Petition (Or Discussion!) To Remove Or Redesign The Grineer Rollers

[MJ12]

I have Badass Idea:

-Leave rollers for those who have hands

-Other can download "special" patch for "special" people (you know what I mean)

I have a better idea.

How about everyone who doesn't like Rollers pay DE so you can get all of them?

I'd pay 9.99 to donate my Rollers to you. Even better if I can pay 19.99 to donate my Rollers to stunlock you in the login screen, preventing you from playing the game.

[GoneM4d]

I have a better idea.

How about everyone who doesn't like Rollers pay DE so you can get all of them?

I'd pay 9.99 to donate my Rollers to you. Even better if I can pay 19.99 to donate my Rollers to stunlock you in the login screen, preventing you from playing the game.

Because that will make you an adult and will completely solve the non-existing roller issue.

Edited May 13, 2013 by GoneM4d

[RealityMachina]

Because that will make you an adult and will completely solve the non-existing roller issue.

Ah yes, the non-existent roller issue. So non-existent that out of nearly 1000 people the wikia poll currently has 85% in favour of some kind of changes happening to the rollers.

 

Unless you want to make Willian of Ockham roll in his grave some more, please stop with this bullS#&$.

[MJ12]

Because that will make you an adult and will completely solve the non-existing roller issue.

 

Oh, it will. I mean guys like you and Nedwin think Rollers are fine and fun to fight and challenging and cool. So clearly you want more of them. Meanwhile guys like me and RealityMachina think Rollers are unfun sources of fake difficulty which need to die in a fire. So if I'm allowed to pay money to give you guys my Rollers, everyone wins. You guys have more fun with Rollers, while I don't have to deal with them and everyone is happy.

 

It'd also make DE tons of money.

 

Or are you implying that perhaps you wouldn't have fun if triple or quadruple the number of Rollers spawned? If so, maybe you should reconsider your impassioned defense of them, because I know for certain that if I got triple or quadruple the number of, say, Grineer Marines spawning the game wouldn't exactly be less fun.

[Doots]

I would at least like to be able to hit them without having to be the host. They may as well be immune to bullets if there is any lag at all.

[GoneM4d]

Oh, it will. I mean guys like you and Nedwin think Rollers are fine and fun to fight and challenging and cool. So clearly you want more of them. Meanwhile guys like me and RealityMachina think Rollers are unfun sources of fake difficulty which need to die in a fire. So if I'm allowed to pay money to give you guys my Rollers, everyone wins. You guys have more fun with Rollers, while I don't have to deal with them and everyone is happy.

 

It'd also make DE tons of money.

 

Or are you implying that perhaps you wouldn't have fun if triple or quadruple the number of Rollers spawned? If so, maybe you should reconsider your impassioned defense of them, because I know for certain that if I got triple or quadruple the number of, say, Grineer Marines spawning the game wouldn't exactly be less fun.

 

Spamming more rollers is not fun because you can jsut use a nuke warfame to deal with them. At least come up with something a tad more creative

I would at least like to be able to hit them without having to be the host. They may as well be immune to bullets if there is any lag at all.

 

The Hosing is a whole another issue that needs to be solving. Not everyone has a good internet I made a post not to long ago suggestion to have Hosting available where instead of always having to connect to other games you can start hosting for other players.

Ah yes, the non-existent roller issue. So non-existent that out of nearly 1000 people the wikia poll currently has 85% in favour of some kind of changes happening to the rollers.

 

Unless you want to make Willian of Ockham roll in his grave some more, please stop with this bullS#&$.

1000 people out of a 1000000. That's not a lot. If there were something like 50-100k then I would reconsider.

[MJ12]

Spamming more rollers is not fun because you can jsut use a nuke warfame to deal with them. At least come up with something a tad more creative

 

Why would I? The point is that if you want to defend lazy game design you should reap what you sow.

 

1000 people out of a 1000000. That's not a lot. If there were something like 50-100k then I would reconsider.

 

Do you know... anything about polling? You can get very accurate polls with a sample of 500 people. Now, someone who knows a bit more statistics than you do will go "the poll is useless because it's biased!" And they'd be half right. It's biased, but it's not useless. It's biased towards people who routinely browse wikis for games (i.e. more invested players) who pay attention to these things (more invested players), and more player investment correlates with player skill. If only people who don't know how to play are annoyed by Rollers, as your side so kindly asserts, this would mean that any bias would be in favor of keeping Rollers the same. So we'll say the +/-5% margin of error or so actually tilts in favor of 'changing/removing Rollers'. Even if we don't it's clearly a massive issue.

[GoneM4d]

How about this, to end this argument. Propose to DE to have a poll in general chat about Rollers. That way everyone will be happy and we will know for sure.

[MoonicusMaximus]

Why would I? The point is that if you want to defend lazy game design you should reap what you sow.

 

 

 

Do you know... anything about polling? You can get very accurate polls with a sample of 500 people. Now, someone who knows a bit more statistics than you do will go "the poll is useless because it's biased!" And they'd be half right. It's biased, but it's not useless. It's biased towards people who routinely browse wikis for games (i.e. more invested players) who pay attention to these things (more invested players), and more player investment correlates with player skill. If only people who don't know how to play are annoyed by Rollers, as your side so kindly asserts, this would mean that any bias would be in favor of keeping Rollers the same. So we'll say the +/-5% margin of error or so actually tilts in favor of 'changing/removing Rollers'. Even if we don't it's clearly a massive issue.

 

I'd be inclined to agree, but 1,000 out of a potential 1,000,000 (possibly even more, the article which the million was reported from was a couple months ago) is less than 1% of the playerbase opinion. I'd be more inclined to consider it more valid if it were 10%, even 5%. But a .1% sample? There's just too far a margin for error and change, even if the current sample seems to follow a trend. You can only speculate with the numbers we have currently.

 

But those ~800 people who voted Yes aren't wrong, Rollers do need some changes. I used to think otherwise, but after hearing the arguments, I've been inclined to take a step back and reexamine the situation, and I agree with what people like Tsukinoki and Andy have been trying to get across. Rollers could be more fun and less frustrating.

Edited May 13, 2013 by MoonicusMaximus

[Tsukinoki]

@MoonicusMaximus
And as has been mentioned before DE doesn't even need to change the units directly to achieve that goal.  Fix the stun mechanic and everyone would be good.

No need to retool the units individually, just add a small buff that occurs when you are stunned that subracts a duration from any following stuns and it expires in a few seconds.  Have each stun add to that buff and reset its timer until you are 100% immune to stuns at which point the buff can no longer be stacked or extended as the stun can no longer occur.

If DE can make that apply to both enemy generated stuns as well as player generated stuns the entire problem with stunlocking will disappear.

People who don't get stunlocked wont notice anything different.
People who have been or are just unlucky will.

@GoneM4d
Please tell me how my suggestion would negatively impact you in any way or how you would even notice such a change without being informed directly.

Edited May 13, 2013 by Tsukinoki

[MJ12]

I'd be inclined to agree, but 1,000 out of a potential 1,000,000 (possibly even more, the article which the million was reported from was a couple months ago) is less than 1% of the playerbase opinion. I'd be more inclined to consider it more valid if it were 10%, even 5%. But a .1% sample? There's just too far a margin for error and change, even if the current sample seems to follow a trend. You can only speculate with the numbers we have currently.

 

But those ~800 people who voted Yes aren't wrong, Rollers do need some changes. I used to think otherwise, but after hearing the arguments, I've been inclined to take a step back and agree with what people like Tsukinoki and Andy have been trying to get across. Rollers could be more fun and less frustrating.

 

http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/Soc_participants.shtml

 

1,000 out of a potential 1 billion is more than sufficient. Please learn basic polling statistics, because most polls that are used and accurately predict far more important things run on 500-1000 respondents. I can do more than 'speculate' with the numbers we have currently, they're fairly definitive, especially since any and all bias from the setup would be against people who dislike Rollers, not towards them.

[GoneM4d]

@Tsukinoki

At this moment if I see a roller I get focused and try to kill those buggers fast before they screw me or any of my teamates fist. But if your patch ever gets kicked in I would be more like ''meh ill just tank em''

[Tsukinoki]

@GoneM4d
Its not like my patch would make them a complete non-issue.  It would just prevent an infinite stunlock from occuring on either side.  And you just said that it wouldn't really affect you, and I honestly doubt that you would notice in gameplay that the diminishing returns had been added in, unless you try to stunlock an ancient or boss.

So why be so against something that you would never notice and wouldn't really affect you?

[GoneM4d]

@GoneM4d

Its not like my patch would make them a complete non-issue.  It would just prevent an infinite stunlock from occuring on either side.  And you just said that it wouldn't really affect you, and I honestly doubt that you would notice in gameplay that the diminishing returns had been added in, unless you try to stunlock an ancient or boss.

So why be so against something that you would never notice and wouldn't really affect you?

Stunlock is an awesome feature. It's sort of a double edged sword. If you remove it I won't have to worry about rollers anymore which is a bad things. It's good when a game has something that makes you flip your S#&$. It's good because it makes me more caution and more attentive to details. Also try beating bosses on which you ran out of ammo on without stunlock, not that fun most of them can just 4hit you.

[MJ12]

Stunlock is an awesome feature. It's sort of a double edged sword. If you remove it I won't have to worry about rollers anymore which is a bad things. It's good when a game has something that makes you flip your S#&$. It's good because it makes me more caution and more attentive to details. Also try beating bosses on which you ran out of ammo on without stunlock, not that fun most of them can just 4hit you.

 

You know what else makes people cautious and more attentive to detail?

 

Instant kill attacks.

 

Clearly this means Rollers should instantly kill you if they so much as bump into your ankle.

 

Or hell, real life consequences.

 

Every time Rollers hit you you should lose 1 Platinum. That'd make them so fun to fight.

Edited May 13, 2013 by MJ12

[Tsukinoki]

@GoneM4d
There are ammo boxes for a reason.  Maybe without the option to cheese bosses then they would have more uses.  Most bosses can be taken care of without the risk of running out of ammo, short of you bringing the paris/snipertron to fight them solo.  That point of running out of ammo is something of the players fault.  A potential fix is to have respawning ammo similar to fighting Jackal, but that is a discussion for a different thread.

And you would still have to worry about rollers if they have the option to stun you for around 5 seconds at the most.  It all depends on how DE balances the stun buff.  Being staggered for around 5 seconds while under fire keeps them pretty dangerous.  But it makes it so that you will always have a chance to get away.

I'm firmly in the camp that stunlocking is a bad thing, either player caused or mob caused.  Its bad when mobs can do it because it can lead to a death cycle without a chance of getting out of it.  Its bad when players can do it because it allows them to trivialize tough encounters.

@MJ12
There really is no point in purposefully trying to antagonize other people on the forums.  Please try to handle this in a civil manner as I don't want the thread to devolve into another flame war.

Edited May 13, 2013 by Tsukinoki

[MoonicusMaximus]

http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/Soc_participants.shtml

 

1,000 out of a potential 1 billion is more than sufficient. Please learn basic polling statistics, because most polls that are used and accurately predict far more important things run on 500-1000 respondents. I can do more than 'speculate' with the numbers we have currently, they're fairly definitive, especially since any and all bias from the setup would be against people who dislike Rollers, not towards them.

 

In this circumstance, it's speculation at best. There are too many variables, and the poll is flawed from the start by lumping two vastly different outcomes into a single answer rather than separating them. How are you sure that the rest of the playerbase don't actually like Rollers, as farfetched the idea is? You literally can't be sure, not with a .1% sample size of player opinion. We can speculate the outcome, we can make good guesses about it, but there's no fact-for-fact answer for the opinion of the entire playerbase until fairer majority of that playerbase participates.

[AndryB94]

This is very rapidly degenerating....

@Moonicus, according to statistics, we have an "idea" of the trend with a small sample. If the sample increases but the trend stays the same, there are very few things that would hint towards the voting being false or biased.

Edited May 13, 2013 by AndryB94

[ValhaHazred]

Well it's one guy backed into a corner by half a dozen people with better arguments than him. Of course he is getting het up.

[MJ12]

In this circumstance, it's speculation at best. There are too many variables, and the poll is flawed from the start by lumping two vastly different outcomes into a single answer rather than separating them. How are you sure that the rest of the playerbase don't actually like Rollers, as farfetched the idea is? You literally can't be sure, not with a .1% sample size of player opinion. We can speculate the outcome, we can make good guesses about it, but there's no fact-for-fact answer for the opinion of the entire playerbase until fairer majority of that playerbase participates.

 

Um, what? This criticism could be leveled at any polling system. Meanwhile, fivethirtyeight managed to successfully predict the outcomes of almost every single election, congressional and presidential, that it was used in. Yes, there's a small percentage chance of the poll being utterly wrong. That doesn't mean it should be discounted. For all you know your game is a special copy which is bugged to have 1/10th speed Rollers. That's literally the kind of speculation you're engaging in.

 

Basically, the sample size is fairly large, the confounding variables would all point to a bias against 'changing or removing Rollers', and the idea that it combines two outcomes into a single answer makes it worthless is silly at best.

Edited May 13, 2013 by MJ12

[GoneM4d]

Well it's one guy backed into a corner by half a dozen people with better arguments than him. Of course he is getting het up.

Who are you talking about, I'm too tired to get it.

[PositronicSpleen]

There's no way I'm reading 19 pages about Grineers' balls, and I doubt the developers will want to either, so I'm just going to post as if we're still on the first page.

 

 

The cost of  being hit by a ball is disproportionately high.

 

You get stunned, take damage, other enemies attack you, and you're in a worse position to defend against the ball that stunned you in the first place. This is made worse if there's more than one, since it has free reign to stun you at any time in this process.

 

 

Players are poorly-equipped to deal with this kind of enemy.

 

You can shoot balls, but the balls are designed to be hard to shoot. And if there's several balls, you probably won't squish them all by the time they reach you. You can melee them balls, sometimes, but standing attacks are completely ineffective. Sliding attacks only work if you have enough room and time to start sliding, and if your weapon has the right reach/animation to hit them at all; if the balls get close, sliding is out of the question. A falling attack could work, except you have to be very accurate to hit these small and fast balls, and the balls can still knock you out of the air, negating the momentum of a massive space hammer. All that is left are AOE powers, which aren't always available; balls are a common enough that one cannot just blast everything every time one sees some balls.

 

 

Dealing with them is not a matter of skill, and it's not interesting either. Escaping stunlock depends entirely on how the balls are feeling that day, and sufficiently high level enemies can murder you by that time. Being ambushed by balls is potentially worse than an ancient disruptor, at least then you could roll away or something.

 

 

The things I think they need to fix (some have been mentioned already):

1. Stun Mechanic: Just like enemies can't be stunlocked, neither should players.

2. Melee Mechanic: Standing melee attacks should be able to hit balls. Falling melee attacks should not be interrupted by balls. All sliding attacks should be able to hit balls.

3. Momentum Mechanic: Balls should only do damage when they're actually attacking. They should only be able to attack when they have enough speed for the animation to make sense. The speed should not be magical, it should be possible for the player to predict when it will happen; balls must accelerate in a straight line to attack, and turning should slow them down in relation to how tight they turn.

 

------------------------

 

As an aside, as someone who regularly uses statistical analyses at my job, this thread makes me depressed. MJ12 is correct, and personal intuitions about sample size will not change the math. Sample sizes are supposed to be small.

Edited May 13, 2013 by PositronicSpleen

[Emotitron]

When the game desperately needs more content... asking for content to be removed?

I personally like the roller balls, they are annoying and unique compared to other mobs. If they were in every mission sure they would get annoying, but they are only in certain missions and the serve a purpose - they keep players off balance.

[GoneM4d]

When the game desperately needs more content... asking for content to be removed?

I personally like the roller balls, they are annoying and unique compared to other mobs. If they were in every mission sure they would get annoying, but they are only in certain missions and the serve a purpose - they keep players off balance.

Finally a same person in this thread.

[Tsukinoki]

@PositronicSpleen
Thank you for trying to re-focus everything back onto the topic at hand.

Now one thing I would like to point out is you say for your first point:
"just like enemies can't be stunlocked, neither should players"
The actual fact is that enemies can be stunlocked, notably some bosses and infested ancients.

I'm of the belief that stunlock on either side is not good for overall gameplay and should not be possible for either players or mobs to achieve.  This prevents players from trivializing high level encounters while also preventing enemies from being overly frustrating.

I would like to see all three of those suggestions make it into the game, but the one that I mostly want to see is fixing of the stun mecanics to prevent infinite stunlocking.

@GoneM4d and @Emotitron
*most* of the people in this thread dont want them to be removed.  They want the mechanics that use/abuse fixed.  Vastly different.  Please try to read some of the posts.

Edited May 13, 2013 by Tsukinoki