I hope this Can stay and funcom answer, dont mean to troll.

[Le-Quack]

as i said i hope this can stay and that i get an answer.

i want to say its good that you tried to rebalance, but all your changes is littlerly so bad that i dont want any next patch.
and from what i see on professional forums you totaly ignored our professionals that speaks for the community that should be important to funcom.

what happend to the first balance with all changes? that was atleast a good one that seemed to have much more effort put into and with actual game knowledge about each profession change.
the patch you guys suggest and gave us here seems to be made of freshmens with no knowledge what so ever.
also i dont totaly agree with all from main rebalance notes its faar better than what we see in this one that totaly will screw upp evrything.
also i question the dev team a little, is there fresh guys working on the new changes here? becose my brain explodes when i try to understand why theese changes came.

i dont have so much more to say than this, but i realy mean evry change in this patch is realy bad, and i realy dont hope any of it hits live.


also a free bump if anyone agree, would help so maybe those who agree's and think this is bad can help show funcom that they are totaly lost in this patch and that they have to redo allot and try to have a better communication with our professionals

[Pafpuf]

Bump, the changes currently on testlive will only euthanize this game that's been running on life support for so long. I'm not against changes but I'm heavily against stupid changes. Professions that don't need buffing getting buffs, professions that are already bottom line getting absolutely nothing again or nerfs even.

What exactly is going on at funcom ?

[Valyan]

You don't really seem to be asking anything constructive as much as just displaying your personal grievances - but even worse, you seem to assume that the rather subjective view of all changes being "bad" counts as an universal truth for all of the players.

Now, this is not the place to discuss the changes in detail (there are plenty of threads dedicated for that!), but many people do welcome most, if not all of the changes.

Personally, I'm very impressed by what the rather small dev team has managed to accomplish. AO is quite complicated to balance in terms of both pvm and pvp, and that is why you need to spend your time on the test server and bring forth constructive feedback with well lined out arguments, rather than just act grumpy and state that things are "bad". Evidently (and unsurprisingly) there is a need to tweak some of the changes, and the devs cannot accomplish this alone.

As for the eternal pattern where players ask for development, receive development, make a ruckus to protest against the changes, then accept facts and adapt their game styles retro- rather than proactively... well, I imagine the developers have grown a thick hide for now

Do remember, this is certainly not all there is to be done but rather a step into the future of AO! And I emphasize again: the patch is on the test server before entering live for a reason. Use it!

Love,
Chrystabel

[Phorum]

Bump for Valyan.

Unbump LeQuack. -All you seem to have to say is ALL CHANGES ARE BAD, FC HATES US, DEV SUCKS... etc... and you you provide us with no constructive feedback.

[Baby]

What Valyan said.

[Traderjill]

I have to agree that this type of feedback (original post) isn't very helpful. The patch isn't 100% bad nor is it 100% good. From my own vantage point, the spirit behind most of the changes is good but the values used need to be reviewed (i.e. cast caps, durations, pricing, etc).

That being said, I sorta shy away from saying 'If you don't like something explain why.' because even if that's the approach I've taken, I don't truly believe that anything will come of the feedback I've provided. Some of the things that are wrong are so blatantly wrong (again, my vantage point) that either the people putting it in the patch should have seen it, they won't understand if I tell them why it doesn't make sense OR it is exactly their intention and I simply don't understand the larger picture of what they're trying to do (and this is a very real possibility). I've heard a similar sentiment from others (in game and out) and that leads to frustration and posts like the original one in this thread.

There hasn't really been any communication besides the posting of incomplete patch notes. We also didn't even get a monthly update (or explanation from funcom on why there hasn't been one... just some side comment from a player about the marketing dept that sounded questionable).

The tone set by Funcom as a company pretty much asks for the type of feedback in the original post as opposed to more thought out comments provided by others. Sometimes I feel as if I'd do just as much good writing my thoughts on a sheet of paper and floating it in the lake as typing it out for the devs on the forums.

[revenant342]

We also have to bear in mind that there are literally two people working on this, as well as all of the other changes. While I do feel like communication could be better, the simple fact is that any time a Dev spends debating this stuff is time that half your team isn't coding. Just playing devil's advocate here.

While I do agree with some of the sentiments being expressed, I feel we need to address them more constructively. Saying "The changes are bad and you should feel bad!" let's actually get some lists going of what we feel is wrong, why, and how to fix it.

For instance, Adventurer Free Movement is no longer its own nanoline and conflicts with polymorph nanos. For instance, it overwrites Playful Cub which adds four times the run speed. Separate it back into its own nanoline.

Startup nanos in the NPE have been needed drastically from ICC island, providing vastly insufficient nano capabilities for the level range of the content. Doctors and Advise only get their level one heal, and engineers only get their level one pet, for example. Major turnoff to new players, and makes professions very generic versions of "press q, wait" with different names for level 1-15. Reinstate ICC island nanos until leveling nanos are completed.

Just a few examples.

[Pafpuf]

Unbump LeQuack. -All you seem to have to say is ALL CHANGES ARE BAD, FC HATES US, DEV SUCKS... etc... and you you provide us with no constructive feedback.

Way to show your reading (dis)ability, here I'll help you out!

what happend to the first balance with all changes? that was atleast a good one that seemed to have much more effort put into and with actual game knowledge about each profession change.s

I'm not against changes but I'm heavily against stupid changes. Professions that don't need buffing getting buffs, professions that are already bottom line getting absolutely nothing again or nerfs even.

The fact that this post doesn't say anything constructive is because we've been writing constructive posts that fall on deaf ears for YEARS. It's not personal grievance, it's just common sense. They're calling this a rebalance while they're not touching the subject of balance at all, it's just random changes all around. Might as well call it a debalance patch.

What Valyan said is nonsense, he is supporting change just for the sake of change which is a bad way to go. Changes should be well thought out, discussed with the community, tested, tweaked and then go live. What funcom is doing is copying skills from other games, putting them on testlive with no intention of listening to community feedback (it's obvious from the number of funcom official replies here), adding them to professions that didn't need them while at the same time ignoring ancient problems and leaving bottom of the barrel professions where they've been for years.

Balancing this game is a lot easier than you think, almost all of it can be done by simple editing of number values which doesn't even take programming skills when the code is already there.

I've said lots of times already and I'll say it again - the fact that they're introducing a new 100% luck based mechanic that has potential make-or-break effect shows that they have absolutely no clue when it comes to game design. Evades have been pissing people off as far back as I can remember. LE procs have been doing the same. Deflect will have the same effect. Failing to achieve your goal because of unpredictable luck based mechanics only causes stress and people play video games for fun, not for stress.

I could write constructive posts on why particular changes are bad into very intricate detail spanning through dozens of pages but you know, what's the fricken point, nobody at funcom will read or acknowledge it anyway. Because in their eyes, same as yours, I am just a disgruntled player making ruckus. They don't see me as a knowledgeable veteran player who actually wants to make this game better, just like you thinking that I can't write anything constructive based on one or two posts when I've literally written hundreds of very easy to implement suggestions over the years - all of which were ignored.

[Traderjill]

We also have to bear in mind that there are literally two people working on this, as well as all of the other changes. While I do feel like communication could be better, the simple fact is that any time a Dev spends debating this stuff is time that half your team isn't coding. Just playing devil's advocate here.

It isn't our fault that they don't practice proactive communication or set up reasonable/manageable means for us to communicate and them to respond.

If I were one of two people working on a project (which has been the case plenty of times.. just not a video game) that was going to impact many end-users I would've at least done the following:

1. Provided complete change notes
2. Posted a message explaining the vision behind the changes.
3. Proactively started thread topics that covered the various types of changes so that "I" could easily/quickly go back and read them in a manner that worked for me. (i.e. one for each profession, NPE, Shops, Raid experiences, etc).
4. Proactively provided guidelines for submitting feedback.. in fact flat out provided a form that could be copy/pasted into a forum post so no relevant information is left out.

It isn't our fault that there are only 2 people (or however many) working on this project. In my opinion, such a small crew is the reason why it is even more important for them to streamline communication and make sure everything is clear.

Edit: There are also bug/feedback reporting web tools that they could've easily deployed for 18.7 feedback that basically would've done all that I described above in a very simple manner. Mantis Bug Tracker is one that comes to mind as an example.

[Neista]

Bump for LeQuack and Pafpuf. We might not agree on specific changes but i'm 100% behind the idea that the changes as a whole are totally wrong headed and the worst possible direction to take the game in at this time

[Literary]

I think Joel may have mentioned, in an update WAY upsteam, there would be no update for July due to vacations. Really crappy day at work so not bothering to search for it. Just wanna put my twinking cap and maybe kill something. BTAIM, a note in 100pt yellow type telling us no new infos next month would've been a good thing.

[Valyan]

Changes should be well thought out, discussed with the community, tested, tweaked and then go live.

Yes! Surely nobody refutes this. As little as I refute your or the OP's knowledge of game mechanics - I'm merely stating that regardless of how nilly-willy you perceive the reception of your other, more elaborate feedback to be, threads such as these contribute nothing besides spreading negativity. In other words, this communication is just as lacking.

Ad hominems serve no purpose here or elsewhere, my point is that making use of what resources we have would to me seem better than just adopting a passive-aggressive bickering stance.

[revenant342]

It isn't our fault that they don't practice proactive communication or set up reasonable/manageable means for us to communicate and them to respond.

If I were one of two people working on a project (which has been the case plenty of times.. just not a video game) that was going to impact many end-users I would've at least done the following:

1. Provided complete change notes
2. Posted a message explaining the vision behind the changes.
3. Proactively started thread topics that covered the various types of changes so that "I" could easily/quickly go back and read them in a manner that worked for me. (i.e. one for each profession, NPE, Shops, Raid experiences, etc).
4. Proactively provided guidelines for submitting feedback.. in fact flat out provided a form that could be copy/pasted into a forum post so no relevant information is left out.

It isn't our fault that there are only 2 people (or however many) working on this project. In my opinion, such a small crew is the reason why it is even more important for them to streamline communication and make sure everything is clear.

Edit: There are also bug/feedback reporting web tools that they could've easily deployed for 18.7 feedback that basically would've done all that I described above in a very simple manner. Mantis Bug Tracker is one that comes to mind as an example.

That's operating under the assumption that the devs have any say at all in that. Across the industry, everything from balance to content to communication is increasingly being determined at the corporate level by people who don't play or design games. It's the main reason almost everything that comes out now is either a sequel, a reboot, or a clone. FC has always been a strongly centralized company, and this mentality has been a major part of their company policy since Shadowlands, which I still see as a disjunctive, misguided attempt to cater to the WoW market.

[Traderjill]

That's operating under the assumption that the devs have any say at all in that. Across the industry, everything from balance to content to communication is increasingly being determined at the corporate level by people who don't play or design games. It's the main reason almost everything that comes out now is either a sequel, a reboot, or a clone. FC has always been a strongly centralized company, and this mentality has been a major part of their company policy since Shadowlands, which I still see as a disjunctive, misguided attempt to cater to the WoW market.

I'm just a person playing a game. I have no way of knowing who is making decisions but I do recall Joel mentioning that he was the one that made decisions for AO. Of course that was before they did their restructuring and we never hear from the Creative Director on AO forums.

I could use the 'we are customers' line but AO has progressed so far beyond that. Someone stated this in another thread months ago but it has been, for awhile, almost a community project. This is especially true when you look at how much it relies on third party sites and software to provide what should be embedded in the code of the game. So they can't have their cake and eat it too. They can't have AO be a community project on one front but then act as if we're just anonymous consumers that don't matter on another. Sometimes, that is how I feel. What they should be doing (whoever @Funcom) is partnering with us more and even if it isn't the devs that do it.. there are community managers or (as I mentioned in another thread that you responded to) they can take players up on their numerous offers to help.

[Pafpuf]

Yes! Surely nobody refutes this. As little as I refute your or the OP's knowledge of game mechanics - I'm merely stating that regardless of how nilly-willy you perceive the reception of your other, more elaborate feedback to be, threads such as these contribute nothing besides spreading negativity. In other words, this communication is just as lacking.

Ad hominems serve no purpose here or elsewhere, my point is that making use of what resources we have would to me seem better than just adopting a passive-aggressive bickering stance.

I wish I could be in your shoes - to have a positive outlook towards funcom.

But honestly after paying for this game for several years, trying to be as constructive in my suggestions as possible just to be ignored time and time again I've realized that funcom pretty much perceive this game's playerbase as slaves. We pay for the most expensive mmo on the market and all we get is neglect with the occasional scraps of trash (like the upcoming changes) with some players so hungry they'll accept just about anything without thinking it through. There's isn't a shred of optimism or sympathy in me left towards funcom because their attitude towards this game and it's community is outright disgusting. Once - just once - I'd like to see a developer coming to the forums and saying "hey, good suggestion we'll try that" but we get excuses like "we have no time to read forums" while they have plenty of time to create nonsense and social clothes set #352.

[geturmoney]

Way to show your reading (dis)ability, here I'll help you out!





The fact that this post doesn't say anything constructive is because we've been writing constructive posts that fall on deaf ears for YEARS. It's not personal grievance, it's just common sense. They're calling this a rebalance while they're not touching the subject of balance at all, it's just random changes all around. Might as well call it a debalance patch.

What Valyan said is nonsense, he is supporting change just for the sake of change which is a bad way to go. Changes should be well thought out, discussed with the community, tested, tweaked and then go live. What funcom is doing is copying skills from other games, putting them on testlive with no intention of listening to community feedback (it's obvious from the number of funcom official replies here), adding them to professions that didn't need them while at the same time ignoring ancient problems and leaving bottom of the barrel professions where they've been for years.

Balancing this game is a lot easier than you think, almost all of it can be done by simple editing of number values which doesn't even take programming skills when the code is already there.

I've said lots of times already and I'll say it again - the fact that they're introducing a new 100% luck based mechanic that has potential make-or-break effect shows that they have absolutely no clue when it comes to game design. Evades have been pissing people off as far back as I can remember. LE procs have been doing the same. Deflect will have the same effect. Failing to achieve your goal because of unpredictable luck based mechanics only causes stress and people play video games for fun, not for stress.

I could write constructive posts on why particular changes are bad into very intricate detail spanning through dozens of pages but you know, what's the fricken point, nobody at funcom will read or acknowledge it anyway. Because in their eyes, same as yours, I am just a disgruntled player making ruckus. They don't see me as a knowledgeable veteran player who actually wants to make this game better, just like you thinking that I can't write anything constructive based on one or two posts when I've literally written hundreds of very easy to implement suggestions over the years - all of which were ignored.

exactly thats whats going on! actually im impressed by all of you who still have the energy to write any post here. in the last 3 months i probably started 30 posts/threads and after 2 sentences i ALWAYS thought "oh why the **** am i wasting my time here, nobody from fc is going to care about it anyway!".

we dont want a new game, we want the same ao - BALANCED - which pafpuf already said is easily doable by changing existing buffs/items. even a child knows that if you change 50% of each prof its not going to be balanced because its not predictable!

[Leetlover]

For instance, Adventurer Free Movement is no longer its own nanoline and conflicts with polymorph nanos. For instance, it overwrites Playful Cub which adds four times the run speed. Separate it back into its own nanoline.

Or make the good fixer-speedbuffs self only and then have one (1) osb'able speedbuff that shade, adv and fixer can cast on others. Less buffhunt and less useless nanos then.

Doctors and Advise only get their level one heal, and engineers only get their level one pet, for example.

This is very bad changes cause many times you wanna cast lower level heals due to def-slider, nano-issues or debuffs. I don't think players have issues with keeping track of nanos. If they do then we need better ingame-tools to see what nanos we got and better means for getting them. Not itemshop btw.

I had an idea for implementing something like auno's implantdesigner ingame. You can use the designer to create and order your specified implants to your mail up until ql 125. Would help newbies...and alt-tabbers.

[Valyan]

Pafpuf, my view tends to vary between being cautiously positive to something more like this.

As already stated by revenant342, it's more than likely that the tiny AO team is under pressure by the company - and I fathom a guess that the more 'streamlining' changes are being made for new players, and per extension, readying the game for a Steam release.

Personally, I've went through the changes quite extensively and find them in general to be for the better, without making AO lose significant amounts of its uniqueness. Again, this is merely my opinion - and many aspects still need reworking before being viable for going live.

We're making leeway though - it's a very valid point that communication from FC's side has been lacking to say the least. Perchance that should've been the main point to bring up here from the beginning?

Hugs,
Chrystabel

[Leetlover]

we dont want a new game, we want the same ao - BALANCED - which pafpuf already said is easily doable by changing existing buffs/items. even a child knows that if you change 50% of each prof its not going to be balanced because its not predictable!

I agree with this, but this shouldn't just be adjusting professions. Items and monsters needs tweaks too. Content is way to easy and boring, except tl7 or pvp that is too twinkheavy again. And now when I inspect people I see that pretty much everyone wears the same stuff. The reason for this is unbalanced endgame-phatz. One bracer for example, it adds best damage, best hp and best aao/aad for that slot. Thats cookie-cutter. I hope 2 c more consequence with balance. Also, why does aad-clusters buffs so much more than aao?

[revenant342]

I'm just a person playing a game. I have no way of knowing who is making decisions but I do recall Joel mentioning that he was the one that made decisions for AO. Of course that was before they did their restructuring and we never hear from the Creative Director on AO forums.

I could use the 'we are customers' line but AO has progressed so far beyond that. Someone stated this in another thread months ago but it has been, for awhile, almost a community project. This is especially true when you look at how much it relies on third party sites and software to provide what should be embedded in the code of the game. So they can't have their cake and eat it too. They can't have AO be a community project on one front but then act as if we're just anonymous consumers that don't matter on another. Sometimes, that is how I feel. What they should be doing (whoever @Funcom) is partnering with us more and even if it isn't the devs that do it.. there are community managers or (as I mentioned in another thread that you responded to) they can take players up on their numerous offers to help.

I agree with you 100%, especially the part about letting the community help. It worked great with Docaholic's stuff and is pretty much a no-cost solution. I, personally, would love the opportunity to write some minor questlines to fill in the more-or-less abandoned areas of RK or stat up some new items, which I feel like I'm qualified to do. Frankly, at this point in my life I've been an AO player for longer than I haven't been an AO player, and the same hold true for a lot of the remaining community.

What I'm trying to say, though, is that these decisions are not in the hands of the devs, the ARKs, or anyone we interact with even indirectly. I'm seeing a lot of misplaced hate towards the few people actually still involved in AO on the FC side who I imagine are on an extremely short leash and doing their best anyway. The last thing we should be doing is alienating them further, because if when they do read the forums and all they see is a long string of "you guys suck" posts in regards to what they do manage to get done with tight restraints and no support, why the hell would they listen to anything else we have to say? It's a two-way street.