SSG's policy towards the community

[Gnominal_Aphasia]

We apologize for any issues caused this week, and we have been working diligently on fixes. Some went out today, while others are still in-process and will be released as soon as possible.

Cordovan, please do not take this personally. I am completely pixxed off with SSG. The Sonic Blast nerf was probably the final nail in the coffin for me. SSG have effectively ruined a wonderful class. Why? I think its for two major reasons: (1) they seem to pander to a small group in the community that have been complaining that the MCL8 Sonic Blast spell being OP, and (2) they make changes to the game without prior testing, without consultation with the community and without any seemingly competence.

The Archetypes for Bard and Cleric are appallingly bad. The first one has too many spells and no mana, and the second is simply a poorly designed weaksauce (trying to do too many things and none well). And why is this? Because SSG have shown time and again that they get things wrong by themselves and don't want to consult the people who actually play the game. I am all for rebalance in DDO, and it comes as no real surprise to me that the extra CL and MCLS in AoV cores were removed, but what does surprise me is to render a spell caster Bard obsolete; the MCL8 Sonic Blast carried the Bard into Epics and Stormsingers will run out of spell points faster than you can say "SSG hasn't thought about the changes in a balanced manner yet again".

And Hardcore League is less fun this time... could it be from the poorly implemented changes by SSG? There seems to be a correlation between my enjoyment with the game and game changes imposed by SSG.

Think better! Communicate better! Keep it real!

EDIT: Cordovan, get your colleagues to read the definition of the word "archetype" and its inherent meaning and then compare that notion to the reaction from the DDO community to your new trees.

[Wizard1406]

^ Yes.

They should properly play-test things before changing.

Then it would have become obvious that with sonic blast nerf, spellsinger bards don't have enough AOE.

Stormsingers don't have enough SP.

Dark Apostate is just weak and has too little AOE. Holy Smite Nerf hurt light clerics which were already not great nukers in epics and legendaries. Even with the changes DD is not a great tree.

AOV FVS does NOT do too much damage in epics and legendaries, so slowing the +CL and +max caster level progression (lower at lower levels, same at 20) would have been nerf enough.

edit: with nerfs, I think it's always better to do small nerfs, can always nerf more later if still vastly overperforming. Big nerfs always upset the player base.

[blarhblarhblarh]

I'm one of those recluses who only plays solo.

And this counts as playerbase. I never been this kind of player but I know the huge gap of speed and difficulty for all classes. Soloing quests with a single target toon vs an aoe build are whole different worlds. Or a healer, buffer or tank. What some classes can do in R4 is not what others can achieve in elite. So developers keep nerfing what work instead of making all classes work in a good way in heroic and epics. And soon legendary.

[Hanul]

I think theres a huge culture difference between west and east. Western companies generally hate apologizing or giving compensation for anything. Eastern companies are generally quick to apologize and give compensation.

For example, look at all those big Asian mobile games, they apologize and give a small compensation for scheduled maintenance. If there is a big screw up, they do things like give full refunds. No western company that i have heard of does anything remotely close.

Heck, everyone has heard horror stories of people losing stuff during TRs and then being ignored/stone walled by customer support.

This patch broke a lot of people's builds due to massive nerfs to favored souls and sonic blast, especially problematic for people on hardcore who are now stuck with builds that cant reach their goals. The least SSG could do would be to give free hearts to let people respec...

But they havent even acknowledged breaking people's builds, let alone compensating anyone...

Huh...

Big asian mobiles games like Netease games ultra p2w games where people even pay others to farm 24/7 exp to their char so they can be best of the server... (when someone is cheating or selling ingame currency for real life money, aka breaking the tos, neatease company does not even care at all) (very few real content on top of that; just a grind fest)

There's no nerf so bad that would need a compensation. In regards to lost items... they are not yet lost that we know.

You all should enjoy the game more for what it is rather than "to be"

And this counts as playerbase. I never been this kind of player but I know the huge gap of speed and difficulty for all classes. Soloing quests with a single target toon vs an aoe build are whole different worlds. Or a healer, buffer or tank. What some classes can do in R4 is not what others can achieve in elite. So developers keep nerfing what work instead of making all classes work in a good way in heroic and epics. And soon legendary.

I would not consider "working" to be "can solo elite, reaper (aka the real challenges of the game)" at "zerg speed" to be a good thing.

[Aelonwy]

You all should enjoy the game more for what it is rather than "to be"

The problem is many of us were enjoying the game and our characters for what they were and SSG repeatedly makes changes that make both the game and the characters less fun.

Over and over and over ad nauseum.

I refuse to buy hearts or boxes or pots or anything else to alter/speed up my character or switch them to the new shiny just to correct their damage. But this is what they keep doing to players so it must profit them in some way or they would NOT keep doing it.

[EinarMal]

I would not consider "working" to be "can solo elite reaper (aka the real challenges of the game)" at "zerg speed" to be a good thing.

This is pure forum nonsense, no one is soling R10 at "zerg speed" in a large selection of quests. If that is what you mean by "elite reaper" which is also nonsense and not even a thing.

[Hanul]

This is pure forum nonsense, no one is soling R10 at "zerg speed" in a large selection of quests. If that is what you mean by "elite reaper" which is also nonsense and not even a thing.

I should have included a comma between elite and reaper.

[Karthunk]

And this thread represents why Devs will not talk with us on these forums.

[Iyllelia]

The problem is many of us were enjoying the game and our characters for what they were and SSG repeatedly makes changes that make both the game and the characters less fun.

"I see you're having too much fun in this imaginary world you pay us to escape to and we can't have that so let's make everything feel more like real life where you're constantly being effed over by some bureaucracy. But, don't worry, we will create opportunities later to entice you to get that fun back...but you will have to pay us...again. And of course we will later see you're having too much fun and take it away again. Enjoy The Game!"

[Madja]

I don't really think compensation or an apology is worth much. I'd much rather that they spend more time on fixing the issues before they are released instead of rushing updates all the time.

Turn Lamannia into an actual PTR instead of the preview server that is it now. You have an abundant quality assurance resource in your player base - use it. A week of "preview" before a release is really not much, but I'm guessing there are many external forces at work pushing these tight deadlines?

[FengXian]

Toxic as all get out forums, even the slightest most brief "We are sorry gets jumped on".....anything deeper and more meaningful than that is just more fuel for the fire. " Your sorry blablah blah....I don't don't think your really sorry...in your face Devs" is the norm and so high school. Stuff happens, it will be fixed, move along.

People are rightfully angry, you're free to ignore issues and never complain though. "It will be fixed" is a good one btw. Maybe you mean "some of it will be fixed".

As for "the apology is not sincere/not enough" guys, yes, ofc it's not enough, but that's not the point here.

It's very possible that the devs can't really do better than this with the tools at their disposal. But it's still important to acknowledge that the situation is wrong/bad, it's important not to normalize it by being silent about it.

Hence the need for an apology, even if it's "just words".

[GeneralDiomedes]

And Hardcore League is less fun this time... could it be from the poorly implemented changes by SSG?.

I’m having more fun than season 5 because of the 2 level limit and the hounds. Judging from the LFM which has been extremely busy I’d say most folks are having a lot of fun. I’m also seeing the archetypes in group doing well.

[Question2005]

Huh...

Big asian mobiles games like Netease games ultra p2w games where people even pay others to farm 24/7 exp to their char so they can be best of the server... (when someone is cheating or selling ingame currency for real life money, aka breaking the tos, neatease company does not even care at all) (very few real content on top of that; just a grind fest)

There's no nerf so bad that would need a compensation. In regards to lost items... they are not yet lost that we know.

You all should enjoy the game more for what it is rather than "to be"



I would not consider "working" to be "can solo elite, reaper (aka the real challenges of the game)" at "zerg speed" to be a good thing.

>Big asian mobiles games like Netease games ultra p2w games

Whether a mobile game is p2w has nothing to do with how they apologize and compensate players. I was just stating that the culture is very different, asian game companies are far quicker to apologize and compensate in my experience. Have you heard of any western games giving cash shop items for server downtimes for example? Almost never happens...

>There's no nerf so bad that would need a compensation.

There were people who build FVS toons and their builds no longer work to the same extent after the massive nerf, same with people who build bards that were relying on SLA sonic blast. This is especially problematic for hardcore characters since if their builds arent at the same power level, they cant reach their goals and have to start over with a new character. People plan builds that can do a certain thing for hardcore, if they cant do it anymore, they are screwed.

At the very least they should have given every player affected by the change a free heart to respec. And they obviously should not have made a big change like this in the middle of the hardcore season because it screws over a lot of people.

[Merfyn]

The problem is many of us were enjoying the game and our characters for what they were and SSG repeatedly makes changes that make both the game and the characters less fun.

Over and over and over ad nauseum.

I refuse to buy hearts or boxes or pots or anything else to alter/speed up my character or switch them to the new shiny just to correct their damage. But this is what they keep doing to players so it must profit them in some way or they would NOT keep doing it.

Ditto; just removed my information so they can't "accidentally" roll my VIP subscription another year. Not that I'm overly outraged about the latest slew of offences; it's hardly a new trend & I'm still in that old protest guild on Wayfinder from the rally about the last game-breaking "update", "Update Twenty Killed Me"

I suspect it's a research failure. This game is bumping along the tail-end of the "maintenance" phase of the product life cycle, after all. The rush to monetize shoddy content will likely as not accelerate, even if it ticks off paying players.

Rather than bother surveying players who pay (or have paid) there's likely to be a very small number of people who "have their ear" and are treated as having gold-standard viewpoints. It's more comforting to get positive feedback from those you fawn over rather than the shrill screams & shrieks of those you cordially despise.

This is why they choose to remove ladders, waste effort over niche concerns, & nerf everything in the name of "balance". When the money runs low enough, it's sadly far more likely that they'll just shutter the product rather than open source it or actually put it into real maintenance mode.

I suppose I should find an "Asian" MMORPG; they're very pretty & I hear some have decent game play. Plus my hours are irregular & "off" enough that I spend far more time solo than not.

[Stormraiser]

We apologize for any issues caused this week, and we have been working diligently on fixes. Some went out today, while others are still in-process and will be released as soon as possible.

Can we have Tolero opine on what exactly happened and the thoughts behind the poorly received balance changes?

[Xezom]

I would love to see DDO do something like this: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3304969


This is from the game Path of Exile, my other main game and where I'm currently spending my free time until DA is fixed cause I'm currently at gear cap on my multi-lifer and not going to reincarnate it til DA is not laughably horrible. I've got some cool ideas and plans for the DA, but right now it's just so underwhelming it's not worth the time or resource investment to seriously consider it just yet.

This is not a perfect breakdown, but it goes a long way. It shows the community that the devs are listening and taking action. Even if that action is not what the community is asking for, it shows that the feedback is being heard, acknowledged, and making some influence on the path the game takes. DDO take note. This is how you do it correctly, and a post like this does not take long to write.

[Stratimics]

I’m having more fun than season 5 because of the 2 level limit and the hounds. Judging from the LFM which has been extremely busy I’d say most folks are having a lot of fun. I’m also seeing the archetypes in group doing well.

Ditto. Definitely the most fun season so far! The two level limit makes it so that everyone can easily group up, no matter if they're after XP, favor or gear. Hounds also spice things up in a way that just changing the champions couldn't do.

There were people who build FVS toons and their builds no longer work to the same extent after the massive nerf, same with people who build bards that were relying on SLA sonic blast. This is especially problematic for hardcore characters since if their builds arent at the same power level, they cant reach their goals and have to start over with a new character. People plan builds that can do a certain thing for hardcore, if they cant do it anymore, they are screwed.

If there are people who's entire build is dependent on Sonic Blast, then I take it as a clear sign that it was indeed overperforming. Also, when Sonic Blast is still the most cost effective spell to use as e.g. a level 7 Pale Master wizard, something just might be wrong with the spell...
Same goes for FvS – having played them myself and having played with other people running FvS, I can say that being able to clear every room with a single spell while also having high HP, high saves, awesome self-heals and all-around survivability might just be a tad too powerful...


The biggest thing to criticize, in my opinion, is implementing such big changes all of a sudden mid-season.

[Aelonwy]

If there are people who's entire build is dependent on Sonic Blast, then I take it as a clear sign that it was indeed overperforming.

That isn't what he said, he said :

bards that were relying on SLA sonic blast.

I'll tell you exactly why my Spellsinger relied on Sonic Blast, because the targeting and positioning was better than Shout/Greater Shout that have poor usability/reliability with moving mobs and one of the most annoying/aggravating things in the entire game is the message "You are NOT facing" while my spell points disappear into the ether and my spell goes on cooldown. Yes of course I'm going to rely on the spell that more reliably hits the mobs before they surround or even run past me. Yes spell point cost and casting time/animation plays a part in that equation but I have no control over those elements. Aiming and casting the spell and knowing when and how far from the mobs I can get a dependable result are the factors I do control to ANY extent and Shout/Greater Shout are just not as good as Sonic Blast was in those particulars. So no, IMHO, Sonic Blast prior to the damage rider of Stormsinger (the real reason it was nerfed) was not OP it was reliable and useful... but I guess we can't have that can we?

[Moribund_the_Greater]

And this thread represents why Devs will not talk with us on these forums.

For many of us, their silence and attitude is why I put an end to my sub and why I wont buy any points during this current sale. I really see no point on spending another penny on this game.

[balvix]

Toxic as all get out forums, even the slightest most brief "We are sorry gets jumped on".....anything deeper and more meaningful than that is just more fuel for the fire. " Your sorry blablah blah....I don't don't think your really sorry...in your face Devs" is the norm and so high school. Stuff happens, it will be fixed, move along.

This forum is no more toxic than any other forum. If you feel there is a bit of irritation or perhaps anger towards ssg and its teams then maybe you have not played the game long enough to understand how it is warranted. There is a marked difference between the way the player base was handled to how it is currently handled. The things people are talking about here, being ignored, or dismissed by ssg and its teams are common knowledge. If it was merely the exception and not the rule then it would be a little bit less of an issue. The people in this thread are angered and it has merit.