Gas Stassin: A Modest Proposal

[Lessen]

Dear community, I have a proposition.

Stick around, this is not actually a joke thread. This is important.

The gameplay portion of the MB2 Dev Team is, in some ways, floundering. Without a clear consensus on how the game should be, and without enough participants in the discussion, development is overly influenced by the opinions of just one or two developers. Progress is obstructed by internal disagreements. Morale among certain key developers is low.

Meanwhile, the community does not feel represented. There is considerable distrust for the dev team. @KimmyMarin wants to gas the whole team! Wow! Cynicism is everywhere.

So, to fix all of this, I have a proposition for the developers. Or rather, I have a proposition for @Defiant , the Project Leader.

And I have a proposition for the community as a whole...

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To Defiant, I propose that the Dev Team be formally restructured so that the results of community consensus and the results of considerable testing overrule any developer's opinion. I propose that testing and seeking community opinion be a regular thing, and a guiding beacon.

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To the community, I propose that we be responsive to open beta tests, and to any public polls given by the devs. This is not a large community; every vote has weight. Every reaction to an open beta has weight. Participate, if you care about how the game turns out.

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Essentially, I propose that devs pledge to listen to the community, and I propose that the community in turn pledges to communicate with the devs.

But that's nebulous. It's wishy-washy. We need something more specific, if we want to really improve things.

So here's my TRUE proposition.

Because I understand that the vast majority of players are NOT interested in participating heavily and regularly in discussion...

... and because sorting through all that discussion requires a ton of time and effort from the developers, perhaps too much time...

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I propose that a Senate be elected by community vote, to represent the community.

It would be 11 active players. Any number of people could put their name in as nominees, and then over the course of a week or two, heavily publicized in the forums, the official Discord, and the official servers, people would be allowed (and encouraged) to vote on the 11 people they want in the Senate.

The top 11 would become the Senate, and would be the only ones voting on most of the polls from the developers. Ideally, there would be many polls, on many topics, and only the members of the Senate would be responsible for answering these polls. The results of the polls would all be public, and there could be a publicly visible Senate channel on Discord where the Senators discuss, so that the rest of the community can keep track of whether the senators are representing the community's interests.

Exact term lengths and other details could be figured out later.

Some polls, ones deemed extra important, could be directed to the entire community instead of to the Senate. Senators would pledge to vote in every poll, and to play every Open Beta. They would be something of a community-elected Beta Test team, with extra voting power.

Interest in the Senate would be driven by a pledge by the dev team to orient their gameplay decisions around the Senate's votes.

I expect the average reaction to be "this is dramatic and unnecessary," but in light of all the conflict I think it's time to consider serious courses of action. We can't all just keep whining forever without actually trying something different.

Discuss.

 

[Onysfx]

No need for a vote.

 

[k4far]

Mesa propose...

bring back @Supa and @Hexodious to watch over Gameplay.

Hmm... yousa point is well... we need someone who would actively comment on map balance so maps will not favor one class over the other as much as Dotf where both ways to the objective are long corridors without any height difference - sniper fest. Create a role of Map Balance Lead and pick someone who is not voting for Dotf and Deathstar 24/7 lol. Also do not think "SBD is balanced" is a right statement.

 

[Tylenol]

Having a so called 'Senate' gameplay is unfortunately a very flawed idea Lessen. Having 11 people would not only lead to difficulties in actually picking individuals but also lead to some very heavy manipulated votes.

Not to mention, any elected senate members could easily be influenced to suggest implementing changes that would not be out of interest for everyone else but themselves.

In my opinion, there needs to be more respectful disscussions with in the player base. The player base can be the Senate. Respected long time players as well as new comers need to put in their opinions. People that haven't explained their point or arguement, and get upset over changes they do not agree with will have themselves to blame, since everyone should get a chance to explain their sides.

Arguments that are just "(Insert Something/Someone is shit" do not contribute to any disscussion, and only provoke flame wars, breakdowns and negatively impact the community as a whole. People who knowingly continue to behave like that should be completely disregarded, whether just by being ignored or by being banned.

Restricting balance changes to small groups of individuals who each have their own biases and opinions can lead to a lot of problems.

So in a nutshell, open beta and disscussion of it is extremely important. Anybody who can needs to give feedback. Anyone who doesn't and gets upset over changes have only themselves to blame. We also all need to work on each other as individuals. If we can helping maintain a proper disscussion without turning to flaming and insulting one another, we're already improving the game by a magnitude.

 

[DaloLorn]

I think the thread name may give the wrong impression... but then again, I suspect you were aiming for clickbait.

 

[Helix]

Without a clear consensus on how the game should be

I don't know how things are going now, with defiant, but all the time before - that's truth, MBII never had a design document, which kinda disorients the gameplay devs.

results of community consensus and the results of considerable testing

I don't know how to phrase it correctly, but I'll try. These two things you mentioned are extremely subjective. There will always be people who don't like something. Who is going to decide that consensus is reached? Who is going to decide that testing is finished? How is this person going to be chosen? If this person is chosen and someone doesn't like him, it won't be a "community consensus" anymore. Etc, I think you see my point.
As for

overrule any developer's opinion

and the whole "senate" block

is

 

[k4far]

Developers are understaffed. If we can veto everything then making everyone happy with the result will take forever and updates will never be regular. New content is already taking the sweet time you do not want to slow that process even more. You can count people giving useful feedback with your one hand that's your problem because you do not like the result. A ton of whiners can only say stuff like it's bad, sucks, omg without precising what bugs them and that's the result of reading useless feedback like this. I do feel it was wrong not to let us test Tempest's sabering and just go with Stassin's but well, movie release fever and shit. Let's hope anything like this will not happen again. I am okay with new sabering except for PBs and Purple stab stagger and by the way, hotfix is coming probably next week and part of these issues should get addressed so wait a bit and give everything more thought.

 

[Stassin]

You're missing the main point: with 2 or 3 people within the dev team already disagreeing on gameplay directions, imagine the number of people disagreeing within a "Senate", let alone the entire community. Without giving someone some executive "power", nothing is ever going to get done.

Even if that someone with executive power tries their best to take into account all opinions/feedback possible, expecting all opinions to be represented in the final decision-making is nothing short of absurd except for trivial discussions. Add in the struggle of rummaging through educated/uneducated/both feedback, the task is far from simple.

 

[Defiant]

First, a senate wont work. I doubt you'd even get 11 people who would take it seriously. Just look at the beta team (Which you were part of, if you remember Lessen). People volunteer and apply for that, and of all the people that have applied if 3 showed up for a test it would be a good turnout - yet typically 6 devs make it, and there are far fewer devs than there are beta testers. Viserys and Spaghetti used a stick for that problem, but i'm really not a fan of that approach, I would much rather make it more rewarded for people to show up, but that's an on going internal problem. Having a senate like this would just be another plate to keep spinning and there would be too much disagreement anyway.

I don't want to air our dirty laundry too much in public, but I was very disappointed with what we achieved with 1.5 versus what we could have achieved on the gameplay front. Duel mode was development complete for a few months before we even started on 1.5, the gameplay changes that made it in were a tiny subset of what could have gone in and some very well received changes ended up being left out. I am convinced that a mixed approach remains the best with Open Beta and Internal Testing both providing feedback. The problem has been gathering feedback and developers remaining impartial to what the feedback says. Too many instances of people clinging on to one or two more opinions from influential and good players because they support that developers personal view. The development team needs to accept that turkeys don't vote for Christmas. Players benefiting from kinks and imbalances arnt going to vocally support those aspects being removed or changed even if its for better gameplay over all. At the same time the kinks and imbalances are what make for intresting gameplay so some do need to stay but they need to be measured, and reasonable. For instance you wouldn't believe what I had to go through to get the bowcasters charge time fixed, a weapon that has been called 'godcaster' for aslong as I can remember, and even then it seems like some of the compromises made for that have kept it being overpowered.

tldr - We are changing how we gather feedback, we need to listen more, we need to be less biased and this is an ongoing process which takes time for the team to grow into and become confident with. I cant place blame on devs for doing what they think is best for the game, but they do need to change their thinking over time to work more with the community and each other.

 

[Rosh+]

First, a senate wont work. I doubt you'd even get 11 people who would take it seriously. Just look at the beta team (Which you were part of, if you remember Lessen). People volunteer and apply for that, and of all the people that have applied if 3 showed up for a test it would be a good turnout - yet typically 6 devs make it, and there are far fewer devs than there are beta testers. Viserys and Spaghetti used a stick for that problem, but i'm really not a fan of that approach, I would much rather make it more rewarded for people to show up, but that's an on going internal problem. Having a senate like this would just be another plate to keep spinning and there would be too much disagreement anyway.

half eu testers
half na testers

beta tests usually either scheduled way late/early EU/NA time, saw one test that was 9PM EU time, and most time when a test comes up it is 11AM - 2PM, sometimes 3PM PST the test team is a failure because no common sense was involved in its formation

people gotta work or go to school its only common sense that most wouldnt be there those times of days, but you cant satisfy the schedules of everyone anyways cause you have a mixed region beta team which is the mistake here, need separate teams moderated by different people same should go for the dev team themselves, as there is a noticeable massive bias on that front

personally i got so sick of the random ass times my side that i only occasionally appear sometimes, most of the time not even at all, and even when I do, often i find nobody on cus they decided to go EU server cus moar eu testers so eu server it is and im not testing shit while im laggy as shit it fucks with things i try to test

at least i get the cool nameplate id donate for another but the donations are in euro and im too lazy to do the math

-

as for the thread i agree without even reading gas stassin

 

[Defiant]

as for the thread i agree without even reading gas stassin

Let me make myself clear. Such comments are not remotely acceptable. You have the right to criticize but not wish harm on or threaten anyone.

 

[KimmyMarin]

Dear community, I have a proposition.

Stick around, this is not actually a joke thread. This is important.

The gameplay portion of the MB2 Dev Team is, in some ways, floundering. Without a clear consensus on how the game should be, and without enough participants in the discussion, development is overly influenced by the opinions of just one or two developers. Progress is obstructed by internal disagreements. Morale among certain key developers is low.

Meanwhile, the community does not feel represented. There is considerable distrust for the dev team. @KimmyMarin wants to gas the whole team! Wow! Cynicism is everywhere.

So, to fix all of this, I have a proposition for the developers. Or rather, I have a proposition for @Defiant , the Project Leader.

And I have a proposition for the community as a whole...

=====================================================================================================
=====================================================================================================

To Defiant, I propose that the Dev Team be formally restructured so that the results of community consensus and the results of considerable testing overrule any developer's opinion. I propose that testing and seeking community opinion be a regular thing, and a guiding beacon.

=====================================================================================================
=====================================================================================================

To the community, I propose that we be responsive to open beta tests, and to any public polls given by the devs. This is not a large community; every vote has weight. Every reaction to an open beta has weight. Participate, if you care about how the game turns out.

=====================================================================================================
=====================================================================================================

Essentially, I propose that devs pledge to listen to the community, and I propose that the community in turn pledges to communicate with the devs.

But that's nebulous. It's wishy-washy. We need something more specific, if we want to really improve things.

So here's my TRUE proposition.

Because I understand that the vast majority of players are NOT interested in participating heavily and regularly in discussion...

... and because sorting through all that discussion requires a ton of time and effort from the developers, perhaps too much time...

=====================================================================================================
=====================================================================================================

I propose that a Senate be elected by community vote, to represent the community.

It would be 11 active players. Any number of people could put their name in as nominees, and then over the course of a week or two, heavily publicized in the forums, the official Discord, and the official servers, people would be allowed (and encouraged) to vote on the 11 people they want in the Senate.

The top 11 would become the Senate, and would be the only ones voting on most of the polls from the developers. Ideally, there would be many polls, on many topics, and only the members of the Senate would be responsible for answering these polls. The results of the polls would all be public, and there could be a publicly visible Senate channel on Discord where the Senators discuss, so that the rest of the community can keep track of whether the senators are representing the community's interests.

Exact term lengths and other details could be figured out later.

Some polls, ones deemed extra important, could be directed to the entire community instead of to the Senate. Senators would pledge to vote in every poll, and to play every Open Beta. They would be something of a community-elected Beta Test team, with extra voting power.

Interest in the Senate would be driven by a pledge by the dev team to orient their gameplay decisions around the Senate's votes.

I expect the average reaction to be "this is dramatic and unnecessary," but in light of all the conflict I think it's time to consider serious courses of action. We can't all just keep whining forever without actually trying something different.

Discuss.

im a sadist what can i say @Chaos the Chaotic , but as i was discussing with Furst yesterday: mb2 has so many issues that you wont be able to resolve them in a year even if you wanted to, but its time to get things together and on the right direction, and which direction is that?

1-Start Listening to the community and be less egotistic about how you wanna work the way you wanna work, sometimes we forget why we even wanted to do this , and i would assume is for the love of Star Wars and its game/community , we need to provide a better environment to everyone.

2- We need Leadership, guidance, someone that makes people come together, find a solution, provide ideas, ask for ideas, ask for opinions, make polls with everyone attention, make people get involved actually get involved, not boss them around, not divide them, not poke this guy and then see how hes gonna react, i know its almost unlikely to get this one done, but we gotta try ? and make things more cohesive around here.

3- a big issue that has been around for QUITE SOME TIME, is the community division from Toxic players/instigators and the other part of the community which are the players that actually wants to play the game and enjoy the process of it without being toxic to everyone else specially in game Chat, and sometimes it doesn't stay there it goes from intentional tking/harrasment etc.

4-we need an ID system to prevent aliasers that wants to just tk/bad troll/ instigate and gosh i could go on what you can do as Aliaser, and the definitive solution is not to have an Admin present all the time because you know thats highly unlikely, but you need to prevent these kind of players behavior and punish them as the situation demands it, and perhaps we have been way too soft on these people that are continuously damaging this awesome community with them going from server to server tking ppl, making others RQ cause of the harrasment or as i said tking intentionally. (if the id system is not workable which idk why it wouldnt be, then i would require a new suggestion for this issue but you cannot keep ignore the community and letting it be the way it is just because "theres nothing that we can do about it" as bober always told me which is something i never came to an agreement, REGULATIONS PLEASE??? )

5- Quality over quantity: im a HUGE fan of FA and i´ll love to see more content for this awesome mode, FA is so under valuated, so under appreciated, mostly because of certain people/community in this game, it needs attention and FIX, which btw the previous patch broke the taunts over FA with "take dat aka the taunt place holder" and this patch didnt even fixed it, but moving on from FA we need new modes, more maps but in quality basis not just lets make more but broken and in the end ppl dont even play it because it wasnt a success due to its lack of quality (alderaan, scarif, dxun) although i love dxun but this is my personal opinion, also when something is fine why fix it? (dotf : ive never liked this map but now is worse lol, smuggler: i loved smuggler before the *revamp* now is not bad but i still prefer the old one and again personal opinion on this one, lunarbase: goddamit now its awful, having crates all over making it sniperfest yay.)

and on a small note: there is a problem with 24/7 servers, they are promoting the lack of knowledge of different maps by only setting dotf/DS, and you can argue that with : bu bu bu bu there are other servers that have rotation and rtv system, sure sure but how do you get them to play when no one promotes them and they are always empty or with a handful amount of players from 5 to 10 max????? there needs to be a change of diretion with this, how else are you gonna make ppl enjoy different maps? no wonder i keep finding players that didnt even knew other maps existed... oh and thats not the only problem, when these servers start to have less players from time to time ive seen clan members from these servers to hop on the other open servers that has rotation/rtv system and start tking making ppl rq to go back to their own 24/7 server again another issue on the community situation.

i could go on with so many things but i believe this are one of the important aspects that require attention right away.

would you agree with me ? perhaps and perhaps not but i had to say my piece and i have, see you in game

 

[Stassin]

Let me make myself clear. Such comments are not remotely acceptable. You have the right to criticize but not wish harm on or threaten anyone.

It's just harmless trolling really. These people have no actual info about what's going on and simply need a scapegoat for any issue they have.

 

[a puppy]

Let me make myself clear. Such comments are not remotely acceptable. You have the right to criticize but not wish harm on or threaten anyone.

So it's ok for the original poster to say it but not for him? :/

I agree, although the senate idea sounds a bit dreamy.

Also inb4 JuST gIt GuD lOl, aDaPt tO cHanGe!!1!
I already got used to 1.5 and last longer in duels, doesn't mean I have to like it. Lot of changes are stupid and were uncalled for. I still think it's thrash.

Btw I think we need several gassi- BANNED

 

[Defiant]

So it's ok for the original poster to say it but not for him? :/

No. Lessen quoted someone else, and his proposal is not to 'Gas Stassin'. Apparently it was Kimmy's idea. If Kimmy makes such a suggestion on any official MB2 communications channel he will promptly receive an arse kicking of epic proportions.

 

[a puppy]

No. Lessen quoted someone else, and his proposal is not to 'Gas Stassin'. Apparently it was Kimmy's idea. If Kimmy makes such a suggestion on any official MB2 communications channel he will promptly receive an arse kicking of epic proportions.

2 things:
1. it's on the fucking title. "Gas Stassin: a model proposal"
2. He said "I agree without even reading 'gas stassin'". So it's also a quote.

Apparently you can make a statement like that in a title, but if it's in red and a big font oh boy.
Yeah, that's how good your judgement is, guys. This is one of the most incompetent dev teams I've seen.

And adding to my comment, nothing of this will matter because things won't change, only the opinion of a few will still matter

 

[Defiant]

1. it's on the fucking title. "Gas Stassin: a model proposal"

Read his actual proposal rather than jumping to conclusions. Believe me I came in here ready to swing the ban hammer but lessen is in fact advocating something sensible (albeit something that is probably impractical) rather than murder for the heinous crime of trying to make a game people make.

Yeah, that's how good your judgement is, guys. This is one of the most incompetent dev teams I've seen.

Feel free to start your own JKA mod and do better. Here i'll link you to the SDK code. See you in 15 years. Jedi Academy Public SDK - JKHub

 

[a puppy]

Read his actual proposal rather than jumping to conclusions. Believe me I came in here ready to swing the ban hammer but lessen is in fact advocating something sensible (albeit something that is probably impractical) rather than murder for the heinous crime of trying to make a game people make.


Feel free to start your own JKA mod and do better. Here i'll link you to the SDK code. See you in 15 years. Jedi Academy Public SDK - JKHub

I read the entire thing, I didn't jump into conclusions. That guy's comment is still a quote.
Yeah, it's easier to tell others to do something better rather than listening and improving

 

[Lessen]

Read his actual proposal rather than jumping to conclusions. Believe me I came in here ready to swing the ban hammer but lessen is in fact advocating something sensible (albeit something that is probably impractical) rather than murder for the heinous crime of trying to make a game people make.


Feel free to start your own JKA mod and do better. Here i'll link you to the SDK code. See you in 15 years. Jedi Academy Public SDK - JKHub

Just to clarify the title, @DaloLorn had it right in saying I was going for clickbait. The subtext of my suggestion is that people like Stassin currently have disproportionate influence, so the title is technically related to the actual idea, but it's mostly just clickbait to get people who care about the whole topic in general to get in here and discuss.

Arguably, I AM saying "gas stassin," so perhaps I deserve an infraction too, but all I mean by it is "I think Stassin is a problem." I'm not literally advocating for harming Stassin. It's a meem. It's extremely tongue-in-cheek.

I'm not sure if I came up with the phrase "gas stassin" or if I was parroting someone else. I think a tR guy on Discord has been saying "delete stassin," and I had him in mind. KimmyMarin did not actually say anything about literally gassing/harming the dev team; rather, she said that the whole dev team (or most of it) should be replaced with a new dev team. I spoke too loosely.

I understand if people think the exact Senate idea is impractical. I think it could work if the devs had some commitment to go along with what the Senate votes on, and if the Senates votes are public, and if the community can boot senators in some way (or if term limits are short enough that the Senate changes hands relatively frequently, to stay in tune with the whims of the community.)

But even if the Senate idea is ultimately discarded, I think this was worth it to stir discussion.

 

[a puppy]

Pack it up guys, let's get the JKA code and each one make our own mod