I’m a little grumbly tonight. Daybreak decided they could do what was originally deemed impossible because the TLP/TLE servers are pulling from the same code as the live servers: Nerf Mage pets.
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Plane of Sky: It’s a beat, and raid content shouldn’t get easier based on the number of mages you can bring. We’re retuning Plane of Sky (and all Progression server raid content to a small degree) to be friendlier towards a bigger range of raid compositions.
Player Pets: Summoned companions are pretty strong. We’ve brought magician and necromancer pets more in line with how they were in classic EverQuest, and we plan to buff to them the levels they are on live servers when Lost Dungeons of Norrath goes live on progression servers.
The strength of player pets is pretty noticeable in raid content. To solve this, raid targets on progression servers have been given a new ability called “Mark of the Old Ways.” This ability targets magician and necromancer pets and will reduce the melee damage dealt and increase the melee damage received by 2% for every 3 pets attacking the raid target. This change is intended to provide diminishing returns to the effectiveness of summoned companions as compared to players against these raid targets.
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Their actions are incredibly suspect right now. When the server needed to sell subscriptions, Mage pets were overpowered and it was impossible. Works great if they want to sell 6 accounts to one person who runs a Mage army.
Now that they are past the point of needing to sell subscriptions all at once, and have entered the era of retention, they have to keep the largest number of players happy. The long-term players are settling in and want to do content. Now Mages are suddenly a threat to the ‘good of the many’ rather than representing ‘the many’ and are getting a nerf. Miraculously they suddenly know how.
So now this begs the question, can we have old Freeport and Monk H2H damaged fixed as well?
This is nothing new for SOE/Daybreak. We have been hearing for years in EQ2 how difficult it would be to get another round of server merges but they are coming soon. A time locked server would not be possible… the isle of refuge is gone. The we can not add character slots is an old one but somehow they figured out how to do it once they realized they could sell additional slots.
Yeesh… you’re right. The worst ones are definitely the “we can’t do this” followed by them finding a way when it can be monetized. I feel lied to as a consumer when that happens, and feel like I exist for them to take advantage of rather than be taken care of as their customer.
They have also recently been under fire for going back on their H1Z1 promises. Remember the big world? It was a great selling point for early access, but now they are going back on it and saying they’re just going to polish what they have now.
I never liked the mage army issue, but I’m already long gone from Ragefire because of it(and other things) so my opinion here doesn’t really matter. I did keep my subs though, went back to Firiona Vie.
I feel like they let it sit as it was for long enough that only the people who liked it that way were left, and then they decided to change everything as if to try to entice the people who already left to return. That’s never worked for them before, but they keep trying.
I don’t judge them too harshly on the ‘we can’t do it… oh wait, we can’ though. The developers they have probably aren’t all that familiar with the code with the turnover there(which is its own problem.)
I’m sort of in the same boat as Vom, and it’s led me to an interesting conclusion.
“Voting with your wallet” usually means you’re fed up enough to quit, but if the changes are made that undo what made you quit, it’s often too late because you’ve lost interest/good will. I wasn’t a fan of the mage army nonsense, but the bigger problem for me is the in game RMT (which has incredible reaching effects on the game). But even if they removed kronos from RF today, I probably wouldn’t return.
I’m probably on the verge of quitting after this update. I might resub for Kunark. (which might actually be next month so… nevermind). I’m just not loving the way Daybreak runs their games, nor how they treat their customers.
I feel the lag time for identifying and correcting unpopular issues is great in MMO’s. Even documented exploits can take a painfully long time to remedy, which in the mean time elevates frustration to rage quit levels especially in PvP where the slight isn’t just at the cost of the community in general, but targeted directly at you.
It can be impossible to know when issues persist due to coding difficulties or because the “obvious” answer from a player’s perspective is not aligned with their monetization strategy.
Unresolved gameplay issues is likely the primary reason I have left MMO’s as if everything remained balanced generally there would be enough content to get me through to the next xpac.
Of course what defines an “issue” can be very personal, as my issue might be someone else’s selling point.
I had always been a big pug Pvp’er for a variety of reasons, and in pretty much all MMO’s I played in the “issue” of being matched against pre-mades was incredibly frustrating, and the solution of reliable randomized group formation seemed like a simple fix, one that never occurred in my time in WoW. I can definitely say that I would have stuck around for way longer if such a system was enacted, but what appeared to be a broken matchmaking system from my perspective, was giving the pre-made steamrollers the thrill they wanted to stick with the game.
The diversity of player desires is why I no longer believe in the universal happiness approach to MMO design; trying to please everyone is pretty much guaranteed to displease everyone to some degree, and as such balance may be achieved around the lowest common denominator of least overall displeasure. I would rather see a smaller MMO focused on a specific player base, and then choose the ones that best suit my needs.
I realized the other day that I no longer bother looking into MMO’s due to such a protracted period of MMO disappointment, which is quite a change from the days when I would follow development over the course of years and pre-order on the first possible day.
From the outside it sounds a little like the flavor of the month, one that really was a non factor in original eq, got nerfed. Probably a good thing.
Regarding diversity of player desires, I agree. But WoW sort of blows up all the arguments I have if I’m being honest and playing developer for a day. MUDs were successful because they were hard and communal. Same with eq. Then wow came along and was not that hard or communal and sold the best and is still here. So all the rest of the games copied wow and are dead. No idea really.
Just another sign that Daybreak has no clue wtf they are doing, You can add this to the long list of things they messed up,
Anyone wasting time on the TLP instead of P99 is silly.