Suggestion regarding publishing PTS server rationale

[Blackaxe]

This seemed the best place to put this however if it's not please be gentle moderators.

I've been thinking about the two 1.0.5 patches (the original PTS and the recent update) as well as some of the comments on here when I read this one (http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2593367&postcount=10) and realised that a source of many problems is that we don't have an understanding of what the devs think is the problem(s) and then how their patch proposes to alleviate this.

The problem with this is that we don't have a common base to discuss if the patch is good or bad. Any comment that gets made is coloured by the assumptions made about what the purpose and goals of the patch are. Generically speaking this doesn't tend to be an issue in many patches however it is something that is particularly visible with this patch because everyone was kind of suprised by the apparant nerf to healing.

Why was it done? Some possibilities that i've read and thought of are :-


The nerf to healing was an unintended consequence of normalisation.
The nerf to healing was because the current model is too focused on HoT.
The nerf to healing was because Mythic are crazy (Hey i said possibilities not that I actually agree with them)
The nerf to healing was an attempt to make priests more damage focused.
The nerf to healing was to offset an increase in damage that is intended to make solo progression viable.

And the list goes on. Based on these reasons our comments could be worded as :-


Normalisation has reduced RP peak heals by about 30% across the board.
With HoTs as they are we really need either more or faster basic heals. Our current heals are not capable of keeping someone alive.
<OK this one is just a rant reason... there's no recommendation for this one>
RPs still don't do enough damage for people to see us as a damage class. Thus we are relegated to a healing role that we are unable to perform.
RPs are performing better in solo progression but we don't have enough AP to both keep ourselves alive and DPS down our mob opponents.

(Note: comments are possible examples... they could be completely invalid)

Add to this the ensuing discussion that is based on differing assumptions and i'd be kind of suprised if you could find any signal whatsoever on the boards even discounting the standard trolls/apologists/agitators.

What would a solution to this look like? Two possibilities that come to mind are a detailed "state of the game" style post and a Q&A style post.

A "state of the game" style post should define what problems the upcoming patch is attempting to address with corresponding notes as to the actual changes. Another topic that should appear where relevant involves future plans (and by this i mean like "at this stage we're in a process of normalisation but we're looking to address this in the next patch/a coming patch (currently slated for 1.1 but this is subject to change)"). While MBJ has done a state of the game post for WAR it's focus was more on future content and didn't contain any real discussion of game problems and 1.0.5 in particular.

I believe that at it's most useful there'd be a clear "Life cycle" for topics in this kind of post. In the first instance you'd get a "We've been noticing X. We're currently monitoring the issue and brainstorming solutions as we go". Then in a later instance you'd see a "we've decided on the following to try to address this issue" note followed by a final "As things stand we're happy with the current state of play on this issue". Of course this kind of thing doesn't really apply to pure bug fixes (and by this i mean the various "x now knocks back as its supposed to" or "the tooltip for Y now shows the correct amount of damage" or pretty much anything that implies a "now working as intended") but rather sweeping and fundamental issues (on the order of "balance between RDPS classes" or "balance between RDPS and MDPS" or "Normalisation of stat bonuses to DoTs").

Note that the main difference between this and the normal patch notes is one of organisation. The regular patch notes organises the list of changes by the area that is affected by the change (i.e. by class/game area). This would instead organise the list of changes by problems they are addressing. One (admittedly somewhat simplistic) possibility would be that each note within the regular patch notes would appear in the state of the game post. Thus we would have official ammunition to switch a "they've nerfed healing and here i'm speculating why" discussion into a more focused "healing has been nerfed by side effect" discussion.

Another possibility is a Q&A style post. This is a simple as it implies, you have a standard place where you receive questions (email, ingame or on the board) and then you answer the common themes in a single post. Filtering the questions would be required to remove all of the inevitable "why does my class suck/have no purpose/constantly get nerfed" borderline troll questions and would take a fair amount of time but the advantage would be that if an unanticipated concern is raised then it can be answered which may not be the case with the "state of the game" style post. You could also do a limited follow-up Q&A post as well as the "state of the game" style post to get the lions share of the benefits of this as well.

One possible concern is people reading "One problem we see is that there's to much focus on HoT" and then posting rants about how Mythic have no idea or something equally inflammatory. My response to this concern is that, unfortunately, this is going to happen anyway. At the moment agitators are ranting that Mythic have no idea based on speculation. Naturally the fanboys are speculating in Mythics favour in response and those in between are left without any information to guide us in either way. At least with more information the potential for some form of reasoned debate becomes possible.

I'll wrap this up here.
If you've gotten this far, thanks for reading. :)

[Delillo]

I completely agree but its a tall order.

The healing change is a big one and it affects DoKs pretty strongly also. DoKs are certainly wondering what the point of the torture tree is now.

[Fitzwarren]

I also agree that it would be good to have some indication of what it is Mythic is trying to achieve.

Sure they need to make sure all classes have less reaons to whine (there will always be whiners no matter what, read the BW forums!).

I bought and started playing this game based on dev interviews and beta feel.

As has been posted many times, in many forums, T1 and T2 were in general more FUN.

T3/T4 has been less so due to the mechanics of combat, the mix of DPS, CC, healing etc. People just aren't enjoying the short duration, press 3 buttons and die style of combat.

1.05 has made this worse.

I for one would like to know what the developers goal is, is it CSS style poke-your-head-up-and-die combat, or something with more depth?

I just seem to have a general feeling that Mythic have lost ther way a little and are maybe trying to go down the path of mass appeal. Let's give everyone what they ask for, don't nerf anything because that will upset the paying customers, make everything positive advertising. Rather than having an end goal and buffing/nerfing where necessary to reach that goal.

Maybe the marketing people have told them that way will be the most profitable.

The way it's heading it could end up being more of a CSS mod rather than an MMO.

[bahab]

I completely agree but its a tall order.

It's the Change and Expectation Management here that Blackaxe is trying to address. From a customer point of view there is little, if any, management in place to handle the customers understanding of what is going to change, why it needs to be changed and what the developers need from the customers.

As someone who deals with Change and Expectation Management on a day to day basis, I can't understand why requesting this process is a "tall order". Surely dealing with the massive drama that occurs costs more than being proactive and managing the solution from the head go.

We're not asking for Rocket Science, we're asking for the kind of practices that are done in most professional firms.

The healing change is a big one and it affects DoKs pretty strongly also. DoKs are certainly wondering what the point of the torture tree is now.

That's exactly the point Blackaxe is trying to make. Healers/DoKs should be provided with context of what was wrong with healers/DoKs and what the developers think that this changes should do. In your case, you'd understand what was broken, and what should happen after the changes. That gives you an equal footing for debating the pros and cons of the decision, at least from a conceptual point of view.

[NightShade]

I have to say I've never really considered this angle in the grand scheme of things, but it makes a good deal of sense. The more I think about it, the more I realize that you're pretty spot on with your assertion that we, the players and customers, really have no basis to be critiquing, providing feedback or otherwise comprehending some of the changes proposed in a patch as broad as 1.0.5, and thus without such, we're only left to our personal opinions, conclusions and assumptions which, in the end, doesn't mean all that much unless of course they are inline with what the developers are thinking as well.

A more detailed explanation for these types of changes would definitely be welcome, even if it does not fit with what I, personally, would have thought of said changes, at least I, and others, would have something of an understanding of where Mythic is coming from on these types of issues. And as you said/implied, it would help the community at large to realize their thought process and have a solid foundation from which to analyze what problem's Mythic perceives and provide relevant feedback on those issues.

In short, I agree.

The question is, will it ever happen? Generally speaking, MMO development teams don't really tend to go out of their way, in most cases, to satisfy the curiosity or comprehension of their player base, from my experience. Even when SWG indulged in their Q&A chat sessions with their player base, from time to time, their answers, regardless of the questions posed, were rather generic and obscure, usually not really answering the questions to the best of their ability by any means. I can't say why developers like to be reclusive from the community in this sense, of course I can speculate like anyone else, but that doesn't really produce results. Then again, they have just hired their new PR guy, so perhaps he may be able to convey such insights as you have outlined in the near future? It would surely be nice.

[Jormy]

I can't really comment too much on the changes to healing at the moment but will address the other significant part of the OP's post.

Until Mythic has a forum of their own there can't really be a "state of the game" address per sae.

Posting when the mood strikes on the vn board and it getting filtered to here is an extremely poor method of community communication. Only other company I know of that didn't have their own forums was SOE back in the eq days. But they originally did have them but they removed it when they didn't feel like dealing with the messes they created. They eventually brought them back when they realized they needed a venue to communicate.

Not trying to derail your very well thought out post just responding to the part of it that I could.

Jorm

[PosImpos]

I can't really comment too much on the changes to healing at the moment but will address the other significant part of the OP's post.

Until Mythic has a forum of their own there can't really be a "state of the game" address per sae.

Posting when the mood strikes on the vn board and it getting filtered to here is an extremely poor method of community communication. Only other company I know of that didn't have their own forums was SOE back in the eq days. But they originally did have them but they removed it when they didn't feel like dealing with the messes they created. They eventually brought them back when they realized they needed a venue to communicate.

Not trying to derail your very well thought out post just responding to the part of it that I could.

Jorm

Exactly. This is precisely why Mythic needs to have their own forums - direct, official communication with the playerbase. I know people hate it when Blizzard is brought up, but in my experience, Blizzard has been pretty good about that - although I'm thinking more of interactions during SC2 development as opposed to WoW, with which I don't have much experience.

[bahab]

Before I start. I'd like to thank everybody for their thought out responses to Blackaxe (and to a lessor extent my) posts. We really appreciate it.

The question is, will it ever happen? Generally speaking, MMO development teams don't really tend to go out of their way, in most cases, to satisfy the curiosity or comprehension of their player base, from my experience.

It is evident that most game development houses simply haven't gained any level of maturity when it comes to change and expectation management. I'm sure that it would be a large change, culturally, at Mythic to do this, but something that would be priceless in terms of long term project management.

Then again, they have just hired their new PR guy, so perhaps he may be able to convey such insights as you have outlined in the near future? It would surely be nice.Speaking as someone who deals with the ins and outs of change and expectation management I can firmly say that the last person you want to put in charge of this process is someone who has specialised in PR. They are simply not prepared for it.

In fact, in my experience, the vast majority of people who work in PR and are placed in a position of managing change and expectation management are generally lying window lickers who only make the problem worse. I really hope this isn't the case.

Until Mythic has a forum of their own there can't really be a "state of the game" address per sae.

Before I say anything else. I'd like to state that I think it is highly unprofessional of Mythic to not have there own forums. If only because there is no official output of their ad-hoc information that they are posting. Not to mention that we've already seen Mythic abandon one forum out of pettiness.We need a common home communication output.

However, I disagree that they can't have "state of the game" addresses unless they get a forum. There's no fundamental reason that dictates forums be a part of the process. Hell, businesses have been doing this successfully before there was an internet.

This process is about understanding their point of view, not debating them directly. I'm willing to accept that, in theory, the actions to healers make a heap of sense and will be awesome for the game. However, I personally don't understand how.

What they simply need to do is act like every other professional development house and manage their change and expectation processes before they release something.

[Blackaxe]

Until Mythic has a forum of their own there can't really be a "state of the game" address per sae.

I in part disagree. That they don't have a forum of their own is problematic however there are two mitigating factors in this.

One is the notices that appear on login, It should be practically trivial to include a link to an address regardless of where it is (so long as you didn't need a login to get to it). Not having control would result in problems if their method of choice has uptime issues.

Second is their current notification system, the Herald. Now the Herald has its own issues (localisation comes to mind), however for this task it is uniquely positioned to either a) provide links to forum posts or b) provide the "state of the game" post itself. It would certainly make sense to post links there even if it was posted elsewhere.

Ultimately what i'd like to see is the same mechanism that gives us the preview patch notes tells us where to find the rationale behind them.

Not trying to derail your very well thought out post just responding to the part of it that I could.Not at all. You raise a valid point which I think is important to be addressed.

[Blackaxe]

Blizzard has been pretty good about that - although I'm thinking more of interactions during SC2 development as opposed to WoW, with which I don't have much experience.

From my perspective (and this is only my opinion, YMMV) WoW is probably one of the better reasons for not having an official forum. In all honesty the only signal that was anywhere close to approachable on that forum was the sticky posts (which was mostly the official player-compiled issues registers plus the latest patch notes). If they supported a "recent dev posts" search (been long enough that i can't remember... i know the game i played after WoW did) then i probably would add that and yet a good half of those posts would probably have been noise anyway.

In contrast, having an official forum seemed to engender entirely the wrong types of behaviours. Calm, considered, well thought out posts were quickly brushed aside by bile filled and over the top denunciations of some X simply because more people were inspired to scream back in response. The vast majority of these posts had little in the way of coherence, let alone logic or fact. In a world where post counts lead to recognition the troll was seemingly king.

So i don't think any less of Mythic for trying a different path but i just hope that the new path has a similar amount of resources spent on community but with those resources used more efficiently.

[Smoke and Powder-WHA]

I agree that it would be helpful to understand the reasons for the change, and get a little better focus for testing the PTS.

The 'In Game' feedback, on the PTS is probably the better way to send feedback. Perhaps that might be the better way to submit requests for clarification on 'the Reasons for the changes, and do they accomplish them'. I believe MJB even stated that some of the changes were in response to 'INGAME' feedback, rather than forum feedback.

I wanted to add something that James@Mythic stated elsewhere, to stress the importance of testing and PTS - In game feedback:

All,

I can't stress enough the importance of providing us with your feedback on the Public Test Server. With the number of changes we've made to almost every single career it's difficult for me to comment on individual design issues.

I pass feedback on when I find it to be objective and constructive, however, I'm not a master of every career and therefore can't openly comment on the development of them.

Thanks all :)

[Catseye]

Part of the game is figuring out how to play the game, I don't want the devs to hand me a strat guide detailing the "best" way to play something. Sure the top players will always be ahead of the devs as far as strats and playstyles but I'm pretty sure the devs have a good grasp of the game, at least better then 90% of the players calling "nerf", "OP", "doom!!!".

[PosImpos]

From my perspective (and this is only my opinion, YMMV) WoW is probably one of the better reasons for not having an official forum. In all honesty the only signal that was anywhere close to approachable on that forum was the sticky posts (which was mostly the official player-compiled issues registers plus the latest patch notes). If they supported a "recent dev posts" search (been long enough that i can't remember... i know the game i played after WoW did) then i probably would add that and yet a good half of those posts would probably have been noise anyway.

In contrast, having an official forum seemed to engender entirely the wrong types of behaviours. Calm, considered, well thought out posts were quickly brushed aside by bile filled and over the top denunciations of some X simply because more people were inspired to scream back in response. The vast majority of these posts had little in the way of coherence, let alone logic or fact. In a world where post counts lead to recognition the troll was seemingly king.

So i don't think any less of Mythic for trying a different path but i just hope that the new path has a similar amount of resources spent on community but with those resources used more efficiently.

Well, like I said, I was thinking more of SC2. There are often little snippets of useful information from Blizzard reps responding to questions or points brought up in the forum (mostly from Karune) and also once every few weeks or so they do a Q&A post where they directly respond to questions that have been brought up frequently and / or submitted recently (provided they are at liberty to answer the questions). They then also respond to people's reactions to the Q&A, often clarifying and expounding upon their answers.

Those are examples of why I think official forums would be a good thing.

Another example in my experience was the developer-player interaction on the Mythos Beta forums. Travis Baldree and his crew were very good about speaking pretty directly to the playerbase. They had a forum dedicated to "Developer Notes" where they laid out their ideas and feelings in regard to where the game was moving, and even asked for in depth feedback and often responded to that feedback. Now obviously Mythos was a much smaller game and it was in Beta, but obviously Mythic has more resources at their disposal and could hire at least a few people to manage official forums so that sort of interaction could at least in part be possible.

I just think that the fact that official forums are often full of immature posts and trolls is not a valid excuse to not have them. It's not that difficult to sift through the muck, especially if the forums are designed to flag posts with official Mythic responses and there are useful stickies.

[PosImpos]

Part of the game is figuring out how to play the game, I don't want the devs to hand me a strat guide detailing the "best" way to play something. Sure the top players will always be ahead of the devs as far as strats and playstyles but I'm pretty sure the devs have a good grasp of the game, at least better then 90% of the players calling "nerf", "OP", "doom!!!".

This has nothing to do with wanting the developers to tell us "how to play." Rather, it is about expressing a desire for the developers to help us understand the rational and goals behind proposed patch changes, so that we as players can more objectively and productively respond to those changes.

[Catseye]

This has nothing to do with wanting the developers to tell us "how to play." Rather, it is about expressing a desire for the developers to help us understand the rational and goals behind proposed patch changes, so that we as players can more objectively and productively respond to those changes.

You want them to tell you the mechanics behind their decision, which is basically asking how to play from the devs.

The rational is easy, HOTS were too effective, direct heals weren't being used.

Their changes reflect this, there is no other "WHY". This is the why. The hidden mechanics of the game are for you to deduce not for them to confirm.

[PinkysBrain]

It doesn't matter how I play, going from 3 second cast to 2.5 second cast is a measly 10% increase in HPS for the big heal ... which if we have to rely on it leaves us with very little mobility. If we have to use the big heal most of the time then we can't afford to be anywhere near RDPS range even with the reduced interrupt.

I don't need them to tell me things which common sense will tell me too. I need them to tell me why they want to nerf healing. I couldn't give a damn about the HOTs, if they had truly offset the loss in HPS with other heals and had compensated healing for the increase in DPS I wouldn't mind.

In the end, regardless of how the game is played, they nerfed healing ... and I want to know why.

[Nary]

Most game companies are loathe to get specific with upcoming events, or explaining changes. It sounds like a conspiracy theory, but it's basically easier for them to operate behind a veil of secrecy. Otherwise, they are held accountable for ideas that they had not yet implemented.

The gaming public is quick to crucify a developer who makes some "and we will be implementing xxx soon!" statement, only to find that 6 months down the line xxx still is MIA.

I can't see Mythic explaining why they nerfed healing. To do so would be to invite us to tear down their reasoning. It's better to have us bounce around in the dark.

[bahab]

The rational is easy, HOTS were too effective, direct heals weren't being used.

But there's no baseline for players to make recommendations or feedback. It's obvious that the developers have a vision for how the game and thus classes should be played, they should be upfront in that vision and how changes reflect and impact on that vision.

Additionally, change and expectation management is a standard industry practice to keep stake holders informed about changes and why they are necessary. It's not rocket science, it's simple business.

Lastly, throwing accusations around that we're asking how to play is A) rude, and B) pointless. It's obvious that Mythic intend to change the game to their internal vision for how the game is supposed to be played, they might as well let us in on it.

Part of the game is figuring out how to play the game, I don't want the devs to hand me a strat guide detailing the "best" way to play something. .

This isn't about a strategy guide, this is about identify baseline roles and positions. Something along the lines of "the intention of the ruin priest is to do A, B and C but be restricted by X, Y and Z. We've noticed that X and Z are not really restricting the RP because B is over powered. So, we're going to reduce B by 30%, which we feel should put the RP in line with our stated goals".

Not a strategy guide, or rocket science, it's expectation and change management at work.

[COLOR=Olive]The 'In Game' feedback, on the PTS is probably the better way to send feedback.

It still fails to address the point of this thread: We don't know what the vision of each class is or the reason why the changes are being made so our feedback is, at best, dubious, and at worst ignorant ranting.

[bahab]

I can't see Mythic explaining why they nerfed healing. To do so would be to invite us to tear down their reasoning. It's better to have us bounce around in the dark.


For the record, blindly stating stuff that may not ever see the light of day isn't expectation or change management. In fact, it highlights the problems of having poor expectation management processes because if they did a good job of it there wouldn't be a problem.

[Blackaxe]

Their changes reflect this, there is no other "WHY". This is the why. The hidden mechanics of the game are for you to deduce not for them to confirm.

As I pointed out in the OP we don't know this. There is no valid reason to assume this over any of the reasons stated. Sure it makes sense but so does the idea of nerfing healing to make the game play faster. We may not agree with one or the other (or either) of these reasons but we have no logical reason to prefer one over the other.

Those are examples of why I think official forums would be a good thing.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that I thought that official forums were a bad thing. I was more commenting that both paths have their good points and bad points and so long as process is put in place to offset the negatives of the path chosen then it's happy days. Bear in mind that I left WoW before the release of BC so my view of the WoW forums probably date back to before they put in processes to offset the negatives in their chosen path.

[Nary]

For the record, blindly stating stuff that may not ever see the light of day isn't expectation or change management. In fact, it highlights the problems of having poor expectation management processes because if they did a good job of it there wouldn't be a problem.

What I mean is, they are better served (in their minds) by keeping us in the dark. While I entirely agree with you two, I suppose I am a cynic.

I would much prefer to see open and honest communication between the Developers and the players. There is nothing I abhor more than PR doublespeak. However, to do what you two are suggesting would entail a corporate shift. Such an undertaking is not to be considered lightly. Which is why I can't see it happening.

Mythic (and this is by *NO* means exclusive to Mythic) is stuck in the past. And what passed for dealing with customers in the first generation of MMORPGs is simply no longer acceptable. However, they haven't come to that conclusion yet.

[bahab]

What I mean is, they are better served (in their minds) by keeping us in the dark. While I entirely agree with you two, I suppose I am a cynic.

Ahh no problems. I guess I've just seen one too many "I've never seen it before, thus it must be impossible" posts :(

[Blackaxe]

Most game companies are loathe to get specific with upcoming events, or explaining changes. It sounds like a conspiracy theory, but it's basically easier for them to operate behind a veil of secrecy. Otherwise, they are held accountable for ideas that they had not yet implemented.

The gaming public is quick to crucify a developer who makes some "and we will be implementing xxx soon!" statement, only to find that 6 months down the line xxx still is MIA.


I addressed this briefly in my OP but let me be slightly more detailed. The simple truth is that Mythic is being crucified by many on the forums right now. To think otherwise is simply putting your head in the sand. Because the information doesn't officially exist people are filling in the blanks themselves. However this isn't a round peg/square hole issue. There are many different possible reasons for any set of changes and depending on your state of mind there are many different ways to spin any single reason. "They nerfed healing to make everyone die more often" is inherently prejudicial.

The veil of secrecy doesn't work for you. Instead it gives agitators ammunition to whip players into a panicked frenzy (thank you mob mentality) and turns potentially minor issues into game breaking "I Quit" size problems. Bear in mind that we have no idea what the timeline for 1.0.5 actually is, for all we know it's not coming out until mid next year. While most posts here are managing to maintain their "As it stands 1.0.5 sucks" line there are still posts out there that are stating "this game is about to start sucking".

This is one of the reasons why an open and frequent engagement process is the best model. Sure you'll get people that will cry about it but no matter what you do people will cry about it. Having an approachable source of information about each issue and the progress since last time (even if that information is "we're still monitoring" or even "this has totally gone onto the backburner considering that X and Y and Z are occuring") gives us enough information for the majority of people to back off and go "Ok... now i know what the circumstances are".

In reference to your example, if every week for 6 months we had a "this has been placed on the backburner because of issue X" (which may have been a different issue each time) notification then you could definately complain about the problematic issues (hey it's a fair cop if something gets pushed back 6 months because of issues). However you're less likely to feel cheated because they've pushed back the long awaited hunter rebalance because as far as you can tell they were busy sitting around counting their money.

Sure there are issues with this. You need to make sure you divide time between careers so that you avoid people going "BAH we're more broken than them why are we lower priority" but as I've said, this happens anyway so it's not like this issue is new.


I can't see Mythic explaining why they nerfed healing. To do so would be to invite us to tear down their reasoning. It's better to have us bounce around in the dark.While i know the theory behind that, it's similar to the theory that the best security measures are closed source ones. Its a false promise. On a long enough timeline we're going to realise what their reasoning is because eventually enough patches are going to fall into place that we see where they wanted to get to. If their reasoning was faulty they're going to get called on it then rather than now. About all that tactic really buys you is the chance to retcon the destination and there's a good chance that someone's going to call you on that anyway.

Here's a flip side for you. It's happened a couple of times to me personally where i've put together a description of the problem and while proof reading you realise there's a gaping hole big enough to plough an aircraft carrier through. You step back a bit and look at it and realise that you're missing a piece that you need to fix before the release. It's a common thing that the act of describing something to someone has a tendency to make the concept clearer in your own mind.

Mythic (and this is by *NO* means exclusive to Mythic) is stuck in the past. And what passed for dealing with customers in the first generation of MMORPGs is simply no longer acceptable. However, they haven't come to that conclusion yet.Oh absolutely. And you know the player base can take a lot of the blame for this. MMO communities have a general reputation of being very quick to condemn and crucify often on the basis of vague rumour and innuendo. But my belief is that the same people who will complain when you mention your plans will complain and rant when the change come in and this group is what often gets called the "vocal minority". The ones that you really want to reach and maintain the confidence of will never post on these forums (and never posted on the WoW forums) and the only feedback you're likely to get from them is when their $15/month stops arriving in your bank account.

[Smoke and Powder-WHA]

Well they could give better direction and provide some rationale, without having to divulge everything.

Basically, in my case, I just want to be on the same page as the Devs.

It is well documented that two people can look at the exact same thing, and see two wildly different things and draw dramatically different conclusions. Its like the scene in 'The Jerk', where the sniper is shooting at Steve Martin. Martin runs around mis-identifying 'what' the intended target actually is.

They don't need to tell me that the sniper is trying to kill Martin and why, they just need to clarify that the sniper does not 'hate these cans', etc.

[Catseye]

As I pointed out in the OP we don't know this. There is no valid reason to assume this over any of the reasons stated. Sure it makes sense but so does the idea of nerfing healing to make the game play faster. We may not agree with one or the other (or either) of these reasons but we have no logical reason to prefer one over the other.

They buffed direct heals and nerfed hots. You think people will use HOT's more because it was nerfed and use direct heals less because it was buffed?

They might not have said it explicitly... but... use some common sense..

It's like the damage nerf to BW.

It's because they thought we were doing too much damage...
They didn't say we were doing too much damage did they.. so that must not be the reason they nerfed our damage... it must be because we were doing too little damage..

How's this... They buffed direct heals, they buffed HOT. They did it because of "balance".

So someone asks.. How does this affect "balance"? The community responds "WHY ?!!! Healers are weak anyways, people die zomg in 1s to BW DOTS, nerf rdps now."

What are they going to say? "You're wrong? [Mechanic discussion here]" It'll just become them talking about hidden mechanics at some point in order to educate the player who has this sort of reaction to a change that don't disagree with the change. At least Mythic has some forsight to see this sort of situation happening and Mark Jacobs has even talked about it happening and being the reason why they don't have a official forums.

[quik77]

I'd kill for a P.O.A.D. or something along those lines for patch notes etc.
(Purpose, Objectives, Agenda, Decisions/Deliverables).
At this point the game is live, and everyone playing is a stakeholder in the game, But... we don't all have the same purpose and vision here, and the patch notes that come out and the actual implementation of various careers in the game, have little to do with the originional Vision we bought in on (Paul and co's videos and talks, marketing, Games Workshops IP and Lore)

(purpose = ultimate why we are playing this game and here,
vision= where we want to go with this)

so we players as stakeholders are not on the same page as the devs or any of the other people tied up in the game. They may have a reason behind what they are doing, but given the lack of info (i.e. we are doing X because we want to acheive Y) all that can happen on the players end is rampant speculation. In fact the only sort of info like this I have seen is the latest hot-patches which include the line "in response to player feedback we changed x". This is half of the equation, now for that change we know why they changed it, but not the ultimate goal.

so going back to my first reference to a P.O.A.D (at my company you are supposed to do one for meetings to make them as efficient as possible, so everyone knows why they are there, whats going to be discussed and what we are supposed to do about it)

A new patch note or summary for patch notes would be something like this:

Purpose:
-this patch is a Career fixing patch, in order to fix any outstanding bugs we are aware of.

Objectives:
-Fix known bugs in each careers abilities and tactics
-gather feedback on any unknown or still not working bugs/fixes
-Prioritize current bugs
-Scope what will be fixed this patch and what will wait for the next one

Agenda:
-Day 1 inital patch (patch note below) implement known bug fixes to PTS
-Day 2 gather feedback from PTS, and gather knowledge of any missing bugs for
tracking
-Day 3-5 continious testing and patching on PTS, nail down scope of what can be
done before the next patch to live, and prioritize new and old bugs
-Day 6 Test final patch of fixes on PTS
-Day 7 Push patch to live

Decisions/Deliverables:
-Inital patch notes/fix list
-PTS version of inital patch for testing and feedback.
-Dev vision/purpose behind any non strictly bug fixing changes

in this case its basically more organized information, this is what we are doing this is how we are going to do it and we will tell you more as we go along.

instead of "we changed this" that is all.

[uaprsf]

While I too wish for a more in depth understanding what they are trying to accomplish, I know from my own personal development experience that too many chefs ruin the dish. Its one thing to have a peer review your work (very good practice by the way) and another for an interested party ( gaming enthusiasts in this case) get inside your head and start asking questions and giving you "advice". To a certain degree and level its OK but there is a cut-off point that needs to be enforced. What is that cut-off point? Well for me I know my job is much much easier If i never have to walk that path in the first place.

And thats what we are seeing here. They are doing stuff that is visible to us, but we dont know why and they wont say. I am in the same camp here, that is, I would like to know as much as possible but alas....

From my perspective ( MMO player over the years) this lack of information is nothing new and the "community" is left to speculate and its become the NORM. My work requires me to NOT speculate, but to work off facts so I dont join in "discussions" with a lot of folks.

/Salute to OP for pointing out they arent telling us anything and that folks are jumping to too many conclusions without the facts. Good luck on getting em too though. As a customer i want more information, but as a developer, no way would i tell you as the headaches it would create are just not worth it.

[Lifeform]

Guildwars does a decent job without any forums. People love and hate everything they do but its all out there.

[Blackaxe]

They buffed direct heals and nerfed hots. You think people will use HOT's more because it was nerfed and use direct heals less because it was buffed?

They might not have said it explicitly... but... use some common sense..


You're assuming that the Direct Heal buff and the HoT nerf are related. In point of fact direct heals were essentially nerfed in 1.0.5 round 1 (because of stat contributions). Maybe they nerfed HoTs to make them less useful in keeping a BW/Sorc alive? The point is that we don't know and we can speculate all we like but all the common sense in the world isn't going to tell us what the dev's actual reasons were.

It's all about assumptions. We're assuming that they want the traditional holy trinity. That healers should be able to keep the tanks up and while the tanks are up they can stop people from harming the heals and M/RDPS and the M/RDPS can attempt to bring down the opposing tanks (or something similar). Perhaps their true goal is to relegate heals to a completely secondary role and have buffs being the primary way to keep someone alive. Or maybe they want tanks to be unsaveable if you have 3 RDPS focusing on them. Or maybe they're randomly changing abilities until inspiration strikes. Or maybe they want the holy trinity but don't want to make a wild stab at heal numbers until they saw the damage numbers.

The point is that we don't know and any assumption we make can potentially invalidate any feedback we give. Saying heals are too weak because we can't keep a tank up if 3 RDPS is focusing on him is purely noise if tanks are now intended to be unsaveable under those conditions.


It's like the damage nerf to BW.

It's because they thought we were doing too much damage...
They didn't say we were doing too much damage did they.. so that must not be the reason they nerfed our damage... it must be because we were doing too little damage..
And yet saying "BWs do too much damage" is too simplistic. Do BWs do too much damage if they don't have 100% combustion? Where does the balance point lie? Is the assumption that a BW does the same amount of damage at 0 Combustion as an unstanced SW and a Engi without any of his gadgets? If so then we can confirm that reality matches their assumptions or give feedback where we think it doesn't.


How's this... They buffed direct heals, they buffed HOT. They did it because of "balance".

So someone asks.. How does this affect "balance"? The community responds "WHY ?!!! Healers are weak anyways, people die zomg in 1s to BW DOTS, nerf rdps now."

What are they going to say? "You're wrong? [Mechanic discussion here]" It'll just become them talking about hidden mechanics at some point in order to educate the player who has this sort of reaction to a change that don't disagree with the change. At least Mythic has some forsight to see this sort of situation happening and Mark Jacobs has even talked about it happening and being the reason why they don't have a official forums.I'm not suggesting this become a two way screaming argument on a forum. What i'm looking for is a (preferrably semi-regular) message detailing what dev thoughts are about high level issues in the game. Sure people can post their screaming rants about how Mythic has lost the plot and if there's some signal in the responses it can be harvested and pushed into the next post on the topic (this is where the semi-regular comes in).

You don't have to educate people as to the inner workings of combustion to say to people "We didn't intend for people to be able to power their way to 100 combustion and sit there indefinately because heals keep you alive. Combustion is balanced to be fatal if you stay there too long and as such give corresponding rewards for being willing to lose your life to it. To combat this we're changing HoTs to heal the same amount over a longer time to give high combustion levels more time to fire and kill the BW".

In all honesty if you examined the boards and looked at how people are describing relative differences between powers and tailored your numerics to do the same (even with a "it's a little more complex than that but thats pretty close" disclaimer) thats probably good enough to give enough context to allow the players to self-filter the lions share of the noise.

<edit>
To look at it another way, because we don't have access to the hidden mechanics we need someone else to focus our issues for us. It may be that every single ability (or even a visible set of abilities) that the BW has does too much damage. However for all we know, their abilities are fine and it's one commonly used ability that over powers everything else. An example from WoW would be hunter pets. Anyone honestly trying to say that a (pre-BC) hunter pet is overpowered is going to get howls of laughter from most hunters, especially the ones who don't have access to the couple of abilities in the pet improvement line that make them really good. Heck thats the problem with most theorycrafting, you see all the awesome abilities ("OMG SW has TWO heal debuffs") and you don't have enough experience with the hidden mechanics to know why calling them overpowered is a stretch.
</edit>

[Blackaxe]

so going back to my first reference to a P.O.A.D (at my company you are supposed to do one for meetings to make them as efficient as possible, so everyone knows why they are there, whats going to be discussed and what we are supposed to do about it)

A new patch note or summary for patch notes would be something like this:


I like this as an alternative idea too. My initial thought was to keep it to more of an issues register format but this would almost certainly satisfy my goals.


Objectives:
-Fix known bugs in each careers abilities and tactics
-gather feedback on any unknown or still not working bugs/fixes
-Prioritize current bugs
-Scope what will be fixed this patch and what will wait for the next one
To my mind this would probably read more like :-

Objectives:
- Fix Ability TooltipsMany tooltips are showing numbers that aren't matching their actual values.
- Stat contribution to over time effects.The way stats were contributing to Over time effects (DoTs and HoTs) was being applied inconsistently. We've clarified internally what the standard is and are now modifying abilities to match this.
<etc..>

My first impression would be that things like "Prioritize current bugs" and "Scope what will be fixed" isn't an "objective" of the patch itself but rather something that happens around the patch itself.


Agenda:
-Day 1 inital patch (patch note below) implement known bug fixes to PTS
-Day 2 gather feedback from PTS, and gather knowledge of any missing bugs for
tracking
-Day 3-5 continious testing and patching on PTS, nail down scope of what can be
done before the next patch to live, and prioritize new and old bugs
-Day 6 Test final patch of fixes on PTS
-Day 7 Push patch to live
Personally i'd make the agenda a little less concrete. Days 2-5 in this agenda are based on people completely out of the control of Mythic so any schedule based on this is going to be very tentative. I'd probably rephrase the above as (assume that the date this is release on is the 14/11):-

Agenda:
- Step 1: Push update to PTS. This should be complete by 15/11.
- Step 2: Gather feedback. In particular what we're looking for is :-- How do the Engineer and Shadow Warriors DPS now compare to Bright Wizards.
- Do abilities match their tooltips.
- What has been the secondary impact on healing.
- Step 3: Push secondary update to PTS. We're looking at completing this for the 18/11. As part of this we'll released another update like this one
- Step 4: Test the secondary update. As part of the update notes we'll publish a list of open questions we're looking to answer.
- Step 5: Push the patch live. Assuming that we're looking good with the secondary update we'll push this live. Currently looking at going live on the 1st of December but this is very tentative.

Or something similar. But overall this is a nice little format that perhaps isn't as big a conceptual step as what my original suggestion was.

[Blackaxe]

While I too wish for a more in depth understanding what they are trying to accomplish, I know from my own personal development experience that too many chefs ruin the dish. Its one thing to have a peer review your work (very good practice by the way) and another for an interested party ( gaming enthusiasts in this case) get inside your head and start asking questions and giving you "advice". To a certain degree and level its OK but there is a cut-off point that needs to be enforced. What is that cut-off point? Well for me I know my job is much much easier If i never have to walk that path in the first place.

Are you a Software Developer (or something similar)? I ask this because I can definately appreciate the sentiment (The FreeBSD community coined a term for a sentiment that is very similar if not the same... a bikeshed discussion (http://a.mongers.org/clueful/1999-phk-bikeshed)). However I see a difference between feedback about details and feedback about intention. What we need isn't more details (the patch notes as it stand give enough of that) but instead the intentions behind the details that we have.

This isn't necessarily a place where feedback is going to be received. If the devs have a vision for the future of the game that you don't at least partly agree with then the best suggestion would be to find a different game (to put it kind of bluntly). Refinements are possible and enough public outcry might change their mind but we should expect that radical change to the vision isn't going to happen(and in fact i'd be more worried if it did).

But the thing is that we don't really know how that vision applies in the context of 1.0.5. It's obvious that they've found a side of their implementation that doesn't match the cover page but what side is that and how do the changes that they've made match the problems they see in the implementation. This is the information that i feel i don't have access to.

[uaprsf]

Are you a Software Developer (or something similar)? I ask this because I can definately appreciate the sentiment (The FreeBSD community coined a term for a sentiment that is very similar if not the same... a bikeshed discussion (http://a.mongers.org/clueful/1999-phk-bikeshed)). However I see a difference between feedback about details and feedback about intention. What we need isn't more details (the patch notes as it stand give enough of that) but instead the intentions behind the details that we have.

This isn't necessarily a place where feedback is going to be received. If the devs have a vision for the future of the game that you don't at least partly agree with then the best suggestion would be to find a different game (to put it kind of bluntly). Refinements are possible and enough public outcry might change their mind but we should expect that radical change to the vision isn't going to happen(and in fact i'd be more worried if it did).

But the thing is that we don't really know how that vision applies in the context of 1.0.5. It's obvious that they've found a side of their implementation that doesn't match the cover page but what side is that and how do the changes that they've made match the problems they see in the implementation. This is the information that i feel i don't have access to.

I wouldnt go so far to say software developer, i quess because nothing i write needs to be compiled, but i do write a lot of shell code, some quite large and complex.
The bikeshed is a good analogy... and here in mmo land a lot of people think they know how to build one.. making the discussion even more fun.

While details and intention are two different things, your still asking to participate in the evolution of the dynamic your requesting communication on. It's the partication that opens the can of worms and when your talking about intent and vision.. those are abstracts that will forever get lost in translation, even more so when filtered through another abstract.. context and further still through the written word.

HeHe now thats a marketers wet dream when the discussion is on that level in this medium. Brad did it quite well.

[Blackaxe]

I wouldnt go so far to say software developer, i quess because nothing i write needs to be compiled, but i do write a lot of shell code, some quite large and complex.
The bikeshed is a good analogy... and here in mmo land a lot of people think they know how to build one.. making the discussion even more fun.

While details and intention are two different things, your still asking to participate in the evolution of the dynamic your requesting communication on. It's the partication that opens the can of worms and when your talking about intent and vision.. those are abstracts that will forever get lost in translation, even more so when filtered through another abstract.. context and further still through the written word.

I would argue that we as a group have been asked to participate at a limited level to begin with. Asking for feedback (unless it's redirected to null of course) by it's very nature is requesting participation. And as i said, participation in the vision isn't the point, the point is to try to provide enough background data to both inform the requested participation and to do a minimal effort to manage the expectations of at least some of their players.

HeHe now thats a marketers wet dream when the discussion is on that level in this medium. Brad did it quite well.On some level it's kind of sad that Brad Mcquaid's vision just didn't appeal to me (or to the mass market from what i've heard) because i recognise the principles that he's drawing from as an old friend and yet the translation always seems to turn that old friend into something i'd rather not look at. It's also a pity that he sees the line between fundamental concepts and fungible details to be at a level that IMO leads to too much inflexibility.

[uaprsf]

I would argue that we as a group have been asked to participate at a limited level to begin with. Asking for feedback (unless it's redirected to null of course) by it's very nature is requesting participation. And as i said, participation in the vision isn't the point, the point is to try to provide enough background data to both inform the requested participation and to do a minimal effort to manage the expectations of at least some of their players.

Sure I agree, I want more information as well, were on the same page for all your stated reasons. But like I stated earlier, at some point in the process a line gets drawn in the sand as to what is communicated. I do not like where they have drawn it any more than you. Should they have drawn the line where they have? That's a business decision they have made.

Your asking them for information so you can better participate in the process. Fair enough, but my whole point is that the level of information your asking for, and they may very well want to give it, would create more headaches as opposed to benefits. Sure it would empower you and allow your feedback to shine, but given the nature of the general population that would be receiving said information on a forum...... For every gold nugget in the forum pan there is a ton of sand.

I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that unless I work for one of these companies, or network my way into a relationship with someone who does, I'm never going to get the level of information about a given game that I want to have. That of course may change but history says otherwise. And its why I dont beta anything anymore, dont want to be part of a stress test pool or share my "feelings" via feedback, my time is simply too valuable to me.

[bahab]

Your asking them for information so you can better participate in the process. Fair enough, but my whole point is that the level of information your asking for, and they may very well want to give it, would create more headaches as opposed

As a natural aspect of being a human being, we fill the gaps left in explanations with our imaginations. This is vastly worse than having an informed information path.

Also, this kind of practice doesn't just work at ultra hip consultancies, or mega-conservitive banks, community planning at all civic levels relies on Expectation and Change Management philosophies to build robust plans with their community.

Lastly, don't point fingers at us wanting to give 'golden feedback'. I'm not trying to give personal opinions on my changes, I'm trying to empower the WAR Community with information.

[uaprsf]

As a natural aspect of being a human being, we fill the gaps left in explanations with our imaginations. This is vastly worse than having an informed information path.

Agreed,that is until one realizes they are doing just that and it has a name... its called making assumptions. Unfortunately gaps in the data stream is what we have going on here.

Also, this kind of practice doesn't just work at ultra hip consultancies, or mega-conservitive banks, community planning at all civic levels relies on Expectation and Change Management philosophies to build robust plans with their community.


Whether you or I like it or not, and irregardless if there there is a field of study on this dynamic (I would be surprised if there wasn't) doesn't mean the practice is embraced or put into play. Compartmentalization of information happens daily. Just because someone wants some information to empower themselves, their company, community or what ever, does not mean they will get it. In fact some folks withhold information specifically to NOT empower you. Ask your boss to share in the decision making process and see how far you get. Certain information is just not made available to everyone. If you have health insurance, ask your provider for the information they have about you, your medical records.. yours, and see what they say (they will politely tell you no, they wont do that).

Lastly, don't point fingers at us wanting to give 'golden feedback'. I'm not trying to give personal opinions on my changes, I'm trying to empower the WAR Community with information.

In no way shape or form am I pointing a finger at anyone or justifying/supporting mythics lack of dialog. I think its great that folks want to empower the community, but the information that would do that, the information discussed in the context of this thread, is something you don't have and cant give to them. Only Mythic can.

[Adraedan Yfelsung]

Only in an MMO would you have this kind of audacity from the player base to demand information they have no right to have.

[Astral]

Only in an MMO would you have this kind of audacity from the player base to demand information they have no right to have.

If the quote above is intended in earnest, I wanted to point out how absolutely hysterical the sentiment is. This is a good thread, and Mythic would be doing a better job if they were to adopt some of the methods suggested within.

To my quotee: do you realize you are posting on a forum for discussion about the Public Test Server in which the player may log on and help test upcoming changes with no compensation to the game they are currently paying for? Yes, the tester must be aware of design goals and motivations for any sort of test environment to be effective.

The system we have now is akin to responding to the classic prompt:
hi , do u like me ? check box
[ ] yes [ ] no

If we don't know for what purposes changes are being made, then how useful or focused will our feedback be?

[Catseye]

As a natural aspect of being a human being, we fill the gaps left in explanations with our imaginations. This is vastly worse than having an informed information path.

I think often times there are informed information paths, such as playing the game... but we fill the gaps of our own deficiencies with our imagination.

People make plenty of assumptions based on their own experiences... such as...

"Healing is weak"
"People die in 3 seconds"
"Bright Wizards are overpowered"

See all assumptions, completely uninformed assumptions, because Mythic didn't say so..

[Astral]

...perhaps the idea behind unfocused testing is to provide a kind of "double blind" atmosphere.

Given exactly that players are not privy to the why of the changes, I suspect you're exactly right; Mythic wants general, unprompted feedback. It's the "black hole" effect of this method that deters me from PTS participation -- with no possible chance (or even venue!) for official remarks on our submitted feedback, and with no explicit vision for the game's balance or direction, there is an air of futility to both testing and providing feedback on that testing.

Time may bear out whether the "double blind" atmosphere makes for effective testing, but for now I'll maintain my doubts. And testing issues aside, I'd still love to see a "gameplay mechanics" focused State of the Game letter as described in the original post. I've not encountered many players ingame who see great potential for longterm enjoyment of T4 gameplay, and it would be nice to know if we should preserve hope for fundamental changes.

[Blackaxe]

...perhaps the idea behind unfocused testing is to provide a kind of "double blind" atmosphere. I mean, I find nothing wrong with "spontaneous order" arising out of perfectly uncoerced testing. "You do your thing, I'll do mine, and if we get "X" type of feedback multiple times... then that is the direction we'll go."


Hrrm interesting. I hadn't thought of the idea that maybe they're looking for a double blind... simply because the testing environment is in no way like a double blind experiment. There's no control, there's no uniformity to the experiment. No single test subject's experience is going to be repeated by any other test subject (nor is it going to be repeatable). Whats more they've given us half the puzzle which would partially invalidate the double blind.

You could do one though. It would probably involve being placed in a room when you first login. There's a guy there who can train you and give you your masteries and gear you up. Naturally everyone is made the same level (hence why training and masteries are there... alternatively you could get given a set mastery but that might be going to far), generically 40 though if you were wanting to test a specific tier then max level of that teir would make sense.

At the far end of the room is a portal that teleports you to what is essentially a testing scenario (It would make sense for there to be a queue). This might be testing keep seiges or even a regular scenario.The object is to simulate a microcosm of the game faithfully without bringing too much in the way of externals.

Most frequently you'll be ported to a scenario on a "patched" ruleset. Sometimes you'll be ported to a scenario on an unpatched ruleset(the control). After each scenario you'd get a popup asking questions. Some would be general questions that everyone is asked. Others would be situation specific (this is asked if they won, this is asked if they're an engineer etc...)

If this is the kind of testing we were getting, I'd be expecting not even to get patch notes. If they told us anything it would be in the nature of what my OP was talking about in much less detail (we're seeing this problem. what we're looking at getting answered is these questions). In some cases that information might lie or be incomplete, but after the test is over you'd have to come clean and say why (i'd avoid this route simply because i doubt it'd be worth the pain).

Note that double blind doesn't involve the very things i'm asking for. If you go on a drug trial you will be asked to sign, as a matter of policy, an "informed consent" form which will spell out what is being tested and what benefit you're trying to get from it.

Think of it another way. If you know you're going into an area to test 1 specific thing... maybe it's insignificant. Maybe you're only paying attention to it, and care about it, because you were told to. With an unfocused test, players go in and pay attention to the things they feel are most enjoyable to them in the game... allowing mythic to focus less on what Mythic wants to test, and focus more on what the player base is generally nudging them to test with feedback.But maybe i'm just taking what you mean too literally. What you're describing here is more or less what i'm assuming they're doing but then what i'm suggesting isn't going to affect this any more than what the patch notes already have. Already people are focused on pulling out data on how the specific changes in the patch notes have affected them. Based on this they're assuming what the intent was and it's this assumption that I'd like cleared up because it's doing no-one any good.

Given exactly that players are not privy to the why of the changes, I suspect you're exactly right; Mythic wants general, unprompted feedback

Withholding the why while at the same time publishing the what seems counter-productive.

I do want to point out that i'm not anti-patch notes. Patch notes are very very necessary and companies that do patch notes poorly are more and more dumped on from a very great height (and IMO deservedly). The reason for this thread, as I implied in my original post, is that I can't think of another patch in my time playing MMOs that made such a (realisticly) sweeping change that came so totally out of the blind side. No-one was saying "you know.. healers are just across the board overpowered" and yet they appear to have been nerfed to the point that many are doubting they can do what they perceive to be their job.

The question is, has their job changed or is this patch a stepping stone to a different change. I have no problems with either decision in principle in fact i'd probably applaud a change that shattered the regular holy trinity (which would be a very "bold" move where bold is potentially synonymous with crazy) assuming where they got to was still fun. I just want to know what the decision is.

[Adraedan Yfelsung]

If the quote above is intended in earnest, I wanted to point out how absolutely hysterical the sentiment is. This is a good thread, and Mythic would be doing a better job if they were to adopt some of the methods suggested within.

To my quotee: do you realize you are posting on a forum for discussion about the Public Test Server in which the player may log on and help test upcoming changes with no compensation to the game they are currently paying for? Yes, the tester must be aware of design goals and motivations for any sort of test environment to be effective.

The system we have now is akin to responding to the classic prompt:
hi , do u like me ? check box
[ ] yes [ ] no

If we don't know for what purposes changes are being made, then how useful or focused will our feedback be?

Plenty of games across every genre have been balanced fairly well without the players having any idea what the developers rationale for changes are. I find it funny that a hundred patches can go through an RTS or FPS and the amount of belly aching or demand for information is minute. Every patch in an MMO is treated like the end of the world and demands are thrown about.

You can see the road they're taking, it's fairly obvious, HoTs were too strong and able to negate the DPS of some classes almost entirely, BW/Sorcs did too much damage, IBs grudge generation was out of hand.

Their "rationale" is game balance, all the fixes provided thus far were sorely needed.

[Stormblazer]

Plenty of games across every genre have been balanced fairly well without the players having any idea what the developers rationale for changes are. I find it funny that a hundred patches can go through an RTS or FPS and the amount of belly aching or demand for information is minute. Every patch in an MMO is treated like the end of the world and demands are thrown about.

You can see the road they're taking, it's fairly obvious, HoTs were too strong and able to negate the DPS of some classes almost entirely, BW/Sorcs did too much damage, IBs grudge generation was out of hand.

Their "rationale" is game balance, all the fixes provided thus far were sorely needed.
HoTs were never able to completely negate any real DPS career's damage (some careers being underpowered does not make HoTs OP), and one HoT was hardly enough to counter most non-DPS careers as well. Multiple HoTs sure, but healers only have one core HoT. The hybrid HoT is a 55AP spell that deserves to be powerful due to the very high AP cost, and the AoE HoT RPs/Zealots get isn't very powerful per person.
Besides, you're talking about it like it's a 1v1 game, it's not. Who cares if ONE of the DPS got negated by multiple HoTs from multiple healers, that kind of figures.

Seriously, only a handful of people were saying HoTs were OP, certainly not in T4 they weren't.

Either way, when people discover there's hardly any healers left, they'll be screaming. And if you honestly think there won't be a ton of healer chars being shelved for 1.05 in it's current form, you to need to wake up and take a look around.

[PinkysBrain]

Only in an MMO would you have this kind of audacity from the player base to demand information they have no right to have.
Dunno about others, but in my case it's a negotiation. I have 2 healers out of 3 characters ... if they nerf healing and don't tell me where they are taking the game for healers I am out of here.