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Can't under stand the priorities
freefroth
Member Posts: 36 Arc User
I'm not normally one to rage quit. However, I went in for another try at heralds and again the whole lot slows down to a slide show and i am rooted and rubberbanded to the middle of a large angry mob while most of the rest of the party move on. This happens almost every time now. This is repeated in nearly any situation that is time critical (bosses/elites etc). I have a high end PC, cable internet, drivers up to date.
Most of this stuff is brought up by players in preview and the feedback is not headed. Instead content is pushed out knowing it is unsatisfactory. It is biting the hand that feeds you. I can think of a number of other proverbs that are apt, but much less polite.
Fix the broken stuff that makes the game annoying and painful. Fix the stuff that is effectively fraudulent (i.e., if you buy this product we tell you that you will get this but heh heh sorry cant do it now (luminescent rings as a transmute/transcendent enchants anyone?)).
For the purpose of constructive conversation... what is the first thing you would like the mods to prioritise? For me it is finding out which of the new power interactions is actually turning my GUI into a powerpoint slide. I can't play if i can't move at all so this it what I want fixed above all else.
- I can't run a dungeon without major lag.
- Half the time now I can't invoke.
- The grind for my alts has just been doubled.
- Critical aspects of the game are left broken for ages while other things are tampered with for apparently no reason.
- I can't run heralds at all.
- All the good dungeons have vanished from the game.
- Transcendent enchants are *significantly worse* than the perfect ones that you paid a truck load to upgrade?
Most of this stuff is brought up by players in preview and the feedback is not headed. Instead content is pushed out knowing it is unsatisfactory. It is biting the hand that feeds you. I can think of a number of other proverbs that are apt, but much less polite.
Fix the broken stuff that makes the game annoying and painful. Fix the stuff that is effectively fraudulent (i.e., if you buy this product we tell you that you will get this but heh heh sorry cant do it now (luminescent rings as a transmute/transcendent enchants anyone?)).
For the purpose of constructive conversation... what is the first thing you would like the mods to prioritise? For me it is finding out which of the new power interactions is actually turning my GUI into a powerpoint slide. I can't play if i can't move at all so this it what I want fixed above all else.
Post edited by ambisinisterr on
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Comments
Ultimatums are hostile and I can tell your from first hand experience they generally have the opposite of the intended effect. Here's another proverb for you, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. When you say do something or else it sends the thread into a downward spiral (hostility breeds hostility) and that's why we have rules to against them.
As for the invocation issue, Andy actually mentioned that bug yesterday. I wish I could tell you for sure a fix is coming but I have not been given those details but I do know Andy absolutely did make the developers aware of it and how serious of an issue it was to players.
1. Repair Bugs.
2. No Laggs. I live in germany, a delay is normal but spike laggs aren't not. Some Instances like Malabog and sometimes VT are broken because something in it generates laggs. This includes also Lagg-Generating Powers.
2. Finish the actual content. Like Enchantments. Some Pure and Transcendend have no different effect.
3. Include possibility to get on refinement for artifact gear (like dailies for Artifacts (Dread Ring) or Enchantments (Sharandar).
4. I want that Dungeons are worth running. At the current situation they fell unrewarding to run. I liked the old system that i could buy a key or run at dungeon delve time to get free stuff. I hate the new one.
5. Give us the old content back
6. The Foundry. Revive it for gameplay purpose and use it for your (Cryptic) purpose. It could be a wonderfull tool for you to keep the game alife but treat it like 5 wheel on a car. Several other games demonstrate how a good editor can be used by the community, such Editors generated the MOBA-Genre that makes a ton of money each year.
7. Overhaul PvP. Second thing a games longvity can increase is mediocre to good pvp. More and different playtypes are needed that improve the PvP experience.
Oh, and a bonus request: You want to generate revenue and I want to actually send some your way, so how about actually giving us what we are asking for in the Zen Market? I won't bother listing the dozens of things I've been listing for the last two-point-five years.
~sigh~
That aside, my priorities (not necessarily in top-to-bottom order):
Sekhmet@kvetchus_
Guilds: Greycloaks, Blackcloaks, Whitecloaks, Goldcloaks, Browncloaks, Spiritcloaks, Bluecloaks, Silvercloaks, Black Dawn
Tredecim: The Cloak Alliance
+10001110101
Sekhmet@kvetchus_
Guilds: Greycloaks, Blackcloaks, Whitecloaks, Goldcloaks, Browncloaks, Spiritcloaks, Bluecloaks, Silvercloaks, Black Dawn
Tredecim: The Cloak Alliance
The more they add, the more calculations. The more calculations, the more lag. There's a lot of data that needs to move from client to server and back again. Every time they add something the problems get worse.
Appreciate the time taken to keep it alive. The wall of text was somewhat impenetrable.
Bruisers - Tanky hit hard but slow.
Magic Users - Apply DoTs and Area Effect that need interrupted or dodged.
Archers - No Aggro table, pick off players. Apply Dots, roots and slow
Rogue- Disappear and attack random players
Minions - Apply slow, dots, knock prone, hit fast but not hard.
Red circles and "wind-up-attacks" need to be the threat of the game not the fact the enemy is about to barrage you with deadly white damage.
Combat can be hard without making it tedious its about what type of threat the enemy provides. Mod 6 seems to think that the only way to make content difficult is to let enemies hit like mac trucks but all you need is enemies to have diverse skills that work with synergy to keep players on their toes.
Also, for me, the lag is more baffling than anything. I mean, player count is down significantly since mod 6, there is data collected via Steam to prove this, so if anything there should be less load on the servers, right? It just seems weird.
A lot of developers release a sort of roadmap, which is basically a loose list of features, fixes, and tweaks that they are planning to release in some nebulous point in the future. This lets players know what's coming up, lets them weigh in on changes before it's too late, gives devs a sense of what the players' priorities are (Because they are certainly not always the same as the devs'), and generally just provides a healthy honest dialogue for how to take the game forward. I think this game would benefit a lot form something like that.
<Let's leave out the rest of the moderation discussion. Please do take it to PMs if you have moderation questions or concerns. Thank you.>
"What benefits the biggest number of players and has the most impact?"
"Which problems can be solved fastest and with the least amount or work?"
"Which problems have to be solved to make the most people spend more time playing the game (and thus paying for it)?"
This would make the most sense for a company with goals from strategic management and limited resources like time and employees.
I believe, that from time to time the one or other developer priorises a pet project of himself or someone he knows. That would be only understandable and very human, so I would be surprised if that does not happen.
For us players, the priorities are difficult to understand, as we have only limited information on these things. We don't know, what the majority of players thinks, as most of them do not use the forums. We do not know, which bug reports players send and how many. We don't know, how much work some issue creates or how much revenue the solution to a problem generates. We do not know the goals strategic management sets.
I think this is clearly the problem. There is no reason why players should be kept out of the process. WE are spending our time/money to play the game, and consistently provide feedback to Cryptic. They refuse to provide any specific feedback as to what will be done/released and when (even in rough terms).
It also seems that they have devoted most of their resources to developing new features (stronghold, underdark), which is GREAT, except that there is a huge number of un-fixed issues with what already exists. More resources should be spent on fixing these before rolling out new stuff with the existing problems still in existence.
While I wouldn't presume I could prioritize the devs' work, I believe that the things that make me lose interest (as a new player who's willing and able to spend money on this game) should be looked at. So, in no particular order:
(1) The whole forum migration and its result seem to shout: "This game is going on life support"
(2) The latest patch contained 2 very unexpected changes; invocation and mob hp. I would have expected any kind of fix for any of the known problems, but those two are none of the problems. Or "were"; now they are.
(3) Coupons. In masses. See 1.
(4) I really liked the quest lines I got from level 4 to 59. They have nice stories, involve not more grinding than really needed, and are fun to do. However, there are twice as many quest lines than you need XP to get to level 60. So you really can only do every second quest line. Not so great, unless you want to level 2 characters (and know about the XP in advance).
(5) And then there's the level 60-69 content. Again, great writing. Bad implementation (and too much XP again). Instead of linking them together into nice quest lines, it is "do any 16" again and again. Then there's that heroic stuff on the maps. Actually a great idea, but the encounters feel like random obstacles to avoid while doing the vigilance quests. The whole doesn't get better by the downleveling of the whole maps.
(6) Then there's level 70. I only have a vague idea what to do now. And that's from reading the forum. I feel a bit lost. and it's only "a bit" because I'm still doing vigilance quests in "Helm's Hold 2.0".
(7) The dragon campaign was nice from level 26 to 59. I wished there was a second campaign to do in parallel a couple of times. But at level 60 it got bad. Then the extra quests got added to "Common Cause". Those where you are (badly) upleveled to 70 and have the chance of a snow flake in a volcano to survive. Unless you find a group---and stay out of the fights. With one exception: My rogue can solo "Barrow Demolition". It is hard, involves one or two deaths and quite some time, but it works. And it feels really great to hear the "quest complete" jingle. But the other quests, or any of them with my warlock...no chance.
(8) The Zen store doesn't invite me to spend money. Aside from wards, a dye or two, and after days of thinking it through, a mount. It is just that the prices are much too high. I'd like for each of my characters to have a mount that matches their style. But 20 to 40 bucks for a mount? Same for companions. Where are the "micro-payment" style "pull money out of your pocket slowly" items? The 50, 100, 200 zen objects? Those you buy "in the moment" because "it's just the price of a coke".
Same goes for mount and companion upgrades. I'm sure I would have upgraded at least 10 companions once or twice if the upgrade was just 200 or 250 zen for 5 levels. But not for 750,000 AD (15 RL bucks).
(9) Item progression is getting on my nerves. You have some nice armor, like the looks and the bonuses, and after less than 5 levels its obsolete. How long is that? I'd say somewhere between one and two solid evenings. Then you find another armor that has usable stats, so you (need to) replace the old one. And pay AD to keep the looks. But hey, 10 minutes later comes a green one, then a white one with the stats you actually want, then a blue one with bad bonuses, then... And that for how many pieces of equipment? 10?
I'd prefer to have a full set of "social" slots and an NPC that can convert any piece of equipment into a "social" item (for a fee).
(10) Mail boxes/couriers. Add some to the leveling maps. 10 Zen per usage would be ok for me. That's still better than going back to the city.
(11) PVPers' problems interfering with PVE content. Good suggestions, see other posts above.
(12) The Foundry. The single feature that made me try out Neverwinter in the first place. In its current state, it is nearly useless. It really needs some updates. Branching quests. Using maps multiple times. Level range restrictions. More anchor points on base maps. And some ways to influence how and when loot is given out (let the game determine what and how much, but I want to set mobs to "no loot, add to quest reward", or tell the game "low performance, give bad reward", or place hidden treasures/skill checks, and even have side quests like "find all 10 religion nodes" or "open 5 doors using thievery instead if bashing them in").
(13) Bags of Holding. Can you honestly say the game is playable without spending 10 bucks per character on a bag of holding? Again, that is a very big single payment. How about a 6-slot/BoE bag for 200 zen and a 6-slot/BoA for 300 zen AND either unlimited number of bags equipped or a way to upgrade those bags?
(14) On level 70 you switch from "leveling with levels" to "leveling with item score". That just feels wrong on so many levels (pun intended).
Update: (15) Why did I just feel the need to save a copy of this post locally? I don't like that feeling. I really don't.
I think you hit the nail on the head with that one!
Think of all the boons that have been added with each module released. Several of the boons require a "chance" at something happening. Combine that with gear-related effects/chances and feat "chances," and you can see that the number of calculations and random number "rolls" has been getting larger and larger. Now multiple that by every player on your current map . . .
myles08807 said, "Back in my day, we didn't have any of this fancy Mulhorand gear while we were leveling . . . we walked uphill both ways while dying once every five seconds while leveling, and we liked it fine!" . . . Now, get off my lawn, you kids!"
pointsman said, "I don't rue the game. In fact I don't feel any regret for the game at all."
looomis said, "I don't like people changing to alts and then bragging about their mains like schizophrenic role players."
This is an excellent discussion of some of the major issues! Nice work!
The sad thing is, this list doesn't even include some of the bugs that have been discussed over and over again for a year or more. Now that is so very sad indeed!
myles08807 said, "Back in my day, we didn't have any of this fancy Mulhorand gear while we were leveling . . . we walked uphill both ways while dying once every five seconds while leveling, and we liked it fine!" . . . Now, get off my lawn, you kids!"
pointsman said, "I don't rue the game. In fact I don't feel any regret for the game at all."
looomis said, "I don't like people changing to alts and then bragging about their mains like schizophrenic role players."
But there is.
Each customer has an idea, how something is done best. But:
Some have only their own best in mind. Some don't think their ideas through. Some have clearly no idea how some things work. Some just are completely emotional and not reasonable. But most think, that being included in a process means, that every feedback and every idea will have to be made real.
My work is at direct customer service for a bank, mostly providing direct solutions for problems, and I non-stop get told "good ideas how everything can be made better" and ideas for "things that are very important to every customer", which simply can not be realized, or, at least not be realized without changing another thing that "also is very important". And trying to reason is futile about 70% of the time. Arguments like "It's against the law." are simply ignored.
Most of the time, a big problem is, that most of the customers don't understand the profit-making nature of companies or the problems with complex processes. And employees don't have the time to explain these thing to every one (also many customers don't have the time, too)
After seeing feedback of players on these forums, I don't see much difference between them and said customers, except, perhaps, that my customers seem to be more reasonable. (Though, happily there are some welcome exceptions here ^^)
With that in mind and the "Whatever Cryptic says can and will be used against them" attitude I can understand, why we do not get involved very much and communication is rare.
I also think, that a company can profit from regular customer feedback, especially one that "sells" MMOs. There are many players who spend more time playtesting everything and finding ways to "bend the rules" than abny carde of developers ever could. But it's no simple thing and has some risks.
1. Fix the lag/bugs.....PRIORITY STAT!
2. Fix the lag/bugs.....(yes 2 times) STAT! everything else is back seat to this, so many of us with high end gear are telling you this, IT'S NOT OUR END that is the problem! Every other single thing is effected or degraded by this, in some instances completely rendering that content unplayable. DON"T add one-single-more-content-item to compound the problem, DON"T "tweak" something for balance or usage ease or economy UNTIL the CURRENT content is debugged and unlagged.
3.Fix broken promise things like enchants etc. thereby fixing economy etc.
4.Add back content stolen AFTER debugging it and testing it's lag inducing effects.
5.Listen to player comments and actually have focus groups concerning re-evaluating Zen market and AD/Zen exchange rates and buyable items, yes, it's actually true, some of your items are truly over priced and valued, re-price them. Yes, it's true your AD/Zen exchange is broken, figure out through focus groups how to address this or remove the cap and allow ACTUAL freemarket mechanics to operate and set the REAL values.
6.NOT UNTIL ALL OF THE ABOVE. YES 1-5. DO YOU EVEN CONSIDER PILING ON MORE GAME BREAKING CONTENT OR "BALANCE" TWEAKS!
Thank you.
They only have an army of volunteering playtesters. And they listen to them.
What they don't have is an army of volunteer employees doing coding, organising, processing, designing and so on. What they also often don't have is the time, to work on that feedback until the deadline is reached and the new content needs to be released.
This lack of both is one of the main factors that influence the priorities.
10/10 - couldn't have said it better. And still, as myowmyow said, it just scratches the surface of the current problems.
I could imagine how hard it is for a moderator to "look" into a players eyes and say that "We are awere of the bug" and know that dev aint doin' anything 'bout it
They may believe this, "They know what is best for us. Better than we know what is best for us."
It is a superiority complex thing.
Also, they have an outline for what things they want and what things they don't. When they start listening to all of the "This class is OP", This/That needs to be fixed... things start to get wacky because they are not part of the planned release. These issues may have actually created many of the bugs we are now looking at and working against.
I am in no ways defending their position... but unless they look back into the past... and remedy the sins... the future will be a repetition of the same.
Insanity... is the choice to take actions and always choosing the same action, but expecting different results. We are believing that things will be different this time because we know better now. But if we do not know the things that we have no way of knowing... things will never change.
There are people in the world that know all of the things that we do not know, that we do not know. If you do not utilize those people for their gifts... you will remain in this cycle.
1: Obviously the lag: The lag is generated by certain skill use, feats, talents, and companions... A lot of the high end pve and pvp communities could tell you in a list at least a handful of the major "rubber band" causing lag skills that create such frustration in the game. There is a reason why Tiamat running groups like the 19k's who are very critical about their applicants require paladins NOT to take the prism feat, because anytime a paladin uses prism around 10 or more people it causes the entire instance to HAMSTER the bed... this ties hand in hand with my next issue.
2: Transparency: I read a post above that talked clearly about developer transparency. In a lot of good games, this one including in its "hay-day" really looked to the community for direction, supply and demand, keeping your customer happy, and they had tons of players, money rolling in and everything they wanted, they even won game of the year... but somewhere along the line they turned from community tied development team that at least skimmed the forums to see what was wrong with the monster of a game they were working on, to this omnipotent figurehead that throws out random changes as though they were a case of bad weather. I am no longer happy to see patch day, aside from the 7-10 extensions on down-times (not really the issue) the patches usually come with a mixture of 50% unexpected changes, 30% unnecessary changes and a healthy serving of 20% or more hidden changes that greatly impact the way the game played. I reference last Thursday's "Ninja-patch" the wheel of elements. I'm sorry but if I have to do 2 hours of testing to see if you have literally altered the entire meta for pvp to see what to do next, because you felt it was on a need to know basis and your players didn't need to know... this is a huge problem. I want to feel just as connected to the artists making the game as I do to the game itself, and as one slips, both slip...
3: Front end user interface changes: Okay the appearance of this game means a lot. The visibility and clarity of all of the abilities and interactions is a must have. However the tooltips look like they were written by a high school student turning in an assignment 10 minutes before it was due and the UI itself while editable and intelligent is not effective because of the problems with the in-game objects. The mailing system as I wrote in a previous elongated post is archiac and inexcusable. I know games that are decades old and have a more intelligent mailing system, not to mention the mailbox physically causes your game to lag while it is open, especially when you have the auction house open... which is a catch 22 because you have to use the mailbox to collect things you get from the auction house. How any company that spends as much time working on a game can overlook that sort of thing is beyond me. It feels like the developers not only don't play the game, but don't have any idea what the health or feel of the game is anymore. I can understand working 9 hours and not wanting to come home to play the thing you worked on all day... it gets mundane, they probably want to go play call of duty or something, but hell at least once a week log on and play for 2 hours... just 2 hours a week and some of the most glaring issues would become un-ignorable. I remember when they did live streams and the streamers would have to do hodge-podge fixes for bugs that existed and were well known that still have not been looked into... not okay...
4: We understand: It seems that the stance between the developers and players has been serving up a lot of animosity. I can only assume that the developers stopped reading the forums because it depressed or upset them to see a lot of "bashing" on the project they worked hard on. Look... we understand, we know you have been cut back to a small team and are simultaneously forced to work on balance, bug work, map work, and shove out content to please perfect world entertainment to stay above water. The majority of players not only understand, but sympathize... and we greatly outweigh the "haters" or people bashing the game and its developers... Now onto the point... you have to understand us to. Many of us are hardcore neverwinter players... we have more time logged in this game in one year than you have logged into your workplace... some of us are even more hardcore and have this game as a bastion of relief after a long day of work or a troubling day of problems... so when it comes to glaring issues being ignored for long periods of time of course we become hostile. We don't hate you, and we sure don't expect you to be superman and fix everything overnight... but when you put out patch notes that look like they were put together by some automated bug tracker system... instead of fixing the most hindering, progress stopping problems in the game.. you have to expect some harsh language because we may not want perfection in our game, I don't think any of us expect that... but we don't want frustration either.. and this game breeds more and more of it every day by sweeping frustrating issues under the rug and shoving out new problems every week... for instance.. did you know since mod 3 you have been able to sell your black ice forging gauntlets... the white ones that are literally REQUIRED for progress.... I did that and knew that the support would be so frustrating to deal with that I bought some off the auction house. How is that healthy for the game.... in that moment I was in no mood to buy the mount from the store that I was going to buy, which would have netted you much more money, and kept me in a good mood. Instead I just dumped a pittence of cash into the game to counter something you could fix in 3 minutes... I could fix it in 3 minutes, all you have to do is flag the item.... but instead it cost you money, and this leads me to my next point.
5: Your publisher: A lot of players don't understand that cryptic is not perfect world, and is not the one that we should blame for the half assed content pushes that cost tons of money. We know you have a lot on your plate trying to keep fat and happy the company you got into bed with, especially since it has a reputation for burning games down like a California forest fire... at some point you have to put your foot down and put your players first, even if its just one or two patches out of the month, we know you have content to deliver and bills to pay... but you have lost more money shoving out monthly content than you would have if the game was still in mod 1 with its previous player base. You have to show perfect world that this is not the way, puff up your chest and say listen, if we don't prioritize player concerns a bit more this game will die, and they may fight you... The respect you gain will draw players back to the game and help you retain what you have... but as it is now you are piloting a sinking ship and shooting new holes in it every week because the person who bought you the first sail said he would take it back if you didn't. Fight for your players not your publisher, because in the end, you can get a new publisher, but we are like a fickle girlfriend... if you lose us you won't get us back.