Turbine, can you please STOP with the controversial fixes?

[PurdueDave]

There are a few moments, like when I'm trailing a mob of bugged scorpions behind me or maybe doing a little arm waving tapdance on top of a horde of mobs, that I think this might be kind of a waste of development time considering that there's any number of ways a mobile character can kill themselves without /death.

[Samadhi]

This is an open letter to please stop spending time on controversial fixes for now. Spend your time working on advancing this game and saving it from dying. I sincerely doubt people are leaving the game in boatloads because you can /death in a quest or 4-man a raid mission. This may be debatable but I doubt you're going to see many exit surveys with "game too exploitable" in the comments.

I can, however, guarantee you that unless you start getting serious with your pro-active and long-term development of this game, there won't be many left.

I'm not saying don't fix those things. I'm saying can you please put them off until you have a handle on the future of this game. Priorities are clearly, clearly out of whack. 3 content updates late (in a row) and we already know the next module will be late. So please, enough of the fixes that you have to un-do or alter (see raid loot compromise) thereby wasting MORE of your time. Spend your time on things that are going to pave the way for growth in this game.

/signed with enthusiasm

Get your priorities straight - most "controversial" changes true gamers don't care that much about. They will adapt as always. Staying in a game where the DEV's seem more concerned with tweaking than content, however, when after capping 9 toons to lvl 14 MONTHS ago... starting to think I'm the sucker...

[Cyr]

/signed, and I call nonsense on those who are saying that the controversial changes to the game are a different team. Those controversial 'fixes' are not bug fixes, they are gameplay oriented, strategy oriented, game balance oriented changes. These are clearly in the main development teams lap. If some random bug fixing team is the ones who said, lets fix evasion, lets fix the raid loot system, lets fix the metamagic system, lets fix /death, lets remove scrolls from vendors, lets change spell cooldown times, lets remodel the dragon raid mechanics, lets add deep lava to the dq, and lets make the archers tougher in the dq then this game is in even more of a world of trouble then it appears. Any MMO needs a guiding vision and all these changes are of those types. They effect how the game feels and how the players feel about the future of the game. I would love to see more emphasis on true bug fixes, like the DQ which still bugs to this day, and much more emphasis on new content. Stop shuffling around the rules for the moment. Get stuff out on time. Keeping players happy is easy, don't offer cheap gimics (loot weekends) when problems arise. Instead, knuckle down get some OT going (or heck actually bring some people over from LOTRO for a time) to get it solved fast and to get content out on time. No one leaves the game over evasion being broken (some did after that and a few other things disproportionetly hurt their characters though). Those game balancing mechanics by their very nature hurt some players more than others...they are great if they themselves are balanced and a game is healthy and content is coming out on time. Got to say that does not sound like DDO at the present therefore /signed!

Edit after reading some Posters earlier on:

You really think that all these controversial fixes take no tech time???? I can not even imagine how many meetings the evasion 'fix' was talked about at. Then the devs have to take time to read the boards to find out how many people really hate the change and if they need to soften it or modify it to be something more logical (raid loot as an example). The majority of the time is not spent programming the change it is spent in considering its ramifications (and if it is not well maybe that is why some of these changes are so controversial? How long does a true bug take to fix, well look above and subtract all the gameplay balancing considerations, board reading, and community molification. Modifying base rules (if you want any hopes of coming out with something coherent, balanced, and acceptable to the masses) takes alot of time.

[tekn0mage]

Well stated Cyr.

Balancing the game is welcome, whatever form that comes in. Not at the expense of long-term survival.

Guild Housing
Crafting
Monks / Druids
New Races
Titles
New Spells, New Abilities

These are the things we were promised.

I guarantee you seeing these things come about will quiet most, if not all of the "whining" you see on the forums. Do *NOT* listen to the Turbine fans who love to claim that "no matter what Turbine does there will always be people whining". This is simply not true. We are grateful for your work, we know its not easy when there are so many factors that go into what we enjoy every day.

Just know that there are some of us who DO find lots of peace and enjoyment in being able to explore the world you create. Again, just know that the best way to spend your time is expanding the world we play in, not making it comply with the rule-ninja's you find here on the forums. Thank you for your consideration.

[wemery73]

ALL fixes are controversial.

/sighed

[tekn0mage]

We've already covered that territory.

Not ALL fixes are controversial. The Titan changes were supported by all. Not one person was sad, broken up, or canceled over the Titan being de-buffed.

The changes for Velah, where the damage was reduced from Epic to pure Fire damage were supported by all.

There were many, many changes that were supported by everyone. Please don't try and turn this into a relativistic argument that all changes are controversial in nature.

It just isn't so.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

We've already covered that territory.

Not ALL fixes are controversial.

The changes for Velah, where the damage was reduced from Epic to pure Fire damage were supported by all.

Hmm.... I wouldn't have supported that change. Velah is a complete and utter wimp. Anything to make her more dangerous would be an improvement.

There are a few moments, like when I'm trailing a mob of bugged scorpions behind me or maybe doing a little arm waving tapdance on top of a horde of mobs, that I think this might be kind of a waste of development time considering that there's any number of ways a mobile character can kill themselves without /death.

Fine fine fine...then all the /deathers should stop whining.

Well, at least give us full respec capabilities. I designed a toon specifically around using /death, what am I going to do now?

God g-d I hope you are kidding.

[BUpcott]

Well, at least give us full respec capabilities. I designed a toon specifically around using /death, what am I going to do now?

You better be kidding!

[7-day_Trial_Monkey]

/disagree

The exploitability of this game should be priority #1. It is that problem that makes a large number of quests in this game completely boring. And it is also that problem that leads people to run the same quests over and over again.

I think the OP has got it all wrong as to where the devs should focus their attention.

[Aspenor]

/death is for noobs and exploiters

[Palmetto]

/death is for noobs and exploiters

Nice blanket insult to everyone that has /death'ed so they could raise at a shrine.

[Aspenor]

Nice blanket insult to everyone that has /death'ed so they could raise at a shrine.

I agree, I thought it was well put.

[Hendrik]

Nice blanket insult to everyone that has /death'ed so they could raise at a shrine.

Huh?!

If your alive, why kill yourself so you can rest?

Why not just rest?

[Palmetto]

Huh?!

If your alive, why kill yourself so you can rest?

Why not just rest?

Kinda hard to "just rest" when you are incapped.

[Aspenor]

Kinda hard to "just rest" when you are incapped.

If you are incapped, you will be unaffected. What's your point?

[Hendrik]

Kinda hard to "just rest" when you are incapped.

Have a party member hit you with a Cure or Heal kit.

[blakbyrd]

While on the surface, the OP makes a good point. However the situation is far more complex than that as many have already pointed out. Generally any game company of decent size (and Turbine is certainly one of them), have departments for each specific area, and that is what they do. Most simply dont have a group of people that are just assigned where ever they want them to be at the time, which is why they specifically higher graphic designers, code developers, etc. Once you get into a corporate structure of that type you dont see many jacks of all trades running about, instead people dimply do the job they were hired for, and generally do not encroach on the jobs that someone else was hired for.

Still, a valid point though to potentially work on producing more content and expanding the very small world, rather than altering things we already have, but what may be controversial to one might be game breaking to another...there is no winning side for Turbine in that debate.

As for future longevity and survival, only Turbine will be able ot answer that. However MMOs exist on a balance of the game designers plans and the desires of the subscribers, which is extremely difficult to balance out properly.

Although many may say WoW is #1 because they got the stuff and balance right that doesn't exactly mean that's true. WoW is massive and has an enormous world to play in. That enormous world helps to occupy the players for much longer periods of time and does not mean that WoW doesn't also suffer from many of the same problems DDO may suffer from. With DDO's very small world, players are not occupied nearly as long before they begin to become more vocal more often, which makes such issues seem more evident in DDO.

I am certainly all for more content, and given the obvious nature at which the content is made, I am basically convinced that Turbine has a very minimal staff for content design (I would be surprised if they had more than 2 people doing it, and if they do, I would be embarrassed to admit it, unless they are still using some very unfriendly means of design, when everything points to a very basic map editing procoess, similar to many other games that provide them to the players, however this is just a guess of course, but I've worked with many map editors for various games in the past and everything I see about the designs of quests in DDO point to a very similar method, which I have also gone into detail about in other posts).

[Palmetto]

Have a party member hit you with a Cure or Heal kit.

Ok, do you really want to keep playing these games? Probably going to be a little tough getting a party member into a quest that you start with the "solo" option.

Do you have any more hanging curve balls to throw me?

[Hendrik]

Ok, do you really want to keep playing these games? Probably going to be a little tough getting a party member into a quest that you start with the "solo" option.

Do you have any more hanging curve balls to throw me?

See, all could have been avoided if you said solo long ago...



Like Asp said, if your incap -no matter what setting your on- this will NOT release you to a bind point. So you can still kill yourself and go rest and continue on. This will only take you to your bind point if you are alive and not incap.

[Palmetto]

See, all could have been avoided if you said solo long ago...

No, if you weren't so worried about me - and others - using /death to gain access to a shrine or remove buffs, then we could have avoided the BS.

Like Asp said, if your incap -no matter what setting your on- this will NOT release you to a bind point. So you can still kill yourself and go rest and continue on.

Which half of this thread did you totally disregard? Your buddy Asp is saying that it is an expoit to use /death no matter the cercumstances. That is an outright false statement, so I was demonstrating that fact.