on SOMETHING from Reloaded. This is "content" after all. If I thought the devs needed my or anyone else's input (from the community) to turn this game around.. that would basically be making the assumption that they have no clue how to do their jobs.
With Reloaded being as silent as they've been this year, I just treat it all like "the great silence 2.0" anyway and don't even consider anything that is talked about here leaving the realm of all things hypothetical. Though, even here things are getting to be about as predicable as they've become in-game in Hawken...
If I thought the devs needed my or anyone else's input (from the community) to turn this game around.. that would basically be making the assumption that they have no clue how to do their jobs.
Well, I think plenty of the dedicated players feel that way.
I guess the million dollar question is, what taking Reloaded so long? Is it that they have no clue how to do their job and they are still trying to learn it while reading the documentation? Or are they working on something bigger, or even worse are they not working on anything new at all?
Either way this "content" as you called it, which I prefer to just label drama, is just another thing for people to engage in to occupy their extreme boredom.
"please tell me it's an actual university" probably not your intent but that comes off as being pretty pretentious. Really no need to get into a fuzzy bunny measuring contest on a forum thread. There are a few points on your ruler I would like to address though.
Full Sail University
You are learning to be a game developer with a basic understanding of game design. Game design specific degrees focus 2-4 years on just designing games which is inherently multi-disciplinary. Learning scripting, production methods, rapid prototyping, QA, a little 3d modelling, world building, level design, and playtest administration in our case. If it were so easy that anyone could do it with minimal experience. Major companies wouldn't spend money on hiring multiple teams of designers, many coming from design centric programs. That is teams for just general design, level design, balancing, QA, and playtest administrators. There are certainly designers in the field who didn't go to design programs or didn't even go to college at all. These people still had to demonstrate great design skills to get those jobs, which takes experience, multi-disciplinary knowledge, and hard work.
Is it important and very useful for the programmers to know about design? Certainly. Can a graduate from a programming degree that has some game design in it enter the field as a designer? Yeah, if they have the portfolio and knowledge to back it up. All of which they are certainly not going to get from 2-3 classes. Is game design not that hard to do? You are delusional if you think it is. Read some books on specifically game design, the art of game design and rules of play are great primers, and postmortems on gamasutra. You will see that game design is one of the many difficult things people who make games do.
This is getting pretty off topic.
No, it's not a strawman. Your sentence - a summation sentence, no less - reasserts one of your main arguments: that game designers possess arcane knowledge and ability beyond their game's most dedicated players. You're poisoning the well because you automatically evaluate suggestions based on their source. Instead, suggestions should be evaluated based on the quality of the suggestion.
Fair enough on my use of strawman, my mistake. Yet I find you still missing some key points I made, in your evaluation. Looking back I could have worded and structured my posts better to reflect their importance.
1. "Players, in regards to balance, want to design the game for themselves. Designers have to design the game for others."
2. "If you have posted it here and enough people have complained about it, the designers probably know about it. That doesn't mean stop posting about it or discussing it. It just means you should curtail your expected outcomes from super specific balance discussions. Keep in mind that giving specific solutions to problems is typically invalidated by your bias and lack of user data/design knowledge of the game." (The invalidated bit is what I believe you are fixated on. Which if just taken at face value of the initial post I could see would need some explaining. Which I did when you called me on it.)
"If a bunch of players post on the forums "Scanner OP plz nerf" then that indicates that there is something about the scanner that some players are not enjoying. A designer would then go and investigate this in a variety of ways. If a lot of new players are saying that they feel the scout is too powerful the designers would surely consider this. Then when some other players say no the scout is fine, they will also consider this. Then they will look at the internal data and see whether what people are saying matches with that. If the scout is clearly winning in many cases then yeah there is something that needs changed. Then the designer will make a gut decision on the balance for the scout. Because that is what balancing is ,gut decisions by the designer, informed by player feedback and internal data, based on what they think will affect the game positively for all players interacting with it."
And I think the metaphor fits pretty nicely in supporting my point. Not saying that a game designer knows as much as a rocket scientist, biologist, or civil engineer. Just saying that the game designer, especially one working 40-60+ hours a week on the game in question with years of design experience backing them up, knows more about designing games than a player with 1000+ hours in the specific game. Yet the player is still very important to informing the process and improving the game. "I think the civil engineer should disregard both because neither are engineers. Yet the engineer should listen carefully when either driver talk about how it felt when driving across the bridge. Did they feel safe? Did the bridge feel super bumpy? Was it a pleasant driving experience? There in which my point is. The engineer knows how to change the bridge so it is pleasant to drive across, the drivers do not even though they have driven across a lot of bridges."
Everyone of you NOVICES should be happy that I told you this,
The Best way to learn game design balance is through close observation of Japanese television game shows
So true.
Edited by CounterlogicMan, 25 March 2016 - 06:24 PM.
TPG 3 has concluded! If you are interested in participating in TPG Season 4 gather a group and form a team or try and join an existing team! Stay tuned to the forums for updates on the details of TPG Season 4.
G2 mechs currently are no good for comp play. Whether they were designed to be dedicated casual mechs by the ADH guys, I don't know.
If I recall correctly ADH did say that G2 mechs were made as the "just for fun" mechs and was not intended to be balanced for competitive play. An easy and cheap way to include more mechs. Could they be viable for comp, maybe but the developers never originally designed them that way.
It would take forever to find the damn quote though.
If I recall correctly ADH did say that G2 mechs were made as the "just for fun" mechs and was not intended to be balanced for competitive play. An easy and cheap way to include more mechs. Could they be viable for comp, maybe but the developers never originally designed them that way.
It would take forever to find the damn quote though.
Personally I think that's just fine. I'd be in favor of adding more G2's in the same vein. It's okay if some mechs are a little weak as long as they aren't unplayably bad.
"please tell me it's an actual university" probably not your intent but that comes off as being pretty pretentious. Really no need to get into a fuzzy bunny measuring contest on a forum thread. There are a few points on your ruler I would like to address though.
Full Sail University
You are learning to be a game developer with a basic understanding of game design. Game design specific degrees focus 2-4 years on just designing games which is inherently multi-disciplinary. Learning scripting, production methods, rapid prototyping, QA, a little 3d modelling, world building, level design, and playtest administration in our case. If it were so easy that anyone could do it with minimal experience. Major companies wouldn't spend money on hiring multiple teams of designers, many coming from design centric programs. That is teams for just general design, level design, balancing, QA, and playtest administrators. There are certainly designers in the field who didn't go to design programs or didn't even go to college at all. These people still had to demonstrate great design skills to get those jobs, which takes experience, multi-disciplinary knowledge, and hard work.
Is it important and very useful for the programmers to know about design? Certainly. Can a graduate from a programming degree that has some game design in it enter the field as a designer? Yeah, if they have the portfolio and knowledge to back it up. All of which they are certainly not going to get from 2-3 classes. Is game design not that hard to do? You are delusional if you think it is. Read some books on specifically game design, the art of game design and rules of play are great primers, and postmortems on gamasutra. You will see that game design is one of the many difficult things people who make games do.
It's great to see that you're working towards a degree in game development, specifically design. One thing about your program though, and this isn't meant to come off as mean or demeaning: Full Sail University offers a very niche education. It's more like a trade school, actually. I won't nag on the program at all, as I haven't had any personal experience with it, but I will note that there's probably a reason as to why most nationally-accredited Universities don't acknowledge coursework from Full Sail, despite it also being nationally-accredited. Perhaps your program offers something that these other Universities don't, and there's simply no comparable coursework to credit you for. Of course, there's also the possibility that the opposite is true. There's also probably a reason as to why most prestigious Universities, at least the ones that have adopted video game oriented programs, don't have a strict emphasis on gameplay design. Check this list if you're interested in looking into that more.
I'm curious to see how far one can get with an education emphasizing game design, especially considering that even the most successful design-oriented big names in the industry fulfill other roles in their companies. Take Kojima, for example. On top of being the core gameplay designer for his games, he fulfilled additional director and producer roles throughout the development of numerous titles.
As for your statement:
Learning scripting, production methods, rapid prototyping, QA, a little 3d modelling, world building, level design, and playtest administration in our case. If it were so easy that anyone could do it with minimal experience.
My program covers all of the above mentioned elements of gameplay design. Since "gameplay design" encompasses a wide variety of disciplines, it's important to note the focus of this conversation: the emphasis of this discussion was specific to multiplayer FPS weapon balance pertinent to Hawken. You asserted that proper balance, in this respect, requires extensive knowledge of gameplay design�something that only the developers have (at least compared to the playerbase). This is inherently false. Proper balance of a particular game's combat is not exclusive to someone with a 2-4 year degree emphasizing scripting, production, 3D modeling, world building, level design, and playtesting. Certainly, designing the entirety of a game's systems requires planning and skills in the above mentioned areas, as well as additional disciplines, but this is not the topic of the discussion. We're not talking about 3D modeling, or the game's code. We're simply talking about numbers and mechanics related to the game's weapons.
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