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What do you think of the increase in communication from the Developers & their teams?

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  • burkaancburkaanc Member Posts: 2,186 Arc User
    edited May 2015
    Hey guys,
    Thought I should pop in!

    For those who are praising our communication, thank you! For those who want more, how should we increase it? Is it just more developer presence you request?

    State of the game posts - what you are working on(ofc not everything can be revealed but general idea) what you are planning, what you see as a problem, without dates or anything but general direction of where you want game to be going and why you are doing what you are doing
    Full patch notes
    We need more stuff about how some skills/stats/etc. work and interact
    Paladin Master Race
  • mjytreszmjytresz Member Posts: 500 Arc User
    edited May 2015
    Hey guys,
    Thought I should pop in!

    For those who are praising our communication, thank you! For those who want more, how should we increase it? Is it just more developer presence you request?

    Your presence is pretty irrelevant.
    The problem you people don't seem to understand is the simple idea of customer service. You don't put a customer on hold for 20 minutes and don't bother to check back with them and give them an update. PWE has no idea of customer service. Even the customer service team has no sense of customer service.
    Furthermore, your approach is all wrong. You don't promise change and then deliver nothing. If you weren't capable or didn't have the resources, you should've just stayed quiet. We've given feedback numerous, countless times on various classes, mechanics, bugs, suggestions, and more that are constantly and effortlessly shot down. Your players are tired of a lot of things and nothing's being done about it.

    Before Mod 5, we gave feedback about how ridiculously overtuned TRs were. Nothing happened.
    Devs asked for feedback on how to balance TRs. All feedback was ignored.
    Before Mod 6, we gave feedback on difficulty, balance, and overtuned mechanics. Nothing happened.
    Now, we're still giving feedback and suggestions and nothing's happening.

    ****, I've been waiting for SW fixes since it was released. All SW has received so far is nerf after nerf.

    Moral of the story is: Do something or shut up.
    The community doesn't want a "presence", they want the fixes they've been crying about for years. What does it take, a "Fixed Game Token" added to the Zen Shop?
    Broken mechanics, broken class designs, lack of actual content, and over zealous, bronze-age moderation?

    Go Cryptic!
    PS - I quit.
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  • djarkaandjarkaan Member Posts: 883 Arc User
    edited May 2015
    Hey guys,
    Thought I should pop in!

    For those who are praising our communication, thank you! For those who want more, how should we increase it? Is it just more developer presence you request?

    More of this, right there, not just presence but asking for feedback the way you just did?

    Forum is screaming about difficulty, Dev Pops in and ask what they think should be acceptable to most?
    Forum is screaming about lag, dev or tech pops in asking feedback by posting an occurence template or something.
  • pa1nk1ller1989pa1nk1ller1989 Member Posts: 53 Arc User
    edited May 2015
    the increase in communication efforts is obvious and welcome. I do hope that the developers have redoubled their efforts as well in restoring the game. Please try to convince someone to hire a few more people to get things rolling!
  • matthiasthehun76matthiasthehun76 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,184 Arc User
    edited May 2015
    the increase in communication efforts is obvious and welcome. I do hope that the developers have redoubled their efforts as well in restoring the game. Please try to convince someone to hire a few more people to get things rolling!

    In Germany they say, not quantity, but quality matters the most!

    They have enough people, just read the internal sites, what i see is they lack human know-how, so a mass change in personal would only do good at this desperate situation. Hanging onto the same people, who did this mess is insane.

    Really, how do we except from any Dev to do a better job on take 2, if he or she wasn't capable to do a decent one on the first try. :confused:
    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

  • whitupigguwhitupiggu Member Posts: 92 Arc User
    edited May 2015
    Hey guys,
    Thought I should pop in!

    For those who are praising our communication, thank you! For those who want more, how should we increase it? Is it just more developer presence you request?
    I'd like to see something like planetside 2s roadmap so we can see what the dev team is currently working on and so we can offer feedback. As of now we have no idea what they are doing except for when they deign to grace us with their presence and give us some incredibly vague goals.
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  • tantivetyrelltantivetyrell Member Posts: 180 Arc User
    edited May 2015
    How ideal bug/feedback communication is done.

    It is difficult to tell when things are acknowledged by the dev team, whether its bugs or feedback. Though I see more of it happening since I always check devtracker.

    We as players can't see when specific bug fixes get bumped up to a later patch update unless you tell us. Thus the multitude of hours you spend in the office working on the game, you have thousands gamers staring at the unfixed bug in the face not knowing whats going to happen. Most we can do is hoping for devtracker to show a post or a patchlog.

    Akromatic had his weekly stream, I don't think it would be a bad thing if that was continiued with a portion dedicated to a state of the game.
  • angryspriteangrysprite Member Posts: 4,982 Arc User
    edited May 2015
    Developer communication is totally transparent and easily measurable:

    http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/forumdisplay.php?687-Dev-Tracker

    Bookmarkit. Readit, Livit, Lovit. Nowkwitcherbichin. LOL
  • lowenduslowendus Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 322 Arc User
    edited May 2015
    Hey guys,
    Thought I should pop in!

    For those who are praising our communication, thank you! For those who want more, how should we increase it? Is it just more developer presence you request?

    State of the game info

    And what most of people are asking...In progress Bug/issue resolving info.

    Nobody expect your devs to solve them tomorrow, but some info/updates on the stuff they're currently working and soon to hit following patches will definitely help.
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  • scylent#6295 scylent Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 43 Arc User
    edited May 2015
    arsonall82 wrote: »
    you want to know my level of Dev-player content? look at Path of Exile.

    they have a weekly "state of the game" forum post EVERY WEEK. they released one today - at least 5,000 characters of "the state of the game"

    they discussed the closed beta, with respect to the short comings and successes currently occurring. the end-result is that they decided to push back they next expansion, and they're basically what I always imagined a F2P company would be to successfully have players asking to give them money - they do it right in a combination of dev communication, no items for purchase that affect your gameplay over someone that doesn't spend money, and lots of complexity.

    Yes completely agree. POE is how a F2P game should be. That is why they have my support. I would have expected more from a game with so much more resources like this one compared to GGG. But anyways hopefully they get on the right track.

    ScyLent PvE GF Main
    S C Y L E N T PvE DC Alt
    ScyLent Lux PvE OP Alt
    Unrepentantgaming.com
  • jharlisjharlis Member Posts: 1
    edited May 2015
    Hey guys,
    Thought I should pop in!

    For those who are praising our communication, thank you! For those who want more, how should we increase it? Is it just more developer presence you request?
    Information.
    State of the game.
    What you guys are working on: not statements like "we're working on stuff".
    Also, real feedback consideration, not just " we appreciate the feedback but we'll ignore it in the end".
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  • helpimblindinrlhelpimblindinrl Member Posts: 972 Arc User
    edited May 2015
    I really dislike the dev communication
    • Game problems

      There is a lot wrong with the game right now, the lag, the hoards, messed up powers and so on and so on. Its not hard for the devs to compile a list of what people think/know is broken and then say we intend for x in the future. We expect it to take y weeks/months to have this right. This doesn't happen. We get the update list weekly and anyone who looks in that thread knows how disappointed people posting there are about problems that don't even seem to be acknowledged not getting fixed. Like right now everyone is using or trying to get the lol artifact set. Its been balanced once so far but it still seems like it wildly overpowered and going to get nerfed. And still people dropping millions in rp and ad to level and buy them with concerns being expressed widely. Can you imagine how angry people are going to be when you nerf it again or how daft it would be to leave it the way it is. Now might be the time to at least say you are aware of concerns about it.

    • Future Changes

      Every mod we get large changes to classes no one asked for or wanted. No one wanted cw damage off the encounters and on to procs. No one wanted gwf damage to take the nosedive it did for so long. Certainly no one wanted destroyers to have to chase stacks like a Victorian beggar chasing crumbs.

      Now no one is going to say the devs aren't entitled to make the choices they want but it would be nice to get some perspective on the rationale from time to time to see that there is in fact one. At that point we can discuss the quality or lack thereof of the rationale and then separately its effectiveness. After the community should get a response to its response. I don't mean responding to posts from users. I mean look at the class change thread, count up the number of issues, rank the issues by number of posts about them and then make a response quoting only the people talking about them in a rational way. Obviously that can't go on forever and decisions are made but for a while its felt like things happen, we respond and then we wonder what happens next and why they did it. Some of that leads to paranoia about creating new op classes every mod to milk the clowns who chase easy mode.


      I could go on but what's the point. They only turn up to praise or to deliver wild changes.
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  • micky1p00micky1p00 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 3,594 Arc User
    edited May 2015
    diogene0 wrote: »
    Answering to major concerns without being too vague like "we're investigating". Like, dragon hoard enchantment not working as they used to. Dungeons now always requiring a key to open the chest, which is slowly killing dungeons and interest in the game for some people. Acknowledging that lag is being worked on, and stuff like that.

    It doesn't take hours to ask to the guy next to you in the office if a change is intended or not and then giving the answer the community is waiting. Ninja nerfs, when they're noticed, create disbelief and distrust, and I'm not convinced it's what you want from your players, so when some threads are a bit on fire, popping in, asking a question or two to the right people, and giving us a proper answer, would be useful communication, not just general noise and answering to extremely enthusiastic threads only.

    This and more, for example SoD (TR exe capstone) was changed to be single target and activated from encounters only, are both of those changes intended or this is some sort of code regression with the mod ?
    Just tell what it is, so people can respec or wait for a fix or do something else entirely. But this is not-here-not-there halfway unknown state add only to frustration levels.

    Also bug reports, people reporting the same bugs for years now, you can't fix them all, understandable, make a list of them and if they are reproducible, not a priority or any other states. Reporting bugs with no response doesn't motivate people to test.
  • kvetkvet Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 2,700 Arc User
    edited May 2015
    Hey guys,
    Thought I should pop in!

    For those who are praising our communication, thank you! For those who want more, how should we increase it? Is it just more developer presence you request?

    From a communications perspective, I think there's two problems here:

    1: There are problems with the game, both perceived and real, and the players don't feel like Cryptic is addressing them fast enough. This assumption may be unfounded, but without very clear, frequent and transparent outbound communications about what is being worked on and ETAs (with an emphasis on the "E" there), people will continue to feel nothing is being done even if it's not true. Allowing the weekly patch notes to be the sum-total of the communication isn't going to cut it, and likewise, assuming people pour through various threads across all the different forums will also not do. I suggest a weekly, if not more frequent, blog series that is NOT a marketing thing, bit is a straight up description of what the known issues are, and what progress has been made on getting those issues resolved, even if that answer is none or the ETA one some issues is 4 weeks away (I know you work in sprint cycles, so provided you guys use Agile correctly, you should be able to give at least a estimate on time for the stuff currently in sprint).

    2: The other problem is that players don't feel that Cryptic is really paying attention to them. This is likewise a huge problem... when changes are made more or less unilaterally, and new content and features are added that leave the general community saying things like "but... we told you months ago that we hate that sort of thing!!!" then you have real big problem on your hands: Players start hating your game. Look no further than Star Wars Galaxies to see what happens when a company makes changes without really ensuring the players want them - likewise, as shown in SWG, just because you have a super-IP behind your game, it's still not too big to fail if you alienate your players. My suggestion here is that you organize community round-tables. NOT ON THE FORUM and NOT PUBLIC. Rather, you come up with a way to pull in a number of representatives that are willing and able to discuss issues without resorting to ranting and name calling - if you let the entire thing be open to the public at the time of the discussion, it will be a completely waste of time for everyone involved. Then, you publish the transcripts of that discussion and allow the overall community to respond, then you take that feedback, formulate another group and do it again. Monthly. You can have different topics perhaps, one group talks about PvP, one group talks about Guilds, one group talks about Foundry, one about levelling, one about.. I don't know, boons or campaigns or whatever. Anyway, the point is, it doesn't have to be always about what players are angry about today... that's why I say such discussions should happen in closed session, so that you can moderate and direct the conversations and keep them relevant. Then, publish the entire conversation without edits (other than maybe censoring bad words) for the sake of transparency.


    The two of these issues are interrelated, but I think your problem boils down to differences in both your inbound and outbound communications strategies. Focus less are marketing and advertising, and more on actually letting us know what's going on with you, and finding out what's going on with us.
  • arakk00arakk00 Member Posts: 166 Arc User
    edited May 2015
    [Feedback@Strumslinger] I recently got a personal acknowledgement from you after sending in a PM with some concerns about the Scourge Warlock class. I'm really excited to have such an involved new CM! As far as ways you could do even better:
    -Create bi-weekly progress lists. On patch day, like Panderus did this last patch, tell us what you've been working on but not yet implemented! For the sake of clarity, specify that the changes may not make it into the next patch. As far as 'bi-weekly': Tell us on Sunday or Monday what you have pushed to testing so far, and what your current projects that may or may not be finished are. This way there's some margin for pleasant surprise, but no promises made.

    -The biggest, baddest issue with the 'player communication' is that devs and mods feel alien, especially since some of you are new. Dedicate a day and a dev- maybe anyone you have working on graphics, since it's mostly bug fixes and balance right now. Run a raffle for non-toxic players with some form of balance concerns each week, and send that person out to play (on a normal, unmodified account- blues and greens like most of us) with a party of 4 concerned players. It's enlightening to look at things from player perspective.

    -Give us CATEGORIZED priority lists. Not a 'flat order' that things will be done in- compile a real, candid list of known issues that you plan to work on. In this way, when something rolls up to the top of the list, you can solicit more targeted feedback from your more thoughtful players, and the ones feeling ignored can at least know that their concern has been acknowledged and is now 'on the list'. As a small, biased example, my list would look like this:

    Class Balance:
    Scourge Warlock: Buff the SW til' he can't feel his toes for all the dark majyks. Remove TT entirely.
    Oathbound Paladin: Dial back the temp HP slightly.
    Guardian Fighter: Raise/fix the value of Defense.
    Great Weapon Fighter: Add increased Deflect severity to the Sentinel capstone.
    CONTROL Wizards: Dial back Storm Spell a little. Distribute damage.

    Bugs:
    Restore TR stealth reveal. Permastealth is just a nuisance.
    Fix <unnamed exploits that we all know about>.

    Performance:
    Investigate and improve serverside performance. Rubberbanding sucks!

    Difficulty:
    Keep the current 'Epic' dungeons. Promote them to 'Legendary', and rework the 'lower' tiers to be drastically less difficult. The new 'epic' tier should be far less painful, so we can actually complete them in a reasonable (30-40 minute) time frame while we farm an excessive number of tokens for Epic gear.

    -Last but not least BY FAR- make red appear in threads, ESPECIALLY difficulty/class balance threads. Reward the non-toxic methods of concerns being raised by validating them. Or, if you feel the concerns are unfounded, engage in discussion. There's nothing like discussion when it comes to fostering a sense of being heard.
    A <Friendly Dragon>!
  • discoricediscorice Member Posts: 371 Arc User
    edited May 2015
    I'll put it like this: There's a lot of cool stuff I would love to spend money on - new bags, maybe a silly-looking crab mount, and a gob of AD to help get some of my enchants updated. It's not going to happen until I hear about progress with this mess. A weekly "State of the Game" post from a dev or someone on the design end would be lovely.
    Fear Of A Disco Planet
  • strumslingerstrumslinger Member, NW_CrypticDev, Cryptic Developer Posts: 1,724 Cryptic Developer
    edited May 2015
    Thanks for keeping the discussion respectful and on-point, everyone! Some really great stuff here; many of which I wholeheartedly agree on. As a communications team, we're always going back to the drawing board to make our players proud to play Neverwinter and you've given us plenty to work with. In the words of an idol of mine: with great power comes great responsibility. :D


    Call me Andy (or Strum, or Spider-Man)!
    Follow Neverwinter on Twitter: NeverwinterGame 
    Like Neverwinter on Facebook: Neverwinter

    Follow me on Twitter: StrumSlinger

  • xxmantaraxxxxmantaraxx Member Posts: 362 Arc User
    edited May 2015
    Some very good ideas have been presented. My two coppers are for more attention to the list of confirmed bugs with actual responses acknowledging them and at least a monthly state of the game post.

    Ara Atheanes GWF
    Traxus Atheanes GF
    Bastiel Atheanes DC
    Ellara Atheanes CW
    Keira Atheanes TR
    Sarasin Atheanes SW
    Jerkface McGee HR
    -MANTARA- OP

  • helpimblindinrlhelpimblindinrl Member Posts: 972 Arc User
    edited May 2015
    Some really great stuff here; many of which I wholeheartedly agree on.

    Could we get an idea of what that stuff might be? People said a lot of things. I presume with agreement there might be changes or is it more I kind of agree but that's how things are agree.
  • quspivquspiv Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,087 Arc User
    edited May 2015
    Hey guys,
    Thought I should pop in!

    For those who are praising our communication, thank you! For those who want more, how should we increase it? Is it just more developer presence you request?

    Make some kind of Q & A with community and let the Dev team answer the questions once a week on Twich or via forum threads. There's plenty of questions about itemization issues, class balance issues in pve & pvp, difficulty changes, proffesion changes, etc.


    Module 6 made the game very frustrating and difficult for new and casual players. Have you seen how broken the economy is because of all the gold sellers?
  • isaintify1isaintify1 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 414 Arc User
    edited May 2015
    I personally agree with some of the things people have said like discussion of whats going on in a weekly news post, about whats big, what is happening currently, if there are any bug fixes being worked on or going to be worked on (Great Weapon Fighter Tab not working 100% of the time). Even to see a weekly stream that is a hour long doing skirmishes, dungeon runs. I would not even care if there were give aways or not, just having a presence and a way to talk with you guys makes people plenty happier.
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