I specifically made it the goal to never block/ignore/mute people or alias in-game so that I would hear even the opinions of people that absolutely hate me / hate what I did. I kind of stopped doing it 6 months ago after doing it for 10 years. I would love to listen to everyone, and do everything they ever wanted. Realistically, however, that just isn't possible and some people don't see it or why. We as developers are often too involved in the community, and as a result more developers than I can count on one hand have left the community as a result of treatment. All of which I know for a fact listen to feedback and have changed many of their features, designs, etc in response to things from the community. We care too much about what everyone thinks.
Yes, being solely responsible for something a lot of people love/enjoy is a lot of pressure. Understandable. However some of the arrogance I have seen from developers as to **why** they discount opinions is rather unforgivable in my eyes.
Not everyone is a bad apple, but those that are, for the love of god please just recognize what you are doing. You are ruining things for the rest of the community, you make updates take longer to come out (demotivated devs), and have caused developers to quit outright which lessens our manpower/resources. Do you really want that? Please for the love of god help us make the game by giving us feedback in open betas, rather than attending and not leaving feedback so that you can bitch at us later. That isn't helpful to anyone. Realize what you are doing and knock it off.
I'm not going to motivate shit work. I'm not going to reward something as broken as 1.5 with "GOOD JERB" especially when the dev responsible so viciously attacks people who dislike it. What about my motivation to keep playing it? To play test something that I've already explained I despise, that I know many people that I enjoy playing the game with will (and do) despise. I've seen so many veterans over the last few days come on, go 'What is this', then leave to not be seen again.
I would never suggest pandering to every single person, you cannot please everyone, however the fact that MB2 devs are so light footed about some things, and the most heavy handed tyrants on others, frustrates me, and divides the community. For example:
Take the projectile increase thread, the purpose of the poll was clearly to see how the community reacts to the 15% increase. Now I was initially annoyed that we didn't start with 30%, because that is what I tested to be the best for quite some time without actually breaking the game. So we half ass that, instead of allowing people to experience the full increase (Which to my knowledge no one even playtested the full increase in tests, and it just sort of sat at 15% for some reason). Then we get a poll by Stassin, in which we find that the community likes the increase, though as anything publicly handled you get a lot of needless compromise and paranoia. However what is inexcusable to me is that Stassin effectively tells everyone that their opinions are irrelevant, and he'll do whatever based upon a few opinions.
There is a severe factor of elitism in the MB2 dev circle. You've done it. Defiant has done it. Stassin as done it, and many other devs in MB2's lifespan that I did not have the pleasure of meeting. Where you will tell people that they have no idea what they are doing or talking about with regards to balance, or gameplay, or any other subject.
You are a map maker. You are a very good map maker. I very much appreciate your contributions to the mod and I hope you will provide more. But your opinion on gameplay is no more educated than mine, or anyone elses.
Stassin and Defiant are coders, not gods. Yet they very clearly act like gods, claiming that lesser opinions mean nothing to them. Stassin literally going forth and stating that NA players have 0 sway on balance because apparently we all suck, and when he is encountered with EU players that also have a negative opinion of his work, he claims they suck as well. Defiant who has stated in discord that the dev team will ignore the best players in the game. How is the community supposed to react to that? How pissed off do you think that makes me when I see that constantly?
Now I know how much you hate my '1v1 me' arguments, despite the fact that proving ego is not my intention at all. However that is the only way I have the ability to demonstrate or prove something in-game. I have seen you Mace state outlandish things in the past, such as blobs are pushable on reaction. So I offer to take you, or anyone in game, to demonstrate that to me. To prove me wrong, or to be proven wrong. Is that me trying to ego? No, that is me trying to achieve progress on a point. Instead of taking me up on an offer to learn who is right and move on with our lives, you always just shut me out, or even go as far as to kick me from the discord. All because I want to test it in-game, calling it a '1v1 argument'.
I'm certainly not perfect, but do not put all of this shit on me. Do not put all the blame on the community. You gentlemen have a responsibility to this mod by taking up the mantle of developer. I recognize that it is a lot of pressure, but you chose to receive that pressure to work on something that you love, I assume, as much as everyone else here. But remember that everyone else here loves the mod, not just you.
By the way, I assume that last sentence about the feedback was a jab at me. I spent over an hour and a half in discord private chat with Sev and Stassin talking about everything and listing my feedback/concerns. I didn't think a feedback thread was necessary, especially since I had shown up late and was being plagued by the bug from last patch. That being said, none of my feedback or concerns were taken into account. They were summarily ignored.
Who was it that one time in a test who said: "Beta testers are just supposed to report bugs and shut up."
Fair enough.
Mmmm, very few heroes let me facehug that effectively - it usually costs a lot of FP to maintain range if they're evading properly.
If they're evading that much, then they're going to be pretty easy to pull/push. The best gunners tend to have a pattern when evading that heavily, and it gets readable. Basically if you make them afraid to dodge, you get a free kill with red.