Why is no one listening?

greywynd

So you aren't asking "why aren't they listening", but rather "why are they doing what we told them not to" or "why aren't you doing what I'm demanding".

First and foremost, they have to do the changes to keep the game alive. They are looking long.

They gave a reason for the exchanged enchants being bound. Like it or don't, that is the way it will be. If you don't like it, don't use it, as was suggested elsewhere. And if you can't see where abuse would happen, you're blind. People buying up cheap enchants to exchange and then resell for more than they bought for.

dread4moor

spidey#3367 said:

greywynd said:

Well, technically, the devs are listening to the appropriate feedback threads over in the preview section of the board.

Well...its only one dev who is kind a listening.
Or can you show me at least one thing they changed after an apropriate feedback?

We cannot say "they never incorporate our feedback" because that is not true.

Asterdahl has at least listened to our feedback.
Although I do not agree with all the patch changes, it is clear he incorporated some of our feedback.

There are many examples.
The Dig-In Tab function was arguably the most controversial Fighter mechanic change.

It was clunky, awkward, inconsistent and frequently locked in the "on" position.
We pointed this out on the Fighter preview forum.
The first preview patch fixed the "on-off" toggle problem. He listened and made a change.

Disclaimer, I still dislike Dig-In.
I'm no company shill. I frequently report problems and criticism.
But we have to be fair in our criticism.
They are listening and... sometimes... incorporating our feedback.
Not often... but not "never" either.

vendood

greywynd said:

So you aren't asking "why aren't they listening", but rather "why are they doing what we told them not to" or "why aren't you doing what I'm demanding".

First and foremost, they have to do the changes to keep the game alive. They are looking long.

They gave a reason for the exchanged enchants being bound. Like it or don't, that is the way it will be. If you don't like it, don't use it, as was suggested elsewhere. And if you can't see where abuse would happen, you're blind. People buying up cheap enchants to exchange and then resell for more than they bought for.

Incorrect.

Most people are saying "When we point out clear issues with things like companions hitting for too much in some cases, you (apparently) ignore our input - at least, we get no feedback. Then suddenly, several patches later, you nerf companion damage severely, to the point where they are hardly doing anything. Why are you not paying attention to the amounts and hits we have attached screenshots of, and instead seem to be making panicky changes at random?"

You seem to be focused on interpreting player feedback in the worst possible light. Rather than expecting developers, whom we pay for, to do their job correctly.

Secondly, they do not 'have to do the changes to keep the game alive'. They should do some changes to improve the quality, balance, longevity and customer satisfaction with their product, so that they sell more product. 'These' changes are not necessarily the ones that will achieve that. 'These' changes smack much more of 'we need to get this product into easy-management mode so we can transfer our teams to the M:TG project, and we need to do it fast'.

As for the bound exchanges, some people don't seem to understand the market process. Personally I don't care about how it works out - I am a casual player, my highest enchants are like rank 10, I don't really care about min-maxing stats or market trading or whatever.

However, the 'abuse' process everyone is envisioning is 'buy cheap enchant A in mod 15. Hold til Mod 16. Look to see which enchant B sells for the most. Exchange unbound A to unbound B, sell for profit.'. The 'fix' is, 'exchange any enchant, no matter how acquired, or when, or for what reason, and it becomes account bound to you. No profit for anyone!'

Cryptic appears to be missing the fact that 'cheap unbound enchant A' is still perfectly tradeable, and is still perfectly useable exchange-fodder to anyone who wants an exchange, and can be traded as such. So one of two things would happen with an 'unbound' process - everyone would exchange A for B, B's price would drop precipitously due to oversupply, A's would rise. Or... people would find there is no great demand even for B. Why? Because every single player who cares about 'having the right enchants' is already going to have a full supply of freely exchangeable/tradeable enchants, plus an extra 6 or more enchants from their companion gear, plus whatever they have stuck in the bank over time. There will be a surplus of all tradeable enchants on the market once Mod 16 hits and enchants start popping off people's companions and gear they no longer use, etc.

What Cryptic has actually done here, is created an excuse to take a bunch of legitimate, unbound enchantments, that you paid a lot of Zen/AD/grind for, which are currently swappable between characters, accounts, and other players... and take those out of circulation by making them account bound. Which will mean that when they change things again later - you can't swap/trade your old enchants any more to update your main - you will have to pay a lot of Zen/AD/grind to acquire new ones.

Which, just like with the Professions change... is exactly the plan. Take away your old stuff, give you less tradeable, less valuable, less useable things in exchange, make you grind and pay to try to get back to where you were.

greywynd

If you actually read what was said elsewhere, the system cannot read the bound status of anything you are putting into the exchange vendor. Therefore, whatever comes out will be bound to your account.

You're reading into the changes what you want to read into them, disregarding what has been said about why the changes are happening.

vendood

greywynd said:

If you actually read what was said elsewhere, the system cannot read the bound status of anything you are putting into the exchange vendor. Therefore, whatever comes out will be bound to your account.

You're reading into the changes what you want to read into them, disregarding what has been said about why the changes are happening.

Wow, way to toe the company line. You're aware that the system reads the bound status every time you try to put it in your account or guild bank, right? Every time you try to put an enchantment in email? Every time you try to put an enchantment on the exchange?

So what they are in fact saying is "we need an excuse why we are making these bound, and we hope some of you completely don't understand how code works, so that when we say 'the exchange vendor can't read bound status' you won't realize we mean 'we can't be HAMSTER to copy the code from the other 10 places where it does read the bound status'".

Hamster filter applied manually by moderator.

darkheart

>> @ragnarz2 said:
> If you actually read what was said elsewhere, the system cannot read the bound status of anything you are putting into the exchange vendor. Therefore, whatever comes out will be bound to your account.
>
> You're reading into the changes what you want to read into them, disregarding what has been said about why the changes are happening.
>
> We really do not need white knights defending nonsense.

It seems like as the release day gets closer and there are still terrible decisions being made by devs (in my opinion) and still massive bugs, the white knights are coming out more to protect and justify the devs decisions.

sandukutupu

Looks like a lot of cry babies derailed @spidey#3367 topic by adding their own agendas. Once more the whole of this topic is talking to developers. Today is Saturday, their day off, anyone pulling down overtime isn't suppose to be on the forums. Anyone working on this module today is working hard. Seriously you are just attacking other players at this point over their opinions. I said all this a page ago, and now I am repeating myself.

If you have concerns about this module, then you do what I did.

1. Download preview and play-test for yourself, don't base your opinions on media videos.
   
2. While play-testing get a pen and paper and make notes of what you see wrong and be sure to point out bugs.
   
3. Drop into the PREVIEW AREA (not here) on this forum and post according to topic.
   
4. Be sure to write about the issue logically and not like a monkey who fell off Darwin's boat.
   
5. They use a color scheme to point out OPINIONS and BUGS look into that.
   

rickcase276

And you are both assuming that the system that governs the shared bank/sh bank/regular vendors is the same as the system that is being used for the special vendor. We do not know what is hard-wired into the back-end of their systems, and it is very possible that no one that still works at Cryptic knows either. Plus we really do not know how many developers that they really have working on the game.

But ultimately, if WoTC is okay with the product that we are getting from the game, then it will continue as is. Ultimately they are the ones that decide what is good or not, not us or the developers.

ragnarz2

rickcase276 said:

But ultimately, if WoTC is okay with the product that we are getting from the game, then it will continue as is. Ultimately they are the ones that decide what is good or not, not us or the developers.

I was under the impression that WoTC license D&D intellectual property to PWE. I am also under the impression that they are no where in the management chain and as such have no say in anything.

Aside from that . . . Ultimately, customers decide if something is good or not. That is how the free market works.

sandukutupu

ragnarz2 said:

rickcase276 said:

But ultimately, if WoTC is okay with the product that we are getting from the game, then it will continue as is. Ultimately they are the ones that decide what is good or not, not us or the developers.

I was under the impression that WoTC license D&D intellectual property to PWE. I am also under the impression that they are no where in the management chain and as such have no say in anything.

Aside from that . . . Ultimately, customers decide if something is good or not. That is how the free market works.

First I never assume anything. Apparently you never watched the PAX video. PWE didn't have a representative at the table. Mostly it came down to Cryptic Studios heads and designers, Wizards or the Coast representative, and PA representatives. PWE is a publisher and nothing more. If you think of this game like a movie production. PWE is the cable network (e.g. FOX, USA, HBO, etc..) they don't care or have much to say about it, unless it is losing money. Cryptic Studios is the production company (e.g. Paramount, Universal, etc.) under PWE, where they have the studio and hardware to make the movie. Wizards of the Coast owns the D&D, the intellectual property and they care about the game representing their product. At the PAX convention, the Wizards or the Coast representative mostly looked like a deer in the headlights, as they discussed the upcoming Module 15. You know the one, where they added the PA team from PAX to make the game amusing. You see I told the developers back then, I didn't think that campaign was such a good idea. But they did it anyway. I can be as vocal as I like, it comes down to their game belongs to their company and is not property of the player.

I am going to get something to eat.

dread4moor

sandukutupu said:

Looks like a lot of cry babies derailed @spidey#3367 topic by adding their own agendas. Once more the whole of this topic is talking to developers. Today is Saturday, their day off, anyone pulling down overtime isn't suppose to be on the forums. Anyone working on this module today is working hard. Seriously you are just attacking other players at this point over their opinions. I said all this a page ago, and now I am repeating myself.

If you have concerns about this module, then you do what I did.

1. Download preview and play-test for yourself, don't base your opinions on media videos.
   
2. While play-testing get a pen and paper and make notes of what you see wrong and be sure to point out bugs.
   
3. Drop into the PREVIEW AREA (not here) on this forum and post according to topic.
   
4. Be sure to write about the issue logically and not like a monkey who fell off Darwin's boat.
   
5. They use a color scheme to point out OPINIONS and BUGS look into that.
   

The title of this thread unilaterally says "they are not listening" which is demonstrably false.
Some of us pointed that out.
Many of us are doing the same things as you, @sandukutupu .

Been on preview 2-3 hours per day for the past month.
Playtested recording with ACT and spreadsheets (not just pen and paper).
Posted dozens of "logical" feedback and suggestion posts in the preview section using color scheme to point out OPINIONS and BUGS .
Asterdahl was listening. He personally responded to several.
One or two of those suggestions actually made it into the patches (although I take no credit for it).

Therefore, on topic, the title of this thread is false.
Just pointing it out. Doesn't make me a "crybaby".

A better title and topic would be "why aren't they incorporating more of our feedback"?
Now that would be a legitimate argument.

lantern22

dread4moor said:

sandukutupu said:

Looks like a lot of cry babies derailed @spidey#3367 topic by adding their own agendas. Once more the whole of this topic is talking to developers. Today is Saturday, their day off, anyone pulling down overtime isn't suppose to be on the forums. Anyone working on this module today is working hard. Seriously you are just attacking other players at this point over their opinions. I said all this a page ago, and now I am repeating myself.

If you have concerns about this module, then you do what I did.

1. Download preview and play-test for yourself, don't base your opinions on media videos.
   
2. While play-testing get a pen and paper and make notes of what you see wrong and be sure to point out bugs.
   
3. Drop into the PREVIEW AREA (not here) on this forum and post according to topic.
   
4. Be sure to write about the issue logically and not like a monkey who fell off Darwin's boat.
   
5. They use a color scheme to point out OPINIONS and BUGS look into that.
   

The title of this thread unilaterally says "they are not listening" which is demonstrably false.
Some of us pointed that out.
Many of us are doing the same things as you, @sandukutupu .

Been on preview 2-3 hours per day for the past month.
Playtested recording with ACT and spreadsheets (not just pen and paper).
Posted dozens of "logical" feedback and suggestion posts in the preview section using color scheme to point out OPINIONS and BUGS .
Asterdahl was listening. He personally responded to several.
One or two of those suggestions actually made it into the patches (although I take no credit for it).

Therefore, on topic, the title of this thread is false.
Just pointing it out. Doesn't make me a "crybaby".

A better title and topic would be "why aren't they incorporating more of our feedback"?
Now that would be a legitimate argument.

I agree with most of what your saying, but the bit about the thread title is semantics.

greywynd said:

If you actually read what was said elsewhere, the system cannot read the bound status of anything you are putting into the exchange vendor. Therefore, whatever comes out will be bound to your account.

You're reading into the changes what you want to read into them, disregarding what has been said about why the changes are happening.

Making the enchants to BtA is a terrible idea, hardly seems to be in the interest of players

vendood said:

'These' changes smack much more of 'we need to get this product into easy-management mode so we can transfer our teams to the M:TG project, and we need to do it fast'.

Many of the changes seem to be this, and not required to make the game more balanced etc. Maybe the NW lobotomy is required to keep it alive so it can be done with one or two devs

sandukutupu

@dread4moor

sandukutupu said:

Looks like a lot of cry babies derailed @spidey#3367 topic by adding their own agendas.

I didn't call everyone here a "cry baby" just said a lot. It is not about the title, it is about where the developers are spending their time. Let's assume you work at Pizza Sam. If it was your "day off" from work, are you going to be calling the Pizza Sam and asking them how the customers feel about the new peanut butter and jelly pizza? I wouldn't. Now when you are working at Pizza Sam. Do you have time to do much other than fill the customers orders, and make some notes about complaints? "Hey Boss many of the customers are calling in worried they won't like the new line of pizza and its contents?"

lantern22 said:

Making the enchants to BtA is a terrible idea, hardly seems to be in the interest of players

Not ALL of the enchantments are BtA, only the ones you exchange for different at the scholar. This is to prevent me from buying up a mass of Shadowclad dirt cheap and when M16 goes LIVE, I convert to Soulforged or Thunderhead and dump them on the AH. This is not to prevent me from making a profit, but imagine the chaos as ALL the enchants would become worthless over night. Think of all your efforts to earn a Prominence from Ravenloft just to pop on and find out the market bottomed out the next day. The enchants in your bank and inventory will remain as they are and free to trade.

mightyeriksson

sandukutupu said:

Not ALL of the enchantments are BtA, only the ones you exchange for different at the scholar. This is to prevent me from buying up a mass of Shadowclad dirt cheap and when M16 goes LIVE, I convert to Soulforged or Thunderhead and dump them on the AH. This is not to prevent me from making a profit, but imagine the chaos as ALL the enchants would become worthless over night. Think of all your efforts to earn a Prominence from Ravenloft just to pop on and find out the market bottomed out the next day. The enchants in your bank and inventory will remain as they are and free to trade.

Imagine the chaos if they would make the market for Legendary Profession tools crash over night, I mean...

Ohh...

Wait, didn't they just do that?

greywynd

ragnarz2 said:

I was under the impression that WoTC license D&D intellectual property to PWE. I am also under the impression that they are no where in the management chain and as such have no say in anything.

WotC has a say. Refer to little things like the hair/armor styles that needed to be okay'd from them before Cryptic could introduce them.

greywynd

mightyeriksson said:

Imagine the chaos if they would make the market for Legendary Profession tools crash over night, I mean...

Ohh...

Wait, didn't they just do that?

No, they did not.

mightyeriksson

greywynd said:

mightyeriksson said:

Imagine the chaos if they would make the market for Legendary Profession tools crash over night, I mean...

Ohh...

Wait, didn't they just do that?

No, they did not.

Really?

I seem to remember an update that ultimately had the effect of reducing the price on legendary tools in the AH by 50-90 millions each?

But I guess I'm wrong...

Btw, you seem like you would be a perfect fit for any open moderator spots here btw, keep up the good work!

greywynd

Cryptic isn't responsible for the price of items players post in the AH. I seem to remember them saying that the professions system was going to be overhauled before they actually changed it.

kemnimtarkas

mightyeriksson said:

greywynd said:

mightyeriksson said:

Imagine the chaos if they would make the market for Legendary Profession tools crash over night, I mean...

Ohh...

Wait, didn't they just do that?

No, they did not.

Btw, you seem like you would be a perfect fit for any open moderator spots here btw, keep up the good work!

So....this last line seems to carry a whiff of insult to it, maybe???

Sorry - maybe I'm misunderstanding but it sounds like the implication is moderators are bad, somehow?

lantern22

sandukutupu said:

Not ALL of the enchantments are BtA, only the ones you exchange for different at the scholar. This is to prevent me from buying up a mass of Shadowclad dirt cheap and when M16 goes LIVE, I convert to Soulforged or Thunderhead and dump them on the AH.

I understand that. So what if people did that? It would result in good enchants dropping in price as the market adjusts - its a win/win for the players but not for cryptic as there will be less refining required. It would also result in the enchants that have been nerfed being recycled. Recycling is good, BtA is bad (for players anyway).

In my opinion, it is way better to take the 30% hit in AD value and retain an enchant that is unbound. Who (if you've got any sense and know what is going to happen) is going to convert an unbound enchant into a bound one?

I don't mind things being mixed up, BIS being changed etc. and I don't begrudge cryptic making a buck, but I object when there is dishonesty about the motives and spurious attempts at justifying them via other means.

greywynd said:

Cryptic isn't responsible for the price of items players post in the AH. I seem to remember them saying that the professions system was going to be overhauled before they actually changed it.

Indirectly Cryptic is responsible for the pricing of most things. Look at prices when there are sales / discounts happening, when items are added to lockboxes etc. etc. etc. . . . . . . and to argue the difference between Crypitc's controlling of prices via an items cost or value/worth and whether they control what things are posted on the AH for, is just being petty

greywynd

And trying to blame them because someone sets an asinine price is picking at nits.

mentinmindmaker

dread4moor said:

The title of this thread unilaterally says "they are not listening" which is demonstrably false.

Well. I understand the intent of OP to be to complain about why the devs to not heed most of what is posted on the boards, and on the General board in particular.

While it is true that *sometimes* the Devs pick up things from the boards(in particular from Test boards when betatesting a new mod which is sort of a special situation), it also is true that 99,99% of the stuff posted on the General board never sees any Dev action. See my earlier post for some reasons why.

So I would say the OP is mostly correct in what he writes.

dread4moor

kemnimtarkas said:

mightyeriksson said:

greywynd said:

No, they did not.

Btw, you seem like you would be a perfect fit for any open moderator spots here btw, keep up the good work!

So....this last line seems to carry a whiff of insult to it, maybe???
Sorry - maybe I'm misunderstanding but it sounds like the implication is moderators are bad, somehow?

sandukutupu said:

Looks like a lot of cry babies derailed @spidey#3367 topic by adding their own agendas.

Alot of ad hominem here. We are all on the same team.

mentinmindmaker said:

dread4moor said:

The title of this thread unilaterally says "they are not listening" which is demonstrably false.

Well. I understand the intent of OP to be to complain about why the devs to not heed most of what is posted on the boards, and on the General board in particular.
So I would say the OP is mostly correct in what he writes.

Thanks for clarifying.
I understand your and the OP's perspective better now and will respect your opinion.
If expressing frustration (vent thread) and voicing your feelings was the goal, then I totally get it. Fine.
But pragmatist here.
If the goal is to shame them into "listening" (by the definition you give), then this thread is an ineffective method imho.

Devs sometimes respond to well framed and presented evidence and explanation.
They will mostly "listen" to login #s and zen sales.
In the end they will "listen" when/if people walk away and/or stop buying zen.
Just my opinion. Let's agree to disagree.
Took will banter no more.

wylonus

Kreate, i dont go to 3rd party sites to read or post, as other said, it is toxic and also more likely may have hidden keylogger trojan if going too many sites, the home site is where the heart is and it should feel like we are all in our home and feel safe, and there is a mat outside, "Welcome to Home".

i can understand about enchants, why bound to account if trade in, if dont like it, then refine it. one of reason, they dont want AH get flooded with unwanted runes and enchants by making several new hundreds of pages on the market. i know they (programmers) are trying to clean up because AH is in serious mess of junks.

i am not worry about lack of 80 lvl contents, there are more on the way and Mod 17 soon to be announced, we dont know until end of spring. there are quiet few new multi-enchants on the way. seen few on test.

littledanger

Removed moderator edited quote by vendood

Know lie puller...

cabar1

greywynd said:

Well, technically, the devs are listening to the appropriate feedback threads over in the preview section of the board.

Some of the boards at least. But look at the Rogue board, several have posted very good feedback. Particularly the broken trees and the NERF to Stealth (a Rogues best friend, and his paragon power), but no responses have come to say whether the posts were taken under advisement, are valid or not, or were even read. Where is the motivation to post?

Oh, my bad, no one cares about Rogues anymore, or the fact that the many nerfs made because of PVP whiners being unable to kill Rogues in PVP (who plays PVP anyways?), made Rogues not wanted in team PVE play.

The same happened to Clerics for a couple of years. Then the Clerics usefullness was adjusted so they could BUFF, but the healing was still not needed!

And along came Master of Flame Wizard and the Templock Warlock, BUFFERS and HEALERS. So much attention to those classes, but the Rogue got over looked, AGAIN.

Maybe none of the Devs understand how to play the Rogue, so they don't care!

Thank You for letting me be mis-understood again!

greywynd

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHjKzr6tLz0

agilesto

greywynd said:

And trying to blame them because someone sets an asinine price is picking at nits.

But it wasn't an asinine price, it was a realistic one. Price is controlled by demand and supply. The legendary tools were the absolute must in professions, and their droprate was the lowest of ALL the droprates ingame. Yes it was kinda Cryptic's fault if these items were insanely expensive.

And they did make the market for these items totally crash by making them useless.

spidey

@greywynd

If you cant duscuss without any derailing or insulting, take your own advice : "if you dont like it, just leave"
Thx

kreatyve

agilesto said:

greywynd said:

And trying to blame them because someone sets an asinine price is picking at nits.

But it wasn't an asinine price, it was a realistic one. Price is controlled by demand and supply. The legendary tools were the absolute must in professions, and their droprate was the lowest of ALL the droprates ingame. Yes it was kinda Cryptic's fault if these items were insanely expensive.

And they did make the market for these items totally crash by making them useless.

"Useless" is subjective, and in my opinion, inaccurate. You can trade them for others, or you can still sell the old ones. Granted, not for 90 million AD, but still.

Yes, they were extremely rare and therefore extremely expensive, but that wasn't really a good thing for most players, so something had to be done. It does suck for those that saved up and actually paid those insanely high prices, but that's more than likely less than a percent of the game's population. They did what they felt was best for the majority of the population, rather than a very small minority.