Opening the Communication Lines

[Trobon]

So I don't have the negative experiences regarding communication others have. I mostly lurk on the forums and only really come back once every few months to see what is going on in this part of the community. So I can't speak as much about what has gone wrong. I can say what I have liked personally - especially recently - and what I hope will continue. I think the communication is at its best when I've seen developers or anyone else in the company tell us what is in mind when making changes. I have always really appreciated and enjoyed MadeOfLions giving us a slight peak behind the curtain in how what kinds of considerations are thought about when designing the story. I really have liked the more frequent and more focused letters that started earlier this year. And I appreciate when we get an explanation as to the reasons behind changes being made.

Using the example you provided with the Guardian thread, I think this kind of communication is amazing. It tells me what kinds of things you are thinking about and why you are thinking about them in regards to improving the Guardian experience. I respect and understand what you said about not all developers being able to come onto the forums to have this kind of communication, but I think its what works best because it elicits more focused feedback, communicates the intent behind changes so even if people disagree with those changes they at least understand where they are coming from, and helps keep people interested.

I think I'm happiest when I know something is being worked on even if its taking time. And I appreciate it when developers tell me straight that they are running into roadblocks to solving issues. I know this game is 15 years old and held together with duct tape and a prayer. So I understand that sometimes regrettable choices made long in the past may be causing issues today. I just want to know that those issues are being addressed. For example, the recent explanation about server lag. I know the lag is not going to be fixed overnight, but getting an explanation on what is happening, even a brief one, helps me feel a little better.

On the other end of the spectrum, I think the communication regarding account security has not been great. I know we were recently told that someone would be looking into 2FA, but that is vague and doesn't tell me much of anything. What roadblocks are in the way of giving us better security? What is being thought about in overcoming those? Are there other ideas being considered (for example, making it so email verification is required to change an email address and/or password so a stolen account can't cut off access without also having access to the email)? Just a small explanation would go a long way for me.

Overall, I think your communication is at its best when you are able to explain intent and reason in some small way. I don't need grand future plans or detailed responses if they take too much time or give away too much (not that I don't like those when you can give them). I personally just want to know that certain major issues are being taken seriously, and to understand a little of why things are/aren't happening.

That being said, I look forward to your letter.

[Fadil]

To Orion: you must understand that your customers are frustrated not with you, but with some Devs that treated us poorly and rudely.

As people told you many times in the minstrel bullroarer thread: STOP pretending you speak for other people. You dont represent anyone but yourself.
YOU may be frustrated, a tiny loud minority on these mbs may be frustrated, but its ridiculous to suggest "your customers" are frustrated.

Just as its ridiculous to suggest the devs didnt listen to feedback re the minstrel changes.

Again: we, the players, should be SSG's greatest asset and triumph but we have been treated as if we were the enemy, as if we were Orcs.

Seriously? Because you didnt get your way on the mini changes, they treated you like orcs?
Drama much?

[ChromiteSwiftpaw]

Not long from now, I'll be delivering my first letter to the players. Well... not my first, but certainly the first one that I have done in years. Before I get that out the door, I wanted to start a quick thread with a question that has been nagging me for the past few days.

Communication. It seems that there is a perception that there has not been a great deal of communication coming from the team here and I am trying to understand the sentiment more completely.

First, I want to thank you for doing trying to converse with your player base about this subject. Communications are a very important thing when it comes to Devs and their Players. I truly believe that you, Orion, want that communication to be better and you are showing your worth by pulling that band-aid of silence off to try to get things improved. Thank you.

Over the years many of us older players have become jaded by being burned so many times with major (and sometimes minor - but player-affecting) Quality of Life or Everyday System changes. Because of that, many players have just given up and have gone into a "throw up their hands in disgust" mode and just feel helpless to try and help make the game we love so much become better. Some will go into disgruntled mode and take their frustration out by making jabs at devs or even fellow players. Some will just go silent on the forums -- This is not a good thing because sometimes some of those players have good information, opinions and help for upcoming and newer players.

I know that Cordovan does a good job of interacting with the community and that it is very much appreicated when that communication comes out. I also know that there are times when the information that is shared is not as in depth as say, I could answer or Scenario, Vastin, or others might be able to answer.

One of the problems with some of the communications here is that sometimes your major/minor Systems and QoL changes are done without running it by a longtime/knowledgeable player's "review" before forcing it out there. Some of the changes we've seen have made I and many of my friends go "Why on earth didn't they just ask about this first?" after being forced through. SSG's modus operandi is to not even consider how big of an impact the changes they want to do/have done will affect their longtime and loyal players. Sometimes, a little minor change or communication can ease the pain of the changes the devs want to implement. Too many times we haven't had that.

I'm going to list some examples.

1) The Legendary Item "2.0" changes. There were many things in this that I can bring up but I'll just bring up probably one of the things that most affected people. The Appraising and Claiming of the old LIs. There was absolutely ZERO information given to the players by SSG on how to maximize/get the most for your character(s) so you wouln't be left wanting Ancient Script and other materials to make your new LIs. What we were told was that we didn't need to prepare anything and just to wait for it to it. You should just not worry about it and there's no need to prepare. Well, that was a super big "nuh uh" because some of us figured out what needed to be done and tried to communicate as best we could to people in Discords, Twitch Streams, etc. so people were prepared. This, unfortunately, didn't get out to many people and so many people were left with their appraisable/claimable LIs in a horrible state and so they basically got left with a pile of trash and were severely behind in being able to make their new LIs or make LIs for their alts.

2) Small Reputation Accelerator changes. The notification to players about this came in at the last minute so only those people who were awake and were paying attention to Discord notifications were able to cash out all their saved marks/medallions to get as many of these as they could. Like it or not, SSG, those Reputation Accelerators are very important to the Quality of Life of your players. Removing them from being barterable upset a lot of your player base. This was a huge negative and your silence on the matter just brought more and more negativity. Reputation gain is now even more important because of 3) below. Currency caps on Landscape bartering is absolutely HOSTILE to your players. (Talking about Landscape Embers quest that are gated by Max Reputation)

3) Currency Caps. Look, we understand you want us to play and be in the game as much as possible. Some of us DO spend a ton of time playing. But you need to respect us. Currency Caps do NOT respect your players. We want to play when we are able to. We want to spend our currencies when we have the time to make the choices on what we want to spend it on. Sometimes we are busy just doing the motions to get the currency, whether it be landscape or universal, while we are just enjoying playing the game! Bringing currency caps into that throws enjoyment off the boat. It becomes a nagging reminder constantly there that then makes you want to stop playing or stop doing what you enjoy in game to then have to make choices on bartering things that you either don't need yet/aren't ready for. This is STILL a major problem. Let us play the game when we want to and let us decide when we will spend our currency without LOSING it due to caps. You really don't know how awful that feeling is for a player seeing that message. If you did you wouldn't have these caps in place. We need empathy for this from you. Currency Caps cause stress and ill feelings. Get rid of them.

4) War-steed changes. I know a lot of the player base hates War-steeds and you guys just wanted to get basic/usable Bridles out there while killing the old ones. But you made a major mistake - you made it so to obtain these bridles you need a currency that is only obtainable ONCE through Region Meta Deeds on playthroughs of the Riders of Rohan expansion. Some people used those Golden Tokens of the Riddermark all up so now they can't obtain a "new" war-steed bridle for that character. Fix the bartering for the bridles so that the currency needed is Silver Tokens of the Riddermark and all will be good. The other thing is that you left off one of the most important stats on the generic bridles for making the clunky-feeling War-steed somewhat manageable - Acceleration Rate. This was something you could put on an old bridle via a Crafted & Barterable relic that made the mounting/dismounting/stopping/starting feel somewhat manageable again.

5) Major/Minor Bugs on Bullroarer. I know you guys want bug reports through your ticket system and over the years we've entered those bugs only to see them ignored. We post on the forums to point out the bugs only to see them ignored. Take this to heart: When we make an effort to try and communicate to you guys on the forums about something on a voluntary server on a forum where we have to take the time to enter all that information in to try and get the point across - PLEASE LISTEN TO US. Acknowledge the bug. Say it's going to be fixed or not fixed.. do SOMETHING. It's so frustrating for us to do this so many times over the years over and over and over.

There are many, SO MANY, more things I could list above but these are more recent things that are fresh in my head and this is already lengthy. The common thread in all of these things is simple: If you had just talked to someone who actually played the game, and I don't mean just anyone but a longtime and experienced player, the communication behind them and the implementation of them could have been so easily fixed.

This is the big sore spot we have with SSG. You make these sweeping Every Day Player Affecting changes without actually trying to see how most of the players would feel about it and then you implement the changes in a poor state, sometimes promising to fix them later and usually not. We've seen this time and time again. All it takes is just talking to an experienced, longtime player to and they can point out a flaw in your plan that you haven't thought of that will cause major headaches for your players. Prevent those backlashes!

Orion, please, I beg you... try to understand how important these things are to your players. Heck I volunteer to just talk to you one on one about this if my point isn't getting across in this post.

Respect your loyal players. That is all we want.

------------------------------------------------

Editing my post here to point out that the below message from Cordovan lacks information on who he was talking to/about. It's not me, it's about messages that he removed from the thread. This is one of the communication problems I didn't list but is one that happens quite often on the forums. Gotta state what you removed/did and address it to those people otherwise others coming into the thread late get confused. I've already had several messages asking me what I did to cause Cordovan to say that.

[Cordovan]

We are NOT going to tolerate personal attacks against employees in this thread. If you have something negative to say, that is probably fine assuming it follows the rules, but calling out specific employees will lead to your immediate removal from the forums. This is your only and final warning.

[DoRonRon]

Well said Chromite. I'm more jaded than you ofc.

EG7/Daybreak have a different demographic in mind as to who is loyal, however.

I'd have to point out the deference made to e-commerce/marketing in so many harming choices.

[DoRonRon]

Seems Orion is a stalking horse for another clear out? Or let him moderate his threads if he want's to learn.

[Bondamar]

First to note on Discord communication vs forums.

I don't think it's ever a bad thing for there to be multiple avenues to communicate. Discord chat channels serve great in the avenue of short form dialogue and interaction. This can be great for certain types of people or for things that don't require a whole lot of depth, though it is certainly difficult to keep up with the amount that is contributed, whatever quality it is and makes harder for me personally to note what has been communicated officially. I feel like that balances out more or less. Where I think people are finding frustration with Discord communication specifically is that they want to be able to contribute and be heard.

Discord is very easy to feel heard when it's simpler for devs to post or respond, acting more like a conversation. So when players post on the forums with no engagement back whether they were asked for their feedback or not, that could lead to a feeling of not being heard and no way to know if they were and ignored or they were speaking to the wind. I think it's this discrepancy that while neither avenue is wrong, it's the feeling that the gap produces for people that use the forums that can become one of frustration. Add the fact that it's a 3rd party space that "feels" like it gets more attention than the official. As an example, I'm sure there is a parallel to draw with players engaging in systems differently and one way being rewarded (or the feeling of such) disproportionally more than the other for no obvious reason. I personally don't mind that interaction occurs in discord and I think it would feel worse for that to be cut off. I just have to solve for myself how I can keep track of the tidbits that are shared, allowing me to fill in more pieces of the puzzle.


Secondly I think what you've stumbled into in terms of community is one that feels like they've been let down or feeling consistently burned for their hope/trust/faith in the company in relation to the experience they have as a player over the years. Whether that be related to content, or changes they didn't like or didn't suit them. As passionate as many are for the game I think it runs deep and shows in their distrust with any communication that is put out. "If I wasn't responded to, it's spiteful or on purpose." I have certainly seen this sentiment of the developers being against them over the years and I'm sure it has only compounded for people. I don't know what there is to do about it at this point and with the resources currently available, I would say that it might just require a trust building journey with the players. Over time as you continue to share what's happening, implement and iterate on it allowing them to see the whole journey from A to Z it can start to alleviate the heavy resistance to any change as they start to feel they can trust again. Might take a lot longer for some than others. There is some pretty deep rooted emotion toward "SSG" for some players.



Now to address the actual question in your post. It's good that it is coming super early, both for design and for players to better digest the changes. I will join in on the Guard discussion once I have time to better distill the essence of the class but I do have some thoughts percolating. What I share here is intended to provide examples of why certain context would be helpful when asking for feedback. In that specific example of Guardian here is what I would like to be better communicated that would help me provide feedback or insight:

-What is the overarching vision for Guardian. Is the theme in the preamble what you want to keep above all or just where it has been? It would be helpful for me if there were a particular vision, or high level idea for what a guards function/flavor is going forward. This lets me be more direct to changes that would support that flavor. In the case of it being left open, this gives a lot more freedom to remain open-ended and can gather broad sentiment, but may be more difficult later on to isolate what should and should not be a part of the guardian.

-How does that theme differ from other classes like champion where some lines tend to overlap and are there internal guidelines to avoid too much similarity in design? For example, the Guard has 80% of what the other tanks have in terms of kit and capability, often making it the most optimal choice in a lot of the content. If it's intended to be the top tank, we would need to see what then becomes necessary for those other tanks to justify being taken, or geared in the first place? If that isn't the intent we then look at what part of the Guard remains core to its tank identity and what seems frivolous to or stacked in favor of Guard.

-You've stated that you want each role going forward to have a distinct flavor and each class to have a dps viable option. Are there similar guidelines here in determining what lines do or do not get integrated with the rest of the class? For example Blue LM is lacking with hints at identity, It could be given more support to be a proper group healer aided by pets. It could alternatively be stripped down and redistributed in to a supplementary line, boosting pet support effectivenes/dps akin to the changes to Brawler/Mini yellow. Just as examples. I can make similar for and against arguments for blue Captain. Having the -how- you are determining this, relatively speaking, even if that is based on feel helps to narrow feedback.

-Are there high level design changes related to gameplay mechanics being discussed? Assuming tanking mechanics remains untouched, I'd look at the flow of the rotation, what capabilities it has and how I would play it best. If there was a change to tanking to move it in line with other MMO's (not something I'm advocating for) in which they require tanks to put out more dps to hold aggro and don't give much option for force taunts, this would directly impact how I would look at the class and how it would work in a new system. I have heard nothing in relation to this and just use it as an example but if there were gameplay elements being tuned or adjusted in which would affect how a class is played, having that context is important.

-What is your design philosophy on player skill and their ability to adapt/improve, and complexity and depth relating to class skills? With a good understanding of that I could better explore and pinpoint what part of the class feels overly simplistic, or overly complex. What feels engaging or impactful. What parts give you extra gameplay options and depth of choice vs what takes away options by being the strongest thing in most scenarios or lacking the tools to make an effective choice otherwise. Specific example: the Brutal Assault skill in red line is a strong skill so you want to use it in a dps rotation, but it requires a long animation to do that damage and apply/refresh the bleed. To optimally fit that in you would use immediate skills with it each time (stamp, Ignore pain) to cut the animation and raise your dps over the long term. It could be this skill purposefully has a long animation to balance it, or just happens to have a longer follow up period. If it had a longer animation with no specific reason, shortening it on the end would make the rotation feel like it flows easier and the feeling on skill-use better overall. However, if there is a reason for the animation duration as it is then players can use the other tools in their kit to adjust it themselves. Depending on it's strength this adaptation allows players to raise their skill expression, doing more with what they have, than someone maybe less experienced on said class. In this basic/non super impactful scenario it is hard to give specific feedback, I would have to cover all the potential options and how they may be good or bad depending on the reason, or lack thereof for the current state. The changes suggested to have one button press roll over into the next skill of a chain, assuming only one exists, would simplify it for someone new to the class without really taking anything away, unless that were coupled with a reduction in options in how you can respond.

-What is your design philosophy on difficulty, what challenge would that provide and how would it affect gameplay? Do you see difficulty as leaning more toward how players utilize what options they have available, the execution of those options or the content that they have to engage with them in? What does that balance look like? This would help to inform my exploration of guard.



A lot of this may be WAY more in depth than necessary. Maybe you don't even want this specific, or amount of, insight from the players, just their experience of it. I also don't know when in designing something it's better to start with parameters that you test the boundaries of, where you can break the rules and where they make sense or if it's better to keep it open ended before establishing those guidelines around what has been created, making my questions less relevant. Where would something like class revamps fall?

Better understanding the design philosophy and context for changes allows the player to sit down with it, understand how it functions and deconstruct it to come upon what is not in line with the goals. Change for change sake while not inherently bad, requires more vigilance at each iteration to see what new things don't feel as good to play and why that's occurred. I guess my question to you Orion is how would you like us to direct and explore the feedback we give? What would effective feedback for the team look like? What are the specific points you hope to understand from our pov? What does the process look like when taking a class through multiple iterations until landing on changes you're happy with?

[CasualActual]

There is some sentiment from players that I interact with in game suggesting that devs aren't playing the game beyond t1 instances and festivals. I think if you guys did a couple of streams doing T3HH or some T4-T5 3 mans, it would go a long way to boost your credibility with the raiding community.

[TesalionLortus]

I thought the latest streams were pretty good and you guys answered a lot of questions. Though sometimes the meaning of some questions may get lost in live format, plus at times it's like you're not even answering the question / missing the point of the question. Or at least it comes across like your reasoning for something is not exactly sound? But only sometimes. So hmm, maybe it would be nice to make a list of questions (maybe the more "elaborate" ones?) and then prepare the stream on rare occasions where you guys discuss these specific things in more detail, already prepared for them beforehand, so you can answer a bit more elaborately. I know, I know... time, time. Time is precious. But maybe sometimes?

My other feedback (though that's probably Cordovan's playing field!) would be creation of more "specific" sub-forums where players can deliver their feedback/ideas - but distinguished from "Player Suggestions". Hear me out, please. Something like "Long Player Suggestions" and "Development Feedback" (class balance wouldn't be a part of it though, to spare you guys the trouble! - the purpose of these additional sections would be to gather the more unique feedback, not create another outlet for something that's discussed pretty much every day with people usually getting very emotional over it to the point where it becomes a chore to read through).

The first one, "Long Player Suggestions", would serve to host ONLY the longer, well-articulated and well-crafted player ideas/suggestions/game prospects. There would be specific rules that state it needs to be constructive, longer, concerning something feasible and - overall - deliver some value/analysis, so it's not just a wish list or day dreaming (example of day dreaming: flying mounts across all the land, which completely ignores the nature of the game and all the underdeveloped terrain that would become visible from the sky in the first place). So no simply expressed unthoughtful ideas, ONLY the very thoughtful ones and with more homework put into them. For example, it might involve an artwork of some kind as good illustration of something a player wants to communicate and provide as inspiration for the devs. Or if the player put a lot of work in their analysis, either with valuable input or a well-constructed pitch of their idea, then this new section would be where it should end up. But the point of this section should be that it *does not turn into an endless wish list of one-liner suggestions* and they're all bigger, more comprehensive things than just a simple "add stable masters to X region" (although, if someone provides an entire long list of stablemasters with well-analyzed new connections that could be made - that's the kind of quality feedback that may be accepted under "Long Suggestions"). So it would be a place that can store potentially valuable concrete ideas and feedback about some of these things, a place that's never confusing nor derailed by endless chaotic wish making. This would be a great way for some of the passionate players to provide some huge inspiration for SSG devs (and for you guys to store it!) and I'm certain this happens sometimes (so it IS possible, this community is very passionate) - I've seen some of such threads, but they're often buried under the pile of everything else... unfortunately. Which doesn't exactly motivates an effort, I guess. Maybe you would get more concrete and even more useful feedback/ideas if there was a special avenue for that? Let your players provide comprehensive feedback without fear that all their effort will be for naught and no one at SSG will notice it after a weekend because there is a bunch of newer threads about nerfing the X thing or restoring the Y thing. Reassure us with such avenue, a special section that accepts only these kinds of threads - so even if you guys are being silent we don't really feel the need to spam you guys with these ideas, because they won't be lost in hundreds of other threads which means they'll be seen at some point.

Second, "Development Feedback" thread would be useful to provide feedback about some of the technical matters or game system faults that aren't exactly bugs (but again, no endless talk about classes and stats allowed). Like, they aren't technically bugs so if I report that as a bug it won't really get fixed - whoever's turn it is to fix the queued bugs, they're just likely to skip it and forget all about it. So instead I can post something like this in this new "Development Feedback" thread and it is more likely to be seen, because the relevant parties can become aware of it. For example, something I posted lately which is technically not a bug but might be relevant to be considered by the devs working on the specific game systems such as lightning and then they can keep that in mind while they're working on things. It's a good example of that kind of specific feedback, no idea whether anyone saw it yet but if that was under a specific thread dedicated to such specific, niche technicalities - more likely the relevant parties at SSG may eventually stumble upon it, so easier for you guys! And a perfect place for me to report it, and I don't need to feel like I should randomly PM to one of you who is active on the forum in hopes you might pass it on to someone relevant.

Both of these would help to address the "exposure" problem. First, it helps you guys to keep track of some of these great ideas and contributions, or game faults and other useful, valuable feedback beyond the usual forum chatter that you may not always care about/have the patience to deal with. It sounds very helpful and respectful of both our and your time: Two sections that all of the devs may be able to take a look from time to time (in peace!) and maybe find inspiration, useful extended information or crucial flaws that require a technical fix and change in the game. Second, it's reassuring for players who want to provide value in some of these under-represented matters - or just more elaborate value in general! For example, I feel bad spamming about things sometimes because even though I know you guys are reading through these threads on occasion... well, I do know you're people and time is not always your ally, so even when you do read these things it's not like you announce it - so players can never tell. Also, imagine the possible frustration if someone put their heart and time into something but their thread is almost immediately gone from view because people have been arguing about things under all these other threads, usually concerning balance and such, also the "one-liner" suggestions (sometimes bizarre) are being posted daily, so there is no guarantee you can even effectively keep track of these things and whether anyone beyond Mol/ Cord/ Scenario is even bothering to deal with any of that chaos (and I wouldn't blame them if they weren't, it's just pure chaos, not easy to get through, and not really valuable or not even interestingly written most of the time). However... if we had two specific threads like I described... that's very helpful and productive.

Give it some thought, Cord.

[Duilyon666]

Last few weeks with all the streams and Q&A sessions have been fantastic for communication. At least in my opinion. There are a lot of negativity around it but myself and others I've spoken to in my kin have REALLY enjoyed those. We DO slightly wish there could be a write up of sorts afterwards but the community usually does that regardless.

Overall keep doing what ya'll are doing currently. Personally I'd also love some overview of what sort of direction you want to take the game in - possibly even what content is in the pipeline. The community has been abuzz since EG7 said something about a graphics revamp and such. No one even knows if that is an actual thing.

On another note - I and a few of my friends have been curious if there will be a re-balancing of the game AT ALL? 1-115 is a completely mindless experience. Even the dungeons are too mindless. Not wanting an EXTREAME difficulty experience but at least be able to try a rotation, do mechanics, and stuff like that.

Regardless, Orion you are doing a pretty solid job at the moment in my opinion.

[Aurora7]

Orion:
Hmmm. It is 11 AM on Sunday morning and you are talking about communications. (Taking time away from this fall's crunch?)

For me, the Lotro video sessions with you and separately with Severlin, along with your comments in the Class forums, are showing a great deal of communication.

Please keep it up.

I am looking forward to the Q4 news letter.

Regards
Aurora7

[Maggwin]

Following up on WeirdJedi's and Chromite's posts

More & Better Communication - some half-baked thoughts

1) Quite often when a group says they want more and better communication, what they are asking for is to not be blindsided by nerfs, be they skill changes, removing items from vendors etc. Some nerfs may have to be dropped on the players without notice but have a coherent explanation ready to go when the nerf hammer falls.


2) Feedback. Either provide some concrete, non-trivial examples of where player feedback has lead to changes or stop asking for feedback and just ask for comments. /grumpy engineer rant - Positive feedback leads to the output going to an extreme, however negative feedback is needed for stability.


3) Vision. We can accept, even if only grudgingly so, that class balance / change is a constant in an MMO. However, you guys must have some sort of plan, strategy or vision for the process. How about sharing that? Right now the changes seem driven by reaction to the way players play/don't play their character and not how can we make the classes play like their description on the character creation screen (which is all a new player has to go on).

[tanlis]

The recent streams. The responsiveness in the forums. The communication in Discord. All of this has been definitely an improvement in the communication.


Areas where I see communication improvement is still needed.

1) Issues/Problems

When there are things like lag or the sign up system is down or other things that have an impact on players. Then there needs to be communication on what the problem is, updates on a possible ETA, and what the fix is(when it is something that is not obvious like making it work again). If there are reasons you can't give us details or acknowledgment of what the problem is, explain to us why.

2) Changes that may be controversial

When you are looking to implement something that may be problematic, get feedback on it early. Or if it's something that has to be done, then explain to us why this has to be done. We may not always agree with the change, but at least if you explain to us why the change must be done, then that gives an official reason. Too often we are left to speculate that it's cause you want to push players to the store. And while I know SSG wants to make money, I don't believe every decision is to squeeze players or to only appeal to the whales. But without explanations, players are left to use that reason and think the worst.

3) Provide a roadmap for refinement to changes

We know that development is iterative and that changes will come over time. But when we see systems like the new LI or the upcoming Delving. We would like to know what the future holds for that system. Maybe nothing is planned, but tell us that. But when we look at certain things, we often are left wondering are things going to be left in an incomplete state or near future things will be done. This is definitely something I'm see more from Orion and OMM, so please continue doing this.


Just some thoughts off the top of my head.

[Sindhol]

What communication do you feel, as payers, is lacking from us? Specifically.

What a good question!

In addition to what Chromite has said above:

(1) Vision.

What actually is a good update? What is a good system? How difficult should the game be? What is the right kind of difficulty? All questions we have no answers to. But hey, these are very difficult and abstract questions! Oh wait--we don't have answers to specific questions, either. What is the purpose of class C or trait line T? How does it achieve its purpose? What is it balanced against? What kind of APM did you have in mind for low-end play? What about high-end play? How much DPS should a red hunter do? What is a good max health/DPS ratio?

Oftentimes, feedback threads bog down in questions like the above. It would be nice to have some parameters. We could even discuss them!

(2) Specificity.

Updates are usually described as "X is now significantly more damaging", which is not very helpful. It should be framed in terms of "We buffed skill X' damage by P%. X should now be better than Y in situation S. We anticipate that because X will see more use, it will now make up 12% of your DPS in S, up from 2%. Y will remain useful in situations T and U, but will fall from 15% to 8% in S. Here's the rotations we used for this comparison:". That's just an example of the level of detail that you could give. I assume you generally know these things (approximately, anyway), you just don't write them down.

In discussions about future updates, you (developers) are reluctant to get into the nitty-gritty questions of balance and especially the meta. Why is ability X +5% and not +7%? What is X balanced against? Is X actually worth using over Y, or even in general? Should X be nerfed or Y be buffed, and by how much? Also: is X fun (20-target Combust, look at them tick!), convenient (blue hunter with 30% FtP and +range legacy knocking out quests or slayer deeds), or powerful (double Disable on a one-boss fight)?

Although vision is important to know what the problem is, we do need to get specific when discussion solutions.

(3) Timeliness.

A lot of the time, it feels like player feedback only gets involved when it's already too late to change anything. For example, Allegiances were announced when they were already more or less done. Early feedback could've pointed out that they're exactly the same as reputation factions with an associated quest line (cf. Central Gondor), and that the interface design is really bad (so is the legendary reward track's, for that matter, and for the same reason), so it probably wasn't worth finishing. But we didn't know, there wasn't anything to provide feedback on, and so we're stuck with what is essentially bloat, a waste of developer time (wasted on the UI, that is--allegiance halls are great).

Getting the community involved takes time, and developer time is scarce. But that scarcity makes it all the more important that you get it right the first time. Measure twice, cut once, and all that.

(It seems that your guardian post is very timely, so that's great!)

(4) Thoroughness.

It's difficult to make classes fun and different. We (developers and players) are, at the moment, stuck with a stupid stat system, a stupid trait system, a stupid aggro system, and a stupid equipment system. (I'll elaborate on why I think they're stupid if you really want. For now, let me just say that I think they're a product of a long history of short-term patches and not anybody's fault in particular, although a fair part of the blame goes to U12.) A lot of class updates feel like they deal with skills and traits only, and adjust those to work around or paper over deeper problems that are left unaddressed.

There are six tanking classes in the game (seven tanking trait lines, since the guardian has two). They are not that different. When it comes to aggro management, for example, they all rely heavily on taunts, because taunts are the best aggro management tool by far. When it comes to defence, the stat system has a clear preference for mitigation- and incoming damage-based defences over block/parry/evade, and a clear preference for percentage buffs over rating buffs (stat caps!). As a result, quite a few tanking classes/trait lines have a bit of an identity crisis--they don't know what they're good for anymore. Sometimes it's just one unique capability that sets a whole class apart from the other tanks.

Overhauling the aggro system could make it possible to distinguinguish the classes, and maybe create niches for some of them. Overhauling the stat system might encourages developers to update each tank class in a different direction, reducing the convergence around high mitigation percentages. These in turn open up the possibility of boss mechanics that can be dealt with in different ways, creating more niches for different tank builds, making each more interesting, more viable, and more fun.

In the long run, thorough redesigns are better than superficial patches. This game has stuck around longer than expected. That long run is going to happen.

(5) Reach.

Because developers are not required to communicate at all, and there's nobody to do it for them, some things just fall by the wayside, pretty much at the whim of the relevant developer. (I used to main a warden, so, y'know... not that I'm bitter or anything...)

Communicating about relevant topics is too important to be left to personal preference. It is unprofessional to do so.


I'm glad you took the trouble to communicate about communication, and I hope these answers are helpful (they are a bit on the ambitious side, but that's intended). I can imagine that starting this topic would've felt like taking a jackhammer to a worm silo, so: kudos!

[Once_of_Bree]

Here's an example of something that should have been communicated. We found out that you (SSG) had implemented a function on the servers that would be going through and doing clean-up of old data and that this would impact server performance for up to 2 weeks for the larger servers. We only found out about this because of a comment during a Dev stream event. This is something that should have been communicated prior. It didn't have to be a detailed technical post, just a heads-up.

Thanks.

Exactly this! Lag is the biggest issue in the game. Running a process that makes it noticeably worse, even for a good reason, without any communication is a terrible idea.
Forums and world chat flood with complaints about lag, people stop playing because they think this is the norm, bad for the players, bad for SSG but a simple message in the launcher and a forum post could have solved all this.
You don't have to explain every decision, you don't have to get consensus on every decision but you have to communicate game impacting actions.

[Degelhil]

What I don't like is the way, Alphas/Betas or development in general are managed. Our feedback is welcome yes - but most of the time it is wasted time to even write a post of a specific problem. Changes are often set in stone and yeah. Why do you need feedback?

Be more transparent to the community and let the community be part of the development. You want to introduce the 45th new system for the game? You don't know if it is a good idea? Why not ask the community before? Changes made by SSG often feel like the complete opposite of changes the community would have thought of. If you were more transparent about big changes to the game, both sides - devs and players - could benefit from each other.

I've personally never seen a poll about something related to future development. Are you scared about spoiling too much?

Don't always work against the players which keep the game alive =)!

P.S. You do a great job, Orion! I am existed about the future.


Greets

[1Asy1]

Communication

The problem with your communication#is it's not the right communication.
- Players have been asking for detail#on changes, updates, and road maps for a long time, when it comes, it's vague or just not there at all.
- The last producer's letter was pretty lackluster, how do you expect players to get excited about a game when there is nothing to get excited about?
- Patch notes, often miss certain changes on BR and Live, this creates a lack of confidence in SSG.
- Lag has literally been a problem for years, how can the player base have any confidence in your communication#that it's being actively worked on!?

The forum#and discord are obviously your main communication devices.

- Can you not advertise in-game asking people to engage in certain discussions - class changes for example?
- If you're making new content why can't you ask the players what they want?
The landscape for example may be a mid-tier area instead of a starter.
Raids, do you want a raid like Rift, OD, Throne, or Remmo or a smaller one like Watcher, Turtle, FOKD.
Instance clusters, do you want XYZ.
- We're thinking about future changes, is it what the players want?

If players are asked for feedback, we give it and it's ignored then we're likely to disengage.

We know you don't have endless resources, but if it's between the Delving System and instance cluster, I know what I'm picking (personal preference).

[why-becauseIcan]

Please focus the communication mainly on forums, and don't spend too much time in toxic Discords. And why are you not doing any polls? Blizzard does that for major changes/new systems etc.. Send out emails, or create polls here on forums. I feel like many systems being implemented, or tweaks being made are not what the vast majority asks for.

[Temelnosce]

Communication. It seems that there is a perception that there has not been a great deal of communication coming from the team here and I am trying to understand the sentiment more completely.

I believe, Orion, that you actually care about the player base, care about LOTRO and want to communicate. Unfortunately, that has not been the case with anyone else at SSG. I can't be specific because the lack of communication is too encompassing. We are often kept completely in the dark and then told of some change right before it's implemented, many times with a message the equivalent of too bad so sad. We ask questions and they either aren't answered or we get a "politician's answer" - some gobbledygook that's supposed to look like an answer but is anything but.

I have been playing, alpha testing, beta testing and sometimes writing manuals for MMO's and single player games for over thirty years. I can honestly say, from my experience, that SSG is one of the most uncommunicative and, at times, downright rude companies I've ever dealt with. It's one of the main reason I no longer play.

[Eloriena]

Thank you for taking the time, Orion
Communication improved a lot over the last few months and especially getting messages like "we know there are issues, we are looking into it", let it be about lags or lost rune-satchels or hope tokens helps to feel seen as a player. Keeping up those small statements will do a lot for me.

I still remember the time during the first longer lag-related shutdown of the gameworlds, where the official communication policy seemed to be "we say nothing until we have something definite to say" instead of "still looking into it, next update in x hours, thank you for your patience" that left me with a feeling of being left alone, kept out of the loop, not being recognized as part of one of the most important part of the game: the player community, that keeps this game going. I hope those times will never come back.

And as lots of other players already mentioned: Complete patch notes, knowing what will come and if feedback will be considered would be a blast

It was really great to hear you say thanks to us players during your last stream.

[Hallandil]

First, I want to thank you for doing trying to converse with your player base about this subject. Communications are a very important thing when it comes to Devs and their Players. I truly believe that you, Orion, want that communication to be better and you are showing your worth by pulling that band-aid of silence off to try to get things improved. Thank you.

Over the years many of us older players have become jaded by being burned so many times with major (and sometimes minor - but player-affecting) Quality of Life or Everyday System changes. Because of that, many players have just given up and have gone into a "throw up their hands in disgust" mode and just feel helpless to try and help make the game we love so much become better. Some will go into disgruntled mode and take their frustration out by making jabs at devs or even fellow players. Some will just go silent on the forums -- This is not a good thing because sometimes some of those players have good information, opinions and help for upcoming and newer players.



One of the problems with some of the communications here is that sometimes your major/minor Systems and QoL changes are done without running it by a longtime/knowledgeable player's "review" before forcing it out there. Some of the changes we've seen have made I and many of my friends go "Why on earth didn't they just ask about this first?" after being forced through. SSG's modus operandi is to not even consider how big of an impact the changes they want to do/have done will affect their longtime and loyal players. Sometimes, a little minor change or communication can ease the pain of the changes the devs want to implement. Too many times we haven't had that.

I'm going to list some examples.

SNIP

Respect your loyal players. That is all we want.

This summarises a core issue with community vs development dynamics and the historical context for it extremely well.

With this established history in mind, it becomes increasingly more frustrating when the players are given very specific means for communication. Specifically having to clamber over one another for the rare chance that Cordovan reads a question of the livestream or finds the thread within the oversaturated forums filled with threads from the same handful of players that pad out a skewed demographic of the player base.

As much as I am trying to be delicate in this phrasing, but when bring questions to livestreams there is a clear lack of knowledge of Lord of the Rings by key SSG representatives that show a clear lack of knowledge and understanding of the 15+ years of content that has been pushed out across the game's lifetime. Now, of course we're all human and no one expects a perfect recount of decisions that were made or having gaps of information from past updates but it does not help when in attempting a dialogue, communication becomes muddle with incorrect information or some perceived notion that "we know better than the player community" especially when referring to past systems.

An example of this is being told that the Skirmish Camp is a "catch-up mechanic" when during 2010-2011 it was the primary method of obtaining instance loot for level 65. Rewards from specific vendors are NOT available from their original instances as the dungeons used to bestow associated medallions/tokens that were made universal during a currency revamp late 2011 at level 75. With multiple changes to itemization tables, that have been changed multiple times and then left stagnant for several years, no longer drop pieces even remotely resembling the ones at the skirmish camps, on top of never even bestowing them directly.
Now whenever Legendary Servers reach level 65 on the progression track, a large portion of rewards are locked away under the pretence of "Earn them from the proper content" when the camp ITSELF was the original method of acquisition.

A similar situation occurred during the original level 85 progression for Anor/Ithil and enough forum activity pushed developers to remove the locks to the Erebor raid pieces, even after incorrect information was posted to the forums by a SSG representative.

Whilst these are just examples, they suggest an underlying attitude problem during discourse between the community and development team. Making attempts to convey problems and feedback to SSG, unnecessarily more difficult and could provide means for many issues within the game to be addressed... if the notion to immediately dismiss player inquiries was placated by certain individuals within Standing Stone Games.

[eldaeriel]

I've really enjoyed the recent Q&A streams and hope that you keep those up.

I think regular communications are really important.

Some more clarity in the announcements would be nice (e.g. what the items are / do / look like for the new expansion pack)

Also some clarity in how new systems / expansions will affect Treebeard / Shadowfax servers - e.g. I'm guessing they won't be getting the Delving system as it seems aimed at lvl 140? but theoretically we are at lvl cap

As others have said, some information on why changes are made are really helpful.

[Neinda]

For the record, there are no "secret" forums. There is one set of official forums and those forums are here. We collect feedback from many other vectors including player discords where we sometimes lurk. I get a lot of my feedback from within the game. All feedback regardless of where it is acquired has merit. The only place with official communications is on these forums.

Question: Several people have indicated they appreciate your updates on Discord and that sounds like a better place to gain information. Is there a LOTRO Discord?

And I would ask you put yourself in my place. The only updates and official information I see or read about are here in the forums. Several people now have commented in a positive way on the discord updates. I am honestly confused now as to where is the best place to get information about the game. If these are the official forums, what are the other places that are getting positive feedback for the updates and responses SSG provides?

Please don't take this as me picking on a specific person. This is all about confusion and frustration for me once again. I am very frustrated with the SSG responses and updates on the forums because I feel they are not as complete and thorough as they could be and other people are talking about the great updates they regularly get on Discord. This is a perfect example of a communication problem between SSG and some of the customer base. While it may be clear as day to SSG where we should get information and updates, it is now clear as mud to me.

Added: Based on the comments here from people on this forum, I recommend the first thing you do is publish a list of all the forums and media you utilize to disseminate information and obtain feedback concerning the LOTRO game. Once people know the appropriate forum to utilize in various situations, maybe the communication issues will be better for more of us. Some people here are very happy but they are getting their information from discord. Others like me are unhappy but I only use this forum because this is the official forum. Maybe publishing a list of the forums you regularly use with links might solve some of the confusion which for me has not led to a positive opinion of SSG as a company. Actually knowing where information will be shared would be an outstanding step toward improving all customer relations.

[DoRonRon]

And yet we still have to squirm to avoid another infraction, no wonder a raider's dis"cord" is a more open discussion to progress things along. Actually used a coda for the first time in years, not since I used it as part of a kite healing build with the Orthanc cluster - finally worth using other than in desperation, which I tend to avoid. No point in saving those buffs when I hardly get to apply one soloing.

Get your own house in order is a term that springs to mind. The DDO crew that moved in never discovered what the game was all about, been faking it ever since, barely even that now. With zero context what hope of understanding? Yet enough about still to fall for the rhetoric, the double team streams to watch each other's back.

[OldMadeOfLions]

I'm not going to hijack Orion's thread, but I do think it's worth saying that if you're rude to people I work with, I'm not going to be as interested in hearing what else you have to say. Videogames aren't discovered in the middle of the woods! They're made by people, and the people who make them want you to enjoy them. If you have suggestions that will make the game better, and you tell us about them without saying we're terrible and don't know what we're doing, we're much more likely to act on it. I know it's not impossible, because over the years there have been lots of things I've seen suggested that I've taken on as stretch goals and incorporated into the game... as recently as this summer, although you'll have to stay tuned to see it.

If you're thinking of responding with 'I should be allowed to insult you, and you're required to act on my suggestions because you're an employee!' let me save you the trouble. We want to make the game better, and we want you to be happy, but if you keep it civil we're better able to do both.

MoL