Silent Majority

[Lemon]

<DIV><FONT size=2>Is it me or is the current design ethos of this game based on those who whine most will get what they want ? Devs stop listening to whinners the vast majority of players dont spend there lives trolling these boards going on about minor crap that truns into nerf time for some poor unfortuante class. Yes there are things that need working on but lets be honest the Majority of players play and are happy to just get on with things.</FONT></DIV>

[Ay]

<P>Whines are good and bad. Whines are necessary to point out obvious flaws in the game. It helps both SoE and the players in the long run. I don't know about you, but i would have quit any MMO long ago who had Fighters and scouts outdamaging mages. Hell, it's a shame but many fighters still outdamage many mages (i.e. conjurors)</P>

[Fle]

What one person might think is an obvious flaw could be something that they just don't like and another person could have a totally opposite feeling. You only have to look at the small number of post's that threads get up to to see that it's a minority that are whining.

[Sebastien]

Actually I think the majority of the design decisions that SOE makes are based on a combination of marketing/management goals and actual data/numbers that they gather from observing the servers. The viewpoints expressed on message boards sometimes capture the sentiment of "majorities" and sometimes do not. <div></div>

[Birdrunn]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Lemon13 wrote:<BR> <DIV><FONT size=2>Is it me or is the current design ethos of this game based on those who whine most will get what they want ? Devs stop listening to whinners the vast majority of players dont spend there lives trolling these boards going on about minor crap that truns into nerf time for some poor unfortuante class. Yes there are things that need working on but lets be honest the Majority of players play and are happy to just get on with things.</FONT></DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR><FONT color=#ff0000>Well I think they need to leave things on the Test Server longer or do something, because there are those who care enough to whine, which as you said, are a minority. I'm a Monk, and I didn't care that Pally horses were faster, and while I thought sorcerers needed more DPS, I didn't think others need less, and the thing is, I don't whine...</FONT>

[Fial]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Sebastien wrote:<BR>Actually I think the majority of the design decisions that SOE makes are based on a combination of marketing/management goals and actual data/numbers that they gather from observing the servers.<BR><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>That's what I also think. And there lies the inherent flaw in the system.</P> <P>Give the Devs more spare time to actually play their own game from scratch, with a 'player' mentality - and test how their own ideas work out in reality - (I'm sure they do, but somehow I doubt they do it like 'real' players, but in some sterile test environment), instead of relying on 'artificial' DBmined data.</P> <P>And tell the sales department to stop oogling at "the other game's" sales figures - they're not even in the same league, EQ2's still a mMoRPG, you're not gonna 'beat' them by trying to copy their 'model for success' and eliminating the M and the RPG .. send out more buddy keys. <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></P>

[Sebastien]

I'm with ya.  Seeing some of the mechanics changes / nerfs / spell and art changes.. I am quite sure that the people programming mechanics do not play the game.  But they should..  I'm not necessarily saying they shouldn't nerf, etc.  And I support the logic of these combat changes, even if the current rendition is a bit brutal. But how can they know how a certain change feels unless they play the class? Given that they are not likely to play all 24 subclasses to level 50, that is why I continue to suggest that they select class advocates from the player base.  There are plenty of honest players that are not interested in having their class be more uber, but just interested in a fair and fun game.  Why not take advantage of the wealth of knowledge that rests within their player base? <div></div>

[Fial]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <P></P> <HR> <P>Sebastien wrote:<BR><BR>And I support the logic of these combat changes, even if the current rendition is a bit brutal.<BR></P> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>The logic that invulnerable tanks are detrimental to an enjoyable gaming experience, yes. But I have my doubts about their ways to fix them.</P> <P>You can see that a tank can be "made" (with a huge stress on made) almost invulnerable in some cases by examining the data, but why do they feel they need to change the basic concept of tanking rather than the factors that lead to invulnerable tanks - namely the 'infinite' stacking of very powerfull buffs.</P> <P>I doubt that the initial concept of tanking is so fundamentally flawed that it needs a revamp. Take any healer/tank (even your "tank du jour" favorite guardian) combo and throw them at the current mobs that are still to be 'a challenge for a group of at least 3 players'.<BR>Without any of the powerfull defense buffs, the 2 will not fare very well against an even /con mob. I've tried it - more than often enough - even with an unnerfed chainstiffle.<BR>Add a dps class like wiz that doesn't offer supreme tank buffing and you have a fair chance to win against an even /con mob. Anything above that will still be quite a challenge.</P> <P>Their invulnerable, trivializing issue is not caused by basic tanking, so why do they feel changing that aspect will help fixing it in a correct way.<BR>If they make basic tanking weaker, how shall that same 3man group of tank, healer and dps face the same even /con and still succeed?<BR>Are they gonna revamp/redefine all group mobs to be only beatable by a group of 6 with the right defense buffing classes?<BR>Back to the holy trinity?<BR>2 healers in any group that wants to go to a dungeon and fight even con or higher mobs required now?<BR>Anything besides the 'holy trinity' in a 3man group useless now? (i liked what you could do with a brigand/inq/coercer group in the initial system - doubt it will stay that way under the new rules)</P>

[Sebastien]

Totally agree about unusual duos and trios.. I really hope they are still viable after all is said and done. I don't think it was necessary to further delineate the tanking ability of the archetypes.. after all, there was no way that mages were competing with guardians for the role of main tank.. so removing the parry.. meh.. I don't see the point. Keep in mind, though, that these changes are not just about high-end raids and buff stacking issues. At a more fundamental level it is about avoidance mechanics, and this *does* need to be fixed regardless of buffs.  I will give an example.  One night SoH (my guild) decided to finally kill The Gobbler and the Ancient Slayer.  For those who do not know, these are epic group x 2 mobs that you must fight with only 1 group.  IMO The Gobbler is by far the harder of the two, and we tried him first.  We wanted to take on the content while it was still in the yellow-to-blue con range for most of us.  He was blue to our main tank, an SK. The fight started off in a way that seemed appropriate for this kind of fight.. VERY hard.. but it looked like we had a shot at it if we could pace ourselves.  Unfortunately our SK took a few serious barrages of damage all at once, and our two healers could not keep up.. the SK went down, and agro transferred to our Asn, who was 40.  At level 40, this mob actually would have been grey to him solo, but because he was in a group with lower level players, it was green to him. Well, the Gobbler could not touch him at all.. ever.. after we battle res'd our SK, we realized there was simply no point in having her taunt.  As an experiment only (we find this extremely boring and do not play this way normally..), we let the Asn tank the Ancient Watcher.. it was completely boring and trivial.. just a matter of how long it would take to widdle down his HP.. but never.. at any point.. was there a chance of danger at all. Here's the kicker.  Part of the strategy we developed for beating him particularly involved having almost no buffs on the melees (I will not elaborate but just trust me when I say they literally had ZERO buffs). So you see.. this isn't just a buff issue.. its an issue with avoidance in general.  Avoidance right now is an all or nothing thing.  It either makes content trivial, or it barely works at all, in which case you get hit for 1/2 your life because of the extreme DPS that mobs can do.  The new system will move toward more frequent, but less extreme, hits from mobs. <div></div>

[fasht]

<span><blockquote><hr>Sebastien wrote: So you see.. this isn't just a buff issue.. <b>its an issue with avoidance in general</b>.  Avoidance right now is an all or nothing thing.  It either makes content trivial, or it barely works at all, in which case you get hit for 1/2 your life because of the extreme DPS that mobs can do.  The new system will move toward more frequent, but less extreme, hits from mobs. <div></div><hr></blockquote>It is clear you have thought about this. You are mirroring my experiences in game, though I never really thought about WHY we did these things, just that we did them because they worked Most of the content I have explored recently (heritage and raid, including the watcher) has been a Duo, me (level 37 templer) and a level 40 ranger... The ranger tanks, I debuff and heal when the rare shot gets through. Healing is NOT all that important however, since either (a) the Ranger *NEVER* gets hit or (b) he is hit with twice his total HP's even AFTER my reactive heals heal him Very broreing really, to sit there and whittle down some raid mob over 30 minutes hoping it doesn't get past his agi and one shot him</span><div></div>

[IvarIronhea]

<P>I just have to chime in here.</P> <P>You had a level 40 tank an npc that would be gray to him and since it didn't hit him this is somehow a huge imbalance? Frankly, if gray NPC's consistently had a good shot at offing me I'd be a tad peeved since they are worth neither loot nor experience.</P> <P>I also question whether or not he was hit at all or not. Last night we killed the ancient watcher just to get it out of the way. A 41 paladin, 39 guardian and 38 templar. He was gray. At the end of the fight we were all out of power(templar had purely used his for healing) and we had to switch from the paladin tanking to the guardian tanking as the paladin was half dead. Are you sure the assassin was buffless and lacking reactive heals? Was the gobbler/watcher debuffed? The paladin we had tank was fully buffed with templar and guardian defensive buffs and was still taking damage at 41 from the watcher.</P> <P>Yes, in some extreme cases, like stacking a group of 5 lower to mid 30s with one 40th player you can reap loot from an encounter like that, but to entirely revamp a combat system on a basis of encounters like that is a bit much in my opinion.</P>

[Rock]

<P>They aren't making changes such as the upcoming changes due to other player whinings. They are making changes based on witnessing certain groups taking on uber mobs with little or no risk. Unfortunately some players are achieving unintended abilities due to stacking buffs, uber armor and learning to work together to achieve much better success than they would have expected. SOE's mistake is to make mobs tougher and players weaker.</P> <P> </P> <P>Instead of doing what to me is the logical solution. Limiting ability of spells to stack and capping some stats but at a very high level which would only limit the above named extreme groups. What you'll end up with otherwise is SOE forever nerfing trying to stay ahead of the powergamers and forcing the rest of us to spending our time killing an endless wave of yard trash.</P>

[fasht]

<span><blockquote><hr>IvarIronheart wrote:<p>You had a level 40 tank an npc that would be gray to him and since it didn't hit him this is somehow a huge imbalance? Frankly, if gray NPC's consistently had a good shot at offing me I'd be a tad peeved since they are worth neither loot nor experience </p><hr></blockquote>Much of what we fight isn't grey to him (though tends to be lower than him, green or blue) Our standard little team we usually play in is 2 templers and the ranger. This is just because thats who is on most of the time We rely on the fact the Ranger never gets hit rather than reactives but heal from time to time I don't know if it's good or bad. I dislike the fact stuff can one hit the ranger beyond our ability to heal, and also dislike the fact that most of the time the heals are really there incase the other templer gets aggro accidently and the ranger never really needs healing. For non heroic stuff of the same level the ranger rarely gets hit at all so I am only really talking about raids and Epic mobs We aren't "leet" by any streach of the imagination, but as combat stands, this is how we eventually evolved to play it. Since we can never heal though to keep a tank alive against 1000's of points of damage, we went for avoiding getting hit at all (Side Note: Just to give some idea of the avoidence I've seen him display. We fought the Emperor Orc in the Citidal (Zek) this weekend. The Orc blasted through the level 50 main Guardian Tank 3 times (Battle resed him multiple times) with 3 healers. Unfortunatly the healers, me included, were all 35 or thereabouts so I guess whatever reactives we had didn't cover the 1000's of damage the orc could deal out. Once we all wiped (except the level 40 ranger) he proceded to kite the Orc around the arena for about 10 mins ALONE without healer support, without getting hit enough to kill him. Again. I don't know if this is good/bad or normal. This is just what happens in fairly casual play. I guess if we actually BUFFED this guy's agility (we don't really) we'd be doing pretty well)</span><div></div>

[Sebastien]

Ironheart- He had zero buffs, other than haste, during the battle with the gobbler, because of how we configured our team for that fight.  He had buffs when we fought the watcher.. but we had no real AGI or avoidance buffs in that group. Either way, the result was the same; he couldn't be touched.  Yes the mob *would have* been grey to him had he been solo, but due to the way con color adjusts based on average group, it was green to him when we fought it together. Moorgard has said this several times: the fact that a mob is grey is not meant to mean that it poses no threat whatsoever.  It is just SOE's way of saying, ok, you've moved on, you don't have to deal with agro from these anymore, and you don't deserve rewards for fighting something so easy.  That doesn't mean it should be completely impossible for it to ever hit you. All-or-nothing avoidance with huge mob DPS doesn't work.  That is what is being fixed here.  The avoidance thing is being fixed first, and mob DPS will be reviewed later.  That is the plan as SOE has explained it, and it makes sense to me. =) <div></div>

[Tradeskill_Addict]

<DIV>with an (official) player base of 350.000 the registered, active posters here represent about 0,1 - 1 % which is a better ratio than that of exit polls for a presidential election.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>So SOE probably really listens to whines, rants (and the few "well done"s) here. But its a bit far fetched to claim the *silent majority* likes the game as it was on release. The forum posters are mostly people who see not just a game in EQ2 but a hobby. Most play or played other MMORPGS too, some since UO came out and any company is well advised not to neglect those who are willing to spend their money continuosly while spreading the disease eagerly onto their friends, mates and childeren <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Anyone wants to know why WoW is so succesfull? Because the listened to "What I hate most about EQ/DoC/AO" rants and designed their game primarily avoiding all the flaws and mistakes their predecessors suffered from - which obviously seemed to please the *silent majority*</DIV>

[Namil]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Sebastien wrote:<BR>Ironheart-<BR><BR>He had zero buffs, other than haste, during the battle with the gobbler, because of how we configured our team for that fight.  He had buffs when we fought the watcher.. but we had no real AGI or avoidance buffs in that group.<BR><BR>Either way, the result was the same; he couldn't be touched.  Yes the mob *would have* been grey to him had he been solo, but due to the way con color adjusts based on average group, it was green to him when we fought it together.<BR><BR>Moorgard has said this several times: the fact that a mob is grey is not meant to mean that it poses no threat whatsoever.  It is just SOE's way of saying, ok, you've moved on, you don't have to deal with agro from these anymore, and you don't deserve rewards for fighting something so easy.  That doesn't mean it should be completely impossible for it to ever hit you.<BR><BR>All-or-nothing avoidance with huge mob DPS doesn't work.  That is what is being fixed here.  The avoidance thing is being fixed first, and mob DPS will be reviewed later.  That is the plan as SOE has explained it, and it makes sense to me. =)<BR> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR>News Flash - Wether intended or not - Just because the mob cons green because of the average group level does not mean the mobs abilities change. A grey is a grey is a grey. It is not going to be any tougher because it now cons green.  </P> <P> </P>

[Sebastien]

That isn't a newsflash.  What was your point? <div></div>