Patch note clarity

[LordEpee]

It is hard to engage in feedback on patch notes as what is done is not very clear, and neither is the reasoning behind the changes, for example:
- All Engineer turrets now get base stats of the engineer (with no equipment). This mirrors what magus daemons already had.

It is unclear if this is an increase or a decrease to stats. How impactful is it in terms of their bulk? their damage output? maybe their resistance to ranged vs melee vs magic damage?

Why was the decision made to increase or decrease the engineer turrets to the magus daemons and not change the magus daemons to the engineer turrets?

What can I expect when I next boot up the game?

I see that the tactic for chosens Discordant winds has been removed. I am not familiar with the name of every tactic of every class so I have to look up what that tactic is. Is it being removed because it was too strong? Too weak and underutilized? How will this change the way Chosen and knight players will play the game?

Here is an example of a patch note from league of legends that I find more clear and can be modeled after:
SAMIRA
E cooldown increased; attack speed decreased.

Samira is at a place where her early game safety and mobility is a touch too reliable, so we’re bumping up her cooldown in a way so that she has to play more conservatively in the first stages of the game. We’re also trimming some of her damage so that her all ins are a little less potent.
E - WILD RUSH
COOLDOWN 15/14/13/12/11 seconds ⇒ 20/18/16/14/12 seconds
ATTACK SPEED 30/35/40/45/50% ⇒ 20/25/30/35/40%

It explains WHAT they are doing, WHY they are doing it, and the BEFORE AND AFTER of the patch, this way even those who dont know specifically what wild rush does, have an idea of what to expect when they see that character next in a game.

[Sulorie]

People, who make such extensive patch note descriptions, get paid for doing it. I wouldn't expect it here.

[Freemind]

It's not THAT hard to just put a small explanation under.
They know what they're doing to the spells, just add a small text explaining.

[kirraha]

I would sugest an explanation to changes like these in the future as mentioned.

At least I would do that if I was a dev, but ofc not my call in this case. It'seasier to make ppl understand the caue of these changes. At least for me it makes sense.

What the change is. Why it was changed. What we cant to achieve with the change.

[GamesBond]

Technically speaking, you already have your answer in the ToU:
-

« E » Your viewpoint on the game and that of the staff may differ.

Spoiler:

- According « A », our purpose is to extend the spirit of Warhammer Online.
The general outlook of the team on the game leans progressive towards a changing future, not conservatively rebuilding a past glory that perhaps never was. Our intent has always been to bring fresh changes to the game in pursuit of glorious battle.

- According « A » again, we apologize if some of our choices are hurting your Nostalgia/Traditionalism or Conservatism.

- We are not claiming we have perfect solutions for a perfect game, but we are acting with sincerity and passion to spawn a version of the game, within the limit of our abilities and understanding, that we think/hope is as good as possible.

- According « A » again, we (RoR Staff) are those who spend time and energy to make this project alive.
It seems quite legitimate for us to be free to bring changes and take liberties we think important to enhance this project. There is enough constraint within the team to provide a fair amount of consideration to prevent most changes from going wild. Being further constrained by community demands would be untenable.

- According « B » and « C », Nothing is engraved in the stone.
What is deployed today, may be modified completely in the future. We are working in the limit of our present abilities and this forces us to make hard choices at any given moment in time. This doesn’t mean we will not come back to some aspect of the game when we will be able to deploy better solutions. This frequently happens as we discover new protocols and need to better refactor old code.

- You can disagree with our choices, but we are asking you to respect them, without anger or hate.
Our purpose isn't to make you miserable. On the contrary. We can make mistakes and decisions that seem counter-intuitive to intended goals, but be assured we are trying iteratively at times to break through hard problems. Some changes will be less apparent than others, but any controversial choice to be made starts with significant internal debate among the leads, devs, and other contributing team members.

- Your feedback and suggestions are more than welcome, however (according « D ») we may not always follow your advice or suggestions.
We are trying to keep a global view of the project with our limited abilities. If some feedback and suggestions are agreeable with this general pattern we will be glad to please you. Note it may take time if this happens.

- Your opinion about our choices and work should be reasonable, presented with facts, and without hostility. Otherwise, according « A » and « D », it won’t be relevant for the project. You can disagree or dislike, we are very sorry, but we can’t do much for you

-
According to « A » refers to: " « A » Return of Reckoning is NOT Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. "

Now I personally believe that adding a reason for each change/implementation will just cause drama.

Currently you have A or B implemented, you can share a feedback regarding A or B and that's it. While adding reasons to the changes would open up undesirable conversations, developers don't need to validate their implementations, because if deemed unfair/incompatible with their initial thoughts, they'll revert their own changes.

[andy]

Technically speaking, you already have your answer in the ToU:
-

« E » Your viewpoint on the game and that of the staff may differ.

Spoiler:

- According « A », our purpose is to extend the spirit of Warhammer Online.
The general outlook of the team on the game leans progressive towards a changing future, not conservatively rebuilding a past glory that perhaps never was. Our intent has always been to bring fresh changes to the game in pursuit of glorious battle.

- According « A » again, we apologize if some of our choices are hurting your Nostalgia/Traditionalism or Conservatism.

- We are not claiming we have perfect solutions for a perfect game, but we are acting with sincerity and passion to spawn a version of the game, within the limit of our abilities and understanding, that we think/hope is as good as possible.

- According « A » again, we (RoR Staff) are those who spend time and energy to make this project alive.
It seems quite legitimate for us to be free to bring changes and take liberties we think important to enhance this project. There is enough constraint within the team to provide a fair amount of consideration to prevent most changes from going wild. Being further constrained by community demands would be untenable.

- According « B » and « C », Nothing is engraved in the stone.
What is deployed today, may be modified completely in the future. We are working in the limit of our present abilities and this forces us to make hard choices at any given moment in time. This doesn’t mean we will not come back to some aspect of the game when we will be able to deploy better solutions. This frequently happens as we discover new protocols and need to better refactor old code.

- You can disagree with our choices, but we are asking you to respect them, without anger or hate.
Our purpose isn't to make you miserable. On the contrary. We can make mistakes and decisions that seem counter-intuitive to intended goals, but be assured we are trying iteratively at times to break through hard problems. Some changes will be less apparent than others, but any controversial choice to be made starts with significant internal debate among the leads, devs, and other contributing team members.

- Your feedback and suggestions are more than welcome, however (according « D ») we may not always follow your advice or suggestions.
We are trying to keep a global view of the project with our limited abilities. If some feedback and suggestions are agreeable with this general pattern we will be glad to please you. Note it may take time if this happens.

- Your opinion about our choices and work should be reasonable, presented with facts, and without hostility. Otherwise, according « A » and « D », it won’t be relevant for the project. You can disagree or dislike, we are very sorry, but we can’t do much for you

-
According to « A » refers to: " « A » Return of Reckoning is NOT Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. "

Now I personally believe that adding a reason for each change/implementation will just cause drama.

Currently you have A or B implemented, you can share a feedback regarding A or B and that's it. While adding reasons to the changes would open up undesirable conversations, developers don't need to validate their implementations, because if deemed unfair/incompatible with their initial thoughts, they'll revert their own changes.

I would say it causes even more drama without an explanation why a nerf/change is implemented. Yes there will always be some that will cry more than others. But communicating with your playerbase is the most important thing, just like in irl.

[Uchoo]

Technically speaking, you already have your answer in the ToU:
-

« E » Your viewpoint on the game and that of the staff may differ.

Spoiler:

- According « A », our purpose is to extend the spirit of Warhammer Online.
The general outlook of the team on the game leans progressive towards a changing future, not conservatively rebuilding a past glory that perhaps never was. Our intent has always been to bring fresh changes to the game in pursuit of glorious battle.

- According « A » again, we apologize if some of our choices are hurting your Nostalgia/Traditionalism or Conservatism.

- We are not claiming we have perfect solutions for a perfect game, but we are acting with sincerity and passion to spawn a version of the game, within the limit of our abilities and understanding, that we think/hope is as good as possible.

- According « A » again, we (RoR Staff) are those who spend time and energy to make this project alive.
It seems quite legitimate for us to be free to bring changes and take liberties we think important to enhance this project. There is enough constraint within the team to provide a fair amount of consideration to prevent most changes from going wild. Being further constrained by community demands would be untenable.

- According « B » and « C », Nothing is engraved in the stone.
What is deployed today, may be modified completely in the future. We are working in the limit of our present abilities and this forces us to make hard choices at any given moment in time. This doesn’t mean we will not come back to some aspect of the game when we will be able to deploy better solutions. This frequently happens as we discover new protocols and need to better refactor old code.

- You can disagree with our choices, but we are asking you to respect them, without anger or hate.
Our purpose isn't to make you miserable. On the contrary. We can make mistakes and decisions that seem counter-intuitive to intended goals, but be assured we are trying iteratively at times to break through hard problems. Some changes will be less apparent than others, but any controversial choice to be made starts with significant internal debate among the leads, devs, and other contributing team members.

- Your feedback and suggestions are more than welcome, however (according « D ») we may not always follow your advice or suggestions.
We are trying to keep a global view of the project with our limited abilities. If some feedback and suggestions are agreeable with this general pattern we will be glad to please you. Note it may take time if this happens.

- Your opinion about our choices and work should be reasonable, presented with facts, and without hostility. Otherwise, according « A » and « D », it won’t be relevant for the project. You can disagree or dislike, we are very sorry, but we can’t do much for you

-
According to « A » refers to: " « A » Return of Reckoning is NOT Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. "

Now I personally believe that adding a reason for each change/implementation will just cause drama.

Currently you have A or B implemented, you can share a feedback regarding A or B and that's it. While adding reasons to the changes would open up undesirable conversations, developers don't need to validate their implementations, because if deemed unfair/incompatible with their initial thoughts, they'll revert their own changes.

You truly believe that adding reasoning and better patch notes would lead to MORE drama? I think people would be a lot more calm if there were good patch notes, and the community might even see the PoV of the staff making the changes. Why would that be bad? Don't take my word for it, a huge portion of games in the industry already do this.

Man, you don't even have to do it to try to broach the widening gap between the community and staff, just do it for yourselves so you remember why you made certain changes over time.

[Toshutkidup]

I see this going bad fast. But Again the Devs are not paid unlike other organizations, they are 100% volunteer. So asking for clarity on things that people will then ask more clarity on will just be a never ending road aka like me and Riposte lol.

[Uchoo]

I'll never understand why paid or unpaid is a reason. Volunteering doesn't naturally imply one should do a bad job.

Having less time to work on something you volunteer for is something I understand.

[Toshutkidup]

your requesting like its EA or something where you have 100 Developers, 100 Social media people, 1000 programmers, 50 Directors all that you can lean on for questions or answers.. RoR team is few Devs, couple of GM's , few Balance people and couple people do communications. Some do multiple things. Then you have them spread around the globe potentially. I would love more answers on everything. Alot of things have changed in this game over 7 years, some are great , some are horrid depending on the player you ask. Im just happy a free private server run by volunteers that pay for it themselves is currently the best pvp based mmo I can find and have found over those many years.