My experience so far as a GM Intern

I think Vinny is saying that there are players who don't use the forum. And that is why we host in-game feedback sessions with the player to gather feedback. We respect both forum and non-forum players but the forum players don't necessarily represent the server as a whole.

 

I acknowledge the fact that not every player uses the forums and that forum players don't necessarily represent the server as a whole, but when you make a statement like that and then proceed to carry out changes such as the crash change and NL avoid nerf, it really makes me wonder about these *in-game feedback sessions*.

 

Fair point, those who have played the classes have the most to say, and for good reason. Yes, the difficulty of zerking on a washed DK is less present in this server. But not every DK is washed, so we must take into account their opinions as well.

That being said, playing a DK is harder than playing a hero. That's the nature of the zerk mechanic, it makes the class harder to play. That's why my opinion of these classes are what they are. I'm not going to argue about how "hard it is to zerk", you could be right that it has become really easy in this server. But that doesn't take away the fact that you are being rewarded for having a more active gameplay.

Kenny phrased it correctly. When I say they aren't equivalent, I mean that the active forum community does not represent the player base as a whole.
I want to address the "in-game discussion with a bunch of friends" part. When I've done these sessions, I invite the entire server to come. It's not me talking to "friends". In fact, my "friends" usually don't participate in these feedback sessions.
I appreciate ALL feedback that has been given, including the feedback on the forums. I assure you, I am not disregarding the forum opinion. Active forum community members are often well versed players. Especially the ones who are providing great feedback and input, they can provide this great input because of their experience. The only problem is, the feedback can sometimes be biased to help those who are experienced. If you took an unwashed hero and an unwashed DK and compared them, how would they stack up? I would say it would be better to play the hero in this case (just my opinion as I haven't finished both these classes yet).

I stick with my stance on balance changes being primarily focused on content balances (with the few class exceptions of course). For instance, what if there was some sort of boss that spawns multiple high HP mobs, and the main boss casts attack up making it hard to zerk (only zerk when the boss isn't buffed). This would make hero's the more preferred class for this boss (good multi-target without zerk limitation).

 

????????????? its not hard to make a DRK with 30k hp with hb

Spoiler: LUL

but thanks for opening up this. makes me wonder why other current/past GMs haven't done this

 

Part of the issue is the players who replied to your calls for a feedback session (in game) also do not represent the playerbase as a whole. It's actually probably a smaller and less accurate cross section of the royals player base than the forum is.

 

This is a great point, trying to come up with a way to get a more accurate representation is something I'll keep working towards. Regardless, at least it is getting some more opinions outside of the forums (Forums + some players in game is more than just forums alone)

 

Survey Monkey or Google Survey-thing, and put the link in a scrolling message in game, on the forum, on the main website, and below the voting link when people go to vote.

Ask for info about what classes they play, why they chose royals, etc.

 

I mean... on one hand, your saying that balancing is done with inexperienced (unwashed) players in mind yet on the other, staff pushed out an avoid nerf on thieves which ultimately hurt unwashed players the most... a real question mark moment right there .

Why not both content balances and class balances (no more nerfs please)? The current server existing content we have right now is extremely in favor of drk over hero, so unless you intend to change how the current bosses mechanics work, introducing new content to balance the classes seems like uphill work, considering you guys only have 1 developer and autoban is stil in progress.

 

It's obvious that the nerf didn't have the desired effects and was reverted. I'm just happy that it was reverted in the end.

We don't disagree here? I said focus primarily on content balances while having some class balances for those that need it.

 

Let's not kid ourselves here, i seriously doubt the nerf would have been reverted regardless of the desired effects if not for the huge uproar in the forums.

We actually do, because you as a staff member, regardless of having experience with the class, get to have a major influence on the decision of which class gets balanced and which doesn't, and it doesn't put me at ease if you personally think heroes will be fine through content balancing, like, what's the point of all the feedbacks and discussions? As @Donn1e have pointed out, all it took was just one staff member liking an individual's idea for the crash change, there wasn't much of a discussion with the playerbase prior to the change. Ultimately, your opinion outweighs us all. That's the frustrating part.

 

A sincere thank you to taking the initiative to start this thread. It is an important step forwards - whilst representing individual transparency within Staff, it is really encouraging to see and will almost definitely steer the community's views on you in a positive direction. Unfortunately I have to stop at "you" and not generalise to the rest of the Staff team, which is really what we want to see at the end of the day - Open disclosure and better transparency as a team - but we can always start with small steps.

In terms of my thoughts, sorry for quoting your OP as the reference but most of this is hopefully not directed against you as a person, but staff as a whole but I would value your opinion nonetheless (as with anyone else's) if your thoughts differ.

I'm actually a little disappointed in this month's GM blog, to be honest. I know Joel spends a long time writing each month's blog and it's often a bit of a word salad, and by no means was I expecting him to spend the time to do the same every month. However, its close proximity to the recent, controversial changes means that the truncated nature of this month's blog adopts a very "sweep under the rug" approach which is unfortunately the Royals tradition when things go wrong. I feel like if the GM blog is a platform to promote more transparency (which it is and has been a big step forwards in the right direction) then issues like these should be openly discussed - and if there are potential flaws with changes driven by the Staff team that we acknowledge these and the rationale behind them. This way the community is informed and if there are any ideas from the wider community to address Staff's agenda then the popularity of such suggestions could be gauged as well.

I only have one question here. Did anyone in Staff ever bring up the possibility that this change could, or should be discussed with the community first? To be quite honest, good intentions don't always do good things and despite the reasonably large staff roster I don't feel that the Staff team can represent the opinion (majority opinion at least) of the Royals community. It goes without saying that any platform where staff try to gather community feedback will have its own selection bias but that is not to say you shouldn't try. As far as I am aware, the avoid change, and the crash change all happened without any consultation with anyone outside of Staff, which in itself is concerning.

These figures are the figures that I was talking about in this month's GM blog and I'm very glad you're willing to share them. The amount of time you're spending on staff duties actually worry me and I agree with you that ~10 hours/week is probably where staff should be sitting at (1-2 hours per day). 3-5 hours is far too much and I hope you're not regularly spending 10 hours doing GM duties per day.

It would be interesting to know numbers for some of the others but if you're saying there's no discrepancy then we can crudely extrapolate this to a grand total of 4 hours x 11 people (excluding Matt, Joel, Karven, Chok, Tim, Dave and Sen) = 44 hours a day of GM work. This sounds like... a lot to run a private server and I would be seriously questioning the efficiency of staff workflow. I would beg to differ in this context that the problem is more likely to be the distribution of work - but please correct me otherwise.

I'm sorry but I have to disagree with this. Opinions that are backed with experience should always be valued more. If I broke my ankle tomorrow, I would want an experienced orthopaedic surgeon to fix it for me. I would not want a nephrologist to do the operation, even if they are equally experienced in a different field of medicine. Nor would I want a hospital resident to perform it. In both cases, they lack the experience and I would not trust their opinion on something they shouldn't actually comment on!

And this is where players who have extensive experience (some of whom eventually become Staff) get frustrated because game changes always seem to be made through a team of people who are offering an opinion about something they don't have the necessary experience in. Players who have played multiple classes in multiple areas of the game (both bossing and non-bossing aspects, including non-mob related content like the free market etc) have far more value in their opinion about what constitutes a good balancing change and you will find that people like @Johnny aren't making suggestions for their own benefit. We do not sit and write essays with feedback suggestions just to fit the agenda of endgame players - I don't know if this is the assumption from Staff when they are using the argument of "in game users aren't the same as forum users" but I think you will find that most of the balancing/nerfing changes over the last 12-18 months have ultimately harmed newer players more than older players, unfortunately.

Finally, I would like to flag my serious concern that tackling real world trading seems to be not on Staff's agenda/roadmap at all.

I will leave it at this, but in closing - thank you again, and make sure you're looking after yourself. I like to tell people that once you realise you're burning out, it's already too late. Try to take a step back every now and then! And for when you get promoted to a GM and have to work with a new batch of interns - remember what it was like when you were the intern and how you could support them to have a more enjoyable experience on Staff.

Peace.

 

That's because it's difficult, requires a lot of admin time, and the last GM who was passionate about it left. For most current staff there is little to do besides "finding" evidence and waiting for Tim to verify it- if he can.

 

Both good and bad. It shows that we listen to feedback, especially when a change didn't have the desired effect. I'm also sure that I have already stated my stance on the initial nerf, and while I didn't agree with the decision, I respected the desired outcome that everyone saw. After the uproar, it was obvious that the outcome wasn't achieved and a revert was necessary.

Very valid concerns. One of the reasons why I'm finishing up making the last of the classes I don't currently have to get myself more familiar with them. Hopefully when autoban is out and fully functioning, I will have more time to catch up on the balance change feedback for these classes that you are mentioning.
Yes, right now I don't think too much needs to be done (minus a few tweaks maybe), but that doesn't mean my opinion won't change as I get more information .

As for the crash change, a lot of discussion was had revolving around the crash change. It was not a "one staff member" liking an idea. A lot of ideas were discussed and debated on, and ultimately put into a vote. The current state of crash is the result of these debates, and I think it's a good step forward from what it used to be for many reasons. (1) You can still mule it, but muling it means juggling it into a party like SE/HS mules. (2) It's not extremely overpowered where you must have it in your boss runs, but it is convenient if you do have one.
My preferred change for the crash mechanic is to have it be a charged ability (you stack a passive like combo or energy charge, and once your meter is full, you can cast crash as a party buff that let's you hit through cancel 100% of the time). This (1) makes Pallys more appealing than mules as they will be able to stack up faster and (2) makes muling still viable if the timing is right (active pally's can cancel up to 100% of the crashes while mules will only achieve up to 50-70%?). But, it was brought up that this might not be possible due to current client limitations (not to mention the dev resources that would need to go into implementing something like this). I think the current state of crash is a step forward from what it used to be though. But, that's just my opinion on this topic and unrelated to this thread, but hopefully gives you insight on how I view the changes and how they come about into a patch.

For this month's GM blog, I'm sorry that it felt truncated and didn't mention everything. We all agree that the avoid nerf failed to accomplish what it set out to do. And many, including those on staff, have voiced their opinions on the feedback threads created towards these topics. Maybe we could've had a one liner in there to say this.

It was brought up that future balance changes may be brought to the forums to gather input before testing, if the changes are up for debate inside of staff chat. I think this would be good, as there is a diversity of opinions in staff so if something isn't clearly unanimous, we would open it up to the community. I think the failure of the avoid nerf was good for the server in this regard. The voices of the community should matter.

Running the server, engaging with the community, discussing changes/new content, creating changes/new content, testing. A lot of stuff needs to happen. And when you are in the middle of it, time kind of "flies". The new GM tools and autoban will significantly improve the workflow, so I'm hopeful on that.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that when everyone gets together to write a bunch of feedback on balance changes that they are benefiting themselves only. I meant to say it as: when writing feedback, sometimes there's bias's towards the more experienced player base. It would be good to always take a step back, when making a suggestion, to state how it would effect all players in every part of the spectrum. I know a number of the community participating in the feedback session already do this, but I just want you to be aware of some bias's we all may have. For example, if a balance change regarding shadowers were to come about, I would have a lot of bias based on my gameplay as an unwashed shadower that got HP through daily HP quest and other means, but I should also consider how the changes will affect shadowers as a whole, including those who are more washed than I.

As for opinions back by experience. Yes, those with experience should be valued more. I can agree with this for things like balance changes. But at the end of the day, staff, collectively, has the final say and most of the debating will happen there (while most likely quoting a lot of what players will say in feedback threads). Everyone on staff has the same goal: to keep making Royals better. Hopefully we can stay on track, and the community can help keep us in line to some degree.

What @Evan said. But also, not really part of the future direction, sort of something that is constantly happening (like handling reports or patrolling in game).

Thank you for the kind words

 

I know it's not really the intention behind the thread but I must comment on this.
About the current state: (1) the hard thing about the current state isn't juggling it in the party, that's easy. The problem is dealing with the very small vertical range, especially on the right side of Horntail which hurts main Paladins way more than mules. (2) I don't know how many times you tried it in Horntail, but it's a real pain not to have one atm so the majority of the people consider it a must, runs are simply too long without one.
The fact some people R> Paladin mains over stanced crash mules at the moment is mainly because of lack of understanding on what's more efficient, and I assume that given some time it will change.
It's not a good permanent solution, and the 75% change made it just OK but by no means good, which gives you time to change it to something more permanent.

Now the direction you seem to be taking with this isn't great to me aswell, why have this very complicated system (that will also require some staff members to put in lots of work btw) when you can pick a more simple solution that solves it entirely?
Did you read the feedback thread where other things were suggested?
Because if you take a few good suggestions and combine them you get:
1 - Cancel removed as a mechanic with boss HP increased.
2 - Paladin gets 2 lines for Blast with half the damage
3 - Elemental weakness changed, the way @lxlx suggested (which I really suggest you read, it makes lots of sense)
That way you create a situation where the Crash problem disappears, people need to mule less, Paladin mains are stronger and everyone is happy with no room for mistakes really.

This is just by browsing the feedback thread, and combining the most popular (and liked) ideas of veteran players, it didn't require much thinking from me and it was given to me on a plate by players like @EZFebreezy , @lxlx , @Johnny by simply reading their comments.
That's the way I would like to see changes done, and this is why I think opinions of veteran players should be valued much much more and definitely not ignored.

Again, sorry if I'm not on topic anymore, but I feel like that example shows the differences between us (speaking for many players who grind this content hard like myself).

 

As someone who still runs bosses regularly: yes, juggling isn't hard. By no means do we want to get rid of mules completely, as that is a part of the game. Players should be able to play how they want, as long as it doesn't grow to the point of exclusion. Timing wise for the (almost daily) horntail runs with and without crash: it helps with the pre-heads a lot, but for the main body, being able to move body parts makes it more of a luxury. My runs with and without crash with similar parties otherwise were only different by about 10 minutes (including preheads). "Runs are simply too long without one" is a notion formed by the experienced community base. When horntail was fixed, it was normal for the main body to take over an hour. As the players became stronger and more experimentation started happening, everyone found ways to make it more efficient (which is good, I like the innovations, but it started to become exclusive and set the bar higher for some players to get into runs).

Solution (1) gets rid of mules altogether. Not really the goal I have in mind, and pallys will be hurt by it (but combined with your other solutions, it would help them).
(2) This solution isn't actually completely supported by the entire pally community as far as I know. It's a good idea, but it takes away from their identity of having these huge single lines of damage consistently (which may be useful in content where you need big lines to control mobs). The real problem is with experienced pally's in terms of DPS is the damage cap, which the mentioned solution does solve, but it's a problem brought about by the server getting stronger as a whole.
(3) Interesting idea, but it only really works when paired with the previous 2.

Pallys have fallen into this role as a supportive damage dealer (sort of like archers), that excel at dishing out big single lines which can be used to control mobs while providing utility for the party. They also do well at farming (outside of bossing). The suggested changes would remove this identity that has been built and I'm hesitant to agree with it. I disagree that "everyone is happy" with these proposals. I think some other solutions that were also mentioned that preserve the class identity would be to change threaten to work on bosses.

Are these good ideas? Yes, they are, but I don't think it's a perfect solution either.

Yes, veteran players opinions should be valued more, but I don't think they go ignored. As I mentioned above, I would like to see balance changes include a step to include the player base when it isn't unanimous within staff.

 

wooo quokkers look at you go

 

Once again, I must apologize to intrude on your thread, this is my last post regarding class balancing ill make here, if you'd like to continue this discussion, perhaps we can start a conversation. Many apologies once again.

I'm sorry but you seem to be under the impression that paladins are meant to be a supportive dps class but this is actually a false identity created by royals meta & staff. Did you know that the skillset of a vanilla paladin don't include any party skills? Yes, not even one. The original paladin was designed that way because it was always meant to be a main DPS type class, excelling specifically at element-weak bosses. You guys changed that identity to as you call it supportive damage dealer when element weakness is made a generic theme & crash changed to be a party skill. The suggested changes actually gives paladins back their identity, not remove it. The allure of the paladin class has never been about its crashing ability, and certainly not about its ability to hit dmg cap, it is about its ability to utilize elements to its advantage, and staff has turned that allure into something not that special anymore sadly. For someone who constantly preaches about preserving class identity, i'm afraid you are on the wrong mentality regarding the paladin class and unfortunately projecting the class away from its original identity.

The highest amount of damage required to knockback is 75k, which i'm sure is easily reachable even with two-lined blast. I do agree with you that this is a problem created by the growing power creep in the server and the ideal solution imo is to remove damage cap, but i've been told by numerous players that it's not implementable due to client restriction, hence improvising with double lined blast instead. And let's not talk about acceptance by entire paladin community when you guys took it upon yourselves to completely change the crash mechanics without discussing it first with the paladin community.

 

Thanks for reminding the server what this class actually is.

Spoiler: Meanwhile the original vanilla page/paladin design

 

I appreciate your attitude towards all the negativity I'm seeing be flung at you (clearly not all of it is negative). You are definitely beneficial to this server. Thank you for doing your part in bridging the gap. I'm sorry others seem to see your kindness as an opportunity to pounce and analyze every word / sentence to nitpick. You are appreciated