The state of Beta Feedback
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RE lack of useful response to feedback: This is why i give so much less feedback than in early cb. Its not so much the lack of outright dev replies on the forums, its the lack of effect the actual feedback has.
I can understand when i make a bug report about some obscure glitch and it takes a few bumps to get a reply; the forums move quickly, the devs are busy and obscure glitches arent top priority. I cant understand when a majority of the top longterm players give identical feedback on some mechanic being blatantly overpowered, yet after a prolonged lack of response we get a buff to said mechanic, or theres heavy feedback on a genre defining playstyle being weak, yet every patch includes new mechanics that further nerf specifically that playstyle. It makes me wonder if anyone is actually reading what we write, and also makes me question the devs ability to effectively balance their own game. The amount of ineffective, lazy or just copy-pasted-straight-from-d2 solutions that have been used to attempt to address various game shortcomings is another reason im less inclined to give constructive feedback now. Resist penalties, chaos damage changes, removal of MoC, removal of race orb rewards, removal of large chests, reflect mechanics, repeated mana-related nerfs, silverbranch legacy precedent, the new affixes- feedback on these subjects has been overwhelmingly against the changes the devs made, yet it doesnt seem to matter and the changes get forced through anyway, and so far ggg has generally shown little willingness to go back on a poor decision once its been implimented. My last feedback-related comment here is about desync. Easily the games most dominant issue, and aside from /oos being added a few months ago, theres been zero improvement since i started playing the game. Yet all proposed solutions to the various causes of desync, such as letting us toggle the automated move-into-los associated with many attack skills, or having a direct ingame keybind for /oos, get completely ignored. After the 10th+ time repeating the same feedback across different threads, it becomes apparent that it hasnt just gone unnoticed, its being outright ignored and that fixing such a major issue either isnt a priority compared to adding more skills and uniques, or that ggg simply doesnt have the skills necessary to do so. Either way, at this point further feedback feels pretty futile. All that said, this thread has seen some inspiring dev response, and the recent dev-created map feedback thread has been pretty constructive. Too early to tell if these examples are just exceptions or the new norm, but its a solid start. RE alpha: Wheres the testbox in which players can create and modify characters of any level, add whatever items and gems they need, spawn monsters, read a combat log full of numerical info and whatnot- the tools required to actually test? Major bugs like shock not working at all for the majority of the games life wouldnt have lasted a day in such an environment. As it stands, the alpha realm seems to be a resource whos current incarnation is not even remotely close to serving its intended purpose. RE community manager: Someone like Charan with a fancy new title, sure. Someone like Bashiok or Scapes_Flagship, no thanks. IGN: KoTao
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You know, back when I first started to write on these forums (maybe February or so) and offered semi-negative feedback about quite a few issues (that are still being discussed these days, no changes...), I remember being countered by optimistic supporters and members all the time. There was basically almost no support for what I wrote.
People seemed to have changed sides since then though. Not completely, but the optimism is gone. I'd be worried if I were a GGG developer... placeholder for creative sig
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I think the addition of chaos res is where they really started to blow my mind with their changes. Most of the stuff you mentioned they took time to test out, took feedback from alpha and then with stuff like res penalty they had a week race to test it in action. I spent like a month in act 3 in alpha, I think it was up before I became a member too. They made many changes and included alot of balance, like fixing CI. Then 20 hours before OB they just throw chaos res into the game. CI went from being balanced to being worthless, everyone lost their mind. There wasn't much better than the rants invalesco went on about how bad a move it was.
It all seemed ignored. I was shocked. They took their time on every decision, planned it out, testing it, got reaction and then would make it stick, adjusting it later. This was the first of a few changes that they didn't ask for feedback, they just threw it in, put a "we don't care what you say, this is what we want" feeling to it, then we were just forced to adjust. I will say I'm glad this week is a letter patch. I just can't stand seeing another 10.X patch that doesn't address major flaws that we've been bringing up since CB that aren't being addressed. Finished 17th in Rampage - Peaked at 11th
Finished 18th in Torment/Bloodline 1mo Race - peaked at 9th Null's Inclination Build 2.1.0 - https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1559063 Summon Skeleton 1.3 - https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1219856 |
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" This reminds me of the Mass Effect 3 ending, where allegedly the writer team was cut off from contributing, and Casey Hudson and Mac Walters (I think lead designer/lead writer) locked themselves and wrote the ending just the two of them, without presenting it for feedback to the developing team, who obviously got frustrated to the moon and back. It was a complete disaster... placeholder for creative sig Last edited by Undon3#5633 on Apr 26, 2013, 4:43:38 PM
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" Your negativity has turned us all into complainers, thanks a lot Undon! =P |
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Me and Iao are likely to start a write up about another previously indie game we used to play very avidly that went down an identical route to the one GGG is currently doing (but with the addition of pay2win), and is now literally a dying game that is forced to promote semi-hidden pay2win tactics, EXP and credit boosts, and relies quite literally upon preying on children's need to win at any cost, and their parents willingness to give them large amounts of money.
The game is essentially dead now and isn't going to last much longer, and they are trying to squeeze what they can out of it before it completely dies. GGG can read all about the decisions they made, compare them to their own, and decide if they want to continue down a path that is guaranteed to kill the game. Honestly, PoE has done mostly nothing but get worse for nearly half a year. I would literally be willing to revert back to a buggy iteration of closed beta without A3 or any of the new content, and it would be a more fun game to play and would have better progression. Last edited by Xendran#1127 on Apr 26, 2013, 5:52:58 PM
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" Actually, back then I was quite optimistic, and tried to offer (misguided) suggestions :) I'm steadily with my feet on the ground now... but hardly pessimistic. Negative feedback means just that in your opinion, something doesn't quite work. Also, I have 0 "merits" in "turning" anyone, I'm not that persuasive. GGG is the culprit :P Looking forward to read your stuff, Xendran. placeholder for creative sig Last edited by Undon3#5633 on Apr 26, 2013, 6:28:31 PM
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Also, while Charan might have the personality and skills for a community manager, i wouldn't reccomend that. I guarantee you that putting him in a position like that would end up with obscene amounts of stress, and a feeling of being at fault due to the constant attacks against him that are 100% guaranteed to come if he is seen as a spokesman of GGG.
Also, while this may seem kind of odd, i think GGG should be looking for an additional dedicated in house balancer with a specific trait: Psychopathy/Sociopathy, or at least a lack of empathy or caring for irrational responses and arguments. I myself have psychopathy, and when it comes to being able to balance and design mechanics, it essentially gives you an impenetrable shield againts emotional responses to the balance. You give literally no fucks about whether or not somebody doesn't like something and they give either no reason, or an irrational one. It fully clears your vision. |
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" I'm quoting this for no reason other than to encourage GGG to read it twice. In fact, read it a third and fourth time as well. @Undon3: Hopefully it's done in a reasonable amount of time. It's an account over the last 4 years (and wouldn't you know it, this game had an even longer projected lifespan than PoE but it's dead less than halfway through the shorter PoE expected lifespan.) so it might take a while to do. I might consider cutting a lot of content out oand focusing more on the big turning points, though. Last edited by Xendran#1127 on Apr 26, 2013, 5:57:43 PM
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" Knowing charan, he would decline such a position, he already spends far too much time doing what he does. I think its more a case of someone like charan who is doing their best to be helpful and shed light on things, with similar constraints of not being able to say certain things (obviously). Also, side note, I agree with the 'go back to 9.1x' idea. Personally I got disappointed around the instance of fork+chain being added, which just added to an already existing melee disparity. Then act 3 came out and this disparity shot up by a mile. I think part of it is only the dev's are testing things, but they evidently aren't entirely sure how to balance it, and will not have the time to spend levelling from level 10->20 10 times just to check how well it works |
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