Half my friends left the game. How devs are making my group feel.

[Merrillman]

Not putting this here for any other reason than you should be steeped in people’s real reactions.

This is part of a conversation I had regarding the effect on my group. We play together because we are friends, and DDO “was” enjoyable. This is why I have lost half my group. And I quote....

“Have no desire to play ddo anymore. SSG ruined part of my summer with their nonsense. Did a full reincarnation and changed build for this summer. And to hear developers idea of advancing the game is going back and reworking s*** took my fire to play away. Not paying for that type of development even if they were only taking away 1hp per character/npc. Thinking back to the countless hours we spent running dailies to complete ED trees all for naught. Wish I knew then this was the direction of the game. Crybaby s***, sorcerers are too powerful. F*** SSG and their bull**** development team!

This is how a LOT of people feel. SSG, you may not realize it yet, but this is not at all good if you want to be a going concern. Eventually, if you continue to be tone deaf, all you’ll have left are the basement dwellers.

PS: USED WITH FULL PERMISSION AND HALF THE PROFANITY

If you care, try addressing the people who feel this way. That’s how you win people’s loyalty. Not by deleting and not by ignoring. What does SSG say to the people who feel this way? If I didn’t want SSG to succeed, I wouldn’t bother attempting feedback. I want to see you be engaged with people who feel This way. Please do so.

[Valerianus]

can't stress this enough, a lot of players are staying, and did stay in ddo even with all the issues it has, because of community\grouping\guild\friends. (hint, fix\upgrade grouping\lfm\guilds\anything social + all the stuff players are asking for years and years) e.g. to lose a group of 5-6 players, you need to lose only 2. all of them will then just talk about what to do now and move to other games, because their fun is playing together, if a game reach the point that it's not gaming with, it's coping with, you don't need to lose or enrage e.g. all 6 players to actually lose all 6.

[Sir_Noob]

Here is a funny thing, I have 3 friends I played with on a regular basis, all 3 decided to take a break. Partly to bugs, partly to needing a break from the game, and the biggest reason?

They all said to let them know when Kobolds become a player race.

They all want to play one and they feel by the time they become a player race there will be lots of new content to explore then too.

Only one is keeping up his VIP status as he buys a year at a time. To quote what he said, "I never know when I will get the itch to come back for a few adventures and it is cheaper than going to see a movie once a month. The bonus being I will have all the points I need to buy any expansions I have missed."

I miss playing with them, bring on the Kobolds!

[kpak01]

Crybaby s***, sorcerers are too powerful.

As opposed to the "Crybaby s***, sorcerers are too weak now"? So funny when people call others crybabies while being crybabies.

[Merrillman]

As opposed to the "Crybaby s***, sorcerers are too weak now"? So funny when people call others crybabies while being crybabies.

Is it? I don’t think so. Selling people on new items, powers, etc, only to take them back to sell them to you again, is, pretty much, theft. I think when you lose people’s trust by going too far and not owning up to it, you should expect negative feedback. The devs were, in fact, crying about the “catch all” for anything they don’t want to address, “balance.” No one else. There are only so many times you can do that to some people before they tell you to take a long walk off a short pier. Ignoring near universal hate for something can lead to a game that no longer exists. I think everyone who plays DDO can agree they’d prefer that didn’t happen. You shouldn’t just listen to one small but vocal portion of the community. At least I don’t think so.

[TheAlicornSage]

The op post was not helpful at all. Firstly, there will always be some who are unhappy with any decision made, and the unhappy ones are far more vocal than the happy ones, thus unhappy folks nedd to be taken with a grain of salt because the feedback will always be tilted.

However, that aside, saying your friends are unhappy does not tell anyone what the actual problem is. Further, the problem as seen by players is usually not the real problem but just a symptom. If you can't even make clear what you perceive as a problem in any kind of detail, then how can expect the devs to do anything beneficial to the situation at all?

I design ttrpg mechanics, believe me, I get feedback all the time, and 95% of it gets ignored for the simple fact that it didn't tell me anything that I could use to actually improve the experience.

If want the devs to start doing better, then you need to A) give much more useful feedback, and B) realize the devs are not all powerful, they limitations and boundaries to work within.

I've read the whole thread, and best I can figure is
-Unhappy people (inescapable, so ignored)
-Sorcerers are not OP. (not helpful. What the problem here? Why are they weak? Is the person using them in a role they aren't intended for? Do they want it to be equally easy as the easy classes? Are they solo and mistaking solo weakness with all around weakness? No idea what is meant)

[Merrillman]

The op post was not helpful at all. Firstly, there will always be some who are unhappy with any decision made, and the unhappy ones are far more vocal than the happy ones, thus unhappy folks nedd to be taken with a grain of salt because the feedback will always be tilted.

However, that aside, saying your friends are unhappy does not tell anyone what the actual problem is. Further, the problem as seen by players is usually not the real problem but just a symptom. If you can't even make clear what you perceive as a problem in any kind of detail, then how can expect the devs to do anything beneficial to the situation at all?

I design ttrpg mechanics, believe me, I get feedback all the time, and 95% of it gets ignored for the simple fact that it didn't tell me anything that I could use to actually improve the experience.

If want the devs to start doing better, then you need to A) give much more useful feedback, and B) realize the devs are not all powerful, they limitations and boundaries to work within.

I've read the whole thread, and best I can figure is
-Unhappy people (inescapable, so ignored)
-Sorcerers are not OP. (not helpful. What the problem here? Why are they weak? Is the person using them in a role they aren't intended for? Do they want it to be equally easy as the easy classes? Are they solo and mistaking solo weakness with all around weakness? No idea what is meant)

The problems are self evident:
1) Nerfs, sold and marketed for new, better gear and items, only to reverse all the items and sell you back the same power you gained from PAID FOR expansions that you bought a year ago or less. That’s deceptive and not at all in good faith.
2) Lying about 1:1 or “neutral” effects pre to post nerf.
3) Over-nerfing some classes, particularly arcane and divine casters vs all other DPS, therefore making many peoples YEARS of grinding essentially worthless.
4) listening to R10 players perspectives and having no common sense by not simply adding a “Reaper Elite” setting which could have solved the whole “it’s too easy” nonsense. It’s not too easy for most. I can’t spend 12 hours a day playing games.
5) Friends left because they have been lied to or deceived.

[TheAlicornSage]

The problems are self evident:
1) Nerfs, sold and marketed for new, better gear and items, only to reverse all the items and sell you back the same power you gained from PAID FOR expansions that you bought a year ago or less. That’s deceptive and not at all in good faith.
2) Lying about 1:1 or “neutral” effects pre to post nerf.
3) Over-nerfing some classes, particularly arcane and divine casters vs all other DPS, therefore making many peoples YEARS of grinding essentially worthless.
4) listening to R10 players perspectives and having no common sense by not simply adding a “Reaper Elite” setting which could have solved the whole “it’s too easy” nonsense. It’s not too easy for most. I can’t spend 12 hours a day playing games.
5) Friends left because they have been lied to or deceived.

These are NOT self-evident as they are based on your perceptions, not reality.
1) Vague and non-specific, therefore useless. I'm going to guess that you are talking about the recent rebalance. If that's an accurate guess, then you are in the wrong, fooled by an illusion. Numbers do not equal power. Ratios and percentages are power. A +60 is meaningless against a +7000, but awe-inspiring against a +3. The rebalance shifted all the "end-game" content to be roughly equal. That is a great and wonderful thing in the long term, even if a bit sad in the short term. Frankly, it's what they should have been doing all along. Having the numbers grow every expansion is a very very bad thing. It's bad game design. The devs getting their on track for a better future even at a minor cost to the present is NOT lying.
2)Very vague. Not enough here for me to even guess about what you might be referencing.
3) Again vague and non-specific. What makes you think the classes are over-nerfed? And given how shortly all the rebalance effects have around, how thoroughly have you actually tested that? Or did you just go by how it "feels?"
4) All of reaper is for those "r10" players, and those players are probably the big money-makers, making them a priority group to listen to, since if the game stops making money, the game ends. Unfortunately, money first, everything else second. This doesn't mean they ignore everyone else. Of course, feedback like yours is so unhelpful that they can't do anything except ignore you. If you to give good feedback, you have to pretend to be a dev with a detailed pkan of what to change and where, and what the outcomes will be, then you need to second-guess whether those changes will actually achieve the results you want (hint, usually they won't).
5) I haven't seen lies and deception, but I have seen a lot things that make sense from a designer's perspective that a mere player won't always understand. This can seem like lying to someone who doesn't want to put in the time and effort to understand design. Frankly, not enough game devs understand design, so certainly players won't, but if you are not going to understand the nuanced art that is design, then you need to at least realize that you can't just take changes and form an opinion from appearances, rather you meed to spend a couple months actually playing the changes to get used to them and immersed in them to tell good from bad.

Oh, a couple points of my own,
6) what players think they want will often make things worse. This is actually just a general truth of human nature. For example, one turkey (the bird) company, used to give their employees a turkey every Thanksgiving, but one year was a bad year and they couldn't afford it. The employees sued the company to get their turkeys and won. They got their turkeys, but they also lost their jobs as the company died. A game dev has the responsibility to recognize what players want vs what will make them happy and to avoid giving players things that will ultimately break the game.
7) real change does not come from expressing anger over broad and vague concepts. Change comes from either inspiring ideas, or drilling deep to figure out specific root causes and exposing them so detailed plans can be made that address them.