Devs need to do something to atract more people into the game

Seikilos · February 2018

ElinLove wrote: »

the same OLD game engine and did the same with their new flagship product, makes it weird to understand how it ever managed to get a start.
Well, Hail Elins as long as they still have a home...

well using UE3 in AIR was stupid. maybe that's the only engine they know to work on. lel

(the only reasonable answer would be that older engines support older computers better, so they aim to a broader player base even tho people who spent 1-2k $$ on rigs play with 25 fps)

counterpoint · February 2018

Seikilos wrote: »

the game is profitable and they want to invest. they just do it wrong. the issue is, why? what is it that pushes them in the wrong direction. that 's where the problem lies.

I think it's their own team's biases and experiences from the Korean MMO scene (a lot of the key staff come from other Korean MMO developers, or grew up on Korean MMOs), and reactions to what has worked/hasn't worked so far by the numbers. Basically, I think they're victims of not having a sufficiently-diverse/international team, and having more of an insular development culture.

Seikilos wrote: »

ElinLove wrote: »

the same OLD game engine and did the same with their new flagship product, makes it weird to understand how it ever managed to get a start.
Well, Hail Elins as long as they still have a home...

well using UE3 in AIR was stupid. maybe that's the only engine they know to work on. lel

They basically said that it's the engine they have the most experience with, and they thought they could still get the look/quality they wanted with it. But, well, they have their own standards for quality/optimization that the market here doens't necessarily share...

(At the same time, PUBG is not very well optimized either, but has been just printing money for them, so optimization is clearly not the be-all-and-end-all either, at least in terms of initially attracting people. Whether PUBG will stand the test of time, however...)

vkobe · February 2018

Furappi wrote: »

free items, more ads on youtube something to make people play, this game is dying and i hate this, i waited 1 hour in a dungeon matchmaking, ONE HOUR! like theres no one playing this is sad

more cute elin, tera vr

Furappi · February 2018

Putting more effort in optimization is a good start, the recommended settings are a dual core, and we still getting 15 - 20 fps its insulting since 2014 they havent worked on it yet, a good promotional campaing with cool rewards is more than enough to atrack couple thousand players, maybe making the end game less grindy and tedious because some players the more casual simply dont want mindless grind to get a cool gear for pvp/pve

Gatokatzen · February 2018

If you want optimization Tera must be ported to Unreal engine 4 or next version xd. But if they do that maybe the game is going to be up to 150 or 200gb size .may cause a lot of players cannot play anymore. They must remove a lot of areas if they want the game still working. An x64 tera would help to prevent a lot of dissconection issues and improve server speed. More memory more speed. For them, Is better working in Tera 2 or similar instead of porting and old game.

AMD549YLJ5 · February 2018

counterpoint wrote: »

Just want to say, for whatever it's worth... this isn't really the problem. I mean, it feels like a problem when surface-level preventable mistakes are made in event rewards and other things, but it's not the root of the problem. There are plenty of very connected people who give EME extremely clear and pointed feedback that cover all those "interest areas" -- more than enough, combined with the people within EME who actually do play, to both know the problems and feel the frustration.

The problem is BHS politics. BHS has no interest or desire in tailoring the game to what our market demands. If our interests happen to coincide with what their other markets also are asking for (and it concides with their business interests), then they'll consider it. But EME could pay an army of people full-time just to play TERA hardcore all day (as they did when initially working to bring the game to market), and it wouldn't solve any of the fundamental issues unless BHS gave EME the complete freedom, autonomy, and resources to fully-manage game progression themselves and take it in a sharply different direction than K-TERA.

Right now, even if EME did hire full-time players to gather really good in-depth feedback and "feel the pain" (even more than they already do), what value is it if they can't do anything about it? All they'd do is increase their blood pressure and get increasingly frustrated that they know what to do but are forbidden from doing it. (This, incidentally, is how it feels to be on the Player Council also. lol ) For instance, both EME and Gameforge know 100% what PvP players want to make it rewarding again, and are forbidden to do it. They keep trying to do what they can around the edges with jackpots, events, whatever, but the problem is fully-known yet unsolvable due to politics. And despite the bravado you see on the forum about how EME should just do whatever it wants and tell BHS to shove it, they're still a BHS sister-company and are tethered. (And besides, even Gameforge has similar limitations in some areas. The business agreements with all publishers give BHS ultimate control over their game, and they exercise that control.)

So "none of the staff play the game lel" is a nice meme, and sure embarrassing rookie mistakes happen a bit too often, but it's missing the real point that explains why we're in this situation: none of the staff have the power and authority to make the kinds of changes people really want, and therefore EME has not been continuing to futilly push the boulder up the mountain. You can only be told no so many times before you stop asking (realizing that if you keep asking they'll tune you out completely). This is why (as I've been saying for a while now) we try to push more on areas EME can control and hope for the best. Happily, under the current leadership, we are building traction. It won't solve any of the fundamental problems, but could still make the game more enjoyable for what it is.

Is it fine to state sensitive information like this to the public?
It's great to see player council members providing more transparency, but I do feel that this comes with consequences:

Informing the public that EME has a shaky relationship with their development team (BHS)
Discourages players from posting suggestions on the forums
Shifting blame onto development team which can contribute to point #1
Making a powerful statement that developers make decisions solely on business as opposed to player/community sentiment
Making a powerful statement that no one in EME has any form of contribution to the decision-making body

What I've quoted is often times the relationship most western publishers of eastern developers have. However, none that I've seen disclose this sort of information to the public. The number one reason as to why no publisher I know comes out with this sort of message is because it's the same as admitting defeat. Each suggestion or feedback being a constant battle of much back and forth.

It would be pretty awesome if we could have a dev Q&A with the NA community similar to how they've held Q&As with their audience in Korea. Looking forward to something like this someday.

counterpoint · February 2018

AMD549YLJ5 wrote: »

Is it fine to state sensitive information like this to the public?

To be clear, this is my own conjecture based on what I've observed (mostly in public through various streams and forum comments from the staff) over the years, combined with my own experience working in a similar industry. It's not based on any secret/confidential knowledge. Most of the situations that informed this commentary occurred out in the open (for instance, the elimination of equipment remodelling, the fiasco about the dragon mount token shop, etc.). If you remember carefully what the staff said during those and other similar situations, you can arrive at the same conclusion (but you have to know how to read between the lines).

And to be clear, I can imagine that the EME staff would firmly deny your summary (and the simplified way I stated things in my post), since the truth isn't going to be that black-and-white:

The relationship EME has with BHS couldn't be any less shaky. They're sister companies. They just have divisions of authority/responsibility like all companies have. People just don't always understand where the lines fall.
I'm not saying this to discourage people from posting suggestions at all, but to focus them on areas where they can make the most difference. Or at least to help them understand the difference between a suggestion not being heard and a suggestion not able to be addressed. (And sometimes I suspect EME can't/won't tell people the "bad news" because "never say never" -- and it's not like that's untrue. Even fundamental change can happen, eventually. We do have actual examples of this over the years, so people shouldn't give up.)
I shift the blame for some of this to BHS, but in the end it's their game. EME basically only exists in the first place because of BHS so they would never blame them. They might disagree with BHS sometimes, but that's how it goes in any business relationship. And, to be perfectly clear, some of the issues are EME's fault too; it's not a one-way street.
I would say that all businesses make decisions nearly-entirely based on business reasons as opposed to player/community sentiment. However, it can also be the case that the two are aligned with each other. In this case, the complication is that there are many player communities around the world, and they have to balance all that feedback. I don't envy the person/people at BHS responsible for that balancing act and ensuring they meet their global metrics every month.
I didn't say they have "no form of contribution to the decision-making body" -- that's a gross oversimplification. But there are things within their sphere of influence and things that aren't (directly). They can still elevate feedback on the things that aren't and, sometimes, the developers will agree. (If a lot of publishers all over the world give similar feedback, that will bolster the argument.) But at the end of the day, it's BHS's game and they get the final say. We've seen that play out before, as noted above.

Anyway, my point was never to cast anyone in a bad light or reveal some deep secret because, as you say, this situation isn't really all that unusual at all, especially for this sort of "licensed game" situation. You can look to most other similar games and see the common pattern at play. I just feel like understanding the structure/nature of things helps for a more informed -- and hopefully less adversarial -- conversation, more condusive to seeing things improve where they can.

PaulisAwesome · February 2018

AMD549YLJ5 wrote: »

counterpoint wrote: »

Just want to say, for whatever it's worth... this isn't really the problem. I mean, it feels like a problem when surface-level preventable mistakes are made in event rewards and other things, but it's not the root of the problem. There are plenty of very connected people who give EME extremely clear and pointed feedback that cover all those "interest areas" -- more than enough, combined with the people within EME who actually do play, to both know the problems and feel the frustration.

The problem is BHS politics. BHS has no interest or desire in tailoring the game to what our market demands. If our interests happen to coincide with what their other markets also are asking for (and it concides with their business interests), then they'll consider it. But EME could pay an army of people full-time just to play TERA hardcore all day (as they did when initially working to bring the game to market), and it wouldn't solve any of the fundamental issues unless BHS gave EME the complete freedom, autonomy, and resources to fully-manage game progression themselves and take it in a sharply different direction than K-TERA.

Right now, even if EME did hire full-time players to gather really good in-depth feedback and "feel the pain" (even more than they already do), what value is it if they can't do anything about it? All they'd do is increase their blood pressure and get increasingly frustrated that they know what to do but are forbidden from doing it. (This, incidentally, is how it feels to be on the Player Council also. lol ) For instance, both EME and Gameforge know 100% what PvP players want to make it rewarding again, and are forbidden to do it. They keep trying to do what they can around the edges with jackpots, events, whatever, but the problem is fully-known yet unsolvable due to politics. And despite the bravado you see on the forum about how EME should just do whatever it wants and tell BHS to shove it, they're still a BHS sister-company and are tethered. (And besides, even Gameforge has similar limitations in some areas. The business agreements with all publishers give BHS ultimate control over their game, and they exercise that control.)

So "none of the staff play the game lel" is a nice meme, and sure embarrassing rookie mistakes happen a bit too often, but it's missing the real point that explains why we're in this situation: none of the staff have the power and authority to make the kinds of changes people really want, and therefore EME has not been continuing to futilly push the boulder up the mountain. You can only be told no so many times before you stop asking (realizing that if you keep asking they'll tune you out completely). This is why (as I've been saying for a while now) we try to push more on areas EME can control and hope for the best. Happily, under the current leadership, we are building traction. It won't solve any of the fundamental problems, but could still make the game more enjoyable for what it is.

Is it fine to state sensitive information like this to the public?
It's great to see player council members providing more transparency, but I do feel that this comes with consequences:
Informing the public that EME has a shaky relationship with their development team (BHS)

Discourages players from posting suggestions on the forums

Shifting blame onto development team which can contribute to point #1

Making a powerful statement that developers make decisions solely on business as opposed to player/community sentiment

Making a powerful statement that no one in EME has any form of contribution to the decision-making body

What I've quoted is often times the relationship most western publishers of eastern developers have. However, none that I've seen disclose this sort of information to the public. The number one reason as to why no publisher I know comes out with this sort of message is because it's the same as admitting defeat. Each suggestion or feedback being a constant battle of much back and forth.

It would be pretty awesome if we could have a dev Q&A with the NA community similar to how they've held Q&As with their audience in Korea. Looking forward to something like this someday.

EME Themselves have openly admitted all that before in past Streams, Forum posts(likely locked in the old forum or long deleted).

AMD549YLJ5 · February 2018

counterpoint wrote: »

AMD549YLJ5 wrote: »

Is it fine to state sensitive information like this to the public?

To be clear, this is my own conjecture based on what I've observed (mostly in public through various streams and forum comments from the staff) over the years, combined with my own experience working in a similar industry. It's not based on any secret/confidential knowledge. Most of the situations that informed this commentary occurred out in the open (for instance, the elimination of equipment remodelling, the fiasco about the dragon mount token shop, etc.). If you remember carefully what the staff said during those and other similar situations, you can arrive at the same conclusion (but you have to know how to read between the lines).

And to be clear, I can imagine that the EME staff would firmly deny your summary (and the simplified way I stated things in my post), since the truth isn't going to be that black-and-white:
The relationship EME has with BHS couldn't be any less shaky. They're sister companies. They just have divisions of authority/responsibility like all companies have. People just don't always understand where the lines fall.

I'm not saying this to discourage people from posting suggestions at all, but to focus them on areas where they can make the most difference. Or at least to help them understand the difference between a suggestion not being heard and a suggestion not able to be addressed. (And sometimes I suspect EME can't/won't tell people the "bad news" because "never say never" -- and it's not like that's untrue. Even fundamental change can happen, eventually. We do have actual examples of this over the years, so people shouldn't give up.)

I shift the blame for some of this to BHS, but in the end it's their game. EME basically only exists in the first place because of BHS so they would never blame them. They might disagree with BHS sometimes, but that's how it goes in any business relationship. And, to be perfectly clear, some of the issues are EME's fault too; it's not a one-way street.

I would say that all businesses make decisions nearly-entirely based on business reasons as opposed to player/community sentiment. However, it can also be the case that the two are aligned with each other. In this case, the complication is that there are many player communities around the world, and they have to balance all that feedback. I don't envy the person/people at BHS responsible for that balancing act and ensuring they meet their global metrics every month.

I didn't say they have "no form of contribution to the decision-making body" -- that's a gross oversimplification. But there are things within their sphere of influence and things that aren't (directly). They can still elevate feedback on the things that aren't and, sometimes, the developers will agree. (If a lot of publishers all over the world give similar feedback, that will bolster the argument.) But at the end of the day, it's BHS's game and they get the final say. We've seen that play out before, as noted above.

Anyway, my point was never to cast anyone in a bad light or reveal some deep secret because, as you say, this situation isn't really all that unusual at all, especially for this sort of "licensed game" situation. You can look to most other similar games and see the common pattern at play. I just feel like understanding the structure/nature of things helps for a more informed -- and hopefully less adversarial -- conversation, more condusive to seeing things improve where they can.

From your initial post: " none of the staff have the power and authority to make the kinds of changes people really want"

I do see from your response that you'd like to guide others into giving feedback or suggestions for what's possible, but your initial message is a very strong one that would discourage many. (Though I'm sure it wasn't your intention)

Would you be able to provide us with an example of what types of suggestions or feedback others should aim to provide? What is considered possible and impossible for EME as publishers? I did see you referred to balance changes in your response. As someone who has made balance related suggestions in the past, would this be a productive use of time?

counterpoint · February 2018

AMD549YLJ5 wrote: »

Would you be able to provide us with an example of what types of suggestions or feedback others should aim to provide? What is considered possible and impossible for EME as publishers? I did see you referred to balance changes in your response. As someone who has made balance related suggestions in the past, would this be a productive use of time?

Their primary responsibility (beyond all the supporting functions like infrastructure, platform, support, QA, marketing, localization, etc.) is events, region-specific reward systems, and the cash shop (though all of these within certain bounds). So suggestions within those areas have the most likelihood of being considered, I would say. Sometimes these may also be the indirect vehicle to solve a problem -- for instance, when people complained a lot about the flow of silver talents, supply was increased through a combination of these areas. So problems with the supply of necessary mats are also good topics -- ideally with a suggestion of how to improve it through a targeted event they can use. If we look at the sort of feedback that was actioned on over the years (and those on the roadmap to being addressed), I'd say these are the highest.

Specific balance suggestions I'd rate as a poor topic because, no matter what, we are a large number of months behind K-TERA, and we're going to basically get whatever they get. All of us on Player Council definitely raised the repeated frustration about the fact our region doesn't have talents, and how that changes the balance and difficulty of content. And maybe the broadest feedback about how things feel in PvP vs. PvE might help... but in the end the only specific feedback they'll use about balance will be from people playing the latest release in K-TERA, not the 4-month-old build.

And well, by "the kinds of changes people really want" I meant like sweeping direction/vision changes that would either require massive investments (rebuild the game in UE4!) or dramatically change/alter the game and take it on a radically different course (perhaps one more suited to "Western taste"). That doesn't mean that people shouldn't give that kind of feedback... but those kinds of decisions are way up the chain and would require an awful lot of confirmation from all the other publishers before getting serious consideration. It's more about the odds of having a suggestion implemented rather than the value of providing suggestions. Even aggregate feedback can move the needle in one direction or another, as we saw with this new gear enchanting system. (It is isn't everything people here wanted by any means, but it does incorporate some of our region's aggregate feedback, along with I'm sure that from other regions.)

voidy · February 2018

No point in making changes when whales will always dump money into lootboxes no matter what, Forum Warriors will defend the company's PR problems at every turn for free, and the only MMO that even comes close to this game's combat has its own share of problems and is by no means perfect.

It's like saying "Comcast should care more about customer service," there's no incentive until people vote with their wallet. I'm not saying you're wrong or anything, because I also wish the devs would try harder to appeal to their western market, but every time a new dress comes out I see the same critics lining up to drop cash on a game they [filtered] about every day so I doubt the devs will change much soon.

SageWindu · February 2018

voidy wrote: »

It's like saying "Comcast should care more about customer service," there's no incentive until people vote with their wallet. I'm not saying you're wrong or anything, because I also wish the devs would try harder to appeal to their western market, but every time a new dress comes out I see the same critics lining up to drop cash on a game they [filtered] about every day so I doubt the devs will change much soon.

Dare I say it could be psychological manipulation, which, I surmise, is why lootboxes still have that whole "Pick a card!" system despite it amounting to jack all in the end (or so I've read).

Here's what I mean by the previous statement:
- new item comes out
- make it time-limited and now there's a sort of "mad dash" to obtain it (MOBAs do this a lot)
- people pour frankly embarrassing amounts of dosh into the game trying to get said time-limited item
- the higher-ups see this and go "See? They obviously still like [whatever] or else they wouldn't spend money!"

And of course, that's before we bring those infamous "whales" into the picture. A nerd/geek with a disposable income is quite the phenomenon indeed...

HLK76PFWXT · February 2018

Dare I say it could be psychological manipulation, which, I surmise, is why lootboxes still have that whole "Pick a card!" system despite it amounting to jack all in the end (or so I've read).

Is there a chance that the four options when opening a loot box are there only for show making us to believe that we did not get the desired item because we did not pick the right option when in reality the chance is simply abysmal?

ElinUsagi · February 2018

.

HLK76PFWXT wrote: »

Dare I say it could be psychological manipulation, which, I surmise, is why lootboxes still have that whole "Pick a card!" system despite it amounting to jack all in the end (or so I've read).

Is there a chance that the four options when opening a loot box are there only for show making us to believe that we did not get the desired item because we did not pick the right option when in reality the chance is simply abysmal?

I was really annoyed by the "pick one of these options" from boxes. At least get rid of that, it was annoying in the past to open hundred of them and be picking one by one a stupid option that maybe never had the item one wanted from the lootbox anyway.

ElinLove · February 2018

ElinUsagi wrote: »

.

HLK76PFWXT wrote: »

Dare I say it could be psychological manipulation, which, I surmise, is why lootboxes still have that whole "Pick a card!" system despite it amounting to jack all in the end (or so I've read).

Is there a chance that the four options when opening a loot box are there only for show making us to believe that we did not get the desired item because we did not pick the right option when in reality the chance is simply abysmal?

I was really annoyed by the "pick one of these options" from boxes. At least get rid of that, it was annoying in the past to open hundred of them and be picking one by one a stupid option that maybe never had the item one wanted from the lootbox anyway.

*I think you can hit the "open" button anyway without choosing one, so it randomly chooses the option, or so it was with Sea Chests and such when I used to care about them.

System wise it's likely just some seed to the RNG code, and none of the options are guaranteed to have absolutely anything whatsoever, the server will generate it in the end (otherwise it's exploitable as heck). So yes, basically a psychological trick.

Gatokatzen wrote: »

If you want optimization Tera must be ported to Unreal engine 4 or next version xd. But if they do that maybe the game is going to be up to 150 or 200gb size .may cause a lot of players cannot play anymore. They must remove a lot of areas if they want the game still working. An x64 tera would help to prevent a lot of dissconection issues and improve server speed. More memory more speed. For them, Is better working in Tera 2 or similar instead of porting and old game.

I agree it should get re-coded for a new engine or at least some updated version of UE3. Tho we all can see based on PUBG and anything else they do, that it's a level of effort they ain't giving. Tho I doubt completely that it would get any bigger, usually code itself is quite small (I bet the entire game would be like 100MB of plain code, the rest is models, unused data (including code), textures, sound and videos. Even the 3D models ain't gigantic without textures), it would only get significantly bigger if we added textures or the tesselation bases and such, or higher precision models. More memory = more speed also not exactly true, if you just load unnecessary stuff it ain't getting any faster, the management of it is important (yep, another issue as always).

Frankly, for a TERA 2 working well, and getting well received, they'll have to re-think their stances a lot.

Devs need to do something to atract more people into the game

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