I've been gaming for over 35 years. Started online gaming with a Commodore 64. I've been a part of some great gaming communities. For nearly 20 years I have been a member of a community known as LIGS Long Island Gaming Servers. We started out in the late 90's with Counter Strike. We used to have lan parties every couple of months. Then we grew when Day of Defeat came out and we opened up a server for that. Soon it became ten servers. I was a lead admin overseeing all of the DoD servers. I made so many friends while gaming. We had our own forums and there was always a lot of good conversations going on.
What I'm trying to get at is, I have never been a part of a game that elicits so much emotion either good or bad. Sure I've played some games that completely sucked and just put it away never to be seen again. Whenever I went to a forum, it was to seek advice on how to play better and you usually got a lot of good responses. Sure you had your 'git gud" people but for the most part, people are generally really helpful. So that's not the issue.
The issue I see more and more of is the disdain towards the developers. World of Tanks and League of Legends were probably the two "saltiest" forums I was ever a part of. I gave up on League but I stuck out tanks for a few years. The thing I saw with WoT was the developers actually listened to the people who played the game. They would fly people out to Cyprus or L.A. just to hear feedback. And by no means is World of Tanks in any danger of losing their player base but still they engage the players and make changes accordingly.
Is everyone happy? No. But at least you get the feeling you're being heard and things change because the majority of the players are asking for the change. Massive and The Division is a whole other level of animosity. I remember back in May one of the community managers said this was the most toxic community he had ever seen. Which set off a firestorm of backlash from the community. What he didn't realize was that since alpha and beta people had been telling Massive they need to change the design of the DZ, what we call gankers now, they called trolls. It was obvious way back then that Massive was not listening. Massive collectively put there hands over their ears to drown out the players point of view.
What I have found in taking part in the PTS is that people are defending their turf like a pit bull. "Too much loot" "easy mode" not good for the game. On the flip side people happy with too much loot and happy being able to solo a mission. What the defenders, to me, have lost sight of, Massive as well, is the people who left the game. Games are supposed to be fun and yes I know fun is subjective. Yet, the very people testing the game are the people who have stuck it out since launch. That's why they are defending their turf. This is where Massive has failed by not taking charge, showing true leadership and vision to bring back players who have left. Even at the expense of pissing people off.
When I say piss people off, I don't mean take away heroic. No I think they should have had levels that kept getting more and more difficult to the point you're getting whipped by a cat-o-nine tails as you run the mission. Some people like that... I mean they should have added so much content in the open world it would probably piss off the DZ fans but at the same time, we're all for TDM, PvP arena and whatever else makes PvP players happy. Just separate the PvP from PvE and be done with it.
I think this has been Massive's biggest failing. Not separating the two and giving each plenty of content. Their vision of TD doesn't work.
When massive asked us for suggestions to improve the game, they got a huge response from the players. That's like asking a kid what they want for Christmas. That whole idea of asking us how to improve the game by making suggestions was a non-starter. They never meant to add anything to this patch. That was a lot of false hope they gave us.
http://forums.ubi.com/forumdisplay.p...eedback/page39 From page 39 onward was after the SoTG where they asked us to submit our ideas.
"Hey, thanks for the well thought out suggestions and ideas. A lot of great stuff in here! I will compile it and forward it to the team.
/gabelikes"
Having participated in the PTS, I can tell you, you're not getting a new game. None of your suggestions for adding content was added. This was massive's chance to be a real game changer and they didn't grasp it. They really could have made some drastic changes to add content but they didn't. They could have made a PvP arena but they didn't. All you're getting is a different TKK and TTBK and some more loot.
So, all the defending of turf by folks in the game, you didn't help make the game bigger and better, you inhibited it's growth. What made me start this entire thread was why? Why are things like this? We all see the potential for this game. That's probably the only thing everyone will agree on. And I think everyone will agree the potential is not being lived up to. We all want a better game so why is it that we are so divisive towards one another? Why are you not focused on the developers for not delivering you a much more rewarding game that actually lives up to it's potential?
This was your chance to make a difference and instead you focused on the little things like too much loot or easy mode rather than asking for a better DZ a bigger DZ a true PvP arena. You didn't keep on Massive for more content in the LZ. You stopped at the four hour boss respawn. Why not ask for Queens to be opened, Staten Island or the Bronx? This was your chance to make the game you thought The Division could be.
WOT and WOWS forums are indeed pretty hostile places sometimes and I would add AW to that list too but nothing like on this level for this game. I'm what some would call a hard core player, I have 1200+ in the game and 4 maxed out characters and yet I don't agree with the "hard core base". To me the games survival was paramount, difficulty and loot are things that can be tuned over time and more challenging content can always be added and probably will but what this was all about was the "base game", bringing players back and adding new ones, it was not about whether 1000 or so hard core players found it easy or not.
What we have now is (from a gameplay point of view) no better then 1.3 and in some cases worse then 1.3 from the point of view of a new or returning player, the whole exercise has been a complete waste of time. In 1.3, geared up I feel powerful, in 1.4 as it is geared up I feel like wet tissue paper.
What's the point in gearing up to get to WT4 and feel weak? Where is the bloody fun in that?
I belong to a large multi national gaming group, many members bought The Division and all of them left, I am now the only person left playing and when asked by these people is it worth returning my answer will be no. What I will tell them is enemies are weaker but your correspondingly weaker, the game has not fundamentally changed, they just moved the goal posts.
I was genuinely starting to think that I was the only one that felt like wet tissue paper as you put it aldra, but you are completely correct here.
My character feels vunerable and my gun feels like a pea shooter. My understanding was that we were going to feel stronger in this patch, not like a wet lettuce.
I was going to come back hoping the LZ would be a loot filled fun engaging place to be(something good and repeatable) I haven't played for months back on Destiny (played the new raid last night with 2 different groups all bought and played the Division) we had a damn good blast in the raid wiped played wiped etc etc etc we went in blind but we enjoyed it IT WAS FUN.Id rather stay with destiny and to cap it off
Tuesdays Patch for destiny is upping the Light Level (ie GS) but also making the activities drop more loot to go with it, thus letting people gear up and light level (GS up) quicker so the raid on normal and Heroic can be played. (no one is complaining about more loot dropping etc etc etc)
PS: Out of the 12 players in the 2 groups I played with only 1 yes only 1 was willing to give The Division another go/shot (that was me) but if it's going to be almost like or similar to 1.3 then I won't bother.
I'm on PC so can't play Destiny but it looks like Destiny figured things out. Massive, even after the admittance it's game was broken, is only throwing us a bone. No meat in this patch. The only sign of success on that bone was week 3. Then they went back to being Massive.Originally Posted by R-N-Gesus Go to original post
Why does The Division cause so much controversy?
The answer has been in front of us the whole timeivision - to divide, separate, split in half, pit one group against another.
Just like religion and politics does.
This game is a monumental success. It has divided a group of people right down the middle.
We are to blame of course, we fell for this crap. Instead of uniting and working together against the common enemy i.e. the controllers of the experiment; we play right into their deviant,sinister little claws and war against each other.
This game is a controlled social micro experiment funded by the D.o.D in conjunction with the CDC and the shadow governments of the world.
They already knew that a crisis brings out the true nature of a human being. The very worst in us. They just wanted to re verify that in a virtual simulator.
Keep thinking this is a game.
OP. A very constructive and informative thread. I congratulate you on that. To see constructive criticism in detailed format is very refreshing and I have to admit that I wholeheartedly agree with you.
Another flaw in the process, my personal opinion here, is the lack of communication from Massive when it comes to the more complicated problems of TD.
For example: a recent post was placed congratulating Massive on the work they have done so far. This post was answered by Gabe within 3 hours. Other minor posts are also being answered very quickly. Obviously it is because these minor posts are easy to answer. But, when you get more complicated questions such as the current loot example or the lack of content in 1.4 etc etc then no answer from Massive can be seen.
What does this lead to? It leads to the thread growing and, inevitably, flaming and arguing as well as more threads on the same subject going unanswered.
Massives lack of communication on larger more pertinent concerns from the community only causes more discontent against them. This leads to increased frustration. I will include myself in this meta. I read so many valid threads on this forum by people like yourself who take their time to post a valid and constructive point across but then see it go unanswered by Massive because it's simply to difficult for them to answer. It adds weight to the communities belief that Massive simply are not capable of managing a AAA game and have bitten off more than they can chew.
Again, thanks for the post OP. A very interesting and informative post IMO.
Originally Posted by StoicNihilist Go to original post
that looked like it was fun to type.