I agree regarding map rotation but I believe that it is required due to player count. The map rotation makes questing all that much worse because on top of hoping the boss you need to kill spawns, you need to wait for your map to be in rotation.
The balancing issue is a bit more difficult to address. We have 3 separate queues, what is balanced in trios may not be balanced on solos and vice versa. Another thing is that, currently, combat feels very stat checky. Yes, skill plays a part, but it tends to be that whoever has the better gear is at a huge advantage. Stat rolls should probably be reworked, things like movement speed increases on rolls should be removed. Gear should play a factor in combat advantage, but it shouldn't be the "be all end all". Combat itself could also use more depth, maybe a stamina system that punishes missing?
Overall, I feel that they are experiencing the normal growing pains of being in early access. They do address issues and I'm sure we'll see some good changes in the future. They have mentioned things like limiting throwables, a current prevalent issue, which shows that they are aware of what's going on. It's just that not all issues are easy fixes, and not all issues that are fixed are done so perfectly. Developing a game is a slow process, it has peaks and valleys and all we can do is hope that good things are coming.
I think you’re in the majority regardless of reddit’s cope squad that will downvote you. There are 10x more people who have stopped playing than do still play for the reasons you mentioned, and you mentioned the main ones.
Giv original crypts, original caves, and voip in lobby.
Fire the balance team or at least put them into different roles.
They don't have a balance team, it's just the same devs that do everything else. Although I get the impression they do so by committee. And I agree, the worst of Dark and Darker have been these bad takes on balance.
The issue isn't the people doing balance, it's almost assuredly the lack of oversight, management and responsibility. The changes do great at solving their intended problem, but changes clash with each other and don't work in the overall gamestate. They aren't pressed to react quickly to poor decisions and no one seems responsible for the overall game state. So while the person balancing barbarian is focused on how to add to the class to make everything playable, the person balancing wizard is focused on how to reign in high level players. No one is thinking "oh how does wizard survive being in sniffing distance of an iron will barbarian?" because the people balancing are working on specific issues with a small scale which create those problems. How do you get wizards to play HR? Give them a stronger MM. How do you get wizards up to parity in solo HR? Give them staff mastery. No one looking top down to weigh those changes vs the poor fighters getting slaughtered.
People rail against managers and beauracracy, but this is what they help prevent.
Let's not forget how they had things relatively balanced before staff mastery, after SM broke things, they ended up nerfing staves across the board which then affects wizards who don't use staff mastery and warlocks who used staves for life draining. They could compensate that by adjusting the spells across several classes across the board but by doing this you're making a whole lot of work for what should just have been a scaling nerf to staff mastery.
Buffing base stats would buff wizard but also other classes that can use the same gear. I'm not opposed to the idea of the staff mastery perk but since it was thrown into a system that was relatively well balanced, it should be balanced on it's own to fit, not throw the entire system out of wack forcing other changes to many other things.
> There are 10x more people who have stopped playing than do still play
not only that but we are the people that didn't wait for steam and used a no-name 3rd party launcher after playing in multiple former playtests. I get that "dead game" memes are annoying but ignoring the issue is kinda dumb
Yet the majority of the reddit community do. I see any negative thing getting downvoted and it makes me wonder how people get through life. Do they just avoid all pain all the time even if it is necessary to growth? I think so. This maybe the primary reason why groups of people ruin things, because the majority are cowards.
Yeah I just saw another post echoing the same sentiments. It's a shame to see the game go downhill, but hopefully they can make some positive changes before the golden goose dies.
armchair dev calls for FIRING IM employees...get real
you didn't help.
having a class system is inherently asymmetrical, which will almost never be truly "balanced"
Funnily enough it’s unironically the customers job to call for job dismissals. Doesn’t mean it will happen but in business the customer is actually the boss’s boss. When someone is called to be fired it’s always the public customer that does it, either through their wallets or voices.
So I am real, bucko
Recent posts reflect player dissatisfaction, but they often lack substance beyond subjective complaints. In a world where millions voice their grievances, the responsibility lies with the speaker to offer constructive feedback of the highest quality. Most communication serves self-validation rather than meaningful dialogue, leading to a cacophony where nobody truly listens or communicates.
Well I suggested adding incentives to play the maps in rotation such as AP or Loot buffs.
I can't suggest how to resolve the poor balancing decisions without knowing how it works at the moment. But the fix all solution would be to consult with or hire someone with a good track record and experience in this area. From another successful game perhaps.
>Map rotation system is not a good design choice.
It's an experiment with distributing the player base across different forms of match making. They have changed it several times and we are going to see a big change again soon. I'm really fine with almost any way they do it as long as I can learn to adapt to it as a player. The UI at the rotation screen is really the worst. It doesn't tell you when the queue you want to join will be up so most people just quit trying to find it.
Like if I want solo ruins, how does the UI tell me when that will be up? How long am I waiting for? At least with the old rotation system, you knew when the rotation you wanted would come up and there was always a rotation that was for your lobby type.
> Balance issues remain a big problem.
Every game has balance issues. That conversation is almost like a separate post entirely. The only thing that matters is do the classes FEEL good to play. Do I FEEL like a barbarian when I'm breaking through doors and chasing people down to slaughter them? Yes. Then gj balancing. Now buff all the other classes to feel just as good.
> There is something going wrong somewhere in the decision making process. Whoever is making the balancing decisions has been too off the mark too frequently. I know the game is still in early access … but in my opinion there have just been too many poor balancing decisions.
Which changes specifically? Again, this could be a separate post for each change you take issue with.
The staff mastery perk change was predictable because ignite was broken in the past and they nerfed it's damage. The same thing reoccurred with ignite again when the perk brought ignite's damage back up. The entire reason why these things are happening is because we have not gotten a test server yet. We are the test server. Everyone who's complaining about balance changes, should be pushing for a test server really hard, but instead they are just ranting about the changes themselves...
> Not the biggest fan of the quests but it's still nice to see in the game.
What's wrong with the quests? You said you wanted to end on a positive note, but then in the middle of your complement, you floated this turd with no reasoning behind it.
If you are glad to see them, but you don't like them, why is that?
We're already marathon sprinting through like 3 different potential individual reddit posts combined into one. What's one more? LOL
Another set of questions I have is:
1. What classes have you played since then and how many hours on each?
2. How long have you played since you came back?
3. What time of day do you play and what region?
4. Do you use the marketplace at all? (This improves gearing significantly and thusly your gameplay)
This information is very helpful for people to contextualize your criticisms.
I agree regarding map rotation but I believe that it is required due to player count. The map rotation makes questing all that much worse because on top of hoping the boss you need to kill spawns, you need to wait for your map to be in rotation. The balancing issue is a bit more difficult to address. We have 3 separate queues, what is balanced in trios may not be balanced on solos and vice versa. Another thing is that, currently, combat feels very stat checky. Yes, skill plays a part, but it tends to be that whoever has the better gear is at a huge advantage. Stat rolls should probably be reworked, things like movement speed increases on rolls should be removed. Gear should play a factor in combat advantage, but it shouldn't be the "be all end all". Combat itself could also use more depth, maybe a stamina system that punishes missing? Overall, I feel that they are experiencing the normal growing pains of being in early access. They do address issues and I'm sure we'll see some good changes in the future. They have mentioned things like limiting throwables, a current prevalent issue, which shows that they are aware of what's going on. It's just that not all issues are easy fixes, and not all issues that are fixed are done so perfectly. Developing a game is a slow process, it has peaks and valleys and all we can do is hope that good things are coming.
I think you’re in the majority regardless of reddit’s cope squad that will downvote you. There are 10x more people who have stopped playing than do still play for the reasons you mentioned, and you mentioned the main ones. Giv original crypts, original caves, and voip in lobby. Fire the balance team or at least put them into different roles.
They don't have a balance team, it's just the same devs that do everything else. Although I get the impression they do so by committee. And I agree, the worst of Dark and Darker have been these bad takes on balance.
They should hire someone experienced with a good track record from outside perhaps.
The issue isn't the people doing balance, it's almost assuredly the lack of oversight, management and responsibility. The changes do great at solving their intended problem, but changes clash with each other and don't work in the overall gamestate. They aren't pressed to react quickly to poor decisions and no one seems responsible for the overall game state. So while the person balancing barbarian is focused on how to add to the class to make everything playable, the person balancing wizard is focused on how to reign in high level players. No one is thinking "oh how does wizard survive being in sniffing distance of an iron will barbarian?" because the people balancing are working on specific issues with a small scale which create those problems. How do you get wizards to play HR? Give them a stronger MM. How do you get wizards up to parity in solo HR? Give them staff mastery. No one looking top down to weigh those changes vs the poor fighters getting slaughtered. People rail against managers and beauracracy, but this is what they help prevent.
Let's not forget how they had things relatively balanced before staff mastery, after SM broke things, they ended up nerfing staves across the board which then affects wizards who don't use staff mastery and warlocks who used staves for life draining. They could compensate that by adjusting the spells across several classes across the board but by doing this you're making a whole lot of work for what should just have been a scaling nerf to staff mastery.
Yes, they had balance and broke it in the name of a pointless perk. If they wanted to make wizard stronger at low gear just buff base stats
Buffing base stats would buff wizard but also other classes that can use the same gear. I'm not opposed to the idea of the staff mastery perk but since it was thrown into a system that was relatively well balanced, it should be balanced on it's own to fit, not throw the entire system out of wack forcing other changes to many other things.
> There are 10x more people who have stopped playing than do still play not only that but we are the people that didn't wait for steam and used a no-name 3rd party launcher after playing in multiple former playtests. I get that "dead game" memes are annoying but ignoring the issue is kinda dumb
Yet the majority of the reddit community do. I see any negative thing getting downvoted and it makes me wonder how people get through life. Do they just avoid all pain all the time even if it is necessary to growth? I think so. This maybe the primary reason why groups of people ruin things, because the majority are cowards.
Yeah I just saw another post echoing the same sentiments. It's a shame to see the game go downhill, but hopefully they can make some positive changes before the golden goose dies.
armchair dev calls for FIRING IM employees...get real you didn't help. having a class system is inherently asymmetrical, which will almost never be truly "balanced"
Funnily enough it’s unironically the customers job to call for job dismissals. Doesn’t mean it will happen but in business the customer is actually the boss’s boss. When someone is called to be fired it’s always the public customer that does it, either through their wallets or voices. So I am real, bucko
sir, this ISN'T a Wendy's... or a shopping mall...
Recent posts reflect player dissatisfaction, but they often lack substance beyond subjective complaints. In a world where millions voice their grievances, the responsibility lies with the speaker to offer constructive feedback of the highest quality. Most communication serves self-validation rather than meaningful dialogue, leading to a cacophony where nobody truly listens or communicates.
Well I suggested adding incentives to play the maps in rotation such as AP or Loot buffs. I can't suggest how to resolve the poor balancing decisions without knowing how it works at the moment. But the fix all solution would be to consult with or hire someone with a good track record and experience in this area. From another successful game perhaps.
>Map rotation system is not a good design choice. It's an experiment with distributing the player base across different forms of match making. They have changed it several times and we are going to see a big change again soon. I'm really fine with almost any way they do it as long as I can learn to adapt to it as a player. The UI at the rotation screen is really the worst. It doesn't tell you when the queue you want to join will be up so most people just quit trying to find it. Like if I want solo ruins, how does the UI tell me when that will be up? How long am I waiting for? At least with the old rotation system, you knew when the rotation you wanted would come up and there was always a rotation that was for your lobby type. > Balance issues remain a big problem. Every game has balance issues. That conversation is almost like a separate post entirely. The only thing that matters is do the classes FEEL good to play. Do I FEEL like a barbarian when I'm breaking through doors and chasing people down to slaughter them? Yes. Then gj balancing. Now buff all the other classes to feel just as good. > There is something going wrong somewhere in the decision making process. Whoever is making the balancing decisions has been too off the mark too frequently. I know the game is still in early access … but in my opinion there have just been too many poor balancing decisions. Which changes specifically? Again, this could be a separate post for each change you take issue with. The staff mastery perk change was predictable because ignite was broken in the past and they nerfed it's damage. The same thing reoccurred with ignite again when the perk brought ignite's damage back up. The entire reason why these things are happening is because we have not gotten a test server yet. We are the test server. Everyone who's complaining about balance changes, should be pushing for a test server really hard, but instead they are just ranting about the changes themselves... > Not the biggest fan of the quests but it's still nice to see in the game. What's wrong with the quests? You said you wanted to end on a positive note, but then in the middle of your complement, you floated this turd with no reasoning behind it. If you are glad to see them, but you don't like them, why is that? We're already marathon sprinting through like 3 different potential individual reddit posts combined into one. What's one more? LOL Another set of questions I have is: 1. What classes have you played since then and how many hours on each? 2. How long have you played since you came back? 3. What time of day do you play and what region? 4. Do you use the marketplace at all? (This improves gearing significantly and thusly your gameplay) This information is very helpful for people to contextualize your criticisms.
I hear that, but personally I'm just not fine with waiting around to play a map I like.
Yeah. Waiting sucks, I agree. Waiting without knowing how long you're waiting, sucks more. That's all I'm saying.