Some common issues I have with the mud

[Jei]

Some of you may or may not have noticed I'm borderline active at the moment, whereas before I would long everyday, usually all or most of the day. Excluding the pressures of work/school that are eating up my time, here are the main reasons, I'm interested to hear if anyone agrees or if I'm the only one.


1) I'd like to see more of Immortals listening to the playerbase, and not immortal opinion regarding various changes.

To elaborate, the immortals tend to post a lot of polls/request a lot of feedback, and unfortunately the trend seems to be if the immortals felt one way before this 'feedback/polling' was conducted, so that leads me to the very serious question of why asking? I personally feel a lot more irritated when the majority of players feel one way and something is still done another way, when the players are asked their opinion. If you don't want it... don't ask for it. I'd rather be irritated that an imm chose to make a rule/change and didn't ask for input than for the imm to 'poll' and then not go with the results of that poll, personally. Maybe that's just me.

Case in point, there seems to be two really major points of irritation at the moment: Armor and the number of nobility. Armor = the best way to be a badass at combat at the moment with, quite frankly, piddly drawbacks to it. Kinaed has expressed this as exactly what she wants.

Problem: Who can afford armor? The rich. Who are rich? Nobles and merchants. Which of those two are more likely to have/need armor? Nobles.

Second problem: Armor is a buyable advantage and so it being overpowered is fine, but nobles or high charismatic/rich characters buying a lot of combat retainers to own people with is not fine, and there's no sense to it. Sure, buy armor and have it, it's an advantage, but to disallow a retainer or several retainers who can engage and fight offensively? I just don't see the logic behind it. Immortals are okay with some things being overpowered, aren't with others that are frankly quite similar, and in all cases seem most interested in doing what they feel is right, not want the player base requests.

In short: please stop polling unless you're going to use poll results to actually determine the outcome, or at the very least explain why despite poll results you went the way you did. Otherwise, it just feels like a slap in the face, to me.

[Kinaed]

I think you're taking the fact that some people agree with you to over-blow the proportion of people on TI that agree about armor. We did not poll armor or the question of nobility. You have maybe two supporters on the thread about armor, and I have at least two supporters on the thread as well. Also, the entire idea of how armor works was worked out WITH members of the pbase during the testing of the combat code, none of which have spoken up on the thread about armor, but to whom I assume support the idea they provided. The current version of armor you can thank Paere, Marisa, William, and a few others whom I cannot remember but were present in testing, (sorry, I know I'm missing at least another three people in credits). To accuse staff of not listening when we poll simply because, in this instance, we disagree with a point that you have a personal passion for, appears to be nothing more than an unwarranted attack because you're upset.

We poll, we listen, and sometimes we disagree, but usually we don't act against the polls and what players are saying. In fact, I cannot remember the last time we actively went directly against what the players said.

[Jei]

Here's one: 6 people polled they'd prefer no xp penalty or familiarity on PKs which is the vast majority of those who polled.

http://www.ti-legacy.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=228

This issues with armor/nobility were a separate issue. dealing with how you seem to want to limit nobility, yet you make it so appealing by making armor so overpowered.

The other issue was how you're willing to OP armor which is a purchaseable advantage, but nerf retainers bought by non-combative type folks which is also a purchaseable advantage, and one that is actually more costly than armor because you also need to equip said retainers.

Anyway, nuff said.

[Kinaed]

Jei, I don't understand most of what you wrote above, but I do think your responses are extremely emotional and somewhat out of hand.

For my part, I really do listen to players and pay attention to what they think and want out of the game. That is genuinely my stance and belief about myself and my intentions.

I hope you can calm down a bit. However, as I expect continuing to discuss this will result in an unflattering (for both of us) argument, I'll leave be. I'd like to politely request that you do so as well.

[Temi]

I don't want to muck too deeply into this. I understand sometimes people just need to get out complaints, and you asked for comments of other players not imms.

However, for that poll that you posted, Jei, based on the results, contrary to public opinion would be not making any adjustments at all, which is what we might have been inclined to do if support wasn't what it was. As it stands, we counted the votes for dropping both as both dropping one and the other. They were close, and we wanted to only introduce one of those changes at a time, to see what effect it had. If it didn't have enough effect, we still fully intend to add the other as well. This isn't ignoring player input by not immediately using it all, just making strategic decisions as imms in ways that we think -are- consistent with what the players want.