2013-10-05, 05:39 AM
I took some time to review my stuff, and here it is. Don't mind the fact that I use "we" sometimes even though these are my opinion.
Hadriel
Late Feedback
Service
[INDENT]Communication and feedback[/INDENT]
Reporting[/INDENT]
Real-time assistance[/INDENT]
Maintenance[/INDENT]
[INDENT]Gameplay
[/INDENT]
[INDENT=2]- Diversity
[/INDENT]
- Balance
[/INDENT]
- Attractiveness
[/INDENT]
- Older content
[/INDENT]
- Direction[/INDENT]
Cash[/INDENT]
Economy (not dwelling too much here)[/INDENT]
Events[/INDENT]
Issues
[INDENT]
Bugs and exploits
[/INDENT]
Hacking
[/INDENT]
Latency
[/INDENT]
Disconnections
[/INDENT]
Inconveniences[/INDENT]
Professional quality and consistency
[/INDENT]
Service
[INDENT]Communication and feedback[/INDENT]
- [*=1]We appreciate efforts put into communicating various issues and information to us, and we understand why you all may or may not be able to inform us about certain things. What we would like is a more user-friendly/less convoluted method of providing feedback to you all, as well as giving us more details when issues are made known to us - perhaps not necessarily more details, but definitely greater clarity as well as less ambiguity.
Reporting[/INDENT]
- [*=1]Bug-reporting and hacker-reporting is extremely limited right now, in that we can only report once a day. That said, the encounter rate of hackers on a 1-hour basis can be extremely high, close to 20. Understandably the reporting system for hackers could possibly be subject to abuse. So a good compromise (assuming no account-switching etc.) would be to reduce the reporting interval to 30 minutes, or possibly even less. Alternatively, some form of verification system for GM-reporting could be put in place to reduce abuse too. As for bug-reporting, there is no way of doing so in-game... (see below)
Real-time assistance[/INDENT]
- [*=1]We usually have no way of asking for GM assistance in-game, e.g. for reporting game bugs (or do we?). Such a form of assistance and reporting provides the most immediate form of feedback, rather than trawling through forums or opening another window for live-chat. This idea would need to be better-fleshed out and creases ironed out, but I feel that GMs providing various assistance and services is most relevant if it can be done in game (but of course the notices on the website etc. are still important!). IMO the live-chat service is more relevant to people who aren't in-game yet.
Maintenance[/INDENT]
- [*=1]We feel that notifications for USCs should be done ASAP, and preferably giving at least 1/2 - 1 hour notice if it isn't crazily game-breaking. I also feel that much more could be done per maintenance, or at least make it clear to us what has happened - "back-end modifications" doesn't tell the layman anything to be honest. Where possible, we would like bug-fixing to take priority over events... Could you date the bugs in the Known Issues list so that you all/we know what was added, and also date the issues fixed in the Resolved Issues list (say, clear the issues that are 2 months since they were solved)?
[INDENT]Gameplay
[/INDENT]
[INDENT=2]- Diversity
[/INDENT]
- [*=2]Class and item diversity is great, but we would really like the diversity to be more spread out in terms of classes updated/newly made. Why so many warrior-type jobs, for example? But right now, I feel that we have more than enough classes/jobs. More focus should be given to item diversity and other content diversity.
[*=2]Theme dungeons for the level 60-100 range would be good too, to add on to the diversity of content.
[*=2]Would like more weapons or equipment with class-specific bonuses e.g. like (Dragonic) Askaron etc. They provide an interesting form of diversity too, much like the current item sets
[*=2]We also need more standard weapons after the Timeless/Reverse/Necro/Imperial range, because we don't want to just have e.g. RA weapons, or Empress weapons, or Terminus weapons as "THE end-game" equipment while there is a big gap in those and the obtainable T/R/N/I range. It feels odd to have standard equipment ending at levels 130-140 when the top level is 250 (or even 200, before the cap was raised).
[*=2]Consider how much content there is with respect to the levels, and compare it with the number of players in the respective level ranges. Is there enough content to match the player demographics?
- Balance
[/INDENT]
- [*=2]Too many bosses are out of reach of the average player, while some bosses have the option of soloing because they are no longer a challange. This dichotomy of difficulty needs to be addressed... at least let all bosses have the option of soloing to make things consistent. Yes some bosses should be exclusive e.g. the chaos modes, but why not have a more balanced normal mode that the average player can reach? Or are you trying to encourage partying? If so, why not make (big) bosses party-play too?
[*=2]EXP balance is quite poor in terms of Quest contribution and grinding and PQs. Quests need to give significant EXP, in the order of at least 0.5-1% of EXP to next level (depending on the parts). Consider revamping how EXP is given for quests, and provide suitable minimum/maximum EXP obtainable from quests if a level-and-percentage-based EXP reward for quests are to be implemented.
[*=2]Items in the past and items in the future are often poorly balanced. Consider the Time Traveller medal, which is extremely good for damage, and newer medals which perform significantly poorer against the said medal. Similarly for scrolls - can we make standard scrolls more relevant, or make event scrolls in the future less deal-breaking?
- Attractiveness
[/INDENT]
- [*=2]New classes tend to have a "fad" period which make them attractive, but subsequently their attractiveness then resides in how powerful the classes are. Certain areas are also more attractive than others e.g. Omega Sector is virtually never inhabited...
[*=2]Make quests attractive, be it in terms of the content and storyline (the new theme dungeons are pretty good for this), item rewards (quite crap now to be honest) and EXP awarded (lower levels are good, upper levels are horrible).
[*=2]Grinding is often disproportionately slanted towards certain areas e.g. HoH. This is often due to lack of diversity/choices, and unattractive areas often due to spawn mechanics.
- Older content
[/INDENT]
- [*=2]The refreshing of older content needs to be done more systematically, and with an aim to encourage exploration of the refreshed areas etc. In addition, old areas tend to be forgotten... it definitely is nice to see refreshing changes e.g. continuation of story-line for Kerning Square, so keep this up for other areas e.g. Omega Sector.
- Direction[/INDENT]
- [*=2]A new class/job a year is sufficient IMO. Focus on the items, maps, monsters, quests and storyline. Don't juggle more balls than you can handle.
[*=2]Consider what you want to encourage - Partying? Bossing? Grinding? Or a free-for-all, OTOT kind of gameplay? Do you want to encourage more players to buy NX, or do you want to encourage greater spending on NX? I feel that a stronger strategic planning would help the game much more than having so much of everything sporadically. Make your direction appeal to us, instead of imposing the direction on us.
Cash[/INDENT]
- [*=1]Generally few comments because I do not use NX. But I find that people much prefer buying the things they want, rather than buying cash items in a bundle (what they don't use becomes wasted).
[*=1]Also, the lack of permanent cash items is very disappointing. We would very much like a meso/item pouch to be available via mesoes (albeit a very short time duration e.g. 1-3 days, and a high meso price).
[*=1]We greatly, greatly dislike the inability to share cash items within an account. It is almost ridiculous to make all 24 characters buy 24 pets with item pouches etc. if a player rotates playing his characters. This of course is an exaggeration because many players have mules, but this is still an issue. What one sees as exclusive, is seen by another as inconvenience.
[*=1]Be less physical money-oriented, and more service-oriented. If people are satisfied with your service, they will keep frequenting you, and then Nexon earns by quantity which originated from quality of service.
Economy (not dwelling too much here)[/INDENT]
- [*=1]Too heavily dominated by event items - currency in terms of Evolving Rings? Looking forward to the new Auction House/Trading Post function.
[*=1]The prosperous will always proper, but the poor have difficulty even getting 10m mesoes. Manual looting is extremely, extremely inconvenient compared to having a pet (see below).
Events[/INDENT]
- [*=1]In-game GM events are impossible for people who lag/have high latency. Planned events (the usual ones) often have better participation but the item rewards are often not consistent. In general we don't like time-limited rewards, and we prefer rewards to be attractive but not super game-changing/breaking. If the rewards for a season event for a particular year is too good, then it makes other years' event rewards look bad, and players will feel disappointed at the game and at the consistency.
Issues
[INDENT]
Bugs and exploits
[/INDENT]
- [*=1]Much, much too buggy at times. Some more significant amount of pre-release testing needs to be done... why not a test server? Prevention is much better than cure.
[*=1]Bugs that fix some things, end up unfixing others, or at some later point of time become unfixed again. Also, too many bugs that are left unfixed... have they been orphaned or forgotten? It's like walking in the rain with an umbrella with holes that aren't fully patched.
[*=1]The number of exploits leading to e.g. temporary blockage of purchase of certain cash items, is so high, one wonders if the exploiter/hackers are too competent, or that the software engineers...
Hacking
[/INDENT]
- [*=1]A decent job done at banning hackers, but these need to be corrected at a more fundamental level, to find out why certain loopholes are present, then tie them up.
[*=1]We know that many legitimate players have been banned for various reasons or another. These make the game service look very bad.
Latency
[/INDENT]
- [*=1]One must understand how the game works - a person playing with a slow connection is extremely vulnerable if he wants to loot things, because the moment he/she presses the Pick-Up key over an item, he/she cannot pot/attack/use spells. In addition, manual looting takes place item-by-item, in that you must press once, let the server reply, then press again over another item.
[*=1]In contrast, looting with a pet solves all these issues because there is no delay involved, and this then partially addresses the vulnerability of players with slow connections. Having a slow connection shouldn't be a "crime", but the game could be adjusted to make playing with high latency less painful.
Disconnections
[/INDENT]
- [*=1]Disconnections are punishingly painful. Disconnecting in a boss run or PQ causes them to lose an entry count for no good reason. We should have events like those attendance ones that check based on total time spent on Maple, not a one-shot thing.
[*=1]Buffs lost are also very painful - EXP buff coupons last for 30 min - 1 hour, but most of it is wasted if people use them during 2X for greater efficiency but get disconnected after 5 minutes. For people with poor internet connection, this is much more unfair to them.
[*=1]So many players end up disconnecting during 2X. It speaks volumes about quality of play during peak hours. Also, consider why peak hours exist.
[*=1]Sometimes, disconnections aren't their fault - a hacker using a DC hack...
[*=1]Being disconnected for sending too many packets/killing too fast (e.g. Extreme MP, Ludibrium clocktower map) is a poor way of keeping abberant behaviour in check - it stops normal players while incompletely stopping malicious users.
[*=1]If people DC every 5 minutes, and it is something that they cannot help, they will eventually leave the game due to frustration.
Inconveniences[/INDENT]
- [*=1]We would greatly like most non-exchange-related quest/event items to not show up on the inventory, or have a separate tab/pouch for it. E.g. collecting maple leaves is fine because those are exchangables, they can go into the ETC. tab, but things like collecting 30 of XX and YY to complete an event/quest... can we have them not clog up our inventory?
[*=1]Too many USCs at times, leading to excessive downtime. For people who can only play at certain periods of times, the (U)SCs already put them at a disadvantage for things like GM events, attendence events. While I am glad to see that most (but not all) attendance events affected by (U)SCs are addressed, the consistency must be kept up. Remember that players remember bad things much more strongly than good things.
[*=1]Sometimes I feel that the price for conveniences is much too high... like item slot expansion and hyper teleport rocks and pets/pet pouches. The great cost to attain comfortable playing convenience over a player who doesn't spend cash on these conveniences is actually very significant, that it makes playing without conveniences like a burden or a punishment.
[*=1]Are there more chairs than there are set-up slots?
Professional quality and consistency
[/INDENT]
- [*=1]Professional quality stems from the ability to provide the basic game services well under all circumstances. "Extra" services like in-game events etc. should be secondary to maintaining a good primary outcome.
[*=1]Spelling mistakes tend to crop up too often, occasionally making them hilarious. But untranslated text appearing just doesn't cut it. Rigorous checks are either insufficient, or insufficiently rigorous.
[*=1]Ensure that fixes made to reported problems are also broadened, by checking everything else that may be spilled over e.g. if a hover-over text isn't appearing for a boss, check the text for all bosses.
[*=1]Too many, too many similar items but with different tags - why are there 3-4 different Power Elixirs in the game that do not stack at all? A serious cleanup is needed. One is tempted to assigning hiring a software engineer to deal with bugs and consistency alone... A bug highlighted and left unaddressed for 3 months is still a bug (if nobody reports it, that's a different matter), no matter how trivial it is, and we feel that addressing bugs and maintaining consistency is an important issue. Nexon must quickly address what is important, and what is urgent, while having consistent back-end clearing of the relatively unimportant issues.
Hadriel
