I'm frustrated, discouraged and getting burnt out.. No costing changes = getting tired of game.

instynctive · October 2015

blah blah blah leadership blah blah blah AD blah blah blah balance the classes blah blah blah bring back the old dungeons blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

I think... there needs to be more sandbox. I would love, while grinding out whatever, to come across a sparkly door or rock or bush or hole in the ground, and find myself journeying through a quest. Not because Sgt. Knox sent me to do it, but because it's just.. there.

More exploration. More adventuring. Less being someone's errand HAMSTER. Have random dungeons pop up in random places. Hell.. link the entrance to a random Foundry. Something. ANYTHING.

hustin1 · October 2015

instynctive said:
blah blah blah leadership blah blah blah AD blah blah blah balance the classes blah blah blah bring back the old dungeons blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

I think... there needs to be more sandbox. I would love, while grinding out whatever, to come across a sparkly door or rock or bush or hole in the ground, and find myself journeying through a quest. Not because Sgt. Knox sent me to do it, but because it's just.. there.

More exploration. More adventuring. Less being someone's errand HAMSTER. Have random dungeons pop up in random places. Hell.. link the entrance to a random Foundry. Something. ANYTHING.

Hmm. You know how sometimes you get an item drop that sends you on a quest? It would be a small step if the devs could start having items drop that sent you to a featured and/or vetted Foundry. I could also see, though, how it could get annoying. They'd have to throttle it so you only got the drop maybe once a day.

Maybe while I'm waiting for our guild hall upgrade to complete I'll take another look at the Foundry editor. Seriously, devs, please make some improvements to it!

urabask · October 2015

instynctive said:
blah blah blah leadership blah blah blah AD blah blah blah balance the classes blah blah blah bring back the old dungeons blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

I think... there needs to be more sandbox. I would love, while grinding out whatever, to come across a sparkly door or rock or bush or hole in the ground, and find myself journeying through a quest. Not because Sgt. Knox sent me to do it, but because it's just.. there.

More exploration. More adventuring. Less being someone's errand HAMSTER. Have random dungeons pop up in random places. Hell.. link the entrance to a random Foundry. Something. ANYTHING.

That would just becomes something else people farm. Someone finds a pattern and then you've suddenly got bots standing at all the points where the best quests spawn.

lilrasta · October 2015

totally agree

AD costs need to be throw all game board due to last changes ...

SH donation , boons , companion upgrade , baazar shop (not just gmops) and bloody change apperance costs!

simply give and take ....

bioshrike · October 2015

The problem, IMO, is that there are so many different currencies, and each is usually only tied to a small selection of ways of acquiring them. What 'd like to see is to have quests either reward a "currency chance box" that can grant you a random selection of other currencies, or to provide a vendor that allows you to exchange between the different currencies at-will. This would allow players to run whatever content they find is fun, while still being able to make progress toward the other areas they desire.

rickcase276 · October 2015

I second the idea of Biostrike, but also they need to do the same for shards of power for the stronghold. This way those guilds that do not PvP or do dungeons can still advance. Even a 2 to 1 or a 5 to 1 exchange rate would be good.

ldedric1 · October 2015

I am logging in for the 1st time after a month break, I'll have a bit of a look around and talk to some guildies about what's been going on but overall from what I have seen, nothing significant has changed and if so well, I'll give it one more go next month before I wave bye bye.

strumslinger · October 2015

I share your concerns and am desperately working to get some of these changes implemented. I personally have a lot of Companions that need upgrading, but I'm donating all my AD to the Stronghold instead. It's pretty frustrating.

aulduron · October 2015

I agree, Silver. I don't know if it was because of this thread or not, but there were 2 CMs in legit today asking questions about the economy and swearing that they were going to show that chat to the devs.

We're not the only ones sick of this.

Unknown · October 2015

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hustin1 · October 2015

I'd like to work on another Foundry quest, but even that's depressing.

STILL no HR costumes??? It's been what, six mods since the HR was introduced? Will the Cubs win the Series before we get them?

Is there a reason why we can't customize the colors of "preset" costumes? For that matter, what does the fourth color block do? I can't seem to get it to do anything.

No Nasher banners? Really?

C'mon, guys. Can't you put *someone* on the Foundry?

instynctive · October 2015

strumslinger said:
I share your concerns and am desperately working to get some of these changes implemented. I personally have a lot of Companions that need upgrading, but I'm donating all my AD to the Stronghold instead. It's pretty frustrating.

Give 'em hell, kid.

hustin1 said:
I'd like to work on another Foundry quest, but even that's depressing.

[snip]

C'mon, guys. Can't you put *someone* on the Foundry?

I'm in the same boat. I'll load up the editor and go into something I was working on, and the map won't display (another bug that's been there forever). I do whatever "home remedies" on it, or just move to a different quest.. place an Orc village/encampment cluster, which likes to be +30 altitude.. delete the cluster because I really don't want to go through and put each item at 0 altitude... or I want a kill plane on some random map, so have to start piecing together rocks or something on the Sky map... or I forget about the most recent bug and watch the whole thing crash when I place a SFX.

I really hope they do get serious about the Foundry and start showing it some love.

Unknown · October 2015

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Unknown · October 2015

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klangeddin · October 2015

The mistake was making a mod entirely around something that is meant to progress for the whole lifespan of the game, aka very slowly. It's clear that they intended stronghold to take years on avarage to complete (except for the most competitive whales that will splash a ton of cash that will make devs happy I suppose). For guildless players, mod 7 has no content. Even for guilds (if you take the grind out) the amount of content offered by mod 7 is actually very little. 1 pvp map and 1 pve map with a bunch of HEs that are not really that different from each other. That's it.

This is why everyone's attention is on the AD changes. Since there's not much else to do people are throwing it all on Strongholds (that require lots of AD), when they're supposed to be side-content done along with the rest during the lifespan of the game.

The game needs new content (hopefully coming with mod 8) and a foundry overhaul with improved rewards to help it through the rough patches when standard content becomes boring after having done it over and over too many times. No buts, no ifs.

Strongholds should be the icing on the cake, not the main focus of the game.

Or maybe it was not a mistake, and it was done on purpose. We'll have proof of this if the guild boons will ever be nerfed in the future (they are objectively overpowered and I find it hard to believe that the devs were not aware of this before release of mod 7) and only served as a bait to get the whales to spend lots of cash in a short time.

Unknown · October 2015

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hustin1 · October 2015

One thing they should do immediately (as in **yesterday**) is bring back all of the 5-man non-epic dungeons. There really was no reason to remove them in mod 6. If they want to rework the epic versions, they should certainly be able to do that separately. Removing them has not only taken away a lot of content, it has also caused other problems.

The main benefit of the normal dungeons isn't, in my opinion, content, but rather a means to let players learn how to deal with dungeons in a group setting. Skirmishes don't last long enough for that, and the "new and improved" three-man dungeons don't either.

Switching out the five-man dungeons for three-man ones sends players a terrible message: "tactics and player roles don't matter here". In the name of reducing the playing time, they've also eliminated any need for tactics, strategy, or working together. Now players can just run through the dungeon, usually ignoring anything they aggro, to kill only bosses or enemies that they need to kill to progress (such as to open a door). Not only is it no longer a fun experience, it has terrible side effects later on.

Since mod 6, I've lost count of the number of times I've seen players in an epic instance who seemed not only unfamiliar with the dungeon but unfamiliar with how to work together in it. You have players who **constantly** rush ahead and get themselves killed without ever checking if anyone else is ready to take on the next room, for instance (then ragequit after dying for the n'th time). You have players who don't realize that taking out ranged enemies is vital. You have players that don't realize that constantly knocking enemies out of CC effects makes fights not only take longer but much more deadly. It's frustrating and there's no reason why it must be this way.

I know, people will say, "but returning the old normal dungeons will make earning rAD take longer!" They would be absolutely correct, but that's a separate problem -- one that can and should be solved by letting quests grant rAD (or, barring that, letting the gold that they currently grant be converted into rAD). It makes no sense that an NPC who asks you to do something of great value be unwilling to grant you a reward that is also of great value. Right now, the rewards of campaign quests feel downright stingy. In a game that we play for diversion and fun, that should not be.

Unknown · October 2015

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klangeddin · October 2015

hustin1 said:
One thing they should do immediately (as in **yesterday**) is bring back all of the 5-man non-epic dungeons. There really was no reason to remove them in mod 6. If they want to rework the epic versions, they should certainly be able to do that separately. Removing them has not only taken away a lot of content, it has also caused other problems.

The main benefit of the normal dungeons isn't, in my opinion, content, but rather a means to let players learn how to deal with dungeons in a group setting. Skirmishes don't last long enough for that, and the "new and improved" three-man dungeons don't either.

Switching out the five-man dungeons for three-man ones sends players a terrible message: "tactics and player roles don't matter here". In the name of reducing the playing time, they've also eliminated any need for tactics, strategy, or working together. Now players can just run through the dungeon, usually ignoring anything they aggro, to kill only bosses or enemies that they need to kill to progress (such as to open a door). Not only is it no longer a fun experience, it has terrible side effects later on.

I know, people will say, "but returning the old normal dungeons will make earning rAD take longer!" They would be absolutely correct, but that's a separate problem -- one that can and should be solved by letting quests grant rAD (or, barring that, letting the gold that they currently grant be converted into rAD). It makes no sense that an NPC who asks you to do something of great value be unwilling to grant you a reward that is also of great value. Right now, the rewards of campaign quests feel downright stingy. In a game that we play for diversion and fun, that should not be.

Sorry but I've been here around since release and I can tell this is not the case.
With two notable exceptions (Lair of the Mad Dragon and Dread Vault, the first one being nerfed later and no longer requiring any particular skill to finish), the pre mod 6 5man dungeons did not really prepare players to learn to play in a group setting. They were not hard at all and could be easily completed without a full group. I say this confidently because I "one-shotted" them (including the lair of the mad dragon pre nerf) with pugs. The first time I queued for them with pugs, no wipes. Except Dread Vault, that one was hard yes, but it was also unfair with bugged red AoE on the ground by tentacles that slammed in a different locations and that caused the wipe.

and:

"Since mod 6, I've lost count of the number of times I've seen players in an epic instance who seemed not only unfamiliar with the dungeon but unfamiliar with how to work together in it. You have players who **constantly** rush ahead and get themselves killed without ever checking if anyone else is ready to take on the next room, for instance (then ragequit after dying for the n'th time). "

always happened, always. from day one. Of every single MMORPG out there.

What you suggest will only make people avoid them like the plague and become ghost content. At the moment their only redeeming quality is the fast queue + easy AD + fast daily for lots of exp if you have stronghold.

Keep in mind that they were toned down to 3man (and without class requirement) to make the queue pop faster as well. As soon as you remove tanks/healer being mandatory, the reduction of difficulty becomes a must.

Unknown · October 2015

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Unknown · October 2015

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banaanc · October 2015

kalindra said:

So what?
Let them!
I don't care if 1000 bots want to do the same content than me, as long as they don't actively hinder me.

Bot's are just an excuse for lazy coding and bad management and worse design decisions.

i guess you are clueless about how bots affect mmorpg, bots do hinder you since they use server resources, and waste cryptics money by forcing them to have bigger infrastructure than they need, money that could be spent on on content or staff, also bots inject a lot of stuff in the market crippling it, as a result ppl who want to sell stuff like RP, r5 they got from legit gameplay cant sell them for as much ad, and cryptic is forced to add unreasonable amount of RP required for upgrades to reflect those cheap RP prices

and professionally made bot can "play" better than an average player, just check how good AI is getting on some new games, it just depends on how seriously they are programmed and for what purpose

ofc there are stuff that can be done, but killing bots as long as its profitable to make them is quite hard, all you can try to do is to make content the way that its not profitable to write complicated enough bot, there are low tier or diy bots that are much easier to fight, but its also a real business with professionals working on it

im not saying some ppl dont have their hands/heads growing out of their rear, but saying bots dont matter is just stupid

matthiasthehun76 · October 2015

I can only agree with most things said here both by the OP and by you guys, i wish to add only my humble opinion.

I wish to explain only my thoughts which are brewing in me since long, i really really don't want to bash anyone, i love(d) the original game and still wish to see the good old days come back, at least a bit, so Mods bare with me, no offense meant!

In my personal opinion, i see a few problems in the mechanics of the game and since my job is closely related to a CM i might share my viewpoint.

1. Cryptic should stop listening to 1% of the player base, who are BiS, have everything they need and are bored whales, cause they never worked for the things they got, they either paid a car's price or did other things beyond even Stephen King's imagination to get their wealth. Mod 6 difficulty clearly showed, this was a disastrous move. You simply can not satisfy whales and /or exploiters, cause they will be BiS in a few days after each new Mod, better keep yourself to the average players, that 99%. Makes sense.

2. Devs, Mods and you dear Andy, you guys shouldn't just ask in Legit for opinions. Legit is a small community, which as all such things has all types of personalities and there are many players, who are not a bit satisfied with current progress of the game, but they are either afraid or just Yes-Men, who will say or nod to every bad decision, just to keep their place or like many of your streamers do, just to get the freebies and they will never vent, never tell you the truth into your face, so feedback wise they are pretty useless.

This is how i do it at my workplace: I go out to everyone, most importantly to the smallest link in the chain, cause he or she feels the pressure at most, not the upper class. I also would advise you Andy @strumslinger to have special days or just one day, when you are open to everyone, for instance every Friday for 1 or 2 hours and please talk to small people or visit small guilds, not just the favored players or favored guilds. As i said above fanboys will never be a reliable feedback, makes sense, doesn't it?! Use special post boxes, where everyone, yes everyone could post their problems without having to fear moderation or being banned, a place, where players can share their everyday experiences. This would help to vent and you guys could also get the information on game breaking bugs or exploits faster. Trust me, i use them and it works, like a Swiss watch.

3. Testing. Kinda in close relation to my points above. Change the methods of testing, let everyone take part in it. I felt so bad, when i was a part of the Alpha Team for SH PVP and all the things i reported were like i would talk to a wall or to myself and i knew it was cause i was not a big name around the game, not a poster on affiliated websites, not a streamer, so all my feedback was neglected and it is funny you know, when i first saw the reported bugs all in the live version. I felt i was only there to fill the ranks, but nobody listened to me, nobody was listening to my words.

4. I have stopped bombarding CS with screenshots of big time exploiters long ago, cause really nobody cares and the legit always loses in PVP. I have never got a response from any employee here, Matt you old fool, who are those on the pictures? Cool we will take actions. Nothing. You guys have to admit at CM, this pretty much makes one feel neglected and one thinks, hey this world here is like RL, where big time cheaters prevail.

5. Don't be stubborn, we are all people, we all make mistakes. Nobody would lose their credibility, if they would stand out, admit it and say the magic word: "Sorry" and set a strict deadline for fixing. People would be less angry and relationship would be more healthy, if the Devs would admit their fault. Ok, i am not naive, i know they want to hang on their job, but this currently is the other side of the horse, like in war time, zero communication. This would also help to identify bugs quicker, cause for example after Mod 6 nearly half the community said DR is bugged, but no first came a big time silence and after nearly 6 months, Devs finally admitted it. So why play the same game, we are all adults, we should act like it. Same is the thing now with AD. When 99% say they have less and maths don't lie, why pretend, you can make the same amount. Please.

Ok, i have more on my mind, but maybe another time, i was now long enough.

Thank you all for reading!

matthiasthehun76 · October 2015

Yes a small thing i would like to add too, the BOONS in SH.

While they are no real big issue in PVE, they will destroy PVP even further, if things don't get balanced (i have posted my solution to this). It is pretty obvious, that each guild gains the boons not exactly at the same time. Now imagine a PVP match, where a bigger guild has the higher ranked boons and the small one non or just a 1 or 2.

Would anybody of you Devs be in the small guild's shoes. Of course not and i have to repeat myself, 90% of the population won't be part of mega guilds, we like to stay in more comfy, family orientated guilds.

So when the big guilds get those even bigger boons, expect PVP to be empty, unless you act.

dufisto · October 2015

strumslinger said:
I share your concerns and am desperately working to get some of these changes implemented. I personally have a lot of Companions that need upgrading, but I'm donating all my AD to the Stronghold instead. It's pretty frustrating.

because its more than 4 entries in a database. how freaking hard is it to update. any compentent dev should have that done in the time it takes to make his morning cup of coffee. and most of that time would be checking out the function from the source repository and checking it back in.
no i think the answer is you want people to spend $14 on a companion upgrade pack (2 required for purple, 3 for orange)

urabask · October 2015

matthiasthehun76 said:
Yes a small thing i would like to add too, the BOONS in SH.

While they are no real big issue in PVE, they will destroy PVP even further, if things don't get balanced (i have posted my solution to this). It is pretty obvious, that each guild gains the boons not exactly at the same time. Now imagine a PVP match, where a bigger guild has the higher ranked boons and the small one non or just a 1 or 2.

Would anybody of you Devs be in the small guild's shoes. Of course not and i have to repeat myself, 90% of the population won't be part of mega guilds, we like to stay in more comfy, family orientated guilds.

So when the big guilds get those even bigger boons, expect PVP to be empty, unless you act.

Isn't PvP already destroyed?

dufisto · October 2015

klangeddin said:
Even for guilds (if you take the grind out) the amount of content offered by mod 7 is actually very little. 1 pvp map and 1 pve map with a bunch of HEs that are not really that different from each other. That's it.

3 LARGE he's are cut and paste copies with a angle rotation.
the other 3 LARGE are cut and paste copies with a different mob

3 of the Medium HE's are cut and paste copies.
2 of the 4 small HE's are cut and paste copies.

my 12 year old cousin could have cranked out the stronghold map in a week.

mattsacre · October 2015

rickcase276 said:
I second the idea of Biostrike, but also they need to do the same for shards of power for the stronghold. This way those guilds that do not PvP or do dungeons can still advance. Even a 2 to 1 or a 5 to 1 exchange rate would be good.

But you miss the point of SH.....It's intent is to force content in a group format.
Some behaviorist, somewhere, told them that if they could get a group of friends to play consistantly together, it will "enhance" the likelyhood of them staying in the game longer, *as a group* rather than quitting for the next great game. That they would feel they were deserting their friends if they didn't hang around.

Pair that with the other problem they have, *under-represented player activity in content*, there is a while segment of players that loath some aspect of this MMO, pvp,dungeons,skirmishs whatever, they hate it and don't naturally do it. What to do about that? FORCE them to play it. You hate pvp? Tough, to advance SH you got to do it. Hate dungeons? To bad, your going to do it if you want a SH.

The Pvpers whine about their ques....let's force guilds to do it so we have enough cannon fodder for the pvpers.
The dungeon runners can't get enough for their LFGs? Force the guilds to run them and others can tag along.
Want to do a Skirmish but there isn't enough takers to go? Force a guild to go and maybe there will be enough now...

....cause we chased so many of the regular players to quit over our ill advised changes, lets make the guilds take up the slack!

The problem is, the behaviorist wanted to get their consulting fee, so they left out that other part of their analysis:
That if you FORCE people to do things, they resent it and resist.
If you FORCE people to group to do mind-numbing things they hate, they get burned out.
If you keep FORCEing them to this, that and the other on people and it doesn't turn out pleasant for them, they get frustrated.

What that behaviorist forgot to tell them is this:
Yes, many people are social in nature (some aren't), but even if they feel they owe the group some loyalty, at some point they just can't stand it and move on. Then that group dynamics they were counting on to help with game longevity? It works against them! That guy that cut and ran to another game...he finds that other game, then his "friends" get told about the greener pastures to be had, and they too jump. Now instead of a 1 or 2 player attrition rate that they have to replace to keep the game active....they have an avalanche they have to replace.

This game is starting to hit the "word of mouth" wall. Research shows that when you have a pleasurable time doing some activity, you tell 1 or 2 of your social circle. But if you have a unpleasant time...you tell 4 to 5 of your social circle and even worse..are MORE motivated to go outside your circle to tell others about it.

These type of games are highly dependent on "word of mouth" to gain player base..they can have huge advertisement budgets to draw people in, to give it a once over, but if the game has a bad rep from "word of mouth", all the players you gained from the advert budget are soon eroded away. Then you have to lure a while new subset of players to try the game, once again pouring money into a advert push.

They have to keep the current player base enthused about the game enough, to keep telling their friends to try it, not so down on the game that they tell all their friends they regret the game, and worse go out of their way, to tell not-yet-friends to pass on the game. All the advertisement money and hype in the world won't overcome the player attrition from "word of mouth" for any length of time.

How's that for a behaviorist consultation? And they didn't even have to pay me a large fee.

drkbodhi · October 2015

When I get on... due to my schedule... I run what I can in the time I have available. Yesterday CA spent an hour or so killing the guild leaders in IWD. Other than some HEs on a couple of toons... and some Builder quests... that was all I did. I used to be able to run around and never be bored. Instead of sticking around in game I log off and do something else.

I will not run eCC again, unless it is legit; I am bored to tears with eToS; eGWD is a bit out of the range of my Wk Scoundrel's area of influence due to the control immune fights. I refuse to PvP blindly as I did before... despite loving it... PvP has become a big mess.

Unknown · October 2015

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I'm frustrated, discouraged and getting burnt out.. No costing changes = getting tired of game.

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