Can you explain why you think it should be rolled back? Do you disagree with their reasons for wanting to change from the old system that would have required regular down grading and resetting of the progression curves? If so why? Do you believe Lifesteal and Recovery were in a good place? Do you disagree with the reasons for getting rid of them?
This sounds like a writing prompt for a college essay (grab the table, here come the flashbacks).
It kind of is...
When someone demands to be treated like they are intelligent, I think it's up to them to show why. Particularly when they say stuff that suggests they might not be as clever as they think.
Too many people are demanding the developers listen to them, but are making suggestions that don't make sense. It's not enough to claim you are some sort of expert and copy and paste other people's work, but then make demands that don't seem to have taken into account the reasons the system was changed in the first place.
I was quite heavily involved in the feedback in the Preview stages of Mod 16, (not the closed Beta) and this notion that it needs rolling back because the devs don't listen isn't borne out by the facts. In fact it flat out ignores the changes that were made because they DID listen.
With no further plans to add new powers to Wizard some of us pestered, argued, and spammed the devs... they listened and Wizards now have Fireball. We pointed out that the opposing roll system wasn't offering variety, people had either 0% or maxed out opposing roll ratings, so they changed the entire system. In fact, anyone who says the devs don't listen and act on player feedback needs to go read the Paladin thread on Mod 16 Preview and shut the HAMSTER up.
Blindly demanding the devs listen to you, when what you have to say is basically... "I'm an expert... I'm clever... I have no idea what to replace Mod 16 with... but just roll it back... I'm the customer, so I'm right!!!", and offering no serious alternative is twattery of the highest order.
Offer some intelligent alternatives, rather than demanding to be obeyed. If you ARE an expert, say something that reflects that, not tired old maxims that most sensible people evolved beyond decades ago.
(The customer is RARELY right, and any manager who puts customers stupid demands above the experience, expertise and loyalty of their staff is not only foolish, they are an HAMSTER hole. It's long been understood that companies who put staff before customers actually generate better customer service than putting the customer first. And I'll happily run a training seminar for anyone who still believes otherwise. But it won't be free.)
But it's really easy to claim they don't listen, when what you have to say is essentially the white noise of demands to roll it back... cos why would they listen to that?
You're correct that the customer may not know how to best fix something. But, the customer is absolutely correct about one thing: whether something is fun or not.
You're correct that the customer may not know how to best fix something. But, the customer is absolutely correct about one thing: whether something is fun or not.
Quite right.
Not sure how that adds anything to the discussion over whether Cryptic should listen to peoples' opinions on rolling back to mods 15 simply because they are customers and apparently customers know more about their business than they do themselves, (without actually needing to prove they know anything through something like offering sensible suggestions, because, apparently, "the customer is always right" especially when those customers are self proclaimed experts...) but excellent observation nonetheless.
I will start buying ZEN when the game is healthy again. I don't care what that looks like. My feelings are they have moved onto MTG and M16 is engaging auto-pilot mode until they can't turn a profit anymore.
Same, STO, Runescape and Minecraft for me, now.
I'll only drop by in NW when......IF....the devs actually manage to undo this, as the Angry Video Game Nerd would say, 'Hamster Pickle'.
Folks....who thinks Angry Video Game Nerd would have a blast with NW post mod 16?
Do you believe Lifesteal and Recovery were in a good place?
These two weren't the issues in the game for the combat as they left in the real issue which is multiplicative buffs stacking ever increasing amounts of damage. Recovery is responsible for allowing the players to build their own toons and put the power of choice into the players hands instead of the dev for how they build and create their characters. More recovery equaled faster ways to either heal or do damage. The cap for recovery was already hit and that was animation times. Lifesteal was in a fine place since it meant that players could go solo in normal campaign zones without having to rely on a second person to do solo content. Removing lifesteal means that solo content for those players isn't in a good state and why some are even saying unplayable. Removing recovery means that the game development team removed choice in how to build their characters which is why you see the comments on slow play as well as not fun. If they removed the way buffs interacted with each other and made them be additive you would remove all melt parties from the game because you would be taking out the silly numbers of damage. This in turn would make combat take longer or in most instances the proper amount of time. This lengthens fights which increases the need to heal players without having to slow down how fast players feel their character did in the content which preserves the feel of the combat players are used to. It would allow for more builds since you might need a healer for content because you have to fight longer. More runs are successful with healers and you would see people ask for them.
multiplicative buffs are still in the game which is why eventually we will have this same issue in the future. They needed to make the buffs additive as well as affected by calculations like armor pen missing, etc... Then they could have played with what stats were the best in different areas. Unfortunately for the players, we have some lower quality version of combat which is more similar to games like WoW or ESO.
Guild Leader: Under the Influence Yule (Barb): 72k : Siren (TR): 78k : Torun (DC): 73k : Siren OP (OP): 76k : Siren SW (SW): 78k : Modern (F): 80k : Cherry1 (CW) : 68k Siren HR (HR): 78k
I am myself a sales and marketing manager in Holland and I completely agree with Nighttriumph that a company that doesn't listen to its customers will lose a lot of money or even go bankrupt. You could think that this is very obvious but experience has told me that it is not. Some companies think they can manipulate their customers as they wish and that's where they are wrong. Never treat consumers as idiots. Treat them as intelligent people if you want to succeed.
Cryptic, you made this game and it was going well until now. Do not abandon that way. As Nighttriumph said do not try to become a pizza company if your name is Nestle. If you want to get out of this mess, swallow your pride, tell your customers you made a mistake, get back the game to Mod 15 and put a good team to work for the next Mod keeping in mind that the customer is always wright.
Good Luck
Referring to the comment which I have bolded, this really resonates with me. It's my experience that the devs have had an attitude of identifying something in how the game is played they do not like, then making (in my view unnecessary) changes designed to force players to play in a certain way to force results to match what they want on a micromanagement level. The first example I saw of this was when they removed Rhix from the game. Originally you had to go to Rhix in person and see him daily to pick up your daily AD quests, this system worked fine for years, but we were one day told that a few players were not remembering to go to him and pick up their quests, so they made it an automatic system and shelved Rhix entirely. I remember thinking at the time that we were all being penalized purely because a few people didn't know what they were doing, and a perfectly functional part of the game which worked fine was being changed only because some people were not using the game properly. Since then I have seen more of the same, where the devs have felt entitled to further and further funnel everyone into a narrower and narrower way of playing simply in order to deal with what they see as issues. It's a pattern. In my opinion the strongest aspect of Neverwinter was always that people had such a wide variety of ways in which to enjoy it and could tailor their experience accordingly which goes to this comment above about treating customers as intelligent people. They could tailor their build and playstyle and group role in a multitude of ways, they could focus on group play or do it entirely solo, they could pick and choose what the game was for them and how they spent their time in the virtual world, this seems to have vanished as both the devs and a small group of hardcore players who provide much of the feedback to them, have decided they know better than the players who play it, and they will tell you how to play, what to do and what your experience is going to be. It's this narrowing of the experience and forcing of players to conform via constant changes, using updates to force players like cattle through this or that gate, which is killing the game.
how exactly did having to not go to rhix penalize anyone? so you get the quests automatically.. that's a good thing.. I'm confused by that example
There is also the issue of listening to the wrong "customers".
From what I have experienced from many MMOs, is that the trolls polluting the online games today just love to suck the life out of a game to force changes nobody wants. For example, look at the fixation with level-scaling in many MMOs. The trolls complain:
"Nobody wants to run a group with me. They're too busy soloing! They're too busy farming. And if I do get into a group, they're too powerful for me and just leave me behind." (Insert thumb-sucking noise here.)
This is exactly how Star Wars The Old Republic was made a mere shadow of its former self. They had skill trees you could experiment with. They had companions who actually worked and did something meaningful. Crafted items had stats that made the crafting process worth the effort. Gear sets for level 50+ had meaningful "set-bonuses" that made completing the gear set a rewarding experience. They had a healthy economy that didn't punish players for farming credits. But the trolls trolled, never mind the fact that these worthlessly lazy SoBs don't even bother to actually play the games they troll in, but just want an excuse - any excuse - to harass other players and suck the life out of the game. And the typical MMOs' response?
For Star Wars The Old Republic, they got rid of the skill-trees, enforced gear nerfs, reduced crafted item bonuses, reduced set bonuses, added a credit cap, needlessly made some story missions and flashpoints smaller (like the Thing Czerka Found), and hamstrung all players with a planetary level-sync that nobody ever wanted or asked for. Now look at Cryptic's case, the developers gut the entire game and betray the existing fan base just to please the same obnoxious trolls!
Pathetic.
Post edited by caldochaud#4880 on
"Talent is a flame. Genius is a fire." - Sir Bernard Williams
I am myself a sales and marketing manager in Holland and I completely agree with Nighttriumph that a company that doesn't listen to its customers will lose a lot of money or even go bankrupt. You could think that this is very obvious but experience has told me that it is not. Some companies think they can manipulate their customers as they wish and that's where they are wrong. Never treat consumers as idiots. Treat them as intelligent people if you want to succeed.
Cryptic, you made this game and it was going well until now. Do not abandon that way. As Nighttriumph said do not try to become a pizza company if your name is Nestle. If you want to get out of this mess, swallow your pride, tell your customers you made a mistake, get back the game to Mod 15 and put a good team to work for the next Mod keeping in mind that the customer is always wright.
Good Luck
Referring to the comment which I have bolded, this really resonates with me. It's my experience that the devs have had an attitude of identifying something in how the game is played they do not like, then making (in my view unnecessary) changes designed to force players to play in a certain way to force results to match what they want on a micromanagement level. The first example I saw of this was when they removed Rhix from the game. Originally you had to go to Rhix in person and see him daily to pick up your daily AD quests, this system worked fine for years, but we were one day told that a few players were not remembering to go to him and pick up their quests, so they made it an automatic system and shelved Rhix entirely. I remember thinking at the time that we were all being penalized purely because a few people didn't know what they were doing, and a perfectly functional part of the game which worked fine was being changed only because some people were not using the game properly. Since then I have seen more of the same, where the devs have felt entitled to further and further funnel everyone into a narrower and narrower way of playing simply in order to deal with what they see as issues. It's a pattern. In my opinion the strongest aspect of Neverwinter was always that people had such a wide variety of ways in which to enjoy it and could tailor their experience accordingly which goes to this comment above about treating customers as intelligent people. They could tailor their build and playstyle and group role in a multitude of ways, they could focus on group play or do it entirely solo, they could pick and choose what the game was for them and how they spent their time in the virtual world, this seems to have vanished as both the devs and a small group of hardcore players who provide much of the feedback to them, have decided they know better than the players who play it, and they will tell you how to play, what to do and what your experience is going to be. It's this narrowing of the experience and forcing of players to conform via constant changes, using updates to force players like cattle through this or that gate, which is killing the game.
how exactly did having to not go to rhix penalize anyone? so you get the quests automatically.. that's a good thing.. I'm confused by that example
Because in the process of removing Rhix and making it automatic, they also nerfed the amount of AD people got, and we were all worse-off, and also part of the game experience was removed which people probably enjoyed (I did). But my main point was directed to the fact that because a few silly people had bad memories and were forgetting to go to see him (so not playing the game as intended), a perfectly fine system the majority of players never had an issue with (playing the game as intended) was scrapped and all those who were doing the right thing had something removed from the game which was part of their daily experience.
These two weren't the issues in the game for the combat as they left in the real issue which is multiplicative buffs stacking ever increasing amounts of damage. Recovery is responsible for allowing the players to build their own toons and put the power of choice into the players hands instead of the dev for how they build and create their characters. More recovery equaled faster ways to either heal or do damage. The cap for recovery was already hit and that was animation times. Lifesteal was in a fine place since it meant that players could go solo in normal campaign zones without having to rely on a second person to do solo content. Removing lifesteal means that solo content for those players isn't in a good state and why some are even saying unplayable. Removing recovery means that the game development team removed choice in how to build their characters which is why you see the comments on slow play as well as not fun. If they removed the way buffs interacted with each other and made them be additive you would remove all melt parties from the game because you would be taking out the silly numbers of damage. This in turn would make combat take longer or in most instances the proper amount of time. This lengthens fights which increases the need to heal players without having to slow down how fast players feel their character did in the content which preserves the feel of the combat players are used to. It would allow for more builds since you might need a healer for content because you have to fight longer. More runs are successful with healers and you would see people ask for them.
multiplicative buffs are still in the game which is why eventually we will have this same issue in the future. They needed to make the buffs additive as well as affected by calculations like armor pen missing, etc... Then they could have played with what stats were the best in different areas. Unfortunately for the players, we have some lower quality version of combat which is more similar to games like WoW or ESO.
You just explained all the reasons why Recovery and Lifesteal were broken.
All of your argument relies on the accuracy of the statement that; "This lengthens fights which increases the need to heal players..." But that's just not true where Lifesteal is still active.
Lifesteal works all the time. If a fight lasts 2 minutes, lifesteal is active throughout. If a fight lasts 10 minutes, lifesteal is active throughout. If your lifesteal keeps you topped up for 30 seconds or a minute, it will do the same for 5 or 10 minutes; it doesn't matter how long combat lasts. You either eventually die from a one shot, or you eventually win.
There is absolutely nothing at all to support the notion that in Mod 15, if a fight lasted longer a Healer would be more relevant. A decent Tank... yeah... maybe... but the only increased risk in making a fight last longer while Lifesteal is in the mix is the increased risk of a One-Shot landing and killing you outright. In which case, what good is a Healer? A Rogue with Stealth and ITC is just as useful in that situation, probably more so.
And do you really think that its only people wearing multiple multiplicative buffs who are steamrolling content? When Recovery allows Encounters to spam like At Wills, and AP gain means Dailies come round as fast as Encounters...
All you folk who think that losing Lifesteal and Recovery makes the game less fun/unplayable... put down the crutches and learn to walk again...
Blindly demanding the devs listen to you, when what you have to say is basically... "I'm an expert... I'm clever... I have no idea what to replace Mod 16 with... but just roll it back... I'm the customer, so I'm right!!!", and offering no serious alternative is twattery of the highest order.
Offer some intelligent alternatives, rather than demanding to be obeyed. If you ARE an expert, say something that reflects that, not tired old maxims that most sensible people evolved beyond decades ago.
(The customer is RARELY right, and any manager who puts customers stupid demands above the experience, expertise and loyalty of their staff is not only foolish, they are an HAMSTER hole. It's long been understood that companies who put staff before customers actually generate better customer service than putting the customer first. And I'll happily run a training seminar for anyone who still believes otherwise. But it won't be free.)
But it's really easy to claim they don't listen, when what you have to say is essentially the white noise of demands to roll it back... cos why would they listen to that?
@mordekai#1901 First, I said I was an expert in salesand marketing with 25+ years experience. I didn't say I was an expert in programming and game development. Although, I am good friends with several programmers and developers, I am not someone who knows the ins and outs of all of the game mechanics.
The fact that my copied and pasted "tired old maxims" first began to be gathered together into statistical science over one hundred years ago, offers more cogency to their truths than can be said for your vacuous response. They fall into patterns of societal behavior that sociology has known about for even longer. These are truths that have not changed for at least half a century, and they are still tried and true, reliable statistics, taught in marketing classes around the globe to this day.
This response of yours seems to me to echo of a desire to foment, rather than fortify. What are you an expert in? Your quote, "The customer is RARELY right," smacks more of "twattery", as you put it, than anything I posted.
Contrary to your vehement blast at people needing to know things before they comment, most of the people who have replied to this post seem to completely disagree with your premise and assumptions. If you want to contribute something viable to this conversation, take a moment to consider your audience. If you are trying to impress someone in this forum, I fail to see who that might be. However, you have clearly offered up a lack of understanding of how businesses succeed or how the model on which NW makes its money works. Pleasing the customer is paramount in this kind of market. Not having full solutions at hand does not reduce the veracity of our statements or negate our feelings of impingement and desire for possible solatium, especially in the case of those who have spent literally thousands of dollars supporting this game.
In my original post I was merely trying to make a clear point that Cryptic, by offering broken content to the loyal players who have monetarily supported them over the years, seems to lack forethought and acumen.
To what advantage is it to be sycophantic towards those that have created such an environment?
I'll cut to the chase this time... I ran a business consultancy for about a decade, fairly small concern but never needed to advertise as word of mouth business meant I always had plenty of work waiting for whenever I finished a job. Most of this was during the 2008-09 financial crash. I semi-retired in my forties because I could, and now just do work when old clients need refreshers on new legislation or take on new staff and need training. And I write training manuals for UK City and Guild vocational qualification courses.
I don't claim to be an expert, but I never had a dissatisfied customer, and most still ask me for advice from time to time.
The cornerstone of my business relies on dispelling old myths about how business is supposed to work.
The short version... (I'll run you through the full version if you're happy to pay?) ... goes a bit like this; HAMSTER like "The Customer is always right" is a mindset that lets your staff know exactly what you think about THEM. If they think "It doesn't matter whether I'm right and the moaning customer is wrong... the company is going to side with the customer... no matter what." just how loyal will they be? They know you as an employer will always side with the idiot on the phone or the ranty moron on the feedback page of the website. They're going to spend every spare moment looking for another job. You see people just spout this HAMSTER without thinking it through. It was OK in Victorian and Edwardian times, when labour laws were based around the employers capacity to squeeze every ounce of effort out their employees, but it's just dumb to adopt such a stupidly inflexible mantra as a core methodology in the 21st century.
Of course I never worked in a casino so my experience is incomplete, but all the other industries I worked with seem to fare better with happy staff, who know that if a customer calls you a Hamster, their manager will defend them.
Now don't get me wrong... Customer Service is vital. GOOD customer service is essential. But letting the customer make you their HAMSTER... that's just stupid.
Also, accepting that the "Customer is always right" automatically implies that you shouldn't try to change their mind. Because... if they are right, why would you. Upselling, and add-ons are where many companies make a lot of their profit, if a customer says "No", you don't try and change their mind? Wow...
If you honestly believe that the customer is always right, can you explain why there are so many helplines these days? I've worked on a few from time to time to find out what they have to put up with. It's actually quite fun when you know you're only doing it for a day or two, but must be hellish having to listen to whining customers talk rubbish for a living. It's not a joke that some variation of "have you tried turning it off and back on again" is up there as the main reason a product is "faulty" along with "Can you check and make sure the cable is in the INPUT not the OUTPUT". My kid brother started out working on a helpline for one of the printer companies (think it was HP) and his team fixed more than 90% of what customers described as "faults" by educating the customer on the correct use of the product.
Doing what a customer says because their idea is backed up, not with logic and strong foundation, but because "I'm an expert" would be terrible business.
Let me also pop that little bubble of stats you copied and pasted... you say they are over 100 years in the making... I'm fairly sure your own thinking stopped shortly after they began. All that twaddle about how many people a customer tells about varying types of service. I struggle to accept your claim of expertise if you honestly think those figures are either accurate or have any meaning at all. All those stats do is keep Market Research companies in business, and provide easy fodder for middle management hacks to put on Spreadsheets, and Powerpoint presentations to play for people like you who can't see past them.
You want to know how many people a customer tells about ANY experience they have in 2019, good, bad or indifferent? I can tell you.. Its... EVERYONE THEY KNOW. Because they use social media to tell anyone anything. People buy an ice cream and post a picture of it on Facebook or Instagram. Social media is basically people moaning about stuff interspersed with pictures of food and funny cat videos. It's white noise now, and takes something going viral before anyone even gives a damn.
An expert in Sales and Marketing uses social media to make a claim about customer behaviour and forgets to account for social media when describing that behaviour... genius. Just... genius...
If you chose to step outside your little echo chamber, you'd probably be able to find some of my other posts in this forum. You'd probably notice that most of my posts are not exactly complimentary towards Cryptic or some of the changes they have introduced. But I, along with most of the rest of the forum, do not use nonsense claims to try to big up our comments or suggestions, I certainly try to use logic and reason and when that fails I resort to sarcasm. I don't go straight in with "I;m an expert!!! Listen to ME!"
And you know what? Sometimes logic, reason and even a bit of sarcasm WORKS. Go check the Preview Shard Forum, and read the Mage thread of the Underdark Official feedback. They really didn't want to introduce Fireball. But we argued... No one said, "I'm really smart so listen to me!!!" we used strong arguments backed up with rational reasons and quite a few sarcastic comments. We now have Fireball... Go read the Paladin feedback and see if Cryptic listens.
Just because they don't listen to YOU doesn't mean they aren't listening full stop. Not listening to you is probably the most sensible thing they've done since Mod 16 went live.
And with that I'll join them. Enjoy your Echo Chamber Of Excellent Expertise.
And Good Luck with getting someone to take you seriously.
One tip though... if you are going to lecture people on how companies making decisions ignoring customer wishes can be detrimental to their business, and cut and paste stats to back up your theory... don't lead with NETFLIX. I might be wrong, but I think they're doing OK.
I we missed each other in transit. Being an expert at something can include multiple aspects and details, even for folks who are considered to be an expert in the same thing. Expertness is something that allows your voice to have some weight. In the States, where I reside, it is something that our court system relies upon to determine higher levels of credibility.
Here's a quick definition of my meaning:
EXPERT: Professional who has acquired knowledge and skills through study and practice over the years, in a particular field or subject, to the extent that his or her opinion may be helpful in fact finding, problem solving, or understanding of a situation. (businessdictionary.com)
EXPERT: (Adj) Having or involving a great deal of knowledge or skill in a particular area. (Noun) A person who is very knowledgeable about or skilful(sic) in a particular area. (Oxford English Dictionary)
I, too, run a marketing consultancy. I agree with the meat of what you said in your last reply.
I am not saying, "The customer is always right." As a matter of fact, I didn't say that in the first place.
Here it is: What I am saying and have already stated is -
"In my original post I was merely trying to make a clear point that Cryptic, by offering broken content to the loyal players who have monetarily supported them over the years, seems to lack forethought and acumen."
You kinda ran around in a circle on "the customer is always right" tangent. I understand your perspective much better now that you have expanded upon it, and there is a lot of it I agree with.
However, everything you stated: 1) does not make the things I posted incorrect or untrue. (Sociology says that people live in patterns and many of those patterns are still true today.) 2) does not mean I am sitting in some echo chamber because I posted them, or that I am unwilling to learn, grow, or adapt 3) offers you up as another expert in the same field as myself 4) offers another perspective on Crytpic's response to the players (and lack there of in some cases) 5) said nothing about my main point - broken content to loyal players, and how that's a bad business decision
If I try to read between the lines, I could infer from you an implication that Cryptic made a good business decision with mod 16 by not listening to the customers - but I really don't think that's what you were trying to say - because if it was, as my country-folk friends in the mid-west like to say, "That's like wiping before you HAMSTER. It just don't make sense."
After learning a bit more about you, you seem like the kind of person I wouldn't mind having a cup of coffee with. Thanks for taking the time to clarify your position. And not everyone does the sarcasm thing - I am just a very direct kind of person.
The entire basis of your original post was that you are an expert, therefore Cryptic should listen to you, roll back to Mod 15. Citing past examples of why people not listening to customers makes not listening to some customers wrong without showing why they should listen to you specifically beyond, "I'm an expert" is never going to convince anyone that you are in fact an expert. You need to show it.
I've been posting on this forum for years and never once, till you started in, needed to play the "I ran a business consultancy" card. Because Cryptic either engaged with me or not based on the weight of my arguments or lack thereof.
I have no objection to the argument to roll back. Personally I think its a foolish idea that the whole game needs to move away from, but I read the material when it was posted explaining why they want to do it. However, if the point is argued well enough I could be convinced otherwise. I seriously doubt it, but it will take a while lot more than "I'm an expert" to convince me, and I am absolutely sure that goes double for Cryptic who know better than any of use why the previous game system needed to be overwritten in the first place.
They need to fix scaling. The rest of the changes do not require serious overhaul. They do require players to engage in some extra thought and practice as the mechanics of most classes have changed. For some people that might mean looking at playing a different class, or even leaving the game entirely, but the basic game changes aren't inherently "Bad" they are just changes. Like I say, some stuff needs tweaking... For me that's stuff like; cool downs outside of combat need increasing, and Mob slaughter needs a bit of work so that running Arcane Reservoir doesn't take 20 minutes if you have a slow character. I'm really not happy that Shadow of Demise sits in the AoE specialist Rogue paragon as opposed to the single target... stuff like that... but none of that matters if they don't fix scaling. Not in my mind anyway, because I'll be playing Star Trek till they fix scaling in Neverwinter.
(ETA) P.S. The biggest mistake and the main cause of all this trouble with scaling was actually down to listening to customers. If they had just left the level cap alone and never introduced Level 80 in the first place, this would have all been so much easier to implement. Now you have new level 80 characters who going in might have been 18k BiS demigods, and at the other end 9K alts. How on Earth do you balance THAT with new content and going back into previous content? Particularly when a lot of the lesser geared L80's haven't finished most of that L70 content? The answer is you introduce "Scaling" and break the game...
Should never have introduced a new level cap. But people moaned and moaned, and now they've got it. And it turns out its just a number that breaks the game when you go back into old content. Many of the skills and powers you unlock at Level 80 are skills and powers you used to get at far lower levels... pointless. Level 80... the Gimmick that broke the game!
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kreatyveMember, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 10,545Community Moderator
Thread closed as it has just turned into a flame fest.
My opinions are my own. I do not work for PWE or Cryptic. - Forum Rules - Protector's Enclave Discord - I play on Xbox Any of my comments not posted in orange are based on my own personal opinion and not official. Any messages written in orange are official moderation messages. Signature images are now fixed!
Comments
When someone demands to be treated like they are intelligent, I think it's up to them to show why. Particularly when they say stuff that suggests they might not be as clever as they think.
Too many people are demanding the developers listen to them, but are making suggestions that don't make sense.
It's not enough to claim you are some sort of expert and copy and paste other people's work, but then make demands that don't seem to have taken into account the reasons the system was changed in the first place.
I was quite heavily involved in the feedback in the Preview stages of Mod 16, (not the closed Beta) and this notion that it needs rolling back because the devs don't listen isn't borne out by the facts. In fact it flat out ignores the changes that were made because they DID listen.
With no further plans to add new powers to Wizard some of us pestered, argued, and spammed the devs... they listened and Wizards now have Fireball.
We pointed out that the opposing roll system wasn't offering variety, people had either 0% or maxed out opposing roll ratings, so they changed the entire system.
In fact, anyone who says the devs don't listen and act on player feedback needs to go read the Paladin thread on Mod 16 Preview and shut the HAMSTER up.
Blindly demanding the devs listen to you, when what you have to say is basically... "I'm an expert... I'm clever... I have no idea what to replace Mod 16 with... but just roll it back... I'm the customer, so I'm right!!!", and offering no serious alternative is twattery of the highest order.
Offer some intelligent alternatives, rather than demanding to be obeyed. If you ARE an expert, say something that reflects that, not tired old maxims that most sensible people evolved beyond decades ago.
(The customer is RARELY right, and any manager who puts customers stupid demands above the experience, expertise and loyalty of their staff is not only foolish, they are an HAMSTER hole. It's long been understood that companies who put staff before customers actually generate better customer service than putting the customer first. And I'll happily run a training seminar for anyone who still believes otherwise. But it won't be free.)
But it's really easy to claim they don't listen, when what you have to say is essentially the white noise of demands to roll it back... cos why would they listen to that?
Not sure how that adds anything to the discussion over whether Cryptic should listen to peoples' opinions on rolling back to mods 15 simply because they are customers and apparently customers know more about their business than they do themselves, (without actually needing to prove they know anything through something like offering sensible suggestions, because, apparently, "the customer is always right" especially when those customers are self proclaimed experts...) but excellent observation nonetheless.
Same, STO, Runescape and Minecraft for me, now.
I'll only drop by in NW when......IF....the devs actually manage to undo this, as the Angry Video Game Nerd would say, 'Hamster Pickle'.
Folks....who thinks Angry Video Game Nerd would have a blast with NW post mod 16?
These two weren't the issues in the game for the combat as they left in the real issue which is multiplicative buffs stacking ever increasing amounts of damage. Recovery is responsible for allowing the players to build their own toons and put the power of choice into the players hands instead of the dev for how they build and create their characters. More recovery equaled faster ways to either heal or do damage. The cap for recovery was already hit and that was animation times. Lifesteal was in a fine place since it meant that players could go solo in normal campaign zones without having to rely on a second person to do solo content. Removing lifesteal means that solo content for those players isn't in a good state and why some are even saying unplayable. Removing recovery means that the game development team removed choice in how to build their characters which is why you see the comments on slow play as well as not fun. If they removed the way buffs interacted with each other and made them be additive you would remove all melt parties from the game because you would be taking out the silly numbers of damage. This in turn would make combat take longer or in most instances the proper amount of time. This lengthens fights which increases the need to heal players without having to slow down how fast players feel their character did in the content which preserves the feel of the combat players are used to. It would allow for more builds since you might need a healer for content because you have to fight longer. More runs are successful with healers and you would see people ask for them.
multiplicative buffs are still in the game which is why eventually we will have this same issue in the future. They needed to make the buffs additive as well as affected by calculations like armor pen missing, etc... Then they could have played with what stats were the best in different areas. Unfortunately for the players, we have some lower quality version of combat which is more similar to games like WoW or ESO.
Yule (Barb): 72k : Siren (TR): 78k : Torun (DC): 73k : Siren OP (OP): 76k : Siren SW (SW): 78k : Modern (F): 80k : Cherry1 (CW) : 68k Siren HR (HR): 78k
From what I have experienced from many MMOs, is that the trolls polluting the online games today just love to suck the life out of a game to force changes nobody wants. For example, look at the fixation with level-scaling in many MMOs. The trolls complain:
"Nobody wants to run a group with me. They're too busy soloing! They're too busy farming. And if I do get into a group, they're too powerful for me and just leave me behind." (Insert thumb-sucking noise here.)
This is exactly how Star Wars The Old Republic was made a mere shadow of its former self. They had skill trees you could experiment with. They had companions who actually worked and did something meaningful. Crafted items had stats that made the crafting process worth the effort. Gear sets for level 50+ had meaningful "set-bonuses" that made completing the gear set a rewarding experience. They had a healthy economy that didn't punish players for farming credits. But the trolls trolled, never mind the fact that these worthlessly lazy SoBs don't even bother to actually play the games they troll in, but just want an excuse - any excuse - to harass other players and suck the life out of the game. And the typical MMOs' response?
For Star Wars The Old Republic, they got rid of the skill-trees, enforced gear nerfs, reduced crafted item bonuses, reduced set bonuses, added a credit cap, needlessly made some story missions and flashpoints smaller (like the Thing Czerka Found), and hamstrung all players with a planetary level-sync that nobody ever wanted or asked for. Now look at Cryptic's case, the developers gut the entire game and betray the existing fan base just to please the same obnoxious trolls!
Pathetic.
All of your argument relies on the accuracy of the statement that; "This lengthens fights which increases the need to heal players..." But that's just not true where Lifesteal is still active.
Lifesteal works all the time. If a fight lasts 2 minutes, lifesteal is active throughout. If a fight lasts 10 minutes, lifesteal is active throughout.
If your lifesteal keeps you topped up for 30 seconds or a minute, it will do the same for 5 or 10 minutes; it doesn't matter how long combat lasts. You either eventually die from a one shot, or you eventually win.
There is absolutely nothing at all to support the notion that in Mod 15, if a fight lasted longer a Healer would be more relevant. A decent Tank... yeah... maybe... but the only increased risk in making a fight last longer while Lifesteal is in the mix is the increased risk of a One-Shot landing and killing you outright. In which case, what good is a Healer? A Rogue with Stealth and ITC is just as useful in that situation, probably more so.
And do you really think that its only people wearing multiple multiplicative buffs who are steamrolling content? When Recovery allows Encounters to spam like At Wills, and AP gain means Dailies come round as fast as Encounters...
All you folk who think that losing Lifesteal and Recovery makes the game less fun/unplayable... put down the crutches and learn to walk again...
The fact that my copied and pasted "tired old maxims" first began to be gathered together into statistical science over one hundred years ago, offers more cogency to their truths than can be said for your vacuous response. They fall into patterns of societal behavior that sociology has known about for even longer. These are truths that have not changed for at least half a century, and they are still tried and true, reliable statistics, taught in marketing classes around the globe to this day.
This response of yours seems to me to echo of a desire to foment, rather than fortify. What are you an expert in? Your quote, "The customer is RARELY right," smacks more of "twattery", as you put it, than anything I posted.
Contrary to your vehement blast at people needing to know things before they comment, most of the people who have replied to this post seem to completely disagree with your premise and assumptions. If you want to contribute something viable to this conversation, take a moment to consider your audience. If you are trying to impress someone in this forum, I fail to see who that might be. However, you have clearly offered up a lack of understanding of how businesses succeed or how the model on which NW makes its money works. Pleasing the customer is paramount in this kind of market. Not having full solutions at hand does not reduce the veracity of our statements or negate our feelings of impingement and desire for possible solatium, especially in the case of those who have spent literally thousands of dollars supporting this game.
In my original post I was merely trying to make a clear point that Cryptic, by offering broken content to the loyal players who have monetarily supported them over the years, seems to lack forethought and acumen.
To what advantage is it to be sycophantic towards those that have created such an environment?
I'll cut to the chase this time...
I ran a business consultancy for about a decade, fairly small concern but never needed to advertise as word of mouth business meant I always had plenty of work waiting for whenever I finished a job. Most of this was during the 2008-09 financial crash.
I semi-retired in my forties because I could, and now just do work when old clients need refreshers on new legislation or take on new staff and need training. And I write training manuals for UK City and Guild vocational qualification courses.
I don't claim to be an expert, but I never had a dissatisfied customer, and most still ask me for advice from time to time.
The cornerstone of my business relies on dispelling old myths about how business is supposed to work.
The short version... (I'll run you through the full version if you're happy to pay?) ... goes a bit like this;
HAMSTER like "The Customer is always right" is a mindset that lets your staff know exactly what you think about THEM. If they think "It doesn't matter whether I'm right and the moaning customer is wrong... the company is going to side with the customer... no matter what." just how loyal will they be? They know you as an employer will always side with the idiot on the phone or the ranty moron on the feedback page of the website. They're going to spend every spare moment looking for another job.
You see people just spout this HAMSTER without thinking it through. It was OK in Victorian and Edwardian times, when labour laws were based around the employers capacity to squeeze every ounce of effort out their employees, but it's just dumb to adopt such a stupidly inflexible mantra as a core methodology in the 21st century.
Of course I never worked in a casino so my experience is incomplete, but all the other industries I worked with seem to fare better with happy staff, who know that if a customer calls you a Hamster, their manager will defend them.
Now don't get me wrong... Customer Service is vital. GOOD customer service is essential. But letting the customer make you their HAMSTER... that's just stupid.
Also, accepting that the "Customer is always right" automatically implies that you shouldn't try to change their mind.
Because... if they are right, why would you.
Upselling, and add-ons are where many companies make a lot of their profit, if a customer says "No", you don't try and change their mind? Wow...
If you honestly believe that the customer is always right, can you explain why there are so many helplines these days?
I've worked on a few from time to time to find out what they have to put up with. It's actually quite fun when you know you're only doing it for a day or two, but must be hellish having to listen to whining customers talk rubbish for a living.
It's not a joke that some variation of "have you tried turning it off and back on again" is up there as the main reason a product is "faulty" along with "Can you check and make sure the cable is in the INPUT not the OUTPUT".
My kid brother started out working on a helpline for one of the printer companies (think it was HP) and his team fixed more than 90% of what customers described as "faults" by educating the customer on the correct use of the product.
Doing what a customer says because their idea is backed up, not with logic and strong foundation, but because "I'm an expert" would be terrible business.
Let me also pop that little bubble of stats you copied and pasted... you say they are over 100 years in the making...
I'm fairly sure your own thinking stopped shortly after they began.
All that twaddle about how many people a customer tells about varying types of service.
I struggle to accept your claim of expertise if you honestly think those figures are either accurate or have any meaning at all.
All those stats do is keep Market Research companies in business, and provide easy fodder for middle management hacks to put on Spreadsheets, and Powerpoint presentations to play for people like you who can't see past them.
You want to know how many people a customer tells about ANY experience they have in 2019, good, bad or indifferent?
I can tell you..
Its...
EVERYONE THEY KNOW.
Because they use social media to tell anyone anything.
People buy an ice cream and post a picture of it on Facebook or Instagram.
Social media is basically people moaning about stuff interspersed with pictures of food and funny cat videos.
It's white noise now, and takes something going viral before anyone even gives a damn.
An expert in Sales and Marketing uses social media to make a claim about customer behaviour and forgets to account for social media when describing that behaviour... genius.
Just... genius...
If you chose to step outside your little echo chamber, you'd probably be able to find some of my other posts in this forum. You'd probably notice that most of my posts are not exactly complimentary towards Cryptic or some of the changes they have introduced. But I, along with most of the rest of the forum, do not use nonsense claims to try to big up our comments or suggestions, I certainly try to use logic and reason and when that fails I resort to sarcasm. I don't go straight in with "I;m an expert!!! Listen to ME!"
And you know what? Sometimes logic, reason and even a bit of sarcasm WORKS.
Go check the Preview Shard Forum, and read the Mage thread of the Underdark Official feedback. They really didn't want to introduce Fireball. But we argued... No one said, "I'm really smart so listen to me!!!" we used strong arguments backed up with rational reasons and quite a few sarcastic comments.
We now have Fireball...
Go read the Paladin feedback and see if Cryptic listens.
Just because they don't listen to YOU doesn't mean they aren't listening full stop. Not listening to you is probably the most sensible thing they've done since Mod 16 went live.
And with that I'll join them.
Enjoy your Echo Chamber Of Excellent Expertise.
And Good Luck with getting someone to take you seriously.
One tip though... if you are going to lecture people on how companies making decisions ignoring customer wishes can be detrimental to their business, and cut and paste stats to back up your theory... don't lead with NETFLIX.
I might be wrong, but I think they're doing OK.
Here's a quick definition of my meaning:
EXPERT: Professional who has acquired knowledge and skills through study and practice over the years, in a particular field or subject, to the extent that his or her opinion may be helpful in fact finding, problem solving, or understanding of a situation. (businessdictionary.com)
EXPERT: (Adj) Having or involving a great deal of knowledge or skill in a particular area. (Noun) A person who is very knowledgeable about or skilful(sic) in a particular area. (Oxford English Dictionary)
I, too, run a marketing consultancy. I agree with the meat of what you said in your last reply.
I am not saying, "The customer is always right." As a matter of fact, I didn't say that in the first place.
Here it is: What I am saying and have already stated is -
"In my original post I was merely trying to make a clear point that Cryptic, by offering broken content to the loyal players who have monetarily supported them over the years, seems to lack forethought and acumen."
You kinda ran around in a circle on "the customer is always right" tangent. I understand your perspective much better now that you have expanded upon it, and there is a lot of it I agree with.
However, everything you stated:
1) does not make the things I posted incorrect or untrue. (Sociology says that people live in patterns and many of those patterns are still true today.)
2) does not mean I am sitting in some echo chamber because I posted them, or that I am unwilling to learn, grow, or adapt
3) offers you up as another expert in the same field as myself
4) offers another perspective on Crytpic's response to the players (and lack there of in some cases)
5) said nothing about my main point - broken content to loyal players, and how that's a bad business decision
If I try to read between the lines, I could infer from you an implication that Cryptic made a good business decision with mod 16 by not listening to the customers - but I really don't think that's what you were trying to say - because if it was, as my country-folk friends in the mid-west like to say, "That's like wiping before you HAMSTER. It just don't make sense."
After learning a bit more about you, you seem like the kind of person I wouldn't mind having a cup of coffee with. Thanks for taking the time to clarify your position. And not everyone does the sarcasm thing - I am just a very direct kind of person.
Citing past examples of why people not listening to customers makes not listening to some customers wrong without showing why they should listen to you specifically beyond, "I'm an expert" is never going to convince anyone that you are in fact an expert. You need to show it.
I've been posting on this forum for years and never once, till you started in, needed to play the "I ran a business consultancy" card. Because Cryptic either engaged with me or not based on the weight of my arguments or lack thereof.
I have no objection to the argument to roll back. Personally I think its a foolish idea that the whole game needs to move away from, but I read the material when it was posted explaining why they want to do it.
However, if the point is argued well enough I could be convinced otherwise.
I seriously doubt it, but it will take a while lot more than "I'm an expert" to convince me, and I am absolutely sure that goes double for Cryptic who know better than any of use why the previous game system needed to be overwritten in the first place.
They need to fix scaling. The rest of the changes do not require serious overhaul. They do require players to engage in some extra thought and practice as the mechanics of most classes have changed. For some people that might mean looking at playing a different class, or even leaving the game entirely, but the basic game changes aren't inherently "Bad" they are just changes.
Like I say, some stuff needs tweaking...
For me that's stuff like; cool downs outside of combat need increasing, and Mob slaughter needs a bit of work so that running Arcane Reservoir doesn't take 20 minutes if you have a slow character. I'm really not happy that Shadow of Demise sits in the AoE specialist Rogue paragon as opposed to the single target... stuff like that... but none of that matters if they don't fix scaling.
Not in my mind anyway, because I'll be playing Star Trek till they fix scaling in Neverwinter.
(ETA)
P.S.
The biggest mistake and the main cause of all this trouble with scaling was actually down to listening to customers.
If they had just left the level cap alone and never introduced Level 80 in the first place, this would have all been so much easier to implement.
Now you have new level 80 characters who going in might have been 18k BiS demigods, and at the other end 9K alts. How on Earth do you balance THAT with new content and going back into previous content? Particularly when a lot of the lesser geared L80's haven't finished most of that L70 content? The answer is you introduce "Scaling" and break the game...
Should never have introduced a new level cap.
But people moaned and moaned, and now they've got it. And it turns out its just a number that breaks the game when you go back into old content. Many of the skills and powers you unlock at Level 80 are skills and powers you used to get at far lower levels... pointless.
Level 80... the Gimmick that broke the game!
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