Twitchy Questioning 5: Attack of the Questions

Since the devs have expressed frustration with being asked questions they can't answer, I was thinking of asking Billy on Twitter what they would like to talk about. Something like...

@ehlien For MEA Twitch, rather than ?s you can't answer, what WOULD you & Bastiaan like to talk about?

Good idea? Bad idea?

Well, what do we need to ask about that is NOT something they CAN'T talk about?

they do occasionally answer/ explain the reasoning why some mechanics are the way there are (ex. combos). You just need to ask the right questions .. Obviously not numbers/formulas .. but he general design goal/ why behind the numbers ..

Here's one: do they intend for cryo debuffs to armor to be removed prior to the combo damage if you detonate them? For instance if you use Cryo Beam to freeze an armored target, they'll take extra damage from every normal attack and shot, but if you then combo detonate them it only does the standard 1.5 times cryo combo damage. 

But I know they either won't or can't answer that. We need an actual designer to answer most of these technical questions.

I wonder what would happen if we asked for one of the designers to participate in the Twitch stream to answer questions? *ponder*

Because there are a lot of questions that Billy and Bastiaan don't have the technical knowledge to answer even though they seem amenable to answering them, conceptually.


Edit: I am going to Tweet this suggestion to Billy unless a bunch of you tell me it's a bad idea.

There is a clear conflict between what people want to know and what they want to tell. It seems like they can't tell anything that is of interest to anybody and you can just ask them about Mario kart or hockey. Weather is always a nice subject, very neutral. Some of eternal Nat's questions are really deep and touching. link

If they don't want to answer questions which people are asking, while they themselves are telling that people should ask questions, that makes them ... ahem, I just don't want to be rude. But it looks bad, really bad-bad. And no, I don't buy into any of BS that they can't talk about upcoming features/content, they just either don't have anything up until last minute or somebody else is in charge and they are only for show and don't even know anything about what is going on.

Now, seriously, if they plan a patch or DLC, hows about a beta testing program for the crowd, similar to what was in DAI on old BSN. There were probably close to a hundred people there, maybe more. I know, there was some leak there with silent sister, but whatever. I don't have the links, they were all in that closed testing forum which was all trashed right before the patch/DLC came out without any warning, so looks like nobody has it. Well, they can watermark or do something else for protection.

UI related. Why keep the various temporary buffs timers NOT shown in the UI ? (time till next eligibility of saving barrier, rage/ascension kill count to goal, rage countdown timer, martial artist killcount /bonus amount & contdown timer, Biotic warrior countdown timer, etc etc .. )


EDIT enemy shieldgate ... shotguns  what's up with that ?

Good suggestions, consider them gathered. Hopefully Billy responds on Twitter and they get a designer in the next Twitch... if not, I ask anyway!

You should ask them how good Mario Kart 8 is.

trying to level up my cryo engineer though me pugs either have no clue on the fire melts ice extinguishes fire mechanics or are just trolls. There was always AT lest one source of incinerate/flamer/incendiary dude messing up my cryo effects. But the one who took the cake was a cryo engineer with a flame turret .

I'm surprised you assumed PUGS knew anything about game mechanics.