Darosh wrote: Sat Sep 01, 2018 6:31 pm
Azarael wrote: Sat Sep 01, 2018 5:57 pm
I'm sorry, but it's how I'm reading it, partly because most of the people doing that hold a more conservative balance/design viewpoint.
If the changes are bad, that's one thing. But complaining about the rate of progress in and of itself?
One leads to the other - take a step back and look at the changes; their frequency, the reverts, the various aspects touched on at once, the conflicts with old changes issued before your comeback.
Then ask yourself what you'd think if you'd see someone operate like that within the first few weeks of getting back to a WIP-environment, how much confidence you'd have in the individuals ability to gauge the impact of w/e is being introduced.
Changes avoidance formulas, changing morale rates, rolling out broad changes to classes (mostly in the drip-down fashion you've spoken out against yourself) and tampering with backend stuff all at once ~ reverting some changes within days if not hours because of initial community backlash or gut feeling(?), others because you didn't inquire as to what you are changing is a default state or has already been revised (e.g.: Engi magnet). Furthermore, ducttape fixes like the strikethrough approach or the change to buffs to circumvent the mess that is the stacking hierachy. Also, conflicting and contradictory statements - e.g.:
You dislike spellbreaker being entirely dependant on a tactic, turn around make two masteries entirely dependant on one tactic (2h requires Violent Impacts to be remotely playable Violent Impacts, ST dw requires Violent Impacts to make the new filler in Trollslayer [PA] useable to begin with).
There are things you didn't see behind the scenes.
Firstly, I came back partly because of client control and partly in response to
long-standing complaints about the state of RoR - gleaned during my time in the background since roughly the time of the code leak to the time where I rejoined.RoR.
The following were part of that:
- Disrupt / avoidance rates (which were reverted to what worked during my time - NOT to something original, and I did experiment with a renown passive to oppose the defense gained from a renown passive as well, which was perfectly valid)
- Morale (which was changed to work exactly like live - which I had been roundly criticised over not doing when I was the project lead in 2015/2016 - and again, nothing original here)
On broad changes to classes: The community is polarized on that and I don't view that as a battle that can be won. Some people will support it and some people will oppose it. You opine that I will eventually ruin the game and go back on myself in the end. I disagree - look at Archmage/Shaman. What is that if not a refinement of the old experimental mode? How much, exactly, have I gone back on, when you compare all of the changes that have ever been made? And would you prefer it if I simply didn't go back on myself and let it stand? It's almost as if you don't understand the necessity of experimenting with ideas, and the importance of being flexible. The difference between RoR and an established game is that I don't have the luxury of a test team behind the scenes to filter all this out from your eyes. It gets done on live, and problems that I don't anticipate get hotfixed - and quickly - as a result.
I think on that point, the proof will be in the pudding. I certainly see no reason to stop simply because people have a
feeling it won't end well. If I see a problem that's crystallized and should be tackled, or a useless skill, or something else, then it will be dealt with, and any resultant problems from that will be dealt with as well. The mindset of not creating secondary problems led to garbage like Inevitable Doom being the go-to ST and AoE skill on Slayer.
As for the backend - that's part and parcel with the above. If you like, I can avoid "tampering" with the backend (how pejorative considering I originally wrote most of what I'm changing). But if you don't want me to adjust the backend, you will never see certain issues fixed. I do not wish to ignore the metaphorical burning kitchen in favour of saving the roof. The core has issues, and I will work on those as well.
On my personal preferences: That's an uncharacteristically weak point. I have expressed opposition to mandatory tactics. I have expressed opposition to them specifically where they form part of every single build on a class. Yes, having a tactic that is mandatory for ST builds on Slayer is not great. But I will, happily, take that over a given tree being weak, and there is no contradiction: I can dislike a concept
and still support/use it. I would be a tool if I weren't capable of that. Hell, there's even an argument for making the base mechanic work like Violent Impacts does.
I also see nothing wrong with what I did on Envenomed Blade/Fervor either, by the way. Reworking the stacking system would cause major, and unnecessary, problems elsewhere in the game, and if you can cleanse a basic, stacking DoT skill from a class that can just as easily spec a build to try to kill you faster with burst damage, what's the point? The problem was specific to WH/WE, and so I solved it on WH/WE. I will support that wholeheartedly and without reservation.
You seem, in this case, to criticise progress because it is not perfection.
One final point and I made it a while back: This effort, and the major parts of it specifically, will not last forever. There are only a limited number of classes that have issues big enough to justify a rework. At this point the only ones that definitely should get one are KotBS and Chosen (on auras) for reasons that should be obvious to everyone, and the only ones that should optionally get one are DoK and WP (on melee). Nothing else needs reworking.