Yeah right, you play a non tank class and still facetank scorpions. LOL. You wouldn't run into such issues if you were using fox's cunning or swap all that useless defense for more arpen, crit or power, because tanking isn't your job as a ranger. You're either buffing your team or doing enough damage so that the fight doesn't last 15 minutes, until someone does a fatal mistake. :rolleyes:
Of course it's the game's fault if you didn't bring a proper tank or didn't think about not getting in front of the scorpion.
Obviously you weren't there. You shouldn't make assumptions when you weren't there.
1. I WAS using Fox's Cunning -- like mad.
2. We had TWO paladins -- not one, TWO. They were down in seconds. I lasted quite a long while by dodging while the TR worked the scorpion over from the rear. Luckily, after I dropped, he stayed stealthy and finished them.
Harper Chronicles: Cap Snatchers (RELEASED) - NW-DPUTABC6X Blood Magic (RELEASED) - NW-DUU2P7HCO Children of the Fey (RELEASED) - NW-DKSSAPFPF Buried Under Blacklake (WIP) - NW-DEDV2PAEP The Redcap Rebels (WIP) - NW-DO23AFHFH
My Foundry playthrough channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Ruskaga/featured
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khimera906Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 898Arc User
True. They had time. And I certainly won't deny they messed up in this rework in more ways than I can count in a single post.
You'll also have noticed the rather delicate apologies from our new CM. Judging by the usual lack of communication and the expected rather poor choice of words during such communication I'd say Cryptic is genuinely apologizing for their mistakes. Did anyone else notice that there's actually quite a bit of communication coming from Cryptic lately? Isn't that the only way they can show that they are serious even if it takes time to fix things we consider important?
Modules 6 is dead and the're is nothing they can do about it. What are they gonna do, a total rebuild? That's time and money they can't afford to invest, I'm sure. Yeah, things are as they are, and all we can do is accept it, but
as far as I'm concerned Cryptic can't get enough vitriol for what they've done to this game with the last 3 modules, because this mess needs to never happen again. As much as I hate where the game is now, module 6 did add some (very few) nice things along with the (many) bad ones.
What's important to me is where we go from here, and that means waiting for module 7. This is what scares me - what's next? Words are cheap, however sincere they might be, unless you prove yourself with actions. I don't expect big changes in the game now, however I want to see a change in their attitude and in what they prioritize. I haven't seen any of that yet. Are they gonna put fun and innovation before quick cash grabs? I believe not, but I want to be proven wrong.
So here's a third option - I don't support Cryptic till they put out quality content.
I hate dancing with Lady Luck. She always steps on my toes.
Yeah right, you play a non tank class and still facetank scorpions. LOL. You wouldn't run into such issues if you were using fox's cunning or swap all that useless defense for more arpen, crit or power, because tanking isn't your job as a ranger. You're either buffing your team or doing enough damage so that the fight doesn't last 15 minutes, until someone does a fatal mistake. :rolleyes:
Of course it's the game's fault if you didn't bring a proper tank or didn't think about not getting in front of the scorpion.
Yet another overheated reply from someone missing the point. Dude said he got hit with a simple, non-splat-zone claw swipe and instantly killed during his experiment with stacking defense. How is getting hit the same thing as face tanking? Who do you know that goes through a dungeon without ever taking a hit? Even in dungeons, trash mobs should not be able to one shot you with their weakest move, especially if you've stacked a huge amount of defense for a non-tank toon. The fact is he was at 44% damage resistance and it didn't matter at all. That was the key part of his post. He experimented with high defense, and it didn't do anything. End of experiment. Of course you thought you had an opportunity to tell someone what's what and took it because you're trying to look important in the forum of a fantasy based video game with unicorns in it. High on shallow, imagined triumphs is no way to go through life. Take a moment to try to understand the things you've read before you go off half-cocked, and maybe try some experiments of your own when a new mod comes out instead of telling others how you think they should play when the things they try out of curiosity don't work out. I'll tell you this: I for one am very interested in these kinds of experiments. I find my dps suffers when I'm face down in a pile of broken teeth wishing I'd zigged instead of zagged. If someone comes up with a real solution other than L2P, I'm all ears. Save your temper tantrums for when your parents make you eat your veggies and contribute thoughtfully to the discussion. I'd like to play my main toon again and not have to be resuscitated every 50 feet through a dungeon. For that matter i'd like to be able to kill a pair of cloud giants one level below me without it just being dumb luck.
Bottom line - HR's in particular got wrecked in this mod. They're mostly unplayable solo, and hustin1's post confirmed the worst. The way it is I can't justify spending any more money on this game. No new mounts, no crafting or refinement, no costumes, no dyes, no booster packs, no nothing until my HR is viable again. I hope that matters to them, because I mean it.
The damage, I hope, is a bug or scale problem. Some of those issues, indeed some just a few posts above, I read about involve the ability to take a hit. Some advocate re-evaluating and evolving strategy and builds. Conceptually this is largely true, with new enemies, and with changes to old ones, you need to adapt to new tactics. Real battlefields are dynamic and game simulations of similar situations should be as close as the technology allows it to be.
However, defense and DR should mean something, and the standard enemies with roles like "soldier", "skirmisher", "brute/thug/brawler", and especially "minion" levels should not one-shot even the softest CW if you are within the level appropriate areas. There is no way to avoid taking a hit somewhere along the line, heck in my experience it seems that no matter what condition or status an enemy suffers, at least one always gets a parting shot.
Now I agree with certain sentiments that classes with dodges need to be mobile and should not be tanking, but those two classes that have no dodges - GFs and OPs, should be able to take some hits. Should tanking strategies involve standing in one place and just taking hits and generating threat? Well, they aren't given much mobility or speed and for an OP or GF to move out of large red zones requires a near instantaneous reaction to the effect and if the tank is doing his job, he might not be able to just flippantly relocate.
Those that expect the bleeding edge of difficulty and challenge, with no quarter or forgiveness, where the tiniest mistake spell utter doom and the players must execute powers, movements, and tactics with such military precision that it requires a live to play level of dedication are going to have to accept change. Also, those that expect content to be unnaturally and unrealistically forgiving, where even the most unskilled player in white gear can complete high level content with a "bull in the China shop" approach to every encounter will have to learn some strategy and put effort into gear. We need to approach the middle ground. No MMO I'm familiar with has ever implemented new features that weren't already somewhat in place, or the skeleton of a framework wasn't planned out during development. So I do not expect that we will ever see "selectable difficulty levels" for dungeons or any type of content. So something will need to be done at the statistical level in regards to encounters, and tweaking needs to be worked out in the way our statistics are being parsed by the game. We are supposed to be able to complete content (i.e. open world map areas and their quests, NOT dungeons, skirmishes, or in my opinion heroic encounters without other players) solo. We need a balance between casual and play to live, which is easy to say but not do and I have no answers for how or where in this.
What I don't want to see is too much reliance on Perfect World's Eastern game play and structure models. Eastern MMOs rely too heavily on continual and repetitive grind with extremely low XP, drop rates, and a very long time commitment. I have personally experienced other games where quests or objectives require something as little as 5 of some trash item and it may take over a week of continual grinding in the drop zone before you can achieve the number of items. Of the titles PWE has, only PWI was adapted from PW's original game of the same name as the company, and the original Perfect World game adhered to this model with a passion and obsession. Not even cute foxy ears and tails, with a fox transformation, could keep my attention for very long in this horrible, endless grind fest.
The damage, I hope, is a bug or scale problem. Some of those issues, indeed some just a few posts above, I read about involve the ability to take a hit. Some advocate re-evaluating and evolving strategy and builds. Conceptually this is largely true, with new enemies, and with changes to old ones, you need to adapt to new tactics. Real battlefields are dynamic and game simulations of similar situations should be as close as the technology allows it to be.
However, defense and DR should mean something, and the standard enemies with roles like "soldier", "skirmisher", "brute/thug/brawler", and especially "minion" levels should not one-shot even the softest CW if you are within the level appropriate areas. There is no way to avoid taking a hit somewhere along the line, heck in my experience it seems that no matter what condition or status an enemy suffers, at least one always gets a parting shot.
Now I agree with certain sentiments that classes with dodges need to be mobile and should not be tanking, but those two classes that have no dodges - GFs and OPs, should be able to take some hits. Should tanking strategies involve standing in one place and just taking hits and generating threat? Well, they aren't given much mobility or speed and for an OP or GF to move out of large red zones requires a near instantaneous reaction to the effect and if the tank is doing his job, he might not be able to just flippantly relocate.
Those that expect the bleeding edge of difficulty and challenge, with no quarter or forgiveness, where the tiniest mistake spell utter doom and the players must execute powers, movements, and tactics with such military precision that it requires a live to play level of dedication are going to have to accept change. Also, those that expect content to be unnaturally and unrealistically forgiving, where even the most unskilled player in white gear can complete high level content with a "bull in the China shop" approach to every encounter will have to learn some strategy and put effort into gear. We need to approach the middle ground. No MMO I'm familiar with has ever implemented new features that weren't already somewhat in place, or the skeleton of a framework wasn't planned out during development. So I do not expect that we will ever see "selectable difficulty levels" for dungeons or any type of content. So something will need to be done at the statistical level in regards to encounters, and tweaking needs to be worked out in the way our statistics are being parsed by the game. We are supposed to be able to complete content (i.e. open world map areas and their quests, NOT dungeons, skirmishes, or in my opinion heroic encounters without other players) solo. We need a balance between casual and play to live, which is easy to say but not do and I have no answers for how or where in this.
What I don't want to see is too much reliance on Perfect World's Eastern game play and structure models. Eastern MMOs rely too heavily on continual and repetitive grind with extremely low XP, drop rates, and a very long time commitment. I have personally experienced other games where quests or objectives require something as little as 5 of some trash item and it may take over a week of continual grinding in the drop zone before you can achieve the number of items. Of the titles PWE has, only PWI was adapted from PW's original game of the same name as the company, and the original Perfect World game adhered to this model with a passion and obsession. Not even cute foxy ears and tails, with a fox transformation, could keep my attention for very long in this horrible, endless grind fest.
Well in an ideal world where the mechanics functioned properly, the GWF dash and the SWs floating thing, are mobility effects that should allow you a certain amount of dodge. As others have demonstrated and reported in countless other threads more appropriate to this issue, the SW still gets hit. It is, in my experience, a timing thing. I've dodged attacks with the SWs movement effect, but there is a point where the action reaches a certain commitment point that the movement abilities do not allow a dodge and the GWF or SW still receive damage even if they are clear across the room. This discussion is best done elsewhere though.
The fact is he was at 44% damage resistance and it didn't matter at all. That was the key part of his post. He experimented with high defense, and it didn't do anything. End of experiment.
Oh gawd, even as a healadin in plate armor, with sanctuary up (so about 60+% DR) and 87k HP, I still get one shotted by the scorpions claw. That is just all wrong. For someone in plate, my shift mechanic and slow as a snail, it should take me to maybe half hp and give me a chance to at least escape and survive. I don't mind a challenge but the NPC's are down right broken.
And I'm sure they've read umpteen hundred similar posts....
And yet, they have not figured out that one of the biggest problems with their management of the situation is a lack of consideration for the implicit messages they are sending. I get that they think in terms of schedules and "dependencies" as Panderus explains it. Unfortunately, everyone also knows that when the stuff hits the fan the thing that goes out the window is concern for the plan.
So, Panderus's little speech about how design teams work is just telling us all that Cryptic does not consider this a crisis. If that wasn't the message they meant to send, too bad. It is clearly the message that most everyone heard. This is not about efficiency of design or diseconomies of scale. It is, in fact, time for some genuine spin control - some open discussion of what fundamental fixes are in the works even if that does create a bit of expectation bordering on a promise.
Instead, the Cryptic message is business as usual in the form of (a) twiddling with piddling little things like the coffers and (b) switching the bind state for bags so the company can sell more new zen shop bags.
I mean, seriously, who the hell is doing the marketing work over there! Frankly, this company needs to get a positive affirmative message out like I've never seen and, instead, they are explicitly saying that they took the time to repossess some of the value in items we already bought because they noticed we have even more demand for bags because of bad design decisions. Trust, meet Toilette and prepare for a bit of a ride.
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?!?!"
Just because a lot of the industry is badly managed, doesn't make the problem go away in this particular case. Somebody should have looked at the patch list and said, "Cut that one. Today's off-week patch has to be only for emergency repairs. If we put something this trivial in there without more of the major changes we're working on, it will just fuel the flames." Again, the clear message in their not doing that is that they don't think they have a problem....
So, clearly, we have not yet given them enough posts to get the point across.
Players are now focusing on the crazy damage coming out from trash mobs, never mind bosses, and it's a real issue.
It's not the main issue, but with the state of Mod 6 - there is nothing else.
The main issue is in my opinion, unrecoverable, and this is the concept of suddenly blocking off existing end zones to players in mid-gear runs. Re-using old zones. Removing dungeons. No New End Content.
Mod 6 -> old end zones are the new content. Now Cryptic could come along and lower the damage of every mob, boss, whatever in all the end zones, instances, dungeons.
Would that improve Mod 6? Yes it would - minimally - but nowhere near what an expansion should offer.
So players quite rightly focus on the damage, because to actually make Mod 6 into a proper expansion would take months. In the meantime, (if a proper Mod 6 ever appears, which is unlikely), all we are left with is trying to align damage.
Devs - everyone is waiting for you to back up your apology with substance. Something needs to happen soon.
...............vote for your favourite expansion.......... "Mod 6. Oh my f****** god. It gutted the game pure and simple. And what wasn't gutted was messed up by the poorly thought out new level cap and equip. The game never recovered from that atrocity". ..............not this one then.............
What broke this game is the idiotic RP system. It simply collapsed the economy and forced the developer to make every possible change to cut a player's RP sole to try to fit it into the Emperor's glass slipper. The "content" (if you still call it content) is intentionally made almost impossible to complete. AD is hardly obtainable through playing.
What broke this game is the idiotic RP system. It simply collapsed the economy and forced the developer to make every possible change to cut a player's RP sole to try to fit it into the Emperor's glass slipper. The "content" (if you still call it content) is intentionally made almost impossible to complete. AD is hardly obtainable through playing.
And here I was thinking it was all the broken powers, feats, quests, server not responding, unbalanced npcs, and serving not responding issues. But what do I know.
What broke this game is the idiotic RP system. It simply collapsed the economy and forced the developer to make every possible change to cut a player's RP sole to try to fit it into the Emperor's glass slipper. The "content" (if you still call it content) is intentionally made almost impossible to complete. AD is hardly obtainable through playing.
wouldn't be so bad if they fixed the dragon hoard enchantments... but alas no commentary on that at all even though its been reported in the bug forum, tickets, everywhere... its like they DONT want us to play the game... sad really
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vinceent1Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,264Arc User
edited May 2015
what patient? new players have crippled their characters, even old players with some build suffer the same. i cant believe its still almost impossible fight phantasmal fortress boss with my stormwarden archery build, after all armor pene and deflect increasing. if cryptic know they mess it up, they should give us double refinement event immediately to enhance crippled characters through refining items if nothing else. but they didnt
What broke this game is the idiotic RP system. It simply collapsed the economy and forced the developer to make every possible change to cut a player's RP sole to try to fit it into the Emperor's glass slipper. The "content" (if you still call it content) is intentionally made almost impossible to complete. AD is hardly obtainable through playing.
You nailed it mate!
It's a combination of bad coding combined with greedy in game politics.
It doesn't need a genius to say, that all the removed AD from the Lord, from Rhix, from dungeons and from PVP is part of a bad management program.
The excuse that they have, that some of their Devs are focused on some different jobs is also half way tolerable. If there is a fire in the city you try to mobilize all fireman, including officers too, not just the ordinary volunteer. And this building is now on fire, but apparently nobody from the officials discovered it, yet.
While i know, that current school system is broken and IT is too much specialized in one territory, still every true Dev should know the basics enough to be able to work in a team and fix the most annoying and game breaking bugs. Of course it would take a good team manager or coordinator to assign the Devs to the most needed and burning issues.
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
I can understand the point about the fact that not all skills are interchangeable. In fact, even when certain people are interchangeable, that doesn't mean it's a good idea to move people around. I've been on projects that fell behind and had to deal with an influx of bodies thrown at it: even though the people were just as skilled as those already on the team, the fact that they were coming in cold meant that it would be quite a long while before we could get any real benefit out of their skills. In fact, bringing them up to speed actually costs productivity in the short term.
One strategy that helps is "focus and finish" -- prioritize the tasks that you give your team members and have them finish them before putting something else on their plate. When team members have to jump between multiple development tasks, everything winds up taking longer and development as a whole becomes less efficient.
A lot of the issues, I suspect, really don't have anything to do with coding. Things like enemy stats, item stats, encounter location and makeup, etc. are almost certainly stored in databases. Databases are notoriously hard to deal with from a CM standpoint simply because of entity dependencies. Changing them without unintentionally introducing new problems usually requires people who are very intimately knowledgeable about not just the schema but the actual data. Throwing bodies at that would make the problem much worse.
As far as issues like overall difficulty go, I don't think this has anything to do with coders: it's really a game design issue. I'm tempted to say "system engineering", but that overstates it I think. Still, issues like that are probably more aligned with requirements than anything else, and probably wind up being data-driven once implemented. When we talk about "devs", that could mean a lot more than just "coders". Now, the FPS issue probably is a code issue, though not necessarily in the client or server's C code; it could be an issue with unoptimized shader code (though it could also be an issue with the game engine -- only the devs know for sure).
Saying that developers (in the broad sense of the term) have interdependencies is perfectly valid. They almost certainly do. I don't expect sweeping changes overnight (and changing the overall difficulty is a sweeping one). What would be nice is if we could get some sense of what the devs (again, in the broad sense) are focusing on -- at a macro level.
Harper Chronicles: Cap Snatchers (RELEASED) - NW-DPUTABC6X Blood Magic (RELEASED) - NW-DUU2P7HCO Children of the Fey (RELEASED) - NW-DKSSAPFPF Buried Under Blacklake (WIP) - NW-DEDV2PAEP The Redcap Rebels (WIP) - NW-DO23AFHFH
My Foundry playthrough channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Ruskaga/featured
Lost some patience today when I logged into the game this evening and discovered that my GWF and DC both were "shorted" just about 6k HP.
Mind you.. I had taken screen shots of my character sheets this morning. NOTHING changed.. same equipment, standing in Protector's, but suddenly 6k HP less than this morning.
OK first off, I have to admit that for the first 2 weeks after mod6 went live I was very unhappy with it. My common reply to others complaints about mod6 was "the easiest way to fix mod6 is roll it back to mod5" or "welcome to mod6". That being said, now Im a lot less unhappy with it. That's not to say there aren't a lot of things needing to fixed but it's not as "unplayable" as I originally thought.
Although, One does wonder why this mod was pushed to live with such little time for player testing and with so many known issues. I hold out hope that the dev team is honestly trying to fix things to make this a smoother transition into this new era of the game. This mod has felt like they adopted the Microsoft windows approach to releasing new stuff. Release it with known problems to meet a deadline that could have waited and throw numerous patches until the next release.
Which brings me to my real question. Since this mod was such an utter disaster upon release, please tell me that they aren't trying to release mod7 in the usual 3 month period that they've been doing. If I could ask for any one thing from the devs, its that they please stop pushing out mildly interesting, lack luster, broken content every 3 months and take 6 months to put out 1 very exciting, well executed, properly tested mod instead.
well, i have been playing not even 4 months now on my CW, and i got hooked instantly the first time i played: i remember how it felt awesome to discover every little things in the game, from gear to class mechanics to new dungeons or areas....i remember reading people talking about the Well of Dragon or Icewind Dale, which wasn't yet on my map...the feeling of anticipation was most excellent and the joy from getting access to it eventually was definitely rewarding!
now i remember not even being geared out that much (barely 12K gear score) and still able to venture in, do dailies, destroy some Yetis, go through Dragon runs galore....and even (and this is for those dear elitists we love to hate) do some Tiamat sessions without too much difficulties and deaths!
when mod6 came out, i was shocked... apart from the poor level of content it brought (rehashed known locations where it boils down to a sadly boring grind fest without any substance or interesting story), i was shocked by the brutality of it all: campaigns are now mostly (if not only) doable in party, dungeons are unforgiving, the economy is completely out of hand (prices of basic items are insane, selling is a joke, farming gold is ridiculous, etc...), the lag fest anywhere erratically (that tree, that horrible tree!)...
took a whole week off as i was rather disgusted like many others (a lot who were even more right to be, being there since day one).
but then i started thinking about it: although far from perfect, some of it felt like actual end-game content...
i have been feeling less and less irritated when playing it, as i have now set my goals to farm those extremely unforgiving instances and places for better gear...to be then able to eventually grind my way up to the next tier ones...
i wasn't into pvp at all yet and this made me want to grind those sessions too and get some much needed gear from there also!
in my situation, it doesn't really matter the time it takes for the changes to come: i will keep myself occupied until an actual much needed revamp is ready to go!
i am not going anywhere, i am still having fun.
but god **** there is some serious work to be done!
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khimera906Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 898Arc User
And here I was thinking it was all the broken powers, feats, quests, server not responding, unbalanced npcs, and serving not responding issues. But what do I know.
Yes, what do you know? Those are all bugs or problems that they've accepted and will be fixed probably sooner than later. And when they're all fixed, the grind will be there waiting for you. Welcome back to "Module 5: The Grind".
I hate dancing with Lady Luck. She always steps on my toes.
Yes, what do you know? Those are all bugs or problems that they've accepted and will be fixed probably sooner than later. And when they're all fixed, the grind will be there waiting for you. Welcome back to "Module 5: The Grind".
Modules 6 is dead and the're is nothing they can do about it. What are they gonna do, a total rebuild? That's time and money they can't afford to invest, I'm sure. Yeah, things are as they are, and all we can do is accept it, but
as far as I'm concerned Cryptic can't get enough vitriol for what they've done to this game with the last 3 modules, because this mess needs to never happen again. As much as I hate where the game is now, module 6 did add some (very few) nice things along with the (many) bad ones.
What's important to me is where we go from here, and that means waiting for module 7. This is what scares me - what's next? Words are cheap, however sincere they might be, unless you prove yourself with actions. I don't expect big changes in the game now, however I want to see a change in their attitude and in what they prioritize. I haven't seen any of that yet. Are they gonna put fun and innovation before quick cash grabs? I believe not, but I want to be proven wrong.
So here's a third option - I don't support Cryptic till they put out quality content.
The thing is, and you have to have noticed this, is that NW has a slew of bugs going all the way back to beta. Never fixed. Their method of operation is to fix bugs that interfere with their monetization of the game, and otherwise to just work on cranking out new content.
That is why things are so screwy and game breaking bugs are not fixed and likely won't be fixed. It is the history of this game. I am sure there is more man hours devoted to mod 7 than to fixing mod 6.
So of course mod 7 will be released while game breaking mod 6 bugs remain unfixed. And of course the mods and some fans will say, "be patient, give them time, they apologized, you don't understand how the business works..."
The difficulty is over-the-top absurd. Try any dungeon with a toon with 100k HP:
- one swipe from a zombie OSK's you
- one arrow from an archer OSK's you
- one swing from a cutthroat OSK's you
All of these things happen, and none of them should. At this point, I'm looking specifically for one clear message:
"We recognize that the difficulty is unacceptable, is ruining the player experience, and we intend to make it right."
I'm not asking for a timetable. The blog a week ago was a very good start, but this is what I'm specifically looking for: a recognition that multiple changes stacked the deck against players far too much.
Harper Chronicles: Cap Snatchers (RELEASED) - NW-DPUTABC6X Blood Magic (RELEASED) - NW-DUU2P7HCO Children of the Fey (RELEASED) - NW-DKSSAPFPF Buried Under Blacklake (WIP) - NW-DEDV2PAEP The Redcap Rebels (WIP) - NW-DO23AFHFH
My Foundry playthrough channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Ruskaga/featured
Yes, what do you know? Those are all bugs or problems that they've accepted and will be fixed probably sooner than later. And when they're all fixed, the grind will be there waiting for you. Welcome back to "Module 5: The Grind".
The grind never went anywhere. It's grown stronger.
The difficulty is over-the-top absurd. Try any dungeon with a toon with 100k HP:
- one swipe from a zombie OSK's you
- one arrow from an archer OSK's you
- one swing from a cutthroat OSK's you
All of these things happen, and none of them should. At this point, I'm looking specifically for one clear message:
"We recognize that the difficulty is unacceptable, is ruining the player experience, and we intend to make it right."
I'm not asking for a timetable. The blog a week ago was a very good start, ...
I'm surprised they still haven't said anything after a week. The problem is so blatantly obvious that I figured they'd have said something like what you wrote by now just to calm the masses. Even tanks are getting one-shot. They really need to play test their own content.
I'm surprised they still haven't said anything after a week. The problem is so blatantly obvious that I figured they'd have said something like what you wrote by now just to calm the masses. Even tanks are getting one-shot. They really need to play test their own content.
Well said mate!
I keep reading those short guides on Arc Launcher about the new dungeons, but they are really no real guides at all, just a few words about the dungeon itself, they don't go into those deep details, which make a T2 dungeon clearing currently nearly impossible for 99% of the player base.
So i was thinking, what about a twitch stream, like Akro used to do them and see a Dev go through the dungeons and please NO GODMODE. He should grab some folks from PE and go with them on a run, like a PUG team and try to finish it, within reasonable time too. Sadly i don't have to bet, that even a Dev would fail and not be able to finish it.
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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rickcase276Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,404Arc User
edited May 2015
I will continue to patiently farm RP on my main, to level up my new weapons and my 4th artifact. And invoke to get my other 15 to level 70 then maybe go and run Spinward Rise to get the mainhand. Yes I can survive in the campaign zones on my DC, but it is not that fun anymore. I preferred it where one rotation of encounters could take down a group of powries etc, not as it is now.
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khimera906Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 898Arc User
The grind never went anywhere. It's grown stronger.
That's exactly my point. People are raging about module 6. To me the real problem is that they didn't fix the biggest problem with module 5, and that's the infinite grind. When the rage over M6 is over, what are we gonna be left with? The grind...
I guess the op is right in some aspects. I think it's time for a little vacation. Hopefully the developers will open their eyes to what's going on, and do something about it. If not, there are other games.
I hate dancing with Lady Luck. She always steps on my toes.
Comments
Obviously you weren't there. You shouldn't make assumptions when you weren't there.
1. I WAS using Fox's Cunning -- like mad.
2. We had TWO paladins -- not one, TWO. They were down in seconds. I lasted quite a long while by dodging while the TR worked the scorpion over from the rear. Luckily, after I dropped, he stayed stealthy and finished them.
Blood Magic (RELEASED) - NW-DUU2P7HCO
Children of the Fey (RELEASED) - NW-DKSSAPFPF
Buried Under Blacklake (WIP) - NW-DEDV2PAEP
The Redcap Rebels (WIP) - NW-DO23AFHFH
My Foundry playthrough channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Ruskaga/featured
Modules 6 is dead and the're is nothing they can do about it. What are they gonna do, a total rebuild? That's time and money they can't afford to invest, I'm sure. Yeah, things are as they are, and all we can do is accept it, but
as far as I'm concerned Cryptic can't get enough vitriol for what they've done to this game with the last 3 modules, because this mess needs to never happen again. As much as I hate where the game is now, module 6 did add some (very few) nice things along with the (many) bad ones.
What's important to me is where we go from here, and that means waiting for module 7. This is what scares me - what's next? Words are cheap, however sincere they might be, unless you prove yourself with actions. I don't expect big changes in the game now, however I want to see a change in their attitude and in what they prioritize. I haven't seen any of that yet. Are they gonna put fun and innovation before quick cash grabs? I believe not, but I want to be proven wrong.
So here's a third option - I don't support Cryptic till they put out quality content.
Yet another overheated reply from someone missing the point. Dude said he got hit with a simple, non-splat-zone claw swipe and instantly killed during his experiment with stacking defense. How is getting hit the same thing as face tanking? Who do you know that goes through a dungeon without ever taking a hit? Even in dungeons, trash mobs should not be able to one shot you with their weakest move, especially if you've stacked a huge amount of defense for a non-tank toon. The fact is he was at 44% damage resistance and it didn't matter at all. That was the key part of his post. He experimented with high defense, and it didn't do anything. End of experiment. Of course you thought you had an opportunity to tell someone what's what and took it because you're trying to look important in the forum of a fantasy based video game with unicorns in it. High on shallow, imagined triumphs is no way to go through life. Take a moment to try to understand the things you've read before you go off half-cocked, and maybe try some experiments of your own when a new mod comes out instead of telling others how you think they should play when the things they try out of curiosity don't work out. I'll tell you this: I for one am very interested in these kinds of experiments. I find my dps suffers when I'm face down in a pile of broken teeth wishing I'd zigged instead of zagged. If someone comes up with a real solution other than L2P, I'm all ears. Save your temper tantrums for when your parents make you eat your veggies and contribute thoughtfully to the discussion. I'd like to play my main toon again and not have to be resuscitated every 50 feet through a dungeon. For that matter i'd like to be able to kill a pair of cloud giants one level below me without it just being dumb luck.
Bottom line - HR's in particular got wrecked in this mod. They're mostly unplayable solo, and hustin1's post confirmed the worst. The way it is I can't justify spending any more money on this game. No new mounts, no crafting or refinement, no costumes, no dyes, no booster packs, no nothing until my HR is viable again. I hope that matters to them, because I mean it.
However, defense and DR should mean something, and the standard enemies with roles like "soldier", "skirmisher", "brute/thug/brawler", and especially "minion" levels should not one-shot even the softest CW if you are within the level appropriate areas. There is no way to avoid taking a hit somewhere along the line, heck in my experience it seems that no matter what condition or status an enemy suffers, at least one always gets a parting shot.
Now I agree with certain sentiments that classes with dodges need to be mobile and should not be tanking, but those two classes that have no dodges - GFs and OPs, should be able to take some hits. Should tanking strategies involve standing in one place and just taking hits and generating threat? Well, they aren't given much mobility or speed and for an OP or GF to move out of large red zones requires a near instantaneous reaction to the effect and if the tank is doing his job, he might not be able to just flippantly relocate.
Those that expect the bleeding edge of difficulty and challenge, with no quarter or forgiveness, where the tiniest mistake spell utter doom and the players must execute powers, movements, and tactics with such military precision that it requires a live to play level of dedication are going to have to accept change. Also, those that expect content to be unnaturally and unrealistically forgiving, where even the most unskilled player in white gear can complete high level content with a "bull in the China shop" approach to every encounter will have to learn some strategy and put effort into gear. We need to approach the middle ground. No MMO I'm familiar with has ever implemented new features that weren't already somewhat in place, or the skeleton of a framework wasn't planned out during development. So I do not expect that we will ever see "selectable difficulty levels" for dungeons or any type of content. So something will need to be done at the statistical level in regards to encounters, and tweaking needs to be worked out in the way our statistics are being parsed by the game. We are supposed to be able to complete content (i.e. open world map areas and their quests, NOT dungeons, skirmishes, or in my opinion heroic encounters without other players) solo. We need a balance between casual and play to live, which is easy to say but not do and I have no answers for how or where in this.
What I don't want to see is too much reliance on Perfect World's Eastern game play and structure models. Eastern MMOs rely too heavily on continual and repetitive grind with extremely low XP, drop rates, and a very long time commitment. I have personally experienced other games where quests or objectives require something as little as 5 of some trash item and it may take over a week of continual grinding in the drop zone before you can achieve the number of items. Of the titles PWE has, only PWI was adapted from PW's original game of the same name as the company, and the original Perfect World game adhered to this model with a passion and obsession. Not even cute foxy ears and tails, with a fox transformation, could keep my attention for very long in this horrible, endless grind fest.
glassdoor.com - Cryptic Studios Review
Well in an ideal world where the mechanics functioned properly, the GWF dash and the SWs floating thing, are mobility effects that should allow you a certain amount of dodge. As others have demonstrated and reported in countless other threads more appropriate to this issue, the SW still gets hit. It is, in my experience, a timing thing. I've dodged attacks with the SWs movement effect, but there is a point where the action reaches a certain commitment point that the movement abilities do not allow a dodge and the GWF or SW still receive damage even if they are clear across the room. This discussion is best done elsewhere though.
glassdoor.com - Cryptic Studios Review
Oh gawd, even as a healadin in plate armor, with sanctuary up (so about 60+% DR) and 87k HP, I still get one shotted by the scorpions claw. That is just all wrong. For someone in plate, my shift mechanic and slow as a snail, it should take me to maybe half hp and give me a chance to at least escape and survive. I don't mind a challenge but the NPC's are down right broken.
And yet, they have not figured out that one of the biggest problems with their management of the situation is a lack of consideration for the implicit messages they are sending. I get that they think in terms of schedules and "dependencies" as Panderus explains it. Unfortunately, everyone also knows that when the stuff hits the fan the thing that goes out the window is concern for the plan.
So, Panderus's little speech about how design teams work is just telling us all that Cryptic does not consider this a crisis. If that wasn't the message they meant to send, too bad. It is clearly the message that most everyone heard. This is not about efficiency of design or diseconomies of scale. It is, in fact, time for some genuine spin control - some open discussion of what fundamental fixes are in the works even if that does create a bit of expectation bordering on a promise.
Instead, the Cryptic message is business as usual in the form of (a) twiddling with piddling little things like the coffers and (b) switching the bind state for bags so the company can sell more new zen shop bags.
I mean, seriously, who the hell is doing the marketing work over there! Frankly, this company needs to get a positive affirmative message out like I've never seen and, instead, they are explicitly saying that they took the time to repossess some of the value in items we already bought because they noticed we have even more demand for bags because of bad design decisions. Trust, meet Toilette and prepare for a bit of a ride.
Just because a lot of the industry is badly managed, doesn't make the problem go away in this particular case. Somebody should have looked at the patch list and said, "Cut that one. Today's off-week patch has to be only for emergency repairs. If we put something this trivial in there without more of the major changes we're working on, it will just fuel the flames." Again, the clear message in their not doing that is that they don't think they have a problem....
So, clearly, we have not yet given them enough posts to get the point across.
It's not the main issue, but with the state of Mod 6 - there is nothing else.
The main issue is in my opinion, unrecoverable, and this is the concept of suddenly blocking off existing end zones to players in mid-gear runs. Re-using old zones. Removing dungeons. No New End Content.
Mod 6 -> old end zones are the new content. Now Cryptic could come along and lower the damage of every mob, boss, whatever in all the end zones, instances, dungeons.
Would that improve Mod 6? Yes it would - minimally - but nowhere near what an expansion should offer.
So players quite rightly focus on the damage, because to actually make Mod 6 into a proper expansion would take months. In the meantime, (if a proper Mod 6 ever appears, which is unlikely), all we are left with is trying to align damage.
Devs - everyone is waiting for you to back up your apology with substance. Something needs to happen soon.
"Mod 6. Oh my f****** god. It gutted the game pure and simple. And what wasn't gutted was messed up by the poorly thought out new level cap and equip. The game never recovered from that atrocity".
..............not this one then.............
wouldn't be so bad if they fixed the dragon hoard enchantments... but alas no commentary on that at all even though its been reported in the bug forum, tickets, everywhere... its like they DONT want us to play the game... sad really
You nailed it mate!
It's a combination of bad coding combined with greedy in game politics.
It doesn't need a genius to say, that all the removed AD from the Lord, from Rhix, from dungeons and from PVP is part of a bad management program.
The excuse that they have, that some of their Devs are focused on some different jobs is also half way tolerable. If there is a fire in the city you try to mobilize all fireman, including officers too, not just the ordinary volunteer. And this building is now on fire, but apparently nobody from the officials discovered it, yet.
While i know, that current school system is broken and IT is too much specialized in one territory, still every true Dev should know the basics enough to be able to work in a team and fix the most annoying and game breaking bugs. Of course it would take a good team manager or coordinator to assign the Devs to the most needed and burning issues.
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
One strategy that helps is "focus and finish" -- prioritize the tasks that you give your team members and have them finish them before putting something else on their plate. When team members have to jump between multiple development tasks, everything winds up taking longer and development as a whole becomes less efficient.
A lot of the issues, I suspect, really don't have anything to do with coding. Things like enemy stats, item stats, encounter location and makeup, etc. are almost certainly stored in databases. Databases are notoriously hard to deal with from a CM standpoint simply because of entity dependencies. Changing them without unintentionally introducing new problems usually requires people who are very intimately knowledgeable about not just the schema but the actual data. Throwing bodies at that would make the problem much worse.
As far as issues like overall difficulty go, I don't think this has anything to do with coders: it's really a game design issue. I'm tempted to say "system engineering", but that overstates it I think. Still, issues like that are probably more aligned with requirements than anything else, and probably wind up being data-driven once implemented. When we talk about "devs", that could mean a lot more than just "coders". Now, the FPS issue probably is a code issue, though not necessarily in the client or server's C code; it could be an issue with unoptimized shader code (though it could also be an issue with the game engine -- only the devs know for sure).
Saying that developers (in the broad sense of the term) have interdependencies is perfectly valid. They almost certainly do. I don't expect sweeping changes overnight (and changing the overall difficulty is a sweeping one). What would be nice is if we could get some sense of what the devs (again, in the broad sense) are focusing on -- at a macro level.
Blood Magic (RELEASED) - NW-DUU2P7HCO
Children of the Fey (RELEASED) - NW-DKSSAPFPF
Buried Under Blacklake (WIP) - NW-DEDV2PAEP
The Redcap Rebels (WIP) - NW-DO23AFHFH
My Foundry playthrough channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Ruskaga/featured
Mind you.. I had taken screen shots of my character sheets this morning. NOTHING changed.. same equipment, standing in Protector's, but suddenly 6k HP less than this morning.
Lovely.
Although, One does wonder why this mod was pushed to live with such little time for player testing and with so many known issues. I hold out hope that the dev team is honestly trying to fix things to make this a smoother transition into this new era of the game. This mod has felt like they adopted the Microsoft windows approach to releasing new stuff. Release it with known problems to meet a deadline that could have waited and throw numerous patches until the next release.
Which brings me to my real question. Since this mod was such an utter disaster upon release, please tell me that they aren't trying to release mod7 in the usual 3 month period that they've been doing. If I could ask for any one thing from the devs, its that they please stop pushing out mildly interesting, lack luster, broken content every 3 months and take 6 months to put out 1 very exciting, well executed, properly tested mod instead.
now i remember not even being geared out that much (barely 12K gear score) and still able to venture in, do dailies, destroy some Yetis, go through Dragon runs galore....and even (and this is for those dear elitists we love to hate) do some Tiamat sessions without too much difficulties and deaths!
when mod6 came out, i was shocked... apart from the poor level of content it brought (rehashed known locations where it boils down to a sadly boring grind fest without any substance or interesting story), i was shocked by the brutality of it all: campaigns are now mostly (if not only) doable in party, dungeons are unforgiving, the economy is completely out of hand (prices of basic items are insane, selling is a joke, farming gold is ridiculous, etc...), the lag fest anywhere erratically (that tree, that horrible tree!)...
took a whole week off as i was rather disgusted like many others (a lot who were even more right to be, being there since day one).
but then i started thinking about it: although far from perfect, some of it felt like actual end-game content...
i have been feeling less and less irritated when playing it, as i have now set my goals to farm those extremely unforgiving instances and places for better gear...to be then able to eventually grind my way up to the next tier ones...
i wasn't into pvp at all yet and this made me want to grind those sessions too and get some much needed gear from there also!
in my situation, it doesn't really matter the time it takes for the changes to come: i will keep myself occupied until an actual much needed revamp is ready to go!
i am not going anywhere, i am still having fun.
but god **** there is some serious work to be done!
And for that I suggested this:
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?916531-QoL-Suggestion-Associate-Refinement-to-Character-not-Equipment
The thing is, and you have to have noticed this, is that NW has a slew of bugs going all the way back to beta. Never fixed. Their method of operation is to fix bugs that interfere with their monetization of the game, and otherwise to just work on cranking out new content.
That is why things are so screwy and game breaking bugs are not fixed and likely won't be fixed. It is the history of this game. I am sure there is more man hours devoted to mod 7 than to fixing mod 6.
So of course mod 7 will be released while game breaking mod 6 bugs remain unfixed. And of course the mods and some fans will say, "be patient, give them time, they apologized, you don't understand how the business works..."
- one swipe from a zombie OSK's you
- one arrow from an archer OSK's you
- one swing from a cutthroat OSK's you
All of these things happen, and none of them should. At this point, I'm looking specifically for one clear message:
"We recognize that the difficulty is unacceptable, is ruining the player experience, and we intend to make it right."
I'm not asking for a timetable. The blog a week ago was a very good start, but this is what I'm specifically looking for: a recognition that multiple changes stacked the deck against players far too much.
Blood Magic (RELEASED) - NW-DUU2P7HCO
Children of the Fey (RELEASED) - NW-DKSSAPFPF
Buried Under Blacklake (WIP) - NW-DEDV2PAEP
The Redcap Rebels (WIP) - NW-DO23AFHFH
My Foundry playthrough channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Ruskaga/featured
The grind never went anywhere. It's grown stronger.
I'm surprised they still haven't said anything after a week. The problem is so blatantly obvious that I figured they'd have said something like what you wrote by now just to calm the masses. Even tanks are getting one-shot. They really need to play test their own content.
Well said mate!
I keep reading those short guides on Arc Launcher about the new dungeons, but they are really no real guides at all, just a few words about the dungeon itself, they don't go into those deep details, which make a T2 dungeon clearing currently nearly impossible for 99% of the player base.
So i was thinking, what about a twitch stream, like Akro used to do them and see a Dev go through the dungeons and please NO GODMODE. He should grab some folks from PE and go with them on a run, like a PUG team and try to finish it, within reasonable time too. Sadly i don't have to bet, that even a Dev would fail and not be able to finish it.
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
I guess the op is right in some aspects. I think it's time for a little vacation. Hopefully the developers will open their eyes to what's going on, and do something about it. If not, there are other games.