It isn't the end of the world. The issue is being looked into. However, a cardinal rule of programming is this: If you cannot reliably replicate an issue, you cannot hope to code a proper fix. You can, at best, guess at the possible root cause.
Nevertheless, you still do not change the reality of the matter at hand: The personnel responsible for one portion of the patch had their task ready and done. The other teams did not and Panderus has already said that some issues will be patched next week. They cannot, and will not, drop ALL existing tasks to focus on one issue. That would be a monumentally inefficient use of resources.
To use the "road" analogy, it would be like assigning the flagman to drive the asphalt truck without the flagman having the proper knowledge to do so safely and properly.
Thanks for that. It is great to see a moderator explain things well.
However, some will never understand the reality of business operations . . .
myles08807 said, "Back in my day, we didn't have any of this fancy Mulhorand gear while we were leveling . . . we walked uphill both ways while dying once every five seconds while leveling, and we liked it fine!" . . . Now, get off my lawn, you kids!" pointsman said, "I don't rue the game. In fact I don't feel any regret for the game at all." looomis said, "I don't like people changing to alts and then bragging about their mains like schizophrenic role players."
What is interesting about this part of your statement is that I have heard similar complaints when other mods were released. It's called "adjusting to changes." This adaptation does not often come easily, often involving using a completely new set of Encounters and Dailies, and using different tactics.
I will bet that within 2 months, someone will have figured out a good Tiamat strategy, which probably involves being geared MUCH better than most people are geared now in this transition phase.
myles08807 said, "Back in my day, we didn't have any of this fancy Mulhorand gear while we were leveling . . . we walked uphill both ways while dying once every five seconds while leveling, and we liked it fine!" . . . Now, get off my lawn, you kids!" pointsman said, "I don't rue the game. In fact I don't feel any regret for the game at all." looomis said, "I don't like people changing to alts and then bragging about their mains like schizophrenic role players."
This adaptation does not often come easily, often involving using a completely new set of Encounters and Dailies, and using different tactics.
Patience . . .
How about you show me how you clear eCC with out resorting to use bugs or exploits in a timely manner , lets say 45 min. ?
Vid will suffice
Pretty much this , I have absolutely no idea what to tell and do with remains of "gaming buds" that are still playing NVO. Tiamat is impossible, T2's are really really hard and any lags are unforgiving. I can grind RP and I can wait however long it will take Cryptic to get NVO back on trash , I can fork out my credit card on zen to buy whatever there is to buy and what is all that for if what really matters is people you play with that are quitting..
roughly 60% of ppl on my friends list that used to be really active and fun to play with already said their byes and moved on to different games.
This is something you can't buy or grind.
I play pvp almost exclusively, and that is where most of my friends here are from. PvP is still a BLAST. Much better than mod 5 pvp on many fronts. I am actually pretty excited about where it is going. I have had some friends leave also. I am still in contact with them and hoping they come back. And I have also made new friends. There seems to be a ton of old players coming back to the game.
I just hope things get fixed soon because, as you said, it is not just the broken game that is freaking people out, it is friends and guilds leaving. Once people stop caring they just go away.
How is making their game playable a monumentally inefficient use of resources? Of course you don't assign heavy equipment operation to a flag man, you hire more heavy equipment operators. Or even outsource that part of your operation which you failed to plan proper resources for in the first place.
People are justifiably upset. Let them have their catharsis here and they end up staying on as players. That is a far far sight better than when they stop posting their anger and simply go away because they just stopped caring.
Because you cannot simply throw more money or labor at a problem. There's the not-insignificant matter of the increase in overhead, for one. In fact, more people would just get in everyone else's way because they'd need training to be brought up to speed--you just don't throw a person to the wolves like that. You work with the resources you have.
It's like renovating an old house. Do you ask the plumber, the electrician, and the roofer to all wire the house? No. The plumber and the roofer would just be a burden on the electrician. You assign the plumber to lay new pipes and the roofer to put the shingles on the house because that's what they're best at.
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Great Weapon Fighter: Because when is today not a good day to die?
PC and PS4 player. Proud Guildmaster for PS4 Team Fencebane. Rank 5 Officer for PC Team Fencebane. Visit us at http://fencebane.shivtr.com
To use the "road" analogy, it would be like assigning the flagman to drive the asphalt truck without the flagman having the proper knowledge to do so safely and properly.
Lets use the road analogy as we perceive it here. The 14 flagmen are letting traffic flow while the one dozer operator is trying to cross the road to get to his dozer.
Thanks for that. It is great to see a moderator explain things well.
However, some will never understand the reality of business operations . . .
I started, operated (for ten years) and sold (for a very healthy figure) a service operation. If I could not provide the service because my equipment broke down, customers would simply stop using the service.
The fundamental reality of business is that if it can no longer operate, it goes out of business. Broken top tier feats and powers = an unplayable game. This is a game, right? I mean, that is what the operation is, a game. Excuses and condescension do not fix the operation. Fixing the operation fixes the operation. And all we have been getting is excuses.
The same excuses your 7 year old will give for not doing his homework, "But you don't understand dad, it takes time to do all that homework", same excuse from poor service in a restaurant, "you don't understand sir, there is a lot going on back in that kitchen that you don't see.." I mean anything. Excuses always have the same format. It takes time because there is z variable at play, and we just don't understand.
Excuses are total HAMSTER and when they are served up with a good strong dose of condescension, the customers frustration at failed service is only exacerbated to the extreme.
It's like renovating an old house. Do you ask the plumber, the electrician, and the roofer to all wire the house? No. The plumber and the roofer would just be a burden on the electrician. You assign the plumber to lay new pipes and the roofer to put the shingles on the house because that's what they're best at.
Why would have bought that old house in the first place? why move in there? if you already live there, why not sell it and buy a new one?
If all these things are broken and you live Canada, yeah fix all at once, if you live in Africa fix the the running water first, you'll survive with a leaky roof and no electricity until you can move on to the other projects since you can't afford enough contractors to do it all at once, apparently.
Because you cannot simply throw more money or labor at a problem. There's the not-insignificant matter of the increase in overhead, for one. In fact, more people would just get in everyone else's way because they'd need training to be brought up to speed--you just don't throw a person to the wolves like that. You work with the resources you have.
It's like renovating an old house. Do you ask the plumber, the electrician, and the roofer to all wire the house? No. The plumber and the roofer would just be a burden on the electrician. You assign the plumber to lay new pipes and the roofer to put the shingles on the house because that's what they're best at.
If my electrician can't wire the house I am hiring another electrician. It is as simple as that. What a competent General Contractor would do if he ran into problems wiring a house and was going to go past his deadline is outsource that job to a company that wires houses.
It is a simple matter of not enough resources being applied to something the players take extremely seriously: the game its self.
I started, operated (for ten years) and sold (for a very healthy figure) a service operation. If I could not provide the service because my equipment broke down, customers would simply stop using the service.
The fundamental reality of business is that if it can no longer operate, it goes out of business. Broken top tier feats and powers = an unplayable game. This is a game, right? I mean, that is what the operation is, a game. Excuses and condescension do not fix the operation. Fixing the operation fixes the operation. And all we have been getting is excuses.
The same excuses your 7 year old will give for not doing his homework, "But you don't understand dad, it takes time to do all that homework", same excuse from poor service in a restaurant, "you don't understand sir, there is a lot going on back in that kitchen that you don't see.." I mean anything. Excuses always have the same format. It takes time because there is z variable at play, and we just don't understand.
Excuses are total HAMSTER and when they are served up with a good strong dose of condescension, the customers frustration at failed service is only exacerbated to the extreme.
I'm going to say this: You're looking at the matter with extreme tunnel vision. You're concentrating on ONE thing and expecting that the devs have all hands on deck--regardless of their actual proficiencies--drop everything that they are doing and work on getting this ONE thing fixed, to the absolute exception of everything else.
And I'm telling you--that's an inefficient use of manpower and resources. Seriously, if every problem could be solved by simply hiring more people, unemployment would be nonexistent--but we both know that isn't how things work. I would reasonably expect someone who has run a business to know that. Everyone that doesn't have a clue as to how to fix the problem is going to get in the way of everyone that does. This isn't your local McDonald's; cross-training isn't even feasible in a position with such a high degree of technical proficiency, so skill sets are NOT interchangeable between personnel. Yet those other personnel need to be assigned tasks. They CANNOT sit idle. So you assign them to do tasks that they ARE able to do. Depending on the difficulty of the tasks at hand, the person responsible for the "less critical" task may be done before the person responsible for the higher priority one. You can't throw more money or labor into it because there is such a thing as overtime and budget constraints.
The point I was trying to make--which you missed--is that you can't throw EVERYONE onto a task simply because that's the most obvious task at hand and ignore everything else if you want the job done right, and those other personnel still need things to do. That's why some things get done before others.
That isn't an "excuse". That's plain common sense.
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Great Weapon Fighter: Because when is today not a good day to die?
PC and PS4 player. Proud Guildmaster for PS4 Team Fencebane. Rank 5 Officer for PC Team Fencebane. Visit us at http://fencebane.shivtr.com
I'm going to say this: You're looking at the matter with extreme tunnel vision. You're concentrating on ONE thing and expecting that the devs have all hands on deck--regardless of their actual proficiencies--drop everything that they are doing and work on getting this ONE thing fixed, to the absolute exception of everything else.
And I'm telling you--that's an inefficient use of manpower and resources. I would reasonably expect someone who has run a business to know that. Everyone that doesn't have a clue as to how to fix the problem is going to get in the way of everyone that does. This isn't your local McDonald's; cross-training isn't even feasible in a position with such a high degree of technical proficiency, so skill sets are NOT interchangeable between personnel. Yet those other personnel need to be assigned tasks. They CANNOT sit idle. So you assign them to do tasks that they ARE able to do. Depending on the difficulty of the tasks at hand, the person responsible for the "less critical" task may be done before the person responsible for the higher priority one. You can't throw more money or labor into it because there is such a thing as overtime and budget constraints.
That isn't an "excuse". That's plain common sense.
What is common sense is that the game is not working and the customers are upset. It really is that simple. Everything else is damage control and spin.
"Budget Constraints". Aka the resources a company is willing to put into their operation. You seem to be approaching from the angle that I am saying this is a dev thing. I don't think it is a dev thing. I think it is a money thing. They don't want to spend it. I am sure the dev team would love a budget 10x what it is now, a huge staff, so on. I am sure they would love to have the same resources that most other mmos enjoy. But they don't.
So they have to put up with upset customers.
The customers don't have to put up with a broken game though, and that is the part you would think is most important.
What is common sense is that the game is not working and the customers are upset. It really is that simple. Everything else is damage control and spin.
"Budget Constraints". Aka the resources a company is willing to put into their operation. You seem to be approaching from the angle that I am saying this is a dev thing. I don't think it is a dev thing. I think it is a money thing. They don't want to spend it. I am sure the dev team would love a budget 10x what it is now, a huge staff, so on. I am sure they would love to have the same resources that most other mmos enjoy. But they don't.
So they have to put up with upset customers.
The customers don't have to put up with a broken game though, and that is the part you would think is most important.
But it is not.
With all respect, I'm pretty sure that the devs are more than aware of player sentiments towards the game right now. They're also in a no-win situation. No response, it's "inexcusable" and if they respond it's "spin control". Honestly, I'm still of the school of thought that the playerbase expects a dev to throw themselves out a window in shame over this. But that's another topic altogether.
At any rate, the general argument is "why was this fixed instead of that?" The answer still boils down to one person had his task complete. The other did not. That is excluding questions of the complexity of the task at hand, or the overall proficiency of the person(s) assigned to the task.
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Great Weapon Fighter: Because when is today not a good day to die?
PC and PS4 player. Proud Guildmaster for PS4 Team Fencebane. Rank 5 Officer for PC Team Fencebane. Visit us at http://fencebane.shivtr.com
The point I was trying to make--which you missed--is that you can't throw EVERYONE onto a task simply because that's the most obvious task at hand and ignore everything else if you want the job done right, and those other personnel still need things to do. That's why some things get done before others.
bioshrikeMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,729Arc User
edited April 2015
I enjoy Neverwinter, and through good times and bad, I have enjoyed the other Cryptic games as well. I like to consider myself a patient person, but I tend to be obsessive about wanting to play the games I've already invested time and money into. While Neverwinter, at this point, is certainly playable, (in the literal sense), it becomes frustrating when trying to do things like acquire the gear "necessary" to enjoy and progress feels more like a chore than like a fun pastime.
I'm not faulting the devs for trying to scramble the limited resources they have to "fix things", but I do have to wonder about some of the decisions that have been made. A simple example is the Thayan Zealot gear from Dread Ring - while not BiS by any stretch of the imagination, it was solid gear that anyone could get just by doing the DR lairs over and over. Why not adjust those pieces of gear to scale with the player's level and keep them in? Instead, they were pulled and we are left hoping to get a random blue drop or to zerg our way through a dungeon before our injury kits or gold give out.
Again, I'm not saying that there is no hope, or that the devs are evil mustache-twirling villains only out to pilfer the contents of our wallets, but making the game fun again should be priority #1. Bugs need to be fixed, sure, but how about some short term adjustments, with a rider that they may be changed later - like reducing enemy difficulty by 25% or capping all enemies at level 70, etc.
<::::::::::::::)xxxo <::::::::::::::)xxxo <::::::::::::)xxxxxxxx(:::::::::::> oxxx(::::::::::::::> oxxx(::::::::::::::> "Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark Official NW_Legit_Community Forums
At any rate, the general argument is "why was this fixed instead of that?" The answer still boils down to one person had his task complete. The other did not. That is excluding questions of the complexity of the task at hand, or the overall proficiency of the person(s) assigned to the task.
At any rate, the problem is "why most of the stuff introduced in the new mod is broken ?"
And another question. one we know will never be answered is "why not test before you publish" ?
Talking about inefficiency and giving lessons about what goes on when running a company whilst doing the No1 mistake a company that runs a service can do is kinda off...don't you think ?
Nobody "sells" a service/product without testing it.
It's a good thing you people are not in the pharmaceutical business.
Under the scope you guys run things you would have released drugs without thorough testing...
And don't tell me this analogy is wrong...a company is a company and there's standards by which you run some things, especially when it comes to providing goods and services.
At any rate, the problem is "why most of the stuff introduced in the new mod is broken ?"
And another question. one we know will never be answered is "why not test before you publish" ?
Talking about inefficiency and giving lessons about what goes on when running a company whilst doing the No1 mistake a company that runs a service can do is kinda off...don't you think ?
Nobody "sells" a service/product without testing it.
It's a good thing you people are not in the pharmaceutical business.
Under the scope you guys run things you would have released drugs without thorough testing...
And don't tell me this analogy is wrong...a company is a company and there's standards by which you run some things, especially when it comes to providing goods and services.
Please...
Quite a few baldfaced assumptions made there. The most ubiquitous (and patently incorrect) being "they don't do enough testing". The assumption being that "obviously, they don't test enough, because there are still bugs".
Also: Judging from the volume of commercials I see from lawyers on a daily basis for drugs with this or that unintended side effect, I'm not so sure the pharma industry is all that keen on testing as you'd like to imply, but that's beside the point.
I'm sure that they test their material as time allows. See again the post by Panderus linked in this thread because I really don't feel like going back and explaining the points he made. However, they cannot account perfectly for how preview code will interact with existing live code. I don't care if you have the best QA team in the business--bugs are still going to slip through. The idea of a "bug free" program of ANY stripe is a pipe dream.
ROLL TIDE ROLL
Great Weapon Fighter: Because when is today not a good day to die?
PC and PS4 player. Proud Guildmaster for PS4 Team Fencebane. Rank 5 Officer for PC Team Fencebane. Visit us at http://fencebane.shivtr.com
With all respect, I'm pretty sure that the devs are more than aware of player sentiments towards the game right now. They're also in a no-win situation. No response, it's "inexcusable" and if they respond it's "spin control". Honestly, I'm still of the school of thought that the playerbase expects a dev to throw themselves out a window in shame over this. But that's another topic altogether.
At any rate, the general argument is "why was this fixed instead of that?" The answer still boils down to one person had his task complete. The other did not. That is excluding questions of the complexity of the task at hand, or the overall proficiency of the person(s) assigned to the task.
They are in a no win situation because they released this mod knowing for months that it was beyond broken. So any excuse you (anyone working for the company) makes is nothing more than deflection of blame and spin control.
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khimera906Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 898Arc User
Do your professions, give fast progress a break, and give the new
team time to inspect and rebalance what has been fun and entertaining
for you.
This is the problem, you see. They had time, and loads of it. Modules 4 and 5 were decent only by comparison to module 6. We were unhappy with those modules as well, and we voiced our unhappiness and our concerns with the direction in which they were taking the game. And what did they do with our feedback? Well, look at module 6 - it's a culmination of everything we hated about previous modules. We're seeing this reaction from people exactly because we gave them time and patience, and they disappointed us again and again. Please excuse me for saying this, and I hope I'm wrong, but I think you're a bit naive if you think that they're planing to make this game fun and entertaining again.
I hate dancing with Lady Luck. She always steps on my toes.
With all respect, I'm pretty sure that the devs are more than aware of player sentiments towards the game right now. They're also in a no-win situation. No response, it's "inexcusable" and if they respond it's "spin control". Honestly, I'm still of the school of thought that the playerbase expects a dev to throw themselves out a window in shame over this. But that's another topic altogether.
I don't want blood. I want to be able to run dailies on my own with something other than a tank, and I want my tanks to be able to at least put up a fight in dungeons.
I don't want blood. I want to be able to run dailies on my own with something other than a tank, and I want my tanks to be able to at least put up a fight in dungeons.
And I'm sure they've read umpteen hundred similar posts. I'm not too keen on the difficulty curve myself. I'd like to keep from hurling my laptop out my window.
I'm just saying that simply that just because adjustments or changes didn't make it into this week's patch doesn't mean that they're being entirely ignored. I could go to almost ANY major MMO forum and find gripes about "why did you fix THIS instead of THAT?!?!"
ROLL TIDE ROLL
Great Weapon Fighter: Because when is today not a good day to die?
PC and PS4 player. Proud Guildmaster for PS4 Team Fencebane. Rank 5 Officer for PC Team Fencebane. Visit us at http://fencebane.shivtr.com
Quite a few baldfaced assumptions made there. The most ubiquitous (and patently incorrect) being "they don't do enough testing". The assumption being that "obviously, they don't test enough, because there are still bugs".
I'm sure that they test their material as time allows. See again the post by Panderus linked in this thread because I really don't feel like going back and explaining the points he made. However, they cannot account perfectly for how preview code will interact with existing live code. I don't care if you have the best QA team in the business--bugs are still going to slip through. The idea of a "bug free" program of ANY stripe is a pipe dream.
erm...what ?
Baldfaced assumptions ?
To even imply that what is going on with the game now is the result of testing...is...I don't really have words to describe it.
Who did, what kind of testing and how ?!
Not only that. But more than half of what's wrong was already addressed from players of the preview shard, still went through.
Have you played the game recently ?
Did I say anything about bugs ?...No.
Is there a bug free game ? ...of course not.
Where older bugs fixed prior to introducing new content ? No.
Is the game somewhat unplayable due to the recent changes and lag ? Yes.
First and foremost there is a balance issue.
Then there's the old and new bugs
and all this is wrapped around "not fun anymore"
And you may say anything you wish on my previous statements but surely I'm not making assumptions about "not fun anymore" it's all over the forum...
And I don't like it as much as you people don't
I can't play anymore. Either with friends or other random players.
And I'm sure they've read umpteen hundred similar posts. I'm not too keen on the difficulty curve myself. I'd like to keep from hurling my laptop out my window.
I'm just saying that simply that just because adjustments or changes didn't make it into this week's patch doesn't mean that they're being entirely ignored. I could go to almost ANY major MMO forum and find gripes about "why did you fix THIS instead of THAT?!?!"
It would have been stellar for them to have done something about Mod 6 while it was still in preview, and they were receiving pretty much all these same comments from players. Yes, I understand that there *can* be a difference between preview/test code and live code... but that does rather defeat the purpose of even bothering with a preview server.
While HTML/php/css aren't whatever language this game is programmed in (but the languages that I work with), I would have to say that the process is very, very similar. Finding bugs never takes too long if you're working in clearly commented code.
Neverwinter has the opportunity to really raise the bar for MMOs, f2p or otherwise... the constant comparisons between this MMO and others only serves to hold the game back from realizing its full potential. I do hope all this stuff gets fixed. I hope Mod 6 becomes a bad memory while Mod 7 really blows everyone away. No, I'm not going to ragequit, but on the other hand, my credit card is staying safely tucked away in my wallet.
And I'm sure they've read umpteen hundred similar posts. I'm not too keen on the difficulty curve myself. I'd like to keep from hurling my laptop out my window.
I'm just saying that simply that just because adjustments or changes didn't make it into this week's patch doesn't mean that they're being entirely ignored. I could go to almost ANY major MMO forum and find gripes about "why did you fix THIS instead of THAT?!?!"
It is a fact that the developers may indeed be way in over their heads right now.
And totally understandable that they may have a buzzillion line of code to go through and debug.
Logical they would fix what they could pinpoint first.
And the way you put it, would be more appropriate in communicating this week's patch notes, don't you think ?
Something along the lines of what you said earlier "These are the patch notes, this is what we could work faster and implement in this week's patch, then next patch if all goes well, comes this, and that and that." Would make a great difference in how the patch notes would read on the receiving end.
Current patch notes were like a telegraphed message of non essential information....I really hope u understand what I'm saying.
0
bioshrikeMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,729Arc User
edited April 2015
Not to derail things too much, but I wonder what the metric(s) for testing the difficulty of content is/are. For instance, do they attempt, say, T1 dungeons with a mixed-class team using only green gear and R4-5 enchants? That would be my metric for those "entry level dungeons". If a group of moderately experienced players can't complete such an instance without going through stacks of injury kits or potions, then it is too difficult.
A similar measure should be utilized for dailies - remember, it is the devs that decided to allow sub-70 players into DR, Sharandar, IWD, etc - if they do not want/did not intend for players of lower levels to be successful there, then they shouldn't have allowed them in...
<::::::::::::::)xxxo <::::::::::::::)xxxo <::::::::::::)xxxxxxxx(:::::::::::> oxxx(::::::::::::::> oxxx(::::::::::::::> "Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark Official NW_Legit_Community Forums
It is a fact that the developers may indeed be way in over their heads right now.
And totally understandable that they may have a buzzillion line of code to go through and debug.
Logical they would fix what they could pinpoint first.
And the way you put it, would be more appropriate in communicating this week's patch notes, don't you think ?
Something along the lines of what you said earlier "These are the patch notes, this is what we could work faster and implement in this week's patch, then next patch if all goes well, comes this, and that and that." Would make a great difference in how the patch notes would read on the receiving end.
Current patch notes were like a telegraphed message of non essential information....I really hope u understand what I'm saying.
I'm sure that Panderus is limited in what he is able to say. It is unwise to put all your cards on the table with a hard date because if things go wrong (see also: the patch on 4/23) or it isn't as big as everyone hoped it would be, the forums would be set ablaze.
I know, people love their transparency. However, there are also times where discretion is prudent.
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Great Weapon Fighter: Because when is today not a good day to die?
PC and PS4 player. Proud Guildmaster for PS4 Team Fencebane. Rank 5 Officer for PC Team Fencebane. Visit us at http://fencebane.shivtr.com
Just because I might be a 'tools programmer' doesn't mean I don't know the interface or engine, but it is true you can't expect the artists, audio engineers, or the level editors to know. Depending on the size of the shop, everyone has a team they are on, a schedule of jobs, and their own responsibilities. Some areas do help out others, but everyone has their own stuff to do.
On the other side of this, and as callous as this is going to sound (and I apologize profusely), that is their problem and not ours. We can go around and around, but in the end, a product went out, a large amount of issues occurred, and a number of customers were adversely affected. The people behind Neverwinter are now in a no-win situation because of a number of snowballs rolling down hill. I've largely burned out all my anger in posts that sit in 404 now, and I for one am now just disappointed and uncertain. Looking at the big picture, I'm starting to see a very large time period before things are reigned in to a tolerable level and by then I'll be back to my long deployment. This window of time I had, not dedicated to Neverwinter mind you - the wife would maim me, is virtually unusable. I get sent off for long periods of time, the work is nearly 20 hours a day 6 days of the week. I might have some time to invoke and set professions, but my time is spend in the rack, or at chow. So having this stuff happen is really, really a disappointment.
Heck, during my last little 'business trip' to places I can't talk about, there was an apparent change to Plague Fire enchantments that I only noticed recently as I took inventory of my enchants to see how badly I'm behind now that the bar is 2 levels higher (I was no where near ranks 10s). I didn't exactly have the time to track the forums and changes during that time, but a little research I discovered that they enabled the Perfect and higher on them, changed the name to just 'Fire', and bumped them all up a rank (except me, my three characters with Greater Plaguefire enchants now just have Greater Fire and my 1 with just a Plaguefire has a Fire enchant -- but there is no point in pursuing a ticket or bug, nothing ever comes of it like my lost Profession resources, or the dyes I lost on items that apparently revert to default color.)
At this point I just want them to fix the issues and get this back to a playable level so that in six months I'll be able to have some fun. It would also be nice if they gave out some excessively generous compensation as a good faith apology for the issues. Personally I'm all out of smiles, nods, and words of "it's okay, just as long as it is fixed". I didn't survive Caturday, I wasn't "lucky" like some out there, and RNG never is in my favor, so in order for me to be square with you all, I'll need some incentives.
Quite a few baldfaced assumptions made there. The most ubiquitous (and patently incorrect) being "they don't do enough testing". The assumption being that "obviously, they don't test enough, because there are still bugs".
Also: Judging from the volume of commercials I see from lawyers on a daily basis for drugs with this or that unintended side effect, I'm not so sure the pharma industry is all that keen on testing as you'd like to imply, but that's beside the point.
I'm sure that they test their material as time allows. See again the post by Panderus linked in this thread because I really don't feel like going back and explaining the points he made. However, they cannot account perfectly for how preview code will interact with existing live code. I don't care if you have the best QA team in the business--bugs are still going to slip through. The idea of a "bug free" program of ANY stripe is a pipe dream.
Try to install a debian/stable and let me know if you find a bug.
A bug that's properly reported and documented but which is still there after some time (there are still many two year old bugs, and they've been reported properly many times) is only there because the company doesn't want to fix it, ie doesn't want to invest what it takes to properly maintain a MMO. We all know that the number of devs working on neverwinter is around 20-25 people. That's really not much, given their goals and the size of the game they're trying to develop and maintain. Usually, a studio has 50 or so people working on a MMO. Which means that again, PW doesn't want to invest in its own products, and that tells a lot about the future of the game and what we can expect from updates.
I'm not saying the devs are the ones to blame, but an undermanned and exhausted team cannot produce quality work. At some point, you either have to pay for more devs and fix all the **** or just wait for your playerbase to slowly erode while the game becomes more and more unplayable.
Comments
Thanks for that. It is great to see a moderator explain things well.
However, some will never understand the reality of business operations . . .
myles08807 said, "Back in my day, we didn't have any of this fancy Mulhorand gear while we were leveling . . . we walked uphill both ways while dying once every five seconds while leveling, and we liked it fine!" . . . Now, get off my lawn, you kids!"
pointsman said, "I don't rue the game. In fact I don't feel any regret for the game at all."
looomis said, "I don't like people changing to alts and then bragging about their mains like schizophrenic role players."
What is interesting about this part of your statement is that I have heard similar complaints when other mods were released. It's called "adjusting to changes." This adaptation does not often come easily, often involving using a completely new set of Encounters and Dailies, and using different tactics.
I will bet that within 2 months, someone will have figured out a good Tiamat strategy, which probably involves being geared MUCH better than most people are geared now in this transition phase.
Patience . . .
myles08807 said, "Back in my day, we didn't have any of this fancy Mulhorand gear while we were leveling . . . we walked uphill both ways while dying once every five seconds while leveling, and we liked it fine!" . . . Now, get off my lawn, you kids!"
pointsman said, "I don't rue the game. In fact I don't feel any regret for the game at all."
looomis said, "I don't like people changing to alts and then bragging about their mains like schizophrenic role players."
How about you show me how you clear eCC with out resorting to use bugs or exploits in a timely manner , lets say 45 min.
Vid will suffice
I play pvp almost exclusively, and that is where most of my friends here are from. PvP is still a BLAST. Much better than mod 5 pvp on many fronts. I am actually pretty excited about where it is going. I have had some friends leave also. I am still in contact with them and hoping they come back. And I have also made new friends. There seems to be a ton of old players coming back to the game.
I just hope things get fixed soon because, as you said, it is not just the broken game that is freaking people out, it is friends and guilds leaving. Once people stop caring they just go away.
Because you cannot simply throw more money or labor at a problem. There's the not-insignificant matter of the increase in overhead, for one. In fact, more people would just get in everyone else's way because they'd need training to be brought up to speed--you just don't throw a person to the wolves like that. You work with the resources you have.
It's like renovating an old house. Do you ask the plumber, the electrician, and the roofer to all wire the house? No. The plumber and the roofer would just be a burden on the electrician. You assign the plumber to lay new pipes and the roofer to put the shingles on the house because that's what they're best at.
Great Weapon Fighter: Because when is today not a good day to die?
PC and PS4 player. Proud Guildmaster for PS4 Team Fencebane. Rank 5 Officer for PC Team Fencebane. Visit us at http://fencebane.shivtr.com
Lets use the road analogy as we perceive it here. The 14 flagmen are letting traffic flow while the one dozer operator is trying to cross the road to get to his dozer.
I started, operated (for ten years) and sold (for a very healthy figure) a service operation. If I could not provide the service because my equipment broke down, customers would simply stop using the service.
The fundamental reality of business is that if it can no longer operate, it goes out of business. Broken top tier feats and powers = an unplayable game. This is a game, right? I mean, that is what the operation is, a game. Excuses and condescension do not fix the operation. Fixing the operation fixes the operation. And all we have been getting is excuses.
The same excuses your 7 year old will give for not doing his homework, "But you don't understand dad, it takes time to do all that homework", same excuse from poor service in a restaurant, "you don't understand sir, there is a lot going on back in that kitchen that you don't see.." I mean anything. Excuses always have the same format. It takes time because there is z variable at play, and we just don't understand.
Excuses are total HAMSTER and when they are served up with a good strong dose of condescension, the customers frustration at failed service is only exacerbated to the extreme.
Why would have bought that old house in the first place? why move in there? if you already live there, why not sell it and buy a new one?
If all these things are broken and you live Canada, yeah fix all at once, if you live in Africa fix the the running water first, you'll survive with a leaky roof and no electricity until you can move on to the other projects since you can't afford enough contractors to do it all at once, apparently.
If my electrician can't wire the house I am hiring another electrician. It is as simple as that. What a competent General Contractor would do if he ran into problems wiring a house and was going to go past his deadline is outsource that job to a company that wires houses.
It is a simple matter of not enough resources being applied to something the players take extremely seriously: the game its self.
I'm going to say this: You're looking at the matter with extreme tunnel vision. You're concentrating on ONE thing and expecting that the devs have all hands on deck--regardless of their actual proficiencies--drop everything that they are doing and work on getting this ONE thing fixed, to the absolute exception of everything else.
And I'm telling you--that's an inefficient use of manpower and resources. Seriously, if every problem could be solved by simply hiring more people, unemployment would be nonexistent--but we both know that isn't how things work. I would reasonably expect someone who has run a business to know that. Everyone that doesn't have a clue as to how to fix the problem is going to get in the way of everyone that does. This isn't your local McDonald's; cross-training isn't even feasible in a position with such a high degree of technical proficiency, so skill sets are NOT interchangeable between personnel. Yet those other personnel need to be assigned tasks. They CANNOT sit idle. So you assign them to do tasks that they ARE able to do. Depending on the difficulty of the tasks at hand, the person responsible for the "less critical" task may be done before the person responsible for the higher priority one. You can't throw more money or labor into it because there is such a thing as overtime and budget constraints.
The point I was trying to make--which you missed--is that you can't throw EVERYONE onto a task simply because that's the most obvious task at hand and ignore everything else if you want the job done right, and those other personnel still need things to do. That's why some things get done before others.
That isn't an "excuse". That's plain common sense.
Great Weapon Fighter: Because when is today not a good day to die?
PC and PS4 player. Proud Guildmaster for PS4 Team Fencebane. Rank 5 Officer for PC Team Fencebane. Visit us at http://fencebane.shivtr.com
What is common sense is that the game is not working and the customers are upset. It really is that simple. Everything else is damage control and spin.
"Budget Constraints". Aka the resources a company is willing to put into their operation. You seem to be approaching from the angle that I am saying this is a dev thing. I don't think it is a dev thing. I think it is a money thing. They don't want to spend it. I am sure the dev team would love a budget 10x what it is now, a huge staff, so on. I am sure they would love to have the same resources that most other mmos enjoy. But they don't.
So they have to put up with upset customers.
The customers don't have to put up with a broken game though, and that is the part you would think is most important.
But it is not.
With all respect, I'm pretty sure that the devs are more than aware of player sentiments towards the game right now. They're also in a no-win situation. No response, it's "inexcusable" and if they respond it's "spin control". Honestly, I'm still of the school of thought that the playerbase expects a dev to throw themselves out a window in shame over this. But that's another topic altogether.
At any rate, the general argument is "why was this fixed instead of that?" The answer still boils down to one person had his task complete. The other did not. That is excluding questions of the complexity of the task at hand, or the overall proficiency of the person(s) assigned to the task.
Great Weapon Fighter: Because when is today not a good day to die?
PC and PS4 player. Proud Guildmaster for PS4 Team Fencebane. Rank 5 Officer for PC Team Fencebane. Visit us at http://fencebane.shivtr.com
I wish you would tell that to my bosses !!!
I'm not faulting the devs for trying to scramble the limited resources they have to "fix things", but I do have to wonder about some of the decisions that have been made. A simple example is the Thayan Zealot gear from Dread Ring - while not BiS by any stretch of the imagination, it was solid gear that anyone could get just by doing the DR lairs over and over. Why not adjust those pieces of gear to scale with the player's level and keep them in? Instead, they were pulled and we are left hoping to get a random blue drop or to zerg our way through a dungeon before our injury kits or gold give out.
Again, I'm not saying that there is no hope, or that the devs are evil mustache-twirling villains only out to pilfer the contents of our wallets, but making the game fun again should be priority #1. Bugs need to be fixed, sure, but how about some short term adjustments, with a rider that they may be changed later - like reducing enemy difficulty by 25% or capping all enemies at level 70, etc.
"Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark
Official NW_Legit_Community Forums
At any rate, the problem is "why most of the stuff introduced in the new mod is broken ?"
And another question. one we know will never be answered is "why not test before you publish" ?
Talking about inefficiency and giving lessons about what goes on when running a company whilst doing the No1 mistake a company that runs a service can do is kinda off...don't you think ?
Nobody "sells" a service/product without testing it.
It's a good thing you people are not in the pharmaceutical business.
Under the scope you guys run things you would have released drugs without thorough testing...
And don't tell me this analogy is wrong...a company is a company and there's standards by which you run some things, especially when it comes to providing goods and services.
Please...
Quite a few baldfaced assumptions made there. The most ubiquitous (and patently incorrect) being "they don't do enough testing". The assumption being that "obviously, they don't test enough, because there are still bugs".
Also: Judging from the volume of commercials I see from lawyers on a daily basis for drugs with this or that unintended side effect, I'm not so sure the pharma industry is all that keen on testing as you'd like to imply, but that's beside the point.
I'm sure that they test their material as time allows. See again the post by Panderus linked in this thread because I really don't feel like going back and explaining the points he made. However, they cannot account perfectly for how preview code will interact with existing live code. I don't care if you have the best QA team in the business--bugs are still going to slip through. The idea of a "bug free" program of ANY stripe is a pipe dream.
Great Weapon Fighter: Because when is today not a good day to die?
PC and PS4 player. Proud Guildmaster for PS4 Team Fencebane. Rank 5 Officer for PC Team Fencebane. Visit us at http://fencebane.shivtr.com
I don't want blood. I want to be able to run dailies on my own with something other than a tank, and I want my tanks to be able to at least put up a fight in dungeons.
And I'm sure they've read umpteen hundred similar posts. I'm not too keen on the difficulty curve myself. I'd like to keep from hurling my laptop out my window.
I'm just saying that simply that just because adjustments or changes didn't make it into this week's patch doesn't mean that they're being entirely ignored. I could go to almost ANY major MMO forum and find gripes about "why did you fix THIS instead of THAT?!?!"
Great Weapon Fighter: Because when is today not a good day to die?
PC and PS4 player. Proud Guildmaster for PS4 Team Fencebane. Rank 5 Officer for PC Team Fencebane. Visit us at http://fencebane.shivtr.com
erm...what ?
Baldfaced assumptions ?
To even imply that what is going on with the game now is the result of testing...is...I don't really have words to describe it.
Who did, what kind of testing and how ?!
Not only that. But more than half of what's wrong was already addressed from players of the preview shard, still went through.
Have you played the game recently ?
Did I say anything about bugs ?...No.
Is there a bug free game ? ...of course not.
Where older bugs fixed prior to introducing new content ? No.
Is the game somewhat unplayable due to the recent changes and lag ? Yes.
First and foremost there is a balance issue.
Then there's the old and new bugs
and all this is wrapped around "not fun anymore"
And you may say anything you wish on my previous statements but surely I'm not making assumptions about "not fun anymore" it's all over the forum...
And I don't like it as much as you people don't
I can't play anymore. Either with friends or other random players.
It would have been stellar for them to have done something about Mod 6 while it was still in preview, and they were receiving pretty much all these same comments from players. Yes, I understand that there *can* be a difference between preview/test code and live code... but that does rather defeat the purpose of even bothering with a preview server.
While HTML/php/css aren't whatever language this game is programmed in (but the languages that I work with), I would have to say that the process is very, very similar. Finding bugs never takes too long if you're working in clearly commented code.
Neverwinter has the opportunity to really raise the bar for MMOs, f2p or otherwise... the constant comparisons between this MMO and others only serves to hold the game back from realizing its full potential. I do hope all this stuff gets fixed. I hope Mod 6 becomes a bad memory while Mod 7 really blows everyone away. No, I'm not going to ragequit, but on the other hand, my credit card is staying safely tucked away in my wallet.
It is a fact that the developers may indeed be way in over their heads right now.
And totally understandable that they may have a buzzillion line of code to go through and debug.
Logical they would fix what they could pinpoint first.
And the way you put it, would be more appropriate in communicating this week's patch notes, don't you think ?
Something along the lines of what you said earlier "These are the patch notes, this is what we could work faster and implement in this week's patch, then next patch if all goes well, comes this, and that and that." Would make a great difference in how the patch notes would read on the receiving end.
Current patch notes were like a telegraphed message of non essential information....I really hope u understand what I'm saying.
A similar measure should be utilized for dailies - remember, it is the devs that decided to allow sub-70 players into DR, Sharandar, IWD, etc - if they do not want/did not intend for players of lower levels to be successful there, then they shouldn't have allowed them in...
"Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark
Official NW_Legit_Community Forums
I'm sure that Panderus is limited in what he is able to say. It is unwise to put all your cards on the table with a hard date because if things go wrong (see also: the patch on 4/23) or it isn't as big as everyone hoped it would be, the forums would be set ablaze.
I know, people love their transparency. However, there are also times where discretion is prudent.
Great Weapon Fighter: Because when is today not a good day to die?
PC and PS4 player. Proud Guildmaster for PS4 Team Fencebane. Rank 5 Officer for PC Team Fencebane. Visit us at http://fencebane.shivtr.com
On the other side of this, and as callous as this is going to sound (and I apologize profusely), that is their problem and not ours. We can go around and around, but in the end, a product went out, a large amount of issues occurred, and a number of customers were adversely affected. The people behind Neverwinter are now in a no-win situation because of a number of snowballs rolling down hill. I've largely burned out all my anger in posts that sit in 404 now, and I for one am now just disappointed and uncertain. Looking at the big picture, I'm starting to see a very large time period before things are reigned in to a tolerable level and by then I'll be back to my long deployment. This window of time I had, not dedicated to Neverwinter mind you - the wife would maim me, is virtually unusable. I get sent off for long periods of time, the work is nearly 20 hours a day 6 days of the week. I might have some time to invoke and set professions, but my time is spend in the rack, or at chow. So having this stuff happen is really, really a disappointment.
Heck, during my last little 'business trip' to places I can't talk about, there was an apparent change to Plague Fire enchantments that I only noticed recently as I took inventory of my enchants to see how badly I'm behind now that the bar is 2 levels higher (I was no where near ranks 10s). I didn't exactly have the time to track the forums and changes during that time, but a little research I discovered that they enabled the Perfect and higher on them, changed the name to just 'Fire', and bumped them all up a rank (except me, my three characters with Greater Plaguefire enchants now just have Greater Fire and my 1 with just a Plaguefire has a Fire enchant -- but there is no point in pursuing a ticket or bug, nothing ever comes of it like my lost Profession resources, or the dyes I lost on items that apparently revert to default color.)
At this point I just want them to fix the issues and get this back to a playable level so that in six months I'll be able to have some fun. It would also be nice if they gave out some excessively generous compensation as a good faith apology for the issues. Personally I'm all out of smiles, nods, and words of "it's okay, just as long as it is fixed". I didn't survive Caturday, I wasn't "lucky" like some out there, and RNG never is in my favor, so in order for me to be square with you all, I'll need some incentives.
glassdoor.com - Cryptic Studios Review
Try to install a debian/stable and let me know if you find a bug.
A bug that's properly reported and documented but which is still there after some time (there are still many two year old bugs, and they've been reported properly many times) is only there because the company doesn't want to fix it, ie doesn't want to invest what it takes to properly maintain a MMO. We all know that the number of devs working on neverwinter is around 20-25 people. That's really not much, given their goals and the size of the game they're trying to develop and maintain. Usually, a studio has 50 or so people working on a MMO. Which means that again, PW doesn't want to invest in its own products, and that tells a lot about the future of the game and what we can expect from updates.
I'm not saying the devs are the ones to blame, but an undermanned and exhausted team cannot produce quality work. At some point, you either have to pay for more devs and fix all the **** or just wait for your playerbase to slowly erode while the game becomes more and more unplayable.