Dismiss Notice
This Section is READ ONLY - All Posts Are Archived

An open letter to Lord Brittish

Discussion in 'Release 33 Feedback Forum' started by Redemption, Aug 31, 2016.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. Spoon

    Spoon Avatar

    Messages:
    8,403
    Likes Received:
    23,554
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Sweden
    @kaeshiva

    A few clarifications regarding housing:
    • The idea with having a lottery (raffle) was presented during the kickstarter and has been talked about on numerous occasions since. It is not something new.
      (In my opinion the big mistake was to have ingame vendors selling deeds for gold during testing phase - that set an unrealistic expectation - they should have removed those a looooooong time ago).
    • Also the concept of the misnomer player-run-towns (which really are lot-towns) was also presented early (during the first months) and was always intended to take the bulk of housing. Which is still working since there are massive amounts of lots left open in those lot towns.
    • Regarding long term and new users - there is 4 more episodes with 8 more continents planned, so the long term isn't that land fills and is not available - instead the long term plan is to create a new continent and add more land and more deeds. Here is a post of mine from a while ago detailing this.
    • Since the project's existance relied on kickstarter pledgers and those pledges was driven a lot by the "limited housing" concept then living up to those promises relies a lot on the deed being the bottleneck and not the land lot.
      If it was the lots that was the bottleneck and not deeds then A) a deed holder, even from kickstarter, could find them-self with a deed but no land lot B) you give way too much power to bad POT Governors since they could extort residents since kicking would mean no house since just having a deed doesn't guarantee on C) One could purchase something in the addon store which one cannot use which would be a bad thing D) would lower the perceived value of deeds on which much of the business case of the project relies on (those future episodes) severely shortening the longevity of the product E) would lock players to where they claimed and making switching locations really difficult.....
      etc
      So there are many good reasons outside of guilds hogging everything early, for why they already during the kickstarter announced that deeds would be the limiting factor. Had lots been the bottleneck and deeds announced as always available on vendors then this project would not have been as successfully funded. (Now please note that I'm not saying that it is a perfect system, nor that I agree with all of these decisions - just that they are perfectly logical and reasonable as long as you start at Kickstarter and crowdfunding the game and then go forward).
    Hope that helps as far as explaining "why" regarding housing.
     
  2. enderandrew

    enderandrew Legend of the Hearth

    Messages:
    7,359
    Likes Received:
    15,646
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Omaha, NE
    Then I don't think you are looking at the numbers objectively. Taming requires a massive investment of skill points, just like any magic or combat skill tree. It should provide comparable power. In reality, you can get a summoned elemental through magic with far fewer skill points (less XP) that is more powerful, costs less gold, and has a far lower focus drain. When someone putting 550 skill points into taming has a creature weaker than someone putting 150 points into a magic tree, there is a problem. Focus drain is either really poorly designed right nor, or bugged. It has been that way for weeks. Plenty of players are providing that feedback, and I've seen no indication the Port staff is listening to that feedback.

    Port went WAY overboard with their taming nerf to the point of ruining the tree and ensuring that it isn't remotely viable. This is not hyperbole.

    The only way to look at it objectively is to look at the numbers. Players are providing quality numbers and metrics. But in the telethon I heard that dismissed and tossed aside that players tend to whine and complain. Later when Chris was urged to take a look he discovered there was a major bug with one of the skills, which he fixed. [removed by Berek for assuming what a developer is doing or not doing].

    As to @Redemption's original concern, I think the devs do care about trying to make a good game. But I agree a bit that they don't listen to everything because there are so many posts on the forums that they can't really read them all. I'd hope that @Berek and @Attenwood would be filtering some of the meaningful feedback from the forums and sending it up stream.

    It is possible to simultaneously agree that taming was broken in one was in R32 (some creatures may have been too powerful and you could buy a powerful pet and gain a massive advantage without investing any skill points in taming....

    AND

    Also agree that now taming is completely broken in the opposite direction.

    Port made some necessary changes, such as requiring some skill level for pets to get rid of just buying massive power with gold, but they also made some poor changes that they need to reconsider.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 1, 2016
  3. Berek

    Berek Portalarian Emeritus Dev Emeritus

    Messages:
    3,957
    Likes Received:
    12,761
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Austin, TX
    Always!
     
  4. Redemption

    Redemption Avatar

    Messages:
    11
    Likes Received:
    25
    Trophy Points:
    3
    @Berek

    Thank you for your post. Thank you for understanding that this is an earnest attempt to understand what has taken place, and to be honest about my feelings on the matter without being disrespectful to you or anyone else. Some of what people have interpreted from my initial post and following statements I find hard to understand. I want the same things you guys want, a healthy community, a healthy game and a thriving player base, and why would you guys not want that, it is both a passion and an employment issue on your end and a passion issue on our end. It was / is very much my intention for the staff to understand my ties and feelings regarding the product, for that I included my back story and history. I very much appreciate that you guys are not turning your nose up at it the way staff likely would on many other games, for that I thank you deeply. I also appreciate that you took the time to read everything that transpired and to address it as well. As someone who was an active duty Marine, I can certainly appreciate attention to detail so thank you for that as well.

    I agree, taming was over powered and did need some level of adjustment. And then yes a mistake was made, and mistakes like that are to be expected, this game is in development and humans are humans. What I am concerned about is taming as a relative usefulness when compared with other things. For example the magic tree end game (elemental) is now a far superior choice over end game taming and I am concerned that we will find ourselves in a round robin of never ending adjustments. I have seen this play out before in other games. Eve Online comes to mind, and it didnt bode well for the company or the community. I know you can not guarantee that other adjustments will never happen, and I certainly would never ask for that. My intention is only to raise the concern in case it hasnt been noticed. Lets face it game development is a hectic process full of constantly changing factors and timelines that run on sliding scales based on a million other factors. All game Devs have their work cut out for them and that is and never will be lost on me.

    The second thing I want to say is more of a question than anything. I am struggling to understand the raffle system. The implementation of it (from the point of view of myself and some of my friends) has been somewhat of a mess. Mostly I am refering to the decision to push the raffle draw back to R34 and thus making the less financially fortunate players wait longer to find out if they have won anything or not. Can you clarify on that at all? It would be greatly appreciated.

    Thank you again for responding to the post. I really do appreciate it.
     
  5. Spoon

    Spoon Avatar

    Messages:
    8,403
    Likes Received:
    23,554
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Sweden
    1
    Check the official update on the main site
    2
    The raffle itself has not been pushed back. There will be a drawing as advertised on Sep28.
    3
    What was pushed was the delivery of free raffle tickets to non-deed accounts.
    4
    That was due to protests that folks had bought tickets already for raffle #1 and giving out free tickets impacted the odds for those early purchasers. While giving them out for Raffle #2 does not affect #1 while still giving the non-deed accounts their free complimentary ticket.
    5
    That last bit is my 'fault' since I thought that was a much better use of dev time than the ticket redeeming thing they were planning on.

    Edit:
    6
    And all of this info can be found in the announcement section. Although it is many pages.
     
  6. Redemption

    Redemption Avatar

    Messages:
    11
    Likes Received:
    25
    Trophy Points:
    3
    Thank you for that, the last information I had on that matter was that the staff was considering or making the decision to push the 1st raffle to R34, if that is not the case then that is wonderful news and great to hear! More than anything I want this game to thrive. Asking questions about decisions I do not understand is the best way for me to maintain a positive outlook about the future of the game.
     
  7. Roper

    Roper Avatar

    Messages:
    113
    Likes Received:
    134
    Trophy Points:
    18
    I like eggs. :)
     
    Black Tortoise likes this.
  8. Sir Leonard

    Sir Leonard Localization Team

    Messages:
    344
    Likes Received:
    779
    Trophy Points:
    43
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    King's Landing
    Yeah, again i am deeply sorry for misjudging you. Anyway, for the rest i would not worry too much about guild pooling... as large as it can be, the odds by 1/180k still a pretty tough one to beat. And if they spend THAT much on a raffle, then maybe they'll be putting out much more money on it than it is worth to.

    Anyway, as @Berek said... the devs do listen also, so let's be patient and enjoy the journey as it completes. I don't wanna see devs getting too much pressure to deliver content and risking to make some bad mistakes on the process. ^^

    Ah, and I also consider some feedback necessary but for me there is no need to become too emotional on changes just now. So, let's take it easy at least while the game still a work-in-progress.

    I think that's it. Sorry again for the misunderstand and let's move on at this subject then.

    Bye bye.
     
    Redemption likes this.
  9. Spoon

    Spoon Avatar

    Messages:
    8,403
    Likes Received:
    23,554
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Sweden
    I re-read the announcement and you are right it is not as clear as it could be.
    https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?p=62612

    @Berek
    The announcement doesn't clarify enough that there will still be a raffle as planned on Sep 28th. So if one hadn't followed the debate in the forums one could easily misconstrue that announcement as saying that the first drawing will be on Oct 27 since that is the only date mentioned.
    Also how you begin that announcement it very much follows on top of the forum discussions, but if one only reads the main site updates then that is the first one has heard of those tickets and it becomes very confusing.

    I propose the following edits

    From:
    "The raffles will be monthly and for this first month’s raffle we will be handing out 75 Place Anywhere Deeds and 600 Player Owned Town Deeds. Raffle Tickets can be purchased from Home Decoration merchants in various locations throughout the game."
    to
    "The raffles will be monthly and for this first month’s raffle we will be handing out 75 Place Anywhere Deeds and 600 Player Owned Town Deeds in Release 33's raffle drawing on the 28th of September. Raffle Tickets can be purchased from Home Decoration merchants in various locations throughout the game."

    I'd also propose completely cutting away the first paragraph, since it only confuses people if one didn't read the forum discussion first.
    "UPDATE: Because the many users had already purchased tickets and the release of these free tickets will change the odds we are delaying the free tickets until Release 34. See updated text below."


    ...and while we are at it, change that 'automatically' since one actually have to claim them to get them, so if one expects 'automatically' then one would be justly upset if one missed it because one didn't claim them...
    "For those backers who do not yet own property we are going to automatically enter you into both Raffles in Release 34! "

    ..oh and depending on when the elves bundle comes out you might want to have that in the not eligible list.
     
    LoneStranger, Acred and Redemption like this.
  10. Toff

    Toff Avatar

    Messages:
    102
    Likes Received:
    224
    Trophy Points:
    18
    Location:
    Kingsport

    I fully anticipate the Devs giving us an option to Re-do or Re-allocate earned XP come launch time, somewhere along the lines of the Unlearn Books. I expect the Skill trees to change dramatically as the game progresses. I believe they are too simplistic the way they are now, not leaving enough diversification in each skill tree. You might be working on a skill path now and another will open later that you like better or just want to try out. This is a time for experimenting and changing, don't put too much stock in your character now.

    My point is I don't believe the character I'm working with now will be the same come launch day, close maybe. Like I said in a previous post the only thing we can count on staying the same right now is house/lot placement.
     
    Redemption likes this.
  11. Purefalcon

    Purefalcon Avatar

    Messages:
    13
    Likes Received:
    17
    Trophy Points:
    3
    dont feed the trolls (especially the very obvious ones)
    you are right there, your former posts make even less sense then, tho.
    if you kill a tree completly, like what happened to taming, barely anyone will use it = less feedback and testing/data = pretty hard to balance.
    Too many people stopped using it, so the devs readjusted.

    You want balance, just like most others. That should also count for the taming tree.
     
  12. Gnarxly

    Gnarxly Avatar

    Messages:
    37
    Likes Received:
    90
    Trophy Points:
    8
    I never said they shouldn't, I just pointed out the obvious.
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.