@TheArtofRawr , @MichaelMayhem , @Asros
I’m posting this in its own thread because, frankly, its ginormous and I didn’t want to clutter the already existing 52-page one. Also, because it is ginormous, it requires two posts and I didn’t want to risk someone else posting something in the middle and breaking it up.
And fair warning, in case I forgot to mention it, this post is ginormous. You have been warned.
Part I
My first reaction to the second Dev Blog was that it was a huge, steaming dump right in the middle of the dinner table. After reading the vast number of questions from other players and the few answers we’ve gotten, considering all aspects of the situation and sleeping on it, now I just think it’s a turd in the punchbowl. Before I get into specifics though, let me touch on a couple of generalities.
A lot of people have said to have faith in Gaz, but frankly that won’t cut it. Faith is the belief in something for which there is no proof, and in the face of changes so vast, sweeping and all-encompassing a little proof is called for. Instead of faith, I say have confidence. They’re the professionals, they understand game design in general and this system in particular far better than any of us ever could and they love the game just as much as we do (plus, it pays their bills), so they certainly don’t want anything but the best for it. Yes, they’ve made their share of mistakes but they’ve scored a few homeruns too. Try to keep that in mind and give them the benefit of a reasonable doubt.
A reasonable doubt. But dropping a massive change like this on everyone with little to no real data to give it context is not reasonable. The whole process of disseminating this information to the players thus far has been, frankly, haphazard at best. I get that what looks like a lame duck now might just become a golden goose once we have all the details, but if that’s the case then spreading those details over four Dev Blogs, each spaced a week or two apart isn’t going to win any friends but it’s certainly going to influence people. This is a heavily intertwined and interdependent set of new systems, and the fragmented and overly simplified way it’s being presented to us is practically begging for torches and pitchforks. No Blog should have seen the light of day until all were ready; it’s like removing a band-aide from a hairy body part, you know it’s going to hurt so you do it all at once to hurry up and get to that ‘breath of fresh air’ feeling that comes afterwards.
A lot of people have stated the opinion that this or that change somehow invalidates this or that thing they’ve done or makes it a waste of time. As has been said before, this is simply not true. We’ve all devoted time and energy (and maybe even real money) into playing and enjoying the game a certain way. And we did, we played it that way and we enjoyed it. None of the changes they’re making (or even that they’re capable of making) can take that away from any of us, we’ll still have our memories and awesome/cool/funny stories. Whether any of us will enjoy the game nearly as much going forward as we did up to this point, well that’s something we’ll each have to decide for ourselves.
Which is very hard to do with no more information than we’re being given, especially in the second Blog. By way of comparison, the first Blog was solely about characters and their powers. It was 2451 words long and discussed Power Points, Talents, Traits, new Ultimates and the reduction to one Action Bar vs. doing away with Specializations, Toggles, shared Cooldowns, etc. The second was about changes to every item and item-related system in the game plus how the new Omega bonuses would affect powers. It was 1169 words long (just under half the size) and while replacing Power Points on Uniques and moving boss-specific items away from Slots 1-5 were mentioned, basically boiled down to “We’re replacing Uniques with Omegas, the end”. Loot tables, Medkits, Crafting changes and Cybernetics were glossed over as being “reviewed and updated”, but not expanded upon. Artifacts, Medallions, Rings, Relics, Insignias, Legendaries, Costume Cores, Item-based Achievements and RIF/SIF weren’t even mentioned. Some of these, as well as better management of item budgets and power creep, Summoner gear and the future of rare/chase items, had been specifically asked about and we were told that many if not most of our questions would be answered by the second Blog. They were not. In fact, far more questions were raised, especially thanks to the extremely poor mock up examples of Omega gear we were shown. I understand that the actual items are still in development so some form of placeholder was required but was that really the best that could be done? If you want to wow people and create hype, you should come up with the coolest stuff theoretically possible under the new system you’re implementing and showcase that (along with the disclaimer that it’s just for example purposes, of course). But all showing off half-hearted Photoshops of the lowest common denominator will do is engender rage and fear-mongering, which is exactly what it did.
A lot of people are saying “there’s no point speculating now, wait until it hits Test Center (or even live) and see how it really works”, and there’s certainly wisdom in that. However, there’s also a certain degree of naïveté as well. Clearly, things are still in the design stages right now, everything is still in flux, so to speak, so our feedback and input is more important now than ever. Once it hits Test Center it’ll be so far along and so many resources will have been put into it that making any truly significant change will be all but impossible. If you work construction and are tasked with putting up a new office building, would you rather find out you’ve got the wrong block when you’ve just started clearing for the foundation or right before you put the roof on? To quote Captain America in Civil War: “If I see a situation heading south I can’t ignore it”. Nor should we.
With that being said, the fine folks at Gaz have an unparalleled tendency towards actually listening to the players, which is good but can easily become a double-edged sword. Remember the Emma Frost debacle, where a small subset of players pushed their agenda hard enough and loudly enough to convince them to make her utterly overpowered, which then forced them to severely nerf her back in line, angering nearly everyone who played her. Always remember that any feedback (including mine) is only from a vocal minority of the forum populace, which is in turn a vanishingly small minority of the actual player base and statistically speaking people only tend to raise their voices when they’re unhappy or want something or both. People who are satisfied are content to remain quietly satisfied while those who aren’t are very vocal in their dissatisfaction. What that means is, while none of us speak for the majority, unfortunately we’re the only ones speaking so we should do so responsibly. Certainly, if we like or don’t like something we should tell the Devs, but we always need to be prepared to explain why we do or don’t like it in objective terms and to understand that the greater good of the game is always going to trump our individual (or collective) desires.
A lot of people who are angry over the proposed changes seem to feel that the time, energy and resources devoted to them would have been far better spent developing more zones, more raids, more content, and wonder where the promised ‘quality over quantity’ is. Well, not to put too fine a point on it but its right here, this is it. Bottom line, the current framework just doesn’t work anymore. There are so many awkward, unwieldy and inefficient systems working at cross purposes under the surface that they can’t even properly balance and bugfix the content we already have, how well would any new content fare? If you want to build a house on the beach, you could just slap something together knowing that in a year or two years or maybe even six months the shifting sands will tear it down again or you could take the time and put in the effort to lay a proper foundation so that what you’ve built will last. This is that foundation. Instant gratification (i.e. “we want more content now!”) is, by definition, quantity. Taking the time to make sure the necessary groundwork is laid (i.e. “we want to make sure that when we do create more content it's better and more fulfilling and holds up longer”) is, by definition quality. Ergo, this is them keeping their promise.
Now that that’s out of the way, let’s look at what we know or can surmise about the Unique/Omega situation, because after all that’s the only piece of item related information we’ve been given.