There are a few problems with that over here...
1) The EU community rarely gets 'direct access' to the devs, they pop in but Positrons last post was merely a news announcement over a year ago, BaB posted and then disappeared into the aether, War Witch does pop in from time to time but still not very frequent in her postings. Castle (aka THE power guy, the one you'll probably actually be wanting to talk to about EM changes) never posts here. Jay never posts here but meh, I'm not to fussed on that.
So while it is a good idea to set this up and to give constructive feedback on the changes the devs make we simply don't have the dev communications the US forums do and our suggestions would simply be falling on deaf ears.
The only time the EU community affected a change in the game was thanks to the people at Omega Sektor pointing out the Supa-troll spawns that flooded Skyway to War Witch and that was her seeing first hand.
2) Most players KNOW which sets are overpowered/underpowered and are just waiting on the expectant nerfs/buffs anyway so a list would probably be confirming what people know. Some sets are overpowered in certain situations, EM was great for single target damage but had almost no AoEs to speak of. Fire is great for taking out large spawns but when it comes to single target DPS or actually migating damage (in the case of the secondary for blasters and the armour for scrappers/tanks/brutes), it isn't as great and so on.
Just my thoughts though.
Badge Earned: Wing Clipper
A real showstopper!
Personally, I dont care. I would rather nerfs/devs took place independently of the player base. Sure, a few suggestions is nice.
But ultimately nerfing is vital to the longevity of the game. And given the short sighted cries of "no fair" and "you are evil, dev's", involving the players in nerfing (or buffing come to that) will disencourage nerfing. Something that should be encouraged.
If the game hadnt introduced ED and GDN, I doubt it would be alive today.
ahhhh, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
were you here for I5/I6? now, comparativly, we have pretty close to full tranpancey as to what changes need to be tested. hell they have even retracted some based on player testing.
you have to read the patch notes and use the test server for testing.
/signed, completly. x100 nerfing is just not on.
I don't want to see 'Right dudes, we're nerfing x powerset again' in the Patch Notes.
[ QUOTE ]
/signed, completly. x100 nerfing is just not on.
I don't want to see 'Right dudes, we're nerfing x powerset again' in the Patch Notes.
[/ QUOTE ]
Some nerfs are needed, you realise this right?
If Set A outperforms everything else by a good margin it's much, much better to change that set than bring everything else up to it.
We have much better communication about what changes are being made, when, to what and when we can expect them than we ever did back in the day. Not only do we get a chance to level feedback and criticism but said input is taken on board.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
/signed, completly. x100 nerfing is just not on.
I don't want to see 'Right dudes, we're nerfing x powerset again' in the Patch Notes.
[/ QUOTE ]
Some nerfs are needed, you realise this right?
If Set A outperforms everything else by a good margin it's much, much better to change that set than bring everything else up to it.
We have much better communication about what changes are being made, when, to what and when we can expect them than we ever did back in the day. Not only do we get a chance to level feedback and criticism but said input is taken on board.
[/ QUOTE ]
I realisie theyre needed, but really, I'd rather see more dev time spent making other stuff than nerfs. Not that I don't like the occasional nerf - having lots of nerfs every patch is not on.
Even if it is overpowered, wouldn't nerfing it take the joy away from what the players had of it? Sure, but constant nerfs to every powerset in humanity just breaks the fun IMO.
What constant stream of nerfs have we had lately? Honestly?
[ QUOTE ]
What constant stream of nerfs have we had lately? Honestly?
[/ QUOTE ]
Mesmer.
SingStar:
"Extremists LOVE to fish to get us annoyed so we break the forum rules."
CRACK68:
"The origin of life wasn't planned either, should all life be declared a bug and wiped out?"
Lionsbane:
"You know me.Ever the realist"
[ QUOTE ]
What gets my goat is the way the company go about it which IMO is abysmal community relations.
[/ QUOTE ]
Umm, is this your first MMO?
The Devs and mods here are far more communicative than in most of the other MMOs I've played (and I've played most of the major ones from the last ten years). Usually it's very rare for MMO Devs to ask for that much player feedback on balance changes at all, because obviously the playerbase is very biased - hard to be objective when one of the things you play is up for a nerf.
Heck, in EverQuest 1 & 2, DAoC, even WoW, there was almost no dialogue whatsoever with the community about balance changes - the first you knew about a nerf was when you saw it in the patch note on the day it was applied - you were lucky if they even explained why the change needed to be made. And Devs pretty much never posted directly on forums except in beta.
You should count your lucky stars that the playerbase here has any direct communication with the Devs at all, and far beyond that they even ask for our advice sometimes.
My first MMO?
*dramatic laugh*
Well yes actually
*rather sheepishly*
But honestly just cos everyone else does it worse is no excuse not to do it better.
Also to what Dr mechano said if the devs really do ignore the EU sector (1/4 of there audience by server count) then more fool them.
I don't really see it as ignoring, as such. Sure we could do with a bit more posting here but almost all Dev interactin would be doubling up on what's already said in the US. You'd be pretty much doubling the workload for them forum interaction wise for almost no new information.
Why run two separate forums anyway would be my question
Isn't this pretty much the whole point of the Test Server?
[ QUOTE ]
A. a warning system
[/ QUOTE ]
All upcoming patch notes are usually put on Test before they go out.
[ QUOTE ]
B. Open and ongiong community consultation
[/ QUOTE ]
Again, the Test server allows us to give them feedback.
But letting the players have a say in balancing? That will never work. Nobody wants their characters to be nerfed (well, some people see the sense in it) - but most of the time it's for the best in the long run.
A pretty extreme example, but look at Regen Scrappers. By far one of the easiest scrapper sets to play. And this is after some pretty giant nerfs. Anyone remember Instant Healing being a toggle? I was pretty [censored] when they changed that, but in all honesty, Regen is actually more fun to play these days.
[ QUOTE ]
Why run two separate forums anyway would be my question
[/ QUOTE ]
Alot of that is down to data protection laws in the EU. We have them, the US doesn't. NCSoft Europe can't share customer details with the US side of things. They're technically seperate companies.
To me it's to try and seperate the knee jerk reactions and Intial objections which should be refuted or corrected with the correct information or revelation of reasoning before test. This would allow the time on test to be a more realistic consultation period, with intelligent disscusion of the problem rather than knee jerk reactions and initial objections. Heh it'll never stop everyone belly aching but it might go some way towards helping the problem
An edit from another post I thought might be more appropriate as a suggestion.
Edit
Maybe whats irks me so much about this is the process of nerfing. Now if your set gets a boost in the patch notes then it's like getting a little pressie and the devs get much player love ( well a bit anyways). Now if it's a nerf all hell breaks lose why? well someones just sneaked up behind you and robbed your favourite toy. So it's a neccasery evil you say, and I would tend to agree. What gets my goat is the way the company go about it which IMO is abysmal community relations. How could they improve this situation, well my ideas would be access to a 'Game Balance issues' list, a list of powersets that may be gifted or robbed and WHY Then a consultation process where community can have there say on Devs plan's and Dev's can better inform people of the data involved behind the decision, the current state of testing and what the plan is and WHY Then release the patch onto test for final community assement and onto live with complete patch notes explaing the adjustments made and of course WHY .
So to conclude if the devs want to avoid a lot of community anger (We pay there wages after all) and want to see less WHY WHY WHY threads after every adjustment to abilities in the interest of game balance then they should be more open and considerate to there customers in there approach to such a sensetive subject.
Edit
So to summarise I think the nerfing process needs A. a warning system and B. Open and ongiong community consultation (even if they ignore you and do exactly what they where going to do in the first place at least you would feel better that you had had your say and been agknowledged for it) as in theory Community Knowledge of the game > That of the devs (In total we have more hrs played than they do combined).