Devs - Read the goodbyes lately?

[imported_Ssilmath]

Devs, have you seen what people have been putting into goodbyes lately? A good number of them I don't agree with at all, but some I can truly sympathize with...Complaints about failure to deliver on promises, hearing about major changes that would ruin it for them, not being able to log in, the long delays...

Please, address these fears and woes...Delays are understandable, unforseen problems do crop up...But rumors of major changes to core gameplay and the classes, that is scary stuff, especially when you only have a vague foreshadowing...Not being able to log in is a huge thing, and very frustrating...assure those who have this problem that things are being done to fix it, and back it up with more than just words...And as for the broken promises, address that as well...come out and let people know that some ideas have been scrapped because of various issues...

The communication as of late has been a welcome refresher, but then a few cryptic words destroyed all the progress...please, build our confidence back up...So many want this game to succeed, but are at their wits end and don't know if they really see light at the end of the tunnel, if that is just the flashlight of another lost person, or if that is a train headed their way...

[oluviel]

Everyone needs to calm down and wait. These were quotes taken from an article. These are the official message boards and when they feel the time is right they will give us specifics. Every player who has reached a max level should see the flaw in multiclassing. Yes it's fun and allows your character to gain excessive power, but this is not good forthegame. No class roles, and no end to the power pool (stamina/mana) lead to a system where it is hard to balance player v npc power. Cleric/spiritists for example compliment eachother so much that they barely lose any skills and abilities when crossing over. The point of being a cleric is that you are not supposed to be so offensive. Moreover, for a warrior/cleric the point of being a warrior is to be a meat shield, deal damage and protect others. But in it's current state a warrior at 100/100 canutilize two extremely powerfull heals decked out to the point thatthe warrior is no different that a paladin in better armor and more damaging abilities.That's what i mean by losing class identity. This game has not had class identity since the grand opening and players were not multiclassed gods.

Thereare little to no class roles with muticlassing in its current state. So yes expect some watering down of what skills and abilities can be mastered or what spells can be used by what class. Notice that they are alsorefining individual classes so that they are more powerfull by themselves. Once they get done with this dragon crap i'm sure these changes will come quicker and people will be happy again. Stop being so afraid of change when we don't even know what these changes will bring.

The people who are leaving for so-called broken promises already wanted to leave. They are just justifying their move to wow and/or eq2 games with 20x(or more)the dev power than horizons to join the crowds of lewwt whores and nameless faces.

[Joaqim]

Every player who has reached a max level should see the flaw in multiclassing. Yes it's fun and allows your character to gain excessive power, but this is not good forthegame.

So removing or limiting one of the last fun parts is good for the game? Remember many of us play just for fun and not mainly for RP reasons....

That's what i mean by losing class identity. This game has not had class identity since the grand opening and players were not multiclassed gods.

Well all the limit stuff will make the player more unique, as there will be very few of them left - most mutlclassed will feel that thingie as a major nerf[:@]

Notice that they are alsorefining individual classes so that they are more powerfull by themselves. Once they get done with this dragon crap i'm sure these changes will come quicker and people will be happy again. Stop being so afraid of change when we don't even know what these changes will bring.

Refining? That's more a redoing of the classes and hell, I guess if such a thing will ever happen it ends mainly with a removal of skills/abilitys. Remember the dmg crystalls? Useless for casters since merge patch, as caster ones should be introduced then....

My personaly opinion is, we don't need any refining to turn current multiclassed chars into crap. Why do we multiclass? Yes, because not much more else is to do...
How about putting the power into more content? How about real event's, new quest, other fun stuff which are an real alternative to the limited fun of taking another school to lvl 100?

The people who are leaving for so-called broken promises already wanted to leave. They are just justifying their move to wow and/or eq2 games with 20x(or more)the dev power than horizons to join the crowds of lewwt whores and nameless faces.

Mostly there are several reasons which are adding up, to make people leave, but for shure the "so-called broken promises" are one of it. And it doesn't matter where they are going to or what I think about the other games...

[Kulamata]

Memory is the problem. The game was more fun once, and has been "greyed" with wave after wave of "improvements". But we remember how it was, so we know how it could be.

Recently nerfing stopped, positive aspects were added and announced and churn stopped. Player morale on the boards shot up, althoughthe improvementwasless evident ingame.And now tomake major changes that much of the player base will see as strongly negative???

Behaving as if there were a mandate to nerfbecause the player base is no longercollapsing is bordering on the obsessive.

What were the major complaints in the early days? Engine/lag/combatqueue issues, unfinished classes, weak loot, crafting tedium, and boring combat. Then a few months later, a lack of high level content. A year later what are the major issues?Engine, (improved, but still a problem,) weak loot, unfinished classes, boring combat,crafting tedium, high level content, and now, too few players. The high level contenthas beenhelped in some part by multiclassing.So why change that? Classes are getting some attention, we're told, loot will be improved, and the engine is being worked on. Lairs and Ancient are coming. All good,although not yet delivered. Cap to be raised, which would also help high levels. (Thought that was overdue in January, but no progress reports at all recently.)Finish eliminating the negatives. First. Planning further cutbacks in game play before the effects of the positive changes can be assessed is a really bad idea.

Diminishing that aspect of the high-rated characters that has had the most time investedis going to incite fury.

If the player base is responding positively to positive changes, why make negative changes? I have the strong feeling that no one in Tulga plays the game intensively as a player; it is very hard to do so as a dev, as you are continually aware of design characteristics and considerations.The great efforts of the recent past must have cut playing time to the bone. And it is very difficult to say "we screwed up". So please listen to the players.All the players who left did not "just leave", they left for reasons, and nerfing as a substitute for content was a big reason.

Peoplerespond much more strongly to things being taken from them than they do to things given them.

Multi-classing is one of the few areas where Horizons has a definite, easy to sell advantage over all other competitors

So again the question; would weakening multi-classing cause players to stay, and new players to join? If not,don't do it.

(Sorry for not presenting this particularly well, but after the good news earlier in the week, this really caught me aback. That'll teach me to post about a "fresh breeze". )

[Rainbow]

Well I have been called some things in my lifetime, but never a "lewwt **********"......

And seeing that I enjoy plodding through levels and never had more than just over one gold ( I think it was only one, but tbh, I didn't really give a monkey's armpit about having lots of gold so don't remember exactly), I wonder how I get labelled with such an unpleasantsounding name.

The original poster made a fair observation, and oluviel, you may be amazed, but some of us only changed to WoW, as in my case, because finally we had a choice of an alternative that offered a pleasant andsmooth gaming experience that certainly gives Horizons a run for its money.


Rainbow

[refuse]

No class roles, and no end to the power pool (stamina/mana) lead to a system where it is hard to balance player v npc power.

Actually the major draw to Horizons for me is the class roll.

I don't want to be a "cleric", or a "warrior", or a "ranger".
I don't want to pick an Elf to be a ranged attacker, nor a human to be a mage.

I can pretty much pick an choose what I want (I have 0 warrior/fighting classes, except scout which was what I picked on the training isle).

But "class" definition is alot like saying All Helians are the same. A Mage style character may mix (in horizons) spirit and ice, or spirit and fire (I did sorcerer for ice).

The point is, you can be what you want is one of the best abilities in Horizons (as a biped, and pretty true for dragon's too). So you want to be a Hellian with fighting and magic, or a 1/2 Giant mage with healing. Or you want to be a Shaman/warrior combo, you can.

Thereare little to no class roles with muticlassing in its current state.

There are little to no people to do these rolls. A group usually consists of 3 people (my experience), a few times more when big baddies are the target. Gone is the days of a mage, a cleric, a warrior and a dragon all with their respective rolls. It isn't happening with 1/3 to 1/4th the population.

So yes expect some watering down of what skills and abilities can be mastered or what spells can be used by what class.

Strange, in the face of fixing dragons (adding value) the response to bipeds is to remove value. What about the people that have played a biped from the beginning, spent hours upon hours of getting levels, tweaking to be the character they want. But only to find out it doesn't fit your model of "class definition". Sorry charlie, you will be happy soon? How do you reimburse them for the time playing? For the lost effort? Or do you just say, well thems the breaks?

We can wait for the response, that is all we can really do.
But based on the "leaking information", it doesn't bode well for bipeds.

[Alexis_Aris]

Please dont speak for people unless you are one of them that left. I had no plans on leaving, that was apparent to everyone on Order I am sure. The fact that I was playing a game which was in my eyes "broken", and catered to certain players, and then the fact that I held out and held out for the original plans to come , which constantly constantly got pushed off made me feel like I was paying for beta and I really felt scammed. Now granted there is no game like horizons, I didnt leave for any other game. Yes i have always played others, I never played EQ or WoW.. I do play FFXi for a few hours a week becuase i throughly enjoy the quests- something I couldnt find in horizons that i amstill waiting for -in there they are amazing and helpo me to relax after work.

I will gladly play horizons again, but after the big puzzles pieces are put together, and yes, all games have flaws,bugs and problems, it was just too much for too long for me.


It would help the devs to read the goodbyes and really see the player base their loosing, not who and who is an asset because i think thats a bunch of crapola as every player was just as valuable as another, but they need a wake up call.

I'm not saying get stuff done "NOW!", I'm saying, don't say its a month when really its going to be 5 months...occasiionaly it will happen, where something wont be out of time, but enough with the extremeties.

[Khoal]

....It would help the devs to read the goodbyes and really see the player base their loosing, not who and who is an asset because i think thats a bunch of crapola as every player was just as valuable as another, but they need a wake up call....

No, it would not help the devs to read the goodbyes. The goodbyes are only posts from people who have bothered to register with this site, and then bothered to post a goodbye in that particular forum.

The devs don't need to read that forum, because the devs have access to the actual numbers of people playing. Those numbers - the actual numbers, and not the players listed as "visible" in a player search - are not available to the general playerbase. No one but a Devtruly knows how many play the game.

[AZVladimir]

[img]/Web/Themes/Generic/images/icon-quote.gif[/img]Alexis_Aris wrote: ....It would help the devs to read the goodbyes and really see the player base their loosing, not who and who is an asset because i think thats a bunch of crapola as every player was just as valuable as another, but they need a wake up call....


No, it would not help the devs to read the goodbyes. The goodbyes are only posts from people who have bothered to register with this site, and then bothered to post a goodbye in that particular forum.

The devs don't need to read that forum, because the devs have access to the actual numbers of people playing. Those numbers - the actual numbers, and not the players listed as "visible" in a player search - are not available to the general playerbase. No one but a Devtruly knows how many play the game.

I agree and my question is why would a Dev ever respond to this thread? The Dev's don't respond much to threads and this one is just ranting. Frankly, it reminds me off the old joke/saying 'Have you stopped beating your wife?'. I mean really, how do you answer a question like this if you even WANT to?

The thing to keep in mind, which I keep stating but will repeat again, we can only make factual statements about AE/Tulga and the outward impression they create as a business unit. All the armchair programmers and weekend game designers in the world can give their opinion on what Istaria needs but it still remains just an opinion. Most of us don't program for a living and I don't think any of us make games for a living but even if we did, we don't make *this* game.

AZV