UNfocused Feedback

[Yaliw]

1 hour ago, Neiska said:

 

Whoever said we don't need testers? Certainly not I. But you see, what companies do in the real world, is they swap out or change "testers", just to prevent bias from personal acquaintance and regularity.

 

Being experienced doesn't mean you have good ideas. Or that your math can favor one thing or another. 

Tell that to the people who love to share they've been around since I1 or something.

[PeregrineFalcon]

9 minutes ago, Shadeknight said:

I guess I am one of the Council members then.

Yes, Jimmy. We know.

[Tachstar]

57 minutes ago, Shadeknight said:

Patch Note Reactors can't do that and generally don't have the foresight to make the evidence-backed comparisons that is sought after.

 

Thanks!

 

[Ruin Mage]

You're welcome, forum person.

[America's Angel]

7 hours ago, Neiska said:

Here's my unfocused feedback. I too was once a staff member for a private server for nearly 10 years for another game. (Neverwinter nights 2 if anyone is wondering.)

 

Long story short - Over time our Dev team grew an "inner circle" of friends/acquaintances/special people who would form the unofficial "development team." In a sense, it was a group of people they personally knew apart from the unwashed masses whose input on changes carried more weight than anyone else's, simply because they "knew" those making the changes. But what this led to is a small handful of people who were not a part of the staff, having far more influence on server changes. But not just game mechanic changes, but server policies as well.

 

The point to all this is such an environment contributed to my decision to leave. And I believe if we aren't in a similar situation, then it is growing into one. Because if you go back and look through all the changes that have come to pass over 3 years recorded here in the forums, you might notice a pattern. I won't elaborate more than that due to forum policy. But people are certainly free to look for themselves.

 

I do want to highlight that I am not claiming this is the actual situation. Only similarities that I have noticed after spending quite a bit of time after this last Beta and spending a few hours combing the forums and looking for "trends" in "feedback" and the actual changes that have been implemented.

 

TLDR - Not a provable claim, but it is certainly beginning to feel like not everyone's feedback is equally weighed and valued, which can lead to people assuming some very bad things, even if they are utterly untrue. I am not saying this IS the case here, but it certainly is beginning to have the same atmosphere and vibe.

 

I think that's just how fan/pirate servers tend to operate. Dev teams usually spend all their free time developing and not playing. Because of this, they need players who regularly play the game to give feedback on what they're working on. (Especially in areas they're not super familiar with, such as PvP.) The consequence of this is that the players with the most free time tend to be the ones they end up speaking with the most. These players become known entities to the devs, and it can lead to a feeling of there being a "cool kids table" or "inner circle" to everyone else on the outside looking in. To those players, it creates the feeling of favouritism.

 

Now, that's obviously not a nice feeling to have. It gives the idea that certain players matter more than other players, which completely upsets the accepted hierarchy of Devs/GMs>Players. And furthermore, it can also make entire supergroups feel inferior when comparing themselves to others in that "Oh yeah, members of The Justice Brigade are always chatting to the devs" way. It removes the sense of equality that are essential for online groups to thrive.

 

I can't really think of a way to solve this, because it's a feeling people have. How do you solve a feeling? The reality is that everyone's feedback is listened to equally and closed beta testers just get theirs in first. But, if the perception is that "first = priority", then there's not much that can be said to counter that. Similarly, the reality is that, because everyone is able to join the closed beta, anyone feeling excluded has only themselves to blame. But then again, pointing out that anyone is welcome to come sit at the "cool kids table" doesn't get rid of the bad taste of there being a cool kids table in the first place.

I guess maybe some steps should be undertaken to ensure it's not perceived as a cool kids table? I dunno. All I can say is that, with the exception of PvP, nothing has been added to the game because closed beta testers have requested it. They, like you, are just giving feedback on something that the devs are planning on implementing. They have no power. If they did, the words "proc" and "nerf" would never appear together in any topic of conversation.

[Glacier Peak]

4 hours ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

Yes, Jimmy. We know.

[Glacier Peak]

6 minutes ago, America's Angel said:

 

I think that's just how fan/pirate servers tend to operate. Dev teams usually spend all their free time developing and not playing. Because of this, they need players who regularly play the game to give feedback on what they're working on. (Especially in areas they're not super familiar with, such as PvP.) The consequence of this is that the players with the most free time tend to be the ones they end up speaking with the most. These players become known entities to the devs, and it can lead to a feeling of there being a "cool kids table" or "inner circle" to everyone else on the outside looking in. To those players, it creates the feeling of favouritism.

 

Now, that's obviously not a nice feeling to have. It gives the idea that certain players matter more than other players, which completely upsets the accepted hierarchy of Devs/GMs>Players. And furthermore, it can also make entire supergroups feel inferior when comparing themselves to others in that "Oh yeah, members of The Justice Brigade are always chatting to the devs" way. It removes the sense of equality that are essential for online groups to thrive.

 

I can't really think of a way to solve this, because it's a feeling people have. How do you solve a feeling? The reality is that everyone's feedback is listened to equally and closed beta testers just get theirs in first. But, if the perception is that "first = priority", then there's not much that can be said to counter that. Similarly, the reality is that, because everyone is able to join the closed beta, anyone feeling excluded has only themselves to blame. But then again, pointing out that anyone is welcome to come sit at the "cool kids table" doesn't get rid of the bad taste of there being a cool kids table in the first place.

I guess maybe some steps should be undertaken to ensure it's not perceived as a cool kids table? I dunno. All I can say is that, with the exception of PvP, nothing has been added to the game because closed beta testers have requested it. They, like you, are just giving feedback on something that the devs are planning on implementing. They have no power. If they did, the words "proc" and "nerf" would never appear together in any topic of conversation.

Decisions are made by those who show up.

[@Ghost]

16 minutes ago, America's Angel said:

I guess maybe some steps should be undertaken to ensure it's not perceived as a cool kids table? I dunno. All I can say is that, with the exception of PvP, nothing has been added to the game because closed beta testers have requested it. They, like you, are just giving feedback on something that the devs are planning on implementing.

 

This reminds me some of the recent GW2 drama, where they held a private invite-only Discord for content creators and other contributors from the community to discuss balance and changes in a way that was more filtered and focused. Turns out it's not a particularly uncommon decision, and other games like WoW have attempted similar formats in the past. In each case I've heard of though, there's a core misconception that having a direct line to devs means they care at all what you have to say -- feedback was regularly ignored and voices never felt heard, and both game's special secret forums were closed in favor of public discourse and having the developers communicate more earlier and more openly so they could respond faster. GW2 in particular replaced the previous lead who organized the Discord, and started doing livestreams demoing the changes and thoughts behind them, which I think has been very well received.

 

So I think the moral of the story is that developers hate everyone equally.

[Luminara]

Shit.

 

I just realized I have to start over with Buttlefish.  Buttlefish needs a Buttle Axe.

 

HATE THIS PAGE SO MUCH NOW.

[Sovera]

12 hours ago, @Ghost said:

 

This reminds me some of the recent GW2 drama, where they held a private invite-only Discord for content creators and other contributors from the community to discuss balance and changes in a way that was more filtered and focused. Turns out it's not a particularly uncommon decision, and other games like WoW have attempted similar formats in the past. In each case I've heard of though, there's a core misconception that having a direct line to devs means they care at all what you have to say -- feedback was regularly ignored and voices never felt heard, and both game's special secret forums were closed in favor of public discourse and having the developers communicate more earlier and more openly so they could respond faster. GW2 in particular replaced the previous lead who organized the Discord, and started doing livestreams demoing the changes and thoughts behind them, which I think has been very well received.

 

So I think the moral of the story is that developers hate everyone equally.

 

 

I still remember the WoW attempt. Players came out of it saying most of the advice and suggestions was ignored despite repeatedly coming out with math and explaining how it worked out outside of spreadsheets. The attempt died after that.

 

But that's a typical WoW feedback forum. As much as we have people complaining here I have seen a lot more backtracking and attempts at shifting things than I remember in WoW.

[@Ghost]

7 hours ago, Sovera said:

I still remember the WoW attempt. Players came out of it saying most of the advice and suggestions was ignored despite repeatedly coming out with math and explaining how it worked out outside of spreadsheets. The attempt died after that.

 

But that's a typical WoW feedback forum. As much as we have people complaining here I have seen a lot more backtracking and attempts at shifting things than I remember in WoW.

It was a very similar story for the GW2 Discord as well. People who knew particular classes inside and out were brought in, ignored, and the lead balance dev ensured his pet projects were top of the line, simple to play, and fun. And he spent quite a bit of time mocking players and predicting salt. Fun fella!

 

The dev team here is far more responsive on average, no doubt, especially with rapid changes on this recent page. Though I have to wonder if it's just the difference in magnitude of voices and infrastructure between a humble lil project and a massive ongoing title with millions of players.

[Peacemoon]

On 10/6/2022 at 9:27 PM, Ironblade said:

I'm calling this unfocused feedback because it's not about any particular change in the beta patch notes.

It's not about any particular change in any of the recent updates.

 

It's about the annoying (to me) trend of making changes at a basic level that requires respeccing characters.

Adjusting stats on powers is fine.  Adding new powersets is great.  Proliferating sets is great.

 

Completely rewriting existing powers sucks.

If the devs could focus their efforts on other categories of 'improvements', that would be great.

Changing powers completely is a bit of an Ooof.

Sticking to the original vision but with a slight reimagine because it wasn’t working, or adding extra layers of awesome on top of what already is there, are both fine with me however.

 

Note that having to rebuild or respec your character can be fun too, and even if they just buff a power that was previously 90% always skipped, you may want to respec anyway to include it in a new build.

 

Basically.. can’t easily get away from it unless you just have No Changes. Which would be a bit boring. 
 

I agree that deleting a power and putting something completely different in its place should be avoided, and I think it generally is except for the absolute worst offenders?

[golstat2003]

On 10/6/2022 at 4:36 PM, Glacier Peak said:

I can understand your point. My opinion is that respecs are the easiest that they have EVER been in the life of this game. I am not the only one who remembers running Terra Volta respecs before they started handing them out like candy. The game has come a long way to making the process of updating powers and letting players make their desired changes. Again, I can understand your point though.

 

Respecs are assuredly NOT easy. The interface is one of the most ridiculous I've seen and it shows it's age. I know this because I've played more modern games in the last 15 years that handle the process much better. I would not mind respecs if the interface and way it's done itself were simpler. So no, if a change requires a respec I simply avoid it. As in I roll a new character. 

[golstat2003]

On 10/6/2022 at 5:46 PM, Without_Pause said:

I highly suggest never playing Path of Exile.

 

I second that. STRONGLY. VERY VERY STRONGLY.

[golstat2003]

I will say this: if it weren't for the Godsend that is Mids I probably would have stopped playing this game a long time ago. I DISLIKE the interface for respecing that much. You miss a power or slot and you basically have to start all over again. It is one of the most UNFUN aspects of this game when you're forced to rebuild because of a powers change, even if you don't mind the actual change. Mids has been a lifesaver.

[Grouchybeast]

14 hours ago, golstat2003 said:

I will say this: if it weren't for the Godsend that is Mids I probably would have stopped playing this game a long time ago. I DISLIKE the interface for respecing that much. You miss a power or slot and you basically have to start all over again. It is one of the most UNFUN aspects of this game when you're forced to rebuild because of a powers change, even if you don't mind the actual change. Mids has been a lifesaver.

 

This is my carefully refined respec process:

 

Create the build in Mids.

Begin the respec.

Halfway through become wracked with doubt, cancel the process and go back to Mids.

Start the respec again, get partway through and realise I've made a mistake with a power pick or slotting and have to cancel it.

Repeat the above step a few times.

Laboriously drag and drop IOs.

Spend agonised minutes scrutinizing my IOs for slotting mistakes.

Finally hit done.

Realise I forgot to screenshot my power trays, which are now wall-to-wall grey with temp powers.

Lie face down on the floor for a while and cry.

[MistressOhm]

I agree, the respec process (and yes, it IS a process!) is really effing clunky.  

 

I don't like that I can't see my current enhancements when choosing powers OR slots.  I've messed up set IO's more than once because I forgot to allocate enough slots in one power for the set that I have.   

[Riverdusk]

2 hours ago, Grouchybeast said:

 

This is my carefully refined respec process:

 

Create the build in Mids.

Begin the respec.

Halfway through become wracked with doubt, cancel the process and go back to Mids.

Start the respec again, get partway through and realise I've made a mistake with a power pick or slotting and have to cancel it.

Repeat the above step a few times.

Laboriously drag and drop IOs.

Spend agonised minutes scrutinizing my IOs for slotting mistakes.

Finally hit done.

Realise I forgot to screenshot my power trays, which are now wall-to-wall grey with temp powers.

Lie face down on the floor for a while and cry.

 

The ones I really feel sorry for is when you do all that, hit done, and you get "respec fail".  Think it has only happened to me once.

[@Ghost]

17 hours ago, golstat2003 said:

I will say this: if it weren't for the Godsend that is Mids I probably would have stopped playing this game a long time ago. I DISLIKE the interface for respecing that much. You miss a power or slot and you basically have to start all over again. It is one of the most UNFUN aspects of this game when you're forced to rebuild because of a powers change, even if you don't mind the actual change. Mids has been a lifesaver.

Very much so. One of the things I've wanted for a while is a direct Mids import feature. The beta server has an almost-but-not-really option where you can import the enhancements used and they're in your tray in the correct order, but leveling up manually 1 to 50 for testing is even more annoying than respecs if you're trying to get something precise.

[Snarky]

They could F-ing change Dark Dark Blaster.  Pick a focus.  ANY focus, cones, circle, melee, F-ing pick something.  The powers are all "sort" of cool individually and add up to a mess that is as un-synergistic as A sumo wrestler and gymnast partnered for a three legged race.  Also, worst build up of any Blaster.  You want to start changing things?  Do ANYTHING there.  You cannot make it worse.

[golstat2003]

1 hour ago, Riverdusk said:

 

The ones I really feel sorry for is when you do all that, hit done, and you get "respec fail".  Think it has only happened to me once.

 

I've gotten that at least 5 times in the past year. I just log off and go play something else usually. It's either that or get angry and throw my laptop. lol

[Ukase]

On 10/6/2022 at 3:36 PM, Glacier Peak said:

I can understand your point. My opinion is that respecs are the easiest that they have EVER been in the life of this game. I am not the only one who remembers running Terra Volta respecs before they started handing them out like candy. The game has come a long way to making the process of updating powers and letting players make their desired changes. Again, I can understand your point though.

I don't want to misunderstand you - or presume anything - but I think you're missing the pain point. It's not earning or acquiring the ability to do the respec, it's the respec process itself. 

For me - the primary reason I don't PL my characters to 50, is I can't stand the leveling screen. And I hate doing respecs because sometimes, I have to do 2 of them because we only get 70 slots to drop the trays in and at level 50, most of us have at least 94 enhancements in the previous build. 

I can understand changing things a little here and there. But when the HC team really screwed up the sorcery pool - I still have a dozen characters that I don't feel comfortable playing because they were built to have Rune of Protection recharge as close to perma as I could get it. It was this change that made me aware that I have no idea what our HC team is doing when they're not turning me into a trash can in the hive, or completely removing an entire thread I was quoted in. 

When your chosen power no longer accepts an IO that's still in the power, yeah, it requires at best an enhancement unslotter, but for most players, most of the time, it requires a respec. An annoying respec that didn't need to be necessary. But some closed beta tester got tired of masturbating and decided to screw with the rest of us. Nobody asked, they just did it. It stunk then, it stinks now. All the pablum where they said "But squishies aren't supposed to be immune from mez..." can just fall on deaf ears, because their ears might as well have been deaf when they implemented a change most did not want. And they would have known this, but they didn't have the courage to ask. After all, better to ask for forgiveness than permission, right? 

 

[Ukase]

On 10/7/2022 at 8:09 AM, Zhym said:

 

Yes.  If I were lead dev, my prime directive would be, "No powerset changes until the respec system is revamped."

 

I am getting a big hit of nostalgia, and not in a good way.  It's taking me back to the days of the forums complaining about each round of changes and Jack Emmert saying, essentially, "This is the game design I want; deal with it." 

 

It would be great if the process of making changes to the game involved the players more.  Beta seems lately to be purely testing to see whether anything breaks; maybe it's only my impression, but feedback about planned changes seems more likely to lead to minor tweaks than big changes.  Maybe we need an Alpha server where the devs can have players try things out and see what we think before committing to them. 

 

The actual Page 5 changes mostly look good to me at first glance, FWIW.  But it would be nice if the dev process were more, "Here's what we're thinking of doing, what does everyone think?" and less, "This is what we're going to do."

I don't always agree with @Zhym but he just put things in such a polite way without insulting anyone, and did so in a lot fewer words than I would have. And I agree with what he said completely. I added emphasis to the part that should be repeated in every post by every player until the HC team catches on. 

[Ruin Mage]

I disagree with the bolded.

I don't think bogging development down with "Here's what we are thinking", when it's entirely their show, is the way to go - it's simply not a guarentee that what they're thinking will make it past Alpha/Closed Beta. Things do get scrapped, and it would create a false hope if what they're thinking aligned with people's wants...only for it to be scrapped for reasons. The way we have things isn't broken, so why change it?

[Tachstar]

8 minutes ago, Shadeknight said:

The way we have things isn't broken, so why change it?

 

Now you're getting it! Spoken like a true Patch Note Reactor! Welcome to the don't fix what ain't broken club! Welcome!

 

But if I was in charge I'd change things so that every attack that hits gets half the endurance cost back, and every attack that misses gets twice the endurance cost back. Now that would be some serious QoL! Woo!

Edited October 10, 2022 by Tachstar
d'oh