But how many cancel and walk away without a word?Originally Posted by Helcat
But how many cancel and walk away without a word?
25 months waiting for expert CNF forms. Tired of the intentional deceptions and being kicked in the junk.
ADV: Centenarian Nature Walker; Rating: 162
Craft: 1900 levels; Craft Rating: 234
DRGN: Lunus, Adult, 100 DRAG, 100 DCRA, 100 DLSH, Expert Lairshaper (Chaos-04)
No, try not! Do or do not, there is no try. - Yoda
If the enemy presents an opportunity, take advantage of it - Sun Tzu
Having problems with my right to speak? Report me or click here *Ignore Seranthor*
Who knows? One. Six. Maybe NONE?
Point is, things are not nearly as dire as some of you'd like to make it.
Got Cowbell?
I'm not saying people have no cause to be upset about
certain changes, nor am I suggesting you have no right
to voice your displeasure. I'm merely asking that we try
to maintain some perspective, and stop being so fatalistic
and melodramatic.
Got Cowbell?
You got me there Seranthor
But, at least, according to David, the accounts are increasing again. Does that not count?
The design has changed, we've seen it change from both thornwood and travertine going from normal for 1.5 years to ultra rare and camped.
The mithril has changed. It must be changed back.
People here are not going to believe stuff like its always meant to be this way. It is meant to be this way now, but not when people started and spent their time and effort working to this point. I don't blame Arch one bit, you've just destroyed his whole game.
I'm working mithril now, and the nodes are not AS commone, but there is no shortage of them.
Mithril golems, however, are very few and far-between.
Klaus Wulfenbach
Mithril Council, Chaos
"Death is fleeting. Pride is forever."
"Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it."-- Abraham Lincoln
I'm going to add my own voice to the unhappy ones here. But since most of this has been discussed, I'll try to keep it focused and brief.
-Balance changes should be made slowly, and over time. It seems you use a double-sided axe where a pocket knife would do. Example: Where the heck are the mithril golems?
-Try not to do any rug yanking. Rug yanking would be placing some of tier 6, and creating a lot of reasonable expectations. And then yanking it all out and claim it was part of the "design" all along. This will never make happy customers.
-Look for alternatives. Additions are better than subtractions. It's obvious your intent was to slow down progress. So why not leave T6 about like it was, then add extra, NEW features that make the total thing slower and more difficult? Creating an extra armor tech slot, for example. Or better features on existing buildings. Add things to make the players strive for and be proud of. Not take things away and say "now you can be proud of that, if you still do it."
-If you must make major, sweeping changes, don't do it on the sly. True, you don't need to explain everything. But in cases where you must do something like this, frank discussion with the players would be wise.
-Mind the order in which you fix things. We have a suggestions (discussion?) thread from Smeglor asking about rare components. It will probably be 3 months before we see any result from that, but in the mean time Nadia's prices exploded, and you actually REMOVED some comps from the game (mithril golems, effectively).
-Try to keep in mind reward vs effort. I'm sure you do, but I sure don't think it worked here...
-Multiplayer fun. This is a MMO. But you are creating the seeds for a hostile environment between your players. Herding a radiant wisp for 4 hours isn't a group activity, and group action won't help speed it up. But it will introduce anger and competition, CAMPING, into this game.
I guess I'm just sad to see things going this way. You are trying to make the world better for new folks, I get that. But as someone said, we vets are one of your greatest assets. And many of them are getting seriously upset. If you do enough to drive off a lot of your vets, you are going to have a very hard time bringing up a new population, I think.
Oops. so much for Brief.
Lumineux Talar
A Sad Day
As a member of Maelstrom, Archebold's guild on Order, imagine our sadness to learn that he was leaving yesterday when we logged on. But our loss is shared by many, or should rightly be so.
I have now played 3 or 4 MMPORPGs. I was a guild leader in a large guild for over a year on one of them, I know it is not easy to form a cohesive arena for happiness for large numbers of people each with different needs.
I have watched now as on 3 games, including Star Wars Galaxies, where devs became so heavy handed that it squeezed a lot of the enjoyment out of the game as people became more and more competitive and less and less cooperative. I have never understood this. I know some people have time to play many hours a day, but many of the peeps on HZ are working people with families who want a fun way to spend time with them.
One of the reasons I stayed on this game, even though I joined just AFTER merge is because of the elements of cooperation it affords, world projects, building and the like. I have 3 accounts at this time.
Another reason I love this game is for the graphic detail, a highlight which has been sadly reduced with the new graphic "fix" I have a nice video card and the current state of graphics on game is still rough (sidewalks flashing) despite efforts to tweak settings. I sent in a ticket and one of the answers was to decrease my graphic detail. I did not get a nice video card so I could be told to reduce detail on it. Btw, Archebold actually took time to advise many in game on tweaking settings for best performance, he spent many hours researching and testing settings and passing them on. In fact, he helped my husband build me the computer I now play on with advice in guild chat.
Archebold was one who lived literally in Istaria. Of all the people I ever met in an online game, he was the most positive and most concerned for the future of the game. He truly has a sense of stewardship of the game and in real life, that has taught me much. I have seen him meet new players in passing the sandstone fields and drop what he was doing to mentor them for 2 days at a time, to make sure that they would enjoy their gaming experience and stay. And his vision for large scale projects and breaking them down into doable pieces is awesome. I have spent many a happy hour assisting him to realize his visions, although he did a great deal of the work himself. He understood the intricacies of this game like no one else I have met. His leaving is a great loss to Istaria, whether anyone wants to admit it or not.
I am truly honored to have been able to have spent much time with him and call him a friend, as many Istarians on Order do.
I have been in Istaria for a long time, actually day one since game hit market, I have been involved in alot of events, helped alot of infoseekers on advice, helped many many dragons out thru the painful original RoP on Spirit, and have known of and recently been guildies with Archebold Tiernon.
As a lvl 100 Mason Miner Fitter and working on Gatherer, I could have all 19 schools too 100 as many have done already, but i chose to build help others out, just like Archebold, I am very fortunate to have had a wonderful guild to work with and its profits have been tremendous with the help of 8 peeps of a collected time of say 5 months to put up an expert stone and clothshop up so i can continue to help out many many Istarians and my hard work along with the others too name a few Archebold Atmashekti Rocinante Loacalea Piethon and countless others :}>
Once Archebold mentioned to me that he was leaving and gave his reasons I went to check out for myself first went to Travertine found 4 lodes and 3 golems went to thornwood seen 2 treeants 2 blighted trees ya these t6 should be heavily guarded scarce but need a touch more than just for one person to gather have u seen whats needed for T6 bldgs OMG I am a crafter at heart highest adv lvl 64 cleric and I find t6 crafting way out of line atm i spent 7G recently for 4 master forms and they are basically useless now
As I have read every post on this thread for obvious reasons ive seen 2 posts from Amon, not sharing a whole lot cept for some quick wit would the dev's like to talk to us a bit, is two months of hard labor for an expert shop moving too fast for the developers lets be a bit realistic here so as a veteran player im a bit disturbed about the recent video changes along with all the recent downgrades to the horizons experience if I were a newbie to game there would be no way to survive techs are unreal they nerfed the pawning system
Work with us, not against us
Kaisey Benoit
<Maelstom>
You know, when I changed the bottom line of my sig a couple weeks ago, I had NO idea how much closer to the truth it would be made.
I've not got a huge game list under my belt, but feel it's a sufficient enough repertoire to know what grind is. Horizons is quickly joining the rank of heavy hitting grindfest games such as Maple Story and Silk Road. Only, instead of the grind being attributed to the amount of things you have to grind on it is adding another aspect to that grind of how hard it is for you to find that amount of things you have to grind on as well.
I remember waaaaaaaaaaay back when, in an interview DB did with someone (MMORPG.com, Warcry, someone /shrug), he made the statement that all games have grind and HZ was no different but it was how you masked the grind to make it enjoyable that mattered (not quoted word for word but that was the meaning) and he felt their ideas on masking that grind would make HZ enjoyable. Just makes me wonder how true that really is.
Does DB really feel HZs greatly enhanced grind is enjoyable moreso now than previously? Well, obviously he must or these retro-changes would not have been made (retro because as Ophelia has stated, these current corrections in spawn were how the game was designed to work and not how it worked previously).
Does the populace feel HZs greatly enhanced grind is enjoyable moreso now than previously? If I had to judge by posts, I would give a resounding negatory and it looks pretty unanimous.
I will say my piece, I haven't been playing HZ all that much lately. While it was the discovery of another game I never gave a chance to impress me that pulled me away (I was far from being disgruntled with HZ at the time) this other games grind masking is far superior to HZs. Reward for effort is much more balanced to be sure (and that's for both the crafting AND adventuring). These special and rare things Ophelia refers to are, unfortunately for the game, not so special so why should they be so rare? A players reward for the effort expended (crafting or adventuring) in this game SUCKS, it always has. Too many things in HZ meaning nothing and too many things have too monumental amounts of effort needed to recieve an item, building, etc that makes the player less than impressed in their goods recieved.
So, how much grind DO you want in your Horizons? And how much are you willing to have forced on you before the grind masking no longer masks anything and all you're left with is a grind?
One huge.... enormous.... unrelenting grind.
Makes me want to give a heavily exacerbated sigh just thinking about it. >.<
Do the HZ devs not play their own game or something? I see responses like this and start to wonder.Changes were not communicated because none have been made. What you see is what has always been intended. That being the case, what was there to say?
I'm sorry but to try and say "These arn't the golems you're looking for" is just a sorry attempt at a jedi mind trick. Trying to deny that there was a change in something that has been in existance for atleast a year is just mental.
If T6 construction is going to be deemed rare and difficult, then shouldn't the rewards meet the difficulty? Like make T5 biped shops (anything that uses T6 resources), give a skill bonus of +100 or maybe +150 (double the original skill bonus), and T6 Dragon shops give +130, or +180 (again, double) or something like that. The effort is WAY more than double, it's obviously NOT at all worth the effort currently.
And it's sad that one of Order's skilled master crafters has found no more enjoyment in crafting thanks to these rarifications of the resources... spawn camping radiant wisps...... ugh.
I've said it many times before, Tulga needs to think about the FUN factor when making ANY AND ALL changes, removals, and additions. Where's the fun? The only semblance of fun I've had lately is doing new quests for newbie stuff like withered bane tech, or wedding quest.
If you're going to take away T6 construction, what else are veteran players going to do? Valkor, SoG, and Reklar aren't enough, not even close. Mobs with unavoidable 6000+ dmg aoe attacks are not Fun either. (example: Daknor has had free reign of EB for months.)
You need to add more fun. And at the very least, don't destroy what many veteran players have busied themselves doing while they patiently wait for the new fun to be added. Let them craft thier T6 for crying out loud. Turn travertine into 3 or 4 nodes, but 10 to 20 mobile nodes (the golems). Give the golems more social/ grouping behaviour, so that we have to group to adapt. But DO NOT make them so rare as to make the spawn be fought over, and not even enough to keep 1 player busy....
And do not be afraid to admit when you are wrong or have made a mistake. It happens to everyone.
In Tulga's defense, New Trismius and Lesser Aradoth do offer fun for new players at least. So not all of the recent changes have been negative. But do not forget the aging player base. I know that Tier 2 is next on the revamp list, but maybe you could do a loot revamp of the T6 mobs sooner rather than later? Something...
Last edited by Guaran; July 8th, 2006 at 06:13 AM.
This is a very important statement in this thread...
While "Newbies" enter the game.. (and stay or not).. and Vets Like Arch leave. There is an unbalance happening. Arch "had" 4 keys. SO?.. it will take 4 "Newbs" to replace him!!!!
Simple math... so lets recap
1 newb + Arch = longevity for game... OR
1 newb - Arch = Death for Horizons
Get the drift?.. hhmm if I don't pay my sub?.. I cant' play.. If I don't pay my sub?.. you have more free time to work on "Dark World".. and don't ask me to play "Dark World".. you can't manage here.. what makes you think I will have the faith you can run anyother MMO?
If the population of Travertine and Thornwood was not intended?.. why didn't you "fix" it sooner... could it be we ignored it while we had no tier VI forms?
My partner Holth alluded to "thinking mans game". I have invested hundreds of dollars to play this game. I am not 10 years old and my parents aren't paying for the 4 subs I use. Don't force the "thinking people" from the game.
DB?.. There was an interview that was/is on the home page. Who was it that did that interview for you..You have now killed construction.. is death and destruction next?
Last edited by Uther Blade; July 8th, 2006 at 07:46 AM.
What ever happens to all the stuff here one mob in the thornwood must neva leave and thats thistleface....remove him and u wont have anymore ancients in hz
It used to take cooperation. It used to be a group effort. It no longer is.
About 8 weeks ago I added 6 T5 shops to my guild's plot. They were meant as a long-term project, something the guild could work on together. After 8 weeks of work, one of them is at 50%, the rest are between 20-30% completed.
Someone else posted that it took her 5 months to get 2 expert shops built by 9 people. Multiply that out for my guild and we were looking at close to 15 months to finish our 6 shops. After those, there were still 5 more expert shops that were only a distant thought.
With the changes to T6 resources, I now have serious doubts as to whether they'll ever be finished.
A month ago we had an event to collect travertine. We had 8 to 12 people working together for about 5 hours. Some people mined, some muled, and some were there to protect the rest from the golems. I've been meaning to plan another one, but haven't gotten around to it - now it will never happen. Why? Because I went to travertine last night and there were just 6 nodes and 1 golem. Enough to keep 1 person busy for a while. But doing travertine on your own isn't as much fun as collecting it as a group, so I'd imagine it's going to take a long time before we get the rest of what we need.
The same goes for thornwood. Expert shops need even more thornwood than they do travertine. I was thinking we'd be able to do at least 3 guild events to collect the thornwood. Last night I saw 1 blighted tree and 2 thornwood treants. Enough to keep one person occupied for 10 minutes - if they're inclined to go do it on their own.
Radiant essence? That subject's been done to death and we all know grouping for that is impossible.
I could understand nerfing T6 resources if there were expert shops dotted all over Istaria, but there aren't. The only ones I know of on Chaos are at Apia, and they were built by a guild effort, over quite a period of time. (There are probably a few others around, but I have no idea where).
Expert shops were special, but you're right, now they'll be even more so, simply because of the unlikelyhood of any more getting built.
Last edited by Rhyssa; July 8th, 2006 at 09:07 AM.
I'm a biped. Even when I look like a dragon, I'm a biped.
*waves* wait for me Ser, I'll come with you.
Like Rocinante, my accounts are paid for a year, doesn't mean I'll still be playing until they run out though, and if I'm not playing, they certainly won't be renewed.
I'm a biped. Even when I look like a dragon, I'm a biped.
Great I'm glad you talked to David and that you are listening to us. For the record we aren't complaining, were are providing feedback.
I'm sorry either your not aware of the changes in the tavertine or thornwood or you dont really understand what is happening.
To simply say "This is design from inception" is wrong. This is not new content, Taverntine and Thornwood has been in the game for quite some time. Perhaps it didn't conform to the design from inception, but apparently it does now. Does this not consitute a change?
Maybe that's something that should be reviewed.
Well I appreciate your efforts, however you have a hard job. Basically you have to listen to the community then speak with staff. Next you have to listen to the staff's response and then communicate that to the community.
Its basically like your a translator because neither party can communicate with each other.
Actually every developer does this they just do it with broad strokes. They don't provide every detail and that's not what I am asking for. But you know revealing something simple like Tier VI resources are supposed to be epic and special doesn't change the fun, albiet is does ruin the surprise of the player base to find that one day changes have been made.
Would it really have ruined Horizions for the players to have been told 2 years ago that Tier VI resources would one day be added and they would be very limited?
See this here is a huge problem you dont even acknowledge that changes have occured.
Great I'm glad to hear that feedback from the consumer is reaching the developer staff.
Group effort. Allow me to address this please. How does working in a group help anything can this please be explained? With the current resources in game 1 person can work over the 3 nodes process the resources and apply them to a shop. Now say you have a team of 10 players working on the same shop. What do the other 9 players do? There is nothing for them to do. What am I missing? Please I beg of you because I just dont understand and I really wish I did.
You know I really resent the fact that you view our feedback as complaining. We are taking the time to provide feedback and I think everyone one of us in thier own way just wants to see the game be a success and be fun for everyone.
I think we all realize that everyone's time is limited. I'm not asking the design staff to drop everything, listen and respond to everything. But to just label someone as complaining so they can be ignored is wrong.
Laughing Otter said it better than I could have
Thank you,
Rocinante
Ok well then he meant to sound like an @sshole, and he came off perfectly
Intended since they put T6 into the game? I seem to recall fields full of T6 mats.....so they enver intended teh spawn to be so large? They are just now getting around to "fixing" (castrating) the spawns now? Is it just coincidence that T6 forms are finally in game that this change has come about? Hrmmmm makes you wonder....But, Tier 6 anything is not meant to be like Tiers 1-5. Tier 6 is meant to difficult, require cooperation, take time and result in something truly special. Tiers 1-5 have the ability to be completed on their own. Tier 6 should not. If they can be, they are broken.
They have listened. What you are hearing is only a disagreement between what you feel the design should be and what they intend it to be.
How is chasing after 2 raidiant wisps not a grind? How is sitting wiating for the 4 Travertine nodes to spawn not a grind? There is NO challenge whatsoever in that. There is no FUN in that. It's mind numbingly boring and if that's how the devs wnat T6 to be, well then frankly, people will probably cancel and not look back once they get to T6.It is unfortunate that Tier 6 can't be looked at as "epic" and "special" and an amazing accomplishment between peoples.
It is unfortunate that the feelings at this time it is viewed as a grind.
Well kudos to them for working hard on Lesser Aradoth. If they are working on one area, leave the other areas alone until they can focus their attention on said areas.However, I can tell you with assurance that the developers are working hard this month to leave Lesser Aradoth and move on to the rest of Istaria and perhaps, in the future, they will strike a balance that makes both your wants and their design come together in a symbiosis that most can agree upon.
Until then...
Ophelia, I must call BS on your post. The Tulga devs have once again shown they have no clue as to what the hell is going on in there game nor how it is played.
Last edited by cauri_order; July 8th, 2006 at 06:21 PM.
Cauri BloodBane - Order
100 DADV / 100 D C R A
Why So Surprised?
These are changes that simply accelerate the game changes that have been going on for a long time.
When hunters were asked their favorite hunting spots, the drops there were all nerfed. That happened a long time ago, and those who were there have never trusted AE/Tulga in the same way since. And in my mind, it was the beginning of grind for grind's sake.
After the merge, coin became so rare, and drops so very very infrequent, that the economy went from thriving to a barter economy. When those changes were partially rolled back, the economy recovered somewhat, but was never robust again. It had originally been conceived as a system, and the tweaking of individual bits since never was able to improve the system.
The list of changes that have reduced productivity and increased grind is very long, and not just recent. Pulling the finishing machines from the field so players spent more time running rather than gathering or manufacturing; alloying mithril, diminishing the "good stuff" in loot drops, cutting back pawnie payout.... And many many more.
These cuts were sprung as a surprise, and were unusually violent, so cannot be ignored or excused as the previous changes were, but they are really just the continuation of a trend. I stopped playing when the mithril change was made, as I foresaw a continuing "greying" of the game. I would rather have been wrong.
"Explanations" have not helped either. Saying that this was original intent is simply not believable. Horizons was the MMO feared by its competitors because it minimized grind; no naked corpse runs, or compass training, or food and rest needs, or punitive death penalties to name just a few of the major steps forward. The game that was released was not finished, but it was the game that was intended.
It is the result of effort, as Peaches put it so well, of seeing the buildings pop, that players enjoy; reducing the frequency of that, and increasing the grind ratio is simply incomprehensible to me as a business decision.
I expect that the latest changes will be rolled back partially and the players will then accept the new status quo, as it will feel like a great relief from the current situation. Indeed, a cynical felinoid might think that that has been the intent all along. That same felinoid might also consider the tactic crudely manipulative. And when the uproar dies down, it seems likely that more such changes will be introduced.
And it can be done differently, as it was at the beginning. Tulga put out a superb questionnaire during the Chris T era, and the key positive changes to dragon weakness and the newcomers' experience were begun then.
____Kulamata Quality Armor___
None Genuine without this Pawprint `',''
Achiever 86%, Explorer 60%, Socializer 46%, Killer 6%.
Ophelia, there is dialogue in this thread. But constant ignorant responses like this one and Amon's cause people to get angry. This is starting to remind me of release and the "miracle build" that will be arriving shortly.
One step forward....two steps back. Tulga's design philosophy.
Cauri BloodBane - Order
100 DADV / 100 D C R A
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
