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Important Let's Learn A Thing About How Ability Development Works

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Mist

Staff member
Administrator
Hello everyone. I can't believe I'm making this thread but it is becoming a bit of a problem. There is a common misconception within the ProjectKorra community about how we develop abilities, sometimes accompanied by wild accusations of us favoring some elements over others, or really anything else you can think of. I can only hope that with this thread some of this deliberate spread of misinformation will cease and we can continue developing the plugin much like we have been.

I guess a decent place to start is explaining how a dev build works. Dev Builds are not 'planned'. Instead, they are released whenever we feel like we have done enough to release a dev build. Most Dev Builds are usually spontaneous, hence why they vary in size as much as they do. There is never a 'big picture' for Dev Builds, we have never set a goal such as "this will be released in the next dev build" because that wouldn't make much sense. Dev Builds are pretty much our way of sharing what we are working on with you as we work on it. If we didn't have Dev Builds, we'd release a large build every month or two and that'd be that. This argument about elements being neglected wouldn't exist, because all you would see is the big picture we work on, instead of seeing all of the little pieces of said big picture.

Now about the big picture: After we release a full version we usually take a step back for a week or so. During this week we really just observe the forum to get a general sense of how the community is receiving the latest update before we even start thinking about the next build. Once we begin thinking of the next build we don't just rush into it. We begin to actually look through suggestions to see how the community wants us to progress. Many suggestions aren't even considered, why?

Usually when a suggestion is made, the person making the suggestion only thinks about one element, or one feature. These aren't necessarily denied, but we just push them to the side for now. While yes, this new waterbending feature you suggested would be cool, it could very well throw the whole plugin out of balance. Additionally, there is a lack of creativity in suggestions. Yes, this new airbending move sounds great, but in all actuality it is AirSwipe with a new name, or something that is done with a combo. We simply aren't interested in increasing the number of moves with moves that are essentially the same as another. It's natural of course to only think about the element you play as, you play with it enough, so you know what's best for it. You know what'll help you beat the other benders, and that's great, but we have to approach it from a different angle.

Note: The best suggestions usually don't concern moves. Most abilities that are suggested have been suggested at some point in the past. Usually the best suggestions involve improving on what is already there.

The Concept Designers' job is to keep the whole plugin in mind as we develop each and every feature. While some suggestions clearly stick out from the crowd, rarely is a suggestion perfect. Concept Designers work through suggestions we receive and choose to consider and tries to make them work for everyone. They try to make sure the ability is not TOO overpowered and most importantly isn't redundant. (There is a funny story within the staff of how we failed to thoroughly plan suffocate and we ended up making 3 different versions).

Once we filter through suggestions we normally create a master list of what we want to work on before the next major release. If you looked at one of those documents it would be clear that none of the elements are being ignored. This is the big picture. If you look at our changelogs for the stable builds it becomes clear that we are actually working on all elements. We have never released a stable build where we completely ignored one of the bending disciplines. This is the major caveat to dev builds, is you are only able to see small picture stuff, which is why it may seem as if we favor some elements over others, but rest assured we are not.

Hope this clears things up!
 
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