CUEmu - Thread Posts

StarDryfter

Fri Oct 21, 2005 10:44 am

sciguyCO wrote:

StarDryfter:

Out of curiousity, how many customer communications do you think you get in a day? With the forums, SOE has the equivalent of a suggestion box that gets thousands of items a day, plus they have to filter through the "U SUX!", "Why do you hate {insert profession here}", etc. And suggestions from different people are likely mutually exclusive: Make Jedi more powerful than BH, make BH more powerful than Jedi, I want more looted weapons, looted weapons are bad for the player crafters, etc.

The problem isn't a complete lack of communication, it's more that the communication we do get isn't what we might want. As a counter example, look at Microsoft. You don't (well, at least I don't) seeWindows XP users posting regularly on a forum, throwing out ideas to the MS devs for the next service pack or version, and complaining that MS Office is too "uber" compared to WordPad. If you send in a bug or suggestion, all you'd get would be a form response (almost certainly along the lines of "we've passed this onto the appropriate people"), and that's probably all you'd expect to get.

I most assuredly do not get the requests or "attacks" that SOE does. But also, with Microsoft, you have tech support in the classic sense, and the software your discussing is completely different than this. MS Office or XP or WordPad are static. They work. Its that simple. WHen they do not work, 99.99% of the time it is a system issue.

You do the math anyways you want. I am telling you communication sucks. It is that simple unfortunately. Spin it, defend it, love it or hate it, it is irrellevant to me. You have correspondents who have now publically posted that the communication at THEIR level stinks. These are the eyes and ears of the Devs to us, the player base.

I am familiar with the Jedi issues, so forgive me for only using an example of a couple ofJedi issues: We have asked time and time again for a simple explaination of why they would make AI, a tank utility, force aggro from the tank. We have asked aboutthe fact that You can still /tar a cloaked Jedi. And we have asked why they have nerfed the Jedi's only real remaining escape abililty of Force Run.

These are legitimate questions. Why have a MASTER TANK ability force Aggro from the tank? Why have a concealment ability like Cloak be trackable and DOT'ed while cloaked? Why have a ability that is used for ESCAPE negated entirely by a person who can negate it at 64 meters, kite you to death and never end chain root you to where you never have even the remotest of chances to defend yourself, much less run?

Not one question has been addressed to the Jedi community. And EVERY Profession has the same issue.

I am not talking about why the grass is not green on this side of a hill. I am talking about a pattern of decisions that we only PRAY has a future reason for, and some dialog MAY persuade some of the more sane of the gripers to bear with it a time in the hopes of a future that is brighter.

Discussion. How HARD would those questions be to answer with specifics?

Discussion is the key.

And to end this rant, to answer the question directly. On a scale of lets say 100000 to my 100. If 100000 people are moaning for communication, you HAVE to believe, lets be safe....at least 5% have reason to question the communication level from SOE. Apply that 5% to my 100. That is 5 people. If 5 people goto my bosses and say I am just ignoring their issues, and it is found that I am working on it but just not keeping them in the loop, I would be in trouble. Fired? Probably not for a first offense, but if I systematically do it, You bet I would be.

I do appreciate the well thought out points you made though and respect your opinions, if not agree with them all..

Raynwalker - Glowing Tickle Stick User (I wish it was THAT strong)

Retired due to SOE's bulldroppings

v3c7r0n

Fri Oct 21, 2005 11:33 am

#15

Ok, now, before I say anything else, I've only been in game 3 months and change. That said:

As I have never played pre-CU, and have no idea what the professions I've played (Master carbs, which I'm dropping because I grew bored with it, Master Combat Medic, Commando (which I amgoing to be 4x4x in), Smuggler (i'll be x4x4), and Pistoleer (xxx3)) were like, I will say that it is quite obvious that infixing X (profession, skill, etc.), that Y & Z (be they skills, professions, etc.) are now no longer as well equipped to combat X. Considering I left World of Warcraft to come to SWG FOR THAT REASON (The simple fact that they're completely rebalancing the game, not unlike the CU,should say something there, and atleast in SWG pvp is consentual...) I can say that somehow, all of us know the game will never be perfect. And there are some reasons for that. They are:

People who cry for the nerf bat because they can't handle losing when they "shouldnt have" - Now, I'm not going near the BH / Jedi can of lava worms, but I have seen this alot reguardless. Player A who has professions B and C gets beaten by Player D who has professions E and F, although from Player A's stand point, he should have not been capable of losing. The two primary problems here 1) being people can't always handle the idea that you can't win them all and 2) the legitimate fact that certain combination of skills, or status effect stacks, being unfair versus others.

SOE has, in many ways, dropped the ball with SWG, not necessarily from a development standpoint, or even a design standpoint, but from a GAME standpoint. What i mean by this is simple, they keep pushing and pushing for this or that, break something else (partially or entirely), and either know about it and keep their mouths shut so they can go "Oh **edit**. we broke that. sorry. we'll get right on the fix" or they had no idea it would break to begin with. I see the recent "disappearance" of Jabba's Palace and the mission terms on Lok only giving out CL1 delivery missions as examples of each. Jabba's they probably knew about (Kinda HARD to miss something that big just not being there), while they probably did not know about the mission terms on Lok (I'm on Bria, so idk if that's server specific or not, but i doubt it is). The fact is, they pushed out the publish anyways.

Because so much of the community, myself, and others, for various reasons, are so fed up with issues with the game (I know I've cracked more than one joke about bria being powered by a hamster in awheel generating power for a TI-82 calculator), and things recieve flame to no end (be it from a large group who make a post or two through small groups of people who make 500 posts an hour about how they hate something) and so little USEFUL explanations of why they don't like something, it's the equivalent of trying to have someone fix something for you, and when they inquire as to what the problem is, the response given is "it's broken. fix it". Not "I'm not really sure, but this, this and this happen" or anything along those lines. The point here being, we all have things we want to see fixed, but unless we start explaining in FULL detail WHY something should be fixed (preferably with in game video / screenshots / etc, demonstrating what we view as problems in action) and then adding our proposed fixes, and giving SOE a starting point, they'll just go about it however THEY think is necessary.

Also, we, the player base, as a whole, don't really know alot of what happens behind the closed doors at SOE. Is it really that the Dev's dropped the ball so many times? Is it that upper management's mouth is writing checks the Dev's bodies can't cash? Is it Lucasarts putting the pressure on SOE, causing them to push stuff out before it's done? Is it some or all of the above? In large, we will never know.

Now, that said, I took the time to write all of this for a reason, not to cut down those of us who stride to help SOE make the game perfect, but to show what we're really up against. SOE, in my eyes, tried to cut the playerbase down to "pay us and play what we give you. you dont like it? oh ok...well the patch is coming. take care now, bye bye then." and what it will take for them to actually listen to us, is beyond most of our knowledge (Tiggs, GarVa, from what I gather you seem to be among the better people employed by SOE, your input is welcome here, help us help you!) and thats providing they ever will. I mean, as most buisnesses it comes down to one simple thing: M O N E Y and i can break that down as follows (right or not who knows, but I'd almost have to say i'm damn close):

we have X accounts active, the total monthly revenue of such is Y.

server maintenence costs us Z per month

other buisness expenses (power, phones, net, etc.) cost us A

we kick B upstairs to Lucasarts

we pay our employees C

now, if we cut out people from department D, C drops to E, at the cost of functionality with F (or in this case, f = communication with the player base for game imrpovements)

also, if we can hammer out patch G by date H, we can have the game set for release of expansion pack I on date J. (the dev's tell their bosses it can't happen here? to which the pad of pink slips comes out with a reply of "wanna try to tell me that again?")

[time passes here until G is about 85% done, and it is date H]

at this point management says to roll out the patch, and the dev's say "but K, L, M and god knows what else is not functioning properly after the patch" and management says "that's what hotfixes are for. push it out now, or find a new job"

and so on and so forth, attitudes aside, that's what it comes down to boys and girls. keep that in mind in the future

We are Pentium of Borg. Division is futile. You will be approximated.

Master Carbineer, 3444 Combat Medic, Storm Squadron Pilot, Proud member of the populace of: Better Reboot It Again

sciguyCO

Fri Oct 21, 2005 11:41 am

#16

MsNiL wrote:

1. Combo Attack. [snip]

2. The Healer Descriptions. [snip]

I agree with your points (especially about more feedback through the correspondants), but wanted to mention something about these.

1) The combo attack damage has a bug in the damage reported, not the damage done. If you check the HAM of your target, it does take the full amount of combo damage, it just gets divided by 3 in the spam and the floaty numbers.

2) Text corrections are almost always the lowest thing in any software development priority list. On the other hand, they do tend to be easy to fix. IIRC, Q-3PO (who's a manager, not an actual dev) would sometimes work on any text bugs that were in the queue. I wish that was still happening.

Kriles Ch'artoff , Chilastra server
Master Chef (retired)
Currently doing....stuff

toothlessviper

Fri Oct 21, 2005 1:17 pm

#17

here is the prob.

a skill based system and a level system do not work well together. all their is too it. pre cu skill, post cu level. add together and we get

tada what we have now... garbage.

POIZEN MIA news reports say she was last seen getting carried away by some creature called darth CU. many others are also missing. Please mail any info to swg's( we dont care department).

OK, who forgot to feed the dev's ? they have been using their nerf macro again! ahhh dev's NGE Not Good Entertainment. yup you named that one right!

Costello

Sat Oct 22, 2005 12:49 am

#18

I think the negative reaction is because with each patch the game has become less and less fun and this patch was just the final straw. People call for Pre CU servers, PvP is dying out (except Jedi vs BH), Jedi are tired of being content for Bounty hunters, smugglers are tired of never getting their revamp, Crafters are tired of getting no new content and being db if they put a harvestor on hostile planets, Weaponsmiths are tired of seeing lootable items put into expansions better than anything they can make to help sell the expansions, Jedi are tired of being out damaged, out healed, out tanked bycombat professions with lightsabers costing millions of credits just to get plausable damage lower than what can be bought by other professions off the bazaar. And now ranged professions can kite melee professions without getting close to ever beinghit.

And this is just off the top of my head im sure the list of nerf and bugs that have either been in since the CU or brought in by the devs is 100 times longer.

.

Geral_Corasjo

Sat Oct 22, 2005 12:51 am

#19

I've seen worse

--------------------------
"It could be worse... ...It's worse."
-Computer Gaming World
"You can't stop the change any more than you can stop the suns from setting" -Shimi Skywalker

"You were the NGE! It was said you would destroy boredom, not cause boredom! You were to bring balance to the professions, not leave them in darkness!" -Obiwan, NGE Ep3

Community Relations Archive

Thread: The strongest negative reaction to date?