Well time for me to chime into this clusterfuck.
- There is definitely a problem in how the forums are handled... typical example of late is the sloppy work term on said forum used to define the forum downgrade... In some case of the use of that term infractions were given, and in other cases, for other users, but used in the same context and for the same reason no infraction was given.
Yet, the Forum Downgrade was ( and still is ) sloppy work. ( and I never earned infraction for stating it while Memnir did, to name two sides. )
The forums have been dead ( compared to before ) since that downgrade, and the fact that the Community relation team is either inexistant or a community un-relation team doesn't help.
- Cordovan and Tolero are not there or are just here to close threads/hand over infractions. They do not participate in the community at all... it can be days before they make a post ( any post ). ( beside the automated '*** of the week' )
As for the state of the game :
- the last year just wrecked the End-Game. ( obsoleted the items and the raids ) - the new extension is not going to help, it's probably going to put a few more nails on the DDO coffin. - the stupid way the enhancement pass was handled and it's content has made quite a few people pissed enough to quit the game. - the stupid way the Epic TR has been planned and preliminarily discussed has made even more people stop playing. - the fact that the player griefs about the game are not listened or heard ( or even acknowledged ) officially and that the business plan is rolled out even when we ( players that spends hour in game, so have a fair idea of what people think there ) say it's a really bad idea to roll out things. - All the above adds up to the point that a lot of people are taking a vacation from DDO while all the crashes ( Enhancement, Epic TR, ... ) happens, and eventually, if nothing take their time in the meantime they might come back. [honestly I don't think many will come back... 8 month is more than enough to find another game to play ]
all that makes me spend less and less time in DDO... the other reason is that lots of my friends, went F2P ( some even have problem with that... as ex-VIP with MoTU Collector and ShadowFail they should have access to all the pre-MoTU adventure packs... they can't enter them, and customer unsupport hasn't answered the mails after one fucking month and as more time pass without any unfucking of that, the more they are considering dropping it all... for players that have been playing for 7 years in static groups considering to drop said group due to account being fucked up and customer unsupport being just fucking a black hole. [ no phone is not really an option for European players, between the cost and the timezones ] )
Now my personal gripes :
- Retarded Bravery Streak has to be killed some way or another. It just kill LFM and pugging. Sure it was a good idea 4 years ago for TR people, but right now it's hurting the game quite a lot, because those TR prefer soloing instead of partying up with new players. As the new players leave Korthos they discover that they can keep soloing, because nobody will party up with them for a normal Waterworks. [ My suggestion is to bring back the old system that gave you a bonus when your party level was under the level of the quest. Why : no Streak to maintain, and if you want to tackle a LVL 13 quest with a LVL 8 party ( for a +50% Bonus ) you will have to be in a party. Oh and kill the stupid No Death bonus that almost everybody consider part of the quest XP, when it's just a bonus ]
- I know it's too late to do much about it, but the NGE Enhancement Crash shouldn't have seen the light. It hurts lots of players ( when they are aware of the incoming doom ) and it's going to push them to leave. A lot of players ( those that do not read the forums regularly ) are not even aware that there's going to be a huge change in the character and that a lot of builds are going to become irrelevant in a matter of minutes.
Try to communicate in game, through the launcher, through mails and any other means to explain to all those unwary players that there's a huge change in game mechanic incoming and that they should prepare for it. There's going to be an angry flash mob when people discover the extend of the NGE Crash.
- no fucking endgame worth farming, no fucking loot worth farming. The broken and semi random named loot made by the feathered star is not interesting. The number of quests worth farming ( for items ) at endgame is nil as random lootgen is better than ( random powered ) named loot. This in itself doesn't help keeping people in game. Once they have the items they want from random lootgen there's no point in doing more quests.
Solution : stop raising the level, develop now quests/raids, you need at least 6 raids and about 15/20 quests playable at endgame to keep people busy and happy... Also you need to drop all those fucked up semi-random underpowered named items. Named loot is supposed to be more powerful than an equivalent item of the same ML not less as it is in the extension and in most of the case since MoTU. Also Named Loot is where item creation rules are broken, so that a bonus that is not usually available on a given slot is available for Named Items.
I'll stop there, it's food time for me...
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