Follow up to the June 28 Balance Update Preview

[Mungo Zen.9364]

I wish Anet would stop apologizing and just do it right the first time. It isn’t that hard to communicate effectively. This post is a great example of good communication. Too bad you are wasting time writing an apology than just doing the notes correctly the first time.  What really chafes is that Anet has told us multiple times over the years ‘we are going to communicate better’ and yet, here they are apologizing for not doing that, yet again. 

[Larvath.9760]

1 minute ago, Storub.5907 said:

Choosing to release the update anyway, even with the level of feedback given, does no inspire confidence.

 

We will be stuck with these changes for at least 4 months, making several classes unplayable, Guardian and Engineer dominating PvE yet again.

 

I have see such an approach ("release on time and kitten the consequences") in a game before.

 

That game is dead now.

Lmao, this game will far from be dead, just stop.

[Arilozen.2756]

As a warrior main I'm looking forward to embracing mechanist as the one true class.

[MajinSoul.4512]

"Fall patch" is exactly why I don't want to see this patch going live. I don't want to play the next 3 months with these changes and I am not so sure the next patch is something to look forward to after seeing this patch ... 

[Techstriker.4130]

Just now, Mungo Zen.9364 said:

I wish Anet would stop apologizing and just do it right the first time. It isn’t that hard to communicate effectively. This post is a great example of good communication. Too bad you are wasting time writing an apology than just doing the notes correctly the first time.  What really chafes is that Anet has told us multiple times over the years ‘we are going to communicate better’ and yet, here they are apologizing for not doing that, yet again. 

I've played since before launch, and this.
They give us one of these speeches every few years after they royally mess something up, but never actually change their behavior for the better.

[Larvath.9760]

15 minutes ago, Bookah pls.9352 said:

I don't mean to be rude but the blunt honest truth is, Not for me it won't.

not to be rude but you didn't care about the game from the start if you ain't going to play a game before you even tried the patch.

[Evenaardez.7913]

Grouch, come on man. Have some more respect for us please. If you were a player you’d know how truly abysmal these “balance” changes were. You know they didn’t make any sense, you gave the condi trait line for warrior, increased ferocity…Or just play untamed and you will instantly know how unfun it is, and then the balance team is like lets just nerf all the other ranger specs so you can't play anything! YAY! Say something more drastic, we have gotten this “we will look at feedback more” post in the past and nothing changed. This was your chance to show what you can do as a leader…this patch is NOT ok, it’s NOT the right direction, just halt it! Provide the balance team the resources they need to make meaningful and good changes, not whatever on earth this is. Or make personnel changes, you’re in charge. 

Edited June 28, 2022 by Evenaardez.7913

[Mesket.5728]

Long term plans.. go ahead. Ill wait playing other games like ive been doing since EoD classes were beta. See you in 2025? 2028? When are you going to finish this "long term" thing? Will 300 icd traits be adressed by then?

[bambi.6214]

lmao ppl really overdramatize 

Good job with the development, your leadership and communication is admirable..

[zealex.9410]

Appreciate you going on detail to talk about that there was some intent behind the changes and a phoilosophy, however, i dont care much about thatb because it was obvious. What i care about is obviously bad or barely thought out changes being shipped tmrw  and that nothing was done about that. Lots of builds will be worse off needlessly or miserable for weeks. DO BETTER.

[Aizenfaust.2708]

:C

Hang in there Grouch and team! 

Though I wish you'd reconsider with the release. I know there's realistically nothing you can do in time before patch releases to fix what community has pointed out. It's just sad is all. Incredibly sad. 

[TwoTongues.5163]

Thanks for the Lip Service Grouch. How do you not acknowledge the clear disaster that this balance patch is. How did this make it to release? Who signed off on this and why, what made you or any of the powers that be say " yep, this is good "?. For all the inroads that you and a few others have made with the community this has set back a lot of that progress. You can say all you want that sometimes you can get things wrong, we all do, the thing is it's been a decade of this nonsense. It would be great for you or any other Anet representative to make a blog/forum post that isn't 1 of the 20 posts saying "we need to do better" or "we missed the mark". Just do better because I am not the only one who is fresh out of goodwill.

[Obtena.7952]

5 hours ago, Mungo Zen.9364 said:

I wish Anet would stop apologizing and just do it right the first time. It isn’t that hard to communicate effectively. This post is a great example of good communication. Too bad you are wasting time writing an apology than just doing the notes correctly the first time.  What really chafes is that Anet has told us multiple times over the years ‘we are going to communicate better’ and yet, here they are apologizing for not doing that, yet again. 

It was a BAD IDEA on their part to release the notes without the explanation (they should know better!!!!) and on the Friday but there isn't a point in doing it so close to patch day so ... hopefully it doesn't happen again. I would rather see NO preview than the preview without explanation. IF anything, if something MUST be released, it's the explanation and not the actual changes. 

On the flip side, lots of people need to bring their 'mature' game forward. Death threats? Wow, those people should just be outright banned TBH. If that's not worthy of it ... not much is.  

Edited June 27, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Ronnie Hu.1694]

I guess this is the end.

[fuzzyp.6295]

It should be clear, you need a public test server where changes can be assessed by players in real time and you can gather more accurate results with monitoring. Show us the results of this testing and how it influenced your future balance patches. Let our voices actually be heard cause it still feels like we're ignored. 

 

I wish the devs all well, im sure this is a rough time. Thanks for your communication with us.

[soulknight.9620]

19 minutes ago, Josh Davis.7865 said:

Finally, I’d like to thank those of you who have approached this discussion in a civil manner. To those that have chosen extreme toxicity, called for developers to be fired, or sent death threats–you're not welcome in our community.

This is the only thing in the whole post that i can relate and agree with. 
The rest is just fluff and - "enjoy tomorrows patch and see you mid fall". 

[Asur.9178]

I appreciate the communication, however, I can honestly say one thing. I've already started limiting any kind of feedback I personally provide after I noticed how heavily they are ignored a while ago, unless they are in the private discord - this was confirmed over the weekend (very disappointing).

Some of my previous feedbacks from just this last year included feedback on Specter: here, here, here, and here ....all of which were completely ignored, unless they were parroted in the private discord, with bugs making it into the game even after being reported multiple times since the first beta.

There are long standing bugs still present, for example, this one...which I myself reported NUMEROUS times. This is not being addressed in tomorrow's patch either because there's no visibility on it since it was never mentioned in the private discord. It continues to be ignored because nobody is actually reading the feedback that people like myself has put effort and time into, simply because it's not in the private discord.

If I do not see Acrobatics and Trickery in all gamemodes, and Sword in PvE being addressed for Thief in the mid-fall major professions update, I would not be surprised to find myself quitting the game. In particular, Acrobatics has been a dead traitline for over 2 years, while Trickery has been a problem for almost 10 years (will be 10 years by the time the next patch arrives). It's absolutely ridiculous that these long standing issues and problem areas are still not addressed.

Edited June 27, 2022 by Asur.9178

[eirewolf.2041]

I would say that I'm disappointed in this nothingburger of a post, but that would imply that I had expectations.

 

More than happy to not buy gems if the response to justified negative feedback is veiled contempt.

[LucidHarmoy.6284]

We are listening and take your feedback seriously and on that note we're gonna release the balance patch anyway. Good luck. Very encouraging -_-

[iamunreal.5089]

You can't communcate away how dedrater this patch is.

[Delita Silverburg.8632]

I'm sorry, but for your ask of many of us, the answer is a firm no, we cannot support this release and then wait 5 months for your "dedicated" team to correct it. It's too long. If it was a month to undo or rework some of these changes, then maybe, but FIVE MONTHS?!? (Quoting mid-fall here) That's not gonna work for us my man.

[Astralporing.1957]

This is the point where i should have said that i expected better of you, Anet. Unfortunately the truth is that, no, i really didn't. This post is exactly what i expected to happen. And that's extremely sad. You just keep fully living up to my complete lack of expectations.

At this point it seems that it's just not possible for this company to change for the better.

[altpenny.5490]

27 minutes ago, Josh Davis.7865 said:

To those that have chosen extreme toxicity, called for developers to be fired, or sent death threats–you're not welcome in our community.

Death threats are inexcusable. Calling for someone who has no business being the head of a balance team to not be in charge of balance decisions is not. To call people "toxic" for pointing out bad employees (heads of departments, no less) who don't know enough about the game/have an incredibly flippant and disrespectful attitude towards a portion of the player-base further confirms that the word "toxic" has no meaning. 

[Arthon.5394]

While I appreciate the post, this doesn't solve the issues the balance patch will create.

And it's fair if you want to address balance step by step until we get to a very good state across professions, but the reality is that you have a couple of specs that are too good for the game right now - Engineer, Necromancer and Guardian. No matter which changes you make with the intent of having an effect in your "balance philosophy" 6 months from now on, the result will be the same: why should I bother with X class when there's 3 specs that pretty much cover the same role/function in a much easier and more effective way?

Looking at the changes announced Friday, many don't make kittening sense, just look at warrior's. But the irony of this patch, that supposedly you're making to open way to more class diversity and accessibility, will cause the opposite effect: the usual suspects will have their position strengthened and the rest will see less play because changes made them worse.

For me personally, this just puts me in a position where I won't even bother with group content, as I know I'll be declined. 

Edited June 27, 2022 by Everwyn.8537

[Min Wyseman.2813]

Quote

Finally, I’d like to thank those of you who have approached this discussion in a civil manner. To those that have chosen extreme toxicity, called for developers to be fired, or sent death threats–you're not welcome in our community.

 

I don't normally post on these forums but this time I just want to thank you so much for saying this. It was extremely disheartening to see the absolute vitriol a part of the community was throwing at a certain dev, pulling their messages out of context to make them look incompetent or even malicious, while if you read the full conversation it is obvious this person cares very much about the game and is a driving force behind a lot of positive changes as well. It is great to see ANet leadership going out of their way to support their devs in the face of this hate mob.