It is difficult to tell when things are acknowledged by the dev team, whether its bugs or feedback. Though I see more of it happening since I always check devtracker.
We as players can't see when specific bug fixes get bumped up to a later patch update unless you tell us. Thus the multitude of hours you spend in the office working on the game, you have thousands gamers staring at the unfixed bug in the face not knowing whats going to happen. Most we can do is hoping for devtracker to show a post or a patchlog.
Akromatic had his weekly stream, I don't think it would be a bad thing if that was continiued with a portion dedicated to a state of the game.
For those who are praising our communication, thank you! For those who want more, how should we increase it? Is it just more developer presence you request?
State of the game info
And what most of people are asking...In progress Bug/issue resolving info.
Nobody expect your devs to solve them tomorrow, but some info/updates on the stuff they're currently working and soon to hit following patches will definitely help.
you want to know my level of Dev-player content? look at Path of Exile.
they have a weekly "state of the game" forum post EVERY WEEK. they released one today - at least 5,000 characters of "the state of the game"
they discussed the closed beta, with respect to the short comings and successes currently occurring. the end-result is that they decided to push back they next expansion, and they're basically what I always imagined a F2P company would be to successfully have players asking to give them money - they do it right in a combination of dev communication, no items for purchase that affect your gameplay over someone that doesn't spend money, and lots of complexity.
Yes completely agree. POE is how a F2P game should be. That is why they have my support. I would have expected more from a game with so much more resources like this one compared to GGG. But anyways hopefully they get on the right track.
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For those who are praising our communication, thank you! For those who want more, how should we increase it? Is it just more developer presence you request?
Information.
State of the game.
What you guys are working on: not statements like "we're working on stuff".
Also, real feedback consideration, not just " we appreciate the feedback but we'll ignore it in the end".
There is a lot wrong with the game right now, the lag, the hoards, messed up powers and so on and so on. Its not hard for the devs to compile a list of what people think/know is broken and then say we intend for x in the future. We expect it to take y weeks/months to have this right. This doesn't happen. We get the update list weekly and anyone who looks in that thread knows how disappointed people posting there are about problems that don't even seem to be acknowledged not getting fixed. Like right now everyone is using or trying to get the lol artifact set. Its been balanced once so far but it still seems like it wildly overpowered and going to get nerfed. And still people dropping millions in rp and ad to level and buy them with concerns being expressed widely. Can you imagine how angry people are going to be when you nerf it again or how daft it would be to leave it the way it is. Now might be the time to at least say you are aware of concerns about it.
Future Changes
Every mod we get large changes to classes no one asked for or wanted. No one wanted cw damage off the encounters and on to procs. No one wanted gwf damage to take the nosedive it did for so long. Certainly no one wanted destroyers to have to chase stacks like a Victorian beggar chasing crumbs.
Now no one is going to say the devs aren't entitled to make the choices they want but it would be nice to get some perspective on the rationale from time to time to see that there is in fact one. At that point we can discuss the quality or lack thereof of the rationale and then separately its effectiveness. After the community should get a response to its response. I don't mean responding to posts from users. I mean look at the class change thread, count up the number of issues, rank the issues by number of posts about them and then make a response quoting only the people talking about them in a rational way. Obviously that can't go on forever and decisions are made but for a while its felt like things happen, we respond and then we wonder what happens next and why they did it. Some of that leads to paranoia about creating new op classes every mod to milk the clowns who chase easy mode.
I could go on but what's the point. They only turn up to praise or to deliver wild changes.
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micky1p00Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,594Arc User
Answering to major concerns without being too vague like "we're investigating". Like, dragon hoard enchantment not working as they used to. Dungeons now always requiring a key to open the chest, which is slowly killing dungeons and interest in the game for some people. Acknowledging that lag is being worked on, and stuff like that.
It doesn't take hours to ask to the guy next to you in the office if a change is intended or not and then giving the answer the community is waiting. Ninja nerfs, when they're noticed, create disbelief and distrust, and I'm not convinced it's what you want from your players, so when some threads are a bit on fire, popping in, asking a question or two to the right people, and giving us a proper answer, would be useful communication, not just general noise and answering to extremely enthusiastic threads only.
This and more, for example SoD (TR exe capstone) was changed to be single target and activated from encounters only, are both of those changes intended or this is some sort of code regression with the mod ?
Just tell what it is, so people can respec or wait for a fix or do something else entirely. But this is not-here-not-there halfway unknown state add only to frustration levels.
Also bug reports, people reporting the same bugs for years now, you can't fix them all, understandable, make a list of them and if they are reproducible, not a priority or any other states. Reporting bugs with no response doesn't motivate people to test.
For those who are praising our communication, thank you! For those who want more, how should we increase it? Is it just more developer presence you request?
From a communications perspective, I think there's two problems here:
1: There are problems with the game, both perceived and real, and the players don't feel like Cryptic is addressing them fast enough. This assumption may be unfounded, but without very clear, frequent and transparent outbound communications about what is being worked on and ETAs (with an emphasis on the "E" there), people will continue to feel nothing is being done even if it's not true. Allowing the weekly patch notes to be the sum-total of the communication isn't going to cut it, and likewise, assuming people pour through various threads across all the different forums will also not do. I suggest a weekly, if not more frequent, blog series that is NOT a marketing thing, bit is a straight up description of what the known issues are, and what progress has been made on getting those issues resolved, even if that answer is none or the ETA one some issues is 4 weeks away (I know you work in sprint cycles, so provided you guys use Agile correctly, you should be able to give at least a estimate on time for the stuff currently in sprint).
2: The other problem is that players don't feel that Cryptic is really paying attention to them. This is likewise a huge problem... when changes are made more or less unilaterally, and new content and features are added that leave the general community saying things like "but... we told you months ago that we hate that sort of thing!!!" then you have real big problem on your hands: Players start hating your game. Look no further than Star Wars Galaxies to see what happens when a company makes changes without really ensuring the players want them - likewise, as shown in SWG, just because you have a super-IP behind your game, it's still not too big to fail if you alienate your players. My suggestion here is that you organize community round-tables. NOT ON THE FORUM and NOT PUBLIC. Rather, you come up with a way to pull in a number of representatives that are willing and able to discuss issues without resorting to ranting and name calling - if you let the entire thing be open to the public at the time of the discussion, it will be a completely waste of time for everyone involved. Then, you publish the transcripts of that discussion and allow the overall community to respond, then you take that feedback, formulate another group and do it again. Monthly. You can have different topics perhaps, one group talks about PvP, one group talks about Guilds, one group talks about Foundry, one about levelling, one about.. I don't know, boons or campaigns or whatever. Anyway, the point is, it doesn't have to be always about what players are angry about today... that's why I say such discussions should happen in closed session, so that you can moderate and direct the conversations and keep them relevant. Then, publish the entire conversation without edits (other than maybe censoring bad words) for the sake of transparency.
The two of these issues are interrelated, but I think your problem boils down to differences in both your inbound and outbound communications strategies. Focus less are marketing and advertising, and more on actually letting us know what's going on with you, and finding out what's going on with us.
[Feedback@Strumslinger] I recently got a personal acknowledgement from you after sending in a PM with some concerns about the Scourge Warlock class. I'm really excited to have such an involved new CM! As far as ways you could do even better:
-Create bi-weekly progress lists. On patch day, like Panderus did this last patch, tell us what you've been working on but not yet implemented! For the sake of clarity, specify that the changes may not make it into the next patch. As far as 'bi-weekly': Tell us on Sunday or Monday what you have pushed to testing so far, and what your current projects that may or may not be finished are. This way there's some margin for pleasant surprise, but no promises made.
-The biggest, baddest issue with the 'player communication' is that devs and mods feel alien, especially since some of you are new. Dedicate a day and a dev- maybe anyone you have working on graphics, since it's mostly bug fixes and balance right now. Run a raffle for non-toxic players with some form of balance concerns each week, and send that person out to play (on a normal, unmodified account- blues and greens like most of us) with a party of 4 concerned players. It's enlightening to look at things from player perspective.
-Give us CATEGORIZED priority lists. Not a 'flat order' that things will be done in- compile a real, candid list of known issues that you plan to work on. In this way, when something rolls up to the top of the list, you can solicit more targeted feedback from your more thoughtful players, and the ones feeling ignored can at least know that their concern has been acknowledged and is now 'on the list'. As a small, biased example, my list would look like this:
Class Balance:
Scourge Warlock: Buff the SW til' he can't feel his toes for all the dark majyks. Remove TT entirely.
Oathbound Paladin: Dial back the temp HP slightly.
Guardian Fighter: Raise/fix the value of Defense.
Great Weapon Fighter: Add increased Deflect severity to the Sentinel capstone.
CONTROL Wizards: Dial back Storm Spell a little. Distribute damage.
Bugs:
Restore TR stealth reveal. Permastealth is just a nuisance.
Fix <unnamed exploits that we all know about>.
Performance:
Investigate and improve serverside performance. Rubberbanding sucks!
Difficulty:
Keep the current 'Epic' dungeons. Promote them to 'Legendary', and rework the 'lower' tiers to be drastically less difficult. The new 'epic' tier should be far less painful, so we can actually complete them in a reasonable (30-40 minute) time frame while we farm an excessive number of tokens for Epic gear.
-Last but not least BY FAR- make red appear in threads, ESPECIALLY difficulty/class balance threads. Reward the non-toxic methods of concerns being raised by validating them. Or, if you feel the concerns are unfounded, engage in discussion. There's nothing like discussion when it comes to fostering a sense of being heard.
I'll put it like this: There's a lot of cool stuff I would love to spend money on - new bags, maybe a silly-looking crab mount, and a gob of AD to help get some of my enchants updated. It's not going to happen until I hear about progress with this mess. A weekly "State of the Game" post from a dev or someone on the design end would be lovely.
Thanks for keeping the discussion respectful and on-point, everyone! Some really great stuff here; many of which I wholeheartedly agree on. As a communications team, we're always going back to the drawing board to make our players proud to play Neverwinter and you've given us plenty to work with. In the words of an idol of mine: with great power comes great responsibility.
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Some very good ideas have been presented. My two coppers are for more attention to the list of confirmed bugs with actual responses acknowledging them and at least a monthly state of the game post.
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Some really great stuff here; many of which I wholeheartedly agree on.
Could we get an idea of what that stuff might be? People said a lot of things. I presume with agreement there might be changes or is it more I kind of agree but that's how things are agree.
For those who are praising our communication, thank you! For those who want more, how should we increase it? Is it just more developer presence you request?
Make some kind of Q & A with community and let the Dev team answer the questions once a week on Twich or via forum threads. There's plenty of questions about itemization issues, class balance issues in pve & pvp, difficulty changes, proffesion changes, etc.
Module 6 made the game very frustrating and difficult for new and casual players. Have you seen how broken the economy is because of all the gold sellers?
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isaintify1Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 414Arc User
edited May 2015
I personally agree with some of the things people have said like discussion of whats going on in a weekly news post, about whats big, what is happening currently, if there are any bug fixes being worked on or going to be worked on (Great Weapon Fighter Tab not working 100% of the time). Even to see a weekly stream that is a hour long doing skirmishes, dungeon runs. I would not even care if there were give aways or not, just having a presence and a way to talk with you guys makes people plenty happier.
On the Other hand I'd pay admission to watch a team of 5 Devs with average equipment try to beat a T2 using the tactics they want us to use.
^^^This.^^^
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rickcase276Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,404Arc User
edited May 2015
I think a weekly or monthly state of the game is needed from the development team. This way at least the players have some clue what is going on, the reasons for changes that are made, etc.
Yes and no. It kinda depends who's in charge of what really.
If, for example, you're investigating the difficulty of the game, let this investigating person open a thread, asking what, where and how we experience the problem. If that is not possible, let the person create a thread blog, listing his experiences and how they differ (or not) from ours. If he claims to have no problems running X setup, let him share such information. For all we know, we're simply using the wrong strategy.
For example: If a CW is supposed to be using Shield and we do not, then that's a possible reason for our complaints. If, despite wearing the shield and 2k defense in Draconic Templar gear, CWs still struggle, perhaps the mob Armor Pen could be change to make it more bearable for everyone. Thing is, we don't know what your intentions are and how much increased difficulty was originally intended. We can only share our experiences. Use them.
Hell, let him ask us to join him on preview to show him if he can't replicate the problem on his own. Many of us would gladly join in if that helps improving the game. By visibly spending time working on the problem you create confidence. Which of course you shouldn't abuse by not acting on whatever results you get, even if you don't like these results.
I know suits can claim anything they wish and often do so without any serious knowledge about the product, and most devs won't have any other choice but following orders, but if they can prove the suits wrong with clear player evidence, even these suits will have to reconsider their attitude.
In short, I don't care about the title of the person as long as there is a dialogue going on with someone who can actually make a difference. I fully understand you can't fix all problems overnight, and that's fine. But at least show that you're working on it. Provide feedback just as we provide you with feedback.
I know a lot of what people say here is 100% subjective. But where there's smoke there's fire somewhere. You have players willing to help, if only you don't dismiss them as ignorant clients who know absolutely nothing. Use this to your advantage before that attitude backfires and leaves you with an empty game.
Last but certainly not least, stop with the bloody ninja fixes. You have nothing to hide and we'll find out anyway, despite the usual silence afterwards. Honesty creates trust. Trust generates money. We may not always agree with the change, but the general distrust of "was it ninja nerfed or not?" does not work to your advantage.
As the Russians say "it's better to be slapped by the truth than be kissed by a lie". Something to consider.
Always liked your style mate, you are speaking out of my mind, only more diplomatic, than i am usually.
Many of us have asked for it now and it would be a great tool to add, a Road Map. It would show the CEOs, that their employees are working as intended and to us, the community, that you care a bit for the game, cause sadly i don't see that passion anymore, not with how this Mod came out and is handled ever since that day and the mass flow of negative comments speaks clear words.
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And by the way...now that I looked into and I quote what panderus said
"In addition, we are always working on upcoming features and modules so it can be difficult to just take a huge chunk of time from those without first examining the schedule and seeing how that would really impact moving forward."
I can clearly understand why things are the way they are....finally.
So they're working on new stuff before even fixing what's wrong with the previous...lol
It's like building on bad foundations and loading more weight on them without taking reinforcing measures.
Is this for real ?
How is a Dev from another team able to build/code stuff that's gonna be attached to another module that's already filled with bugs/errors !!??!!
New lines of code in the new modules happen to call broken/bad lines of code in previous modules and there u have it
If the previous ones are not resolved...well...MOD 6....welcome.
How on earth do you work on new stuff to plug into your platform without repairing the core on which they are going to be plugged in?!?!
Oh my lawd!
This is totally correct. They have a time table they keep to and Community Management is exactly that. It is management of the community more so than any actual communication. Look at the extremely polite though blatantly obtuse posts from the community manager in this thread. People spell to extreme detail how they would like the devs to communicate more with us and his primary question is, "How would you like us to communicate more with you?". Get it? Instead of reading and responding to specific issue we get a polite general question. It isn;t his fault, he is doing what he is paid to do which is basically telling us what we want to hear in a very vague non-committal way. That way, hopefully we are pacified for a while without pwe having to actually commit to anything.
For those who are praising our communication, thank you! For those who want more, how should we increase it? Is it just more developer presence you request?
In the posts prior to this, people have spelled out in detail how they would like you guys to increase communications. Your asking the general question without addressing any specific point made in this thread so far, kind of is a great example of what a lot of people feel the problem is. Just copy and paste the following (the point we feel you making is the same anyways): "Very polite, though entirely vague and non-committal response to highly specific problems as expressed by the player base. Additional vague responses and politeness, general likability minus credibility." Commitment gives credibility, keeping to a commitment gives legitimacy. Failing to commit in the first place just gives a feeling of flakiness and uncertainty.
Sorry, am just being straight with you. This kind of thing can turn into a bunch of glad handing which is as unproductive as straight out miserable negativity.
I'll put it like this: There's a lot of cool stuff I would love to spend money on - new bags, maybe a silly-looking crab mount, and a gob of AD to help get some of my enchants updated. It's not going to happen until I hear about progress with this mess.
Same here, i would like to contribute again, but purely from a business man point, my mind says to stop, until i don't see any substantial evidence of where the game is heading to. Cause when i see, that even whales get 1 shot, then there really is no motivation to pay for better items.
The real honest man is honest from conviction of what is right, not from policy.
Robert E. Lee
I only believe in statistics that I doctored myself.
Winston Churchill
The human race is a herd. Here we are, unique, eternal aspects of consciousness with an infinity of potential, and we have allowed ourselves to become an unthinking, unquestioning blob of conformity and uniformity. A herd. Once we concede to the herd mentality, we can be controlled and directed by a tiny few. And we are.
David Icke
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icefalcon9Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero UsersPosts: 12Arc User
Thanks for keeping the discussion respectful and on-point, everyone! Some really great stuff here; many of which I wholeheartedly agree on. As a communications team, we're always going back to the drawing board to make our players proud to play Neverwinter and you've given us plenty to work with. In the words of an idol of mine: with great power comes great responsibility.
To quote an anonymous source... "It ain't over till the fat lady sings." In caveman speak that means what you do matters far more then what you say. Once you do (fix the game breaking <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>) maybe the fat lady will start singing. No offense to women who might consider themselves "fat".
Or better yet, as one Knight says to the other, "It's just a model". In caveman speak that means that if all we get is talk and there's nothing really behind the curtain, or its just trivial <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> that is not game changing, there's gonna be hell to pay. No offense to cavemen whereever they might be hiding.
Rgr, out!
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In my opinion. More time for devs to communicate with players. even through the community manager, would be a good thing.
Even if we had a weekly "Whats happening" post, where commonly asked player questions and requests were answered, Questions like "What are the top priority fixes at the moment regarding bugs?" and "Is there any changes to the difficulty being looked at"
For those who are praising our communication, thank you! For those who want more, how should we increase it? Is it just more developer presence you request?
In my opinion, we would appreciate more communication about the vision that Cryptic has for Neverwinter, an explanation behind some of the changes that you make, and sometimes, some apologies for some of the horrendous errors that are made.
There are class threads and I think you need someone talking in every single one. Why does a class get a certain balancing. What was Cryptic's focus on a certain feat or power. If you want less criticism, panic and anger; get us on board with your decisions before making them - or at least give us some heads up as to how you're positioning the class compared to other classes and content.
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Hear, hear. What we're looking for, to put it in a nutshell, is substance. It's great that you're paying attention -- that is certainly something. Now, what we're really looking for is, what is the plan going forward? Is there a plan? It's not fair to accuse a brand-new CM of ignoring our feedback -- there would be no justification for that this early -- but please try to look at it from this side of the screen:
1. We were asked for Mod 6 feedback prior to its release, and by all accounts, our concerns were not taken into account. At least, they appear to have had no bearing whatsoever on what was released.
2. While you have made clear that mistakes were made and you intend to do something about it, we haven't heard anything since of any substance to that effect. We've been feeding you mountains of feedback since April 7, but what, if anything is being done about it? We have had no specifics, and it at least feels like "de'ja vu all over again", even if on your side of the screen it really isn't. From this side of the screen, we can't tell.
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While I am trying to have a positive outlook for this thread, and hope for some good changes, I can totally see your side on this (especially my cynical side).
The guy probably has 20 minutes to respond to this kind of thing/make forum posts in a day and 7 hours 40 minutes of other things to do.
That is exactly what people are talking about. Communication, not a polite brush off. Does that mean they will create a real position where the job is to actually COMMUNICATE with the player base, at least 4 hours of every day? Nope. No way. He can't say that. We can. And he can communicate that to his superiors and point to this thread as what the players are saying.
The guy probably has 20 minutes to respond to this kind of thing/make forum posts in a day and 7 hours 40 minutes of other things to do.
That is exactly what people are talking about. Communication, not a polite brush off. Does that mean they will create a real position where the job is to actually COMMUNICATE with the player base, at least 4 hours of every day? Nope. No way. He can't say that. We can. And he can communicate that to his superiors and point to this thread as what the players are saying.
You would think the community manager position is about communicating with the playerbase though wouldnt you. haha. though then again its just like most businesses I guess. its less about being part of the public, and more about managing their reactions and emphasizing the positives. Truth be told Strum has been a lot more vocal that I've seen on the forum in a while, even if the majority has been xbox related, or without much actual infomation.
You would think the community manager position is about communicating with the playerbase though wouldnt you. haha. though then again its just like most businesses I guess. its less about being part of the public, and more about managing their reactions and emphasizing the positives. Truth be told Strum has been a lot more vocal that I've seen on the forum in a while, even if the majority has been xbox related, or without much actual infomation.
This is exactly what we want. actual information. when we were getting the "dev blogs" during development, they were awesome. it gave us a little insight into how the devs and the game balancers / programmers felt and thought. If we could get little DEV Q&A like blogs weekly or fortnightly, maybe around patch time. this would be amazing.
I think we could do far worse than Strum as community manager. Managing customer expectations is serious business and incredibly difficult under most circumstances. These circumstances it has to be almost impossible. None the less we want direct, open, an honest answers to the primary questions.
I think we could do far worse than Strum as community manager. Managing customer expectations is serious business and incredibly difficult under most circumstances. These circumstances it has to be almost impossible. None the less we want direct, open, an honest answers to the primary questions.
Exactly. He makes an effort to show his presence on the forum. which is a plus. but I still feel even just the weekly/fortnightly little snips of info about whats going on and being looked at, would really increase the playerbase's general happiness.
Comments
It is difficult to tell when things are acknowledged by the dev team, whether its bugs or feedback. Though I see more of it happening since I always check devtracker.
We as players can't see when specific bug fixes get bumped up to a later patch update unless you tell us. Thus the multitude of hours you spend in the office working on the game, you have thousands gamers staring at the unfixed bug in the face not knowing whats going to happen. Most we can do is hoping for devtracker to show a post or a patchlog.
Akromatic had his weekly stream, I don't think it would be a bad thing if that was continiued with a portion dedicated to a state of the game.
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/forumdisplay.php?687-Dev-Tracker
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State of the game info
And what most of people are asking...In progress Bug/issue resolving info.
Nobody expect your devs to solve them tomorrow, but some info/updates on the stuff they're currently working and soon to hit following patches will definitely help.
Yes completely agree. POE is how a F2P game should be. That is why they have my support. I would have expected more from a game with so much more resources like this one compared to GGG. But anyways hopefully they get on the right track.
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State of the game.
What you guys are working on: not statements like "we're working on stuff".
Also, real feedback consideration, not just " we appreciate the feedback but we'll ignore it in the end".
There is a lot wrong with the game right now, the lag, the hoards, messed up powers and so on and so on. Its not hard for the devs to compile a list of what people think/know is broken and then say we intend for x in the future. We expect it to take y weeks/months to have this right. This doesn't happen. We get the update list weekly and anyone who looks in that thread knows how disappointed people posting there are about problems that don't even seem to be acknowledged not getting fixed. Like right now everyone is using or trying to get the lol artifact set. Its been balanced once so far but it still seems like it wildly overpowered and going to get nerfed. And still people dropping millions in rp and ad to level and buy them with concerns being expressed widely. Can you imagine how angry people are going to be when you nerf it again or how daft it would be to leave it the way it is. Now might be the time to at least say you are aware of concerns about it.
Every mod we get large changes to classes no one asked for or wanted. No one wanted cw damage off the encounters and on to procs. No one wanted gwf damage to take the nosedive it did for so long. Certainly no one wanted destroyers to have to chase stacks like a Victorian beggar chasing crumbs.
Now no one is going to say the devs aren't entitled to make the choices they want but it would be nice to get some perspective on the rationale from time to time to see that there is in fact one. At that point we can discuss the quality or lack thereof of the rationale and then separately its effectiveness. After the community should get a response to its response. I don't mean responding to posts from users. I mean look at the class change thread, count up the number of issues, rank the issues by number of posts about them and then make a response quoting only the people talking about them in a rational way. Obviously that can't go on forever and decisions are made but for a while its felt like things happen, we respond and then we wonder what happens next and why they did it. Some of that leads to paranoia about creating new op classes every mod to milk the clowns who chase easy mode.
I could go on but what's the point. They only turn up to praise or to deliver wild changes.
This and more, for example SoD (TR exe capstone) was changed to be single target and activated from encounters only, are both of those changes intended or this is some sort of code regression with the mod ?
Just tell what it is, so people can respec or wait for a fix or do something else entirely. But this is not-here-not-there halfway unknown state add only to frustration levels.
Also bug reports, people reporting the same bugs for years now, you can't fix them all, understandable, make a list of them and if they are reproducible, not a priority or any other states. Reporting bugs with no response doesn't motivate people to test.
From a communications perspective, I think there's two problems here:
1: There are problems with the game, both perceived and real, and the players don't feel like Cryptic is addressing them fast enough. This assumption may be unfounded, but without very clear, frequent and transparent outbound communications about what is being worked on and ETAs (with an emphasis on the "E" there), people will continue to feel nothing is being done even if it's not true. Allowing the weekly patch notes to be the sum-total of the communication isn't going to cut it, and likewise, assuming people pour through various threads across all the different forums will also not do. I suggest a weekly, if not more frequent, blog series that is NOT a marketing thing, bit is a straight up description of what the known issues are, and what progress has been made on getting those issues resolved, even if that answer is none or the ETA one some issues is 4 weeks away (I know you work in sprint cycles, so provided you guys use Agile correctly, you should be able to give at least a estimate on time for the stuff currently in sprint).
2: The other problem is that players don't feel that Cryptic is really paying attention to them. This is likewise a huge problem... when changes are made more or less unilaterally, and new content and features are added that leave the general community saying things like "but... we told you months ago that we hate that sort of thing!!!" then you have real big problem on your hands: Players start hating your game. Look no further than Star Wars Galaxies to see what happens when a company makes changes without really ensuring the players want them - likewise, as shown in SWG, just because you have a super-IP behind your game, it's still not too big to fail if you alienate your players. My suggestion here is that you organize community round-tables. NOT ON THE FORUM and NOT PUBLIC. Rather, you come up with a way to pull in a number of representatives that are willing and able to discuss issues without resorting to ranting and name calling - if you let the entire thing be open to the public at the time of the discussion, it will be a completely waste of time for everyone involved. Then, you publish the transcripts of that discussion and allow the overall community to respond, then you take that feedback, formulate another group and do it again. Monthly. You can have different topics perhaps, one group talks about PvP, one group talks about Guilds, one group talks about Foundry, one about levelling, one about.. I don't know, boons or campaigns or whatever. Anyway, the point is, it doesn't have to be always about what players are angry about today... that's why I say such discussions should happen in closed session, so that you can moderate and direct the conversations and keep them relevant. Then, publish the entire conversation without edits (other than maybe censoring bad words) for the sake of transparency.
The two of these issues are interrelated, but I think your problem boils down to differences in both your inbound and outbound communications strategies. Focus less are marketing and advertising, and more on actually letting us know what's going on with you, and finding out what's going on with us.
Sekhmet@kvetchus_
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-Create bi-weekly progress lists. On patch day, like Panderus did this last patch, tell us what you've been working on but not yet implemented! For the sake of clarity, specify that the changes may not make it into the next patch. As far as 'bi-weekly': Tell us on Sunday or Monday what you have pushed to testing so far, and what your current projects that may or may not be finished are. This way there's some margin for pleasant surprise, but no promises made.
-The biggest, baddest issue with the 'player communication' is that devs and mods feel alien, especially since some of you are new. Dedicate a day and a dev- maybe anyone you have working on graphics, since it's mostly bug fixes and balance right now. Run a raffle for non-toxic players with some form of balance concerns each week, and send that person out to play (on a normal, unmodified account- blues and greens like most of us) with a party of 4 concerned players. It's enlightening to look at things from player perspective.
-Give us CATEGORIZED priority lists. Not a 'flat order' that things will be done in- compile a real, candid list of known issues that you plan to work on. In this way, when something rolls up to the top of the list, you can solicit more targeted feedback from your more thoughtful players, and the ones feeling ignored can at least know that their concern has been acknowledged and is now 'on the list'. As a small, biased example, my list would look like this:
-Last but not least BY FAR- make red appear in threads, ESPECIALLY difficulty/class balance threads. Reward the non-toxic methods of concerns being raised by validating them. Or, if you feel the concerns are unfounded, engage in discussion. There's nothing like discussion when it comes to fostering a sense of being heard.
Call me Andy (or Strum, or Spider-Man)!
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Could we get an idea of what that stuff might be? People said a lot of things. I presume with agreement there might be changes or is it more I kind of agree but that's how things are agree.
Make some kind of Q & A with community and let the Dev team answer the questions once a week on Twich or via forum threads. There's plenty of questions about itemization issues, class balance issues in pve & pvp, difficulty changes, proffesion changes, etc.
Module 6 made the game very frustrating and difficult for new and casual players. Have you seen how broken the economy is because of all the gold sellers?
^^^This.^^^
Always liked your style mate, you are speaking out of my mind, only more diplomatic, than i am usually.
Many of us have asked for it now and it would be a great tool to add, a Road Map. It would show the CEOs, that their employees are working as intended and to us, the community, that you care a bit for the game, cause sadly i don't see that passion anymore, not with how this Mod came out and is handled ever since that day and the mass flow of negative comments speaks clear words.
Robert E. Lee
I only believe in statistics that I doctored myself.
Winston Churchill
The human race is a herd. Here we are, unique, eternal aspects of consciousness with an infinity of potential, and we have allowed ourselves to become an unthinking, unquestioning blob of conformity and uniformity. A herd. Once we concede to the herd mentality, we can be controlled and directed by a tiny few. And we are.
David Icke
This is totally correct. They have a time table they keep to and Community Management is exactly that. It is management of the community more so than any actual communication. Look at the extremely polite though blatantly obtuse posts from the community manager in this thread. People spell to extreme detail how they would like the devs to communicate more with us and his primary question is, "How would you like us to communicate more with you?". Get it? Instead of reading and responding to specific issue we get a polite general question. It isn;t his fault, he is doing what he is paid to do which is basically telling us what we want to hear in a very vague non-committal way. That way, hopefully we are pacified for a while without pwe having to actually commit to anything.
In the posts prior to this, people have spelled out in detail how they would like you guys to increase communications. Your asking the general question without addressing any specific point made in this thread so far, kind of is a great example of what a lot of people feel the problem is. Just copy and paste the following (the point we feel you making is the same anyways): "Very polite, though entirely vague and non-committal response to highly specific problems as expressed by the player base. Additional vague responses and politeness, general likability minus credibility." Commitment gives credibility, keeping to a commitment gives legitimacy. Failing to commit in the first place just gives a feeling of flakiness and uncertainty.
Sorry, am just being straight with you. This kind of thing can turn into a bunch of glad handing which is as unproductive as straight out miserable negativity.
Same here, i would like to contribute again, but purely from a business man point, my mind says to stop, until i don't see any substantial evidence of where the game is heading to. Cause when i see, that even whales get 1 shot, then there really is no motivation to pay for better items.
Robert E. Lee
I only believe in statistics that I doctored myself.
Winston Churchill
The human race is a herd. Here we are, unique, eternal aspects of consciousness with an infinity of potential, and we have allowed ourselves to become an unthinking, unquestioning blob of conformity and uniformity. A herd. Once we concede to the herd mentality, we can be controlled and directed by a tiny few. And we are.
David Icke
To quote an anonymous source... "It ain't over till the fat lady sings." In caveman speak that means what you do matters far more then what you say. Once you do (fix the game breaking <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>) maybe the fat lady will start singing. No offense to women who might consider themselves "fat".
Or better yet, as one Knight says to the other, "It's just a model". In caveman speak that means that if all we get is talk and there's nothing really behind the curtain, or its just trivial <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> that is not game changing, there's gonna be hell to pay. No offense to cavemen whereever they might be hiding.
Rgr, out!
...If you know what the "Pendrill Prophecy" is send me a private message.
your GWF Capstone request reminds me of the "reworked" sentinel tree based more around being a mobile off-tank I threw together in a different post. haha
In my opinion. More time for devs to communicate with players. even through the community manager, would be a good thing.
Even if we had a weekly "Whats happening" post, where commonly asked player questions and requests were answered, Questions like "What are the top priority fixes at the moment regarding bugs?" and "Is there any changes to the difficulty being looked at"
Drunken Goose of MidNight Express. - 3.3k Paladin , 3.6k GWF , 3.1k GF,
In my opinion, we would appreciate more communication about the vision that Cryptic has for Neverwinter, an explanation behind some of the changes that you make, and sometimes, some apologies for some of the horrendous errors that are made.
There are class threads and I think you need someone talking in every single one. Why does a class get a certain balancing. What was Cryptic's focus on a certain feat or power. If you want less criticism, panic and anger; get us on board with your decisions before making them - or at least give us some heads up as to how you're positioning the class compared to other classes and content.
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1. We were asked for Mod 6 feedback prior to its release, and by all accounts, our concerns were not taken into account. At least, they appear to have had no bearing whatsoever on what was released.
2. While you have made clear that mistakes were made and you intend to do something about it, we haven't heard anything since of any substance to that effect. We've been feeding you mountains of feedback since April 7, but what, if anything is being done about it? We have had no specifics, and it at least feels like "de'ja vu all over again", even if on your side of the screen it really isn't. From this side of the screen, we can't tell.
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The guy probably has 20 minutes to respond to this kind of thing/make forum posts in a day and 7 hours 40 minutes of other things to do.
That is exactly what people are talking about. Communication, not a polite brush off. Does that mean they will create a real position where the job is to actually COMMUNICATE with the player base, at least 4 hours of every day? Nope. No way. He can't say that. We can. And he can communicate that to his superiors and point to this thread as what the players are saying.
You would think the community manager position is about communicating with the playerbase though wouldnt you. haha. though then again its just like most businesses I guess. its less about being part of the public, and more about managing their reactions and emphasizing the positives. Truth be told Strum has been a lot more vocal that I've seen on the forum in a while, even if the majority has been xbox related, or without much actual infomation.
Drunken Goose of MidNight Express. - 3.3k Paladin , 3.6k GWF , 3.1k GF,
I think we could do far worse than Strum as community manager. Managing customer expectations is serious business and incredibly difficult under most circumstances. These circumstances it has to be almost impossible. None the less we want direct, open, an honest answers to the primary questions.
Exactly. He makes an effort to show his presence on the forum. which is a plus. but I still feel even just the weekly/fortnightly little snips of info about whats going on and being looked at, would really increase the playerbase's general happiness.
Drunken Goose of MidNight Express. - 3.3k Paladin , 3.6k GWF , 3.1k GF,
And its sometimes really hard to be a idol
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