Easy on the devs.

Hendross

So much anger directed at (dev)elopers, I myself am a developer and feel a little empthetic. Everyone must realize it's the combined efforts or lack thereof, from; Management, Marketing, Business Analysis, Project Mangers, and Quality Assurace (I know there's none) among others that have royally f'd many aspects of the game recently and don't seem to be stopping.

In all actuality developers have little to no impact on functional requirements, their responsibity is technical design, implementation and unit testing.

So please spread the hate a little more evenly. Thanks.

Unknown

Everyone you mentioned is the development team.

Edit: Sorry, apart from marketing, all of them are in a team unknown to anyone else except for marketers.

Hendross

MarCr wrote:

Everyone you mentioned is the development team.

Edit: Sorry, apart from marketing, all of them are in a team unknown to anyone else except for marketers.

I beg to differ. Grouping these roles...that's grounds for a beating.

Unknown

I think the general emotion is one of frustration rather than hate.

The use of the word "devs" is more of a generic word for the team responsible for the whole game. If management or marketing are responsible then we have no visibility of that. We just get the communication handed down from people who may fall into any of the groups that you mention. We then voice our opinion. If the guys are truly developers, and the decisions are made elsewhere, then they know that the frustration is only directed at them as they are the figureheads and only visible face of that organisation. However, until the "organisation" give us a degree of clarity, then those "devs" are the only outlet that we have.

Scoregasms

Unfortunately, there has to be some outlet/focus for the frustrations folks see in the game. There have been moments where people did call out those specific groups you refer to and Will actually came out and stated to direct all that frustration/anger at him directly and not these other groups. There has to be some entity that takes ownership of changes, yes, there may be a lot of different people involved, but that's why they pay some people the "big bucks" to manage and own these changes. Devs is just that target for us, it's not a crack at any specific code monkeys per se, but the group that owns and directs the changes for this game.

PorkBelly

Why?

The developers have a terrible track record for making changes to the game.

I started just after the original Ragnarok nerf so I can't speak to that one.

They have made exactly 2 positive changes to the game since I started playing.

1) The original implementation of shields (which they have since screwed up) and

2) The rework of X-Force which (if the rumors are true) they are planning on screwing up as well.

Every single other change has been one that has negatively impacted the game, in my opinion.

So, if anything, the player base on the forums have been overly patient with the developers of this game.

Unknown

I feel bad for them. I don't doubt they are doing the best they can with the resources available to them. I also think they have a tough rap - grow revenue and keep the players happy, sooner or later in any F2P venture it becomes impossible to do both. I also think the forums have become an echo chamber and - particularly over the last 2 weeks - have become increasingly hostile towards the devs. I totally understand the reasons - to be honest I'm as frustrated as anyone with some of the recent stuff - but I really empathise with the poor guys.

If you work for D3P and are reading this, I guess all I want to say is, don't let any of it get on top of you, it's just a job, and it's just a game, and all anyone can ask of you is that you do your best with what is available to you. Don't let all the negativity affect you personally, life is too short!

bknfoodie

Who's the VP or department head of MPQ? If you have their email address/phone number, I'm sure we can adequately direct our opinions their way.

d0nk3y

Hendross wrote:

MarCr wrote:

Everyone you mentioned is the development team.

Edit: Sorry, apart from marketing, all of them are in a team unknown to anyone else except for marketers.

I beg to differ. Grouping these roles...that's grounds for a beating.

I second that. Where I work, it tends to go like this... BA says income is dwindling but usage is up, Management decides on an altered direction, Marketing devises and makes public wild promises and sets unreasonable deadlines, Project Managers are assigned to hold countless meetings and botch nearly all parts of managing the project due to a lack of operational knowledge, Ops and Engineering (the devs, in this case) keep it all together and make it ready for launch just before the deadline but with barely enough time for adequate testing. It goes live to the customers who identify everything from glaring oversights to infinitesimally rare corner cases, all of which filter back up to Ops and Engineering to isolate and resolve.

All these groups are worlds unto themselves. I guess a good visual would be the Olympics logo - 5 spheres of influence that only overlap for brief moments - and some never touch.

Nooneelsesname

PorkBelly wrote:

Why?

The developers have a terrible track record for making changes to the game.

I started just after the original Ragnarok nerf so I can't speak to that one.

They have made exactly 2 positive changes to the game since I started playing.

1) The original implementation of shields (which they have since screwed up) and

2) The rework of X-Force which (if the rumors are true) they are planning on screwing up as well.

Every single other change has been one that has negatively impacted the game, in my opinion.

So, if anything, the player base on the forums have been overly patient with the developers of this game.

I disagree.

I haven't been playing as long as you but even in that shortened period of time I have seen a number of very positive changes.

8 hour refreshes for PvE.
DDQ, aside from the current missing taco snafu.
The Loki third power. He's now my favorite character in the game. Which is great because there's no argument that he's the best character and op but he's useful and so much fun to play.
The Doom third power.
Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Kamala Khan, Cyclops, Prof X.
The dev's increased communication, availability and openness to personal accountability.
Full HP refunds for covers purchased that are changed within 30 days. I would bet that that had to be fought for.

There's probably others that I'm not thinking of. There's also been some terrible stuff especially extremely recently that I've been vocal about. The PvP changes. The uncertainty about whether HP expenditures will be made useless by nerfs not covered by the 30 day policy. Missing tacos and other stored tokens.

And some stuff I haven't said anything about like how until the introduction of KK there were as many dinosaurs playable in the game as women of color. Gamora, She Hulk and Mystique don't count. Psylocke doesn't really count, though you'll have to go to Wikipedia to understand why. The game has a diversity issue (because the source material has a diversity issue) but that's probably a whole 'nother thread.

So there's been good and bad, and we talk about the bad a lot more than the good. So yes, we probably should go easier on the devs, but the devs should fix the bad stuff and the only public way we have of expressing that is negative forum posting.

It's also safe to assume that they're working on something big coming up that has the potential to be spectacular. Fingers crossed. And toes. And everything else crossable. We really want you to do well. And we want you to do better.

PorkBelly

Nooneelsesname wrote:

I disagree.

I haven't been playing as long as you but even in that shortened period of time I have seen a number of very positive changes.

8 hour refreshes for PvE.
DDQ, aside from the current missing taco snafu.
The Loki third power. He's now my favorite character in the game. Which is great because there's no argument that he's the best character and op but he's useful and so much fun to play.
The Doom third power.

I'll give you DDQ, that was another good improvement. Doom's 3rd power was also an improvement but nothing that really affected gameplay in a large way. And why release 3* characters with only 2 powers anyway?

Keep in mind when they switched PVE refreshes to 8 hours from 2.5 hours, they were fixing something they had already previously broken. When I started playing, most PVE refreshes were on a 12 hour refresh.

Loki also debuted with a 3rd power which the developers nerfed/eliminated. So, again, fixing something they had previously screwed up.

Everything else you mentioned are the release of new characters. That's fine and it's a primary driver of income for the developers which I don't begrudge them. However, there have also been a number of useless characters released during the same time (Beast!). But I don't really consider the release of new characters to be a "change" in the game.

JamieMadrox

The problem with the OP's argument is that in the case of this game the guys designing the characters and making changes to them are the devs. Casey, Will, Miles, etc. They all design and develop the characters. They also determine who should be changed and what those changes should be. I'm sure they get input from other departments, in fact I know that they do, but I also know that they don't necessarily have to do anything with the characters based on that input.

PorkBelly

PorkBelly wrote:

2) The rework of X-Force which (if the rumors are true) they are planning on screwing up as well.

It's actually worse than I thought it would be.

GuntherBlobel

Hendross wrote:

So much anger directed at (dev)elopers, I myself am a developer and feel a little empthetic. Everyone must realize it's the combined efforts or lack thereof, from; Management, Marketing, Business Analysis, Project Mangers, and Quality Assurace (I know there's none) among others that have royally f'd many aspects of the game recently and don't seem to be stopping.

In all actuality developers have little to no impact on functional requirements, their responsibity is technical design, implementation and unit testing.

So please spread the hate a little more evenly. Thanks.

I wouldn't say "spread the hate..." I'd say: It's ok to upset, but these are people too. They have a job to do just like you do. We all expect to be critiqued in our jobs. But we don't expect hate mail.

grunth13

Players PLEASE. Someone has to have a job like Barney from How I Met your Mother.


Provide
Legal
Exculpation
And
Sign
Everything

Unknown

It's really disgusting how they have no problem constantly changing their game after taking our money and time investment. At least put up a disclaimer to noobs letting them know they are stupid for giving D3 a cent.

Arondite

Hendross wrote:

So much anger directed at (dev)elopers, I myself am a developer and feel a little empthetic. Everyone must realize it's the combined efforts or lack thereof, from; Management, Marketing, Business Analysis, Project Mangers, and Quality Assurace (I know there's none) among others that have royally f'd many aspects of the game recently and don't seem to be stopping.

In all actuality developers have little to no impact on functional requirements, their responsibity is technical design, implementation and unit testing.

So please spread the hate a little more evenly. Thanks.

He said, right before these very devs f***ed us raw.

TLCstormz

Why should ANYONE cut them any slack? They are doing a job and getting PAID MONEY. lol. If people think they are doing a horrible job at it.....it's their right to complain.

Don't ask people to stop or expect them to, instead spread positivity about them, yourself

snlf25

Why cut the devs a break? They are systematically and with malice of forethought **** ruining something we are very passionate about and they don't even listen to anything we say whether we are passionate or clinical in our disagreements. Many of these recent changes are just terrible and they seem bound and determined to find new ways to break this game and drive us away. I get the feeling it wont be long before this game gets shut down because while noobs by and large are stupid (we all were) even they can see the very real clear-cut flashing neon Do Not Spend Any Money On This Game sign. And the vets and whales? Good luck getting any of us to drop any scratch from this point forward. You know how games like Candy Crush make more that the GDPs of half the countries in the god damned world every year? By not moving the bar for the worse all the damn time, by not changing the parameters of in-game product paid for with real money and by not pissing off their customers. The only thing I can think of that motivates these type of changes is the reports didn't show enough revenue coming from health packs last year. Everybody who works in the corporate world knows you have to have your TPS reports right.

Druss

Why?

If I screw up at work I get grief

Of course, I would be expecting the sack for gross incompetence in this instance.