LM debuff bug, based on mob classification?

[dhatcher1]

Orion's not your problem. He earned a TON of respect from me 3 years ago during a very candid conversation about PvP. He's clearly not part of The Problem.

Orions blog on mylotro has a nice quote about why devs shouldnt give too much information to players, and he has been rather coy and suggestive with some of his answers on game mechanics questions. Thats why I use him to contrast with Raskols very clear and detailed explanations of how things work and what the possibilities are for fixes. I dont think Orion is a bad dev, but I strongly disagree with his philosophy of giving the players a black box to figure out for themselves and very much appreciate Raskol's transparency when it comes to mechanics, mob behaviors and his capabilities to resolve unpleasant situations. Like any game, if one person understands the rules better than another then they have an advantage. The more open the development team is about game mechanics, the more level the playing field for all the players.

I would say that any actual or perceived problems that are not getting the attention they deserve has very little to do with the Devs specifically, but based on the general decision-making process handed-down from upper management. Turbine's Dev staff has always, to me, been very good about giving their all and caring about the projects. It's upper management who ultimately have been making some questionable decisions.

I agree there. I've not figured out how many decisions get made. Generally I think a strong, active manager/team with a vision of what product should be is the best way to keep a piece of software from evolving into an entangled mess. Some of what I see makes me think that there is no real central command and various groups make various changes without anyone having a strong concept of what the overall game will end up like when they are combined together. Its typical of what happens in a business when upper management is hands-off and you have multiple middle managers in control of different areas making effectively independent decisions.

[john_anthony]

various groups make various changes without anyone having a strong concept of what the overall game will end up like when they are combined together

very well stated. they have a long-standing systems integration problem. everyone works in their silo, but the people who are supposed to consider how different silos interact either don't understand the technical stuff, don't care, or are focused on other things. it's a management challenge that is particularly prominent in tech companies.

the ridiculous physical vs tactical dps imbalances at the launch of moria and the debuff problem being discussed in this thread, as well as many of the biggest issues over the last two years, all stem from this same problem. there's a lack of systems integration capability, an inability to figure out the big picture of how all the separately-designed moving parts will fit together.

when one team was redesigning the combat formulas for mirkwood, a manager who oversaw multiple teams should've been in charge of figuring out how this change would impact all the other teams' work. that manager would've been responsible for asking questions such as: "mirkwood changes the damage formula in this way; which other features take advantage of the damage formula and how will these changes impact them?" if that had happened, the debuff bug would've been caught.

anyway, you're absolutely right that the rask/transparency policy is absolutely the way to go. that's doubly the case if they have problems with systems integration in house -- a transparent explanation of mechanics and changes to the forums audience allows us to help them see the bigger picture. with the details available to the forums audience, there's a much higher chance of someone asking the right question about how to elements will interact, and maybe spotting one of these problems before it gets out of control.