Asherons Call: Ibn Explains Caul Changes & More

Ibn replies to LttP Feedback thread: On the Margul change

There have been times in the past that we've presented new topics or changes to the game and been surprised by the vehement negative reaction to them.

This isn't one of those times.

Honestly, I knew that this was going to be the response from the community after the LttP was posted. It's only reasonable. You've gotten used to the reward level at the "Caulcano" and now that level is being decreased. No one likes having anything taken away from them.

Unfortunately, the fact that this makes you unhappy doesn't change the fact that we feel it is best for the game.

Consider this: Imagine that, by mistake, we added a lever to the game that when pulled granted a million XP. Naturally, some folks would be pretty happy to run up to this lever and pull it! And once folks got used to it being there, they'd probably be pretty unhappy if we removed it.

Now, obviously this is a terribly simplified comparison. The Marguls aren't XP levers, by any stretch of the imagination. But a lot of it does apply. For one thing, notice that I used the word "mistake". I'll quite openly state that raising the XP on these creatures to the pre-August levels was a mistake.

But once we realize that it's a mistake, we really have two choices. Either we shrug our shoulders and say, "Oh well," or we grit our teeth and we fix the mistake, knowing full well that all y'all are going to come here and flame us up and down both for having made the mistake in the first place and for fixing it in a way that makes you upset. We chose option two.

On that topic though -- we're not bringing them down to their pre-raised levels. They'll be somewhere in-between.

There've been a lot of suggestions of ways to change the situation other than reducing the XP on the Marguls, but they don't address the basic problem. The basic problem is this: the creatures were giving out too much XP compared to their difficulty.

Regardless of all other concerns brought up -- crowding, comparisons to VoD, high-level hunting areas, soloing vs. fellowships, mage vs. melee balance -- regardless of all of that, the Marguls were giving out too much XP compared to their difficulty. If we didn't fix that base problem we'd just be throwing on band-aids.

Some of you are asking, "Well, so what if we get too much XP? Why does Turbine have a problem with that?" This is the same argument that many players made when we changed the way that allegiance XP works. Let me try to answer it.

Imagine there was a way that you could push a button in-game and then POOF, all of your stats and skills were maxed. That'd be cool, right? Well, sure... for a little while. But then there's no way to advance your character, and without some means of advancement, the game loses a lot of its enjoyment. So you get a burst of fun because, hey, you're a god now! But then once that burst wears off, the game as a whole is less fun.

Now that was obviously a worst-case scenario, but looking at a more moderate example, anytime that advancement becomes easier than intended it creates a number of problems. The first is that it can make the game "too easy" -- without the feeling of having overcome a challenge, rewards lose some of their sparkle. Having a max-tinkered RR sword isn't quite as interesting if we're just giving them out to anyone who asks, right? Having your melee defense skill maxed out isn't as cool if you just clicked one button after character creation to get there, right?

Now the advancement thing sort of leads into one of the complaints that I've seen, that there needs to be more to do at high levels. All I can say to that is that we're listening and that there are plans, but I can' t provide any details at the moment.

There's also the comparison problem. If creature of difficulty X is worth Y reward, then anytime we create a new creature of diffculty X or more, it needs to have reward Y or greater -- otherwise you'll ask us, "What's the point?" and go back to fighting that first creature.

So that means that once this XY creature has been established in the game, the longer it stays in the more of a precedent it becomes and the more it influences new monthly content. It becomes harder and harder to change it the longer it stays. This situation is a perfect example -- if we'd lowered the Margul XP the month after raising it, we would've gotten some complaints (and some raised eyebrows) but nowhere near this many. If we leave it in another six months and THEN change it, we'll get even MORE complaints than we are now. This is a strong argument to resolve it as soon as possible.

So, to summarize: The basic problem is that the Margul were worth more XP than their risk justified, and this problem spawns a whole host of sub-problems. Solving the sub-problems is only a band-aid solution. However the sub-problems do reflect other issues that have been brought up, such as the desire of players to have more activities at very high levels, and we are working to fulfill those desires.

We knew going into this that this change was going to be very unpopular, but we feel it is best for the long-term health of the game. Leaving unbalancing things in the game becomes more unbalancing the longer they stay in, and the more unbalanced the game becomes, the less fun it will be for you, the players.

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Alex "Ibn" Beckers
AC1 Online Community Relations

Mr_Fred replies: Nerfs do not = happy players

It's obvious the devs are going to do what they want. This LttP really feels like just one big nerf patch. If there is ANYTHING you can learn from the 5 years of coding this game...is:

NERFING IS BAD FOR MORALE

I say this in bold, large, underlined print because no matter what you nerf...EVERYONE can agree to the above statement.

Ibn replies:

You're absolutely right, nerfing is bad for morale. We try to avoid it whenever possible. You'll notice that frequently when we improve something, we improve it in small increments, so that we won't have to nerf it later.

Unfortunately there are times that we have made mistakes and set something too high. We try not to have this happen, and whenever it does we pay close attention so as to prevent it from happening in the future, but sometimes it still happens.

When it DOES happen, we will unfortunately have to nerf it. The alternative -- leaving unbalanced rewards in the game -- will do more long-term damage to the game than a one-time nerf.

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Alex "Ibn" Beckers
AC1 Online Community Relations

Tara Malkav asks: Mattekar Robes -follow up-

I really didn't want to deal with the 18 pages of LttP comments which are most likely all Caul complaints, so.. What exactly is the reasoning behind not updating the PP Robes of the Tundra? You are updating the PP Hoary Robes, are you not? Don't get me wrong, it doesn't bother me, it just seems a little.. silly.

Ibn replies:

We actually *can't* update the new Hoary without updating the PP Hoary. In data they're identical.

Don't ask me why they have different icons. I tried to figure it out this afternoon and got a headache. It was probably a bug when it first happened.

[more questions]

That's exactly what I was checking on. The icons on PP Hoary Robes should not change.

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Alex "Ibn" Beckers
AC1 Online Community Relations

DarkMarcsun asks: Would you be willing to consider releasing a patch WITHOUT notes?

No Dev notes
No teaser images
No LTTP
No Build notes

Just release the patch.

Many of the old school players remember what it was like to actually be able to go into the game and discover stuff on our own without having two dozen clues available weeks before the release of the patch.

While the IGN boards, COD, and Jackcat's pages are nice resources, there's something to be said for self-discovery, a concept somewhat defeated when a lot of the information is given to us well ahead of time.

I'm not saying you need to do this all the time, but how about releasing one patch without all the spoon-fed clues that we get now and see what kind of feedback you get?

Ibn replies:

What I find interesting about this thread is that there MANY more people complaining that we DON'T listen to our players.

It's important to keep in mind that NEW CONTENT is rarely if ever discussed in patch notes. The only thing that teases new content is... the teaser. And we release that as a way of building excitement prior to the event, so folks can say, "OMG! What is that?! How can I get that or fight that?! This next event is gonna be so cool!" as well as to provide more information on the ongoing story.

However I think it would be unfair to the community not to warn them of upcoming game balance changes, content revisions, and major mechanics updates. If you are the kind of person who enjoys being surprised to find that the quest you used to know inside and out is now radically different, well, I wish there were more of you. But you are in the minority.

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Alex "Ibn" Beckers
AC1 Online Community Relations