Announcement Ask the CMs in English

Again and again this same thing... Why did you send to players bugged newsletter mails with bonus?
First thing those mails have a button "use a code" and after click in it we are at once logged at account (where is my privacy and security with mechanism like this?), second thing automatic log is at wrong server, not this I regulary play and in this way bonus is just junk. Give me a normal code at email which I can use in game at my server, turn off this stupid automatic login.
This is third or more time bug like this.

 

Here is a suggestio. A mob in a map spawns other mobs. Maybe it will spawn a easter egg if left alone...

 

YOU interpreted it as an insult.
_I_ interpreted it as a rather friendly way of saying "ok, if you already decided to leave the game for good, I am not going to argue with you in order to maybe retain you. Farewell!"
How the AVERAGE reader interpreted it, neither of us could know - unless you want to start a poll on it somewhere in this forum .

I am trying to convince you (and assure her) that your opinion is not the one of everyone or even a majority here. My personal interest in this is that I want to continue to read funny and ironic posts from Haruki, and I want her to focus on providing information, and not writing apologies to you or anyone else.

Now, could we get back to game topics?

DK specific amendments are announced for R157, reading R156 patchnotes won't help... ^^

 

Dear awesome Haruki,

could you explain in more details this sentence of community roadmap (rel157)?
Feature #5
Player Feedback: Balancing Dragonknight
The Dragonknight class will receive further improvements according to player feedbackafter release 155.

I would really apreciate the rough idea though. I mean for example: it is about xy skill, or it is about block rate.

Thank you in advance and i really respect what you do as CM Keep it up!

 

BP and their CM/mods can do and say anything they want precisely because they have foolish players like you who will defend them no matter if they are right or wrong. They treat you like trash and in your haste to get on their good side (a pathetic attempt with no real results), you attack the person who tries to stand up for the playerbase. Tell me, when was the last time you read or heard any reputable company explicitly telling their consumers to not hit their head too hard on the way out if they don't like the recent changes (and on their official forums/channel of communication)? Are you really that ignorant to think nobody is upset with the recent changes and of those who are upset, none of them feel insulted when told to either accept it or go slam head on the door?

Players like you are the precise reason BP can delay their fixes indefinitely and then justify their delay with insults to those who disagree with their tactics.

Hi, BP announced further implementation of balance in R156 previously (before the implementation of R155 in August) as part of their roadmap for September (R156).

 

Thanks Haruki. Has the idea about freeing up a skill slot by giving us 1 or 2 boxes for potions/buffs been handed into the suggestion box yet? And the idea of changing the functionality of the tab key?

I got the impression that the ideas were overlooked. They were raised over a month ago in the development creative corner of the forum. All ideas should be pushed into this box, even the bad ones, and priorties set against them.

I am a bit confused to how an idea gets put into the suggestion box, an idea has to be raised on more than one occasion but the forum admins will delete repetitive threads.

 

Increased quality of legendary items
We increased the minimum values of armor, critical rating, damage, hitpoints and resistance enchantments on legendary items, which increases the overall quality of legendary items. This will also increase the values of all existing legendary items that have been found after release 155.

Lor’Tac and Myrdosch monster balancing
We reduced the damage monsters can deal and increased the hit-points a bit. In addition, we made most melee attacks of monsters in Lor’tac evadable and overhauled the Orbax to make them less deadly. We have also reduced the Orbax attack range from 12 to 9 meters and the one of the ranged mummies from 12 to 8 meters.

Reset of cooldown on passive talents at the start of any PvP match and any single round of a match
We have made it so all the cooldown on passive talents will reset in the beginning of each new PvP match and each single round of a match.

Bug fixes
Values of critical damage enchantments on offhand items improved
Books, Gadgets and Quivers could have critical damage enchantments with values that were lower than intended. The chance to have a critical damage enchantment on these items is now less than before but the values of these enchantments are higher.

All of these are basically balancing adjustments in favor of all players. Admittedly, those changes (especially to enchantment values) didn't go as far as I would deem it necessary, but no one said they would be DONE with adjustments after R156, and Haruki is constantly emphasizing that the game is in an ongoing development process. Too many big changes at once could indeed further destroy what little balance remains ...
I would say let's wait for patchnotes of R157, then we can start discussing what else would be necessary in R158... and if you can't wait for that (I can, my DK is playable) then well, please do NOT bang your head (at all) on that door when leaving... ;-)

 

Hi everyone,

I would like to say that these arguments getting a bit too much. I know both Shiladytia and BigPapa in the game, they are both gentlemen and both are very intelligent. Their posts here on forums contain great points and therefore, are always interesting to read. I also know for a fact that they mean no harm.

I have also been reading posts by ScientiaPolestasEst. The points he makes are true and deserve very close attention from the developers and yes, in my eyes, Scientia does stand up for the playerbase and it's quite obvious.

Humans are emotional beings and we all need to just cool down, please stop attacking someone who is only trying to be heard and have fair arguments backed up by facts. Let's all take a deep breath and try to understand each other. We all want a better game, we all want to be heard, and yes, we all want to be respected. Let's make it a starting point.

Slamming each other will only prompt getting more defensive and critical of each other.

Armando, can you please see yourself from aside? You can choose better words in expressing your opinion without getting too aggressive towards ScientiaPolestasEst. I respect your opinion, but please understand that being a bit more neutral and respectful will bring more respect your way.

Let's continue to play the game we all love and are passionate about. Only mutual efforts will make it a truly enjoyable game and only mutual effort will help to fix what needs to be fixed.

Peace

 

I agree with you that this is offtopic here, and it's going too far. Apart from being entertained by reading SOME forum posts (including Haruki's), my main objective here also is contributing to making this game more enjoyable for everyone - by constructive feedback about the game, not about the people delivering it!
As Haruki already did, I also apologize if any of the irony I used may have sounded too harsh.
On the other hand, I do not feel I was very aggressive, merely reacting to some of the rather personal/insulting expressions Scientia started to use.

At least I don't like being called foolish, hasty, pathetic and ignorant.

Apart from my desire to read from Haruki about current developments rather than further apologies for some ironic words to a player who left long ago (or said he would), I simply, personally, like her for her writing style!
Seeing her being attacked and her competency being doubted thus indeed made me furious. I also don't see Scientia's ranting was "backed up by facts", but rather by HIS (and maybe some other peoples') perception of one little sentence by Haruki.

In fact, I am totally against "feeding the trolls" in forums, so I will shut up on this topic now.
If moderators or Haruki feel it's appropriate and better for the readability of this thread, I also don't mind if my previous postings on this topic would be deleted. Sorry and thanks.

 

We all get very defensive and it's hard to say "sorry". You did not have to, as you did nothing wrong, yet, you stepped forward and put your head down, a noble gesture indeed, a sure sign of intelligence partnered up with a kind heart.

Thank you Armando,
I admire your passion and being strong in your opinions.

 

Perhaps the CM's would be allowed to explain the BigPoint/DSO business model.
Many US players have noted how Drakensang doesn't fit the expectations of the players. Customer Service and Quality Assurance do not fit the American model with any level of success.

Here is a clip from the Wikipedia site:
"It got a positive reception by the German magazine GameStar for its high graphic quality in comparison with other browser games. It got criticized for fastly arising costs when purchasing the game currency Andermant, while without money investments it more brings frustration and generally not enough content. The frequent in-game demands for paying got described as very intrusive. The real money needed to fully upgrade the equipment on the character can easily get to ridiculously huge amounts. This can either translates as bribery to the developers to give unfair advantages to the paying customer, or just as contradicting the sole purpose of a virtual world (In a virtual world one is not expecting that the players who are rich in the real life are necessarily rich in the virtual one too, therefore the frustration). The so-called events are unattainable unless the player buys the expensive special ammo called "essence" with andermant. Overall Drakensang Online got described as a "frame of an action role-playing game" and it was preliminary disadvised to play it."

It still sound familiar today.
Would BigPoint care to explain itself?

 

I'd like to know from BP what percentage of their revenue comes from players who are, say, below level 40 (as compared to players who are 40+). 30%? 50%? 70%? This would certainly highlight BP's priorities (although, now thinking about it, could we trust what BP tells us?).

 

Question,
i'm an lvl 50 SW,my fireball suppose to do 90% of my base damage as fire damage (pyromania burn for 3 sec)
but i'm getting almost nothing in %.
it suppose to do 1108 damage with no resistance,and i'm getting 85 points of damage,in PW and lvl 50 maps on all creatures.
are all these mobs suppose to have such high resistance to fire?
seems to be a bit radical that they have 90% or more resistance.
it's no wonder why it takes so long to kill anything anymore.
i should be seeing 200-500 at least in burn damage.
i think a rework of mobs resistance should be looked at.
something is not right,the resistance is way too high.

 

The skill description (in German) says that the burn does 90% damage OVER A PERIOD of 3 seconds (so, 30% every second!?), not PER SECOND FOR 3 SECONDS.
Even then, those 85 points seem to be too little.
Did you try testing against a "naked" lvl 50 player with no resistancies?

 

Hello there playful creatures,

how are you doing? I hope good!
Here we come with a bunch of freshly baked CM answers:

The message you are referring here at the beginning was also written from the playful perspective. It goes without saying that you should not feel pity about myself, or any CM out there: we know well our battling grounds, which paradoxically are the source of our professional and personal satisfactions (a weird notion, I know).

Maybe some wild quick list of what we normally do on a daily given day will clarify why is that I cannot come as quick as I would personally like to these boards. On another note, I am of the opinion that my job is also taken to its best potential behind the scenes. I am a speaking-voice for Drakensang Online, yes, but that does not mean that all my work validation has to come from the words that you guys read in this particular thread. I still feel answering in these boards falls behind other priorities and this also tackles you guys as a community although I do understand that some people may disagree and find this not enough. Sorry, my working day only has 8 hours and I try to do the best I can.

Since I do not want to convert this thread in a "let's discuss how much time does it take to undertake each of the actions that the CM has written in her comprehensive list" (first because unless you have been a CM in another gaming company, you really do not understand the extent of our duties and how polivalent every single each day is... -they even change from company to company, surprise-; and second, because it's not relevant for the majority of the people coming to this thread to get grasps of information), I will cover this list only once.

Hopefully it is enough and clarifies.
Ok, so what do Greg and Haruki do on a normal day:

• We attend meetings: new feature meetings, bug triage meeting, tool meetings, status update meetings, event meetings, brain-storming meetings, etc, etc. Some of these meetings do not take 15 minutes (ha, I wish!!!). In these meetings we are your voice and we do speak on your behalf.
• We have dialogues with across departments when it comes to improvements or features.Meaning, we raise awareness on potential opportunities and create the first steps for action, if needed.
• We prepare all our social media strategies across social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, forums -hand in hand with the moderation team, of course!-, Youtube and Twitch). This means we create content in all its variations. We also do all the artwork for this, with the exception of special banners for releases and events which are made by the art team.
• We run off-line events: although I would like to kick in with different ones, to increase the activity here.
• We answer and engage you there in those channels (off the record: answering in Facebook tends to be easier and quicker, as you may imagine).
• We read through those channels to identify where the main issues lie - it's seems like an easy and rather passive thing to do but it has its peculiarities. It takes some time, discern and knowledge of the game to select between those pieces of feedback and actually see where the problem impacting big numbers of players is.
• We work hand with hand with the marketing team on a daily basis: we write newsletters, create campaigns, bonus codes, help them with assets and information whenever needed.
• We prepare and organize off-line events whenever this is needed as well. This includes creating the merchandise and event list for Gamescom and ensuring that everyone is on the same boat there, for instance, to minor campaigns such as sponsoring events in Berlin or with other partners.
• We work hand with hand with the moderation team: we share information with them so they can announce it here properly, answer their question so they can tell you things you asked, we coordinate feedback sheets with them for special topics, resolve some customer support cases, and a long etc. Multi-tasking in these cases is key (props to any mod, if he/she is reading this!)
• We write and review the event guides.
• We write and review the patch notes.
• We create community reports and keep the dev team on the loop of your issues and wish lists.
• Misc: I have started recently to edit our own offline videos so we can kick off with our Youtube project Dev Diaries (which is, if you allow me to say, another gate where we want to bring the dev team closer to you with content that is relevant to your interests). Greg is the Twitch technician master, on the other hand. We would like to start working closer to our brand advocates or people who contribute to the community in some special and more direct way: for instance, we would love to create a caster program or Youtube program but we still need to define the boundaries.

And that is pretty much it, on top of my head.

@ScientiaPotestasEst : nothing against you personally and I respect if you feel my work is not good enough for you. However, I do not particularly share your line of judgement since you are assuming workflows and whatnots on your own parameters and on my behalf. How can I possibly refute in those circumstances? There is also something that cringes within myself, not as a CM but as a human being in general, each time that someone allocates the weight of a whole community on their shoulders, as in a sort of reassuring banner of communal presence - for this topic in particular or any other. Sure you have seen some people who agree with you. There must be. Sure there are people who do not agree with you, or partially, or maybe they do not care from this topic and just move along. Sure there are people from all segments represented in these boards and some opinions collide at some point. That's evident. I cannot assert that I speak for the player-base when I offer this or that statement... Can you?

I am particularly aware that some of our answers seem vague (Greg and mine). Thing is: from the point where an issue within the game is acknowledged to the point where an issue is finally fixed there are different phases: we are aware of it, we are working on it, we have fixed it - this kind of phases. Moving from one to another takes different chunks of time, not depending of me. I can only formulate that old saying that recites "do not shoot the messenger" when the formula is somehow taking longer to finish and we are still at the "we are working on it" phase. Please note that I do not mean it as an excuse - but sometimes, really, we CM do not have anything else to offer and with a product like DSO, constant evolution is a pattern and we need to wait for more specific information on releases. These are handed to us in arrhythmic beats. It's not ideal, of course, but we try to improve as well there (which basically means that the whole DSO team is trying their best there, not only us!).

I also filed an apology, by the way. I may not feel like opening a whole new thread to apologize because, to be honest with you, I think the one I did is pretty much enough.

I would like to move along and try to cover other topics in this thread if you do not mind. As I said, one of the main duties of the CM is to discern between what pieces of feedback/consideration/complaints are more relevant to convey directly to the team or to my reflective self for further inquiries and lines of action. Honestly, I feel we may not be getting anywhere here.
And I say this with respect.

I know, right, like, we are over-using the word "soon" too much there. But #Soon does not take that much time to type.

I will ask the main person in charge of the Mortis drop and come back to you guys with a simple answer - promised.
But looking at the way they are remodelling everything in PW, I would expect some changes to the drops. Anyway, let me ask.

For the Mortis discussion, please read a little bit above; I will ask the game designer in question and see if I can get a more official final statement (although they are still working on PW so it may not be final). As for your other appreciation, thanks, we normally undergo a frightening test before getting the job, but it does not have to do with the forums, more with Internet and coffee machine outages.

You are completely right in your words, in this case. I would say what some people may find really ridiculous: getting to know a community is not an easy or automatic thing (how boring, on the other hand...). You learn every day from so many perspectives and different corners - it's quite fascinating, really. I love its organic nature. And yes, we can discuss our CM methods and flaws and whatever you deem to discuss here... but I still think we should not focus that much on my timely schedule and make most of this space to keep on growing this communication channel, yes?

Now, handle me that whip over there...

Closing this thread is not an option, good Sir. We opened it for something and we will keep it for that very same reason.
But of course you are entitled to your own opinions - and do not give up on us, the team is working hard to balance things.

A lot of people are asking us whether that cute raptor quest is THE QUEST and whether it is bugged.
You can spread the word, please, across all corners of Dracania: that quest is not bugged.
It simply does not have anything to do with the hidden achievement. Sorry!

Hey there Mister,

well, thanks for your words! As I mentioned previously, we want to expand the communication channel and Twitch and Youtube seem to be the places to be - what you are mentioning is exactly what I would like to do on a regular basis. For instance, we are working on a special video that will come next week (sorry, CM lips are sealed), we got a very nice and lengthy interview with Mabruk, our Lead Artist, and we also want to make an episode on the Parallel Worlds... As for Twitch interviews, you have to understand that some of the people that work here do not feel comfortable by sitting in front of the camera or behind a microphone and I also got to respect that. Fortunately there are also some members eager to talk to you guys openly so I can only see this getting better and better from where we have started.

As for playing Drakensang Online: I do play it but you are completely right, need to play it even more and it's my intention to delve into it with the beats of the German winter, which tends to be a particular good season for gamers and general home-inducted cozyness (please, forumers, do not fest upon these words...).

Interesting consideration, I must say! I would add not only the age factor but maybe the cultural factor? Who knows! I am also aware that the written medium creates way more trouble than originally intended... since we cannot influence the status of mind and general receptivity of the reader. That is also problematic.

As for the cube drop: I will ask this tomorrow and answer then, along with the Mortis drop for the renewed PW and the Lightning Strike question - have not forgotten, promised!!

-------------------

And this is all for today, folks. See you tomorrow!

 

Didn't you notice that there are 6 ticks? 6*85 = 510, mobs resistance is 50%, nothing strange here.

 

I am a chain lightning spammer noob ;-), not using fireballs, therefore didn't know for the ticks. Thanks for the clarification, @Silentmist .

 

thx,i didn't notice that.
but their res could use alittle nerfing since they nerf us lol

 

This is my suggestion never saw a remark so regurgitated it back up.

 

I find it refreshing that she called out an idiot for being an idiot. There are good ways and bad ways to experts your frustration, and if you act like an idiot and get called out, at least have have self respect to take it and move on. Having been in customer service, I wish I could have told them how stupid they were. Also, the fact that so many people are on her side and not yours tells you that they share the opinion. I've had my moments where I've been pissed at Haruki and said so, but I don't get offended if she gets defensive/aggressive in response. "Like brings like."