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General Issues, Battle Spirit, and other items. - Too much all at once. Bad prioritization.
Jameson18
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The change to battle spirit should have possibly waited until people were able to test the new CP? I understand there are multiple weeks and patches in the testing round.
However, from the perspective of someone who manages multiple companies and businesses:
Why is the focus not on directly identified outlying issues rather than complete system changes?
Why is there such a deficiency in the identification of root cause and effect? Should there not be 8D/5Y analysis methodology utilized by such a large scale/upper class company? Is this industry not subject to the same quality and performance standards as most others? Is there at least internal communication on corrective and preventative action requests and completions? Communication to the customer base is at what seems to be an all time low. Which is a bit out of character for something Matt is involved in. (I've followed him across several games.) And yes - at the end of the day, it is a customer base. Not a player base.
What happened to the year of performance? Where are the server updates? Why does performance smooth out during MYM? Also take note, those smooth outs on performance during MYM did not filter into PVE areas either. In fact, folks waiting in queues and around BG camps made the PVE areas more congested. (This is coming from 400meg internet that tests at 473 down/27 up and a solid state hard drive.) This type of inconsistency in delivering promised priorities to a customer base normally leads to a decline in purchase order/subscription intake. If you haven't actually seen one already, you likely will by 3rd/4th quarter at the rate the game is generating negative buzz. Once that mounts to a certain point, it will be difficult to recover from.
Bursting content to grab new players, mostly briefly as most simply quit not too far in, is not a solid model for cash flow development and product longevity. Prioritization is way out of whack. Too many sweeping changes happen at once, mostly mitigating or nullifying other changes and nothing is actually being accomplished. Content feels unfinished (Companions, CP etc.), and performance continues to take hits.
Edit this, block or lock it, whatever you will most likely do. That's fine. I'll most likely lose my forum account over this, but it needs to be said and addressed. This isn't intended to be some flame post. Its intended to ask the hard questions and hopefully jog some kind of actual response with calculated detail and planning. But, its a forum post, so that's not likely as it will likely see dogpiling and trolling. I understand that.
So many of us truly love the aspects of this game. For many more, its not the same game they fell in love with. The gameplay has changed drastically. Multiple times. It may not look like it on a spreadsheet, but it sure does feel like it when you're playing it. Communication needs to be prioritized.
Solutions?: I don't have anything concrete to offer. Nor would I. Everyone has their opinions and bias. Most posts are from folks posting about their own issues on their favorite toon etc. It's going to be tough to sort through the constant debris to find tangible feedback for actual systemic issues at times. But that's with just about any industry right now.
Suggestion?: Communicate with your customer base. Give more plans, details, and requests. Require more in order to maintain play on the test server. Develop a stronger and more stringent class representative system. Follow it.
Outline what's needed from folks on PTS rather than just watching a few streamers or looking at posts from loud social media lovers posting unfounded fotm "data" that lacks real live play scenario context. Implement something more on PTS. Require people to actually test things. Even if its something similar to endeavor rewards etc. etc.. Make a checklist. Make them utilize changes in different scenarios for the desired focus of each week and actually report data back. I realize there are things like this "in place". Lack of utilization is the whole reason it needs to be more firmly required or enforced in regards to participation.
It's 2021. There's no reason not to require submittals of gameplay captures and combat logs to prove testing and collect proper data. Actual data also needs to actually be reviewed as well.
More efficiency and detail in testing will lead to better product without requiring extensions, delays, or unfinished, unbalanced, or bugged releases.
We all know its been a tough last year and a half. Most everything is rounding itself back out now again. Now's the time to make a plan. Outline phases of that plan. Stay focused and stay the course.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading.
However, from the perspective of someone who manages multiple companies and businesses:
Why is the focus not on directly identified outlying issues rather than complete system changes?
Why is there such a deficiency in the identification of root cause and effect? Should there not be 8D/5Y analysis methodology utilized by such a large scale/upper class company? Is this industry not subject to the same quality and performance standards as most others? Is there at least internal communication on corrective and preventative action requests and completions? Communication to the customer base is at what seems to be an all time low. Which is a bit out of character for something Matt is involved in. (I've followed him across several games.) And yes - at the end of the day, it is a customer base. Not a player base.
What happened to the year of performance? Where are the server updates? Why does performance smooth out during MYM? Also take note, those smooth outs on performance during MYM did not filter into PVE areas either. In fact, folks waiting in queues and around BG camps made the PVE areas more congested. (This is coming from 400meg internet that tests at 473 down/27 up and a solid state hard drive.) This type of inconsistency in delivering promised priorities to a customer base normally leads to a decline in purchase order/subscription intake. If you haven't actually seen one already, you likely will by 3rd/4th quarter at the rate the game is generating negative buzz. Once that mounts to a certain point, it will be difficult to recover from.
Bursting content to grab new players, mostly briefly as most simply quit not too far in, is not a solid model for cash flow development and product longevity. Prioritization is way out of whack. Too many sweeping changes happen at once, mostly mitigating or nullifying other changes and nothing is actually being accomplished. Content feels unfinished (Companions, CP etc.), and performance continues to take hits.
Edit this, block or lock it, whatever you will most likely do. That's fine. I'll most likely lose my forum account over this, but it needs to be said and addressed. This isn't intended to be some flame post. Its intended to ask the hard questions and hopefully jog some kind of actual response with calculated detail and planning. But, its a forum post, so that's not likely as it will likely see dogpiling and trolling. I understand that.
So many of us truly love the aspects of this game. For many more, its not the same game they fell in love with. The gameplay has changed drastically. Multiple times. It may not look like it on a spreadsheet, but it sure does feel like it when you're playing it. Communication needs to be prioritized.
Solutions?: I don't have anything concrete to offer. Nor would I. Everyone has their opinions and bias. Most posts are from folks posting about their own issues on their favorite toon etc. It's going to be tough to sort through the constant debris to find tangible feedback for actual systemic issues at times. But that's with just about any industry right now.
Suggestion?: Communicate with your customer base. Give more plans, details, and requests. Require more in order to maintain play on the test server. Develop a stronger and more stringent class representative system. Follow it.
Outline what's needed from folks on PTS rather than just watching a few streamers or looking at posts from loud social media lovers posting unfounded fotm "data" that lacks real live play scenario context. Implement something more on PTS. Require people to actually test things. Even if its something similar to endeavor rewards etc. etc.. Make a checklist. Make them utilize changes in different scenarios for the desired focus of each week and actually report data back. I realize there are things like this "in place". Lack of utilization is the whole reason it needs to be more firmly required or enforced in regards to participation.
It's 2021. There's no reason not to require submittals of gameplay captures and combat logs to prove testing and collect proper data. Actual data also needs to actually be reviewed as well.
More efficiency and detail in testing will lead to better product without requiring extensions, delays, or unfinished, unbalanced, or bugged releases.
We all know its been a tough last year and a half. Most everything is rounding itself back out now again. Now's the time to make a plan. Outline phases of that plan. Stay focused and stay the course.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading.
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