Reintroductions and reflections.

[Grulo]

@Dureal, i'm the one who banned you in that post you keep linking. Not Torque or Ade, j/s

Carry on...

[dur3al]

@Dureal, i'm the one who banned you in that post you keep linking. Not Torque or Ade, j/s

Carry on...

Thanks for bringing it to my attention, I've edited to put in the right thread, and spoilers for the particular event

Looking through all my old posts I can find so much stuff related to our current situation that its not even funny, and obviously most of the said things were being modded..


Discussion regarding dok/wp changes in Patchnotes 15/12/16.

Now we're getting into the tail wagging the dog.

All I read here is: thanks for all the free work you did resurrecting the game. We'll be nice to you if and when we feel like it, and you'd better be grateful for that, but you'd better not think you have any right to do what you want with the game, because it's about what we want and what we will tolerate, and our bars are set very low.

Absolutely vile. DoK/WP playing to concept is the price I ask, and I am not so much of a doormat that I will disregard all the time spent working on this project and allow that to be blocked by people who do not, in fact, work on the project, because muh nostalgia.

Really, I can't emphasise it enough. Vile. You benefit from free work. Why on earth do you think I'm going to have even the smallest of my actions constrained by traditionalism for traditionalism's sake? Get over it. I'll accept criticism for causing imbalance but I will not for one second accept being criticised simply for the act of having made a change. This project made it clear a while back that the aim is to make progress, not to allow you and yours to allow traditionalism and nostalgia to block everything you don't like.

You can save your responses as well, because I'm setting out how things are, and I'm sure as hell not interested in wasting any more of my breath against "muh nostalgia".

I'd like to give my 2 cents also on what Zumos/roadkill and Aza argument.

First of all, I think all of us players are grateful with all the efforts done by the staff to keep this server running. Because we enjoy playing this game. As it was pointed out a lot of times, we are not allowed to donate money to some-how help you guys, but I'm sure if we could, a lot of people would do it to support the project. With that being said, what we can effectively do to help is to actively report bugs when we find them and besides that, we can't do anything else besides play the game & try to be friendly and welcoming to the community in order to help it grow. Reminding us all the time how much effort is being done by the development team vs of the community seems to not be good to anyone as we all understand this, even if you believe some people don't.

Now comes the part where some confusion happens: When I first heard about Return of Reckoning, I was very happy since I did enjoy the game very much, but my first general impression I had, was that this project was intended to be what it says in the title, Return of Reckoning, as in Mythic Age of Reckoning which most of us in this community played.

Second big confusion comes when we're told that this is an Alpha server, and I'll quote from the
What you accept about this project before you start playing. thread:

2. This project is in its alpha stage, and alpha means bugs.

Alpha is not an "excuse". Alpha means Alpha. It means the server is not feature complete. It means you accept that bugs can and will occur. It means that you treat all things as being in flux, and nothing as permanent. It means that you understand and accept the possibility that progress on the server may be reset.

Reading this, I understand that I expect an incomplete game, with bugs, and that is fine, but nowhere in this makes us read that the game might be changed and take other directions of what we believe is the purpose of this project, which is to be a Return of Reckoning.

Now there is a new added point which reads:

4. The developers have the right to change anything they so choose, mechanically speaking, and to bear the consequences, in terms of player gain or loss, of bad decisions.

We are not Mythic. This isn't Age of Reckoning. We have the right to change anything related to the mechanics of the game. Anything.

Read that again. We have the right to change any mechanics, should we so wish. Will that always be a good idea? No. Will it always work out for the best? No. Will it sometimes work out for the best? Yes. Do we eventually hope that all our changes will be improvements from Mythic's state? Yes.

This is even furthering confusion, for example:

We understand the balancing of x or y class, we're glad things can be changed which were obviously broken in the live versions of the server. But having the WP/DoK changes in mind, they weren't with the balancing the class as main target in mind, they were brought mostly due to what the development team thought was a design mistake from the original game, and that the class should have a different role, and arguments were used such as lore and other several reasons. As Zumos explained, players never really bothered as much with the lore discrepancies, they just are happy and used to play the class for years and will take any such drastic change as negative.

This is what causes the most confusion because now can we really expect Return of Reckoning, or Not-Return of Reckoning?
How far are the changes in the design from the original game going to go? Out the top of my head if you followed the lore I guess Archmages should be as a strong damage dealer as any other sorcerers type in the game. Chaos shouldn't be allied with Greenskins because from the lore perspective, they simply can't. Can we expect live Reckoning version of Land of the Dead with all its items and item procs in the future? Or all of that will be re-designed? The bottom line is: How far are the changes going to go? You can't just change as you go along without a proper plan/direction that is agreed and shared with the player base in my opinion. In a new game you could do this without any problem, but here we players were expecting something like Return of Reckoning as the huge title says, but now not really?

Keep in mind, nowhere I'm saying you shouldn't or should do this or that, or that you should listen to the players before doing this or that, this is your project and you can do whatever you want, I'm not discussing this. But it wasn't told us beforehand at all that such things would occur, because then why would you use the title of a game if you're going to overhaul it?
If this was a complete new game from scratch we wouldn't mind at all, but for a lot of us the Mythic version was considered the final product, even with all its flaws, and that the majority of us enjoyed playing it, even with all its drawbacks - and with some small tweaks here and there would do the job regarding balancing, oRvR and even PvE to have an even better Reckoning.

My final thoughts is that this is lacking transparency and communication on what is the direction this project will take beforehand.
It should be stated that we (as players) will not have the same game as Mythic one (once this Alpha phase is out). That the intention is to take x, y, and z direction, and fundamentally change a, b & c. We are using Mythic's Return of Reckoning as a sort-of foundation for a new game.

Now a lot of players will feel like they've been cheated, where while we agreed with an Alpha phase with a lot of bugs, we would have the same game (or something very similar) that it was enjoyed from Mythic. But as things went along, sudden changes were done and all time and effort by players for that particular gameplay they wanted will not happen.

Basing your arguments on what Mythic intended to do and didn't do, or what developers intended at that time, or how effective or noneffective they were implementing stuff is all null. We must base how you envision this new game with what we had as a game, which was Age of Reckoning at its final stage.

This is the sort of thing we're no longer entertaining.

- wargrimnir

Continuing the discussion:

I can see where you are coming from with that, but it does not mean we should change our attitude on that matter. Also the vision of RoR is to make AoR the best it could have been with the potential the game had/has, to me when I joined that was pretty clear from day 1.

Yes but that's debatable isn't it? What is best for you maybe is not best for me? Even as all the while you hold the power to go along what you think its best, if you're not clear with the direction you plan to take - you'll always have an unhealthy relationship with your player-base, and you also need them after all this is still a game isn't it?

Being honest here, even though I don't generally care so much for the changes by themselves, when I started playing this I honestly did not know we would had such drastic changes in comparison with the live version, and changes that are what you guys think was a mistake done by the original developers of this game. I think everyone in a common sense scale can go along with some changes, but what is planned for the future? How about tovl stuff? City sieges and many other to-come features. Regarding balance, I've read from Azarael is that Chosens/Knights of the Blazing Sun are also into the pipeline for some big changes too, perhaps this should be more advised beforehand for the community to avoid such reactions and stress - and waste of energy because of it.

Same as above. Moderated at the same time.

- wargrimnir

All of which is related to the lack of vision and in which direction RoR wants to go forward from the original game, this has a heavy influence in balance and RvR in general too.

[Bamboozeled]

@Az does this mean you'll be coming into voice every so often to talk with guild leaders/representatives and answering questions about the direction of the game/changes and overall balance like you used to?

[NoRKaLKiLLa]

I can't speak for him, but I'll come bully you every once in a while Bamboo

[Azarael]

@Az does this mean you'll be coming into voice every so often to talk with guild leaders/representatives and answering questions about the direction of the game/changes and overall balance like you used to?

That's something that a friend of mine was looking to setup for me if he were to come back to the staff.

[Kazekiri]

I understood that no staff members could be removed, so be it, I still believe that could be the most viable option since they will keep carrying a lot of shadows from the past mistakes, slowing or making impossible the reconciliation process. And this reconciliation process is the only way RoR can be great again.

Sorry if you explained that before, but what are the guarantees you could create to make in place any sort of concrete protection for players, and aswel concrete unbreakable limit for devs they cannot cross preventing them to abuse power. I mean something really concrete, not just "they understood now, trust me".

thx!

[Azarael]

I can't give you hard guarantees on anything. It depends whether you think my force of personality and general management style can control this situation or not.

[adei]

Spoiler:

The argument has never been about the amount of work he’s done. I think you should read through the novel to get a better understanding as to what everyone’s problem is. Never has the amount of time spent on the project come into question...

Yeah I know you are upset because he said mean things, end of the day that's because the management system is garbage, community manager position is basically irrelevant because they don't do it, and there is really nobody to moderate the leads. And that will never happen. There was a lot of stuff not public which also made the forum usage worse for everyone on it.

I believe you're completely missing the whole point of this thread, or perhaps missing it purposefully?

The reason everyone dislikes him is because hes honest and people don't like that

I've no problem with honest or blunt people. The problem is when we're honest back (my case in particular at Changelog 15/11/16 page 22 where I first post until page 25) & he turns into a little teen and starts trowing a fit ending up threatening you and/or outright banning you all the while you're countering what he is telling you with arguments, and he is presenting nothing other then "I know better and careful with what you say back to me because I can ban you". This actually goes along way with many of the staff here.

I'll put here the interaction and all the quotes if people don't want to read the whole thread. It would also be good for all the brown nosers here who "never saw anything like that" to check out first hand.

Spoiler:

What are you talking about? Are you just looking to be annoying or just foolish? StMicheal was talking about DPS which in AB EX means Righteousness/Celerity and as I clearly said using English the drawbacks to this position is built in, you use SR/TE you have no damage bonus, you use DA/RS your damage decreases, all abilities are defendable by normal means too, its only in devotion/vitality that the melee heals are able to avoid being parried/blocked.

Its not a drawback at all, because before they didn't had access to having their stats turning from strength to willpower (depending if they needed to dps or to heal), not needing to spend a tactic slot for aoe detaunt, now all it takes is to correctly use the cooldowns from the covenants depending on the situation, its a terrific buff if you ask me.

Regarding DPS WP, they were an absolute joke as was the Wrath tree and DPS Dok functioned straddling the trees and could easily pump out as much healing as they could damage which they can no longer do. When you say things like "Im guessing" and show a complete lack of understanding it can only mean you havent bothered to read the patch notes because its all right there and I would strongly advise you to take time to read them or take out your own DoK and try them yourself because I for one have better things to do than to read out the patch notes for you because you want a individual set of notes for some unknown reason.

As I mentioned earlier I've played only 1 day with the changes on my WL against melee doks and healer doks so I'm basing my comments on them, but the part where they can become a super good off-healer now while still having access to all the core healing skills & having a huge pool of willpower and with a simple prayer switch still remains, I haven't seen any decent structured comment regarding this yet to contradict my statement.

Let me help you as things seem to be flying over your head, the "point" to this was to make all spec trees viable which you are welcome to assume is a intent for "balance"

I get that, but you did it so while inadvertently breaking balance as I mentioned earlier. I've no problems with that, and I'm here merely giving you feedback, if you consider my feedback complete bullshit since "all the points" are "flying over my head" please say so so I'll refrain from posting in a constructive way anymore.

and just to help you get things in perspective because Im an magnanimous kind of guy DPS doks are easier to put down on my WH because its no longer dot dot TE spam they have incentive to spec torture and to use torture abilities and are reluctant to use RS unless they have to because it cuts their dps output.

Just because you're killing bad or pug players don't prove or help prove any point. The very same thing happened with engineers changes, everyone felt they were Justified until we started running a 4 man premade with them... it didn't take long for players to come to forums and complain about this and that regarding engineers, even causing balance changes that were quickly overturned within hours.

Reply:

Its not a drawback at all, because before they didn't had access to having their stats turning from strength to willpower (depending if they needed to dps or to heal), not needing to spend a tactic slot for aoe detaunt, now all it takes is to correctly use the cooldowns from the covenants depending on the situation, its a terrific buff if you ask me.



As I mentioned earlier I've played only 1 day with the changes on my WL against melee doks and healer doks so I'm basing my comments on them, but the part where they can become a super good off-healer now while still having access to all the core healing skills & having a huge pool of willpower and with a simple prayer switch still remains, I haven't seen any decent structured comment regarding this yet to contradict my statement.



I get that, but you did it so while inadvertently breaking balance as I mentioned earlier. I've no problems with that, and I'm here merely giving you feedback, if you consider my feedback complete bullshit since "all the points" are "flying over my head" please say so so I'll refrain from posting in a constructive way anymore.



Just because you're killing bad or pug players don't prove or help prove any point. The very same thing happened with engineers changes, everyone felt they were Justified until we started running a 4 man premade with them... it didn't take long for players to come to forums and complain about this and that regarding engineers, even causing balance changes that were quickly overturned within hours.

Firstly do not presume as to who I do or do not kill, nor try to make light out of my actual experiences both in and against those on AB EX because unlike you I have actually read the patch notes and understand them and to have the audacity to say it doesnt prove any point while you bleat on about your WL is outright comical.

Your posts here are completely non constructive because you seem to be steadfastly refusing to read the patch notes, you are peddling nothing but hyperbole and false information which is sad because you have a high RR dok you could be testing on and actually be giving real, useful feedback if you were so inclined.

Reply which was deleted and I was given a ban, but then Aza replied himself:

The post before it disappeared was:

First of all I'm not presuming who you kill or do not kill, but as I highlighted your quote above, you said that you've killed players easily because they were reluctant to use skills and stances at their disposal, that equals bad play.. which equals bad players, or inexperienced players, or pug players, etc. I wasn't poking at you at all, but if they had skills at their disposal which would make them survive and they didn't use, because they were "reluctant", then it was their own fault - For example, its like in a 6v6 fight you did not use potions at your disposal because you were reluctant and wanted to save them for later, but it doesn't matter because you died, its just bad play, there is no possible reason for not having used the damn potions. That's why I said either bad players or pug players.



I would honestly like confirmation by Azarael on this, or else why would've he posted:



If my post is so "completely non constructive" why is it that it does seem Azarael understood my points and posted the above, and from what I can read from the new patch notes thread done right after our discussion, he does changes that goes in the direction to address the issue that I stated previously - bare in mind I stated this after only 1 day of playing while all your testers had weeks to test? I played with my dok with the .ab ex in one scenario before switching to order.

@Azarael, if I'm wrong or have my concerns miss-placed please just tell me and I'll gracefully acknowledge, I don't care.

How come I'm doing nothing but "hyperbole and false information" if the Project Leader manages to discuss with me in a formal, normal way with arguments back and forth without resorting to "forum warnings" every time I contradict him?
Now I've to deal with being **** threatened every time I'm one of the few who tries to argue in a formal manner backing up my points and opinion trying to explain as much as I can (check my post at the Engineer Cannon Smash thread) just because you have the "power" to give me forum warnings and threaten to ban me if this is not the "last time"? Why? Because I'm actually giving feedback?

PS: I'm not the one saying I'm a "magnanimous kind of guy", I mean who even says that?

PS2: Reading Morfee's post - and I believe he is a respectable player in the community - I think you can see that my comments were not "false information" since I'm not the only one pointing this factor.

And yes, the problem to which I was referring was mDPS WP/DoK being capable of doing too much healing when switching into Devotion/Vitality and potentially mheal WP/DoK dealing too much damage by using off skills from Grace/Sac and Wrath/Torture. I did intend to rework Divine Fury, Fanaticism and Murderous Intent to debuff all heals, and was looking into the idea of using 1/2 damage + undefendable for all skills in Grace, as they're all buff/heal skills to support the party and it would make some sense.

The least I ask is consistency, if you want to act tough and talk straight, expect the same back at you.

If you died in oRvR, take it like a man and don't go around making excuses & pming whomever killed you that you will change x skill or ability because its to strong or any other stupid excuse for your own failures.

If you died in oRvR and was corpse jumped, don't go at great lengths to try and wind up the player in hopes he say something you can use later on to ban him. Just accept you died, he outplayed you or perhaps not, but stop dragging your whole in-game emotions into things you do as a staff member.

If players present an argument that beat yours, that makes more sense then yours - swallow your pride, admit it and take it into consideration opening the argument trying to find a better solution. That's what grown ups do.

You can tell me that there has to be someone in charge as much as you wish, but it's simply not possible. This is a project of volunteers, some of whom have the source code. It is not a company.

Which is exactly why I said that without any sort of hierarchy or accountability all of this thread is really for nothing in terms of making a better relationship between staff & community, as demonstrated by one of your own:

end of the day that's because the management system is garbage, community manager position is basically irrelevant because they don't do it, and there is really nobody to moderate the leads. And that will never happen.

For the example above, what do you do if one of the leads starts power-leveling accounts and selling it? Nothing because "oh our hands are tied".. well good luck with this project then.

RE: Balance Forums

Perhaps a good idea would be to have a central point of reference detailing the team's views on what the classes should be, their play styles, how they play, strengths, weaknesses, interactions and synergies with other classes, ie the fundamental concept behind each class, and where the team wants to take the classes in terms of balances (no easy task).

Then maybe the balance forums would be more productive. Suggestions could then be made that push the classes towards the team's idea of each class, in a more collaborative way within the community. Also preventing wasting time on proposals that dont fit the team's ideas.

This would also have the knockon effect of us better understanding the changes that are made, as we can see the direction we are going, how the change fits into the teams class concept, and that their is some kind of long term plan/reason for the balance change.

This is a good point. I will set something out shortly.

As I said previously, stating your vision is very important when also taking things such as balance into consideration, not only making this for the classes designs you want and which roles they should cover with their strength and weaknesses, but also how do you envision, for example, fortress combats to be in the future too.

I get it, hence my first statement that it's just a PR move because of how unlikely anything is to change. Regarding the comment on creating characters and selling them off, that pretty much already happens just without the selling. People on the team have modified both level and renown plus full gear sets and tallies. Happens on most of their characters and that was happening at least 2 years ago and carried on all the way through to when I left and even when I came back. There is rarely a punishment for it. I'm not defending anybody here and I am guilty of it myself. But if this whole trust thing between the community and staff is to work then they may as well come out and be honest about all the shady stuff that goes on. Can't disagree with what you said.

[saupreusse]

I get it, hence my first statement that it's just a PR move because of how unlikely anything is to change. Regarding the comment on creating characters and selling them off, that pretty much already happens just without the selling. People on the team have modified both level and renown plus full gear sets and tallies. Happens on most of their characters and that was happening at least 2 years ago and carried on all the way through to when I left and even when I came back. There is rarely a punishment for it. I'm not defending anybody here and I am guilty of it myself. But if this whole trust thing between the community and staff is to work then they may as well come out and be honest about all the shady stuff that goes on. Can't disagree with what you said.

Outside of Event and Experimental Chars I have not yet seen someone modify renown or exp for their chars. All staff commands are logged and if a person of staff is to get himself some new dyes or a fancy appearance item these things have to be stated in the dedicated forum thread.Cheating yourself Items that increase your power is against the rules as far as I can tell. However, I cant say if these rules existed while you were still GM.

[Tesq]

@Az does this mean you'll be coming into voice every so often to talk with guild leaders/representatives and answering questions about the direction of the game/changes and overall balance like you used to?

That's something that a friend of mine was looking to setup for me if he were to come back to the staff.

I Have to spend 2 words against this, i alredy hated the fact that "some ppl " can bypass forum and go dev chats , i know listen to guilds is important but do thing behind the curtain with some only is basically trash the forum....


We have a forum also with a balance section LETS USE IT. If you really wanna talk with guild make forum section for that

-only guild leader can write
- only guild with min members
-only guild born from x times

-etc

Make things chill and trasparent( allcan read) you still give bigger guild privileges but ppl see what is going on and see who do good and how ppl behaviour and especially who is bias guild wise.

Please no more things behind the curtains they do more harm than good especially since is proved that you can talk with ppl such aza or penril this can be done or other ppl with same mentality / attitude can take the burden.