317 réponses à ce sujet

[Unfair_Banana]

Let farmers farm. They're gonna do it anyway, myself included. Until they make Platinum virtually impossible, me and my group will continue to beat it over and over again.

The downside is that I don't always farm, and these nerfs really bring down the general experience of the multiplayer.

Now, that may seem somewhat contradictory, but really what I'm trying to say is that...
PEOPLE CAN STILL FARM, BUT NERFS ARE RUINING THE GAME.
No one gets hurt by farming, if the nerfs stop coming.

[its THAT guy]

samb wrote...

DarthVarner wrote...
Evidence that many of the changes mentioned in this thread were explicitly due to farming, using the Geth saga as a case study is as follows.  It may be interesting to players that haven't been with us since release:

• Geth originally had a headshot volume on their only true boss unit, the Prime.  This headshot volume applied a 250% boost to damage, making Primes melt in literally two Black Widow or (nearly 2) Valiant clips.  Yes, to a sniping Infiltrator a Prime was roughly equivalent to three, count 'em THREE shielded mooks. As such, they were by FAR the easiest faction to clear on Gold, because their 'effective' HP per wave was cut by about half.  If you were in a good infil team, you never felt pressure except maybe on some objectives; the competition was who would kill the next enemy to round that corner FIRST.
  
• This problem was recognized, and a Bioware poster noted on the forums that this (Prime headshot volume) was a bug.  However, it doesn't take a genius to realize that the most popular enemy will be the easiest one, and by leaps and bounds this meant the Geth.  It also meant that the specific strategy that would be most effective against the Geth, by far, will be SR infiltrators which can reliably and precisely deliver high amounts of damage to the head volume.  
• At first all they did was boost the health of Geth enemies.  This didn't matter to sniper teams; everything had a headshot modifier and TC+SR boosted the Valiant and BW to the point where the limiting factor for killing efficiency was not mob health at all - just the shield gate.  Even after all the nerfs to TC and buffs to Geth, my Valiant with no ammo or rail amps can still twoshot ANY Geth enemy within the TC window save a Prime.  It did, however, make the Geth much, much worse for non-infil teams to deal with - because for those classes, the damage of their abilities or weapons very much DID matter relative to mob health.  The second or third cast, or reload to get a second clip just to down flanking mooks was (and still is) a massive problem for non-infils against Geth. Result?  Everyone moves to playing infiltrators.  This was incredibly obvious and predictible.  The surprising part is that ONLY ~30% of players on Gold were running infils at this time, not more.
  
• To really fix the problem, required a patch - not just a hotfix.  So instead they boosted the Geth wave compositions considerably and attempted to put pressure on players via making Hunters sprint in cloak.  This did nothing to address the overarching problem of low HP, really (one additional Prime per wave meant just ~2 clips to an infil), and grab-farmers didn't care about the Hunter buffs.  This did, successfully, made the Geth horrible to fight with other comps on other maps; now with 3 Primes spawning turrets in later waves, all with boosted HP, and sprinting flanking Hunters, non-infil comps regularly got overwhelmed.  
• Finally, the Prime head volume gets removed (circa Rebellion).  Now infil teams are in the same boat as everyone else vs. Geth, feeling too much pressure from them relative to other enemies.  So the farming moves on - to Cerberus, this time - because Rebellion also brought a fun new toy, an exploding "sniper rifle" rocket-grenade launcher which also apparently has a proximity trigger, so not even mobs behind cover are safe.  Good thing the Illusive Man hasn't downloaded the publicly available plans for the Krysae!  Turns out this sucker with TC bonuses trivialized the only real threatening enemy in Cerberus's arsenal, the Phantom, and provided splash damage to boot.  So everyone moves to farming Cerberus, still on infiltrators.
• Notably what DIDN'T happen the minute the Prime head volume was fixed was immediate reversion of nearly all buffs Geth had received since release of the game.  This should have happened, but did not.  It still needs to.  Badly.
• Inevitably Infils get nerfed HARD "because everyone is playing them!" as a backwards way of toning down the Krysae.  Because of how this was implemented, sniper rifles (already underwhelming and falling out of favor due to high zoom and low stopping power vs. Reapers, and nowhere near as useful on Geth after the Prime patch) are now barely viable on Gold... but hey, shotguns on infils bypass the shield gate and didn't get hit as hard!  4/6/6/6/4 specs ahoy!  Everyone runs shotguns, except some GIs are still able to keep the Krysae relevant if, in a team, everyone AoE bombs spawns on a small map.  

You know what happens next.  Hunter mode gets nerfed, but that isn't enough.  Finally, the Krysae gets the nerfhammer SO HARD we might as well ship the remaining supply over to the Reapers, hoping against hope they might take the bait and actually try to wield them against us.  

Why am I able to sketch this out so precisely?  Because every change was eminently predictible on both sides.  Players gravitated to the most effective ways to dispatch the easiest enemies.  No further statement is necessary to understand the player side, it can all be extrapolated from that right there.  Bioware's responses have also been predictible, either through an "encourage gambling in our store w/real money" standpoint or through well-meaning but misguided analysis of the aggregate data they have available, attempting to balance the game.  

Blizzard realized you cannot fully balance a game.  There will be 'best' builds and other such things that give the game flavor.  Your playerbase will, surprisingly quickly, suss out what these are and gravitate toward them.  The Prime head volume trivialized Geth, and it did need to be patched.  But now the underlying issue is fixed, the band-aids trying to 'fix' the problem need to come off as well.  

So yes, these changes were due to people "farming" or, in less jaded terminology, being as effective as possible.  

By that definition there will always be farmers, so long as there are variations between characters, loadouts, maps, and team comps.  It's the essence of futility to believe otherwise.

+1
Wow that was a great illustration of how "balance" is a constant battle between devs and players.  Very insightful man.

[*]Jesus Drarth, that post was very... illuminating on what Bioware's been focusing its balancing on since, well, the game's RELEASE pretty much. Damn, so many changes now suddenly make sense to me. They've been aiming for the farmers from day one, simpley because easier to farm = more credits for players = less reason to use real money for packs
[*]I dont like the logic behind it all, but I can see why its happeing. Bioware isnt balancing due to OPness or anything, it all comes down to the money they're making off the players, AKA the bottom line. Just takes some reading behind the lines.

[Xaijin]

As as dev myself, I'll hazard that I'm sure op-ness and fun and class awesomeness are certainly primary considerations, and I'm just as certain there are direct and ongoing financial considerations that will never be spoken of in public or on these forums.

Just as ongoing is the fact you can't change human nature.

Modifié par Xaijin, 04 août 2012 - 04:55 .

[Bonza99]

I was thinking today, the nerfing of powerful UR weapons and increasing the robustness of the enemies on gold/platinum is actually encouraging MORE farming behavior in the gold and platinum levels.

There is still the presence of several very high DPS classes and weapon synergies to boot, but as the weapons get rolled back, the playing style needs to get more and more conservative. It actually ENCOURAGES people to sit behind tables and group together as a team because you need to pop your head out for so much longer before you can kill anything, therefore need teammates around you to bail your ass when you get your timing wrong. With 1000 boss level enemies running around on platinum, without decent DPS is impossible to keep them all at bay and avoid getting overrun/cornered. It pretty much limits all games to camp a safe spot-hide-shoot-hide-shoot-hide-shoot, crap we;re getting overrrun, run away and then hide-shoot-hide-shoot.

Especially in the platinum difficultly.

I would love to see an alternative to all of these scenarios that both increases the difficultly but also increases the reward of skilful play styles that can take more risk. The answer to that might just be more DPS for UR weapons (that you need a level of skill to accumulate the credits to eventually acquire anyway), more mobility for players, more powerful power-caster classes, etc. Who knows what the answer is, but its not nerfing any decent powers or weapons.

I used to see quite a few different platinum maps being played public, but now 99% of them are FBWGP, and the only team units that succeed to level 10 are high DPS and robust classes and mostly a SE and decoy included. I don't even bother with biotic or vorcha teammates because more often than not, we get overrun in the first few waves.

I'm spending far more time enjoying myself on UUG right now.

[10bears]

Agreed.

[Strict31]

samb wrote...

JaimasOfRaxis wrote...

Well-said, Strict.

Not really. Darth presented a detailed case, with clear sequence of events, actions of BW and players' reaction.  He based his conclusions of BW's motives on said sequence of events.  
Strict has chosen to ignore the evidence all together. BW will never say they are deliberately trying to alienate farmers, and expecting them to do so is naive. At most they will say "overused" or "unintended consequences" or "misused". Something diplomatic. 

There is no evidence given. Only a record of what they have nerfed. As I said, I agree with the supposition. Please take real good care to make note of that before you say anything else about what I'm ignoring.

But supposition is not the same as fact. Maybe we got two opposing definitions of "naive" here, but I always thought it had something to do with having a lack of experience, judgment or information. 

And we currently have none with regards to Bioware's actual motivations behind these nerfs.

Objective reasoning demands that we separate what we believe to be true from what we know to be factual. And those two things are separated by evidence. Which, again, remains absent.

I think the distinction is important here, because if we go making a bunch of claims about Bioware's motivations that turn out to be false, we'll look like reactionary idiots. Which happens enough on this board that I'd think more people in this thread would be sensitive to the need to support our suppositions with direct evidence of the premise.

Strengthen the theory and you'll no longer simply be preaching to the choir; you'll be drawing in a new flock. Challenging any premise we hold strengthens it before some naysayer can tear it down with two simple words: "PROVE IT."

[Strict31]

CitizenThom wrote...

Evidence is in the eye of the beholder. (didn't Mr. Kant say something to that effect?)

The evidence in my opinion, lies in the changes that have been made, and those that haven't been made.

But I can hear you saying, "but you don't have Bioware saying the actual words..."

What you mean to say is that you don't have the evidence you are looking for, not that you don't have any evidence that the buffs of enemies and nerfs of enemies follow a pattern of prioritising the prevention of farming ahead of improving the gameplay for non-farmers.

Darth Varner nailed it, although most of my time farming FBWhite has been as a Salarian Engineer. In a way, FBWhite made Decoy viable as a power for me as a player, because it doesn't work effectively when you aren't able to hide behind cover away from the Decoy on most of the other maps.

Decoy seemed so useless until someone figured out a way to make Decoy effective with a farming strategy.

You're putting forth the view that evidence is subjective.

Interpretation of evidence is subjective, but the evidence itself, is not.

Say you've got a corpse with a knife stuck in its chest. The evidence is clear. Knife. Dead body. Blood all over the place. Footprints in the blood. With a subjective analysis, we could surmise that somebody stuck the knife into the dead guy's chest and then walked away. We could even match the footprints to a particular guy and pin the murder on him.

What happens if you find the murderer, only to discover he has no arms? Well, that might be an important fact that was overlooked because the evidence seemed pretty clear.

But all you have is evidence that a knife got stuck into someone's chest. You don't even know that it was a murder. Seems likely, since knives tend not to simply stick themselves into things. But your most likely suspect is incapable of performing any act that requires hands.

So, you either modify your premise or abandon it until and unless you can find information that supports it.

We are conflating evidence of nerfs with evidence of the decision to create those nerfs.

Granted, in many cases, what we believe to be true may in fact be true. But, lacking evidence, we unfortunately have to accept that we have no way to prove it.

And the claim here is not simply that nerfs have taken place, which is all that Darth has factually demonstrated, and which we all already know. The claim is that nerfs have taken place for a specific reason. Without confirmation of that reason, all we are left with is bias.

[Xaijin]

The TC and Sabotage nerfs are not speculation. The exact reason was given, and that reason was "overuse in combination with certain faction, map and weapon choices", which is very nice way of saying "farmed to **** and back again and then ****ed some more".

[SavagelyEpic]

its THAT guy wrote...

samb wrote...

DarthVarner wrote...
Evidence that many of the changes mentioned in this thread were explicitly due to farming, using the Geth saga as a case study is as follows.  It may be interesting to players that haven't been with us since release:

• Geth originally had a headshot volume on their only true boss unit, the Prime.  This headshot volume applied a 250% boost to damage, making Primes melt in literally two Black Widow or (nearly 2) Valiant clips.  Yes, to a sniping Infiltrator a Prime was roughly equivalent to three, count 'em THREE shielded mooks. As such, they were by FAR the easiest faction to clear on Gold, because their 'effective' HP per wave was cut by about half.  If you were in a good infil team, you never felt pressure except maybe on some objectives; the competition was who would kill the next enemy to round that corner FIRST.
  
• This problem was recognized, and a Bioware poster noted on the forums that this (Prime headshot volume) was a bug.  However, it doesn't take a genius to realize that the most popular enemy will be the easiest one, and by leaps and bounds this meant the Geth.  It also meant that the specific strategy that would be most effective against the Geth, by far, will be SR infiltrators which can reliably and precisely deliver high amounts of damage to the head volume.  
• At first all they did was boost the health of Geth enemies.  This didn't matter to sniper teams; everything had a headshot modifier and TC+SR boosted the Valiant and BW to the point where the limiting factor for killing efficiency was not mob health at all - just the shield gate.  Even after all the nerfs to TC and buffs to Geth, my Valiant with no ammo or rail amps can still twoshot ANY Geth enemy within the TC window save a Prime.  It did, however, make the Geth much, much worse for non-infil teams to deal with - because for those classes, the damage of their abilities or weapons very much DID matter relative to mob health.  The second or third cast, or reload to get a second clip just to down flanking mooks was (and still is) a massive problem for non-infils against Geth. Result?  Everyone moves to playing infiltrators.  This was incredibly obvious and predictible.  The surprising part is that ONLY ~30% of players on Gold were running infils at this time, not more.
  
• To really fix the problem, required a patch - not just a hotfix.  So instead they boosted the Geth wave compositions considerably and attempted to put pressure on players via making Hunters sprint in cloak.  This did nothing to address the overarching problem of low HP, really (one additional Prime per wave meant just ~2 clips to an infil), and grab-farmers didn't care about the Hunter buffs.  This did, successfully, made the Geth horrible to fight with other comps on other maps; now with 3 Primes spawning turrets in later waves, all with boosted HP, and sprinting flanking Hunters, non-infil comps regularly got overwhelmed.  
• Finally, the Prime head volume gets removed (circa Rebellion).  Now infil teams are in the same boat as everyone else vs. Geth, feeling too much pressure from them relative to other enemies.  So the farming moves on - to Cerberus, this time - because Rebellion also brought a fun new toy, an exploding "sniper rifle" rocket-grenade launcher which also apparently has a proximity trigger, so not even mobs behind cover are safe.  Good thing the Illusive Man hasn't downloaded the publicly available plans for the Krysae!  Turns out this sucker with TC bonuses trivialized the only real threatening enemy in Cerberus's arsenal, the Phantom, and provided splash damage to boot.  So everyone moves to farming Cerberus, still on infiltrators.
• Notably what DIDN'T happen the minute the Prime head volume was fixed was immediate reversion of nearly all buffs Geth had received since release of the game.  This should have happened, but did not.  It still needs to.  Badly.
• Inevitably Infils get nerfed HARD "because everyone is playing them!" as a backwards way of toning down the Krysae.  Because of how this was implemented, sniper rifles (already underwhelming and falling out of favor due to high zoom and low stopping power vs. Reapers, and nowhere near as useful on Geth after the Prime patch) are now barely viable on Gold... but hey, shotguns on infils bypass the shield gate and didn't get hit as hard!  4/6/6/6/4 specs ahoy!  Everyone runs shotguns, except some GIs are still able to keep the Krysae relevant if, in a team, everyone AoE bombs spawns on a small map.  

You know what happens next.  Hunter mode gets nerfed, but that isn't enough.  Finally, the Krysae gets the nerfhammer SO HARD we might as well ship the remaining supply over to the Reapers, hoping against hope they might take the bait and actually try to wield them against us.  

Why am I able to sketch this out so precisely?  Because every change was eminently predictible on both sides.  Players gravitated to the most effective ways to dispatch the easiest enemies.  No further statement is necessary to understand the player side, it can all be extrapolated from that right there.  Bioware's responses have also been predictible, either through an "encourage gambling in our store w/real money" standpoint or through well-meaning but misguided analysis of the aggregate data they have available, attempting to balance the game.  

Blizzard realized you cannot fully balance a game.  There will be 'best' builds and other such things that give the game flavor.  Your playerbase will, surprisingly quickly, suss out what these are and gravitate toward them.  The Prime head volume trivialized Geth, and it did need to be patched.  But now the underlying issue is fixed, the band-aids trying to 'fix' the problem need to come off as well.  

So yes, these changes were due to people "farming" or, in less jaded terminology, being as effective as possible.  

By that definition there will always be farmers, so long as there are variations between characters, loadouts, maps, and team comps.  It's the essence of futility to believe otherwise.

+1
Wow that was a great illustration of how "balance" is a constant battle between devs and players.  Very insightful man.

[*]Jesus Drarth, that post was very... illuminating on what Bioware's been focusing its balancing on since, well, the game's RELEASE pretty much. Damn, so many changes now suddenly make sense to me. They've been aiming for the farmers from day one, simpley because easier to farm = more credits for players = less reason to use real money for packs
[*]I dont like the logic behind it all, but I can see why its happeing. Bioware isnt balancing due to OPness or anything, it all comes down to the money they're making off the players, AKA the bottom line. Just takes some reading behind the lines.

+1. It's insightful, enlightening, and just shameful, really, on BioWare's part. Here's to hoping they actually decide to do something about their mistakes.

[Cthulu_Cuddler]

JaimasOfRaxis wrote...

stunproof Hunters that shoot whilst flying

The image conjured from this, was both terrifying and hilarious...

[JaimasOfRaxis]

Cthulu_Cuddler wrote...

JaimasOfRaxis wrote...

stunproof Hunters that shoot whilst flying

The image conjured from this, was both terrifying and hilarious...

Happened during my first post-patch match with OneTrueShot. Both of us were playing Krogans (I a Soldier, he a Sentinel). A hunter I stripped the shields off of with a glancing blast from my Geth Plasma Shotgun got done blowed up by one of OneTrueShot's Lift Grenades.

....Or so I thought.

All of a sudden, I notice I'm being hit by something despite me being in cover and no enemy having a logical line-of-sight to me. I heard the discharge effect from a Plasma Shotgun, so I knew it was a Hunter.

And then I saw it. I looked upwards, to see the Hunter that OneTrueShot launched was still alive, and despite being hurled through the air, it was quite capable of shooting and it proceeded to take me down with its third shot. RoadGGG was a bro and revived me, but I was still sitting there stammering for like a minute after that.

[CitizenThom]

Xaijin wrote...

CitizenThom wrote...

Evidence is in the eye of the beholder. (didn't Mr. Kant say something to that effect?)

The evidence in my opinion, lies in the changes that have been made, and those that haven't been made.

But I can hear you saying, "but you don't have Bioware saying the actual words..."

What you mean to say is that you don't have the evidence you are looking for, not that you don't have any evidence that the buffs of enemies and nerfs of enemies follow a pattern of prioritising the prevention of farming ahead of improving the gameplay for non-farmers.

Darth Varner nailed it, although most of my time farming FBWhite has been as a Salarian Engineer. In a way, FBWhite made Decoy viable as a power for me as a player, because it doesn't work effectively when you aren't able to hide behind cover away from the Decoy on most of the other maps.

Decoy seemed so useless until someone figured out a way to make Decoy effective with a farming strategy.

You'll recall there was a decoy/drone targeting nerf for this specific reason, and to this day several devs demurred politely even when directly asked to specify HOW decoy aggro-vacuuming actually works.

Oh, I know it' been nerfed to a degree, I was pretty new using decoy before the nerf, but you can see the difference. It doesn't get everyone's attention anymore... on FBW. I remember before FBW that I'd tried decoy once on a different map (before the nerf), after playing human and quarian engineer, and the decoy simply didn't get anyone's attention.

If I were to guess how the mechanic works, it has something to do with line of sight and proximity. I usually pick the 'pulse' build of decoy I assume that helps develop aggro to a degree, but I can't confirm it. Either way, I have put decoy to good use on pizza delivery objectives now. If the enemy sees the decoy before it sees you, if the decoy is much easier to attack than you (because you're in cover or farther away) the enemy will attack the decoy instead 90% of the time (I don't know how it is that the other 10% of enemies automatically ignore decoys).

Modifié par CitizenThom, 04 août 2012 - 06:28 .

[CitizenThom]

Strict31 wrote...

CitizenThom wrote...

Evidence is in the eye of the beholder. (didn't Mr. Kant say something to that effect?)

The evidence in my opinion, lies in the changes that have been made, and those that haven't been made.

But I can hear you saying, "but you don't have Bioware saying the actual words..."

What you mean to say is that you don't have the evidence you are looking for, not that you don't have any evidence that the buffs of enemies and nerfs of enemies follow a pattern of prioritising the prevention of farming ahead of improving the gameplay for non-farmers.

Darth Varner nailed it, although most of my time farming FBWhite has been as a Salarian Engineer. In a way, FBWhite made Decoy viable as a power for me as a player, because it doesn't work effectively when you aren't able to hide behind cover away from the Decoy on most of the other maps.

Decoy seemed so useless until someone figured out a way to make Decoy effective with a farming strategy.

You're putting forth the view that evidence is subjective.

Interpretation of evidence is subjective, but the evidence itself, is not.

Say you've got a corpse with a knife stuck in its chest. The evidence is clear. Knife. Dead body. Blood all over the place. Footprints in the blood. With a subjective analysis, we could surmise that somebody stuck the knife into the dead guy's chest and then walked away. We could even match the footprints to a particular guy and pin the murder on him.

What happens if you find the murderer, only to discover he has no arms? Well, that might be an important fact that was overlooked because the evidence seemed pretty clear.

But all you have is evidence that a knife got stuck into someone's chest. You don't even know that it was a murder. Seems likely, since knives tend not to simply stick themselves into things. But your most likely suspect is incapable of performing any act that requires hands.

So, you either modify your premise or abandon it until and unless you can find information that supports it.

We are conflating evidence of nerfs with evidence of the decision to create those nerfs.

Granted, in many cases, what we believe to be true may in fact be true. But, lacking evidence, we unfortunately have to accept that we have no way to prove it.

And the claim here is not simply that nerfs have taken place, which is all that Darth has factually demonstrated, and which we all already know. The claim is that nerfs have taken place for a specific reason. Without confirmation of that reason, all we are left with is bias.

Not having an admission from Bioware or whomever on the motivations of nerfs and buffs removes absolute certianty from the equation. But nonetheless, there is evidence and a preponderence of evidence to support the conclusions that people are coming to.

To go back to your no-armed murderer, how did you manage to track him down? No fingerprints. DNA maybe? So this non armed man is a repeat offender? You understand that your example requires more absurdity than is involved when drawing the conclusion that the nerf/buff priorities are centerred on discouraging farming.

Provide an alternate rationale for the things that have been buffed/nerfed in the game that is equally or more supported by the evidence that we do have, then you cast real doubt on the conclusion most people are drawing. But otherwise, you're just playing at a little sophistry in my opinion.

[Necroneous]

Balance adjustments = Insecticide
Farmers = Adaptible insects
Players = Insects

The more insecticide that is applied to combat the resilient, adaptible insects, the less and less it will affect them. But each and every application harms the regular insects.

I think the only way to fix farming is to alter the core store aspect of the game. They should implement something like (as much as I dislike the series) Call of Duty's multiplayer challenges. This makes players want to use the weapons that arent "optimal" or the classes that aren't popular, to attain the bonuses the challenges offer.

[JaimasOfRaxis]

Balance adjustments = Insecticide
Farmers = Adaptible insects
Players = Insects

The more insecticide that is applied to combat the resilient, adaptible insects, the less and less it will affect them. But each and every application harms the regular insects.

And when that happens, it kills off the beneficial insects - the Ladybugs, the Pollinators. And then, when the garden collapses entirely, the Gardener wonders why none of his pesticides helped stop it from falling into ruin.

[Tajah Silver-Sparke]

DarthVarner wrote...
Evidence that many of the changes mentioned in this thread were explicitly due to farming, using the Geth saga as a case study is as follows.  It may be interesting to players that haven't been with us since release:

• Geth originally had a headshot volume on their only true boss unit, the Prime.  This headshot volume applied a 250% boost to damage, making Primes melt in literally two Black Widow or (nearly 2) Valiant clips.  Yes, to a sniping Infiltrator a Prime was roughly equivalent to three, count 'em THREE shielded mooks. As such, they were by FAR the easiest faction to clear on Gold, because their 'effective' HP per wave was cut by about half.  If you were in a good infil team, you never felt pressure except maybe on some objectives; the competition was who would kill the next enemy to round that corner FIRST.
  
• This problem was recognized, and a Bioware poster noted on the forums that this (Prime headshot volume) was a bug.  However, it doesn't take a genius to realize that the most popular enemy will be the easiest one, and by leaps and bounds this meant the Geth.  It also meant that the specific strategy that would be most effective against the Geth, by far, will be SR infiltrators which can reliably and precisely deliver high amounts of damage to the head volume.  
• At first all they did was boost the health of Geth enemies.  This didn't matter to sniper teams; everything had a headshot modifier and TC+SR boosted the Valiant and BW to the point where the limiting factor for killing efficiency was not mob health at all - just the shield gate.  Even after all the nerfs to TC and buffs to Geth, my Valiant with no ammo or rail amps can still twoshot ANY Geth enemy within the TC window save a Prime.  It did, however, make the Geth much, much worse for non-infil teams to deal with - because for those classes, the damage of their abilities or weapons very much DID matter relative to mob health.  The second or third cast, or reload to get a second clip just to down flanking mooks was (and still is) a massive problem for non-infils against Geth. Result?  Everyone moves to playing infiltrators.  This was incredibly obvious and predictible.  The surprising part is that ONLY ~30% of players on Gold were running infils at this time, not more.
  
• To really fix the problem, required a patch - not just a hotfix.  So instead they boosted the Geth wave compositions considerably and attempted to put pressure on players via making Hunters sprint in cloak.  This did nothing to address the overarching problem of low HP, really (one additional Prime per wave meant just ~2 clips to an infil), and grab-farmers didn't care about the Hunter buffs.  This did, successfully, made the Geth horrible to fight with other comps on other maps; now with 3 Primes spawning turrets in later waves, all with boosted HP, and sprinting flanking Hunters, non-infil comps regularly got overwhelmed.  
• Finally, the Prime head volume gets removed (circa Rebellion).  Now infil teams are in the same boat as everyone else vs. Geth, feeling too much pressure from them relative to other enemies.  So the farming moves on - to Cerberus, this time - because Rebellion also brought a fun new toy, an exploding "sniper rifle" rocket-grenade launcher which also apparently has a proximity trigger, so not even mobs behind cover are safe.  Good thing the Illusive Man hasn't downloaded the publicly available plans for the Krysae!  Turns out this sucker with TC bonuses trivialized the only real threatening enemy in Cerberus's arsenal, the Phantom, and provided splash damage to boot.  So everyone moves to farming Cerberus, still on infiltrators.
• Notably what DIDN'T happen the minute the Prime head volume was fixed was immediate reversion of nearly all buffs Geth had received since release of the game.  This should have happened, but did not.  It still needs to.  Badly.
• Inevitably Infils get nerfed HARD "because everyone is playing them!" as a backwards way of toning down the Krysae.  Because of how this was implemented, sniper rifles (already underwhelming and falling out of favor due to high zoom and low stopping power vs. Reapers, and nowhere near as useful on Geth after the Prime patch) are now barely viable on Gold... but hey, shotguns on infils bypass the shield gate and didn't get hit as hard!  4/6/6/6/4 specs ahoy!  Everyone runs shotguns, except some GIs are still able to keep the Krysae relevant if, in a team, everyone AoE bombs spawns on a small map.  

You know what happens next.  Hunter mode gets nerfed, but that isn't enough.  Finally, the Krysae gets the nerfhammer SO HARD we might as well ship the remaining supply over to the Reapers, hoping against hope they might take the bait and actually try to wield them against us.  

Why am I able to sketch this out so precisely?  Because every change was eminently predictible on both sides.  Players gravitated to the most effective ways to dispatch the easiest enemies.  No further statement is necessary to understand the player side, it can all be extrapolated from that right there.  Bioware's responses have also been predictible, either through an "encourage gambling in our store w/real money" standpoint or through well-meaning but misguided analysis of the aggregate data they have available, attempting to balance the game.  

Blizzard realized you cannot fully balance a game.  There will be 'best' builds and other such things that give the game flavor.  Your playerbase will, surprisingly quickly, suss out what these are and gravitate toward them.  The Prime head volume trivialized Geth, and it did need to be patched.  But now the underlying issue is fixed, the band-aids trying to 'fix' the problem need to come off as well.  

So yes, these changes were due to people "farming" or, in less jaded terminology, being as effective as possible.  

By that definition there will always be farmers, so long as there are variations between characters, loadouts, maps, and team comps.  It's the essence of futility to believe otherwise.

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Brilliant post! 

Modifié par Tajah Silver-Sparke, 04 août 2012 - 08:16 .

[Volatile Device]

Bump, because this thread and especially Darth's post deserves it

[Cthulu_Cuddler]

JaimasOfRaxis wrote...

Cthulu_Cuddler wrote...

JaimasOfRaxis wrote...

stunproof Hunters that shoot whilst flying

The image conjured from this, was both terrifying and hilarious...

Happened during my first post-patch match with OneTrueShot. Both of us were playing Krogans (I a Soldier, he a Sentinel). A hunter I stripped the shields off of with a glancing blast from my Geth Plasma Shotgun got done blowed up by one of OneTrueShot's Lift Grenades.

....Or so I thought.

All of a sudden, I notice I'm being hit by something despite me being in cover and no enemy having a logical line-of-sight to me. I heard the discharge effect from a Plasma Shotgun, so I knew it was a Hunter.

And then I saw it. I looked upwards, to see the Hunter that OneTrueShot launched was still alive, and despite being hurled through the air, it was quite capable of shooting and it proceeded to take me down with its third shot. RoadGGG was a bro and revived me, but I was still sitting there stammering for like a minute after that.

Wow, that sounds terrifying lol. Luckily I've yet to experience this, though I myself have bugged out and flown through the air. Also, a bump-shiggity-bump, Darth's post was gold and dead on.

[PaperAlien]

Bump this thread!

[Maker MEDA]

I don't even know anymore, I played so many Firebase White or Glacier lately, I don't even remember what the other maps look like.

But... but I do want my daily ultra rare. Mostly.

I need to join a clan to play on Platinum, seriously.

Modifié par Maker MEDA, 05 août 2012 - 02:33 .

[Cthulu_Cuddler]

Maker MEDA wrote...

I don't even know anymore, I played so many Firebase White or Glacier lately, I don't even remember what the other maps look like.

But... but I do want my daily ultra rare. Mostly.

I need to join a clan to play on Platinum, seriously.

Or just play a different map...it's really not that bad with a good team, or a little communication. 
Personally I'm sick of white, glacier I can take or leave. I only farm those maps if I've had a bad run or 2 for whatever reason and need to make up the gear/credits. It's more fun to at least try the other maps, you develope your own strategies over time and even if you don't make extraction, wave 10 objective is all you need. 
My 2 cents at least

[himegoto]

Bump for justice.

[Kasrkin]

JaimasOfRaxis wrote...

Balance adjustments = Insecticide
Farmers = Adaptible insects
Players = Insects

The more insecticide that is applied to combat the resilient, adaptible insects, the less and less it will affect them. But each and every application harms the regular insects.

And when that happens, it kills off the beneficial insects - the Ladybugs, the Pollinators. And then, when the garden collapses entirely, the Gardener wonders why none of his pesticides helped stop it from falling into ruin.

Quoted for truth. 

Darth's post is what posts here SHOULD be. 

When the farmers migrate the newest FOTM shooty game, where will that leave the rest of us?

[curly haired boy]

really noticed the geth buffs while on my asari adept the other day. geth now have some stupidly-high health pools, all because of FBW farming. i don't know why they never patched the map - in any of the DLC updates - to just always spawn stuff behind the desks. that lets you skip the buffs AND skip the nerfs.

hell, you could just REMOVE the map in a patch and it'd solve the problem.

[CINCTuchanka]

Credit farming hurts micotransaction sales. Balance will always err on the side of what helps EA/Bioware more money. Did you think those DLC werw free?