Too many questions, No answers

I prefer devs choose development over forums. Mods and such delegate forum content for them. As a casual user, I find browsing the forums for info to be close to exhausting. I cant imagine a developer actually scrolling through forums every single day to look for whats new AND also relevant to their individual work. That would be maddening. Programming would be much more productive .

Thanks @Berek and team for all your hard work. And DS too for always responding!!

To everyone else who insist on pinging the devs at every available opportunity: please read about maker time. If you really care about the development of this game, then read and try your best to understand that article. Let the makers do their thing!

 

"I love spend hours and hours talking to customers every day." -- Said no programmer ever.

 

Not true. As a programmer I like to get feedback from users. How else can I do what they want (== willing to pay money for)?

 

Do you spend hours talking to customers everyday for the entire project life cycle?

 

While its also a violation of maker time to continuously engage in feedback from the user, direct user feedback and soliticting for user stories is part of the overall release cycle. Its just done in healthy volumes at appropriate times. My comments werent really about interaction or engagement with users, but rather the task of going through forums and reading stuff. The contextual shift alone of reading the forum, let alone the task of looking for relevant information which may or may not be there, is too expensive for a developer to do alone. Berek and community moderators are the interface for the developer team, I would imagine part of their jobs is to find what information is relevant to whom (and even then, in a larger company, I would expect a layer of project managers to be between the community surface and the technology team).

Just making a developer dig through emails to contextualize information is expensive enough, thats why JIRA and project management software exists. Ive actually got a few super tactful speeches on reserve for new clients when they insist on using email as though it were project tracking software, breaking it down into terms of development cycles lost and equivalent expense going towards contextualizing email info, usually wins people over. So yah browsing through these forums is quite expensive to have developers do, and this would also be why you dont hear from them as much at times.

So yah, if the dev team seems "quiet," its likely cuz theyre working, and likely working overtime.

 

As i respect that, i really do. I really made this post not as an attack on the devs in anyway. I said right from the start im sure they have been busier then normal. My problem was that, with this issue in particular, 4 bug forums and however many feedback have gone unanswerd over 2 weeks. There is numerous other issues that are in the same boat.

With SoTa relying on player feedback and testing, it seems pretty important that they dont let this stuff linger. Mix that in with that people (myself included) get frustrated from un mentioned changes that severly effect their gameplay, are the ones trying to bring in new players to keep the project alive, i think its perfectly reasonable to expect a dev to get to one of the posts here and there. Im super impressed with how quick they got on this one ( like 10 min , 2 devs ) yet it ended with the same thing as the 1 response they gave last time. *Chris is working on a forum post, will post it shortly! * (that was my PM from Berek). This is fantastic. Except that was the same response over a week ago when the issue was first brought up.
Even a simple *Were not sure, working on it* instead of no answer makes ALL the difference to people keeping motivated in the game.

I have numerous buddies who have already given up on melee and archery to go full mage, since they wernt effected combat wise at all. This is annoying. I think this was one of the couple Major issues that needed addressing since the release of R34.
I was hoping someone would summarize the other couple big ones ( not little things like my cloak isnt waving properly) to make it easier for them to give some blunt answers and maybe satisfy a few people.
Anyways, Im pretty much done trying to get any real answers on the forum for anything important. And already started re gearing. As well as the new players im bringing in, ill simply explain how much better a mage is atm, with no real answers to any of the other questions. ( I didnt even touch on this miss rate change for physical ) .
Ahh well. Hopefully an answer shows up next release i guess.

 

At least the system is flexible enough to work on various builds.

And then you will have some cool hybrid decks later on to play around with.

I find it too weird to not have a melee wep still, even though I have crafted some very badass +9 or better staves.

Blade's Thrust and Coup de Grace are quite fast and powerful.

 

Development staff doesn't need to answer user questions when the community staff understands the direction of the game, what's being done, and why decisions are being made. That's clearly not the case in sota, which means that since they're in the dark, we're in the dark.

 

Why do I feel that something trivial is coming, along the lines: "talking to customers for 0.8 minutes a day is good for a developer, but 8 hours a day is bad", or some other arbitrary numbers, which are completely out of the context? ;-) So, pretty please, stop asking rhetorical, yet unrelated to SOTA questions, and get to your point already --- I promise to evaluate it fairly without engaging in more one-liners.

But just to satisfy your thirst for a professional knowledge, in the business we have a convention: when somebody speaks to customers most of their time, their position is usually called a "customer care specialist". These guys are a part of software development team, which may also include programmers, UX and UI designers, QA, DevOps, admins, tech. writers, managers of various levels, and so on. I find it extremely useful for all members of the team to understand the impact of their actions by communicating with end users on a regular basis. Sometimes it can be for hours, and, yes, sometimes it can be several days in a row. "Dogfooding" sums up another industry-blessed practice, when members of the team use their product as end users to understand technical and UX deficiencies first hand.

PS: Thinking more about it: having worked as an independent software developer for years I frequently spent more time talking to prospective and existing clients, then actually writing code. As "industrial" programmer, I did not fare better --- non-core activities can eat up ~50% of their time easily. I am talking about things like participating in endless meetings, going over communication channels (e.g., email), writing position/design papers, and, yes, communicating with business people, customers, and end users.

My point is clear: no, programmers do not program 100% of their time. More than that: it is both impossible and undesirable.

 

Measures are being taken to broaden the field of view of bug reports to the devs.

Crit bonuses begin to fall off after a certain point if i remember right. Hardcore pushing crit will get you a soft-max of around 30ish% crit chance when working as intended. This is likely including weapons with 18%, 20% base crit chance before bonuses, dex bonuses, etc. Your target's dexterity will also PREVENT you from critting them as much. Things like bosses, wolves, and likely bears have high dexterity.

The changes to melee is that 1 handed damage was increased, and crit fixes. Crit was also re-fixed shortly after the intiial crit change.

"Increased effectiveness of passive skills that affect critical hit chance." Build 489
"

• Critical Hit Math: Due to an error in calculations, critical hits were occurring as much as 80% of the time (or 160% of the time from behind!) with some weapon/skill combinations. This math has now been corrected.
  
  • Base Weapon Damage: Previously there was almost a 2 to 1 ratio in base damage between 1 handed and 2 handed weapons once strength modifiers were factored in. These have now been narrowed by increasing 1h weapon damage by 1-2 points and improving the strength modifier and lowering the damage of many 2h weapons by 1 point. The new target is closer to 3 to 2 instead of 2 to 1 for 2h vs 1h." R34 release notes
  
  
  

All answers provided by in-game tool tips and patch notes, and announcment section of the forums

This. grab your popcorn.

 

Thanks for taking time elaborating your point. It is clear and not incorrect. However, it is irrelevant to the context of my statement. I stated that no programmers ever said that they love spending hours talking to customer everyday. I did not include "the UX/UI designers, QA, DevOps, admins, tech writer, managers of various levels" within the scope of my statement nor made a claim that programmers love to spend 100% time only on coding. My question to you was not rhetorical either, but merely a follow up question to your disagreement. In the other words, I just wanted to know whether you were a programmer and whether you love to spend hours talking to the customers everyday. This has nothing to do with the ideal nor convention of the business practice.

But yes, this is trivial and merely a jest, so no need to argue any further.

Anyway, the customers Portalarium have are different from yours and the way they should be interacted with are not totally applicable, because:
1) The customers here are not the one who come up with business requirement. We are folks who spent our money to fund the development based on the requirements that came up and was pitched by Portalarium team.

2) We the players do not necessary share the same opinions on specific game features or project timeline. Hence, it would not feasible to get everyone to buy into all features that will be implemented.

3) The players are not necessary experts in the industry, while they could have great experience as consumers with variety of products for so many years. But their visions and preferences are not always aligned with all other consumers out there. They should not make all their design and implementation decisions based on the approval of forum users as they are many others who do not participate in the current discussion, but patiently waiting for the game to be implemented as they originally proposed to and pledged for.

4) While it is nice that the dev team would spend their time replying the questions to players, but I do not expect them to reply to every single thing. After all, I paid them to develop the game because I have seen their portfolio and know the team collectively has decades of experience in game development. I did not pay them to write long posts to answer all questions coming from all users. The big changes or controversial ones are OK.

5) In the past, there were concerns and suggestions made by players on the forum threads that never got replied by any devs. However, some of these were addressed and implemented on the later release or so. For example, the issue with people mistakenly see the pool XP bar as their "progress" bar and got freaked out when their XP went down as they tried to kill mobs. For that, they removed the xp pool bar and replaced with skill progress tracker HUD on the right and move the XP pool value in the skill gump instead. While it annoys the heck out of those who enjoy meta gaming, not many people complain that they character regress while they are killing mobs.

Given that their top priority is to complete their task items listed on the quarterly schedule each month. If the threads players made do not contribute to the implementation of the features listed on the plan, I do not think it is mandatory for the dev to make an official statement and reply to those threads. Again, it would be nice if they can do that, however I did not pay them to answer all the questions on the forum posts, I paid them to get the game done. I do expect at least one of them to take a look at the discussions and bring up to the team should those points seem to be critical according to their assessment using their professional experience. Not just because there are X numbers of players cried about the topic since they are not necessary represent all the players especially those who do not actively participating in the early access.

 

Could you return the favor and elaborate your point?

In my opinion, it is patently false. Being a programmer, I gave you a counter example, and the reasoning behind it:

Trust me, there are programmers, who understand value in communicating to end users/customers, especially, if they pay money. SotA should not be an exception. My understanding is that you object to my assertion, right? Sorry, I didn't understand your arguments. Even one counter example should suffice, and I gave it to you, even if you think that I am unique in this respect.

Regarding Port's answering, or not answering to posts, which are addressed to them, their actual actions, and how to evaluate that (that was your point, right?). In many categories of human activity there are facts, and there are perceptions. In most categories, a fact trumps a perception, yet not in public relations.

The other big software-related category is UX --- if people do not like something, no explanations will help. Frequently people cannot even formulate what they don't like, and vote with their feet. It is up to us to figure out what went wrong.
​

Many people complain here about Port being unresponsive, and not communicating important things clearly. It is totally irrelevant, if they do, because the perception is what matters the most in this area. Please read the forum, classify posts by sentiments, and crunch the numbers. While I would argue that in general people love the game, yet many people (arguably most posters) think that Port has dropped the ball with many aspects of the game, and ignores players.

BTW, the silent majority, which doesn't post in forums, do not count either --- their opinion is unknown, we cannot quantify it, we cannot google for it, we can only speculate which way they are leaning, while vocal people form the narrative. That's what worries me.

 

@uhop responses to concerns you listed in your original post are answered 2 posts above

 

I was merely just jesting that "no programmers said that they *love* spending hours talking to customers every day". It was not about it being good practice or not. While I agree that communication between the dev team and their customers is crucial. However, it is rather the clear requirement and proper expectation that are the true keys to a successful project, not the frequency of the communication.

I am a software developer myself, I typically keep my customers updated on their projects at least once a week. Also, give them a call or schedule a meeting should there be any communications that would require more than 3 emails back and forth to make sure everyone is on the same page since most of my customers seem to communicate better face-to-face or at least verbally on the phone than using emails. This is to ensure that the projects progress smoothly and try to minimize the fire drills due to mismatch expectation. This does not have anything to do with whether I *love* to do that or not.

For Portalarium case, there are just too many people with too many thoughts. It will be challenge to have all the threads answered by the dev, which is not guaranteed to be the end of the discussion. I would rather have them focusing on the delivering the features from the planned monthly release rather than going back and forth between the posts just for the sake of replying everyone if it is not really related to what's coming this release or at least this quarter. That's just my opinion, though. I'm sure there are others who have different expectations.

Although, I disagree that the silent majority do not count. While their actual opinions on all subjects are unknown, but we do know that they pledged on this project based on the proposal made by Portalarium during the kickstarter. So whatever items were listed on the kickstarter promises would at least be something that they agreed.

 

That sounds extremely horrible, hope you recover quickly.

And as usual, I notice you have good reaons for some of the changes you make, some things were were concerned about are being addressed - but please, explain this sort of stuff when you announce a decision, not let it crawl out later on. Can only speak for myself, but the biggest problem I have ever had with game companies, and especially mmo runners, is that they say all the right words, talk about inclusivity and valuing their customers - and then treat us like dirt. That's the main reason companies like, say, EA, produce some really excellent games - and get hammered as among the worst companies to deal with by their customers, sure they carry on making lots of money because the products are (usually) good, but the relationship with the customer base and the reputation of the company are deservedly awful.

I genuinely hope, and expect, this will be a different experience, but it's such a widespread, common experience for gamers that it seems almost to be an insidious part of they way game companies 'think' and their subconscious approach to everything, and I really don't want to repeat my UO experience - love the game for 16 years, have great fun, make many friends in an overwhelmingly great community, and find I have to give it up because dealing with the organisation that run it is depressingly frustrating, humiliating, insulting and in the end completely pointless. The lost potential of so many games is massive because the companies fail to treat the customers well, fall way short on enforcing policies, and in the end pay lip service to all the things that matter about building an ongoing community, but never go beyond the words. Portalarium feels and looks different - but sometimes, it feels like it slips, and (through no fault of your own) you need to show all the time you are not like the rest to repair the damage some of your 'predecessor' companies have done.

 

-- I had actually written a whole speel but changed my mind.

1 - The quotes on the patch notes have nothing to do with this issue. We cant break 15% crit with pure armor.. that soft cap of 30% is great.. if you could get close.
2- Dex isnt part of the issue, its tested on all types of mobs and most numbers taken right from practice dummy.
3- I know devs are busy. i said from the start, that i also didnt expect to get a response so quickly, unfortunatly, they didnt actually answer anything.
4- This turned into a debate over how programmers spend their time. I have 0 interest in that. 2 weeks on an alpha on what should be a bug, with numerous posts, is more then enough time. Which is fine, with how quick they got to it this time.
5- I think we've got Chris responding to your forum post shortly! - Was my last PM on Saturday from Berek.

So i had hoped someone would summarize some of the big issues that havnt gotten an answer and maybe they could hit a few all at once. Otherwise, its pretty much sit here and wait to see if Chris actually gets around to responding ( this was also said that he would back when it was originally reported on the 4th) No reason to really post anything else here till he does a response.

- edited because i was annoyed and rambling

 

Are you using 1 handed blades? Cuz my crit rate is about 30ish with a dagger.

And striking a target from behind increases crit chance. Armor is not the only thing that increases it.

 

I too am wishing you a speedy recovery DarkStarr.

 

I am confused as to why people keep referring to us as 'customers'

We are not. We are speculators. We gave up money in advance in the hopes that something we enjoy will come out of it.

You bought a promise they would try.

They could shut the whole forum down. Nothing forces them to listen to any of us if they so choose. They got the money....they can and will make a game. Even if every single one of us decides not to play it. Or doesn't enjoy it.

 

So far they haven't made a real game... It's a larp simulation with Darkstarr and Lord British.