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.

[Hawkwier]

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.

"Mere player"??? Dearie me!

If this sort of arrogance is reflected in our SSG Devs attitude to their customers, it's no wonder folks are leaving. I sincerely hope it isn't, and whilst not strongly prevalent IMO, there has been the odd unwelcome whiff of it on some occasions. There have been some issues over the years where the Devs have demonstrated that some players knew more about the issue than they did. Not their fault really, in a game of such age, some players have been around a lot longer and will have a stronger understanding of some of the meta. For clarity, I don't claim to be such a player. But I do recognise that Dev arrogance has no place here. We have enough of that from some of the players!

You could, incidentally, add some real value here by listing the games you've worked on. Would be helpful to know what to avoid. Because I definitely want to avoid giving my custom to anyone with such an attitude.

You should also perhaps seek to understand a pretty useful business maxim. Quite often the customer's perception IS the reality of the environment the supplier needs to succeed in. If they want to sustain their business, that is.

[Valerianus]

These are NOT self-evident as they are based on your perceptions, not reality.

snip

hey i want to play too with this "i know reality and i declare your opinion wrong cause it's your perception, you are just seeing things you mere player" game you are playing. seems like fun!

ok, my go at it.

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.

ok, i declare your idea of good rebalance wrong cause fooled by your perception, reality is, there is no balance in the long term and will never be, there is no stop in power creep and growing numbers, there is, actually, not even some long term, not even close, reality is...drumroll...level cap increase is coming! bomb dropped oh boy! they just standardized actual content since they are selling it, and want a chance to sell it also in the future, until now it sold cause powercreep and new stuff, but with level cap increase this old powercreep was in the way, so they leveled it off. they did a reset of the actual endgame, soon to be just tr stuff, to start over fresh with new powercreep in the new stuff to sell it! e.g. loot, nothing wrong in considering loot a selling point for new content, pretty standard in mmos. maybe this time the numbers will grow slowly, but they will grow anyway. higher tiers of destinies enchancements will be added, or a new system of legendary stuff will be added, or both. premium EDs will be sold probably. etc, all over again.

[Certon]

hear hear!

I agree with this wholeheartedly. The tweaks you're making to mainstream characters ECHO LIKE THUNDER across flavor builds. That fighter lose some PRR? No biggie. That monk wizard lose the same amount of PRR? BIG TROUBLE.

[Merrillman]

hear hear!

I agree with this wholeheartedly. The tweaks you're making to mainstream characters ECHO LIKE THUNDER across flavor builds. That fighter lose some PRR? No biggie. That monk wizard lose the same amount of PRR? BIG TROUBLE.

Exactly. As long as THEY feel it's not affecting THEM, then they don’t care. I have friend who plays a PM. This update made his MRR & choice to use Medium Armor, along with a severe nerf of negative healing/power, which has vastly helped his survivability is basically useless now. Yet... paladins got relatively better, and DPS vs Caster DPS for melee is better. How is that “balance??” Me? I’m 20-30% less likely to hit a hold, stun or freeze now w my caster. The spellpoint pool. went down from the stat squish, yet spell costs are the same, holds are less effective five and damage is down 30-40-% vs Pally damage of 15-20, all of which means spells COST a LOT more relative to the pool, AND you have to use more spells to get the same effect either with damage or CC. So that, as far as I am concerned is pretty damned SPECIFIC. It’s also pretty concerning that people think that everyone is a reaper god, or even has access to raids. I don’t. I can get MAYBE an hour a day average tops. I can wait easily 2 hours or more on my server and NEVER EVEN START. The fact is public grouping sucks. That’s drips people out of getting LGS. It drips them from raids and raid gear. Not everyone can play 3-10 hours a day. It’s taken me almost 5 years to get 24 reaper points on ONE character. ONE. People seem to forget that there are people who can’t DDO 24/7, and yet we still contribute monthly revenue and deserve the same respect as any R10 basement dweller.

[JOTMON]

[TheAlicornSage]

"Mere player"??? Dearie me!
...

Don't be ridiculous. I wasn't meaning anything derogatory. It is clear that what a player needs to know and understand to enjoy a game is massively less than what a dev needs to know and understand to make a game enjoyable. That is ALL I was referencing.

And certainly, there will be exceptions, but they are just that, exceptions.

And yes, what player perceptions are does matter, but that is not even close to enough. Player perceptions are just a small piece of the whole, and acting solely on player perceptions is bad. Instead, player perceptions as a consideration is more important in presenting a design rather than in making a design. For example, probably famous by now, WoW's rest xp. Originally it was a penalty which was received poorly, so they flipped the name and it was praised, even though the design itself was functionally unchanged.

And quite frankly, your response is rather closed minded and not helpful. I'm terrible at dealing with people and speaking in general (and text is even harder), but that doesn't make me wrong. Ideas presented poorly are not bad ideas because they are presented poorly. You claim I'm arrogant, but you've no idea if I actually am or if my text was just poorly written, nor do you know whether it actually impacts how good or bad my designs are. Even if I was arrogant, I could still have great designs and ocasionally give excellent advice even if that advice isn't well presented.

[TheAlicornSage]

hey i want to play too with this "i know reality and i declare your opinion wrong cause it's your perception, you are just seeing things you mere player" game you are playing. seems like fun!

Sorry flatearther, but the world is round.

Logic (and thus science) is about truth, not comfort. Those who seek comfort will cling to comfortable lies. Those who seek truth will accept discomfort to find it. You can not make a good design for anything by ignoring reality for what's comfortable.

[Valerianus]

Sorry flatearther, but the world is round.

Logic (and thus science) is about truth, not comfort. Those who seek comfort will cling to comfortable lies. Those who seek truth will accept discomfort to find it. You can not make a good design for anything by ignoring reality for what's comfortable.

oooh flatearther, funny!

exactly what i was referring to. your idea of "good balance at least", it's comfort, not truth.

but i'm just playing, sure it's clear from my tone, don't want to fight, but yeah, just saying that the one seeking comfort, in my perception, that you'll declare faulty because it's not yours, the one seeking comfort is you

[TheAlicornSage]

oooh flatearther, funny!

exactly what i was referring to. your idea of "good balance at least", it's comfort, not truth.

but i'm just playing, sure it's clear from my tone, don't want to fight, but yeah, just saying that the one seeking comfort, in my perception, that you'll declare faulty because it's not yours, the one seeking comfort is you

And yet, nothing you said about mechanics negates what I said. Of course, I was speaking in broad general terms, not specifics.

[Pandjed]

Hello everyone. I've read through this thread, and it feels a bit heated and not very productive. I make the suggestion that you re-read some of your posts and ask yourself if that's how you want to represent yourself out to the world.


Well, let's try to focus on the topic, which is a bit strange to see this in the Suggestion&Ideas forum, as I don't read neither a suggestion nor an idea here (though it also doesn't seem to fit another forum of this category). Aside of the PS-part, which doesn't strike me much as a suggestion and more as a sermon, and the general offensive and borderline insulting words of choice even made me feel rather negative toward the OP when I first read them, just as a reaction. I don't believe that this is very constructive feedback, and I lean to think that you wrote it while being upset, which often doesn't make the best state of mind to write posts like these.
If I were to read it as someone who has to do work with it, I'd probably just dismiss it.


Let me ask you some questions:

1.) Is it bad, to try to correct past mistakes or bad decisions, that became apparent after a while? Especially those born of times, when you had basically only bad options and had to decide for one anyway?

2.) How realistic is it to get every single bit right, when the thing you're working with has so many variables, options, and other hard to foresee things, if you are on a time-limit?

3.) Do you prefer a dev team, that more or less don't care about the future of the game and just go on, without re-evaluating anything ever, until the game just gets abandoned, because it becomes too much work to handle reasonably?


It's not like I agree to everything, the devs are doing and deciding. Usually, I have something to disagree about with every update, and I sometimes don't get their priorities. What I do get is, that they have an interest to keep this game running, and that it'd be much easier for them to abandon it and go on with other projects at this point. This is a 15 years old game, which never was a leader in the MMPORPG market, is obviously outdated, finding people even able to work with these tools nowadays becomes increasingly harder, and while it makes profits, that doesn't mean that it's an easy job. We still have a dev team that stayed surprisingly stable over the last years, even though the original creators jumped ships long ago.

The thing is: SSG owns the game. They can do with it, whatever they want and there is a lot you can play without paying, many things you get easier by paying, and only few things you need to play at highest level that are hidden behind a monetary barrier. Guess what, U50 got rid of it also, as now you can get endgame worthy items by playing packs that are buyable by points. Now with Sharn and Feywild not domineering anymore, there are a lot of adventure packs that now can replace those items.

I expected a large shift in endgame with U50, because DDO is just that diverse, and all of the monsters were more or less handmade. So it's just unrealistic to expect a flawless update, some things got easier, some harder, but at some point it's better to bring the project out and make corrections wherever problems occur. U51 will probably be another big shift. This is a living game.


If you feel betrayed, if you feel lied to, then ask yourself why you still play the game and if it's compelling enough, concentrate on that. If you don't find anything... seriously, it's a game. If you don't have fun, don't play it.

I still have fun, and I'm excited to fiddle around with the new balance. I'm puzzled sometimes, because I read of things that supposedly don't work, even though they work for me, even though I don't even do much with filigrees, because I switch builds with every TR and therefore there is little benefit to dive deep in that system. I hit all mass holds fine, now even at level 24 in legendary content, for example, because of the stat squish.


Now I need some smart words to end with... Brickenblexn. ... ... Cool! *_*

[PsychoBlonde]

hear hear!

I agree with this wholeheartedly. The tweaks you're making to mainstream characters ECHO LIKE THUNDER across flavor builds. That fighter lose some PRR? No biggie. That monk wizard lose the same amount of PRR? BIG TROUBLE.

It shouldn't make any difference, because PRR reduces a percentage. If there's less incoming damage when you lose PRR, that means you're still taking less damage even if the percentage reduced goes down a bit. And, yes, top-end content is less damage now, particularly in Sharn and Feywild which were brought down substantially to be at the same level as Ravenloft.

These complaints don't gel at all with what I'm seeing with my guildies, who are all doing much better in endgame content and running it on higher difficulty than they were prior to the stat squish--these are people with only a few past lives, who don't do raids, and are perfectly content doing Hard if that's what they can do, since most of them only started playing after Covid started up. They've been rolling through Saltmarsh just fine.

Now, if you deliberately nerfed your build so hard that you were relying on Legendary level gear to do NON-legendary content, well, okay, yeah, you're going to have problems and, yeah, you may need to fix up your build--which is a good thing. No, the game shouldn't support you playing a deliberately garbage build. That is not a "non-mainstream" build, that is a BAD BUILD. You don't have to play FotM or some kind of exploited-to-death monstrosity to have a perfectly functional character. Stretch your wings a little. Grow. You may like it.

[Hawkwier]

Don't be ridiculous. I wasn't meaning anything derogatory. It is clear that what a player needs to know and understand to enjoy a game is massively less than what a dev needs to know and understand to make a game enjoyable. That is ALL I was referencing.

And certainly, there will be exceptions, but they are just that, exceptions.

And yes, what player perceptions are does matter, but that is not even close to enough. Player perceptions are just a small piece of the whole, and acting solely on player perceptions is bad. Instead, player perceptions as a consideration is more important in presenting a design rather than in making a design. For example, probably famous by now, WoW's rest xp. Originally it was a penalty which was received poorly, so they flipped the name and it was praised, even though the design itself was functionally unchanged.

And quite frankly, your response is rather closed minded and not helpful. I'm terrible at dealing with people and speaking in general (and text is even harder), but that doesn't make me wrong. Ideas presented poorly are not bad ideas because they are presented poorly. You claim I'm arrogant, but you've no idea if I actually am or if my text was just poorly written, nor do you know whether it actually impacts how good or bad my designs are. Even if I was arrogant, I could still have great designs and ocasionally give excellent advice even if that advice isn't well presented.

To save us both wasted time and effort, just list your games so I can safely avoid them please. That way I'll get some value at least from your drivel. We can then cheerfully avoid each other.