Game Over

[Flugzeug]

Turbine, I played DDO for 2 years, on average playing 30 hours per week. I enjoyed DDO. I lost a lot of sleep (since I have a 40 hour per week full time job) and I didn't get to exercise as much as I did before DDO. At any rate, I guess I'll be relaxing more and exercising more. You've ruined DDO for me.

1 day before update 11 was released, I was loving DDO (not long ago, what was it, September 10th or so?) I was in the middle of TR'ing a few characters, just got my wizard to level 20 on his 3rd life. My wf fvs got his epic sos and epic claw set finished. My crafting toon reached level 100 in all 3 schools. Update 11 raised boss hp so much, I decided that I wasn't going to play this game more than 30 hrs per week, so increased boss hp meant I did less raids. Not to mention, having some failures on those first couple days after u11, which I don't like wasting time with more than a few failures since my time is limited.

I hated the UI you changed. It didn't need to be changed. When lag is horrendous, why would you spend any time at all changing the UI which was fine before. Then, after tons of people complain, and fill out a survey, you don't change it back...you spend even more dev time to create a new UI again. This new UI still is inferior to the pre-u11 UI. The font size of names on the hp bars is so small on my 26" lcd that I can't read people's names.

The nerf to leap of faith? From what I was told, 1 dev did it by himself over the course of 2 days. Why didn't that dev take those 2 days to test crystal cove to make sure u11 and u9 didn't mess it up? You say LoF was overpowered? You have no proof because it isn't there. You know as much as we all know it is the prestige and divine punishment that make favored souls overpowered. Why would you change something that you just made and messed up the game, when you can change something that's been around for more than a year?

I'm convinced no one at Turbine plays healers, and that's why we don't see too many healers anymore. Turbine's recent changes to the game have been counter to making a healer fun.

Actually, here's a thing that would bring me back. I would renew my subscription if you did this: Every developer at Turbine has to create a new character on a live server like Cannith, Orien, etc....and every developer has to complete each of the major raids on elite/epic once per month on those characters. If they don't get all of them completed, they are fired. How many of the changes in update 11 and 12 would we see removed if this were a requirement for employment at Turbine?

The lag...why do you think it's important to spend time changing the icons for shroud ingredients when lag is crippling the game. I've never played an MMO with much lag at all. DDO is ridiculously bad. Even SWTor has no lag for me.

I went from loving DDO and playing it all the time to cold turkey (0 hours per week). I had every reason to keep playing. I just completed 2 epic kron'zek cruelty's for my human twf build, the day before update 12 came out. I was getting ready to use her for shroud, ToD, epics, etc. Dual wielding those was fun. I thought update 11 was the worst update you ever did, but I somehow decided to get past it. Well, update 12 was even worse, and it's too much. The trust is gone and my interest is gone.

You didn't admit you were wrong with the UI changes, and just go back to the original. You had to keep coming up with a new design and say it was better than the old one.

Well, be the better person now, admit you were wrong, and get rid of the changes that you did in u11 and u12.

I remember the good days before update 8. I could run tons of quests without lag. On my most recent TR a month ago, I was getting lag in Korthos while running quests that had very small instances. That would've been unheard of before update 8. Especially in the update 3, 4, or 5 days, lag was not nearly as bad.

I honestly think someone or a bunch of people screwed up the code to DDO with update 8, and ever since then it's been getting worse. Update 7 was the last update you did that didn't increase lag.

Well, time for me to move on. Never thought I'd say that, for at least another 2 years. What a shame. Well, at least there are other games to keep me occupied. More exercise like I used to do will be nice as well.

[Sleepsalot]

Good Luck what ever you do but try to remember there are game a Lot worse then DDO..

Sleeps :D :) :D

[mystafyi]

Good Luck what ever you do but try to remember there are game a Lot worse then DDO..

Might as well have said try to remember its better to be stabbed then shot. :D

[Flugzeug]

True, lots of games are worse than DDO.

However, Elder Scrolls Skyrim is amazing, much better than DDO. Star Wars the Old Republic is also much better than DDO. Even Age of Conan with its seemingly vacant servers is more fun now than DDO.

Turbine claims DDO has the best combat of any MMO. How do they figure this is the case? DoT spells, heals, and autoattack. 45 minutes later your epic chrono boss is dead. You open the chest and get nothing. Of course, even if the chest gave all kinds of stuff, it wouldn't make the boss fight any more fun.

SW Tor has 0 lag, and it's combat is just as exciting as DDO, (not great but enough to keep me happy) and it has an awesome storyline. I've been playing SW Tor since 2 days after update 12 was released for DDO. I've not looked back. Too bad.

[AdamSmith]

it may have been a marketing ploy to raise the raid bosses hp to force healers to buy pots, spend TP/real cash but it looks like it had the reverse effect of causing many players to stop playing completely. I'm sure Turbine is still weighing and analyzing their pot purchases gained vs subscriptions cancelled but in the long run I think they've lost a lot of customers.

[Flugzeug]

I had 3 people on my friend's list that all played more than me, and all 3 of them quit before I did, between update 11 and now. We played together a lot over the past 1-2 years. 1 was a guild mate of mine. My friend's list now has usually 3 or 4 people online at a time of about 100+ or whatever the max amount is on the friends list (I always get the "your friends list is full" message and have to delete a few to add new ones). Before update 11 I want to say there were 30 or so online at a time, on average, in my friends list.

I do think customers are leaving faster now. I just hope they can admit they were wrong and backpedal and fix this. I would love nothing more than to create a new thread called "Game On" announcing my return and I would start playing again.

[djl]

Between U11 and U12, they have indeed lost a lot of players. You can tell it by the lack of activity in chat channels and the noticeable drop in PUG activity.

Between the terrible changes Turbine has made and the slew of new games that came out this fall, many people don't see a reason to stick around DDO.

[GeneralDiomedes]

Lag is your only valid complaint (and a REALLY valid one at that) .. but good luck with finding a game that doesn't rebalance. Us vets have been through a whole lot worse than you.

[Flugzeug]

Lag is your only valid complaint (and a REALLY valid one at that) .. but good luck with finding a game that doesn't rebalance. Us vets have been through a whole lot worse than you.

Haha, too funny. You think lag is my only valid complaint. So the UI is better now than it was before? Right, me not being able to tell who is who is amazingly better!

Re-balancing that makes things more out of balance, that's not a valid complaint.

Turbine spending time changing old content to make it harder, while not fixing issues or adding new content (other than this challenge stuff we got). I guess you could say after 500 epic dragons, that the u12 epic dragons are brand new! and exciting! and I want to do 500 more now. or, maybe I'd rather not. not a valid complaint? ok....

There are plenty of games that don't rebalance unless you want them to...such as any single player game that you patch yourself. The newest batman game or elder scrolls are two good examples. At any rate, any good company knows that rebalancing needs to be done right...and if it is done right, then I'm fine with it.

Oh, I laughed for a good 3 seconds at your "vet" comment. really? you've been through worse? I definitely would've left the game then, if it was worse than u12. I mean, it's like saying I'm a veteran of getting punched in the face. Been punched in the face, all the time, for 8 years now...

[Creidekki]

I can understand that you might not like the game anymore (heck we all get bored with stuff). Just out of interest what is it that makes you want to turn your departure into a drama by starting a pointless email thread? Do you somehow feel the need to post to see if there are others to validate your view? Personally when I stop doing something I just stop. I dont keep writing to strangers about it. And when I stop playing DDO (this day will come but not in the near future). This is what I will post...

[Funny_looking_mole]

Lag is your only valid complaint (and a REALLY valid one at that) .. but good luck with finding a game that doesn't rebalance. Us vets have been through a whole lot worse than you.

Now I will admit, I have not played all the MMO's, but in the one's that I have played that I am familiar with the history of (about 15 or so), I am familiar with 1 game that made old content harder (especially from a previous level cap), and it was a hardcore game, known for it's raiding, that changed 1 spell, in 1 event, in 1 raid, to fix it to what it was supposed to be (players could read the data for the spells, and knew what it should do), and IIRC they changed it back because of the player feedback.

Now this was of course 1 game, and from what I understand the most popular MMO's tend to make raids easier as time goes by.

[teh_meh]

Dude, your post was great. It was a great "thanks for the ride, sail off into the sunset post". Very potent. But now you're just hanging around and the power of your OP is waning. By hanging around, it makes the reader doubt the conviction of your OP...which leads us to believe you just want to cry on the forums a bit and stamp your feet. People on the forums are burned out on that, so please don't.

PS. I loved this part...


Every developer at Turbine has to create a new character on a live server like Cannith, Orien, etc....and every developer has to complete each of the major raids on elite/epic once per month on those characters. If they don't get all of them completed, they are fired.

good luck dude.

[GeneralDiomedes]

Haha, too funny. You think lag is my only valid complaint. So the UI is better now than it was before? Right, me not being able to tell who is who is amazingly better!


I didn't think it was any worse after they fixed it, nothing worth leaving the game over.



Re-balancing that makes things more out of balance, that's not a valid complaint.


Long ago I realized there is always a flavor of the moment. Thus my halfling finesse ranger gathers dust, but no more tears.



Turbine spending time changing old content to make it harder, while not fixing issues or adding new content (other than this challenge stuff we got). I guess you could say after 500 epic dragons, that the u12 epic dragons are brand new! and exciting! and I want to do 500 more now. or, maybe I'd rather not. not a valid complaint? ok....


A lot of the stickiness of this game revolves around TR, which means you repeat lower content. Perhaps this is not like most other games.



There are plenty of games that don't rebalance unless you want them to...such as any single player game that you patch yourself. The newest batman game or elder scrolls are two good examples. At any rate, any good company knows that rebalancing needs to be done right...and if it is done right, then I'm fine with it.


By "games" I meant MMOs. Sorry.



Oh, I laughed for a good 3 seconds at your "vet" comment. really? you've been through worse? I definitely would've left the game then, if it was worse than u12. I mean, it's like saying I'm a veteran of getting punched in the face. Been punched in the face, all the time, for 8 years now...

Hmm, I rather look at it like being a veteran of a long rewarding relationship. As with any relationship, there are ups and downs, and sometimes you have a fight and don't want to talk for a while. It happens.

[Astraghal]

Good Luck what ever you do but try to remember there are game a Lot worse then DDO..

Sleeps :D :) :D

Like Runescape? That primitive game has been going so long and I can only imagine how many orders of magnitude of patronage it gets compared to DDO. Will probably still be running with millions of members when DDO is a memory. It's terrible game too.

[Memnir]

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[Templarion]

Thanks for playing Flugzeug! Go try something else. Every game gets boring after a while.



PS. Memnir, I love your way to say goodbye. I hope I will receive one when the time comes! :)

[dark270]

Yeah time for this vip to leave as well, hope turbine reads this and makes changes.......lag.....
And shroud changes (u12) was terrible.....on to better things....

[nayozz]

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bah memnir evil ! you spoiled it to me !!!
whatever mario game is it, i wont ever be a "virgin" if/when i'll finish it O_o

seems to me mario64 never being able to finish it though...

[Dragonela]

Im still waiting on some kind of announcement from Turbine to decide if this is my last month as VIP, if they dont say anything it will be good bye for me.

[Rian]

To the guy leaving: Peace out ,,V :) V,, gg, and GL;HF in future games.

[QUOTE=Flugzeug;4180047
Oh, I laughed for a good 3 seconds at your "vet" comment. really? you've been through worse? I definitely would've left the game then, if it was worse than u12. I mean, it's like saying I'm a veteran of getting punched in the face. Been punched in the face, all the time, for 8 years now...[/QUOTE]


We vets went more than a year without a single update. At least they're pushing content out now.
And sometimes, to appreciate the better things in life, you HAVE to be punched in the face.
I'm not saying change your whole outlook to an opptimistic view on life, but appreciate the little things.
There are times where I really dislike the updates, but I remind myself that it's better than nothing.

[Nysrock]

Bah! So DDO has it's ups and downs just like any other MMO I've played. But unlike those others there have always been more ups then downs. Not to mention that every update we get a slew of people posting that they quit because of the changes and DDO is down the drain. And yet 12 updates later DDO is still going strong. You'd think if all the nay-sayers were right that DDO would be a ghost town by now.

Every time that DDO has changed something I see a lot of complaints about how much worse this change has made the game. But just wait 2-3 weeks and people have found a workaround for the new changes. And usually they are able to make it work better for themselves then it was before the change. So not everything is perfect, neither is life. I am still able to come here, have fun and group with great people. Just like tabletop D&D but I can play with others from all over.

So, sorry that you are "burnt out" after playing a couple of years. I hope you enjoy those other games but when they change things not to your liking you can always come back here and join us Old Timers. :cool:

[goodspeed]

bah memnir evil ! you spoiled it to me !!!
whatever mario game is it, i wont ever be a "virgin" if/when i'll finish it O_o

seems to me mario64 never being able to finish it though...

naw if it was 64 which I can't remember what the end screen looked like, it would be ridiculously 3d. That stuffs more refined, and has various nintendo characters namely opposites so it's a mario kart game.

It's not mario kart 64 because I don't recall midgets so id say mario kart double dash for the gamecube.

[AdamSmith]

looks more like mario party

[HernandoCortez]

Update 13 should be named "The Age of DOOM". DOOM is here and DOOM will remain. Now lemme get back to Skyrim...

[Morlen]

I decided that I wasn't going to play this game more than 30 hrs per week, ... my time is limited.


That's my favorite part OP. lolz for you.

[Taimasan]

And yet 12 updates later DDO is still going strong. You'd think if all the nay-sayers were right that DDO would be a ghost town by now.


hmmm

[Kmnh]

Your wall of text is too high, don't expect people to read that :)


"They changed it, now it sucks" is a pretty common thread in these forums.

This game has some serious balance issues, but most people don't really experience what's wrong. Leap of Faith was breaking pretty much every boss encounter in the game, including the raids. A favored soul, and to a lesser extent an air savant, could drop a little damage spell or throwing weapon at the boss and happily kite it around until the party was done clearing the trash and other hazards.

Most pugs were not doing it, most people didn't know that was possible, but when the devs saw it being done on epic LoB, making their amazing new boss an easy-ish fight, they saw that it was wrong and nerfed it. Even the new version is crazy powerful in the right hands.

[grandeibra]

+1 Morlen, great find ^^

[Ungood]

The thing that seems to be frogotten by the older players who say "Yah back in the day it was hard, we had go up hill both ways... in the snow.. naked.. with an empty canteen.."

Anyway. What these people forget is that DDO was dying, or, put another away, about to be put down.

So unlike other games, that plug along, just getting by, or what have you, The "Vets" here should be aware that if this game begins to appeal less and less to the general public, well, they know the outcome.

When Turbine opened the doors to a vastness of gamers, from untra-casual to Hard Core, by going F2P, This influx of players gave this game new life, lets see if they can smother that with moronic new updates that do not appeal to the vastness of players.

[flynnjsw]

When Turbine opened the doors to a vastness of gamers, from untra-casual to Hard Core, by going F2P, This influx of players gave this game new life, lets see if they can smother that with moronic new updates that do not appeal to the vastness of players.

There have been a total of 12 updates (not including hotfixes and .1/.2) since f2p started. All but 3 of them (the last 3)catered to the slow paced crowd. Now all of a sudden the game is too hard and people are leaving. Something doesn't quite add up.

[Vint]

Lag is your only valid complaint (and a REALLY valid one at that) .. but good luck with finding a game that doesn't rebalance. Us vets have been through a whole lot worse than you.

To say that lag is his only valid reason is ridiculous. Can you or anyone else tell me that it was of cast importance to change the UI? Did we really need to spend time changing the icons of curse pots? Did the Shroud ings really need to have the tan background? Are you serious!!! ARE YOU SERIOUS!!! Instead of wasting time with these “so much needed improvements”, why didn’t they invest more time into other things. I tell you I will sleep easy tonight knowing that these new icons are in place. They definitely take priority over PRE’s or fixing even one bug in the game. ARE YOU STILL SREIOUS!!!

I have been here for a day or two myself. That high and mighty “I’m a vet” talk is **** too. Sure Turbine has been taking a dump on us for a longer period of time, but it doesn’t mean that a newer person can’t have a gripe. We need to retain people and get their money. Maybe in update 13 they will change the icons on lesser restore pots. (Cannot wait for this). Maybe you are right and we should run off a lot of people. When Turbine sees that people are quitting because of the lack of the important things (PRE’s, Bugs, etc. etc.) maybe they will do something about it

[Qaliya]

It's kind of interesting how so many complaints about changes to the game also mention Skyrim. Which is, if I understand it, a static single player RPG. I believe it has dynamic dungeons and so forth, but it's still a single player RPG, and that means after a few weeks or months people will be done with it. And one of the reasons they will come back to places like DDO is because of the changes that keep MMOs fresh.

[Cordovan]

Thank you for playing, and we hope to see you return to DDO soon!