lack of transparency

with the release of TDS the apparent complete lack of transparency is staggering.

at the very last minute, with no warning or opportunity for feedback a major change regarding progression for raids is changed with the movement of raid request npc to the last zone of the expansion. the nerfing of the xp in previous expansions if over lvl 100 , lockout timers of HA. and now we just find out that the nerfing of merc AC was intentional.

it really shocks me that staff felt that these changes were needed in the first place.
even more suspect is the fact that staff felt that they needed to to this at the last minute and felt that they didn't need to post the changes to let the players know.


if players weren't already upset about the minimal content in TDS and not buying the expansion, making major changes stealthily will reall push people over the edge.

The raid NPC movement was a mistake. Not a transparency issue - just an oversight when we were rushing to get things ready for the launch and we missed a detail there. It was moved back within the last hour or two.

The reduced experience on the lower content - We missed putting that on patch notes. That one was on us. Everyone was informed that it was coming so it shouldn't be any shock and that is not a transparency issue. Someone forgot to put it on the patch notes (it should have been there).

No joke right...

What else did you forget to put in the patch notes? Merc stats declining every level wasn't mentioned by a dev until we brought it up as a bug. Somehow such an important change wasn't mentioned during beta, when it should have been tested by players. Do we need to start doing comparison parses with everything to try finding more stealth nerfs?

You guys really need to look at EQ's past mistakes caused by developer hubris and ignoring feedback, cause it really feels like you're trying your hardest to repeat or top those.

HA's were not kept in the dark, there was a 50 page thread about it in the sense heading forum. The merc AC change was not a nerf, it was a change.

Players are not more important that devs, we are all people, no one person is more important than another. You should really take a deep breath and go contemplate on your attitude and why you think you are so much above others.

You guys know us. We create content that we believe is fun and balanced and right for the EverQuest game. Sometimes we need to make changes and I understand that they are not always popular. Believe me when I say that we do this painstakingly and we do it for the good of the game in the long haul.



The Mercenary “Nerf” is not a nerf. I chose not to respond about that because there is a response from Rytan on another thread already about this. Please check it out https://forums.station.sony.com/eq/index.php?threads/merc-nurf.214786/



Changes to Heroic Adventures, I responded to this earlier in the week on the forums and it is on our list of to-do items.

I guess the Sense Heading sub-forum here was just more window dressing.

If it looks better through this window, then Awesome!

Where on your list is it compared to adding cotf rare drops back to HAs?

I have to ask, what's your end goal with this 'balancing'? I'm honestly curious if you believe that that past 1-2 years of nerfs will lead to a game with better player numbers, retention, and enjoyment than one where all that effort had been diverted into quality of life changes? Is there some point in EQ's history that you're trying to recreate? Because this game has never been close to balanced in all the years I've been playing, and times of having good things and being able to use them were much more fun than the times of not having things or getting nerfed.

Some things certainly have deserved to be nerfed in that time. But this is a pve game, so the peaks in player power most just cost some jealousy from other players, not an oppressive environment. The timetables and responses to some issues indicate that either dev priorities are very different from ours, or that your tools and/or EQ knowledge aren't matching with actual gameplay.

All nerfing does these days, is run off people. This game has far too many players on that retirement fence to risk rocking the boat. But the devs sure do love testing that theory on several fronts.

I mean seriously, do the devs and Smedley REALIZE that EverQuest is full of players who have one foot out the door? And how it wouldn't take much for them slip out of that door forever and never return?

"You guys know us. We create content that we believe is fun and balanced and right for the EverQuest game. Sometimes we need to make changes and I understand that they are not always popular. Believe me when I say that we do this painstakingly and we do it for the good of the game in the long haul. "


if folks knew ahead of time about the lack of such things as raids , spells / aa's and the nerfs to xp , HA lockouts and merc nerfs there wouldn't be a game in the "long haul" after the oct 28th because very few would be buying the expansion.

If you were honest and upfront about the changes it would help. Instead we get excuses that are just not facts.

1. You nerfed XP because you want to slow down the rate of xp we know this because we now know that the kill rate in TDS is extremely slow when you compare it to COTF/ROF. So in order to make TDS xp more you nerfed previous expansion xp instead of increasing the xp you get from TDS mobs.
2. Heroic Adventure nerf is the same the rate of XP is higher because the mobs have 1/4th the HP of TDS trash.

This is the real reason you're nerfing XP in previous expansions we all see it but you refuse to admit it.

Btw TDS Mob HP is stupid high 2 full raid zerkers with a bard and it takes us 90s per trash mob. That is not what we call fun its boring.

if it takes raid geared characters that long to kill a trash mob how do you expect groupers to do anything ? It will take 3-4m per TRASH mob for them.

Everyone was informed? Hardly, unless the vast majority of players who never ever read the forums all received either an e-mail or in-game mail informing everyone.

While patch notes would have been more complete, there was advanced notice and people chatting about it in general.

Honestly, people that play this game should be monitoring the forums for announcements. I actually ran in to people a week ago that had no idea an expansion was going to be released. A month or so ago, there were people in general that knew about the expansion, but not the level increase. Both things were prominently displayed on the launcher screen. I'm sorry, there is no helping these people without some effort on their part.

No matter where you announce such things, there are going to be people that never bother to read the info. This is a social game. Most anything should be getting around by word of mouth. For evidence, look at all the first time forum users that were replying to the Sense Heading post.

Sojero, while there may have been a 50 page thread about changes to HA's you fail to realize that the vast majority of players never, ever read the forums,therefore the vast majority of the players did NOT know. The vast majority of the player base was, as well, completely unaware of the significant reductions to experience in pre-CotF content. As for the mercenary situation, with the exception of current posts here, again which the vast majority of the players never, ever read, where in the patch notes is any mention of any kind with regard to mercenaries made?

As for expecting players to monitor the forums that should NOT be an expectation on the part of the development team. Information should be made available at the log in screen AND in the /shudder Welcome Window where, at least, the players would have some opportunity to be informed. Relying on "word of mouth" in game is assuredly NOT something that constitutes transparency or the intent to inform players if that is what the developers expect.

There is assuredly a lack of transparency more than apparent here.

Double post.

^I believe that sums up the issue(s) with this expansion nicely. I appreciate fixing the raid request NPC so quickly though.

Why should people have to use external methods to get information about a game that isn't played in an internet browser? The links added to the patcher were a nice addition but the poor implementation of the welcome window upon logging in... not so much.

Also, lots of people don't join /general because it often is a select few people trolling constantly, an auction channel, or something not related to "general".

If the issue is not a lack of transparency, Community Relations is dropping the ball. Not to single anyone out. Limited nuance, specifics, and technical knowledge from CR on the issues. Maybe, an expanded role (or briefing/QA session) for Community Relations or Dev-CR partnership. You could temporarily poach a former EQ developer from EQN to help communicate to the community at critical junctures (i.e. expansion release, major game mechanic change, etc). Community relations is fine during off-season. A roving developer could add extra firepower with technical knowledge.

Over the past couple years it honestly feels like they are trying to get people to quit.