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Developer Letter: State of the Game

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    freshourfreshour Member Posts: 623 Arc User
    I would also like to say that despite what we post. The devs really can't do anything we offer. They do what they are told to do and try their best to "word it" in a way that makes our opinions feel valued. I'm sure if we read what they are supposed to do and what they actually do we'd probably be impressed. The ability to completely neglect the player base for nearly 3 years and still having a game is a feat in itself.
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    bananacustardbananacustard Member Posts: 28 Arc User
    Better communication with your community eh?

    So why is the xbox community still waiting to find out when the 2x exp event we were promised will be implemented?

    Why do we still have an empty ingame calendar?

    Why do the majority of players not know about the rewards currently in the zen market?

    Why are there so many unanswered questions on this forum - Specifically, where is the response regarding some players recieving double wards?

    AND finally, if you want to improve communication, why is every response from your company (here and through support) a derivative of 'we don't care, tough luck'.

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    spiritualxblspiritualxbl Member Posts: 66 Arc User
    As someone who played since day 1 on PC and switched and supported the Xbox version, it's not hard to balance classes.

    I for one would support all-around nerfs, if it meant making the content more challenging.

    Let's take a look at the dumbest things you've not addressed.

    -You have a class called a "Control" Wizard whose primary function you've nerfed into obscurity. First you took control out of the game in mod 3, so freezing, stunning and knock-backs became useless. You furthered this by making 50% of the mobs unfreezable. We adjusted and you take away our best DPS feature in Mod 6. Even with SS critting and having no ICD, there was still a great balance to the game. CWs and GWFs dominated things like CN and TRs and SWs got Paingiver on smaller dungeons like eLoL. Nobody was complaining.

    -You didn't specifically address what changes you'd be making to SW. Both the Damnation and Fury Soul Puppet builds are completely HAMSTER overpowered. Stuff dies so quick in the new content that that by the time I get a 8-10k SS proc, the SW is already proccing 4m+ ticks every few seconds. Yeah, SS critting is actually looking BALANCED compared to that.

    -GWFs have a highly unfair crit:power transfer. How do you expect balance when there are GWFs running around with 40k power and 25k crit when literally every other class has a capstone of around half of each number? Patch that and that class becomes balanced. The only reason no one is bringing this up is because you've forced 50% of your player base to play GWFs now just to be viable. There's literally a 5 GWFs to every other class on Xbox right now. It's an epidemic. Seriously, you could give Disintegrate a 0.1s cooldown and a GWF would still out-DPS a CW. And before anyone says "all they have is DPS", shut up lol. The class worked flawlessly from mods 1-5 and did it's job. Being an AoE melee class.

    -Force OP to pick a play-style and that problem's eliminated. Seriously, bubble Paladins are so overpowered that you've obliterated the demand for a GF. Take their temp HP down to 25%. Problem solved. They'd use it situationally.

    I swear to God if you boost HR/TR, don't address SW and GWF damage spikes and ignore CWs and GFs, you're going to destroy your own creation.

    CW is the only class I've ever enjoyed playing on NWO and it's honestly HAMSTER pathetic that we've been reduced to buff HAMSTER. A DPS CW (Thaumaturge+Icy) isn't even viable and Oppressor's been nerfed into the ground that it's almost completely unplayable, so everyone feels obligated to run Renegade. It's honestly pathetic. We had great control, you took that away. We had competitive damage, you took that away. Don't subject the CW to being buffers. You'd be making the biggest mistake ever if you didn't include CWs in your class analysis'.

    Just my 2 cents. Someone who's spent thousands supporting your game and gearing characters you've pounded with nerfs. It'd be a shame if that steady income disappeared... :P.
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    eldeskaleldeskal Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 214 Arc User
    As someone who writes "customer facing content", that was a masterfully crafted letter---both in technical content and tone.

    Cynical Part:
    For those of us more familiar with consuming marcom, it was a bit underwhelming. Eldarth gave a rather adept "unspinning" of the message earlier, so I won't bother. In short, you're looking at "everything", and will make "some changes".

    There was an earlier suggestion for the devs to outfit a team with selected classes, give themselves the best PVP equipment, and then challenge a top PVP guild, using the class mechanics in the way they are intended to work, before trying to "fix" PVP. This is probably the best suggestion in the thread.

    Likewise, please hire an intern, and have him play the content _every day_ until he earns the AD amount you model that we will earn daily. At level 70, (because no guild wants <lvl70) require him to use half of that every day to support his SH. Every Friday (until he quits) ask him weekly how much fun he is having. Give him the job-title "player barometer".

    Helpful Part:
    You said you're looking for effective ways to use player feedback? Post the list of issues you're aware of with possible solutions and give players the ability to up-vote and down-vote, once per account (might have to use 'paying' accounts since there's no other way to keep someone from having 200,000 accounts). Crowd-sourcing is an effective policing method for intangible characteristics like 'fairness' and 'funness', and you have an active and invested community on the forums.

    For fixing the economy, your strategy has a flaw: Your strategy assumes botters are using exploits to make large amounts of AD, but they're not. Botters are presently harvesting garbage items (r4s and r5s) and selling them in aggregate, and in volume to make AD. Botters have also realized that VIP can make enough to pay for itself with surplus, just by selling the content of the lockboxes everyday, no matter what it is. You cannot "remove the incentives for botting" when they are botting basic items in the game---unless you remove from normal game-play every item that could potentially be sold on AH; this would kill gameplay. I.e., your strategy cannot work---please formulate another rather than ruining gameplay by pursuing this broken model. (If this makes you think "ahh...we should remove r4s and r5s", or "lets remove lockbox keys from VIP", then I have utterly failed here.)

    For class balance: you seem to envision a model where classes are associated with specific functions (i.e., CWs do control, DC heal, GWFs do massive damage, GFs tank, etc.) But then you introduce content that is solely-DPS based (Throne of Dwarven Gods, Prophecy of Madness, Phases 1 and 3 of Demo, all of the Demonic HEs, Lair of Lostmauth/Shores of Tuern/Tiamat...pretty much everything produced mod6+). So now all DCs stack up AP generation, so that they are a meaningful contribution to team DPS. CWs stack damage and debuff rather than control. When you address 'balance' with your new 'process', you must consider the PVE content and HE/dungeon scoring/rewards systems in addition to PVP. If you need a way to test if you've got it right, watch the LFG channel in Protector's Enclave: if you've got it right, you should see every class requested for a given dungeon. right now they all say "lf3m, AP DC/GWF"
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    eldartheldarth Member Posts: 4,494 Arc User
    rapo973 said:


    Looking how the previous modules have been managed, I expect:
    - 15 march: release date
    - 16 march: 20+ bugs reported
    - 20 june: 10 bugs fixed and nothing more -> Only at that time we can have a better understanding on how to balance the classes.

    You almost got it right, modus operandi has been...
    • +0 weeks: installed on preview server
    • +1 weeks: 40 bugs reported on preview server
    • +2-4 weeks: +40 more bugs reported on preview server
    • +5 weeks: Released Live
    • +6 weeks: 75 bugs (previously reported on preview server) reported
    • +7-12 weeks: 7 bugs fixed, 5 new ones added
    • +14 weeks: Next module announcement
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    freshourfreshour Member Posts: 623 Arc User
    I would gladly come back to face off with the devs in a pvp. I would say 3-4 guilds are "top tier" in pvp standards. I would bet the devs might get a total in all 3-4 matches of maybe 100 pts. The last dev game it was 1k to 0 and they even had tenacity haha.

    If you want to see your game and how it is played... play it. If you want to balance PVE, play with the best pve'ers and see what they do to be effective.

    If you want to change pvp - q up vs the best pvp teams and watch your world burn so maybe you can make some adjustments, oh and install ACT - it is a great way to track what is actually going on as I'm hoping you don't use the in game combat logs for your changes, but I won't hold my breath.
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    blinxonblinxon Member Posts: 567 Arc User
    And all the "gods from module 1 to module 5" crying about new number 1 paingivers? Boring...
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    ryoshinetteryoshinette Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 488 Arc User
    I wish you be so good in coding and fixing impossible to count bugsas in praising yourself.
    Ryoshin GF (4.2k)
    .Suicide Squad.




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    duryntedurynte Member Posts: 132 Arc User
    My state of the game story is this: I started in mod 5, halfelf hunter ranger. That was very enjoyable, no benefits like class artifacts or purple mount; sometimes challenging, surprising, and the halfelf race quests fill in some tasks in Tower District, Vellosk, Icespire Peak to a nice finale in Mount Hotenow. Something to remember.

    Then mod 6, AD cut off from leadership, I had no idea how to continue with those 10 characters, some level 70. I took a break, returned when Underdark. I deleted all former characters, saving some stuff, and started fresh. Leveling up to 60 ist still something I appreciate. I do have a second account, no money spent there. And my favorite again has been, leveling a halfelf hunter ranger no benefits up to 60.

    Things I noticed or suspect to have been improved:

    - If the connection finally stabilizes, it keeps holding good (but there are many different parties involved with this, so...). I used to run a network monitor alongside NWO, so I could anticipate when typing on the keyboard was superfluous.

    - Much less rubbers, even if network througput dampens. Back in mod 5 I always wondered, why the characters wouldn't move at all, when there is a little delay, why not cache a bit of it. Seems, something like this has been done?

    - When pathing through tight mob space (on a personal note: too many too tightly filled mob maps from level 60 upwards), not all of them start their action sequences at once, some delay until the mob croud has thinned out, and then attack. That's great help for a HR suddenly surrounded by some 20 "catch you slow!" prowries, giantsouls and their healers.

    - Cut on the AD costs for transmute: very much welcome! I transmute and recolor often.

    - Armor from tarmalune merchant makes bridgeing the gap from IL 2k to IL 2.5k much easier. Good. Still having a hard time in epics, I have to experiment on that.

    I read the announcements for preview server, Maze Engine. All of it is very much welcome: anything that lightens the dark path of leveling from 60 upward, non epic dungeons, cut cost on boons. What I feel missing are improvements for the foundry authors as requested by them, there is so much story missing from level 60 upward to be had there. I'm amazed what some foundry authors are capable of putting together.

    I wish for Cryptic to manage the challenging NWO story going on, and for you forum reading adventurers: Happy hunting!
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    spiritualxblspiritualxbl Member Posts: 66 Arc User
    blinxon said:

    And all the "gods from module 1 to module 5" crying about new number 1 paingivers? Boring...

    Who's crying? We just want balance. In my case, my main is a CW. CONTROL Wizard. The only way to balance it is to strengthen our control again and give us enough DPS to compete with other like-geared classes. Judging from that response, I'm guessing you're a GWF or SW? We already know SW Soul Puppet spikes are likely getting "fixed", so at least that's a start.
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    tinead51tinead51 Member Posts: 305 Arc User
    3 pages of discussion about "State of The Game"... speaks volumes doesn't it?
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    regenerderegenerde Member Posts: 3,043 Arc User
    edited March 2016

    blinxon said:

    And all the "gods from module 1 to module 5" crying about new number 1 paingivers? Boring...

    Who's crying? We just want balance. In my case, my main is a CW. CONTROL Wizard. The only way to balance it is to strengthen our control again and give us enough DPS to compete with other like-geared classes. Judging from that response, I'm guessing you're a GWF or SW? We already know SW Soul Puppet spikes are likely getting "fixed", so at least that's a start.
    The power of the Soul Puppet comes directly from group buffs, so if they "fix" this, everyone will get his fair share of this "fix".
    And while they are at "fixing" stuff, they might as well adjust any pre module 6 armor set, and of course balance the Lostmauth set while they are at it.
    I do believe in killing the messenger...
    Want to know why?
    Because it sends a message!
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    aaramis75aaramis75 Member Posts: 348 Arc User
    edited March 2016

    *snip to conserve space*

    I agree on *most* of those things. Ultimately, though, the real class balance issues come into play post 2.5k IL. GWFs at lower level IL are balanced - they do great dps, but are quite squishy. HRs are similar in many ways. TRs are great at lower levels and can one-shot a lot of things, but that slows down significantly from 60-70, and definitely at 70+.

    But once you start going through the roof in IL, things change. A 3k dps class with 20-30+k power, 15-20% lifesteal, and so on performs VERY differently than a 2k IL with 10k power, <10% lifesteal, etc.

    Throw in artifacts, LoL set, etc. and things get even harder to control balance.

    And the worst part is that they're about to up the power creep even more with upcoming mount powers and changes.

    While I'm looking forward to some potential class changes, I honestly have no idea how they intend to do it amid all this chaos.

    *edit* - the other issue right now is that, and some may disagree, we NEED the dps that GWF bring. I don't know many pugs that would attain gold in various demonic skirmishes or nDemo/eDemo if not for the GWFs. They tend to double most dps class totals. But if not for that, we'd all be getting silver most of the time, or worse. So rather than nerfing GWF, I'm hoping they bring a few other classes up to speed.
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    blinxonblinxon Member Posts: 567 Arc User


    Who's crying? We just want balance. In my case, my main is a CW. CONTROL Wizard. The only way to balance it is to strengthen our control again and give us enough DPS to compete with other like-geared classes.

    Thats not balance. You want DPS AND CC. Im a CW too, but i like to support my grps and i hope in mod 9 CC is working better.
    I dont want both, CC AND DPS. Other classen only have...sry...its not allowed to say that ...

    And before anyone says "all they have is DPS", shut up lol.

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    candinho2candinho2 Member Posts: 550 Arc User
    All i wanted to hear is that"I mentioned that powers and classes are on the top of our review list this year. The team is working on several fixes that should be ready for PTS before too long. To stay with our goals mentioned earlier, we need to make sure they are fully reviewed and have time to soak on the PTS shard before they can go live. Based on your feedback, we are going to be reviewing the Paladin and Warlock"
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    candinho2candinho2 Member Posts: 550 Arc User
    i just hope there are still Warlock players by the time that balance comes out.
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    caycepollardcaycepollard Member Posts: 64 Arc User
    That letter needed a LOT of proof-reading. There are sentences that don't seem to make sense, and then there are simple blunders like "when auctioning on player feedback" which should be ACTIONING (which is such buzzword doublespeaking that it shouldn't even be a word, but whatever, that's what I expect from OverRob by now). In short, the attention paid to this "letter" accurately reflects the attention paid to the game. Ta-ta! I'll try some other D&D game for awhile, because this one is still stuck in greed-mode.
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    devlonasdevlonas Member Posts: 7 Arc User
    Nice, lengthy pat-on-the-back there. There is clearly a MAJOR DISCONNECT between what you feel the "State of the Game" is, and what your progress has been, versus what your customer base feels. Your weak mea culpa on issues you have created - often intentionally! - reads as < 1% when in our eyes it is + 75%. In most businesses, that is a model for failure -> insolvency.

    Strikes me as a "OMG we have to stop the bleeding!" effort to try to convince some of us who have not yet jumped ship, HARD, that it is somehow worth our while to continue waiting for real results. As someone earlier put it, not word-for-word, "Please don't go baby, I promise I won't hit you again."

    Snark aside, I am a person who almost always is willing to give another chance. You make a lot of promises for improved content, improved quality, improved gameplay, improved value, and improved customer relations. There is established history of your failure to deliver in each of these areas. What exactly are you going to do differently going forward? Give some concrete examples of what we should expect to see that will CHANGE OUR MINDS about Cryptic and Perfect World.

    Here's a simple one. Improved customer relations and dialogue with players. Here's one small thing you can do, right now, as you read this, to show that you mean what you say.

    Respond to this post.

    If you don't, then it's clearly evident that your promises are empty, and nobody should take them seriously.
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    devlonasdevlonas Member Posts: 7 Arc User
    tousseau said:

    But... asking them to respond is against forum rules... isn't it?

    That's what engaging your customers looks like. That's what caring about feedback looks like. Not just dropping by to do a hit-and-run press release that doesn't even address what customers are talking about and then ignoring all further discussion about it. Why do they even allow us to post comments, then? What's the point? Has one thing that any customer has ever said ever been noticed? Or made a difference?

    Just so we're all on the same page as to how much we matter.
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    l0th4ri0l0th4ri0 Member Posts: 589 Arc User
    The devs CANNOT use player feedback. CANNOT. All they can do is say that they are listening.

    The reason that I know the above sentence is true: see the entire history of this game development. From Launch, not from some gamebreaking Mod... from Launch it's been like this.

    As I've posted many times: it's pointless (extremely) to try to make some case for class changes, etc., here on the forums. You are wasting your time. I promise you very very much. Just play the game that you have, and if it gets boring or lame, then do something else.
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    eldartheldarth Member Posts: 4,494 Arc User
    Another key area for us is communication with our community. We are looking at additional ways to show our progress or create direct lines of communication back to our players whether it be through additional dev blogs or in-game activities. We will be working on a way to give the community a clearer picture of what we are working on and what we understand the top issues to be.
    If only there were some sort of online, web-based solution that would allow the community to easily report and vote on the importance of bugs as well as provide a mechanism for the developers to acknowledge and prioritize work on solutions.

    Nah. Just 'cause thousands of development companies use such a thing -- Cryptic knows best. A quarterly blog filled with pretty little unicorns farting rainbows is much more effective.
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    araneaxaraneax Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 639 Arc User
    eldeskal said:



    For class balance: you seem to envision a model where classes are associated with specific functions (i.e., CWs do control, DC heal, GWFs do massive damage, GFs tank, etc.) But then you introduce content that is solely-DPS based (Throne of Dwarven Gods, Prophecy of Madness, Phases 1 and 3 of Demo, all of the Demonic HEs, Lair of Lostmauth/Shores of Tuern/Tiamat...pretty much everything produced mod6+). So now all DCs stack up AP generation, so that they are a meaningful contribution to team DPS. CWs stack damage and debuff rather than control. When you address 'balance' with your new 'process', you must consider the PVE content and HE/dungeon scoring/rewards systems in addition to PVP. If you need a way to test if you've got it right, watch the LFG channel in Protector's Enclave: if you've got it right, you should see every class requested for a given dungeon. right now they all say "lf3m, AP DC/GWF"

    This . Again and again.
    Last mod made sure we, who had heal build, turned to either dmg. build or ap builds in order to be useful to the team or our guild.
    My main is a DC. In order to contribute ,my healing build was not good enough , what was i supposed to heal , when paladins where introduced to this game? Their bubble?
    A model where classes have functions they are designed for is long gone.
    Watching your party get one hit by a boss was not fun and there was nothing we could do about it.
    So instead of crit. healing and heals over time, we went for tanky builds with ap / power buffs focus.
    Or at least some of us did. I am not speaking for all of the Clerics out there. So do not get me wrong.
    There is going to be at least a few Clerics here, who still are sporting a heal build and are doing their best with it.
    I really could not and a lot of DC's i know , could not deal with the damage the mobs and bosses where doing.
    d7d81448-df6b-48cf-94a0-cf1ba87d861a_zpsish6zr2v.jpg

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    hugibearhugibear Member Posts: 1 Arc User
    :/
    I play on the XBOX and have my Arcade accounts linked but my activity does not show my activity - will this update?
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    bananacustardbananacustard Member Posts: 28 Arc User
    araneax said:

    eldeskal said:



    For class balance: you seem to envision a model where classes are associated with specific functions (i.e., CWs do control, DC heal, GWFs do massive damage, GFs tank, etc.) But then you introduce content that is solely-DPS based (Throne of Dwarven Gods, Prophecy of Madness, Phases 1 and 3 of Demo, all of the Demonic HEs, Lair of Lostmauth/Shores of Tuern/Tiamat...pretty much everything produced mod6+). So now all DCs stack up AP generation, so that they are a meaningful contribution to team DPS. CWs stack damage and debuff rather than control. When you address 'balance' with your new 'process', you must consider the PVE content and HE/dungeon scoring/rewards systems in addition to PVP. If you need a way to test if you've got it right, watch the LFG channel in Protector's Enclave: if you've got it right, you should see every class requested for a given dungeon. right now they all say "lf3m, AP DC/GWF"

    This . Again and again.
    Last mod made sure we, who had heal build, turned to either dmg. build or ap builds in order to be useful to the team or our guild.
    My main is a DC. In order to contribute ,my healing build was not good enough , what was i supposed to heal , when paladins where introduced to this game? Their bubble?
    A model where classes have functions they are designed for is long gone.
    Watching your party get one hit by a boss was not fun and there was nothing we could do about it.
    So instead of crit. healing and heals over time, we went for tanky builds with ap / power buffs focus.
    Or at least some of us did. I am not speaking for all of the Clerics out there. So do not get me wrong.
    There is going to be at least a few Clerics here, who still are sporting a heal build and are doing their best with it.
    I really could not and a lot of DC's i know , could not deal with the damage the mobs and bosses where doing.
    Heal builds at low IL are about as useful as a wet paper bag. The only useful cleric now is a haste. I didn't choose to play a HEALING class to dance around dungeons spamming the same moves just to give AP. Most high IL Pallys don't even need a cleric to sustain their daily power anyway, and our buffs/debuffs are not enough to justify a place in a team which could be given to a DPS. The new skirmishes don't require healers/haste and clerics don't deal enough damage to be useful. In epic dungeons most classes are 1 hit by mobs, rendering our heals useless. My character is still only around 2.5k IL, so I can't speak for decently equipped characters, but unless I build my character as a crit build I can't really heal anyway - Max hit points are so high and endgame npcs do so much damage - but the heals we have don't seem to have been brought in line with the changes. It's like giving a plaster to someone with a broken leg.


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    agericageric Member Posts: 17 Arc User
    I've barely been playing a year. watched the game slowly decline from when I started right after elemental evil. no offense, but I don't think you're listening to your players at all. Give us back the wards in the trade bar shop. You've screwed up the economy enough. Everything is way too expensive and barely a source to get ADs. It's HAMSTER. there is NO advancement opportunity. At least allow people who pay for VIP to get something good out of it. Remove the refinement tab from the zen market because I know I will NOT pay for it there.
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