So Who Saw the Dungeon Keygate Reversal Coming?
Ok fellas raise your hands if you had Thomas Foss and Cryptic pulling a complete 180 on the Dungeon Keygate. I honestly need to rewrite a few blog posts I had lined up. I was totally expecting some sort of half-baked excuse why the change was necessary and that they are sorry and looking into ways to improve chest loot in the future. Because that’s what they’ve always done (Coalgate). I think the only other time they really listened to a major shitstorm was back in Module 2. Originally Astral Diamonds were a hardcoded cost in the refinement system, but after tons of negative feedback they scratched it.
New mentality?
If that’s the first sign of a true change in mentality under Lead Designer Thomas Foss, I take it. If that’s just the community forcing the devs’ hands, I take it as well. At the end of the day it was the only decision that makes sense.
[su_quote cite=”Lead Designer Thomas Foss” url=”http://forum.arcgames.com/neverwinter/discussion/1224554/update-on-the-dungeon-key-change”]We totally put the cart before the horse here. We’re all sorry for the heartache such a half move has caused.[/su_quote]
Now let’s not get carried away here. This is still the same team that pulled the plug on the Gateway without a clear plan how to deal with companions, the gear from Sword Coast Adventures or the profession system. But I understand the Gateway was more of an emergency shutdown while this was a decision between pushing an unpopular change through or not. As many members of the community rightfully stated, this doesn’t make any sense without a full rework of the chest loot system.
This was still a mess
Also, while the final result is adequate, you can pretty mich criticize everything else that contributed to this disaster. I think @damnacious nailed it with the sentiment he posted in the official thread.
[su_quote cite=”damnacious” url=”http://forum.arcgames.com/neverwinter/discussion/1224554/update-on-the-dungeon-key-change”]I think it’s important for the development team to take a good, hard look at how they arrive at decisions like these, particularly with no player base consultation. To date, there has been a rather inordinately large number of instances where ‘changes’ have been made (supposedly) for the better and/or proposed, yet with no consultation and, with extremely poor (almost backward and short-sighted) implementation in general. This process obviously need to change as, every time this sort of thing happens, it doesn’t matter whether you implement what you planned or not, you’ve just lost players which you need not have had to.[/su_quote]
Only the future can tell whether this was just a flash in the pan or the start of a sustained improvement. It’s nonetheless encouraging for various reasons. Thomas went out and clearly stated they made a mistake, which is never easy. More than that it shows that the community can indeed have an impact on decisions. You might not get an answer every time, but voicing your opinion is always the best option.
We challenged the devs and they answered, which deserves praise. Let’s hope they stay true to their words and we’ll never have to post 1,689 comments into a feedback thread again.
They didn’t pull a 180. They tapped the breaks and indicated they’d be taking the upcoming curve at a later date.
Nothing was promised other than additional unspecified changes to the loot table being made at the same time. While this is an iterative improvement on the original slash and burn approach, its not a 180.
The response does make sense. They often let the comments ride for a period of time to let the fury fade on its own. By that time its normally close to time of implementation at which time some adjustment is offered that makes it look like they walked something back a notch, but really isn’t anything more than a tweak.
In this case however the outrage was growing instead of fading. Their silence wasn’t having he desired effect. Guilds were losing members, threads on reddit were starting to warn away new players. It was getting worse.
So now.. they slow it down a bit. They again wait for the anger to subside, and do essentially the same plan at a later date. The intent being to have the same implementation without the outcry.
Hopefully it won’t work. ..and when they bring it up again, say in mod 11, that we provide the same kind of stinging refusal.
oh and damnatious is correct as you stated. Its a mindset set in a spiral of failure.
How many players are going to see these changes in the various gaming news outlets or from gamer talk and say ‘wow, they’re nuking the value of keys in that game and doubling down on the grind. I gotta get me some of that!’
These kinds of decisions will not gain them anyone, yet upsets many, and appeases a few. There really is no upside.
Look at the mount change. They took a stale ‘system’ and implemented changes that added grind.. but also added value, added variation, added content, added to a players ability to use content. It added fun.
Thats the kind of change that needs to be worked on. Not this constant whack a mole nerfing.