Why even ask for feedback? Post patch woes

[Lanttanno]

I recently posted about how the new patch was gonna kill my main and also affect my two alts significantly but I thought it would at least be manageable....

After losing the extra spell-power from the belts, my already mid-tier flavour melee alchemist now feel so bad. Much lower dps and far less healing. Unfortunately I made the stupid decision to ETR on an iconic so I am stuck at mid epics doing quests on epic hard quests or waiting for groups to pop up.

Really feeling like the whole "give us feedback on these changes" thing was just for show. I can't understand how you can just not consider the impact of this nerf on a group of builds (i.e. spellblades of any kind). It isn't just spellcasters that used these belts.

INB4 they release +20 hearts again in a couple of days..... really just terrible balancing. Make the mediocre terrible to make the overpowered mediocre. How about don't do that.

[redoubt]

...

Make the mediocre terrible to make the overpowered mediocre. How about don't do that.

Its worse than that... They simply don't care about the people the middle and down. The top end was mostly already out of alchemist and sorc. The rest will move now because they can. I don't consider myself top, but I've been here long enough and have all the stuff that I can follow them.

I have done my testing on my pre-nerf fire alchy and then swapped to a poison/neg alchy and tested that. I'll be moving on. Since the first preview I've been looking at build options. Time to pick one and move on... the alchy is dead. Sorry man, I know it hurts and it makes you mad (makes me mad too.)

[AbyssalMage]

Really feeling like the whole "give us feedback on these changes" thing was just for show. I can't understand how you can just not consider the impact of this nerf on a group of builds (i.e. spellblades of any kind). It isn't just spellcasters that used these belts.

It's not for show. SSG is making sure nothing slipped by on their "Scorched Earth" approach. The part of the community who gains satisfaction from ruining others enjoyment ensure that they not only meet their design goals but exceed them. They are always willing to point out "things they should do next" when they nerf things. Rest assured that this part of the community not only felt their was earth left un-scorched but they are already salivating on what should be the target of their ire now and SSG needs to fix immediately because their "fun" is being ruined.

I guess the cliff note version... They weren't looking for your feedback. They were after those who only find enjoyment in ruining the communities.

[SpartanKiller13]

After losing the extra spell-power from the belts, my already mid-tier flavour melee alchemist now feel so bad. Much lower dps and far less healing. Unfortunately I made the stupid decision to ETR on an iconic so I am stuck at mid epics doing quests on epic hard quests or waiting for groups to pop up.

Run Slayers & Dailies lol, fastest way to finish a bad 20-30 run.

Mid-epics you only have heroic RL belt, so you're dropping from what, 600 to 520? Should be alright?

Make the mediocre terrible to make the overpowered mediocre. How about don't do that.

M8 you picked a build that you described as "flavor" and are surprised when it's "flavorful, not strong"?

It's pretty hard to nerf the overpowered without hitting other builds that use it. At least without super artificial nerfs like "oh yeah your MV damage now caps at 2k, regardless of your build".

[Aelonwy]

It's not for show. SSG is making sure nothing slipped by on their "Scorched Earth" approach. The part of the community who gains satisfaction from ruining others enjoyment ensure that they not only meet their design goals but exceed them. They are always willing to point out "things they should do next" when they nerf things. Rest assured that this part of the community not only felt their was earth left un-scorched but they are already salivating on what should be the target of their ire now and SSG needs to fix immediately because their "fun" is being ruined.

I guess the cliff note version... They weren't looking for your feedback. They were after those who only find enjoyment in ruining the communities.

I'm glad DDO is not a PvP game or this would be a thousand times worse and all classes would be a bland recolored flavor of each other. Though sometimes it feels headed in that direction anyway.

This is going to sound really snarky but its not intended to sound that way, its just my opinion and my perception over the last few years. They seem to mainly focus on the feedback that is praising whatever direction they have already determined to go... note that... they have already made decisions and put effort into something before it ever gets to Lammania, unless and sometimes even if we unanimously disagree with them they are not going to change direction. We are very rarely unanimous. And on the rare times we do unanimously agree to make a stand such as against their plans to remove Epic Tokens/Tokens of the Twelve way back when they introduced comms... they get kind of corrupt-a-wish, spiteful about it. Another example would be bank storage, they had a plan to convert character bank storage to the same interface as Shared Bank. The majority of people didn't like it because they can't easily, and conveniently organize gear in that interface. Remove one item and its no longer grouped together. Result: No further movement or work on the storage issue for years.

The sort of feedback they usually will take after it gets to Lammania is to change what effects are on an item, item name, possibly augment slots, possibly item type, flavor text, tooltips, maybe AP cost, tier, that sort of thing.

They usually do respond to people that can provide the maths to prove something. But not always, and keep in mind they also know future changes they expect to make and we can only give feedback on what we see currently. If they nerf something down 40% but something they plan on doing later is supposed to bring it back up 30% we can only see and complain about the massive nerf hammer that just hit us. We don't know about the mercy that may pick us up and put us in a body cast. This is made more awkward when the "mercy" comes with a price tag or their plans never come to fruition for whatever reason, or if the mercy comes much later than they intended causing the malaise to be prolonged.

[boredGamer]

After losing the extra spell-power from the belts, my already mid-tier flavour melee alchemist now feel so bad. Much lower dps and far less healing.

Sorry, what?

Melee DPS got nerfed *barely* - and ... healing? alchi overheals constantly. The amount of healing on alch isn't the problem, the time / arc of pots is the problem.

[Synthetic]

Sorry to hear that you feel like your characters were nerfed.

I find hybrid builds suffer a lot from gear tetris, and think your alchemist could come out fine if you look for gear that would replace that slot with some melee bonus - deadly, seeker, sneak attack, and MP would be the first things to come to mind. Having 4+ spell power types makes it difficult to slot all the melee bonuses.

I actually benefited on 2 of my more flavorful builds in this update(bard caster, arti caster), but my paladin was hit pretty hard.

I do wish they had decreased the crit cooldown of the new swf feat, but no such luck. Just remember you're not the only one providing feedback and changes to the game can mean it's more fun to play another build, which is what gives the game longevity.

Over all I think many builds were increased in relative power due to this update, and will be considered viable.

Cheers

Synth

[Kielbasa]

The fallout of nerfing stacking spell power is that the well scaling damage spells and heals barely feel it in most content but the classes or abilities that were just hanging in there fell off a cliff. Spell sword elemental damage, arcane archer elemental imbues, vile chemist poison imbues, and any class that cannot cast heal or its equivalent did not need the reduction in spell power. To be honest I was very surprised warlocks were given a couple epic feats to bring up their damage floor. Imbues of all types need better scaling support, the ability to crit and a higher damage floor in reaper.

[Aelonwy]

The fallout of nerfing stacking spell power is that the well scaling damage spells and heals barely feel it in most content but the classes or abilities that were just hanging in there fell off a cliff. Spell sword elemental damage, arcane archer elemental imbues, vile chemist poison imbues, and any class that cannot cast heal or its equivalent did not need the reduction in spell power. To be honest I was very surprised warlocks were given a couple epic feats to bring up their damage floor. Imbues of all types need better scaling support, the ability to crit and a higher damage floor in reaper.

The one saving grace of this is they actually have the tools to do something about it easily... the question is will they? That is they absolutely have control of how much something scales with spellpower so they can at their discretion choose to adjust that scaling.

[salmag]

I'm glad DDO is not a PvP game or this would be a thousand times worse and all classes would be a bland recolored flavor of each other. Though sometimes it feels headed in that direction anyway.

This is going to sound really snarky but its not intended to sound that way, its just my opinion and my perception over the last few years. They seem to mainly focus on the feedback that is praising whatever direction they have already determined to go... note that... they have already made decisions and put effort into something before it ever gets to Lammania, unless and sometimes even if we unanimously disagree with them they are not going to change direction. We are very rarely unanimous. And on the rare times we do unanimously agree to make a stand such as against their plans to remove Epic Tokens/Tokens of the Twelve way back when they introduced comms... they get kind of corrupt-a-wish, spiteful about it. Another example would be bank storage, they had a plan to convert character bank storage to the same interface as Shared Bank. The majority of people didn't like it because they can't easily, and conveniently organize gear in that interface. Remove one item and its no longer grouped together. Result: No further movement or work on the storage issue for years.

The sort of feedback they usually will take after it gets to Lammania is to change what effects are on an item, item name, possibly augment slots, possibly item type, flavor text, tooltips, maybe AP cost, tier, that sort of thing.

They usually do respond to people that can provide the maths to prove something. But not always, and keep in mind they also know future changes they expect to make and we can only give feedback on what we see currently. If they nerf something down 40% but something they plan on doing later is supposed to bring it back up 30% we can only see and complain about the massive nerf hammer that just hit us. We don't know about the mercy that may pick us up and put us in a body cast. This is made more awkward when the "mercy" comes with a price tag or their plans never come to fruition for whatever reason, or if the mercy comes much later than they intended causing the malaise to be prolonged.

+1

This sums it up perfectly.

Once they start something, for the most part, it gets done; regardless of what the masses think. I would say, there is a 99.9999998% chance of it happening. My calculations may be off by +/- 0.0000001%.

[slarden]

Release notes and Lamannia say Epic Eldritch Blast will max out at 7d6 at 30 - but feat indicates only 6d6.

Can I have my missing 1d6 please.

[Mininin67]

The one saving grace of this is they actually have the tools to do something about it easily... the question is will they? That is they absolutely have control of how much something scales with spellpower so they can at their discretion choose to adjust that scaling.

I have no faith that they will revisit any changes any time soon, just because of track record.
Optional XPS nerf reason they wanted to make the game more fun by forcing players to add variety, and this will allow them to increase optional XPS. I liked Daily Quest I could be braindead or on a bad life or a life i didn't enjoy and still get thru it at a decent pace and I have not seen them increase OPT XPS and most OPTs in most quests are not done after the first few runs becuase they are not worth the xps to bother with them for most groups.

Removing the resists shrines, this will give them a chance to look at the low level quests < looking at you Kobie Shaman > and adjust them this has not happened.

I am sure I am forgetting a boat load more Broken Promises.

I have voted with my wallet and am no longer playing or paying, just tired of them asking for feed back then ignoring it.

Also I really tired of them trying to tell me what i should be doing to have fun < I have a WIFE for that >

[droid327]

Yeah I do wish they'd solicit more feedback at the design stage, and not just after its already been coded and they're more or less committed to it already. Lama often feels less like feedback and more like just a "convince me I'm wrong" table.

I get that, especially with a nerf, they're going to get lots of negative feedback regardless and can't respond to it all...but things like the CaF nerf feel like they really need more discussion and thought before they're Live, because the justification for that isn't nearly as self evident as with the spell power and nuke nerfs.

[droid327]

Optional XPS nerf reason they wanted to make the game more fun by forcing players to add variety, and this will allow them to increase optional XPS. I liked Daily Quest I could be braindead or on a bad life or a life i didn't enjoy and still get thru it at a decent pace and I have not seen them increase OPT XPS and most OPTs in most quests are not done after the first few runs becuase they are not worth the xps to bother with them for most groups.

Removing the resists shrines, this will give them a chance to look at the low level quests < looking at you Kobie Shaman > and adjust them this has not happened.

I don't think they ever promised they were going to tune down low level quests, the shrine nerf was purely because they were already too easy with them...

But excellent call on the optionals. They absolutely did promise that the optional nerf would allow them to be more liberal with optional xp, and judging from Feywild, which was developed entirely after that change, there's been no fundamental change in design philosophy. The optionals there are exactly like they always were. I can't think of any Fey quest where there's any true optionals worth doing. Nothing with bonuses like 50, 80, 100% that are way above the usual 10, 20%.

That's something we need to start holding their feet to the fire about more forcefully.

[Marshal_Lannes]

Flavor builds are supposed to be for, well, flavor. Being limited to Epic Hard on them doesn't seem all that out of line. In the unofficial poll taken here, over 60% of the forum supported nerfs to spell power belts. That's a clear majority. So to say the Devs aren't listening to people isn't exactly true. They aren't listening to the minority who want spell power creep. The larger player community likes the changes.

And let's not forget aside from a couple of nerfs, there were many buffs this past update. Enough spells were buffed that a whole new set of flavor builds were likely opened up for adventurous character builders. FVS once again offers a multitude of options. Tinker, adapt, overcome.

[Chai]

It needed to be nerfed because one person on each server who had every PL and capped reaper points TRd into the new thing and crushed someone's kill count dreams, so they came to the forum to win a battle they cant win in game, which is not even a direct competition game in the first place.

Also: Some 1337 DPS top 1% fully farmed player demonstrating what it can do at endgame where there is a huge spike in power means nerfing an entire class in the entire game seems legit.

Of the three characters I still play, all of them took a hit this patch. I must have concealed my piking too well.

[Chai]

Flavor builds are supposed to be for, well, flavor. Being limited to Epic Hard on them doesn't seem all that out of line. In the unofficial poll taken here, over 60% of the forum supported nerfs to spell power belts. That's a clear majority. So to say the Devs aren't listening to people isn't exactly true. They aren't listening to the minority who want spell power creep. The larger player community likes the changes.

And let's not forget aside from a couple of nerfs, there were many buffs this past update. Enough spells were buffed that a whole new set of flavor builds were likely opened up for adventurous character builders. FVS once again offers a multitude of options. Tinker, adapt, overcome.

60% of the less than 10% of the already shrunk populace...

65% of the time it works, every time. /panther noises.

[kanordog]

In the unofficial poll taken here, over 60% of the forum supported nerfs to spell power belts. .

To me it only means Yes-man have more socks than the rest of the player population.

[DarkSkysz]

I usually just stop paying sub when they do some bad thing with the game. This nerf was a prime example of unsub.

[myliftkk_v2]

Of the three characters I still play, all of them took a hit this patch. I must have concealed my piking too well.

At least one of mine got hit, but since I've parked the game, it might be buffed by the time I come back.

I'm looking at the dev calendar now and thinking maybe the next expansion what with the level cap raise and the epic destinies overhaul. Why play before those major changes? Perhaps I'll take the toons out of the garage and down to the track then.