Lancer, From the Ground Floor

[deft pasture]

I've been debating just how I would write out my feelings regarding the state of the game and the community for some time now. I'm not anyone special, with no following, or projects. But, ironically enough, I feel like that my lack of status makes the concerns I want to express all the more important, as it means that I'm at the same position as a vast majority of Lancer's fanbase. I want to preface everything I am going to say here by first stating that I am in no way making this post in ill will, nor am I really giving the breathing room to each of these concerns as they would normally warrant. I'd rather keep things as short as I can, and I don't think I could properly address everything while still maintaining both the attention and good faith of readers. I am not attempting to be inflammatory but I want to be able to voice these concerns; if for no other reason than in the hope that in doing so I might find some solidarity in a community with those who may feel the same.

I do not like where the Lancer Community is right now, as I think the community is suffering with a multitude of problems, especially regarding the perception of the balance of the system and the expectation and entitlement regarding not only giving criticism but receiving it. In fact, I think that the community is currently struggling with criticism to such a degree that I'm not even sure that this topic won't be seen as a form of hostility.

Problems with criticism in the community aren't as simple as people failing at basic communication, but it's also an entitled expectation from many that content should warp to better appeal to their own interest. I wish I could say that this was the extent of the problem; that it could be easily solved with people learning the "Sandwich Method of Critique" or learning to understand that not everything is made explicitly to cater to them. Unfortunately, I think this entitlement issue is the smallest of the problems.

The greater issue is what is allowed to be criticized in the first place, which directly feeds into the aforementioned balance concerns across both Homebrewed and official content. Whether criticism is seen as valid feels entirely like a popularity contest, with less widespread/anticipated content being in permanent open season for the most critical breakdowns, while content with a large backing is seemingly beyond reproach.

In the months since Dustgrave's release I've been a part of a lot of conversations in various community spaces regarding the content, but I've noticed that it always falls short of actually passing judgment on that content unless it's unequivocal praise. And the few times that those conversations have progressed to criticism, those conversations have always ended with what feels like half measured excuses as to why something potentially problematic is probably okay, or more commonly than I care for, with the person doing the criticism being harangued for it.

I can't help but feel like the toxic response to criticism of well regarded material feeds into the exacerbation of the communities problem with criticism. And all of that feeds into the problem regarding the communities general understanding of the balance of the system. Why can't I talk about the problems with Dustgrave without being verbally assaulted or treated like I'm attacking the material? To be very open, I don't think Dustgrave is well written. Both literally and mechanically. But as official content it has a palpable effect on the understanding of the balance of the system.

Dustgrave has pushed the Meta of Lancer even more towards Strikers, Artillery, CQB/Cannon weapons, and Superheavies. Almost all of its player side content expands those options while neglecting others. But it doesn't do this in a balanced way. Unlike the other two Superheavy Melee options, the Tempest has neither a setup downtime like the D/D or a potential heat cost like the Combat Drill, and it has no LL Cost. I've seen people quick to say that LL doesn't matter, but if that was true then Long Rim wouldn't make a distinction in the value between ranks of a license in regards to Manna.

The Störtebeker and Viceroy are equally problematic. Neither are really made to take advantage of their Licenses, with the Stört's Active Reload frame trait being bogged down with unnecessary stipulations and an activation that quite literally only works with one non-exotic melee weapon in the base game. A weapon that isn't even on the Raleigh's License. And the Vice has been explicitly commented as having been made with the perspective that "no one uses" the Monarch's Stabilizer, Pinaka, or Tlaloc.

I’m not here to pick on Dustgrave, but I don't think such concerns are invalid or entitled criticism. It's a real failure of the content to engage with the system on a mechanical level. And that failure to engage with what has been preestablished by Lancer runs through even on a narrative level. And, from what I’ve seen of Siren’s Song, it’s not much better. Now, let me be the first to say that I don’t believe in the badgering or insulting of content creators; as mentioned earlier, I think it’s a major issue that especially plagues smaller releases. But it is frustrating to those mindful of the state of balance and narrative of Lancer to have official content released or expected to release from creators so openly dismissive of Lancer’s mechanics, balance, and/or established narrative. If there's any oversight, then all the quality control seems to be self imposed by the creators themselves as opposed to being done by anyone at Massif. And Release Feedback forums are a false sense of power; regardless of how good a point is, it’s the creators discretion to ignore you.

Is it wrong to desire the contemporary content being released to live up to the expectation in quality of previous expansions? And if not, what is the proper response against content creators making official content with seemingly no oversight who flippantly dismiss concern regarding the precedents they set? Or the community members who will harangue you for your concerns until you’re silenced without thinking critically about the content they’re defending. The easy answer, and one that I have been told often, is that if I do not like the direction the balance of the game is heading, then I can leave. But if I want Lancer, where do I go when the community is no longer welcoming?

What I want is a space where criticism can be shared respectfully and without fear of being verbally assaulted by a cult of personality. An apparent modest proposal in fandom spaces. I know that for the time being we aren’t getting the Aunic or Harrison Armory expansions. Nor are we getting No Room Part 2. But that doesn’t mean that I think we should defend what is released on principle. I can admit; I don’t know how to end this. I’m not telling anyone they shouldn’t like Dustgrave or Siren’s Song if they do. Just that I personally have hang ups with them. I’m expecting to hear a lot more of “If you don’t like it, leave”. But maybe, hopefully, what I've said might resonate with some in the community. Even if nothing changes, there might be some comfort in knowing that you aren’t alone in your concerns with the state of the game. Maybe it'll get that much easier to speak freely and openly. Maybe not.

Ultimately, the thing that I want more than anything else is for the third party content creator official expansions being released for Lancer to reach the quality mark of what came before. Solstice Reign mostly does so, even with its somewhat narratively weak campaign. Dustgrave struggles with the idea that NHPs, who are "Shackled" paracasual entities, aren't serving willingly, among other things. And Siren Song seems to have more interests in its campaign than its balance outside of how it reinforces the narrative. I've heard that Ms. Stark is getting a shot at content, and while I hope it's good (because ultimately, I want good content), Legionnaire's focus on narrative elements and weak mechanical content leads me to expect some of the same qualms I have with Siren. Again, I want Lancer to be great, but also, this wave of Community Content Creator expansions feels motivated by the popularity of the creator first and foremost. It makes sense; as a popular, household name equals sales. But the approach has left something to be desired elsewhere.

[knotty steeple]

did you seriously come here to start a thread that boils down to "I don't like the new releases and I think this is a community problem?"

And if not, what is the proper response against content creators making official content with seemingly no oversight who flippantly dismiss concern regarding the precedents they set? I have some bad news for you regarding "no oversight" because that's not actually true

like, at all

also, a lot of this doesn't seem to be any sort of substantial criticism or critique so much as a weird attempt to nail some theses on the door while also casting yourself as in a position of being persecuted for disliking some tabletop RPG material and I dunno what to tell you there except that A). I think you may be projecting a lot of personal grievances into a broader community issue that doesn't exist and B). you're entitled to your own opinion but a big essay that boils down to "I think the new stuff sucks and I wish I had a platform where people would listen to me talk about that" while suggesting anyone who disputes this is a cult of personality doesn't strike me as the winningest strategy, imo

also yes sorry to say the solution to "I think this content isn't up to my personal standards" is to just not use it and make it clear at your table that you don't want to use it

[nova sleet]

I can't speak to elsewhere, but criticism is often invited here, with spaces specifically dedicated to receiving it for fairly long periods of time. Being critical doesn't shield you from people having valid disagreements or their own opinions regarding the matter, and they are also perfectly free to voice them in most arenas where feedback and criticism are going to be invited.

[knotty steeple]

I can say with almost complete certainty that nothing lancer first party related received more criticism and feedback than dustgrave, but the thing people do not always seem to get is that critique doesn't work on some sort of popularity contest style metric where if you stuff enough ballots then you can veto something out of existence because you dislike it

[nova sleet]

heck, there aren't that many spaces like pilotnet where the actual creators of content are so accessible to discuss their content with; which is its own discussion

[knotty steeple]

and I will be blunt, there ISN'T really going to be a lot of room for "my critique is this thing should be un-made"

that's just a non-starter unless something is truly heinous or repugnant and not "I think these mechs aren't well designed enough"

[nova sleet]

Well, at a ground level, its not a productive criticism imo, and a weird take for something that has always been a voluntary involvement

"I don't like this" is valid, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't substantiate adjusting everything to suit that

[knotty steeple]

It's valid, it's also not a community issue

[nova sleet]

100%

[knotty steeple]

lancer is not a gameline whose state is languishing and people are simply too cowed by Big Massif to speak their minds or whatever

[nova sleet]

I dont know if im also reading into things more than I should; but also, there's a level of "If you're willing to provide direct criticism, you should probably be prepared to be responded to in spaces where you can do so, and not everyone will agree with you"

[long hemlock]

At the end of the day, when you give feedback here you are giving it to someone's project, not your own project.
No matter how much feedback is given, the product is never yours, you do not end up as having a say in what the authorial intent of a given product should be, that's always left to the person that makes said thing.

[knotty steeple]

also I'm going to be real, in addition to everything else you said which is imo overwrought self-indulgent nonsense, it's pretty shitty to use this as an opportunity to take a preemptive swipe at kat by going "well based on her third-party work I don't have high hopes"

like I'm beginning to formulate an idea of why you in particular might feel like lancer communities have been less than receptive to your ideas

[fallen osprey]

(for the record if you have issues with Legionnaire I'm actually more than happy to discuss them if you want to direct them to the appropriate thread, I consider all feedback useful but I'm not psychic)

[nova sleet]

There is absolutely a level of, and im trying to figure out how to phrase this correctly, but there are places here to discuss criticisms about every named content release in the OP. There are spaces in the server even not dedicated specifically to those content releases. Those are great places to open dialogues about your thoughts on them. Not taking swipes here in a dedicated OP and diluting the point you appear to be trying to make

Which is, in and of itself, meant to be about the nature of critique in the community

and for the record, people disagreeing with a point made in a critique is not a "cult of personality"

[long hemlock]

Feedback is always allowed when something is flux, to give data, how much of it is acted on is up to its creator, the problem is that no feedback can be treated as absolute truth nor should it be framed as such, that's what people often try their best to avoid here

"In play I found this to be a bit too strong" is a very different type of feedback compared to "this is too strong, remove it/nerf it"

and the first was always what has been encouraged here compared to the second.
Feedback is not a type of customer service, you cannot treat content creators like fast food workers from which you are ordering balance changes from

[knotty steeple]

Also I'll be honest, it's kind of weird that you came here to post this big essay on how there's a rampant quality control failure going on at the lancer factory and these are also your only posts here, instead of there being any feedback from you back when those supplements were in the feedback-taking stage instead of 2/3rds of them being done and dusted and one of them on the track to publication

[nova sleet]

There were effectively months of review period, open play test invited, and feedback requested.

Heck, even post release feedback is largely accepted despite not being in a a review and change state.

Critique is the tempering step of any creative work, and is essential. What it's not is the creation of content by committee. A creator evaluates the worth of incoming critique, ultimately.

Considering the post is about the integrity of critique, I don't feel out of line for saying that OP should know this, and that the sandwich method is like... a starting line, a guide to the concept of providing productive and constructive critique.

It's difficult to meet OP in the middle when it feels like the sentiment expressed is compromised by the rest of the post.

[knotty steeple]

Mentioning homebrew here as well is also extremely out of pocket imo, because even if we assume there's some nebulous "community standard" not being lived up to (which I do not believe to be the case), homebrew creators are under no obligation to abide by anything of the sort if they don't feel like it, it's their own projects being worked on in their own time

[sweet crest]

They did only show up like. 2 days ago?

[knotty steeple]

yeah that's my point, for someone whose whole deal is being Very Concerned about how the community has simply dismissed any and all criticism of, among other things, the latest round of lancer releases, it's kind of weird that they would join after the fact to post this recriminatory essay rather than actually give feedback when the feedback was up for giving, nobody is obliged to be a card-carrying Pilotnet Member in the slightest, but if someone is going to position themselves as the advocate for lancer quality control and a speaker for the silent masses, I might have expected to see some evidence of said criticism being given earlier

because it's absolutely way too late to do anything about any of it now, among other things

[pliant veldt]

Best explanation I can muster is it’s possibly an alt account

[nova sleet]

I personally presumed it was participation in other Lancer spaces like reddit or other discords

[sweet crest]

Let’s see. I know they mentioned the TCB… D/D has the skirmish and better dmg. And that ludicrous knockback. And soft cover built in for the barrage. It is a pseudo loading I will give it that. Combat drills heat cost is also tied to more damage so I don’t think that works as an argument exactly…

[nova sleet]

We're not here to break down the specific critiques, as a note

[sweet crest]

Fair.

[split blaze]

I guess jumping off the idea of Homebrew and Critique on PNet I can't say I disagree with the idea critique [and discussions of balance] on PNet can be incredibly frustrating. Which is mostly symptomatic of Pnet just being a big server with a lot of people with a lot of opinions [and it being incredibly hard to have detailed convos about complicated topics in fast moving big servers]. I think the implication that people like strikers and like giving feedback that primarily push things further towards being strikers isn't wrong in my experience.

[split blaze]

I also assume this is an alt if this is an alt

[knotty steeple]

The third party forum, which anyone can start a channel in, has been extremely helpful in consolidating critique for specific projects into a more usable and useful format while cutting down on a lot of the cross talk

[split blaze]

[Also just to say it isn't bad people like Strikers I just think it's worth noting that not everyone can be aware of their 'playstyle bias' that might come into effect. A someone who's played a lot of Support and controllers it feels obvious to me when feedback is coming from a Striker mindset]

[knotty steeple]

as far as "big popular homebrew projects are seen as beyond reproach," as someone with a big homebrew project to their name I can definitively say to this: lol, lmao, yeah right

[split blaze]

Also yeah the Third Party Forum is nice and keeps things organized, I use it for my HB constantly though I wont say it's increased the quality of feedback just the ease of addressing it. [Though I am thinking of very specific interactions, Im not sure they'd really reflect on the HB community broadly because I dont think I've really had the chance to interact with the HB community 'broadly' outside of the Homebrew-Design Battle Royale]

[knotty steeple]

What I can also say from personal experience is that some people do not like being told "sorry, I'm not going to do this thing you have said I should do" and will treat that as ignoring or brushing off critique, but that is the right of any writer or designer to do, as eld and stormtalus have very correctly laid out. Giving feedback does not give you a share in the design of something, it's not a customer relationship or a service counter

[nova sleet]

I thin also its worth remembering that most people are not trained to construct and offer critiques. (Nor should they necessarily be, mind). Often times there's an extra interpretive step to extract sentiment on the creator side

[split blaze]

And Release Feedback forums are a false sense of power; regardless of how good a point is, it’s the creators discretion to ignore you.

I guess that's what this point begins to broach on.

[nova sleet]

"Has something productive or constructive that I can use been said here?' That kind of thing

[copper quail]

It's also up to the designer to decide how good a point a thing is to tbf

[knotty steeple]

yeah that's every form of feedback

if they have an issue with that then they have to have an issue with the very concept of "giving feedback on a thing you aren't being paid for like a professional editor or whatever"

[long hemlock]

Who decides what "is a good point" is my main question about that

[knotty steeple]

back in the beforetimes I remember giving tom a ton of feedback on lancer while it was in development, about 99% of it got ignored

that's not a bad thing

it's just the way it works

[long hemlock]

A person who gives feedback does not get to decide their point is good enough that it cannot be ignored at all

[knotty steeple]

I didn't decide to go "wow, I can't believe all my feedback got ignored" because it's not my project and I'm not the arbiter of what is and isn't worth being heeded when I'm looking over someone else's shoulder going "you should tighten up the graphics on level 3"

[pliant veldt]

I will say that I think the Lancer community tends towards a lot more community playtesting, especially for official content. I don’t think that’s usually the case. Maybe it does get mostly ignored but there’s a feel that the community has (or should have) more of a say in the end results.

That said, I’m with Eld and Kai and Storm that, in actuality, the person(s) with the final say is the actual author + publisher. It’s their piece and their final choice

[knotty steeple]

lancer has had very active open playtesting and lots of drafts and yeah, there's been a big community that's grown around that for sure

[split blaze]

I keep reading this and I feel like the question of 'Can authors reject feedback' seems to be less the issue as much as 'What feedback do authors accept'. Which I think is interesting - because I definitely tend towards accepting feedback less and less from Pnet and more from my own West March community. I have to wonder if I've created an insular environment that makes it difficult for me to improve on what I have?

[long hemlock]

As a person who designed the maps for Solstice Rain, my perspective on feedback is this:
I appreciate feedback, especially if it comes from play experience, I always consider the data
What I end up doing with said data is however, up to me, the playtesters do not get to decide that, even if I sometimes agree with them, the decision is always on my end, not on theirs to tell me how to do my thing

[knotty steeple]

but even back when this server was like a few hundred people and tom was posting like lancer 1.4 draft stuff there was never at any point the impression that it was going to be a game by committee

[copper quail]

I think that's valid imo, as long as you're aware of it. Sometimes it's better to have a relabile testing group to work with who are on the same page as you compared to anyone you don't know

[knotty steeple]

I don't know that there is a single clear-cut answer to give here and it may be something that varies too much from artist to artist to pin down

[split blaze]

Which means if this convo were to progress we'd have to talk about specific creators - which is dangerous territory

[knotty steeple]

by and large the only real even halfway sort of enforced community feedback standard that this server has adopted, and I can't even remember if it's enshrined as a rule anywhere or not, is "playtest feedback is generally preferred over I Read It And Have Some Thoughts feedback"

[long hemlock]

I think there's another thing to consider here

[nova sleet]

I mean, the question of whom you are creating content for becomes relevant. If your target audience is largely within a community, it makes sense to favor their feedback

[knotty steeple]

I mean I'll be real here, this whole thing started off basically being "I think the stuff made by these three authors in particular is dragging lancer down"

[copper quail]

Assuming you're making it for an audience

[long hemlock]

Massif decided to contact different folks for the modules in part because they approach it with their own unique approach to Lancer

[knotty steeple]

we're already at the point of talking about specific creators

that ship sailed from the outset

[spark mortar]

Four authors! They weren't happy with Kat's 3rd party stuff as you pointed out.

[long hemlock]

Different Authors bring in different perspective to how they approach this system, that is the point

[split blaze]

So - do we want to talk about Interpoint? That feels, to me at least, like an Elephant in the room. Like, a lot of this posts vagueness feels more pointed when we just replace the blank spaces with Ralf and Interpoint

[nova sleet]

I think this is just a basic truth of most use based content and products

[long hemlock]

I actually prefer that compared to a uniform approach that has to always be respected by every author, because at that point you don't have authors you have freelancers

[prime creek]

I don't think we need to bring interpoint into this if OP doesn't

[knotty steeple]

I mean in what way do you mean "talk about Interpoint"?

[spark mortar]

I'm not really sure how Interpoint is an elephant in the room?

[knotty steeple]

like the OP did bring them into it already

or idk if not them then a big chunk of their essay is "Dustgrave pushed things towards a Big Striker meta" and it's hard to divorce that from ralf at the very least

so I would say a good amount of this already reads as a callout of sorts

[split blaze]

Like when they talk about being made to 'feel silenced' when discussing Dustgrave - or who exactly is engaging in 'toxic critique' I personally feel my mind jump to my interactions and people I knows interactions with Interpoint

[nova sleet]

To level out, I think the concept of "Lancer meta" as a whole community issue is broadly immaterial.

[spark mortar]

My understanding is there is pretty extensive oversight from Tom on the mechanics of the first party produced stuff?

[knotty steeple]

assuming this might be the case, posting something like this here isn't really useful, and also what is anyone here supposed to do about it?

pilotnet isn't the lancer police

I do not think that interpoint is an elephant in the room that needs addressing to any particular degree, if that's what's being supposed

[prime creek]

I do have a question for OP: what would the goal of more discussion of the balance of recent releases? There was lots of discussion about the Superheavy mounting, probably more than for any single piece of equipment in the core book during prerelease. The end result was the superheavy mounting being released in its current state. However you feel about it, it's not going to change at this point.
There is something of a moratorium against complaining about the rules as released (that needs a reminder about once a week in #rules-questions ), and that's because the complaints don't actually lead to useful discussions. A useful discussion could be posting possible homebrew fixes for things you don't like, which I have seen here (though not for Dustgrave/SSMR)

[dense zealot]

if this is a post that was largely about Interpoint it would be a strange and tactically unsound move to post it without context on a different discord server

[split blaze]

I really don't know - Im just trying to read between the lines because the post kinda Begs it

[rancid cypress]

banned tbh

[prime creek]

Ah ok

[knotty steeple]

(oh and also they absolutely unquestionably made it pointed when they decided to call Kat out in particular which is super shitty tbh)

[long hemlock]

So I wanna do a bit of after action mod debrief with folks here to explain why

[knotty steeple]

(just reiterating that: it sucks! don't fuckin do that!)

[zealous hornet]

As far as we can tell they joined to complain about feedback in the "community", community being other servers we dont run.
While also taking swipes at our community members, and also sneaking in feedback about how theyd like things to be.

[long hemlock]

Basically, wording problems with the community ? Like, that's fine, they weren't really out of line for trying to explain that folks didn't interact with feedback like they wanted

Was it a weird topic to bring up as a first post without giving any information on the actual problem posts they could have pointed to ? yes, but whatever

But them essentially taking aside people who made content for Lancer's first party and say they all contributed to a worse state for Lancer overall, basically doing what amounted to user callouts even going as far as naming someone who just essentially got confirmed as working on first party content and going "well i'm not hopeful for the future of lancer" sucks, actually

a lot of that post forgot that behind every first party content that came out, there is a person, and that you have to respect said person even if you don't like what they do with the system, they aren't obligated to listen to you

framing personal disagreements with modules as objective proof lancer was going downhill on optional content you do not have to buy was just the tip of the iceberg here

hopefully that helps understand why we decided on a ban

[spark mortar]

Reading it felt very much like the classic toxic fandom life cycle IMO 🤷
I like this,
I love this,
I can't control this,
I hate this

[split blaze]

Will the post remain up? I kinda wanna ruminate on the discussion more [Im a slow reader]

[knotty steeple]

I will also say as a curator, in addition to eld's explanation: all of this person's points were, as noted, extremely vague and nebulous and founded less on a principle of "I want to give critique" and more "I want to complain about what's already been done," and at no point did they ever attempt to actually post anything beyond that

No responses, no replies, no nothing

[plain finch]

Would maybe be better to just make a new forum. I do not think we wanna discuss this in the context/shadow of the original post

[long hemlock]

we are not removing the post, we may end up locking it down the line if it continues to be a problem, but we specifically try to not remove posts so people can go and see why this person got banned

[indigo inlet]

That does seem fishy

[zealous hornet]

Would be a bit counter productive to do a mod explantion of the ban in the thread then delete it, so the thread is gonna be around at least for a while

[split blaze]

Word

[knotty steeple]

So in terms of "the community doesn't want to engage with the points I'm making," they did not seem particularly invested in engaging with anything once they'd had their say, which does not strike me to be in particularly good faith

[nova sleet]

I think Kai touched on it, but it was just extremely difficult for any of the points made by the OP to be substantiated

[spark mortar]

math checks out

[long hemlock]

unless its a spambot or something blatantly offensive we do not remove posts from banned users

its part of our effort to be transparent about bans

[nova sleet]

and so, with lack of support for the points being made, the OP assumed a weird degree of personal authority that it really didn't possess

[knotty steeple]

As Eld said, them being a new user and coming here to post this is not in and of itself a red flag, it's weird but whatever, but to do so while basically taking swipes at people and then completely checking out from any sort of discussion is the real crux of the issue

[nova sleet]

As an aside "I'm unhappy because I feel like im not being listened to" is a valid position BUT its not indicative of an endemic community crisis of quality

[prime creek]

If you're going to claim to be a member of the community, you should be prepared to engage with other members

[rancid cypress]

my two cents are: you guys are absolutely lovely individuals and I appreciate you taking everything in the most iron manned position and trying to turn this into a discussion about how to do feedback better and make your own stuff better

[knotty steeple]

Nothing of any substance was made regarding the community's engagement or lack thereof with regard to feedback, and so tbh I'm doubtful any useful or productive discussion COULD have been had, but they definitely didn't seem interested in responding to anything once they dropped their essay so I don't see any other way this could have gone

[spark mortar]

I would have just presumed it was an alt account of someone wanting to nail their theses up without condequences, but apparently a member of discord since 2016?

[rancid cypress]

but as the community vibes lady who does nothing but manage community vibes, this is the worst worst kind of vibe

this is not someone who's here to participate in pilot net, it's someone here to lob some weird bomb in and wander off

[spark mortar]

Yeah that's very fair

[rancid cypress]

feel free to discuss this to your heart's content, but I don't want them around any further

[split blaze]

A vent vague post, then

[spark mortar]

High effort troll

[rancid cypress]

yeah

[knotty steeple]

Also I just kind of want to say that "if you don't like it don't use it" IS gonna be the solution to "if you don't like this piece of elfgame content" sorry

[dense zealot]

it also helps to be a member of the community, which is hard to claim when this is almost (or maybe actually?) your first post

[rancid cypress]

it's not even a troll really it's just some person with extremely strong opinions starting drama

[nova sleet]

I think its also to this communities credit that the assertion that there was some overall issue with the community was taken into account and addressed nearly immediately because it was taken seriously, despite the overall lack of substance that well, not to be on the nose, critical review revealed

[rancid cypress]

yeah if they'd been around for literally any length of time at all this would've been very different

but no they showed up here just to copy this in from google docs or whatever and then vanish

while calling people out by name

[zealous hornet]

even if they just reacted in any capacity to people replying to them

[rancid cypress]

cool, cool cool cool

[zealous hornet]

it wouldve been different

[tall mural]

First post,unless they deleted all their stuff before

[rancid cypress]

no it's their first post yeah

anyway off I go

[knotty steeple]

like idk, I have seen a lot of people tie themselves into knots over "this RPG line isn't as good as it used to be and it's eating me up inside" and frankly about the best advice I think anyone can give to anybody in a situation like that is to not be so personally invested in things to a degree that it makes you do things like post this essay

[tall mural]

o7

[zealous hornet]

nah we checked, the bot didnt catch any older stuff or any deletions (the bot isnt 100% on point with those but it does catch 90% of stuff)

[knotty steeple]

if you do not like the latest slate of lancer releases, you can continue to just use the older stuff and it's fine

people run D&D and pathfinder all the time and say "we're not using X supplement, we're not using Y races"

[spark mortar]

Also, I think Legionnaire is lovely

[spark mortar]

People still run 1st edition D&D

[plain finch]

I think if people wanna continue the general discussion that got sparked it would be good to just make a new forum and do it there instead of doing it in the shadow of this manifesto and just leave this place to rest.

[rancid cypress]

not a bad idea vero

[knotty steeple]

unless someone is posting truly heinous awful shit, the existence of supplementary RPG material you do not vibe with should not be impeding your ability to just run the game how you want to

[rancid cypress]

if anyone wants to do it go for it and link to it

depends on how invested people are in hashing this out

[knotty steeple]

yeah I'm done now, I just wanted to state that last point about "well what if I don't like the new material?"

[nova sleet]

honestly this has even been the position on the lore for years, much less the mechanical side of things.

[knotty steeple]

that is always going to be the ultimate solution if your idealized version of new lancer material does not get manifested into existence

[split blaze]

I will say I have some issue with the 'don't like don't play' response to this post only because if they have issue with certain creators being pushed then I can understand them not wanting Massiff to continue promoing those creators. PNet is undeniably a massive recruiting place for third party creator server [I advert FS-Eden here frequently] and if it turned out that my community was a toxic place [even if my content isnt] I would hope PNet wouldn't let me advert it but that is a Big Hypothetical that's disconnected from this post and more so just a thought Im having as I read things.

[copper quail]

Generally, we don't give platforms to toxic places but there's also a level of like we don't know everything

When it's been flagged up to us though we look into it

[knotty steeple]

The thing here is that if this was their point they didn't make it particularly well because all they said about it was bound up in things like "the dustgrave material pushes strikers and cannons and the alt-frames don't work with their licenses" instead of "this person is toxic," and also to be quite honest I am unaware of ralf or shaka doing anything that would warrant that sort of reaction

[prime creek]

I'm a little sympathetic to that but unsure of what you mean by "being pushed"
First and third party content is posted in #lancer-news because that's what the channel is for

[knotty steeple]

the crux of their essay had nothing to do with toxicity or "bad apples" and everything to do with them disliking the actual material being produced

The Störtebeker and Viceroy are equally problematic. Neither are really made to take advantage of their Licenses, with the Stört's Active Reload frame trait being bogged down with unnecessary stipulations and an activation that quite literally only works with one non-exotic melee weapon in the base game. A weapon that isn't even on the Raleigh's License. And the Vice has been explicitly commented as having been made with the perspective that "no one uses" the Monarch's Stabilizer, Pinaka, or Tlaloc.
-
I’m not here to pick on Dustgrave, but I don't think such concerns are invalid or entitled criticism. It's a real failure of the content to engage with the system on a mechanical level. ```

like this isn't subtext, it's just text

[split blaze]

Well for things like third party groups I usually think of #lancer-game-recruiting and #community-highlights being recruiting grounds for new players in West Marches.

[split blaze]

Very true, as said I am on a point disconnected from a lot of this post and more just from The Discussion in general and working out my thoughts sorry

[hardy talon]

official content released or expected to release from creators so openly dismissive of Lancer’s mechanics, balance, and/or established narrative

does seem to be the thesis, yeah

[nova sleet]

"Its a real failure of the content to engage with the system on a mechanical level" needs so much more substantiation than "Becuase I said so"

[knotty steeple]

so to be honest yeah, "don't like it don't play" is the answer this guy may not like but it's the only answer he's gonna get

[nova sleet]

because it asserts a number of vectors that they don't support

[split blaze]

I think if this post wanted to assert that this would be an Actual Essay

[long hemlock]

Its not like stuff like Solstice Rain says "no narrative here", it just puts tactical combat forward more

there is narrative to be had

[nova sleet]

Well, if they're going to assert it, I think its up to them to support the assertion

[long hemlock]

pretty explicitelly

to just name one example in the content they're talking about

[knotty steeple]

like yes obviously if somebody writes something that is just gross and heinous and beyond the pale and somebody says "this is dragging lancer down by association" that person may have a point, but that's not what's going on here, this guy is mad about superheavy mounting and the stortebaker

[long hemlock]

past a certain point, it is framing different design sensibilities as issues

[knotty steeple]

basically I don't think it's actually worth trying to spin this guy's posts into "well if he was actually talking about Y then wouldn't he have a point" when he isn't talking about Y, and Y is just a pure hypothetical

[nova sleet]

the kicker to me is just the assumption of an authoritative viewpoint on a fairly macro topic with nothing to back it up just deflates it into a "I dislike a thing and its the community's problem"

[knotty steeple]

this is 100% what it is

[nova sleet]

disliking a thing isn't the problem, voicing that dislike isnt the problem, its the assumption of the position of authoritative perspective i think.

[knotty steeple]

vague and nebulous appeals to "the community," an unexamined and unwarranted sense of self-importance, and a lot of words which boil down to "I don't like this thing and I don't like that it exists"

[nova sleet]

well also the way they voiced it absolutely is a problem

but voicing an issue on principle isn't a problem, i should clarify

[split blaze]

Very fair

[spark mortar]

Yeah it's particularly weird, because it's presented like these things are being snuck past poor Tom who is none the wiser

[ember dagger]

This really does just seem like… “Lancer has Fallen. Billions must Go Play 4e”
To me. Just… very perplexing that it was framed this way

[sick delta]

Lmao RIP, hommie needs some milk 🥛.

[knotty steeple]

I will say from personal experience that the community has been very receptive to critique along the lines of "hey this is kind of uncomfortable"

things like changing terminology around etc

[spark mortar]

As happened immediately with Iconoclast

[knotty steeple]

nobody raised any sort of huge "how DARE you!" fuss when it was suggested that, yeah, Iconoclast get some flavor revisions, or going back even further to how Slowed used to be Crippled

[spark mortar]

And Ralf was very receptive to that

[ember dagger]

Eesh

[nova sleet]

im not in the trenches with the creators here, but I do see at least, that often times most of yall are actually very open to critiques, even ones that arent particularly helpful or constructive

[indigo inlet]

Same

[knotty steeple]

I will say that I feel that overall the feedback period for solstice rain was largely helpful and informative and that I do think in the end it resulted in a better overall result

and I actually have a full log of all the drafts in question in case anyone's like "oh yeah, prove that you take feedback"

[long hemlock]

Listen as long as you're nice and don't act like I owe you a specific mad design for your specifically, i'm usually receptive to feedback

[nova sleet]

It's just that i don't think some folk don't make the distinction that critique and feedback, and being open to it, doesn't obligate the creator to take action

[split blaze]

I believe it, Solstice rain is a very mechanically strong expansion - Syop is a mainstay at all my tables

[long hemlock]

this is like, 99% of the feedback i've ever gotten btw, good feedback I mean

[split blaze]

[Though many sitreps have been crushed by the Chomo I choose forgivness. /j]

[knotty steeple]

also in case anyone is curious, yes, tom is an active participant in this stuff

[nova sleet]

In design school, we were often taught that during review and critique steps of a project, you can safely ignore a proportion of feedback; and its up to you to define your milestones for when you acually take notes and from when you actively take action.

[long hemlock]

all i'm gonna say is, as long as i'm not treated like a minimum wage retail worker i'm actually really open to a lot of stuff

[knotty steeple]

like he isn't riding shotgun 24/7, the guy has shit to do, but solstice rain underwent a number of feedback passes at his hands

his feedback helped shape the sysop and demolitionist talents, I floated ideas that he ultimately rejected, he gave editorial feedback which was incorporated

[tacit shale]

Also “ narrative and mechanics are almost mutually exclusive” is a weird take

[nova sleet]

A bit ironically also, while this isn't the same as a game project, for design projects, we were also taught that after a certain number of reviews and revision; additional revisions costed the client money (the important thing, of course, is that the client here would be a distinct and defined entity rather than an end user or consumer)

[knotty steeple]

to be perfectly blunt, I felt during some of the feedback period that there was a sense coming from certain quarters of "SURELY if tom is at the wheel then he'll step in any day to make [content I don't like] go away" and when that didn't happen I feel like something like this essay is the result

[split blaze]

Wait Im supposed to be making money when Im asked to change shit

[ember dagger]

SERIOUSLY. Absolute skill issue imo

[knotty steeple]

and I'm gonna be honest folks, if tom hired someone to write for lancer it's probably not because he thinks that person is gonna do a bad job he disagrees with

[spark mortar]

It's all part of his master plan to sabotage Lancer

Then drive us all to buy Lancer 2e

because we wouldn't be champing at the bit to get that anyways?

[tawdry sandal]

Well this was a rather strange thing. And yah, the whole framing of this as like, a community issue, that this community is, idk too afraid to say new releases are bad? It just reeks of someone who believes their design philosophy is just better then others, that they’re above all the other people making content for this game

[spark mortar]

I dunno, this plot kinda breaks down if you think about it for two seconds

[plain finch]

I just feel super bad that Ralf just keeps taking very undeserved shoots regarding the content he creates...

[tacit shale]

Also, Tom isn’t perfect. If I had to say “what’s the most mechanically problematic frame” it would be white witch without question, a frame I’m pretty sure Tom made by himself.

Now white witch isn’t terrible for the game or anything, but it’s definitely worse that anything in dustgrave

[knotty steeple]

I kind of didn't really want to bring this up at the time but yeah like

you can very easily find people who will happily tell you how much this or that bit of Tom-Made Lancer is Bad Actually

with tierlists and spreadsheets and everything

the idea that lancer as a game line was coasting along on a cushion of unimpeachable quality until the perfidious contractors showed up is a position I guess you could take, but it definitely isn't one I think The Community would actually agree with

[spark mortar]

Heresy! Core is divinely inspired text that cannot be questioned

[fallen osprey]

"this wave of Community Content Creator expansions feels motivated by the popularity of the creator first and foremost"

my first act as a "popular creator" will be to push all the nerds into lockers and claim the best table in the cafeteria

[split blaze]

As someone who illustrates and writes their frames I can support the idea that it drives you insane and makes you write busted content sometimes [Looking at the Uriel]

[knotty steeple]

also the idea that I am popular is frankly absurd lmao

[ember dagger]

yeah who are you tbh

/j

[tawdry sandal]

Also just wanna mention, naming this thread “Lancer, from the ground floor” is so unbelievably pretentious and quite frankly they shoulda be banned for just that

[copper quail]

I see it more like, Shaka and Ralf have done more lancer than anyone else and have actively made homebrew in it for years and Kai has worked closely with Massif before several times. They're good folks to pick

[knotty steeple]

yeah that's sort of the thing

[red rain]

It's always been kind of interesting to me how different kinds of writing for are often held to different standards, like I think a lot of homebrew or non-core writing is actually held to a VERY high fan created standard above the core game's

[knotty steeple]

ralf has unironically run more games of lancer than maybe anyone else on the planet

shaka runs a very popular server for his own third-party stuff and also runs a shitload of games

these aren't random vanity picks

[nova sleet]

xD Technically, if you're doing a creative project on behalf of a client, I do encourage you to encorporate a set number of revisions and a rate charge for additional revisions after the fact. It helps curb the nickle and diming of minor pieces of feedback and adjustment and isntead helps encourage them to collate and collect feedback and present it.

[prime creek]

Lots of stuff in core would be called unbalanced if it was homebrew

[knotty steeple]

who else is he supposed to hire?

[red rain]

I'm not officially endorsing this as a mod but god yeah I didn't realize it wasn't a published name for a module or something lmao

[tawdry sandal]

Legendlegoat apparently

[split blaze]

Shakas cool, got drinks with him once, can't wait to dunk someone with the Emp again in his games

[knotty steeple]

also I will actually agree with this as someone who has repeatedly been on the receiving end of "I heard your homebrew is broken beyond measure" followed by "well I actually used it at the table and it's okay I guess"

[tacit shale]

Me

[ember dagger]

Me

[tacit shale]

I have no experience with publishing, but I’ve been told I have a winning smile

[indigo inlet]

Not me

[nova sleet]

This is pure sarcasm, but "Ah but you see, I am a true lancer understander, and I think my opinion should be held above these known entities who have built trust over a period of time. Because reasons. Yes. If you disagree with me its everyone else at fault."

[knotty steeple]

and I have actually seen this attitude manifest before in various ways like declaring some third-party thing "practically official"

to which I have always strongly refuted that, even when it's being directed at my own work

like I get that it's intended as a compliment, but I don't like drawing a line around official content and going "THIS is the good stuff, and if you want people to think your stuff is good you have to be in this club"

[split blaze]

It's definitely an unintended side-effect of the the Third-Party First-Party wave

Lancers defintely in a transitory stage of things and growing pains feel inevitable

[ember torrent]

no it already happened before the new first party releases

[knotty steeple]

it's uncharitable to a lot of third-party work, and I disagree with the OP's assertion that big homebrew projects get no substantial criticism because boy howdy is that some bullshit

[tawdry sandal]

Admittedly I have been kinda confused what is homebrew and what is official sometimes, but that’s more because I get my lancer news from this server where both official and homebrew content are posted in the same channel

[ember torrent]

People were already calling Suldan "basically first-party" for a while

[knotty steeple]

basically the dividing line is "is it published by massif press or not" that's it

Is it? Then it's first party

[tacit shale]

The core rule book is basically first party

[tawdry sandal]

[split blaze]

I wouldn't go that far. /j

[knotty steeple]

this seemed to cause a lot of confusion during the initial rollout of the latest supplements because people kept calling them things like "oh massif is making third-party stuff now"

[plain finch]

ok what I am about about to post is purely satirical. if it crosses the line please tell me and I will delete

[knotty steeple]

and it's like no, when the publisher themselves is paying money to have a thing made, that is just called first party

[plain finch]

````"Core Rulebook. Long Rim. KTB. Wallflower. Long ago, the four pieces of Lancer content lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Third-Party creators attacked. A hundred years passed and sealed within the feedback forums a new Hero emerged, a defender of pure Lancer named Gentle Goat And although his manifesto writing skills are great, he has a lot to learn before he's ready to save anyone from "first-party" content. But I believe Gentle Goat can steer the Lancer community in the right direction...."```

[nova sleet]

my read on this, honestly, is like "I have not actively paid attention to or participated in the critical response to a thing, and therefore it clearly never faces any criticism, and any it does face gets shot down" as if there arent mountains of it taken in, analyzed, digested, and changes made and iterations created. Maybe that's uncharitable of me, but its a vibe

[tacit shale]

Well, it could be second party, but lancer hasn’t done that yet

[split blaze]

Banned. /j

[sweet crest]

10 bucks says they’ll post elsewhere most of what they got here as responses with a ton of their thing removed and say look they’re all assholes.

[tacit shale]

Imagine if they post it on interpoint and Ralf sees it lol

[knotty steeple]

I don't think we need to speculate on the wheres or whyfores of some rando now that they've been banned, if they come up again they'll come up again, if not then not

[tawdry sandal]

[knotty steeple]

As Winged said, if someone wants to start a general thread here (and I guess we can use the new release feedback forum for it since it's somewhat within that wheelhouse) on meta-discussion of critique and critical feedback and the ins and outs of giving it and receiving it or something, that's fine

I would like to ask that any such discussions be held as respectfully as we try to hold any discussion here

instead of "oh yeah well why didn't you take my feedback when I told you X" etc

[split blaze]

That would be productive... hrum. I think I might go for that sometime later when I have the time - I did actualyl have a class about this sort of thing when I was in school

Not even for art school - wildly enough. They taught a 'how to give feedback' class in my Highschool

Everyday in my art school critiques I pray that someone else would take that class.

[nova sleet]

i think many people can be quite benefited by a how to give feedback and a how to recieve feedback tutorial

[pliant veldt]

I’m gonna plug Pesto’s Guide to Testing for folks interested in improving giving, soliciting, and receiving feedback: https://pestopublications.itch.io/pestos-guide-to-testing

[sweet crest]

Thank you.

[nova sleet]

as a slightly tangential thought, i think a great tool for a lot of creators of any sort of content is developing the skill to understand that discussion about their work need not be about them as a person, and off of that, discerning when a discussion about their work is in fact a personal attack rather than a discussion about the work.

[fallen osprey]

quick mod question, is there a way to pin a specific thread in a forum? I know that #guide-to-nrf exists but my gut feeling is it might get overlooked where it is

[pliant veldt]

Yes there is, the “pinned messages” thread is pinned in #1056034709555138610

[pliant veldt]

Hahaha yes do I know the need for this from experience

[knotty steeple]

There are a lot of skills to learn in regards to critique, ranging from separating critique on their work from critique on themselves, how to get at the crux of someone's critique, that it's okay to go "thanks but I'm electing to not incorporate this" etc

[nova sleet]

I think its also super important from a person who is offering a critiques perspective (and this is topical for today's thread lol), that the person who invited the critique, and made space to recieve yours, is in no way obligated to act upon it. It is something that is taken into account and weighed. Often internally an without transparency against a number of creative factors and goals. Sometimes a good critique will illicit change and adjustment, other times it simply adds to a bank of known factors that as of yet aren't deemed important or significant enough to act upon (which can change with either more volume or more detail over time)

[indigo inlet]

It’s very hard to gain skill for

[elder spear]

God. what a pretentious title

also, weird to give the Stortebeker criticism for not using the Raleigh's kit when it has more incentive to use the Kinetic Hammer. I guess they were talking about loading melees, but it was still a terrible point

[knotty steeple]

To weigh in on this as well, and this is also topically relevant to this thread: giving feedback is not really an opportunity for you to ingratiate yourself into someone else's project. It's fine to want to give feedback or critique, it can be super valuable, but it shouldn't be considered an opportunity to wedge your own ideas into someone else's stuff. This is one of the reasons why one of the closer-to-official rules regarding feedback tends to be "please don't give someone a bunch of your own homebrewed ideas for how their thing could work unless they've actively invited such spitballing"

basically nobody needs an Ideas Guy

[ember torrent]

The whole premise of the thread is misaligned enough that addressing specific mechanical concerns becomes redundant

[elder spear]

fair

[knotty steeple]

idk on the receiving end?

I think the thing that's helped me the most is hard to boil down to a formula, but it's involved really trying to talk through points of feedback to dig down to the crux of the matter and see if I can really zero in on the issue, because a lot of the time the feedback that's given may be presented as being about one thing but the actual issue is something else running parallel to that

not so much "giving them an interrogation because I assume they must be lying" but more just trying to unpack things like "okay what was the situation in which this occurred, was anything else going on at the time, what happened right before this, etc"

to use a very basic and shallow example, someone might say "this combat was really hard and we got beat up way more than we expected" and that, in and of itself, is valid feedback, but it doesn't say much about WHY it happened or what the actual issue was

[hardy talon]

The complaint and the problem are always connected, sometimes indirectly

[nova sleet]

I guess maybe also, a thing thats been unsaid buy might be useful to people popping into the thread: We're talking at length about good and cosntructive critique, and effectively processing it. This doesn't mean that we, as speakers, have always given perfect critiques or taken critiques as well as we could have. For a lot of people its a cumulative effort to improve rather than the expectation that you'll always get it right.

[knotty steeple]

and unpacking things by exploring the context surrounding it can be what reveals whether the issue was something like "the guidelines for bringing in reinforcements weren't clear and the GM got confused" or "we all rolled really badly and couldn't hit anyone for the first two rounds"

[long hemlock]

People who give feedback can be trusted generally on how something feels, but usually they don’t always have the best idea for how to "solve" those feelings

[knotty steeple]

it's a good idea to start from a position of "everyone's feedback is valid to them, even if it's not something you can or want to use"

[fallen osprey]

To echo that, from my experience in UX and video game dev, suggestions and proposed solutions are rarely helpful since usually they are often made without access to the background reasoning and domain knowledge that frames design choices. Instead, specific contextual framing is the single most important and valuable thing you can provide along with your feedback. Essentially, every single game is a test with many variables; it is extremely hard to know how to weight information when you're missing a lot of the context, and that restricts how useful that feedback can be

[knotty steeple]

instead of going "well obviously their feedback can't be right, I should prove it to them"

[long hemlock]

Yeah, the idea is that generally focusing on why you feel that way is a better way to give useful feedback rather than to give direct suggestion on how to fix things

people who playtest things aren't aware of all of the levers you can actually pull as a designer

[sweet crest]

Going by a lot of video game design videos. People are good at feeling something is wrong. Just very bad at knowing why.

[long hemlock]

sometimes its better to pull the less obvious ones

[long hemlock]

haha yeaaaaaah

I feel that "we rolled poorly" thing especially recently lmao

[nova sleet]

Man my brief stint freelancing some graphic stuff involving user experience, the burden of interpreting creative feedback cant be daunting, especially when the client giving the feedback lacks the vocabulary to describe (this isn't necessarily their fault, I'm the artist and they arent). It's also weirdly relevant to what Kai was talking about earlier about unpacking things and exploring a topic to get context and inform the feedback. The needly bit is when the client offers very little to go on during a review stage and then you gotta just like... make stuff up and go on your gut

Lot of times just promising a consistent series of iterations based on your translation lol

[long hemlock]

If you want to give effective feedback, you have to open it up to follow up questions and try to require less digging to get use out of it

you have no idea how much feedback actually improves the moment you consider how your own feedback might be flawed or what circumstances might have lead to it

[knotty steeple]

I know I did a lot of this very thorough dig-down questioning during battlegroup's development though I can't really think of too many specific examples offhand

[nova sleet]

"Can you make it more ooomph"

Do you think you could expand on that?
"It just needs more pizzazz, you know? Make it like it is, but more"

[knotty steeple]

okay well here's one

[long hemlock]

oh fuck I know what's gonna be brought up

lmao

that example is pretty funny

[knotty steeple]

I knew that a certain subline ship was overperforming by a lot constantly

people were bringing Cruisers to games and reporting that they were absolutely just demolishing stuff left and right

"Cruisers are overpowered, they're a must have" and I could not for the life of me figure out why

like I was tearing my hear out, making adjustments one way and the other and nothing seemed to work

[nova sleet]

you know a brief thought on this, but i think its super relevant so i had to respond; but the idea of acknowledging that your position might be flawed actually refines the feedback and makes it MORE relevant and usable rather than less so, I feel. At least in terms of most often. Just cause it reflects drilling down into more context and more variables I would guess

[knotty steeple]

then I found out ENTIRELY BY ACCIDENT that what was causing the issue was that people were giving Cruisers a range-based bonus to damage for attacks, except Cruisers (and all subline ships in fact) do not make attacks

they just do damage

I found this out in passing in the course of another discussion

[tawdry sandal]

[knotty steeple]

nobody had ever thought to bring it up before

[nova sleet]

amazing

kai be like "hold on say that again"

[knotty steeple]

you know what happened then?

I had to buff the fuckin things

[nova sleet]

"we'll get back to the topic on hand in a sec, but you. You said you add what to what?"

flips out note pad

[knotty steeple]

because all the changes up to that point had been nerfs trying to figure out what the issue was when the issue was "did not fully parse the range modifiers"

[sweet crest]

Oh yeah. That makes sense. It’s overperforming because a lot of people misinterpreted how the mechanics worked.

Like someone who thinks 9 structure means throw 18 grunt assaults. Or something.

[nova sleet]

well, itd be like going "Aux weapons are broken because of how much bonus damage im giving every aux shot on my mounts"

[knotty steeple]

a less ridiculous example was Darkstar Multiple-Warhead Torpedoes which for a long while had consistently dominated as a PC-side weapon for doing lots of area damage, and after lots of finessing and finagling of numbers (which in battlegroup are very bounded) what I actually had to come to realize was the issue wasn't necessarily one of numbers, the issue was that people were using payload speed modifiers to rush them straight down the enemy's throat as soon as they launched, giving no time to effect a meaningful response

when I put together that the issue wasn't so much the numerical value of the damage being dealt so much as the ease with which they could be launched and immediately ferried into impact, what I did instead was give them a time-delayed "arming sequence"

[sweet crest]

…Yeah that makes sense. They optimized aoe damage.

[knotty steeple]

so if you wanted to get the maximum damage out of them, you had to actually have them still in flight until the start of your next turn rolled around

[long hemlock]

Sometimes its as simple as "the feedback was actually using an outdated version of the map" too

I know that happened for Solstice Rain

[knotty steeple]

the issue in either case was the same (this weapon is overperforming) but it took some unpacking to figure out what the root of the issue was instead of turning a dial labeled "damage numbers" back and forth

[long hemlock]

where we had a group I think saying the map was very empty and the players killed a lot of npcs quickly, it had turned out that it was partly because the map they were using didn't actually have all of the fancy cover I added later

[nova sleet]

This is maybe outside the scope of the current discussion, but I do find myself sometimes thinking that there's a frequent issue of folk leaping to a conclusion that something, say a mechanic or feature, is irredeemably broken; from a position of anger. It leaves little room for dialogue I think.

[long hemlock]

and the crazy thing is, that did actually result in me telling Kai it was maybe a good idea to give the smoke bomb optional to the sniper to avoid that even with the new cover

[knotty steeple]

I mean I would say superheavy mounting, to be topical, is probably the quintessential thing

[long hemlock]

because the problem, while it was made worse by the map that was used, was still somewhat true in a different way

[knotty steeple]

I think there are arguments both for and against it conceptually but it's also a lightning rod for very absolutist sort of takes when to be frank it's a core bonus that outside of memes maybe a handful of mechs actually want

but we would get people posting stuff that was, if not as verbose as this thread's OP, at least on par with it in terms of "wow tom seriously let this garbage through?"

[long hemlock]

the problem as well with these is that like

[knotty steeple]

and this is actually a very important lesson/skill for accepting critique which is: if someone's being an asshole you can just ignore them

[long hemlock]

poisoned wells are absolutely a thing

[nova sleet]

it might be a situation of me noticing the frequency with which people see it necessary to adopt an extreme position

[split blaze]

It definitely made convos around it difficult at the start - because frankly SHM wasn't what I wanted to be stuck talking about when I was talking about Dustgrave content with my West March folks but we sure as hell were stuck talking about it

[knotty steeple]

even if they have, somehow, the best critique in the world (they probably do not) you are not obliged to listen to someone who is just kind of a rude dickhead

[long hemlock]

being very absolute and not leaving room to disagree in feedback while being an ass is actually going to make a lot of folks less keen to listen to you

[knotty steeple]

this sort of circles back to a lot of the points eld was making earlier, the relationship between creator and feedback-giver is not a customer service one

[nova sleet]

Honestly I think its just like... When you approach the idea of dishing out feedback, you are opening the floor for a dialogue. It's not a drive by of opinion (generally, presumably it can be if you're working with a mail in feedback scenario)

[knotty steeple]

you do not have to soak up someone lecturing you, condescending to you, or otherwise being a jerk to you, and if it's clear their feedback is more like an axe to grind then you are not shirking your responsibility as a creator by just tuning them out

[ember torrent]

game design isn't even democratic, there's not an obligation to conform to feedback even if a lot of people are raising the same point

[knotty steeple]

ultimately nothing you make is ever going to appeal to 100% of everyone all of the time

[sweet crest]

If you’re being a dick with your feedback… no one is going to want to listen to you. Because even if you have a point, you’ve already soured the topic.

[bronze eagle]

the best thing ive ever learned regarding feedback was to not personally suggest alternatives or fixes, but to just elaborate on how it felt/impacted what i did because of what youve said

[long hemlock]

There's a very good video on the topic of feedback

if someone is interested

https://youtu.be/RDxiuHdR_T4?si=4IHLEUjikYqoUtBC

[knotty steeple]

like idk arguably as a "lancer first party creator" or something since you are playing around in someone else's sandbox, you may have somewhat more of an obligation to make something that doesn't completely blow up everyone's games or drastically upheave the setting or something, which is why tom asks to look over things and give editorial feedback, and that MIGHT me seen as more of a "well you aren't just doing this for your own personal gratification" thing

[long hemlock]

which is a good dive on how some feedback doesn't always relate to what's actually the problem

[knotty steeple]

but even then, like, people are being brought in to give their own personal spin on things and not just "who can imitate tom the hardest"

[nova sleet]

a bit of a topical thought on that comment honestly, is also identifying stakeholders to weight the feedback you get

[knotty steeple]

people have remarked on the "narrative weakness/thinness" of solstice rain before, OP included, but A). personally I disagree that it IS weak, and B). the reason it's the way it is comes down that it's in the vein of how I prefer things from a narrative perspective, more broad strokes and with gaps to fill in, especially within the context of "a starter adventure module around 30k words or so"

or to put it another way, I wrote solstice rain the way I did because that's the sort of thing I like and what I wanted to write

[nova sleet]

You know going back to the OP for a sec. I just noticed a phrase "toxic response to criticism of well regarded material"

And I'm just like... "well regarded material" 🤔

To clarify, if it's well regarded, it's been regarded, meaning people voiced opinions about them, meaning they've been critiqued positively. Maybe the "toxic response" was not to the criticisms.

¯_(ツ)_/¯

[sweet crest]

I honestly figured that it’s seen as a good starter module because it’s not overly complex or narratively super tight.

Because that makes it difficult for how to go from there, since it establishes direction.

[timber plover]

Alright friend, I'm biting. Have fun reading this on your other account you absolute fool.

I'll just come out and say it. I know more about Lancer combat balance than you. That's a grand claim Ralf, how can you make such a statement that's a bit egotistical. Fuck you. Hell yea it is, I've been doing this shit for a job for three years now. I've run 900 2-scene Lancer combats over the past three years, I know how this shit works and I generally know what does and doesn't work.

At 4 hours a session thats 3600 hours OR 150 days OR 5 months. I'm such a fucking loser that I spent 5 months of my life straight sitting in a cave only pushing little robot tokens over a board and rolling dice. And I have seen some shit. I have gazed into the deepest abysses that this fucking system has to offer, things you wouldn't even dream of, that would make you scream in horror and avert your gaze.

I have seen Everests shooting a nanocomped HMG with autostab in asura turns with HorOS1 just to trigger the fucking HMG a fucking fifth time off overwatch

I have seen Raleigh's link their rolanded integrated m-rack to an opcalled autogun so they can do a pretend barrage during their fucking """""off turn"""""

I have seen synthetic muscle netting dusk wings drag people through freshly created holograms placed with Jägerkunst 1 for gratuitous amounts of damage.

I have seen Scorpion Black Ice Module White Witches be so uninteractible without stacking the opfor to hard-counter it would break you.

I have seen Goblins with Hardlight Shields attach themselves to Blackbeards to create roving zones that can't be seen into, can't be shot into and that if you walk into them you take burn.

I have seen Tokugawas with autocoolers and fade cloaks who spend 100% of the Scene intangible via OC-looping and firing the biggest meanest smartgun to still deal an insane amount of damage for the single quick action they aren't intangible.

And you know what's worse, I loved every fucking second of it. I'm here for all of it, otherwise I wouldn't continue to make Lancer my life.

A lot of what I have seen has informed Dustgrave, how could it not, presumably that's exactly why Tom hired me. Maybe it was a mistake, maybe I've seen too much to write any coherent supplement with a broad appeal, I'll even give you that, maybe I'm too far gone. Don't care, doesn't matter to me.

What I do know though is that Dustgrave is absolutely in line with any currently official Lancer content and you may not like that, it's too strikery, it pushes damage too much. That's just how this game works in my experience. NO RALF, NO, YOUR PERSPECTIVE IS TOO SKEWED BY INTERPOINT. No I whisper. No. Your perspective is too skewed by not playing on Interpoint and I don't blame you, its scary sometimes. A Tier 1 team demolishing 12 non-grunt NPCs and 2 Veterans in 6 rounds is not a pretty sight to behold, it makes you question things, that's for sure, saw that just this week. I refuse to believe that a team comp that accomplishes this doesn't work just as efficiently in any non-Interpoint context either and that it should be dismissed out of hand. Or that it is not "real Lancer". It's the realest Lancer.

Yea, I'm striker brained and Dustgrave reflects that. And you know why Dustgrave reflects that? Because Lancer has shaped me to be this way. It's already all around you, surrounding you. Dustgrave may just be a little more obvious about it.

But hey, that's just a theory. A LANCER THEORY.

[sweet crest]

Holy shit.

And uhh. 6 rounds to demolish.. like 16 structure sounds reasonable. Assuming like 4-5 players.

Decent rolls, smart usage of aoe, etc.

[tawdry sandal]

An extremely powerful message tbh

[opaque oasis]

Ralf coming in with the “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe”

[indigo inlet]

https://tenor.com/view/the-simpsons-he-is-already-dead-stop-gif-5552043

[long hemlock]

Okay hey so

I’m gonna ask to chill a bit please

[split blaze]

Thank you.

[long hemlock]

I know it can be frustrating to see this but i feel like going in a long joke anger post sends off the wrong signal a bit

[knotty steeple]

I think on that note now that every creator in question has had their say, we can probably move on from this thread to another one