Experience:
Bravery Bonus is now tracked separately across Heroic and Epic difficulties. This means that if you play a dungeon on Heroic Elite, you will be able to acquire the Epic Elite Bravery Bonus if you play that same dungeon again in Epic levels.
Bravery Bonus range in Epics is now +4 rather than +2 of the Base quest level. Players above the +4 range will receive half of their Bravery Bonus. This functions just like the Bravery Bonus range in Heroics, but with an expanded range.
Optional Objective's Experience Rewards now ransack at a slower rate:
The first, second, and third time you achieve an optional objective, you will receive 100% of the experience.
The fourth time you achieve an optional objective, you will receive 80% of the experience.
Fifth: 60%
Sixth: 40%
Seventh: 20%
Eighth: 0%
Optional Objective ransack does not reset over time. An Epic, Racial, True, or Iconic Reincarnation will reset your Optional Objective ransack.
All current Optional Objective Ransack has been reset. Players after this patch will begin as if they had not previously completed any optional objectives on their current life.
The base experience of the quest Tower of Frost has been raised from 3062 to 6540.
The Daily Bonus in Epics has been raised by +10%, for a total of 40% for Epics.
Character:
The feat Swords to Plowshares now functions if you've acquired it through an enhancement.
Animated allies may now properly rest or leave a dungeon to throw off their undead state.
Necrotic Bolt and Necrotic Blast have had their damage corrected.
Skeletal Knight's cooldown has been reduced to 20 seconds for all ranks.
You should no longer lose your Reaper Enhancement granted hit points while zoning (thus avoiding things like Death by Dimension Door).
Monsters:
One of the new Reapers has had its name corrected.
Misc:
Corrected an issue that prevented users of the legacy Mac client from launching the game. Note: The current Mac client can be downloaded here.

I'd say they responded to the feedback the only way they know how.

"We hate this perma ransack down to 20% bullshit!! Please do something else"

"Challenge......ACCEPTED!"


This has got me thinking about dusting off the "Ye Olde Uninstall" button again. This game has WAY TOO MUCH GRIND to nerf ANY FORM OF XP. At all. Period.

The problem wasn't the quests, the optionals, or anything else. The problem, IS THE GRIND.

Optionals to 0%. Really? What a crock of shit. I wonder if it's straight up greed or incompetence at fault here.

I just don't know what they were thinking (in an otherwise decent update....aside from the usual quality bug free product they always put out) to put that optional poison pill in there. I usually don't do more than 2 ETRs per heroic life, so the daily thing doesn't hurt me personally all that much, but some people like it. SO LET THEM PLAY THE WAY THEY WANT TO PLAY.

The customer voices were OVERWHELMINGLY negative. SO THEY MADE IT WORSE THAN IT WAS ORIGINALLY PROPOSED?

I just can't fathom the reasoning or logic behind it, unless it's just a shameless money grab by making people buy more xp stuff and packs.

Skoodge wrote on Aug 15^th, 2019 at 12:57pm:


At this point everyone with an IQ higher than the average Somalian knows that the inactive accounts that come out of the woodwork after years of inactivity are dev socks.

All this does is further piss off players and extended the PR nightmare.

SSGs doesn't get that shilling doesn't work because it's obvious.

Tl;dr incomplete band-aid solutions that will hopefully placate enough of the angry mob that SSG can go back to ignoring the rest of it.

I dont find those change needed but 2 x bb meaning I can do sagas both heroics and epics, very nice for alts

Synchrono wrote on Aug 16^th, 2019 at 11:58am:


I'll be honest, I probably do get more enjoyment from analyzing SSG's business practices than actually playing the game.  When your home acts as a second office, it's much harder to leave work at work I guess, that part never shuts off in my brain.

I'm not aiming this at you - but the size of the team is a horrible excuse.  Think about it:

"People are protesting outside with signs, does anyone have any idea what they're angry about?"
"Nope."  "Not me."  "No idea."  "So many signs!  I couldn't read them all!"

Here's a golden rule - if you can't afford to know who you're selling to, you can't afford to stay in business.  If you don't know who you're selling to, you have no product or service.  If you have no product or service, you have no business.

Knowing your consumer and your consumer wants and needs is pretty much what the modern business is based on.

A small team just isn't an excuse.  There are companies out there, even in the game industry, with much smaller teams who are making bank.

So here's the challenge of a smaller team - it can be done but everyone has to wear a lot of hats.  A crack A team of 5 can easily do the job of 10 and so on.  If you have the right people in the right positions.

I get where they don't have the budget to hire a consultant.  I get where they can't afford to gather and analyze a ton of data.

But if you're literally paying someone to read every forum post - the information they're bringing you needs to be golden.  They need to be able to quickly assess changes in moods and consumer demands.

If you have the right person in that position, you need to listen to everything they say.  And if you don't have the right person in that key position - start packing your parachute.

Honestly I'm rooting for SSG.  2018 looked like a great year for them and I was happy they were knocking it out of the park.

But this year has been one horrible misstep and PR nightmare after another.  It's very, very important for them to learn from their mistakes and "next time we won't give warning when we're about to make an unpopular decision" isn't the lesson to be learned here.

somenewnoob wrote on Aug 15^th, 2019 at 12:52pm:


Don't worry, Thrudh said he was paying for more subs just BECAUSE of the changes.  I am sure he wasn't trolling.  honest. 

Skoodge wrote on Aug 17^th, 2019 at 1:09am:

LMAO, yeah, me too at this point
Skoodge wrote on Aug 17^th, 2019 at 1:09am:

Yeah, this, Grinding Gear Games started with 4 people, I'm sure SSG has more than that.

And I'll give you a corollary - you have to trust others. When you can't hire a specialist, you have to accept that somebody else might know more about a subject that isn't their primary job, I suspect that's one of Sev's core problems, he can't accept that somebody else might know more or understand better than he does. He doesn't trust his team and doesn't trust his customers. He knows better.

If SSG was willing to honestly and sincerely listen to feedback, would you serve on their council and give them advice they otherwise would pay for? I bet you would. I would too. So would a lot of smart people. But not if they just ignore that feedback. I'm not saying they have to do everything people tell them, but they have to engage in an open and honest manner.

And as for being able to afford gathering data, it's a lot cheaper these days then most people think. Free web based surveys, cheap disk space, free data analysis tools, etc. They're already gathering data, if Sev is to be believed, wouldn't it be worthwhile to collect enough to make it give better results? The difference in effort is small, the difference in results huge. Get a competent Players' Council and they'll help you work out what data you need to collect, and what questions to ask of it.

Skoodge wrote on Aug 17^th, 2019 at 1:09am:


^This

That attitude is just doubling down on failure.

Personally, I'm done rooting for SSG, I'm hoping for a failure so spectacular that they sell it cheap to a competent KickStarter. I just don't believe they have what it takes to succeed, they've had 2 years and haven't shown me they're any better than Turdbin. Let somebody else have a shot at the IP.

Meursault wrote on Aug 18^th, 2019 at 9:42am:


And this is why I joined the Player's Council originally, I really thought that they might listen to the PC members.

Atleast during the 8 or so months I was a member it didn't go down that way; or rather they didn't listen to critical commentary or dissension from their initial plans. Lammania is practically how the PC works.

The devs show their plans; a bunch of players cheer them on, a few dissenters are either listened to and minor changes are implemented or they are usually ignored entirely. The devs then pat themselves on the back over the minor changes and call it a success. Meanwhile there is a dumpster fire of bad changes that made it through.

Biggest example of this I can give is the Cleric Domains. Particularly the War Domain. The original War Domain was a bit insane and perhaps too much for benefiting certain deities over others and that's why most of the PC was against it. (Personally, I loved the original.) But the second pass is what you see now; when they suggested it I immediately voiced concern that by giving Clerics Holysword this would cause balancing issues down the line when they got around to updating Warpriest. No one wanted to listen, and low and behold; now cleric warpriests get the short end of the stick design wise because one out of 14 domains have access to Holysword. While there are still 3 other melee oriented domains that technically suck as a pure cleric because they don't get the standard +1 crit/+1 threat.

Edrein wrote on Aug 18^th, 2019 at 5:40pm:

I heard substantially the same thing from others who tried to help, it's a shame their hubris inflicts so much damage on a game with such potential.

Edrein wrote on Aug 19^th, 2019 at 3:03pm:

Uhm, don't over-analyze the joke. 

Of course it's not a literal echo chamber but between all the overzealous moderation of any post that isn't polite and favorable of them and the totality with which they ignore any feedback that disagrees with what they decided they already know best, it might as well be.

It's still echo chambers all the way down.