Comment on "Your Community Managers"

Hey folks - a very happy new year to you all first of all

I hope you have made it fine into this year - I personally I am very excited to see what
we can bring into the game!

Now let's start:

Quest Items in separate inventory
@jayr3d
You could not be more right with this observation, I personally admire EDIT for their approach,
even crafting materials and pets are stored in separate inventories. Funny enough, most action RPGs (dont know if EDIT completely classifies as one) do not have this feature.
You are not alone with this notion, many of our team members have talked about concept where mounts, pets and other desirable collectables, like emotes, can be stored. Quest items is also definitely a good idea, especially since there are so many.
However, also consider that quest items, unlike collectables (mounts, pets etc) vanish as soon as you solve a quest and thus, you get the space in the inventory back. I reckon that collectables would get their own inventory before quest items but that is solely my personal guesstimate. Regardless, your idea has many followers and its a good one!


Grinding for Gold Legendary items
@Rhysingstar
I am certain that many others are sharing this notion - since they are used to a different, perhaps in their mind, even more efficient mechanic to obtain legendary items. Changes such as this one will take time to get used to. I am not ignoring your opinion but I can
assure you that a) crafting should never outshine the classic mechanic of drops b) crafting will not be completely taken out.
The new mechanic is still fresh and we can always improve it - if we still feel and read that most users are unhappy about the changes, we
can adjust the crafting prices. Again, it really takes time to get used to new mechanics.


I got 9999 stacks but a b**** ain't one
@Muscle
All reported and sent to the game designer, lets see what they can realize.
The reason why some of these stacks are kept on low numbers is a matter of balance.
Whether certain items can be stacked or not has to be reviewed by the game design department,
if they fear that possessing a high number of certain item (let's say rage potion - just hypothetically) is too risky and
would harm the balance of the game, then the proposal will be dismissed - but its always worth a shot, thank you

OFFTOPIC: Languages
@MegaNuker
Being multilingual is definitely useful, especially when you have 22 communities
I am native in German/Greek. I am fluent in English and Dutch, though my English is better than my Dutch, as I have lived there for some time and I am conversational in Portuguese and Spanish, although my PT is slightly more advanced than Spanish.
As much as I would love to dedicate more time for some of the other communities, its simply not enough time.
May I ask why you are asking?

Past Broadcasts Twitch
You can review all twitch sessions on the official Twitch TV profile of DSO: - remember, we are doing this to get closer to you guys
http://www.twitch.tv/drakensang/profile

Remove Workbenches from some cities
Well, the workbenches are extremely popular. By removing them I guess we would
make more enemies than fans. The goal of DSO was never to remove them completely but to put them back into a "supporting role" and not be in a "lead role" anymore, gosh, this sounds like the Oscars^^


I will answer to the other posts most probably tomorrow as I am running out of time.
Thank you all so far for your questions

 

Greg I'm not trying to flog a dead horse here; but, the classic game version of kill for drops that are useful is valid in DSO for new folks and those that are developing characters. Many of the drops are useful for them and the effort to obtain them through killing stuff is rewarding. What is being missed here is your veteran community that has little to no chance of getting a useful item to fall from a mob. I for example am very happy with all my gear except my insatiable appetite of a holy grail bow. I see a legendary bow drop once every two weeks or so if I'm lucky. And I grind ALOT. So I spend 2 weeks working for an item that has a very small chance of actually being of true value. So, the effort is not rewarding and becomes a catalyst for "voting with our feet". The alternative; Crafting, lets me make a leg bow every day or two increasing my odds of actually getting a useful item. Sure its only a small chance like a leg drop, but it moves the odds in a positive direction.

You have hurt your veteran community with this change and could easily fix it.

 

what about this bug in groups for almost all pw and none pw areas and when we go to halls of the dead we get error(21) in agathon

 

CM GREG -O-LATERN.
Raise the GOLD DROPS ALREADY and SELLING PRICES.
theres not 1 map where mobs drop gold,how can we do anything with our hands tied??
we r not paying $100 for 5 gold,,haha or $124.99 for 144,000 anders which really upgrades my weapon twice,,WHAT?
thats ALOT of MONEY,unless u want to loan it to me. lol

 

I truly appreciate the fact that you take the time to come onto the forum and answer our questions, even if we don't like those answers most of the time. I suspect that most days you have a thankless job, so let me say thank you now..

The biggest issue with DSO (or any mmorpg game) is that eventually they end up with the endless grind because the main focus is always bringing in new players.

I can create a new character and level my way up to the mid 30's with quests in a week with casual play. That part is great as you are always working toward something.

Then the realization hits that finding the "great" gear through a drop is about the same as finding Bigfoot. So frustration begins to set in. For those who put up with it hoping that somehow it gets better, we get rewarded with quests that almost never end. Look at every single post about the cloak of power or Ammon gear quests and you'll see that the grind is beyond ridiculous. On top of that, the gear is next to worthless.

Since the "really" good gear never drops, we were forced to play the crafting game. Essentially that has been taken away from us with the price.

Yes, the drop rate was increased, but it is nowhere near the level it would take to replicate what was possible through crafting.

Nothing has been done to address the complaints of effort vs reward or the complaints that grinding was taken to a whole new level with the removal of cots.

Everyone who has ever done the Sargon event ranks that among their favorite, so what did DSO do? They took it away.. Yeah I know, he has sort of showed up here and there since, but it's not the same and everyone knows it.

For weeks now, I've been trying to find a reason to play this game, because it could be one of the best games out there, but when you fight your way to a boss to only receive a green or white gear item, it truly takes all the fun out of it. No real player wants a unique every time, but something close to being a reward for the effort.

Now, instead of spending my money on gems to fill up good gear, or at the jesters, or even on keeping a premium account with something to look forward to, my only option is to grind the same map over and over and over until I finally lose complete interest and move onto another game.

 

Drop rate of legendary items #2
@Idiocracy

Between your lines one can read strong emotions towards the changes:
"The overall dropchances for legendary items increased by 100% for regular monsters and mini bosses, the overall dropchances for legendary items increased by 200% for all Parallel World monsters."
It is difficult to convince your of the opposite since you are basing your arguments on your personal experience and "felt" reality is always subjective. All I can assure you is that the game designers did their calculations and actually did work on the drop rates.
If we are subtracting the number of legendary items by adding costs to crafting we also have to increase the number of legendary items from a different source, in this case the natural drop from monsters.

I am explaining this to you in an objective matter, whereas throwing words in such as "you should be ashamed" is the opposite, it is subjective. In the end you can only count your individual and personal experience and from what I can read in your comments it is clear that you are unsatisfied. As you can read in other comments several other player have had different, perhaps more pleasant experiences. This forum is not to figure out who is right or who is wrong, its about working together towards improving the game with constructive solution examples, feel free to provide some, like your fellow forum members


Transparency in DSO #2
@trakilaki
With before our time, i specifically mean Dracaty's and my time. We were not part of team Drakensang from the very beginning.
If you look back in podcasts and forums posts you will notice that DSO exists since 2011 and you will stumble upon the current CMs in 2013 and 2014. I'm not saying that we cannot change things around - we are doing what we can do. [content removed] The same way I am not taking the blame for something I haven't committed That being said, we are here to converse with you and take a different approach. Give yourself a little push and meet us half way, will you?

Mod's Note: Politics and religion are strictly forbidden on our forums. Please let's respect that.
~~Mal3ficent~~

Compare Tool
@trakilaki
Concerning the Base Stats in the Comparing Tool, I have forwarded your feedback to the game designers. As Dracaty & I had already mentioned in some twitch sessions and spread to the admin teams. The compare loot tool is by far not finished - we are gathering information on how to improve it. I considered your feedback as valid and thus took the liberty to state you.


Gilded Clovers (New Currency in r142)
I have read in several language forums that the drop rate or receiving rate of the Gilded Clovers from the Jesters is astronomically low.
The version is not yet on the live servers and the testers, from what i have heard today have similar notions, I can have a word with the game designers about the intentions of this feature. I mean, it is obvious that the items which you can trade in for Gilded Clovers ought to be super-prestige items and as with every prestige item, it takes time. However, there should be a fine balance to it. So I'll see what we can do.

Mystic Cube Set not fair for all classes
Okay, first one should mention that not all rangers play the same way. I am aware that the elite of you share similar fighting styles,
however, please consider also player who actually make use of other skills. Also remember, the set is fairly new, if we discover extreme disadvantages with it to an extend that other classes are highly overpowered by it, we can change it. Whether it is a useful or useless set piece is a matter of perception. It would not be the first time that we have changed the stats of a set, remember the Witch Hunter & Witch Chaser sets?

2 Questions (Winter Festival Bag) Premium vs Non Premium Users
@dhazzerr
1. This item was already once bugged, i can clearly remember that. It is what we call the zero-loot bug.
If that is reallly again the case, then I urge your to report it through the official support www.drakesang.com/support
but I will also inquire an perhaps also strangle some game designers....
There a items in the game, which indeed influence the dropchances, only they have the possibility to have this bug.
2. As @Novadude already mentioned that is a point of true nature, but also - as in the real world you will find exclusiveness.
In order to draw the line between paying player and non paying player you have to have some differences, that being said
even with the exclusive equipment which only paying users might get their hands on a non paying player can kick their buttocks in PvP.
F2P players have a wide variety of powerful equipment available.

Premium Account:Mystic Cube Uniques Information When they drop
@Wyrwiflaka
It is a valid point but see the premium membership is more than just having the chance
to get the Mystic Cubes. Also, imagine you have a level 5 character that now all over the sudden gets as level 45 helmet.
It will block a slot in your inventory until your character is level 45, so what is the point of having the item then?
It is like buying a car without having a drivers license Also consider that characters are meant to have a natural progression.
A level 40 player has invested a lot of time and defeated a lot of enemies and is thus more eligible for such an item,
a level 15 character will find plenty of other items which are more suitable for his/her level range.


Thats it for now folks, more will come soon
Thank you for asking questions!

 

so basically it seems like they are putting this new npc to raise awareness of "gambling" and get people to spend more anders and money unless they make gambling worth it i would like to discard this message i am not against dso or with them i just want a balance in game where we as players can enjoy and be happy and you has DSO a business make money

 

I love that we have a mod editing our beloved CM's post... No one is above the forum rules, LOL.

 

I wish I could give Mal a "Like" for that one.

 

the thing is some quests like ROD,WOT,CLOAK takes some time thats what i ment waste of space

 

Hola @CM greg-o-lantern !

-content removed-
@Rockter , this was no english at all. Try better.

PD:I apologize for my bad English
I hope now this well-argued my comment, I think I've had problems with the translator, if not, leave to annoy and I apologize again. My comment saying: I have always defended the game and I love the improvements he has had over the past year. But I see a downside, veteran players are bound to continue improving only two options. Q3 or Map 2 "Q6" Are these maps where almost all the characters have better drop. I think increasing the possibilities in other quest or maps, hours of game would become more fun. One option I can think of is that each player is assigned weekly drop an area where his more conducive. Thus, players who take longer return to touring maps forgotten, assisting more Nobel Laureates players. I hope the proposal is understood. Greetings.

 

@CM greg-o-lantern

Well wanted to thank-you for the job your doing. I can understand why they want to leave the workbench in place. The reason I ask about how many languages is because knowing more you can get a feel about more communities. Where I am only able to see what English speakers want your able to see more of the picture.

 

@CM greg-o-lantern ...

Im wondering why the developers spend so much time on useless features, like the comparetool when so much else could be fixed in the game? I know that U have to be competitive to other games, and that has allways been Ur argument... But I simply dont get why the devs focus so much attention to graphics, animation and stuff like that? -And then ignore the gamingexperience?

For more than a year, the devs has focused on bugfixing and polishing the looks of the game! And dont get me wrong, I dont want the devs to stop focusing on bugfixing! We can all agree that more work needs to be done there!

But why o why o why do U apparantly use so many ressources on stuff we, the players, dont want? (On the top of my head, I remember female animations which was disliked by many, and different attackanimations, just to name a few)

Why not implement stuff we DO want? Theres many great suggestions out there, and heres a few I havent seen, but really would like to see in the game:

Configurable Autoloot! Why not work a bit more on the autoloot, so we can decide if we want to autoloot items of a certain colour, questitems, potions, essenses, etc... And for the love of the Dragongodess: Pls fix the autoequip on essences! Its not that hard! Actually its allrdy implemented, as U dont get to autoequip silveress for example!
-U stated numerous times Greg, that U want us to focus more on PLAYING the game and less on buying and selling and looting, so why do we have to for example manually loot LOADS of essenses from Varholm, sugarbeets in Winter Solstice etc... ???

Getting past lvl 30 in Ancient Wisdom! U keep talking about expanding to lvl 50 in XP, but we are still missing a lotta lvls in ancient wisdom?
U dont know what to put in there? Well... Heres a suggestion: First, lets not make the game more unbalanced! So from lvl 30, U do NOT get more HP% or damage%!
Lvl 35: Ressurecting Skill! First of all its a REAL drag when we need to revive teammembers! I mean, come on! U see a friend dieing, and then U hafta press "i", find the slot where U put Ur resstones, press that, and then U have to press Ur dead friend, all while U try to avoid getting killed by the mobs, who now focus all their attention towards the surviving teammembers... Why not just make a onscreen button like the townportal? The button will allow U to ressurect the dead teammember closest to U, without having to point directly on his dead body!
And lets make it even more fun: Each time U ressurect a teammember, U get ressurectionXP! With a total of 45 levels! Each level requires 100 ressurections, and each time U get a chance to revive, without a resstone being consumed! So at level 5, U will have a 5% chance of ressurrecting for free! At lvl 45, U will ofc only use stones 55% of the time! (This will make it way easier to use the stones in a stressed situation, and the lvls will make more people use stones more often, so I anticipate that more stones will be consumed in the future if this is implemented!)
lvl 40: Mountbutton! Just like theres a slot to fill with essences, there should be a slot to fill with a mount of Ur own choise! Once the button is pressed, Ur char will attempt to mount that specific mount! -Again, why do we have to open the bags, find the right bag, and then find the right mount?
lvl 45: Bags o fun! 4 slots in bag #1 will now occupied by different bags, each with 5 slots, and possibility to expand by spending andermant! (Yes I know U guys are a buisness, and U need to have an income ) The bags can ONLY be filled by certain items! And heres the different kinds of bags: Pet-bag, Mount-bag, Disguise-bag and E-mote-bag! If U dont want/need the bags, then U should not upgrade to lvl 45! Im a player of more than 3 yrs now, and I really hate the fact that I have to trow out mounts, pets, disguises and emotes, just because I dont have room for loot anymore! (And I have bought max in both bank and inventory)

This is just to get U started... I have more suggetions if need be!

=o)Theusen(o=

 

Appeciate the fact that you-re triing to talk this true but, I didn't see any legendary items and played since R 139, so it is impossible for you to convince me otherwise, I wrote objectively about my reality in this game, maybe I am alone.
Didn't say that the game designers didn't do the math on the drop rates, just that they did it wrong, and wrote to us something else like "The overall dropchances for legendary items increased by 100% for regular monsters and mini bosses, the overall dropchances for legendary items increased by 200% for all Parallel World monsters.".
Maybe it should have been like that but it's not, this is the only thing that matters : the results.
So, in my case im off.

Also I wrote in this topic : "My friends list it's still red in the "game" cause of this, and about the drop I need more than 100 millions gliphs to raise the items at lvl 50, and I hate grinding in q6 m2 and wasting time for nothing, so a increased drop at all items from .... to ........ will make this a game, and will worth the time spend and so on."
Didn't see the ....... and the ...... items.
Good luck doing the math right.

 

here is a solution too the 100 million glyph farming grind house mobs drop them. Think about it piles of 15 too 45 its still takes hell long too get but still better than nothing.
and by the way food food where is food are you my dinner

 

I still prefer target crafting at the exorbitant cost of gold over lighting a candle and making a wish for a Unique drop. Crafting, while expensive, does yield a result. It may not have the enchantments you want but it beats hoping a Boss drops a Unique.

If you are hoping to target craft with a specific set of enchantments at their maximum value, their should be a high cost to that and the UI alone would be very confusing. Check this box if you want speed (+100g). Check this box if you want damage (+100g). Now you have 300g for your highly sought target crafted watcha-ma-doozie. But that is a pipe dream and would be confusing in a UI to build a shopping cart. So, you have to just roll your d20 and 3 6d and play a bit of D&D luck like the rest of us.

 

Nice reference. Most of the time I feel more like it was 3d4

 

For end game players, the drop rate increase math gets a little fuzzy.

If a player goes through HOD (one of the best farming maps) they are guaranteed to receive at least 5 purple items per run. That makes it possible to craft 5 legendary every 4 runs.

I have not heard of anyone since the "increase" getting a minimum of 1 legendary item per run every single time.

We are told drop rates are based on luck, while farming HOD isn't about luck because of the guaranteed drops.

So maybe the drop rate should take that into consideration.


The vast majority of end game players are only looking for 1 or 2 items, usually the main hand weapon (wand, bow, etc) so crafting is the obvious choice in trying to get this item.

Now if targeted crafting were allowed (at the current price) then that would make sense. The "random" crafting at this price makes no sense.

Months ago I was told here on the forum that crafting was random to make it fair between premium players and free players, because of the ability to identify the items. Now that everyone has this ability, maybe it is time to look at targeted crafting (for a price).

Example: If we farm for 4 weapons with nothing but damage and 4 open slots, when we craft, we get a weapon with damage and 4 slots.

 

[Edit: Ah, fudge, I just realized you wrote "premium" not "paying". Oh well, it took me some time to write this so I'll leave it. Sorry I didn't read your post closer the first time.]

If that was the logic then, it doesn't hold now. (I don't really think it held then, considering paying customers could buy all the CoTs they wanted and ID many more randoms, increasing their chances of getting what they want - in a timely manner - significantly.) In reality, targeted crafting would benefit free players more than anyone else - in the old system, or the new - in my opinion. If this statement/idea came from the Dev team, originally (there may be no way to know now), it was just more double-talk, to disguise a money-making objective. (Also, just IMHO.) If it was just a player saying it, they weren't really looking into it too deeply, or weren't considering the concept of random with very few tries vs random with very many tries. If it was me that said it, then I'm a fool

But, up-to-date now, in the current system: Tons of gold can be acquired by spending andermant at the Jesters. So a paying player can craft a lot more items than a non-paying player. If you craft a lot more items, your chances of getting what you want go up (obviously). Therefore, it may be time to revisit the targeted crafting topic, as you say, if the whole goal of random crafting was to "keep things fair" between f2p and p2p. (It wasn't, IMO, but whatever. It didn't work to that purpose, then, and it doesn't now, either.)

But they won't implement targeted crafting, IMHO. It would cost them a lot of real world money, and possibly their jobs, eventually. When the p2p quickly get all the items the need and the f2p do it - a little slower, but eventually - no one will need massive amounts of gold to craft much of anything. Without p2p buying andermant to gamble for gold - to keep identifying random, useless junk (mostly) - it could sink the game. So, even though targeted crafting could be good in the short run (I would love it)... in the long run it might be too much of a good thing for the life of the game (read: wallets of the DSO-BP team members.)

Just some stuff to consider. Don't hate me too much

 

First; Am i really the only one who loves the new gold->craft->ID for free-system?

Second;
I actually think there is some sense, in what Rhysingstar is writing there!
Some kind of Targeted craft/ID system could maybe be VERY good for the game.

In D3 you are able to "re-roll" a sincle enchant in an item, it could maybe get OP in this game, but there is also other opportunities for targeted crafting.

I´m thinking some sort of 100 gold to craft, but we could chose to put XXX more gold in the craft, and then we were guarenteed some of the enchants.

Example:

I craft 1 leg for 100 gold, before confirming it, i can chose use XXX more gold, to chose 1 or 2 of the enchants MYSELF.
The 2-3 enchants left would still be completely random, but it would make it A LOT easier to get something usefull by crafting.

I think it could be good for the overall gaming experience.

@CM greg-o-lantern

Well, consider it. Along with everything Theusen wrote a few posts mefore mine