Bring us out of the dark! (Full Version)

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Remorse -> Bring us out of the dark! (2/11/2012 10:35:24)

As a frequent forum user I think this forums if very One sided.

Players are constantly on here making often well thought out sugestions constantly and it seems the only time you see someone in charge comment is if someone is doing something wrong.

Or if there is particular confusion on a topic.


The problem is not much communication is coming between the devs and the players and often forum staff wonder why players can be so rude and inconsiderate well I belive the bulk of the problem is a deep lacking of communication.


The little things would make SOO much diffrence.
The devs dont have to release what they are planning for next weeks release if they dont want to, nor do they have to make false promises.
But little things like perhaps what they think on a particular issue, or if its not possible to release that particular idea and why.
Often players agree togther and come up with good ideas but are only filled with frusteration and anger when they are only left to rot away, THERE could be a particular problem as to why something cant be done AND it would make a Major diffrnece if players werent contantly left thinking that we are getting nowhere with anything we say.

I have noticed that ashari is often expressing her opinions on topics and I think that is great but when you look at the balance DISCUSSION thread all you see is a bunch of players fighting between each other with almost no insights as to what is being planned for balance, if they dont want to provide false hope they could at least express were they stand on popular issues,
for example.
Are they going to continue to let this outrage of rediculous builds able to take anyone down effortlessly continue, or are they actuly making valuable ground on how to Improve the game to make it a Game of strategy and wits rather then a game of power and luck.

I am sometimes shocked by what players say and do sometimes including myself, (sometimes I say things I'm not proud of and I apologise for them)
And Im not pointing the blame finger here but I dont think it's inteirly the players fault.
To me this example explains how I feel,
ED is like a plane about to take off,
The player are th pasengers and the devs are the captains and the mods are the hostess.
The problem is the plane hasn't tacken off for hours and is just sitting there,
The passengers are asking why the plane is not taking off wanting a valuable reason and communication but nothing is said and all the hostess have to say is keep still and be patient.
Of coarse the longer the passengers have to wait the more angry they will get which will also leads to the hostess getting angry.

I just hope that there would be more comunication withing the froums so that players can get an understanding that the devs ARE aware of the popular issues rather us having to assume they actuly care about these issues then make ideas to solve them which are usally ignored.

I am aware that suegtions and ideas ARE read, but thats not going to ease players minds until there is a clear undertanding of how they plan on improving the game and what they think of particular issues.

Remorse Less.



ND Mallet -> RE: Bring us out of the dark! (2/11/2012 11:59:37)

The problem with telling us stuff is that some people take every post by a Dev to mean a promise even if they say "Not promising anything but we want to do this and we probably will unless something breaks and it won't work." Also, AE games in general don't have much communication as to what is being done for the game aside from the DNs or newsletters they send out. They don't tell us about suggestions they're going to implement because they don't want to make promises they may have to break and possibly hurt some feelings in the process. Would you like it if they said they would implement your ideas but later said they couldn't? You wouldn't be hurt but just disappointed. The few exceptions to the Devs posting about info would be the balance team members of a game. To tell the truth, if you compared our DNs to other AE games, you would often notice that we usually have a staff member like Cindy or Charfade posting directly and answering questions. I seldom ever see that in AQ if you don't count LB or any of the other KoO as actual staff(although LB does do some storyline stuff for AQ and is probably considered staff).

Edit: Most of our complaints seem to come from disgruntled members not venturing outside of EDGD and seeing how things are like in the other game communities(not allowing posts on balance threads, little staff communication).



Remorse -> RE: Bring us out of the dark! (2/11/2012 21:31:25)

^ All Im trying to say here is they should at least reconise the games problems to the players.


For all I know, They might think Builds like the blood mages 2 hit killer is actuly a fine and balanced build....

It would be nice if they expressed how they feel about what other players consider as problems.

For example whats there opinion on enahcments.....
A major rip off and balance ruining feature in my opinion but if they can't even see possible problems with iit then maybe players could accept that things arnt ever gonna change in these areas.





Ranloth -> RE: Bring us out of the dark! (2/12/2012 6:36:14)

Remorse, I'm on your side for that but about enhancements:
While they didn't tell us much about their changes, there is a big change planned to enhancements. I was told so on IRC but didn't find out what will be more exact change to them. Only because they don't speak with us about a problem doesn't mean they don't know it exists - they do read our posts on Forum.



Remorse -> RE: Bring us out of the dark! (2/12/2012 9:24:47)

^ Yes they may know they exist,

But they never provide us with info explaining that they are looking into solving these areas.

So on IRC they did thats great why cant they do it on the froums?

In many cases Players may consider certain areas major problems were as the devs may completely disagree.

It would be helpful if they made it clear what they dislike and like about how the game has come together so far, obviolsy things happen uncontrobly to them, or issues may be overlooked, so what are problems in there eyes.

Its good to know they think enahments are a problem,

But even still thats unclear, Do they think its just the pricing thats the problem?

I personally think its the fact its a necesity, it messes with balance, and the major prcing because its a necesity.
That makes this feature a problem.




Wraith -> RE: Bring us out of the dark! (2/12/2012 10:00:44)

@Trans: Which IRC? Shari's always AFK...and ignores me a decent amount when she isn't afk.

@Remorse: I agree. If we had mods and devs posting twice a day, aka 10 minutes of the time they value so highly, we wouldn't complain half as much.

+1



Ranloth -> RE: Bring us out of the dark! (2/12/2012 10:19:44)

AE IRC? And I was told my a normal forum member going on IRC, so information was out even before that. Don't take my word that specified information was given only on IRC.



ND Mallet -> RE: Bring us out of the dark! (2/12/2012 10:27:13)

The only changes to enhancements I'm aware of is that they're being standardized so they don't vary so widely from weapon to weapon of the same caliber(same cost, level, damage, stats).



Remorse -> RE: Bring us out of the dark! (2/12/2012 10:35:58)

^ See thats exactly my point.

now I know they obviosly arnt that enthusisatic about fixing the major price and balance problems enhacments cause.


Which is unfortunetley very disapointing news because I dont see in the long run this game getting far with this extreme cost and balance burden on its players.
And please dont start telling me you dont have to buy them...
Because they way non varium wepons are going if you didnt enahcnce your varium wepons you might aswell be a non varium....
Not to metnion that this game has a high depreciation rate for its wepons meaning varium wepons in about a year would often be alot weaker then a non varium wepon later on, which also means the cost of enahcments is alot higher because it has to be done reaosnably often at least once a year to not be considered weaker then a non varium.






Ashari -> RE: Bring us out of the dark! (2/12/2012 14:38:19)

quote:

I have noticed that ashari is often expressing her opinions on topics and I think that is great but when you look at the balance DISCUSSION thread all you see is a bunch of players fighting between each other with almost no insights as to what is being planned for balance, if they dont want to provide false hope they could at least express were they stand on popular issues
for example.
Are they going to continue to let this outrage of rediculous builds able to take anyone down effortlessly continue, or are they actuly making valuable ground on how to Improve the game to make it a Game of strategy and wits rather then a game of power and luck.

I try and leave some insight and information in the Balance thread whenever I can. However, a lot of the balance changes are up in the air until the very week that they are added. Sometimes it's because another problem has popped up since a balance change was planned, and other times it's just because we thought of a simpler way to fix a balance problem in the meanwhile or a technical limitation forced us to take a different approach.

Priorities also get shuffled around quite often. The balance tracker really showed how poorly Tech Mages and Mercenaries were performing, so those two classes got pushed up in front to be fixed up before we try to tackle any other sweeping changes to the TLM or CH classes. I could tell you the current balance improvements we have planned, but chances are high that a good part of those ideas will be changed by the time they can be implemented.

quote:

It would be nice if they expressed how they feel about what other players consider as problems.

I see the problems, and so does the rest of the staff. That doesn't mean they can be fixed any faster than we're currently going though. The same issues do get brought up often, so I can't go through each thread about a similar issue just to agree that there's a problem. Even if the other staff doesn't reply, they all read these forums and your thoughts do get heard. Don't feel that you're getting ignored, you certainly aren't. It's especially hard for the devs to take breaks from their busy work schedule to post regularly.

As for enhancements, I've hinted that scaling enhance prices by item level is a possibility for the future. Accessibility is a big problem for enhancements right now.


The IRC server everyone's talking about is the BattleOn IRC. It's at irc.caelestia.net and the big channels are #battleon (for all AE games), #yulgarsinn (random chat). There's also #epicduel for just ED chat. As far as I know, I'm the only EpicDuel staff member that uses it regularly, but you'll find a lot of the other games' staff there too. I try to mark myself away if I'm not available, but I do forget to sometimes. I'm not ignoring you if I don't answer you back, I'm just not there! There's a handy guide here if you need help getting on it.



.Nikzat. -> RE: Bring us out of the dark! (2/12/2012 17:45:21)

they dont care about us... they only care about the money they get from us thats all.



Remorse -> RE: Bring us out of the dark! (2/13/2012 6:24:35)

@ Ashari,

I may be wrong but I think that there is a connection between tech mages and mercenaries as a class that "struggles" and that they dont have an effective power build.

Mages do have the supercharge build and it's no suprise it by far the most popluar build they use because it is a decent powerbuild but in terms of effortlessness it's slightly less then the popular, BM,TLM and CH str builds.


Mercenaries used to have the killer STR stun zerk combo, BUT since there are so many OTHER powerbuild out there their stun zerk build pretty much has to start and stun to ensure a win.
Notice how when this build was popular, the only other popular power build was STR BH, one which back in the day mercs had a huge defence to defend agaisnt them and they were the only ones with this defence.

Having said all this I strongly belive that power builds (effortless using builds) need to be given more counters, NOT only will Mercs and tech mages be equalled to a degree alot more with the other classes but it leans the game to be more about strategy and wits.

What I means is I call power builds ANY build which forces the oppoenent to either play defecnsively and have very slim chances of equalling their damage output, OR copy them and try and kill them with enemce power before they kill you.

WHich means until these types of builds are made counterbale any new skill, and new class, any balance adjustments is likely to make this situtation worse and Luck involement higher.
For example the heartbrekaer bot, If you released this bot back in around beta/ early gamma this bot would be a great effective bot which had minimal effect of balance.
But because it was released now in a time when effortless power builds have the potential to beat all just means it ruins antoehr counter which could be used against them (sheilds).

You make counters for these builds and you may find classes competing at a much more even scale.


When I means counters I mean like perhaps a new feature like my meditiaon idea or, change the way rage works like goony sugested to make it less about dmagae dealt and more about dmaage tacken (note: Tanks still deal high dmagae so it wont ruin rage's purpose.)



As for problems are noted this is all well in good.

But even now Many issues in the devs eyes need slight changing but in my eyes need drastic emmidate changes.
For example Enahcments can scale with level that decereases the priced at lower levels BUT WOULD THAT EVEN BE GOOD? one of the great things about being a low levels is you dont need enahcments, if they are suddenly made affordable at these levels I think it will just end up ruining balance and forcing whackey prices.

SO perhaps enahcments need to be looked at changing its necesity?
Maybe it should be made so you dont actuly need it or in other words it will make no literal bonus.
For example my enhacments Idea is to amke it so it arrnges around the weposn stats not actuly give bonus ones.

Thanks for your time Remorse Less.



Sipping Cider -> RE: Bring us out of the dark! (2/13/2012 19:09:53)

This is funny for me because my teacher just gave a lesson on this in my bussiness class.

Always under promise and over perform

That is a flake of gold that any bussiness needs to use. It is always better to tell a customer something and do better rather than tell a customer many promises and not be able to follow through. Although this may seem to be bad for many of us, in the long run it is better for those who hate not getting what they take as promises.



Remorse -> RE: Bring us out of the dark! (2/14/2012 3:21:50)

^ I have also so done business coarse and I didnt say that they have to make false problems.

I merely think they should express their veiws on popular topics.

For example my simple understanding of the devs veiws are:

Enhcaments: Fine just need to be level scaled so all levels can use it.
My veiw: BAD should be made a an option not a necesity.

Balance: Areas of concern are mercenaries and tachmages underperforming.
My veiw: Area of concern is all effortlessy winning powerbuilds, and thus luck factors caused by this, then to a lesser extent the underpowered classes.

Pricing: Obviolsy fine if no attempts to change it has been happening.
My veiw: Extremely dere.


As You can see my understanding of what the devs opinions are are very minimal.
It leads to players feeling frusterated and angry if they dont even think major problems in the players eyes are a cause for concern.

Remorse Less.



Shadronica -> RE: Bring us out of the dark! (2/14/2012 15:58:44)

I understand what Remorse is saying ... its called validation.

Its like taking a faulty product back to the shop and having the shop attendant stare at you blank with their headphones on listening to music and chewing gum.

I agree that Ashari acknowledges and tries to answer. Other staff members could also do us the courtesy of acknowledgment. Nothing needs to be promised by them they just need to let us know that they hear us and that some time in the near future there will be plans to fix the problem.

Valid complaints deserve acknowledgment otherwise customers get ugly and angry.




Wraith -> RE: Bring us out of the dark! (2/14/2012 16:10:28)

And try making chatlocking two way.

Someone insults me.

I insult them back.

I get chat locked.

They don't.

LOLWUT.

Anyways, I wanna get out of the dark. I hear Ateala is a musty DF place.



Shadronica -> RE: Bring us out of the dark! (2/14/2012 16:31:45)

I missed out on acknowledeging Hudelf. He does try to listen to us and problem solve.



PD -> RE: Bring us out of the dark! (2/14/2012 17:01:16)

I sense major senseless indignance.

If I were a GM for this game I'd never want to look at this forum in the first place, more or less actually communicate with the players, for very good reasons.



Shadronica -> RE: Bring us out of the dark! (2/14/2012 17:54:31)

Please define major senseless indignance PD.

If you as a consumer find a fault with a product do you ....

1) Go into a rage and trash the item?

2) Return to the shop and explain what the fault is?

3) Get on the phone to the company that sold you the product and yell profanities?

I select option number 2. Mainly because I would like to give the company an opportunity to rectify the problem but also so that the company is aware that there might be an inherent problem with the product that can be referred back to the manufacturer.

However, if I find that the shop assistant couldn't give a damn about me or the product then that needs to be addressed too.

What I do find annoying with AE games is that there is very little recourse.

Lets face it ... the AE management team don't want to hear about EpicDuel balance issues as it is not their area of expertise. (I am not just talking about balance issues between the classes either I am talking about balance as an embodiment of EpicDuel).



Sipping Cider -> RE: Bring us out of the dark! (2/14/2012 18:32:22)

Now that I understand more of what Remorse (less?) is trying to say, I agree a lot more with what s/he has to say.

The Devs giving out their opinions on topics is something that should be and could be done. I understand that the devs are trying to look more professional, and be more professional, but that does not mean you do not connect with the customers. Most companies and corporations try to let customers know that they are getting lots of attention. Its customer service and it can make the difference in whether a customer chooses one product over another.

I do understand that maybe time is an issue with doing this for the staff, but as a priority it should be done often enough. Now, this is already done through the design notes as well as twitter and facebook! Of course, the more feedback and opinions we can get the better, but until more time or more staff is available I think the amount we get is good enough.

Titan, Nightwraith, Hudelf, and Charfade are the developers and should not have to talk directly with the customers, this way they can focus their time completely on improving the game. Cinderella and Moderators are the ones who deal directly with the public so to speak, and for now they are doing a good enough job considering anyone can PM them and talk to them. Plus, the design notes do tell us what is being planned and gives us some of the Devs opinions.

As for all these shop analogies, these are situations where there is enough staff for the customers to talk to. Right now I know that if I PM a few Moderators I will get a response usually within a few days, which is pretty good. However, as the game expands and more people play it, Epic Duel (or Artix Entertainment) may need to hire/recruit more moderators for the growing community.

For me, I think just being able to PM a mod whenever I want and knowing that all my posts get read is good enough reassurance for me that I am getting acknowledged. A response to each and every post would be ideal for me, but unrealistic for any company. Please remember that these are just my opinions on this matter, and not necessarily what actually goes on with the business.



PD -> RE: Bring us out of the dark! (2/14/2012 18:56:13)

Major senseless indignance = senseless anger. It's simply business. AE reserves the right to rip you off, as it is protected via right of private property as it sees fit. It's also your right to not do business with AE. AE's objective as a company is to get money, not serve players. Whether you believe it or not doesn't matter; It's the first rule of business.

You did read the T&S right? If you (or anyone did), none of this complaining should ever happen because you agreed to it.

Oh wait...



Lord Barrius -> RE: Bring us out of the dark! (2/14/2012 22:20:29)


quote:

ORIGINAL: The ND Mallet Guy

The problem with telling us stuff is that some people take every post by a Dev to mean a promise even if they say "Not promising anything but we want to do this and we probably will unless something breaks and it won't work." Also, AE games in general don't have much communication as to what is being done for the game aside from the DNs or newsletters they send out. They don't tell us about suggestions they're going to implement because they don't want to make promises they may have to break and possibly hurt some feelings in the process. Would you like it if they said they would implement your ideas but later said they couldn't? You wouldn't be hurt but just disappointed. The few exceptions to the Devs posting about info would be the balance team members of a game. To tell the truth, if you compared our DNs to other AE games, you would often notice that we usually have a staff member like Cindy or Charfade posting directly and answering questions. I seldom ever see that in AQ if you don't count LB or any of the other KoO as actual staff(although LB does do some storyline stuff for AQ and is probably considered staff).
Minor note: All of the KoO are actually considered full game staff for AQ, though none of us work out of the office and relatively few of us are compensated.

I would also note that you sort of answered your own statement as to why we at AQ do not make bold-faced statements very often. We have people who take any statement made as 100% fact and will run with those assumptions, which is why I'm always prefacing any suggestions I make in the AQGD with the words "THIS IS A SUGGESTION" in big-bold letters (not that it matters as someone's usually bound to assume it's fact anyways :p). I don't tend to make a lot of official statements on stuff for one of three reasons:
1) The idea is already in development but the knowledge of that cannot be revealed at that time;
2) The idea is workable but generally disagreed with;
3) The idea is well beyond the range of workable ideas, and to comment on the plausibility is akin to giving hope to an idea that isn't ever going to fly.

That said, though, I try to do my best to keep our players as informed as I'm able without getting into trouble. It's not technically my job but I consider it to be extremely important regardless, because I wouldn't be a very good game staff member if I weren't trying to keep our players engaged and involved in the development process of things.



Shadronica -> RE: Bring us out of the dark! (2/15/2012 2:28:43)

Its very nice to see your interaction on here Lord Barrius. I will admit that I was highly cautious of you when you took over the forums, but more and more I am starting to see that you do understand the plight of a gaming community of a relatively fledgling game.

I do understand that staff need to keep projects secret as I can see that ideas would probably change on a daily basis to accomodate coding or practicality.

I still feel it would be nice to see someone on staff say something like ... "we do understand that you are not happy with the "blah blah" system and we are currently workshopping ideas to fix the problem" or "we have been in consultation on the problem and still have not come up with a working solution but rest assured we hear you and are doing our best" or "We regret that we will not be able to introduce that feature but we have it noted and will look at it again at a later date".

Sometimes the news we receive is not entirely what we want to hear but if we are told in a short, sweet way like the above examples it shows that we have at least been heard.

Anyway I just thought to add my contribution to the melting pot as I feel that things get quite intense on our Epic Duel forum at times. [:)]



Remorse -> RE: Bring us out of the dark! (2/15/2012 3:49:53)

^ That is very true.


Most of the time when players get dispointed whether it be a delay or perhaps price rises through things like practically cumpulsary enahcments,
Nothing is said to the players often fair complaints.

And the more it's ignored the more "UNfair" the complaints become.

I dont know about the other forum mods, but I found the need for a serious Forum change action from players behaviour NOT a suprise at all, infact I was sort of waiting for it to happen.

THE ONE time I have ever seen a decent apology for a delay was ONCE by nigthwraith in the design notes.
Yes I was disapointed by the delay BUT this small glimpise of communication was easily enough to sooth my frusteration.

Often excuses dont cut it and rather an apology is what is needed.
And in the apology should be something along the lines of "we understand your disapointed..." "we reconise the issue..." "We will try to do better..."
To me most of the time there is something like a delay its always just a shift of blame then let it be forgotten.
There may be a "sorry" tossed around here and there but its sounds unsinsear if its not done in a proper apology.
That is all thats needed.
If you think about it reconising issues be seem to take away valuable time but if you think about it's effects it would likely to save time by reducing the number of complaints, and reducing the need to ban players for inapropriate behaviour, not only will you save time on this area but you may find is more satisfying knowing players arnt constantly getting banned for disapointemnt related anger.

Remorse Less.




RabbleFroth -> RE: Bring us out of the dark! (2/15/2012 19:19:41)

So I know I personally haven't been posting as much as I would like, but unfortunately many times it's better for me to put my time into development rather than into community interaction. That said, I will try to put in some time after each patch to answer any questions people might have about our reasons for doing certain changes.

As far as responding to specific things, here are the main reasons why I might not respond to a particular thread:
1) I can't make a reasonable contribution. This could be because I simply don't know enough about what is being discussed, it relates to something currently under wraps, or the thread clearly should be locked (Something I can't do).
2) Sometimes it's better NOT to post, because that will almost inevitably draw attention to what I say, rather than what other people were saying. Simply watching a discussion play out organically might be more useful to us than influencing the discussion with our own ideas. Not usually the case, but sometimes.
3) I prefer to make some meaningful contribution to the discussion rather than just "I agree" or "Good idea," but I can understand this might be more desirable than silence to you guys.
4) As some have said, the window of time where we know exactly what will be released at what time is *extremely small*, so posting about a feature we would like to do or are currently doing, etc, could very easily be misunderstood as a "Hey guys, this will be released this Friday." I would sometimes rather not say anything and keep it in mind that people are talking about something than disappoint a bunch of people when a feature doesn't come out when they think it will.



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