Issue with player feedback regarding "net neutral" xp changes

[Drachmor]

There was some developer comment about how players can provide useful feedback, not by complaining, but by actually providing a measured solution to their systems. This is nice and all, but it reads as a bit... well, it's frustrating, when they aren't being strictly forthright with us about their design intentions.

See, players can only comment on these changes with the information they have, as well as their own personal experience with the game. So when the developers claim the xp changes are in order to like... enforce a certain style of play, where players "should be spending their time killing monsters," it's really demoralizing. Because this isn't just some monster pathfinding lag issue anymore, or even an xp nerf, it's a comment on how this game should be played, and everyone is commenting how this change simply does not work. Quests are not designed well for this sort of change.

But then the developers come in and mention that the "speed of play" has increased so drastically since the lag fixes that such a hit to xp gain per minute is justified. Which is again... frustrating. One, because the speed of play thing is simply untrue; when the game hit unplayable lag spikes very often, yes, players couldn't really play the game. But it hasn't been like that for years now, and even then, it was a very situational thing. A weird thing to base the xp changes off, to be sure, seeing as they would result in an xp/min decrease that far exceeds any gain made over the past several years in terms of like, the occasional server stutter or whatever.

But moreso it's frustrating because it's like... okay, well, then IS your goal to reduce xp gain? Then just say that, instead of "here's a fix that's designed to fix gameplay + lag but not touch your xp, but it's okay that it does harm your xp and here's why." Plus if this IS an intentional xp adjustment, there are much better ways to do that than change the gameplay as much as the conquest shifts will, and you will actually get that feedback once you are more clear with your community.

If it literally just a monster pathfinding lag issue?

Well then please, please, can you be receptive to the fact that this monster-pathfinding-lag issue needs to not severely disrupt the way we play the game AND (far more worryingly, to me lmao) the speed at which we earn xp.

If you tell us what your actual objectives are, we can respond with far more grace and knowledge, but as it is you just have... an entire community responding negatively, and developers insisting this thing is going to be somehow healthy for the game. I just don't get it.

Players may be frustrated if they lose xp, yes, but even still we cannot provide any sort of feedback you would find "useful" while there is such an apparent disparity between your design intentions and the changes you are planning to implement. As it stands, players are very justified in pointing out that disparity. The biggest one is that this xp change is not "net neutral," not at all.

 

[DeathTitan]

I agree on everything you said, especially that I don't see any faster quest completion since they "fix" lag because lag is even worse than before (moved from server side lag to client side lag) and the game is pretty much all unplayable at high reaper: must learn how to jump for lag, there are situation when lag kills me because game freeze for several seconds which is deadly at R10 difficulty, I also died in hardcore at level 25 for a huge lag situation lasting 15 seconds at final boss of R1 reclaiming the rift where I couldn't do any action while mobs were hitting me to death.

 

[Titus Ovid]

The communication style from SSG is not an engaging one in general.
It is to inform and not to solve or develop a rapport or consensus. If it were there would be follow-up questions and clarifications.
And I doubt they even want that. They had plenty of time, chances, situations to improve the communication. They didn't.
Might as well put away the Dream Visor and see it how it is. It is a business and numbers and money and a min/max situation for them.
Which sucks for players that are passionate about their past time because it is not met with the same passion to create an overall good experience for all.

Sad story, right?!

Cheers,
Titus.

 

[Natashaelle]

If you tell us what your actual objectives are, we can respond with far more grace and knowledge, but as it is you just have... an entire community responding negatively, and developers insisting this thing is going to be somehow healthy for the game. I just don't get it.

That's what the Players Council is for.

The devs have one group of players that they engage with more actively, and then seek other more spontaneous feedback in Llama forums -- with exceptions when something can get proposed directly in here, bypassing the PC entirely.

 

[seph1roth5]

ndas make it so we never really know what, if anything, the players council does.

 

[Natashaelle]

ndas make it so we never really know what, if anything, the players council does.

The Players Council NDA is loose with some things, strict with others. You cannot discuss details of PC discussion threads outside the PC, but you can give some broad brushstroke impressions of what the PC is like -- in the old Mournlands program even that was impossible.

Of course I cannot speak as to nor for the current PC.

 

[seph1roth5]

I haven't heard anything about anything the player's council's done in years other than when the epic destinies were getting revamped, and we were told that there was a legendary tree system that had been proposed, so heroic 1-19, epic destinies 20-29, and legendary 30-40, but that the PC didn't like it so they scrapped it and that's why we got our EDs stretched out for 20 levels.

 

[Natashaelle]

I haven't heard anything about anything the player's council's done in years other than when the epic destinies were getting revamped, and we were told that there was a legendary tree system that had been proposed, so heroic 1-19, epic destinies 20-29, and legendary 30-40, but that the PC didn't like it so they scrapped it and that's why we got our EDs stretched out for 20 levels.

That was a rare instance where we talked outside of the PC -- but then the Devs did themselves made that point in the public forums first.
And it wasn't just that we didn't like it -- we pretty unanimously hated it.

Most of the stuff that gets killed or significantly changed at the PC level is never talked about in public. Minor detail tweaks and changes proposed by PC members even less so.

PC discussions are roughly similar to the current XP and DA changes threads -- except that they have a FAR better signal/noise ratio, and more active to-and-fro with the devs. The PC is not radically different from the Llama forums, and is mainly different in focus and continuity.

 

[YeeboF]

But moreso it's frustrating because it's like... okay, well, then IS your goal to reduce xp gain? Then just say that, instead of "here's a fix that's designed to fix gameplay + lag but not touch your xp, but it's okay that it does harm your xp and here's why." Plus if this IS an intentional xp adjustment, there are much better ways to do that than change the gameplay as much as the conquest shifts will, and you will actually get that feedback once you are more clear with your community.

Players may be frustrated if they lose xp, yes, but even still we cannot provide any sort of feedback you would find "useful" while there is such an apparent disparity between your design intentions and the changes you are planning to implement. As it stands, players are very justified in pointing out that disparity. The biggest one is that this xp change is not "net neutral," not at all.

Really this. Why does the XP need to be nerfed? Are the most hardcore players gunning through new lives they put up too quickly? If so, why is that a problem per se, and why does the "fix" need to apply equally to every single player and not just the minuscule proportion of players at the high end (e.g., 100+ lives)?

Just in general, this team has a worse problem with poorly targeted nerfs than those leading any other MMO I have followed. The nerfs are always too extreme and come with too much collateral damage. The worst of it is that they tend to affect casual players and players of off target playstyles much more than the target.

For example, this won't impact super hardcores much at all. They will still clear content way Way faster than the devs can generate it, and stop spending money while they wait for more (I assume something like this is the real issue). In the mean time, the majority of players will likely never even clear the ten or so lives they need to get to "par" for a given playstyle in PUGs. Nerfing all the optional XP in the game because a small handful of players were abusing two or three specific quests, and nerfing the multi-target damage of every single martial ranged build in the game (supposedly to reign in one tree) are other recent examples that come to mind.

Being largely disingenuous about the reasons for changes on top of it is likely what most erodes the relationship between the devs and the player base. Yes, I know trying to sell an unpopular change sucks. But communicating that you think we are all so mentally limited as to not see the disconnect between the stated goals and the actual effects is so much worse. It's not just annoying, it's insulting.

 

[Drachmor]

Really this. Why does the XP need to be nerfed? Are the most hardcore players gunning through new lives they put up too quickly? If so, why is that a problem per se, and why does the "fix" need to apply equally to every single player and not just the minuscule proportion of players at the high end (e.g., 100+ lives)?

Just in general, this team has a worse problem with poorly targeted nerfs than those leading any other MMO I have followed. The nerfs are always too extreme and come with too much collateral damage. The worst of it is that they tend to affect casual players and players of off target playstyles much more than the target.

For example, this won't impact super hardcores much at all. They will still clear content way Way faster than the devs can generate it, and stop spending money while they wait for more (I assume something like this is the real issue). In the mean time, the majority of players will likely never even clear the ten or so lives they need to get to "par" for a given playstyle in PUGs. Nerfing all the optional XP in the game because a small handful of players were abusing two or three specific quests, and nerfing the multi-target damage of every single martial ranged build in the game (supposedly to reign in one tree) are other recent examples that come to mind.

Being largely disingenuous about the reasons for changes on top of it is likely what most erodes the relationship between the devs and the player base. Yes, I know trying to sell an unpopular change sucks. But communicating that you think we are all so mentally limited as to not see the disconnect between the stated goals and the actual effects is so much worse. It's not just annoying, it's insulting.

All really great examples. Yeah, for some reason nerfs / adjustments seem to be a lot more careless than some of the things devs clearly put so so much thought into. It's like, they'll fine-tune the power of some new enhancement tree, slowly adding power here and there and then just... *PFFSTBH* woah! ALL casters? Really? All ranged... woah. And usually it is in response to some really situational things, like - a hardcore season (which we know is, among other things, a theater for these kinds of balancing adjustments. Which I kinda sorta don't have an issue with on its own? But like. Way more care needs to be applied)

I mean tbh they usually do actually end up with something well-balanced, like, EVENTUALLY. Years and updates down the line. But the xp changes are another instance where it's like WOAH, WHAT!! That will single-handedly change progression more than any one update in DDO's history? Can we make like. Baby adjustments instead? Or just, not do that? lol.

I mean really. If players are bursting past the enemies in a certain quest that really should be stopping them, I really do like the Dungeon Alert changes. Make it harder to do that, fine. But the amount of quests that I beat completely normally that I didn't even end up hitting the first slayer bonus is just ***unreal*** for this kinda change, because it suggests I should literally just be doing quests... differently than the way I choose to? Seek out enemies I don't need to kill? And I don't like that, that isn't very dnd of them tbh.

The first version of the proposed changes really did not seem to seem come from the perspective of an actual player of their game. I heard they've updated it a lil' bit, but still it is fundamentally misguided imo.

 

[somenewnoob]

Sometimes the correct feedback IS "Put this idea in a fire to die a painful fiery death"