Rebalancing of Development Priorities

[Cyr]

Well there is a new sheriff in town named Warner Brothers. With this new management will likely come a re-evaluation of development priorities. This is something the player base has spoken about a huge amount as things which players have been asking for are ignored and apparently random choices are made in what gets done first.

So it seems this is the right time to spell out some bases suggestions in this regard:

1) Bugs are okay if they are minor in a new release. If they exist for three years people start to think someone is incompetent though. Big bugs in new releases also are disasters for player base morale. Things like epic tokens disappearing and dungeons occasionally not being able to be completed are considered to be HUGE deals to players. The same goes for things like raid bosses who freeze up when you do something. This ruins new content. So a much bigger emphasis must be put upon having a quality product released. People have to be held responsible for this.

2) Class/Race Enhancements are a huge priority for the player base. They want quality PrE's delivered in a timely manner (not the many year release schedule currently proposed). The recent PrE released was a disaster and largely hated by the player base. Players want the PrE's to all come out soon, because their inherent power can and does lead to class imbalances if one class gets one and another does not for two years.

3) New top level content that is appropriately challenging. Epic quests are rehashed old content. Players are not dumb. They also know that IQ and DD were way too easy for their level. Players expected more stuff like Amarath. Tough, but not as tough as epic. Also important is the glaring lack of any new raids since EU released.

4) Grind != fun. Grinds are important in MMO's to extend the lifetime of the content. However, they are most valuable when they only apply to top level content. This is due to that content still posing a challenge of some sort and such the possibility of some fun instead of mind numbing boredom. DDO has screwed this up pretty badly of late however. DDO top level raids requiring some grinding to get your loot is good game design...many players still have fun doing these raids after dozens or even hundreds of times. DDO grinding for TR's however not so smart as it increases the grind to level, but all the while your toon is stronger then before so leveling is not more challenging just much longer. So, as content stops becoming top end content the grind factor associated with it should be reduced. This of course means that the TR xp factors are not desirable. Keep the grind on the top end.

5) New low and mid level content is not a priority. There is a huge amount of this content currently compared to high level leveling content.

6) Changes to basic game dynamics should not be considered unless they are critical to the success of the game and are extremely targeted to solve an issue. Failures of this sort of late include things like Dungeon Scaling and grazing hits. One tried solving 'lag' by adding a behavior modification to players so they would not do things which increased server lag. It would be similar to the developers changing raids to not drop any loot to decrease damage per second lag. The other tried to address the AC issue by punishing one type of build over others. In reality it did nothing for the AC issue as the true AC issue is that characters easily fall off the dice (the phenomena where no matter what is rolled on the d20 besides an automatic hit or miss does not matter on an enemies to hit).

7) Loot concerns. Players for many years have complained rightly that the loot seems to be designed by people who do not play the game at the levels they are designing the loot for. Useless raid loot is common. Useless epic items are equally as common. The loot dynamic for Reaver's Refuge is widely hated as being a slot machine while the previous release had a greatly loved mechanic in GS crafting which was ignored for refuge. Loot needs a couple of developers who really know the ins and outs of top level play working on it.

[Gunga]

I disagree with the first paragraph. I don't have the patience to read further.

The more I read threads from Forum goers about how badly they think Turbine manages this franchise, the more I think Turbine is doing a pretty **** good job.

Let's face it...if we were good at prioritizing things we would be doing ANYTHING else right now.

When Turbine messes up, they handle it really, really well. When my Cable company messes up, or my insurance company makes a mistake I HAVE TO TRACK DOWN MY MONEY WITH MULTIPLE ANNOYING LETTERS AND PHONE CALLS.

With these guys, I log in one day to find Epic Tokens replaced. Sweet deal. I get 20% XP weeks because they goofed. Awesome.

The game is better than ever. I hope it continues on it's current fruitful course.

/not signed in the least bit

EDIT: 2-5 might be gems. I came into this thread with a good attitude and wanted to read what Cyr had to say. Couldn't get past the first waa. Sorry.

[Aspenor]

Sorry.

And this thread will go down in history. :D:eek:

[Gunga]

And this thread will go down in history. :D:eek:

When you record the events as the Great Apology of 2010 unfolded before your very eyes, please make mention that I apologized before Cyr smote me with another neg rep, not after.

You, of all people, would not lessen yourself to such sinistry as to besmirch my good name.

[Aspenor]

When you record the events as the Great Apology of 2010 unfolded before your very eyes, please make mention that I apologized before Cyr smote me with another neg rep, not after.

You, of all people, would not lessen yourself to such sinistry as to besmirch my good name.

I agree with most of what you said, so of course not. Overall I'm pretty happy with Turbine. I do have my criticisms, but nothing so extreme that I'd use the word "incompetent."

I will say that my vision for the game does not always match Turbine's, but that's okay by me.

PS - since I felt your post #2 was well-put, you should be coming out ahead now

[Bogenbroom]

Well there is a new sheriff in town named Warner Brothers. With this new management will likely come a re-evaluation of development priorities. This is something the player base has spoken about a huge amount as things which players have been asking for are ignored and apparently random choices are made in what gets done first.

So it seems this is the right time to spell out some bases suggestions in this regard:

Cyr, for starters, the tone of this sucks. Second, do not, for 1 second, consider what you have listed below as the will of the masses. There are portions of the population that agree, but, in every case, portions of the pop that disagree as well.



1) Bugs are okay if they are minor in a new release. If they exist for three years people start to think someone is incompetent though. Big bugs in new releases also are disasters for player base morale. Things like epic tokens disappearing and dungeons occasionally not being able to be completed are considered to be HUGE deals to players. The same goes for things like raid bosses who freeze up when you do something. This ruins new content. So a much bigger emphasis must be put upon having a quality product released. People have to be held responsible for this.

My impression has always been they deal with what is important in a timely manner. What is *most* important is that exploitative bugs are handled. Annoyance bugs are a *significantly* lower priority. Anything that allows players excess for a brief period, especially if it is a small portion of the pop, needs to be dealt with first for overall balance reasons. Lingering annoyances are so much less important.



2) Class/Race Enhancements are a huge priority for the player base. They want quality PrE's delivered in a timely manner (not the many year release schedule currently proposed). The recent PrE released was a disaster and largely hated by the player base. Players want the PrE's to all come out soon, because their inherent power can and does lead to class imbalances if one class gets one and another does not for two years.

No, they are not. They are something that is of interest and appreciated, but are absolutely not *important* in any way, shape, or form. They are flavor. Flavor is good, but is not a priority over other flavor.



3) New top level content that is appropriately challenging. Epic quests are rehashed old content. Players are not dumb. They also know that IQ and DD were way too easy for their level. Players expected more stuff like Amarath. Tough, but not as tough as epic. Also important is the glaring lack of any new raids since EU released.

On the other hand, Amrath content was widely bashed for the severe melee focus of the whole thing. Although, I would, at least, agree that another release of tougher high end content is due. I would not, however, say that there was anything wrong with releasing "easier" content in IQ/DD.

Regarding raids... there is a substantial portion of the population that dislikes raids. This game works much better on a 6 man scale. 90% of the bad experiences I've had in this game have been in raids and that is because there are too many people, creating more personality conflicts.

The inclusion of 6 man end quests in the less-tough quests (IQ/DD) is the perfect place for them. Int eh tougher quest lines, continue with raids, as some folks like them, but for years we had raids shoved down our throat as the only way to get gear to keep your guys competitive. The game became a process of shuffling different guys through raids to avoid timer and little else.




4) Grind != fun. Grinds are important in MMO's to extend the lifetime of the content. However, they are most valuable when they only apply to top level content. This is due to that content still posing a challenge of some sort and such the possibility of some fun instead of mind numbing boredom. DDO has screwed this up pretty badly of late however. DDO top level raids requiring some grinding to get your loot is good game design...many players still have fun doing these raids after dozens or even hundreds of times. DDO grinding for TR's however not so smart as it increases the grind to level, but all the while your toon is stronger then before so leveling is not more challenging just much longer. So, as content stops becoming top end content the grind factor associated with it should be reduced. This of course means that the TR xp factors are not desirable. Keep the grind on the top end.


5) New low and mid level content is not a priority. There is a huge amount of this content currently compared to high level leveling content.

Extremely dissent. New content at all levels is always a priority. Not everyone is focused solely on endgame. yes, *more* content should be developed in level ranges where the content is thinner, sure... but you just finished complaining about the monotony of grinding XP. With TR, now more than ever, players are re-experiencing lower level content and many are not just concerned with leveling back to 20.



6) Changes to basic game dynamics should not be considered unless they are critical to the success of the game and are extremely targeted to solve an issue. Failures of this sort of late include things like Dungeon Scaling and grazing hits. One tried solving 'lag' by adding a behavior modification to players so they would not do things which increased server lag. It would be similar to the developers changing raids to not drop any loot to decrease damage per second lag. The other tried to address the AC issue by punishing one type of build over others. In reality it did nothing for the AC issue as the true AC issue is that characters easily fall off the dice (the phenomena where no matter what is rolled on the d20 besides an automatic hit or miss does not matter on an enemies to hit).

I think you mean Dungeon Alert, and not Dungeon Scaling. If so, "boooo!" DA was put in expressly to help with lag and lag has dropped dramatically since it was introduced. Lag was the #1 non-content issue in this game for a LONG time. They found a way to address it and it has helped. DA is, by no means perfect and still needs tweaking, especially in some areas, but it has helped.

Grazing hits have had absolutely no impact as far as I have seen. And they let less than optimal players do *something* rather than nothing.

Dungeon Scaling is purely to improve short manning. Not my favorite design mech, but it certainly performed its function and it has helped make the game playable for a large influx of players since the f2p wall fell.



7) Loot concerns. Players for many years have complained rightly that the loot seems to be designed by people who do not play the game at the levels they are designing the loot for. Useless raid loot is common. Useless epic items are equally as common. The loot dynamic for Reaver's Refuge is widely hated as being a slot machine while the previous release had a greatly loved mechanic in GS crafting which was ignored for refuge. Loot needs a couple of developers who really know the ins and outs of top level play working on it.


See, this is the bit that really got to me. the GS crafting mechanic screwed this game up so badly that it has never been able to recover. Sure, many folks loved it because it let you make vastly over-powered items with just the commitment of time. GS has so damaged the value of all other loot in this game that, by all rights, it should be removed. It never would be, because of the outcry, but it should be.

The RR loot dynamic is much friendlier to the non-power-gamer as you get something that *might* be powerful after running one circuit. It is not friendly to the power-gamer in that it is not a steady progression to customization. And customized powerful content is *bad* for the game. It devalues everything else.

Your entire argument on this point is asking for monty-haul loot.

I don't like to bicker, but your points here are very myopic and the tone is just abysmal.

[Gunga]

I agree with most of what you said, so of course not. Overall I'm pretty happy with Turbine. I do have my criticisms, but nothing so extreme that I'd use the word "incompetent."

I will say that my vision for the game does not always match Turbine's, but that's okay by me.

PS - since I felt your post #2 was well-put, you should be coming out ahead now

I just felt a tingle. Did you feel that?

EDIT::: Bogen, nice breakdown. Now I'm out of here to stop bumpin this thang.

[sigtrent]

I think its likely fantasy to think that Warner Brothers cares one whit about the development priorities of DDO or is likely to direct any changes with an eye to pleasing fans of the game. Its a strategic acquisition to make them a big player in the game market. They likely entrust individual game development to the developers they have acquired.

[AestorTheKnight]

I think its likely fantasy to think that Warner Brothers cares one whit about the development priorities of DDO or is likely to direct any changes with an eye to pleasing fans of the game. Its a strategic acquisition to make them a big player in the game market. They likely entrust individual game development to the developers they have acquired.

This is most probably true. :)

However, I do think now (Now is always the time to act.) is a good time to re-evaluate some of Turbines Development Priorities. Turbine have made some development decisions I really have not liked and have made me consider quitting DDO. I shall now list them.

1. True Reincarnation for 20 Epic Dungeon Tokens. But Epic Quests are hugely boring because all the mobs are supped up, which leads to very boring play tactics, such as stand on top of a high wall and Firewall them. Because Epic is soooo boring for me personally, I am then forced to spend Turbine Points on True Re-incarnation to avoid the Epic Grind. To be forced with the Choice of a) Spending many many hours engaged in hella-boring gameplay, or b) Spending real life money, in addition to my Monthly Sub, in order to gain access to True Reincarnation is a very very lame choice.

This is in my oppinion a design decision to make Players spend money in the DDO Store. NOT a way to make DDO more fun. And that seriously sucks, and actually makes me quite angry. These ruthless capitalist design decisions that capitalise on the players love for the game without making the game any better, are wrong and need to be re-evaluated.

2. Adding Bunny Hats to the DDO Store when the players have been crying out for years for Appearance Customisation, just adds insult to injury. And from the very few people I have seen wearing Bunny hats, I doubt it provided a great deal of revenue anyways. A waste of development time.

And the fact that when Turbine finally do add Cosmetic Items to DDO they are gonna expect us to pay for it, once again with Turbine Points, which taking into consideration the TP's already spent on True Re-incarnation is gonna mean spending extra real life money on TP's is just completely unnacceptable. The more I think about this the more anrgy I become with Turbine that they think they can milk their customers for every last penny to pay for Features that should be included as part of a Monthly Sub. Not acceptable.

3. Dumbing down some quests. Jungle of Khyber - VON 3 has always been one of my favourite quests. I was utterly dissapointed to find 6 of the Beholders in the Beholder jungle removed. For years that quest had challenged players to advance their gameplay and use their head to find a way to defeat 9, yes nine Beholders! Now it takes 30 seconds to kill all 3, yes 3 oh maybe 4 Beholders. Not a challenge anymore.

Another example of how Turbine treats its players like noobs, along with expecting them to spend their hard earned real life money on Bunny Hats.

4. WE do seriously need more high level content. Not Epic Re-hash / Boring Grind (As opposed to fun Grind, sort of IE Shroud.)

5. Introducing Favoured Souls instead of adding Cleric PrE's was a cop out. Favoured Souls are way overpowered and make the game too easy.

Yes, I have level 20 Favoured Soul, yes I enjoy playing him. Is he totally overpowered and unbalanced with the rest of the classes? Yes!

So along with dumbing down and making the content easier, and adding new classes / PrE's that are overpowered has made DDO less of a challenge than it used to be. And thats not a good thing imo.

6. Of course DDO has to make Money. And I am not opposed to the Store. What I am opposed to is making design decisions based solely on trying to milk the customers via the store.

Design decisions made to make DDO a better game will naturally increase revenue, instead of exploiting the customer.

So.... I mainly agree with Cyr. I can understand his tone, because he feels the same as I do. That Turbine are in some ways taking DDO in the wrong direction, and not listening enough to their dedicated player base, many of whom, including myself, have been playing for years now. It would be nice if Turbine made design decisons taking into consideration the needs of not only new players, but older more seasoned ones too.

Are Turbine doing good over all in the development of DDO? Maybe yes. Do I think Turbine could do better. Definitely yes. Are they making some design decisions that really suck. Sorry, im afraid they are.

[Deathseeker]

I think its likely fantasy to think that Warner Brothers cares one whit about the development priorities of DDO or is likely to direct any changes with an eye to pleasing fans of the game. Its a strategic acquisition to make them a big player in the game market. They likely entrust individual game development to the developers they have acquired.

This. All of these posts suggesting that due to the WB acquisition things will suddenly be changing are likely very off base. WB had an equity position in Turbine already. It's very unlikely they'll suddenly change anything in the weeds. It's much more likely this was a financial play and to secure IP rights on certain things (like LOTRO).

While I like your enthusiasm to think that this acquisition will change priority on something like bug fixes or bringing back the WDA, I think you are putting too much stock in the acquisition (pun intended).

[AestorTheKnight]

I think you are putting too much stock in the acquisition (pun intended).

Nicely put :) lol

[Deathseeker]

LOL...seeing Cyr's post and Bogen's detailed response makes me feel sorry for game developers. Good luck reconciling those two viewpoints. Both are likely very heart felt views, and yet are quite polar opposite. Not sure how one "prioritizes" for the masses. Good luck with that one!

I personally tend to lean more toward Bogen's views here. But that being said, I know a ton of people I play with that would agree much more with Cyr so I wouldn't even pretend to know which way the "masses" lean.

[Cyr]

Bogen,

Thank you for telling me you don't like people complaining. I know that some have this viewpoint. My viewpoint is that if you want change speaking honestly about things is the most effective way of achieving it. Your points point towards a much more casual player, you dislike raids, think PrE's are flavor, and think that lag has been fixed. There is nothing wrong with your opinions, but they come from a different game perspective. These were my suggestions and are representitive of the players I play with on a daily basis. They are not meant as a blanket statement of all players think this. I would state some are a minority view while some are majority views, such as Reaver Refuge crafting being a mess and shroud being super popular partially due to it's crating mechanic (you don't like raids so of course you don't like shroud crafting...). And yes I meant Dungeon Alert and not Scaling. I have lots of issues with dungeon scaling, but they are not related to my thoughts about DA.

[Cyr]

I think its likely fantasy to think that Warner Brothers cares one whit about the development priorities of DDO or is likely to direct any changes with an eye to pleasing fans of the game. Its a strategic acquisition to make them a big player in the game market. They likely entrust individual game development to the developers they have acquired.

I am guessing you are right about this. However, if ever there was a likely time for a major change to occur here this is it.

[azrael4h]

This is most probably true. :)
4. WE do seriously need more high level content. Not Epic Re-hash / Boring Grind (As opposed to fun Grind, sort of IE Shroud.)

Speaking from experience in developing my own game, 'content', speaking of dungeons and quests, is one of the hardest and longest things to develop. Especially given that the bulk of the mechanics are adapted DnD3.5/D20 rules (and thus don't need a lot of the initial designing).

I have spent two weeks writing scripts for a single tomb in my game. A single player RPG with some 50 locations, and 75 maps, and it's been two weeks of writing for one map.

And I'm not even implementing it yet, just designing it. Once implemented, I'll have to test, retest, and test again.

Finally, it's not comparable because I'm working on a 2D game. Old school, Wizardry 7/World of Xeen style game. Turbine also has to ensure players can't break a quest with a natural 40 to Jump, + 30 from a jump spell. They have to record DM voice overs. Then they have to test it, retest it, and test it some more. Only to find out upon release than they didn't take 100 out of 10 billion factors into account, and some player or another found an exploit or a bug. All because 3D adds elements that an abstracted 2D system does not.




5. Introducing Favoured Souls instead of adding Cleric PrE's was a cop out. Favoured Souls are way overpowered and make the game too easy.

So along with dumbing down and making the content easier, and adding new classes / PrE's that are overpowered has made DDO less of a challenge than it used to be. And thats not a good thing imo.

Favored Souls cost to play. Either you have to pay money, or grind your butt off for them. Don't like them, think they make it too easy, don't play them. I have one, and I still play my "gimped" Cleric. Who never runs out of SP because I know how to play that "gimped" Cleric to best effect. In fact, I rarely have to shrine when soloing, except to refresh a Detect Secret Doors clickie. Once I get a few of those, I won't have to.

Furthermore, it probably would have been easier to add PrE's to Cleric. Even though much of the FvS enhancements are lifted from Cleric's enhancements.

Yeah, Turbine has made design decisions that suck. So do every other developer, no matter what game. WB owning them won't change that. Especially since which decisions suck is largely subjective to each player's tastes. I hate not having a Druid, or having a Quarterstaff treated as a double weapon like it should. I hate a quest where you have to let a terrain feature send you flying to get through it, and that feature is bugged so you end up flying to a wall, and falling several floors and having to start "Super Mario DDO" over again.

But, I like DDO enough to ignore those failings, and keep playing. I just won't run that quest, and I'll either suffer through a unnecessarily gimped Qstaff, or use something that isn't. I'll play a Cleric instead of my Druid until I get a Druid, or DDO collapses and I move on to something else.

[Tymoriel_Ayreweaver]

4) Grind != fun. Grinds are important in MMO's to extend the lifetime of the content. However, they are most valuable when they only apply to top level content. This is due to that content still posing a challenge of some sort and such the possibility of some fun instead of mind numbing boredom. DDO has screwed this up pretty badly of late however. DDO top level raids requiring some grinding to get your loot is good game design...many players still have fun doing these raids after dozens or even hundreds of times. DDO grinding for TR's however not so smart as it increases the grind to level, but all the while your toon is stronger then before so leveling is not more challenging just much longer. So, as content stops becoming top end content the grind factor associated with it should be reduced. This of course means that the TR xp factors are not desirable. Keep the grind on the top end.


Someone needs to explain to me exactly how grinding = fun. I do grind because I realize that it is necessary for the best equipment.... I, however, have never found it "fun."

[Gunga]

someone Needs To Explain To Me Exactly How Grinding = Fun. I Do Grind Because I Realize That It Is Necessary For The Best Equipment.... I, However, Have Never Found It "fun."

!= != =

[azrael4h]

!= != =

Well now you're just going to confuse us all to heck. ;)

[Daliyn]

!= != =

!= = <> = ≠ = "not equal"

:)

[Xeraphim]

1) So long as the problems are livable, or it's localized to 1-3 total quests/raids, not a big deal.

2) I want PrEs better balanced. Example: "Tempest I reduced to 5% attack speed bonus, Tempest II now applies the full 10%, Tempest III unchanged" This removes the ranger6/whatever build incentive and the resultant pure build hate from certain sectors of the playerbase, and makes more sense to some players. Else, I do enjoy PrEs.

3) For Powergamers and well geared characters, Hardcore options are indeed a must. For everyone else, Amrath is a scourge to their gear and plat, and IQ(Dreamforge) is barely completable. I've had the pleasure of grouping with both player types, and can speak from experience there. Making it harder for everyone is not the solution. Making it harder for gear CR scaling reasons IS the solution.

4) The grind lately has many of the older players leaving, and the old ones that come back to chat about the game's latest condition have on occasion simply left again after hearing about the grind. Grind will not save this game. Grind certainly lines Turbine's pockets from the Powergamer crowd, but as far as userbase goes, doing a quest 60 times for 1 item is not at all pleasant. If you enjooy the quest, however, you will repeat it quite a lot regardless of loot(I feel this way about VoD and VoN - I will give my loot away just to run the quest, even on Epic).

5) Level 14-18 is the new "dead zone" for some players. We desperately need XP-intensive content for this range. I'd like some more content for levels 10-13, but it's lower on the priority list than those aforementioned levels.

6) Multiple addresses:


Surprise changes to decrease exploiting are expected, but changes of a malign general nature to discourage certain exploits are unwelcome and received by the userbase as hostile on the part of the DDO Devs.
The AC problem is a basic design flaw in Dungeons and Dragons itself. This appears deliberate.
Dungeon Scaling is a means to force players to kill everything, regardless their intention. It is critically damaging to Rogues soloing without Radiance, Sirocco or other debilitating effects of indentical result. The Sneak Rogue was brutally murdered by Dungeon Alert and the respective AI changes.
Grazing Hits are a minor solution to the AC/Exploit problem. The major problem still exists and calls for a fundamental game design change. As for the build which was designed to extort the game's multiclassing mechanic, punishing the players that deliberately extorted this flaw seems fully within reason.

7) Stealer of Souls was a real flop for the reason that it IS a damned slot machine. RR is one of the precursor grind areas that has caused a minor exodus of late of the older and less performance-driven players.


Addendum: Turbine is progressively alienating its more honorable and lovable players by rewarding the performance driven players who literally gauge a person's worth on their character's ability to perform, and treat them accordingly, while at the same time pulling the gear gap away from those who genuinely contribute to community health in-game. Any simpleton can see that this is a very bad business move. The game model as is seems nearly beyond salvation or repair, but may yet have a solution in sight.

Epic Gear needs a purpose. A Hardcore Server(VIP Only) is therefore proposed for the metagamers who devalue(often ridicule) or validate our members solely based on their MyDDO page. Beta Quests could be released early onto this server, with a small [Beta] next to their designation to inform, in case the powergamers would like to test the new stuff on the hardcore server before it is finalized.

Cosmetics are important to quite a number of players, particularly on armor. These are the casual gamers who just like to goof around every now and then. I personally got a goofy hat overlay for my Monk, just for the purpose of changing his otherwise static appearance. I would also personally purchase outfit alterations for his Dragontouched Robe, such as a Sailor Moon overlay or something else silly. The players of note have talked at length about wanting our cloaks to have graphics, gloves, boots, and other minor accessories as well. This needs to be delegated to a small team for continuous updates in the near future on a regular basis.

[Failedlegend]

Gonna shorten Cyr's post a bit


With WB Taking over its good time to look at some problems

So it seems this is the right time to spell out some bases suggestions in this regard:

1) Current Bugs need to be fixed ASAP theres too many quests that cant be finished or loot that decides not to drop not to mention the long list of skills that dont work right.

2) Class/Race Enhancements are a huge priority for the player base. They want quality PrE's delivered in a timely manner (not the many year release schedule currently proposed). The recent PrE released was a disaster and largely hated by the player base.

3) New top level content that is appropriately challenging. Epic quests are rehashed old content. Players are not dumb.

4) Grind = fun. Keep the grind on the top end.

5) New low and mid level content is not a priority. There is a huge amount of this content currently compared to high level leveling content.

6) Changes to basic game dynamics should not be considered unless they are critical to the success of the game and are extremely targeted to solve an issue. Failures of this sort of late include things like Dungeon Scaling and grazing hits. One tried solving 'lag' by adding a behavior modification to players so they would not do things which increased server lag. It would be similar to the developers changing raids to not drop any loot to decrease damage per second lag. The other tried to address the AC issue by punishing one type of build over others. In reality it did nothing for the AC issue as the true AC issue is that characters easily fall off the dice (the phenomena where no matter what is rolled on the d20 besides an automatic hit or miss does not matter on an enemies to hit).

7) Loot concerns. Players for many years have complained rightly that the loot seems to be designed by people who do not play the game at the levels they are designing the loot for. Useless raid loot is common. Useless epic items are equally as common. The loot dynamic for Reaver's Refuge is widely hated as being a slot machine while the previous release had a greatly loved mechanic in GS crafting which was ignored for refuge. Loot needs a couple of developers who really know the ins and outs of top level play working on it.

I agree with 1,3,5 hands down

2 Agreed except they are "apparently" fixing Pale Master BUT this should have been done on Lammania...they really gotta learn that cutting of healing is a BAD idea

4 Grinding is NOT fun thats why its called grinding...actually ONE of the reasons I started playing DDO because it had a reputation for having less grind than the rest of the MMO rabble

6 I'm not sure I got the point right but its seemed to touch on Dungeon Scaling and Grazing hits which was implemented b4 I stgarted so I can't comment on it

7 Most of it I have not reached yet so once again cannot comment.


*snipped for trolling*

Ah its the guy with the worlds *greatest* Bardbarian...do you every say anything useful or do you just like disagreeing with people

[AylinIsAwesome]

The biggest thing I agree with Cyr on here is that Reaver's Refuge sucks. The slot machine mechanic get very tiring after your 20th time of pulling...Fearsome. Yeah, Fearsome.


PrEs I would like to have of course, though I don't think they all need to be released at once. If they were to do a Cleric one and a FvS at the same time, or a Sorc and a Wizzy one at the same time 'till they have them all out. (But first work on finishing the incomplete ones already here).


Grind is "fun" in the sense we'll keep doing it over and over and over and over again and not leave for a different game when we're at end-game, but as the end-game moves on, I think that the grind should lessen. Reaver's Refuge isn't end-game, but it's grindy as hell, and Epics are the new end-game grind. Make Reaver's Refuge less grindy please.


So...

/partially signed, I guess.

[Cyr]

Hey guys if you are going to edit my posts at least edit them to be honest to what the post originally stated.

I will spell out the main point of confusion here. I put grind != fun. Apparently, some are having issues quoting this correctly (as one poster put grind = fun) and understanding what the != sign means.

The != sign means does not equals. As in Grind does not equal fun.

[Bogenbroom]

Bogen,

Thank you for telling me you don't like people complaining. I know that some have this viewpoint. My viewpoint is that if you want change speaking honestly about things is the most effective way of achieving it. Your points point towards a much more casual player, you dislike raids, think PrE's are flavor, and think that lag has been fixed. There is nothing wrong with your opinions, but they come from a different game perspective. These were my suggestions and are representitive of the players I play with on a daily basis. They are not meant as a blanket statement of all players think this. I would state some are a minority view while some are majority views, such as Reaver Refuge crafting being a mess and shroud being super popular partially due to it's crating mechanic (you don't like raids so of course you don't like shroud crafting...). And yes I meant Dungeon Alert and not Scaling. I have lots of issues with dungeon scaling, but they are not related to my thoughts about DA.

I haven't an issue in the least with discussing how any one population portion wants things to be, or where they prefer emphasis in development. I balked mostly at the presentation. I generally don't find your posts to be so acerbic, but this particular one got to me a bit.

There are certainly a lot of good angles in your post, (it is time for a more quests along the lines of Amrath's difficulty, flushing out the PrEs would be good, etc.) But I found the presentation such that it was hard to discuss merits of individual points.

So, some comments on that front....

Re: DA... Positive: Has helped *general* lag. Negative: feels very artificial and still caused problems in some areas.

Re: Greensteel vs RR. IMHO RR was an over-reaction to the problems Greensteel created. The mech doesn't let you build toward anything, which is frustrating, of course. It could certainly use some modifications to make it less painful, but as a general concept, I do not dislike the lottery model. If the down-grading could be addressed it would help. If you like the Shroud, that would certainly help your perspective of the Greensteel model. My main problem with Greensteel, though, is not the model or even the Shroud, it is the power of the items being unbalancing. GS, though, is a massive grind... massive, massive.

Re: raids... admittedly I am not a raid fan, but many are and all preferences should be addressed within reason. I have a few main knocks on raids, fwiw... 1) Personally I find the melee down 60,000 hps fights the least fun thing in the game. 2) They often are quite dull, with some folks doing nothing while others are active, 3) they are required content, meaning that, in order to be viable toward end-game, you *have* to have raid gear of some level. As such, they are grind-fests. Strangely, I think most of the pre-raids are the best quests in the game.

Cheers and Peace.

[AestorTheKnight]

To answer Azrael:


Finally, it's not comparable because I'm working on a 2D game. Old school, Wizardry 7/World of Xeen style game. Turbine also has to ensure players can't break a quest with a natural 40 to Jump, + 30 from a jump spell. They have to record DM voice overs. Then they have to test it, retest it, and test it some more. Only to find out upon release than they didn't take 100 out of 10 billion factors into account, and some player or another found an exploit or a bug. All because 3D adds elements that an abstracted 2D system does not.

I dont think its comparable really. I understand that for a Lone Ranger developer such as yourself, developing content is very hard, cos you are doing the Code + Design yourself. I dont think this is sooo true for an established Dev Studio as Turbines who have an extensive suite of development tools at hand with which to create content.

About the Quality Assurance process, yes ofc you are right.


Favored Souls cost to play. Either you have to pay money, or grind your butt off for them. Don't like them, think they make it too easy, don't play them. I have one, and I still play my "gimped" Cleric. Who never runs out of SP because I know how to play that "gimped" Cleric to best effect.

I think you slightly missed my point. As I said I have a FvS and I enjoy playing him. I have also played Clerics to Level cap and love playing them too! My point is is that FvS's are unbalanced with Clerics and other classes (For example FvS's get full Saves Bonus Progression at every level - this makes sense for a Monk, but doesnt for a FvS imo and is OP.). FvS's are generally more powerful than Clerics, and this factor combined with easier content and more powerful characters makes DDO too easy. IE an unfair advantage to the players vs the content.

If and when PrE's are added for Clerics, FvSs and other class this will increase their general power level. If the quest content stays at the same power level, or gets easier, this imbalances the game, making it too easy.

And to say "Oh, FvSs being overpowered is ok because you need 2500 favor to have one." Is a mute point, getting 2500 favor is not difficult at all with a small amount of effort.


But, I like DDO enough to ignore those failings, and keep playing.

Yes of course, me too! :)

To answer Xeraphim:


Addendum: Turbine is progressively alienating its more honorable and lovable players...

Agreed about the alienating long term players who honour the game as a whole, if thats what you meant?


The game model as is seems nearly beyond salvation or repair, but may yet have a solution in sight.

Dont agree the game model is nearly beyond salvation! The game model can definitely be fixed and made a lot lot better if Turbine makes the right decisions now.


Epic Gear needs a purpose.

Epic Gear needs a purpose - Absolutely agree with you! :) More high end and challenging content.


A Hardcore Server(VIP Only) is therefore proposed for the metagamers who devalue(often ridicule) or validate our members solely based on their MyDDO page.

A hardcore server for metagamers is not needed imo. Powergamers need to grow up and get a life, hehehe! :D


Cosmetics are important to quite a number of players, particularly on armor. These are the casual gamers who just like to goof around every now and then. I personally got a goofy hat overlay for my Monk, just for the purpose of changing his otherwise static appearance. I would also personally purchase outfit alterations for his Dragontouched Robe, such as a Sailor Moon overlay or something else silly. The players of note have talked at length about wanting our cloaks to have graphics, gloves, boots, and other minor accessories as well.

Yes I agree with you, and think your feelings generally represent how many players feel about Cosmetics additions to DDO. They really would be fun and a great addition to the game!


This needs to be delegated to a small team for continuous updates in the near future on a regular basis.

This!! Definitely agreed :)


Ranger Ranged DPS is an important issue as well. It needs to be raised to be near(within 5%) or at melee DPS in raids.

Dont agree hehe. I must be one of the few people who thinks Ranged DPS is balanced, when considering the benefits of being able to deal damage outside of melee range. Deepwood Sniper PrE would be very nice though!

Thanks for your replies, an interesting read! :)

[systemstate]

I highly doubt that WB will be interested at all in the inner workings of Turbine's Dev department.

Investors usually only look at the big picture. They leave it up to the current management to align their business to meet the financial requirements of the buyer. If they're already happy with Turbine's performance, then nothing changes.

If WB says tells Turbine that they need to improve the bottom line however, and Turbine determines this is achievable by improving Dev department processes, then Turbine will be the one to look into it and make changes.

If things continue to be financially unsatisfactory, then WB may decide to send people in to "consult". Only then are you likely to see any customer impacting changes directly ordered by WB staff.

I'm willing to bet that WB is currently only vaguely aware of this forum- if at all. Your suggestions, while well-intended are likely to just drift off into the ether.

[Gunga]

Ah its the guy with the worlds *greatest* Bardbarian...do you every say anything useful or do you just like disagreeing with people

No.

I'm just the world's greatest. :rolleyes:

Everything I say is useful. Some find the treasure, some lack the map.

[azrael4h]

To answer Azrael:



I dont think its comparable really. I understand that for a Lone Ranger developer such as yourself, developing content is very hard, cos you are doing the Code + Design yourself. I dont think this is sooo true for an established Dev Studio as Turbines who have an extensive suite of development tools at hand with which to create content.

About the Quality Assurance process, yes ofc you are right.

We agree, and then we don't. The design process, the creative process, is still the same. The best tools in the world won't make a good dungeon, nor will they design one.

They have more people doing it, but if they're any good, they'll be taking much the same amount of time and effort into designing it. The tools just make it far faster and easier to implement into the game for testing later.

And I'm in kinda the same boat there, since I'm a firm believer is giving modders access to a game, and intend to release the same editor I use. The main difference is I know my tools better, and if I need something added to support the design, I don't have to get permission. I do it.

The designing I'm referring to is hand drawing maps, noting placement of things, setting chests and other things, writing scripts that appear at x location, etc... A good, smallish map can take upwards of a month at least to get a rough draft before thinking of spending the effort to implement and test. In my case, I test it via PnP before even that level. If I don't like the flow, it gets changed.

Implementing it is more largely dependent on how big each map is, and how much scripting is done. But, in general, getting the map laid out takes only a few hours. If a map gets too huge I might split it into multiple maps, like with the wilderness ones.

[Ithrani]

I agree with most of what you said, so of course not. Overall I'm pretty happy with Turbine. I do have my criticisms, but nothing so extreme that I'd use the word "incompetent."


I would, and so would anyone looking from outside the box. Many of the people in my guild know programming and the issues in this game that have been problems for years, and the bugs that are some how over looked by the QA team when "play testing" and the joke that is beta play testing on lamannia proves that the DDO team suffers terribly from incompetence or serious underfunding.

My personal guess is both. DDO was not created by this team, and the original team seem to have made a far superior game over at LOTRO, all this team has done is spoiled the broth.

Football analogy 1st string team played the first game and slaughtered the other team, landslide shut out. Then all those players were traded and the 2nd string was brought in and they get a couple of wins, but by mid season they lose every game. Then with the one game that might save the season, they forget to put on their shoes or "boots" at the 2nd half and they forfeit the game. Ending the season and proving how terrible the 2nd string is, however that 1st string team was still playing strong over in Statesassota where they were traded to.