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[Morwen Lagann]

Realistically, I can't help but wonder if a lot of this time is spent untangling the mountains of old code at the core of many critical game features. That's something CCP is going to need to spend a LOT of time on if they want to try any more major overhauls.

Yeah. It took something like what, a year and a half, two years to fully redesign Crimewatch for this sort of reason.

Considering how badly the old system was tangled with everything else, the fact that they managed to have a more or less flawless rollout of the new system in Retribution says it was time well spent.

I can understand the desire for new content with every patch but given the state the game has been in for a number of years in terms of mechanics and gameplay, I can't really get too peeved by them focusing on non-content stuff in the major expansions.

[Lyn Farel]

I too do not understand how 'balance changes' are ever acceptable as 'new content'


Balance changes are changing the little numbers in the ship stats and bonuses.  It requires a certain amount of dev attention from a small number of people and testing on sisi.  It's not reinventing the wheel, it's changing one wheel for a slightly different one.  This is not new content.

Because for a good 7-8 years CCP has gone down the 'new content' route and left some pretty big messes in their wake. Sov, FW, COSMOS, new ship types all got added and then left to their own devices until the player base whined enough for them to listen. Now they are reiterating on these features and assets and the playerbase whines that not enough new stuff is being added. We've already seen a shift from them back to adding more stuff, with the new SoE ships, mobile structures, ghost sites and associated implants.

I guess it's a personal preference thing at the end of the day. My entertainment of the game has vastly increase in the last few expansions than any other that they have released.

It's not obligatory A OR B. It can be A + B.

They hired 2 players to rebalance stuff. Where are the other gamer designers ? Where are the artists ? The programmers ? What are they doing ?

Personally i'm not bitching for new content or not. Balance had to be done. But arguments brought here don't make sense to me.

[Desiderya]

You might want to take a look at the game and try to come up with something that hasn't been touched post-Incarna.
Because that's easier than trying to explain to you what those "2 dudes" did.
Hint 1: It is a lot more than just shuffling numbers on those few (hundred) ships.
Hint 2: It is not limited to two designers.

[orange]

You might want to take a look at the game and try to come up with something that hasn't been touched post-Incarna.
Because that's easier than trying to explain to you what those "2 dudes" did.
Hint 1: It is a lot more than just shuffling numbers on those few (hundred) ships.
Hint 2: It is not limited to two designers.

Does it count when minor UI tweaks are added due to balancing efforts elsewhere?  If so, Non-PI/Moon Goo industry mechanics and ui.  There have been tweaks around the edges, largely related to things like PI, inventory updates, moon goo changes, but the core "game play" has remained unchanged.  A single manufacturing job still takes something like 7+ clicks, much of it repeative or dictated by mechanics anyway.

It is also possible to add POSs to the list, minus fuel blocs and proximity requirements (which was tied to a more pervasive tweak).

[Lyn Farel]

UI tweaks make already more sense. UI usually asks for a lot of work.

Hint 1: It is a lot more than just shuffling numbers on those few (hundred) ships.

Like what ?

Hint 2: It is not limited to two designers.

So there is even more of them on this ?

[Jace]

Balancing makes me this excited.

[Desiderya]

I'm tempted to write a step-by-step guide that tries to explain the issue to three-year-olds, but something tells me you'd still be in the mood for what we can call debate for now.
Condensed version: The summary of the changes to the game post-Incarna is a bit more than editing some stats, part of them rebalancing, part of them revisiting or redesigning.