My thoughts, some of which I think people aren't thinking about:
Speed change is do to server stability. Please let that sink in people. I'd take the server stability over speed any day. Especially since they added mod slots. Imagine if the speed was the same and then you slapped speed mods on top of it. Somebody mentioned in another thread that back in the early days of CO, travel powers were a lot faster and had to be slowed down for the same reason.
Weapon changes... It sounds more like this was for "balance" reasons. I mean, how many posts on the forums decried vehicles because their weapons were too powerful and with too much of a range? I know I saw a lot of them.
My thoughts, some of which I think people aren't thinking about:
Speed change is do to server stability. Please let that sink in people. I'd take the server stability over speed any day. Especially since they added mod slots. Imagine if the speed was the same and then you slapped speed mods on top of it. Somebody mentioned in another thread that back in the early days of CO, travel powers were a lot faster and had to be slowed down for the same reason.
Weapon changes... It sounds more like this was for "balance" reasons. I mean, how many posts on the forums decried vehicles because their weapons were too powerful and with too much of a range? I know I saw a lot of them.
Weapons:
Did you get to test any of the new vehicle weapons out on the PTS? Do you know how absurdly powerful those things can be? The range and damage on the tank cannon I was using made Sniper Rifle look like a cheap dollar store dart gun.
Speed:
Personally I'm ok with the speed being brought within server tolerance levels, what I'm not ok with is the fact that if their speed was really that big of an issue, why did they go live with it as they were?
This has all already been hashed over rather extensively. Regarding the speed nerfs due to "server stability":
1.) They promoted and sold the jets for several months. At what point did they realize the speed was affecting server stability? Why didn't they inform us that this was a risk before everyone shelled out $15?
2.) We've been told we can grind/buy/rank up more mods to get back to "almost" the same speed. How reasonable is that? Why not just cap speed of our jets at whatever the new safe max is and not make us re-purchase what we thought we were already purchasing once?
3.) Even assuming this is all some big mistake and not an intentional rip-off of early adopters to get them to buy more mods/vehicles, shouldn't the burden of fixing the mistake lie with Cryptic and not the customer? i.e. If you can't fix this in some other reasonable way, give us the option to reverse our transaction since, for whatever reason, the item we ended up with is drastically different from what we thought we were purchasing.
LTS since 2009. Author of ACT parser module for CO. Founder of Rampagers. Resident curmudgeon.
"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." -- W. Edwards Deming
Hmm. In case anyone missed it, quick background: The speed of the prototype Hawkwings was so fast that it was breaking things, hurting server performance and causing incorrect server calculations. We needed to reduce the maximum possible speed for vehicles so that it's safe for our servers.
To balance that out, we made sure the prototypes kept their powers, which are a step above most new vehicles' weapons. We also added an additional two Mod slots so that prototypes would attain a degree of customization and be included in the new vehicle system.
In our eyes, that made for a pretty balanced package, but when the prototypes were updated this morning, there was concern about the speed. The weapons were nice, but the speed was what players really missed. We might be able to restore a bit of their old feel while keeping within our overall server stability speed limits, and we're going to look into this.
I want to stress that at this point, we're purely in an investigatory phase - we aren't even sure that this is feasible, for safety reasons. If it's feasible, this would only be for prototypes, which people invested in in part because they felt faster. Thanks everyone for your patience, and I hope you're all enjoying the launch of Champions Online: Reloaded.
--Matthew "TrailTurtle" Pecot
I certainly appreciate you looking into it. You, sir, most definitely rock...
But there is one thing I would like you to point out to the devs. While I do buy the current explanations for the nerf, you're also kind of backing yourself into a corner here...
The current Prototype Interceptor has the exact same primary stats (ATT, DEF, & SPD) as the other new Hawkwing vehicles, with a Speed of 4/10. This leaves me wondeting if '10' is the max obtainable stat to keep the server happy. And the early adoptors were nerfed to well below max speed. However, if no vehicle ever comes out with a Speed above 4, your explanation stands...
Additionally, the range had been brought down to 120ft (I know, most Prototype weapons are 100ft, but one is 120, I forget which). This would imply that Max range for vehicles will be 120ft. Fairness in combat with ground folk, I get that...
But THE SECOND you release a vehicle with a Speed higher than 4 or a range further than 120ft, ALL of your explanations are proven false and all the folks who are claiming they were screwed by the nerf will be right...
I'm not saying that the Prototype vehicles should be the best vehicles in the game, but IF you're planning on expanding in either of those stats in the future, it would be smart to throw us a bone in either or both of those nerfs right now will provide a little more leeway for advancement of future vehicles without repeated forum rages...
I'd really appreciate it if you could pass that on, please...
Originally Posted by mijjestic: Ultimately, though, MMO players throwing stones at each other in this fashion is basically one nerd pointing and laughing at another nerd whose glasses are thicker.
In our eyes, that made for a pretty balanced package, but when the prototypes were updated this morning, there was concern about the speed. The weapons were nice, but the speed was what players really missed. We might be able to restore a bit of their old feel while keeping within our overall server stability speed limits, and we're going to look into this.
I want to stress that at this point, we're purely in an investigatory phase - we aren't even sure that this is feasible, for safety reasons. If it's feasible, this would only be for prototypes, which people invested in in part because they felt faster. Thanks everyone for your patience, and I hope you're all enjoying the launch of Champions Online: Reloaded.
--Matthew "TrailTurtle" Pecot
Told you guys so, before it hit.
Most design falls under 'add, add, add' - when you have to subtract, subtract the minimum necessary for whatever reason you needed to make the sacrifice. The nerf is already double-pronged due to the range bit - which by the way, wasn't necessary for server stability, ya know? But with the fact we can plainly see, with mods, that they could have been faster without causing the instability, but we didn't have it baked in, further inflames the dissatisfaction. That is pretty much 'don't piss on my head and tell me it's raining' territory. lol
And unfortunately, the slots thing doesn't feel too grand considering what the other vehicles have, and considering the first thing we'd think we'd use the mods for is the speed you stole!
Only other thing I can say is give us more means of teleporting/insta-travel. We already have Alerts which basically, conceptual-wise, let us skip the pointless travel time. The ability to say, go directly to a mission instance would dodge the need for super-speed vehicles in many cases (though I think for stuff like Blood Moon, it just is what it is).
if you bought a sports car for its speed and instead it was slow, that's one thing. but if you bought a fast car that really was fast, and right before the new model came out the dealer broke into your garage and changed your fast car into a slow one, that's criminal behavior.
i've been playing this game a long time. just got 900 day vet. but stuff like this make me want to quit. i'm in the market for a new game atm but i dont think i'll be longing in to CO for awhile
What about those of us that bought these and gave them to other people. A 1500 zen booster does nothing for the original purchaser. This whole thing makes me want to sue. Seriously.
My trust is completely broken right now. I am seriously just confused as to how the developers and Perfect World really think that you can charge $15 for something, completely change it to something REALLY worse than it was and nothing could happen from it.
What about those of us that bought these and gave them to other people. A 1500 zen booster does nothing for the original purchaser. This whole thing makes me want to sue. Seriously.
My trust is completely broken right now. I am seriously just confused as to how the developers and Perfect World really think that you can charge $15 for something, completely change it to something REALLY worse than it was and nothing could happen from it.
This is basically the sentiment I see from any jet owner, myself included. The lockboxes were pretty bad, loot you have to pay to access... shady. Taking items that required a significant investment of time and/or money and making them effectively worthless in a single patch in order to try and sell vehicles in the store.....
I'm totally in-line with needing CO to be profitable. But, failing to consider ramifications in the pursuit of profit can cause that source of income to quickly dry up. SWG and the combat upgrade is a prime example that alienating your player base can be the death of a game. And that game had the backing of the STARWARS franchise.
Perhaps this stuff flies in asian markets - but as far as North American markets are concerned, there are limits to what players are willing to accept. If North American players feel cheated - they'll let it be known. One should never underestimate the power of the gaming community.
Let me be perfectly clear about why PWE/Cryptic is well above NCSoft, and how I feel about any hyperbole that compares the two:
YOU CAN STILL PLAY CHAMPIONS ONLINE.
That may be... but the CoH refugees have a choice of superhero MMOs now. They can go to DCUO, where the only way SOE will close the game is by losing the licensing agreement (the only reasons Matrix Online and Star Wars Galaxies were closed) AND on top of it, their "Gold" members open all of their lockboxes for free. PWE could on a whim just close this game, and their own documents state that the F2P models they are running in Hybrid mode will only have a shelf life of 3-5 years.
In reality, if these kind of business practices keep up, ChO will only be a waypoint for the CoH refugees before they realize that DCUO may be the better choice (especially with their next update being customizable SG bases), and with the decisions PWE has been making as of late this is becoming reality more and more each day.
My thoughts, some of which I think people aren't thinking about:
Speed change is do to server stability. Please let that sink in people. I'd take the server stability over speed any day. Especially since they added mod slots. Imagine if the speed was the same and then you slapped speed mods on top of it. Somebody mentioned in another thread that back in the early days of CO, travel powers were a lot faster and had to be slowed down for the same reason.
Weapon changes... It sounds more like this was for "balance" reasons. I mean, how many posts on the forums decried vehicles because their weapons were too powerful and with too much of a range? I know I saw a lot of them.
Other game companies engage in this strange activity known as playtesting before putting out content.
Then again, I suspect they already knew it would be a problem. I suspect they let the hawkwings go live at that speed, because they knew it wouldn't become an issue until they were live. Faster vehicles are more attractive, and hence will sell better. The issue of server instability doesn't even come up until they've sold enough of them, so by the time they have to risk making the vehicle less attractive, they already made their money.
Seems like the development objective has changed from "How can we improve the game?" to "What can we get away with?".
Champions Online: Be the hero you wish you could be in a better game.
See? This is why Cryptic are all right. At least in my opinion.
They make mistakes, but they listen to us. They've made mistakes before, but they're willing to go back to the drawing board and look at solutions when they've done something that goes strongly against what people feel. Does everyone remember Vibora Bay? I would have paid for that, because that would have been a nice boost to their coffers. But people insisted on that being free, and they listened.
This is why I like Cryptic. No matter how much we whine, no matter how much we carry on, they always listen to us. Here's a simple fact: No matter what happens, they still allot us more respect and recognition than any other MMORPG developer. This is very, very much a fact. I can tell you that now. And I honestly do think they'll look into this and try to give us our speed back in some form or another.
I have faith because they have listened in the past.
I don't know why people are so hard on them, I really don't. Go and play Guild Wars 2 for a while and see how horribly broken that game is. It's a cynically-designed zerg fest, and it's nothing more. It's actually like the embodiment of what people said that the worst elements of CO were - but it actually fits. The game just isn't fun to play.
ArenaNet not only doesn't listen to their users, but on their forums they quite aggressively delete posts or threads that ring true. They don't even let people tell them what could be improved about their game. They never give them that chance, even if it's politely worded constructive criticism. They see it as scaring off sales, so they just run around deleting threads.
And WoW mods do the same. If it goes against Blizzard, that thread's going to disappear. I'm sure there are lots of other devs that do this, too.
Here? There were complaints (not so much from me as I wasn't too bothered, I saw it coming), but the threads didn't disappear. Not even the cloned threads. They hung around. And instead of silence, we actually got a response from TrailTurtle which told us the reasons for why the speed was decreased and that they're going to look into doing something to fix this problem for us.
Frankly? That puts Cryptic up a hell of a lot higher than most devs.
Seriously, guys, you just don't know how good you have it. We should at least recognise this and praise them for it when they deserve it. Go play Guild Wars 2, realise how cynical and broken that game is, how much it almost forces you to buy gems in places. Then talk about some of the issues in a constructive way on their forums. Be as polite as you can. Watch what happens.
By comparison, Cryptic are saints. And they always have been.
They're looking into it. So let's stop throwing our toys out of the pram.
And finally? Thanks for passing our concerns on to the guys doing the development, Trailturtle. You rock. I know it can't be easy to have to sift through threads like this, and it's likely not easy being the 'New Tumerboy,' either. But I think you're doing a damned good job. Keep it up!
I don't know why people are so hard on them, I really don't. Go and play Guild Wars 2 for a while and see how horribly broken that game is. It's a cynically-designed zerg fest, and it's nothing more. It's actually like the embodiment of what people said that the worst elements of CO were - but it actually fits. The game just isn't fun to play.
ArenaNet not only doesn't listen to their users, but on their forums they quite aggressively delete posts or threads that ring true. They don't even let people tell them what could be improved about their game. They never give them that chance, even if it's politely worded constructive criticism. They see it as scaring off sales, so they just run around deleting threads.
I have (and do) play GW2. You are of course entitled to your opinion, but your descriptions do not come anywhere close to matching my own experiences.
BTW, do saints delete currency from your account and berate you for sending in politely worded tickets requesting a fix ? Do saints just delete tickets rather than address the issue they contain ?
Do saints knowingly sell a broken product and refuse to offer refunds ? Do they then only acknowledge the issue and decide to look into it after customers make a big stink about it ?
Cryptic may not be as bad as the worst of development studios out there, but saints ? Not by a long shot.
See? This is why Cryptic are all right. At least in my opinion.
They make mistakes, but they listen to us.
You lose any credibility from this point forward. To claim this is to either be a fanboy/girl or hardly ever play the game. Bugs get reported - only to go weeks if not months or even years before being fixed.
They've made mistakes before, but they're willing to go back to the drawing board and look at solutions when they've done something that goes strongly against what people feel. Does everyone remember Vibora Bay? I would have paid for that, because that would have been a nice boost to their coffers. But people insisted on that being free, and they listened.
What was the last zone added? Vibora Bay. Take away Vibora Bay, and you've got even less content. I've seen more content in every MMO I've played and in an entire year I have yet to see a new zone.
This is why I like Cryptic. No matter how much we whine, no matter how much we carry on, they always listen to us. Here's a simple fact: No matter what happens, they still allot us more respect and recognition than any other MMORPG developer. This is very, very much a fact. I can tell you that now. And I honestly do think they'll look into this and try to give us our speed back in some form or another.
I have faith because they have listened in the past.
I don't know why people are so hard on them, I really don't. Go and play Guild Wars 2 for a while and see how horribly broken that game is. It's a cynically-designed zerg fest, and it's nothing more. It's actually like the embodiment of what people said that the worst elements of CO were - but it actually fits. The game just isn't fun to play.
ArenaNet not only doesn't listen to their users, but on their forums they quite aggressively delete posts or threads that ring true. They don't even let people tell them what could be improved about their game. They never give them that chance, even if it's politely worded constructive criticism. They see it as scaring off sales, so they just run around deleting threads.
And WoW mods do the same. If it goes against Blizzard, that thread's going to disappear. I'm sure there are lots of other devs that do this, too.
Here? There were complaints (not so much from me as I wasn't too bothered, I saw it coming), but the threads didn't disappear. Not even the cloned threads. They hung around. And instead of silence, we actually got a response from TrailTurtle which told us the reasons for why the speed was decreased and that they're going to look into doing something to fix this problem for us.
Frankly? That puts Cryptic up a hell of a lot higher than most devs.
Seriously, guys, you just don't know how good you have it. We should at least recognise this and praise them for it when they deserve it. Go play Guild Wars 2, realise how cynical and broken that game is, how much it almost forces you to buy gems in places. Then talk about some of the issues in a constructive way on their forums. Be as polite as you can. Watch what happens.
By comparison, Cryptic are saints. And they always have been.
They're looking into it. So let's stop throwing our toys out of the pram.
And finally? Thanks for passing our concerns on to the guys doing the development, Trailturtle. You rock. I know it can't be easy to have to sift through threads like this, and it's likely not easy being the 'New Tumerboy,' either. But I think you're doing a damned good job. Keep it up![/color]
I do know how bad we have it - this isn't my first MMO but is likely to be the last. If I was still into the WoW universe I'd be far more content - you notice they client base is huge, CO's is not.
I really hate how you relate GW2 as being cynical. I'd like your definition as I'm clearly not seeing it. All of the friends I had that left for GW2 have been much more content.
In CoH, if a problem arose where the player wasn't at fault - it was rectified, and the player was compensated. In CO, you're typically told it's out of the GM's control - that's your resolution.
For example, there is a bug that breaks any ATs spec tree when converting from gold to silver. The only way for a player to resolve this is to pay 50g for every AT they converted. For me that resulted in a 500g bill. In your typical MMO, if a similar situation were to arise, a simple trouble ticket would generally result in an apology and reimbursement. In CO a GM will tell you they can do nothing but file a bug report - something I did the last time this happened months ago. That right there is symbolic of a complete lack of appreciation for my business.
If something so trivial cannot be reimbursed - where are you getting the impression there's nothing to worry about.
Posts like these arise out of necessity. As you can see, anyone who's invested in at least one hawkwing has shown "dissatisfaction" in the changes. If this were another game, people would most likely just notify the developer of the issue and know a resolution would come.
If the vehicles had Speed booster mods in them and their powers could be removed, than that would have been completely fair compensation for buying in early with the prototypes.
if you bought a sports car for its speed and instead it was slow, that's one thing. but if you bought a fast car that really was fast, and right before the new model came out the dealer broke into your garage and changed your fast car into a slow one, that's criminal behavior.
This analogy pretty much describes how I feel about the Hawkwing speed nerf. For a whoopin' 1500 ZPs, getting a really fast travel device with weapons to boot seem to have justified the high cost. The speed was the bigger justification for me, and now that's been taken away.
The excuse of the jets causing server instability leading to the nerf only tells me that these prototype jets were still in the trial phase and should not have been pushed into the store, at least not for that price.
I feel the need to point out, as others already have, and as I myself have previously regarding the Hawkwings, that server stability re: max speed has been an issue since launch.
Increased speed leading to instability should not have taken anybody by surprise. If development did not take this into account, particularly when prototypes in game were already causing problems there should have been no surprises.
If the prototypes were scaled back to be within reason, that's one thing (albeit one thing I would still have been extremely unhappy with since I bought the damn things specifically because they were faster than travel powers, and were so for a prolonged period of time without anybody at any point ever addressing the fact that this may change or become a problem, or was anything other than intended), however that's not what happened.
At the point when the prototypes were going to be nerfed players should have been immediately informed of this fact, however that's not what happened.
At the point when the prototypes were being pushed and promoted as offering players a potential boon to make up for early adopting, the players should have been informed that the prototypes would no longer function as they had been, however that's not what happened.
At the point when the prototypes were being pushed and promoted as soon to be no longer available, the players should have been informed that they would no longer be available even if they were already purchased, since what they bought would no longer exist, however that's not what happened.
Hopefully they will come up with a resolution this week that satisfies most of the buyers of the original jets.
If not, it might be worth compiling some information, including timelines and Cryptic assurances like how the early adopters will be taken care of, and seeing if MMO blog sites like Massively would be interested in doing a story. Not just because I feel burned by this particular incident, but also because I think some light should be shed on this practice of selling an item in the cash shop, retroactively nerfing it to near-uselessness a few months later, and then encouraging players to buy gamble-boxes to try to mod the original item back up to close to what you had before.
LTS since 2009. Author of ACT parser module for CO. Founder of Rampagers. Resident curmudgeon.
"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." -- W. Edwards Deming
Well that sucks! The speed was the whole reason I liked the jet- beyond the whole "its cool to fly around in a jet" thing. The combat viability doesn't matter because you can't use them throughout 95% of the game anyway so it was mostly just "get around zones faster", for me, and probably a lot of others.
As someone who doesn't play CO constantly but is kind of a "check it out for big updates" dude, dropping the $15 on the jet wasn't a thing I did just on a whim. I got to try it out in the Nighthawk event, liked how it worked there, and paid $15 to have one of those for myself all the time. And now I don't have that I guess? That sucks.
If the speed can't be restored in some capacity, a Zen refund would be fine. There's plenty of costume bits or travel powers I can spend that on and not feel like my money's been wasted or anything. But idealy just kicking the speed(without boost) up to where it was before would be the solution. I imagine the boosted speed is what was causing the issues for the most part?
The reduced range is going to make vehicle combat pretty difficult but I guess if things are balanced with that in mind it'll be okay.
Thanks for updating us, Trailturtle. Just know that this isn't only the hardcore players being affected here- there's a lot of us who play more casually and might not be as vocal but share these same opinions.
________________________________ @kelpplankton
Oldschool CoH player, Lifetime CO and STO subscriber, animator and artist.
Its not like we dont tell them all this on the Test Server so when they release stuff broken (like always) we're always going " do NOT to put it live " but (as always) we get ignored and it just goes live.
The few big TestServer reporters gave up ages ago, lets face it theres no point trying to help something that doesnt help itself.
Only reason we use the test server now is to save on retcon builds imiright, power testing.
You could have a hundred people on test server go "DONT DO IT! THERES A GODMODE/INFINITE MONEY BUG!"
and itll still go live.
Wow, I have been away for like a month or so (and was still paying anyway)...and I come back, thinking that I was going to be able to trade the $15 "prototype" jet I bought for a finished product, only to find out I am just stuck with a nerfed POS?!
Wow, I have been away for like a month or so (and was still paying anyway)...and I come back, thinking that I was going to be able to trade the $15 "prototype" jet I bought for a finished product, only to find out I am just stuck with a nerfed POS?!
I would like to add that Perfect World customer support has come through on this one and refunded people for the heavily nerfed jet's speed. So there's a positive in this, Perfect World (Cryptic specifically, the parent company) is backing up their customers on this one.
I have personally been refunded 1500 Zen as Champions-bound credit that I can now use to buy something else instead. They even let me keep the old vehicle too, which was nice of them to do so.
So there, you see? If you're clear, concise, polite, and firm when you talk to customer service people, you typically get very good results. Let my example be a lesson to you all
PS: Also helps if you have a thread like this to back up your claim when you make the ticket
For example, there is a bug that breaks any ATs spec tree when converting from gold to silver. The only way for a player to resolve this is to pay 50g for every AT they converted. For me that resulted in a 500g bill. In your typical MMO, if a similar situation were to arise, a simple trouble ticket would generally result in an apology and reimbursement. In CO a GM will tell you they can do nothing but file a bug report - something I did the last time this happened months ago. That right there is symbolic of a complete lack of appreciation for my business.
Might be my newbishness showing, but could you walk me through this bug? I wasn't aware of this one, and I'd like to pass it on to the devs.
I don't have as much time to forum trawl as I'd like, so if you'd prefer, please feel free to PM me. The more details on reproducing the bug, the easier it'll be to look in to. No guarantees, but I can at least bring it up with the dev team.
I would like to add that Perfect World customer support has come through on this one and refunded people for the heavily nerfed jet's speed. So there's a positive in this, Perfect World (Cryptic specifically, the parent company) is backing up their customers on this one.
I have personally been refunded 1500 Zen as Champions-bound credit that I can now use to buy something else instead. They even let me keep the old vehicle too, which was nice of them to do so.
So there, you see? If you're clear, concise, polite, and firm when you talk to customer service people, you typically get very good results. Let my example be a lesson to you all
PS: Also helps if you have a thread like this to back up your claim when you make the ticket
I'll be sending a ticket to customer service about my 3 jets, too. Well, just 2 of them since I'll be keeping one just because extras are redundant.
Might be my newbishness showing, but could you walk me through this bug? I wasn't aware of this one, and I'd like to pass it on to the devs.
I don't have as much time to forum trawl as I'd like, so if you'd prefer, please feel free to PM me. The more details on reproducing the bug, the easier it'll be to look in to. No guarantees, but I can at least bring it up with the dev team.
It's pretty simple.
1. Subscribe
2. Have ATs before sub ends
3. Keep said ATs at expiration
4. Convert said ATs to silver
I would like to add that Perfect World customer support has come through on this one and refunded people for the heavily nerfed jet's speed. So there's a positive in this, Perfect World (Cryptic specifically, the parent company) is backing up their customers on this one.
I have personally been refunded 1500 Zen as Champions-bound credit that I can now use to buy something else instead. They even let me keep the old vehicle too, which was nice of them to do so.
So there, you see? If you're clear, concise, polite, and firm when you talk to customer service people, you typically get very good results. Let my example be a lesson to you all
PS: Also helps if you have a thread like this to back up your claim when you make the ticket
I'll have to do that for all 4 of my jets, and I'll see if I get the same recourse. Ultimately, you shouldn't have to go outside of standard support (as in contact the parent company bypassing in game support) to get this settled.
I tried accessing support, but it couldn't complete the redirect on either firefox or IE. And yet I can still access the account settings and check zen....
I would like to add that Perfect World customer support has come through on this one and refunded people for the heavily nerfed jet's speed. So there's a positive in this, Perfect World (Cryptic specifically, the parent company) is backing up their customers on this one.
I have personally been refunded 1500 Zen as Champions-bound credit that I can now use to buy something else instead. They even let me keep the old vehicle too, which was nice of them to do so.
So there, you see? If you're clear, concise, polite, and firm when you talk to customer service people, you typically get very good results. Let my example be a lesson to you all
PS: Also helps if you have a thread like this to back up your claim when you make the ticket
I would like to add that Perfect World customer support has come through on this one and refunded people for the heavily nerfed jet's speed. So there's a positive in this, Perfect World (Cryptic specifically, the parent company) is backing up their customers on this one.
I have personally been refunded 1500 Zen as Champions-bound credit that I can now use to buy something else instead. They even let me keep the old vehicle too, which was nice of them to do so.
So there, you see? If you're clear, concise, polite, and firm when you talk to customer service people, you typically get very good results. Let my example be a lesson to you all
PS: Also helps if you have a thread like this to back up your claim when you make the ticket
I'm glad someone is getting compensated for this mess. I was told they have no record of me ever owning a jet.
Comments
Speed change is do to server stability. Please let that sink in people. I'd take the server stability over speed any day. Especially since they added mod slots. Imagine if the speed was the same and then you slapped speed mods on top of it. Somebody mentioned in another thread that back in the early days of CO, travel powers were a lot faster and had to be slowed down for the same reason.
Weapon changes... It sounds more like this was for "balance" reasons. I mean, how many posts on the forums decried vehicles because their weapons were too powerful and with too much of a range? I know I saw a lot of them.
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
Weapons:
Did you get to test any of the new vehicle weapons out on the PTS? Do you know how absurdly powerful those things can be? The range and damage on the tank cannon I was using made Sniper Rifle look like a cheap dollar store dart gun.
Speed:
Personally I'm ok with the speed being brought within server tolerance levels, what I'm not ok with is the fact that if their speed was really that big of an issue, why did they go live with it as they were?
1.) They promoted and sold the jets for several months. At what point did they realize the speed was affecting server stability? Why didn't they inform us that this was a risk before everyone shelled out $15?
2.) We've been told we can grind/buy/rank up more mods to get back to "almost" the same speed. How reasonable is that? Why not just cap speed of our jets at whatever the new safe max is and not make us re-purchase what we thought we were already purchasing once?
3.) Even assuming this is all some big mistake and not an intentional rip-off of early adopters to get them to buy more mods/vehicles, shouldn't the burden of fixing the mistake lie with Cryptic and not the customer? i.e. If you can't fix this in some other reasonable way, give us the option to reverse our transaction since, for whatever reason, the item we ended up with is drastically different from what we thought we were purchasing.
"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." -- W. Edwards Deming
I certainly appreciate you looking into it. You, sir, most definitely rock...
But there is one thing I would like you to point out to the devs. While I do buy the current explanations for the nerf, you're also kind of backing yourself into a corner here...
The current Prototype Interceptor has the exact same primary stats (ATT, DEF, & SPD) as the other new Hawkwing vehicles, with a Speed of 4/10. This leaves me wondeting if '10' is the max obtainable stat to keep the server happy. And the early adoptors were nerfed to well below max speed. However, if no vehicle ever comes out with a Speed above 4, your explanation stands...
Additionally, the range had been brought down to 120ft (I know, most Prototype weapons are 100ft, but one is 120, I forget which). This would imply that Max range for vehicles will be 120ft. Fairness in combat with ground folk, I get that...
But THE SECOND you release a vehicle with a Speed higher than 4 or a range further than 120ft, ALL of your explanations are proven false and all the folks who are claiming they were screwed by the nerf will be right...
I'm not saying that the Prototype vehicles should be the best vehicles in the game, but IF you're planning on expanding in either of those stats in the future, it would be smart to throw us a bone in either or both of those nerfs right now will provide a little more leeway for advancement of future vehicles without repeated forum rages...
I'd really appreciate it if you could pass that on, please...
M-O-O-N, that spells @Rhyatt
Originally Posted by mijjestic: Ultimately, though, MMO players throwing stones at each other in this fashion is basically one nerd pointing and laughing at another nerd whose glasses are thicker.
Laws yes!
Told you guys so, before it hit.
Most design falls under 'add, add, add' - when you have to subtract, subtract the minimum necessary for whatever reason you needed to make the sacrifice. The nerf is already double-pronged due to the range bit - which by the way, wasn't necessary for server stability, ya know? But with the fact we can plainly see, with mods, that they could have been faster without causing the instability, but we didn't have it baked in, further inflames the dissatisfaction. That is pretty much 'don't piss on my head and tell me it's raining' territory. lol
And unfortunately, the slots thing doesn't feel too grand considering what the other vehicles have, and considering the first thing we'd think we'd use the mods for is the speed you stole!
Only other thing I can say is give us more means of teleporting/insta-travel. We already have Alerts which basically, conceptual-wise, let us skip the pointless travel time. The ability to say, go directly to a mission instance would dodge the need for super-speed vehicles in many cases (though I think for stuff like Blood Moon, it just is what it is).
i've been playing this game a long time. just got 900 day vet. but stuff like this make me want to quit. i'm in the market for a new game atm but i dont think i'll be longing in to CO for awhile
My trust is completely broken right now. I am seriously just confused as to how the developers and Perfect World really think that you can charge $15 for something, completely change it to something REALLY worse than it was and nothing could happen from it.
"Saying 'Everything is fine as is.' in the MMO world is like holding your breath. Eventually you die from lack of common sense."
[SIGPIC]http://co-forum.perfectworld.com/image.php?type=sigpic&userid=3117963000&dateline=1341271690[/SIGPIC]
This is basically the sentiment I see from any jet owner, myself included. The lockboxes were pretty bad, loot you have to pay to access... shady. Taking items that required a significant investment of time and/or money and making them effectively worthless in a single patch in order to try and sell vehicles in the store.....
I'm totally in-line with needing CO to be profitable. But, failing to consider ramifications in the pursuit of profit can cause that source of income to quickly dry up. SWG and the combat upgrade is a prime example that alienating your player base can be the death of a game. And that game had the backing of the STARWARS franchise.
Perhaps this stuff flies in asian markets - but as far as North American markets are concerned, there are limits to what players are willing to accept. If North American players feel cheated - they'll let it be known. One should never underestimate the power of the gaming community.
That may be... but the CoH refugees have a choice of superhero MMOs now. They can go to DCUO, where the only way SOE will close the game is by losing the licensing agreement (the only reasons Matrix Online and Star Wars Galaxies were closed) AND on top of it, their "Gold" members open all of their lockboxes for free. PWE could on a whim just close this game, and their own documents state that the F2P models they are running in Hybrid mode will only have a shelf life of 3-5 years.
In reality, if these kind of business practices keep up, ChO will only be a waypoint for the CoH refugees before they realize that DCUO may be the better choice (especially with their next update being customizable SG bases), and with the decisions PWE has been making as of late this is becoming reality more and more each day.
-END OF LINE
Other game companies engage in this strange activity known as playtesting before putting out content.
Then again, I suspect they already knew it would be a problem. I suspect they let the hawkwings go live at that speed, because they knew it wouldn't become an issue until they were live. Faster vehicles are more attractive, and hence will sell better. The issue of server instability doesn't even come up until they've sold enough of them, so by the time they have to risk making the vehicle less attractive, they already made their money.
Seems like the development objective has changed from "How can we improve the game?" to "What can we get away with?".
Champions Online: Be the hero you wish you could be in a better game.
They make mistakes, but they listen to us. They've made mistakes before, but they're willing to go back to the drawing board and look at solutions when they've done something that goes strongly against what people feel. Does everyone remember Vibora Bay? I would have paid for that, because that would have been a nice boost to their coffers. But people insisted on that being free, and they listened.
This is why I like Cryptic. No matter how much we whine, no matter how much we carry on, they always listen to us. Here's a simple fact: No matter what happens, they still allot us more respect and recognition than any other MMORPG developer. This is very, very much a fact. I can tell you that now. And I honestly do think they'll look into this and try to give us our speed back in some form or another.
I have faith because they have listened in the past.
I don't know why people are so hard on them, I really don't. Go and play Guild Wars 2 for a while and see how horribly broken that game is. It's a cynically-designed zerg fest, and it's nothing more. It's actually like the embodiment of what people said that the worst elements of CO were - but it actually fits. The game just isn't fun to play.
ArenaNet not only doesn't listen to their users, but on their forums they quite aggressively delete posts or threads that ring true. They don't even let people tell them what could be improved about their game. They never give them that chance, even if it's politely worded constructive criticism. They see it as scaring off sales, so they just run around deleting threads.
And WoW mods do the same. If it goes against Blizzard, that thread's going to disappear. I'm sure there are lots of other devs that do this, too.
Here? There were complaints (not so much from me as I wasn't too bothered, I saw it coming), but the threads didn't disappear. Not even the cloned threads. They hung around. And instead of silence, we actually got a response from TrailTurtle which told us the reasons for why the speed was decreased and that they're going to look into doing something to fix this problem for us.
Frankly? That puts Cryptic up a hell of a lot higher than most devs.
Seriously, guys, you just don't know how good you have it. We should at least recognise this and praise them for it when they deserve it. Go play Guild Wars 2, realise how cynical and broken that game is, how much it almost forces you to buy gems in places. Then talk about some of the issues in a constructive way on their forums. Be as polite as you can. Watch what happens.
By comparison, Cryptic are saints. And they always have been.
They're looking into it. So let's stop throwing our toys out of the pram.
And finally? Thanks for passing our concerns on to the guys doing the development, Trailturtle. You rock. I know it can't be easy to have to sift through threads like this, and it's likely not easy being the 'New Tumerboy,' either. But I think you're doing a damned good job. Keep it up!
I have (and do) play GW2. You are of course entitled to your opinion, but your descriptions do not come anywhere close to matching my own experiences.
BTW, do saints delete currency from your account and berate you for sending in politely worded tickets requesting a fix ? Do saints just delete tickets rather than address the issue they contain ?
Do saints knowingly sell a broken product and refuse to offer refunds ? Do they then only acknowledge the issue and decide to look into it after customers make a big stink about it ?
Cryptic may not be as bad as the worst of development studios out there, but saints ? Not by a long shot.
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
You lose any credibility from this point forward. To claim this is to either be a fanboy/girl or hardly ever play the game. Bugs get reported - only to go weeks if not months or even years before being fixed.
What was the last zone added? Vibora Bay. Take away Vibora Bay, and you've got even less content. I've seen more content in every MMO I've played and in an entire year I have yet to see a new zone.
I do know how bad we have it - this isn't my first MMO but is likely to be the last. If I was still into the WoW universe I'd be far more content - you notice they client base is huge, CO's is not.
I really hate how you relate GW2 as being cynical. I'd like your definition as I'm clearly not seeing it. All of the friends I had that left for GW2 have been much more content.
In CoH, if a problem arose where the player wasn't at fault - it was rectified, and the player was compensated. In CO, you're typically told it's out of the GM's control - that's your resolution.
For example, there is a bug that breaks any ATs spec tree when converting from gold to silver. The only way for a player to resolve this is to pay 50g for every AT they converted. For me that resulted in a 500g bill. In your typical MMO, if a similar situation were to arise, a simple trouble ticket would generally result in an apology and reimbursement. In CO a GM will tell you they can do nothing but file a bug report - something I did the last time this happened months ago. That right there is symbolic of a complete lack of appreciation for my business.
If something so trivial cannot be reimbursed - where are you getting the impression there's nothing to worry about.
Posts like these arise out of necessity. As you can see, anyone who's invested in at least one hawkwing has shown "dissatisfaction" in the changes. If this were another game, people would most likely just notify the developer of the issue and know a resolution would come.
CO players simply don't have that luxury.
This analogy pretty much describes how I feel about the Hawkwing speed nerf. For a whoopin' 1500 ZPs, getting a really fast travel device with weapons to boot seem to have justified the high cost. The speed was the bigger justification for me, and now that's been taken away.
The excuse of the jets causing server instability leading to the nerf only tells me that these prototype jets were still in the trial phase and should not have been pushed into the store, at least not for that price.
I'd get a refund in a heartbeat if I could.
Increased speed leading to instability should not have taken anybody by surprise. If development did not take this into account, particularly when prototypes in game were already causing problems there should have been no surprises.
If the prototypes were scaled back to be within reason, that's one thing (albeit one thing I would still have been extremely unhappy with since I bought the damn things specifically because they were faster than travel powers, and were so for a prolonged period of time without anybody at any point ever addressing the fact that this may change or become a problem, or was anything other than intended), however that's not what happened.
At the point when the prototypes were going to be nerfed players should have been immediately informed of this fact, however that's not what happened.
At the point when the prototypes were being pushed and promoted as offering players a potential boon to make up for early adopting, the players should have been informed that the prototypes would no longer function as they had been, however that's not what happened.
At the point when the prototypes were being pushed and promoted as soon to be no longer available, the players should have been informed that they would no longer be available even if they were already purchased, since what they bought would no longer exist, however that's not what happened.
If not, it might be worth compiling some information, including timelines and Cryptic assurances like how the early adopters will be taken care of, and seeing if MMO blog sites like Massively would be interested in doing a story. Not just because I feel burned by this particular incident, but also because I think some light should be shed on this practice of selling an item in the cash shop, retroactively nerfing it to near-uselessness a few months later, and then encouraging players to buy gamble-boxes to try to mod the original item back up to close to what you had before.
"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." -- W. Edwards Deming
As someone who doesn't play CO constantly but is kind of a "check it out for big updates" dude, dropping the $15 on the jet wasn't a thing I did just on a whim. I got to try it out in the Nighthawk event, liked how it worked there, and paid $15 to have one of those for myself all the time. And now I don't have that I guess? That sucks.
If the speed can't be restored in some capacity, a Zen refund would be fine. There's plenty of costume bits or travel powers I can spend that on and not feel like my money's been wasted or anything. But idealy just kicking the speed(without boost) up to where it was before would be the solution. I imagine the boosted speed is what was causing the issues for the most part?
The reduced range is going to make vehicle combat pretty difficult but I guess if things are balanced with that in mind it'll be okay.
Thanks for updating us, Trailturtle. Just know that this isn't only the hardcore players being affected here- there's a lot of us who play more casually and might not be as vocal but share these same opinions.
@kelpplankton
Oldschool CoH player, Lifetime CO and STO subscriber, animator and artist.
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The few big TestServer reporters gave up ages ago, lets face it theres no point trying to help something that doesnt help itself.
Only reason we use the test server now is to save on retcon builds imiright, power testing.
You could have a hundred people on test server go "DONT DO IT! THERES A GODMODE/INFINITE MONEY BUG!"
and itll still go live.
Well, just went and cancelled my account.
Up your's Cryptic. You won't rip me off again.
Psst. See the new PTS patch notes.
I have personally been refunded 1500 Zen as Champions-bound credit that I can now use to buy something else instead. They even let me keep the old vehicle too, which was nice of them to do so.
So there, you see? If you're clear, concise, polite, and firm when you talk to customer service people, you typically get very good results. Let my example be a lesson to you all
PS: Also helps if you have a thread like this to back up your claim when you make the ticket
Consolidate the currencies! (Please!)
Does your Champion have a theme song? (share it!)
Got a funny in-game screenshot? (share it!)
Please fix the Overdrive energy unlock! (Should help promote thematic build diversity!)
Might be my newbishness showing, but could you walk me through this bug? I wasn't aware of this one, and I'd like to pass it on to the devs.
I don't have as much time to forum trawl as I'd like, so if you'd prefer, please feel free to PM me. The more details on reproducing the bug, the easier it'll be to look in to. No guarantees, but I can at least bring it up with the dev team.
I'll be sending a ticket to customer service about my 3 jets, too. Well, just 2 of them since I'll be keeping one just because extras are redundant.
It's pretty simple.
1. Subscribe
2. Have ATs before sub ends
3. Keep said ATs at expiration
4. Convert said ATs to silver
I'll have to do that for all 4 of my jets, and I'll see if I get the same recourse. Ultimately, you shouldn't have to go outside of standard support (as in contact the parent company bypassing in game support) to get this settled.
Awesome. Thanks for letting us know.
I'm glad someone is getting compensated for this mess. I was told they have no record of me ever owning a jet.