Hop on over to the beta server to test out some Page 5 power updates!

[WindDemon21]

16 hours ago, Wavicle said:

I shouldn't see "the devs don't respond to feedback or revoke any changes the players don't like" EVER AGAIN.

But I will.

Well to be fair, they do, but that doesn't mean they're exempt from listening, and still making bad choices anyway like the page 4 defense change and the duration of the suppression after mez on offensive toggles. They listen, but in the end, they do what they want anyway.

[Ruin Mage]

Why did it take 7 pages for someone to go "bad" and "page 4" in the same breath.

I expected it much sooner.

[golstat2003]

1 hour ago, Shadeknight said:

Why did it take 7 pages for someone to go "bad" and "page 4" in the same breath.

I expected it much sooner.

 

On a more serious note, not every page is going to be a hit. Paragon learned that over the years. Sometimes there will be more hated or more liked things in a page/issue. That is fine.

[shatterpoint]

We've officially entered the DOOM phase on live servers over Page 5 beta.

The screaming, yelling, wailing and gnashing of teeth has begun.

 

LONG LIVE CHAOS!

[PeregrineFalcon]

3 hours ago, Shadeknight said:

Why did it take 7 pages for someone to go "bad" and "page 4" in the same breath.

I expected it much sooner.

I don't know. It seems to me that there's only 2 groups of people that have an issue with Page 5.

1. Fire farmers are big mad because Page 5 makes fire farming slightly more difficult.
2. Others are upset because they see the powers changes as yet more power creep.

That's pretty much it as far as I've seen. Did I miss anyone?

[Ruin Mage]

Well, I did say Page 4 and not Page 5.

Page 5 has been tame in comparison.

Edited October 7, 2022 by Shadeknight

[Sovera]

9 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

I don't know. It seems to me that there's only 2 groups of people that have an issue with Page 5.

1. Fire farmers are big mad because Page 5 makes fire farming slightly more difficult.
2. Others are upset because they see the powers changes as yet more power creep.

That's pretty much it as far as I've seen. Did I miss anyone?

 

 

Well, I'm a huge fan of Fire Armor if no one guessed it. But I don't farm. Not sure where I sit in that bullet list.

 

So far what we do have is the usual 'reads-the-patch-notes-and-immediately-and-loudly-complain-about-X' crowd doing their usual shenanigans.  Tested so far the changes to Burn did not affect (much) the clearing time of missions. It did affect the ST damage though by lowering the ST damage by as much as 50%. Which is brutal.

 

But the beta testing is not finished yet and I expect that there might be more revisions down the line (hopefully).

[PeregrineFalcon]

1 minute ago, Sovera said:

Well, I'm a huge fan of Fire Armor if no one guessed it. But I don't farm. Not sure where I sit in that bullet list.

The exception to the rule. Every rule has them.

 

2 minutes ago, Sovera said:

So far what we do have is the usual 'reads-the-patch-notes-and-immediately-and-loudly-complain-about-X' crowd doing their usual shenanigans.

Yeah. People been doing that for 30 years now. Welcome to the Internets.

 

The only way to stop that, at least in the feedback threads, would be to delete ALL forum posts that aren't "I tested it and here are my results." And then that's it. You get ONE post in the thread. Period. ONE.

 

But the problem with that is, if it was actually enforced equally, that the members of the Dev Defense League would have their posts deleted too. And then they'd lose their &$&^*(!!! And the mods don't want to have to deal with that.

[Ruin Mage]

4 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

Dev Defense League

Thank you for my new signature in a few months.

[Xiddo]

20 hours ago, Digirium said:

… the defence debuffs that were added to the sword attacks in fiery melee completely decimate defences.

I would quite like the changes to FA’s consume and FM’s powers be ported over to the Dom’s secondary also. Combustion’s animation change at the very least ❤️

[PeregrineFalcon]

1 hour ago, Shadeknight said:

Thank you for my new signature in a few months.

Don't forget to add, "In English, capitalizing the first word in each sentence is not optional."  😁

[Ruin Mage]

2 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

Don't forget to add, "In English, capitalizing the first word in each sentence is not optional."  😁

you wanna fight, mister?

 

1 hour ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

But the problem with that is, if it was actually enforced equally, that the members of the Dev Defense League would have their posts deleted too. And then they'd lose their &$&^*(!!! And the mods don't want to have to deal with that.

But for real - I would prefer a world where people didn't dredge up talk about cabals, inner circles, or a small group deciding the state of the game. I would love to be able to not multi-paragraph a post about how Industry Standards don't apply to private servers where the only money involved is donations. I would love to not have to contest with people that donations do not entitle someone to more of a say than anyone else, or something similar. I would love to be able to go to the forums and not see someone hit their keyboard about how the devs want to drive people off.

Until that time comes, however, I will remain. I would absolutely love, as Captain of the Defense League, to see my posts hidden. Not deleted, but hidden - as per Faultline and other developers. I can't speak for the rest of my team on the Defense League, but if the world were a better place we wouldn't  have to exist. I would love to hang up my hat as a forum cop, but so long as people pull out "The devs want to kill the population." tier takes? I shall exist.

Now it's up to you to figure where I was shitposting and where I was being genuine in that. 

[gamingglen]

I'm looking forward to the MM changes. 

 

Another MM change I'd like is to pick my attack type, as in I'd like to use archery with Beasts instead of Killer Bees and whatever that bird attack is. I can dream, right? 🙂 

[Riverdusk]

7 hours ago, Shadeknight said:

Why did it take 7 pages for someone to go "bad" and "page 4" in the same breath.

I expected it much sooner.

 

Myself I'd label page 4 boring.  Then again I didn't really care much about AE vet levels, emp conversions, or the defense changes one way or another.  I think the toggle suppression duration reached a good compromise.

 

Page 5 is sexy though.  Can't remember an update before that's made me want to create so many new alts.

[BrandX]

On 10/5/2022 at 1:54 PM, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

Good for you. From what I'm seeing of what's left of the old community, we've got with those that agree with the devs and those that don't who are told to STFU and go away. Then do. Thus the current anemic active player population.

 

Need some new Defense Sets for melee *nod nod*  That's what this old community member wants!

 

However, that Illusion Control Dom is ^_^

[Clave Dark 5]

8 hours ago, gamingglen said:

I'm looking forward to the MM changes. 

 

Another MM change I'd like is to pick my attack type, as in I'd like to use archery with Beasts instead of Killer Bees and whatever that bird attack is. I can dream, right? 🙂 

Same, but hint for the bird attacks: if you color them black and then surround your character with a bat aura (because who doesn't want a bat aura?), they can "read" as bats!

[Saikochoro]

On 10/6/2022 at 12:19 PM, Glacier Peak said:

I'm not responding to your post so much as to say that the community is stronger together than it is apart. 

 

Using the "us" versus "them" argument (players and the Homecoming staff, respectively) is an easy way to drum up drama or make a simple point, but it is divisive and ends up creating a mentally among the community that we aren't all players who enjoy the game. As you point out in your post, players are developers and developers are players.

People expressing discontent with the direction of the game aren’t drumming up drama. The drama does generally ensue from that, but expressing dislike of changes itself isn’t drama. 
 

Players have taken time to thoroughly test changes, post detailed feedback, and then get shouted down by the forum police in every beta. All the usual suspect happen almost every time. 

 

Someone tests and posts they don’t like something. Forum police come and say one of the following general ideas to antagonize those who already dislike something happening with the game:

- devs are volunteers and don’t owe anyone anything

-stop posting negative feedback back and go test. If you actually tested you would like it. 
-stop being negative

-etc

 

Then arguments ensue. GMs moderate and remove posts. Some posts on both sides get removed, but they clearly moderate those expressing discontent more strictly. They even have told people to stop talking about a change they don’t like and test other stuff. 

 

@Bill Z Bubba said it perfectly when he said that people can either agree with the devs/gms/forum police or STFU.  People doing real testing get shouted down and discouraged from doing further testing. So it all eventually becomes an echo chamber. 
 

That is not a community coming together. That is beating a subset of the “community” into submission or driving them away. 

Edited October 9, 2022 by Saikochoro

[Digirium]

Yup, despite good stuff being done each page there is bad stuff being done too each page. It's chip, chip, chip away at the "wrong kind of players" with nerf after nerf to farming it's a taster of what is to come in the future. "AE farms are not using the full attack chains" one moment, players adjust to include more attacks and then attacks are modified in a way that will absolutely kill farmers. Players adjust again but expect more chipping away.

 

Instead of being hateful pinheads, community could realise the "wrong kind of players" are players just like them having fun who need their support. I'm seeing some fallout already between players and devs over page 5, some of it disastrous and page 5 hasn't even moved from staging to production.

[KaizenSoze]

I have heavily tested the Sentinel changes and like them. I'll be making an Archery/Ninjitsu Sentinel when page drops.

 

Also, my Ninja/Trick Arrow Mastermind is very happy with the changes.

 

I don't really have a dog in hunt for the other changes, except figuring out how to get full exp in my AE farm while still using fire melee.

 

I will point out the serious amount of doom and gloom about page 4, which mostly surrounded the attack types changes, turned out not to be a big deal. People are still soloing 4x8 with all sorts of builds. Fire farms are still trucking a long if Pocket D is any indication.

 

 

[Ruin Mage]

9 hours ago, Digirium said:

It's chip, chip, chip away at the "wrong kind of players" with nerf after nerf to farming it's a taster of what is to come in the future.

There is no wrong kind of player.

What has happened is not, by any stretch of the imagination, an attempt to drive farmers out. Has fire farming been made harder? Sure, but where there is a will there is a way. Player opinion aside, and I'll admit folks can be vitriolic in expressing their distaste for fire farming being there, it's not a thing that the fire farmers are in the wrong. Fire farming is just ludicrously the best way to "progress" in the game, and things needed to be dialed back. Does the fire sword change affect farmers? Sure, but that's the product of fire being the thing to farm. Anything done to Fiery Melee is going to, fortunately or unfortunately, affect fire farmers. Adjustment isn't a bad thing to ask for.

I really doubt (and I can be proven wrong) that the intent of devs or players that ask people to test is to drive people away. Do the people asking it or expressing it come off like that? I can see it. People can get very defensive and passionate on all sides, and it can lead to more pushy sounding wording/opinion. 

Though I do know some people whose opinion is "burn it to the ground." in regards to the AE/Fire farming so I can see how that opinion (that there are "wrong" players) might form.

 

9 hours ago, Saikochoro said:

people can either agree with the devs/gms/forum police or STFU.  People doing real testing get shouted down and discouraged from doing further testing.

No one doing testing has been shouted down as far as I've seen. What has happened in the past is Patch Note Reactors taking a single change or a single note and losing their mind. The best case example of this would remain the Attack Type Changes. People went mental that something was changing, and rather than testing it? They kept calling it a waste of time or a shit change. They did not express what wasn't working, they didn't express any bugs with the changes, and they most certainly didn't give evidence of them having tested it.

Those are the people that make Betas a little more mind-boggling. It's not that disagreeing gets you shut down, but the lack of testing that gets side-eyed. What tends to happen, and I'm guilty of it in the past, is that people will try to challenge someone else's feedback even if they've tested it. That shouldn't be happening. If you test it and can provide that you have (i.e comparing Beta vs Live in feeling/numbers for power changes as an example) then realistically you should still be heard.

Obviously all of that is semantics when some forum posters fall into challenging feedback despite the guidelines saying otherwise.

Edited October 9, 2022 by Shadeknight

[Yaliw]

*Ahem*

 

Guys, a new piece of drama for this almost-20-years-old-video-game-forum!

 

I like the necromancy changes after trying them out in the beta. The appropriateness feels right.

 

Thanks devs for giving me more spooky ghosts. I love it.

 

Thanks for hearing my opinion!

[Coyotedancer]

1 hour ago, Yaliw said:

*Ahem*

 

Guys, a new piece of drama for this almost-20-years-old-video-game-forum!

 

I like the necromancy changes after trying them out in the beta. The appropriateness feels right.

 

Thanks devs for giving me more spooky ghosts. I love it.

 

Thanks for hearing my opinion!

 

I ❤️ the specters.  

[Tachstar]

Spectres is my favorite Blue Öyster Cult album.

 

[Glacier Peak]

Solid changes to MMs to test out for sure!!

[DawL]

8 hours ago, Shadeknight said:

Quote

There is no wrong kind of player.

I agree with you, but then, it also depends on who you ask. Obviously some folks think farmers are "wrong" and WANT them out. 
 

Quote

What has happened is not, by any stretch of the imagination, an attempt to drive farmers out. 

Sadly , whether intentional attempt or not, the end result will be the same.
 

Quote

Though I do know some people whose opinion is "burn it to the ground." in regards to the AE/Fire farming so I can see how that opinion (that there are "wrong" players) might form.

Exactly. And sometimes, from the standpoint of farmers, it kind of feels like it's those folks that drive the changes.