JeanPierre
Gallente
The Scope
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Posted - 2007.11.14 14:54:00 -
[1]
 Originally by: Constance Noring
I like how CCP operates: first they give people some cool overpowered pvp pwnboats, let them train all the skills, then *bam* out of nowhere comes the nerfbat. It's the best kind of griefing.
I think this is what really gets under a lot of people's skins. Not disagreeing (or agreeing) with any of the changes mentioned here. Does it bother me that alliances will have to reduce territory? No. It's always been way too easy to claim entire galaxies of stars and maintain them logistically without too much effort (yes, this is my main, yes I've been in major alliances, thanks). Ok, fine. But still, c'mon, lots of people have spent a lot of time training and using things in game as they are designed, then wammo, all for naught (or mostly for naught). And the net effect on the "problems" will still amount to nothing with this change. A month's lag time to get trained, maybe a month and a half, then the major alliances have the new ships. Time which will be accounted for by surplus storing of POS fuel, then back to business as usual with the new shiny toy. An ISK sink, plain and simple, with no net end effect that actually addresses the "problems" currently being put forth as needing solved.
I get a very strong impression that the game devs or producers spend very little real time in the game. Yes, I know some play, but apparently not enough to realize what effects the ships they introduce in a game will have in the long run. They may test code, but any person who has spent any time even *looking* at a carrier's stats can easily discover the neat idea of "hey, we can use this to haul POS fuel instantly with little to no risk". If you play the game with a carrier in an alliance "sandbox" setting, as the devs *should* be doing before releasing new items in game, they'd quickly come to invent the same neat ways of using things that players do. This "never intended to be used" actually tells me "we designed from a list of requirements without knowing how the end product would be utilized by the end user because we never tested as an end user ourselves". That's a bogus way to develop. When we develop an application (in case it isn't obvious, I'm a lead developer for a rather major company), we do both unit and regression testing, as is normal, then we use the application to determine if anybody can do things "not as intended" and fix those things before we release the application. While you certainly won't catch *everything* in the "we don't intend" category doing this, you will catch the obvious ones. Like, say...carriers being used a jump haulers.
All in all I think a *lot* of these kinds of issues (regressive ham fisted nerfs to fix "problems" that were specifically built into the code to occur) could be fixed if the devs had a development sandbox (not Sisi) of their very own that they actually sat down and played the game at in-shop, before even *breathing* a word about releasing a new ship/module to the public. Or hell, play the game here. Can't hurt right?
As to the actual changes, I agree, carriers != haulers. But you designed them that way, and let that design stick for a *long* time. Your solution seems to me to be a year too late and ten degrees too drastic. How would I have solved it? Dunno honestly, maybe do a few "never intended to be used this way" tests and product evaluations before letting the end users even know we were thinking about it. Hard to say. Hire me and I'll come up with a better plan. 
Just my thoughts.
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