Thoughts on Deca's Official Response to Recent Events

#1


(Above is the written, official article of which I am responding, my opinion is my own and you are free to critique it respectfully as you see fit.

Deca’s response to this is seen by me, and others, as them only admitting to their flawed “runes” system. If you gave us the opportunity to do private, controlled runs at our liberty - There would be no targeting of unwanted peoples “crashing” a “run/raid”.

Instead you choose to make the most difficult, team organized, and especially troll-able dungeon in the game, exclusively public (oxymoron for blatant emphasis on how this shouldn’t be how it is done)

Your own Ideology was:

We no longer have the option to do “small group runs faster than ever before”, and we are forced into “slower” and usually NOT safer runs, due to elitist players, who engage in every possible way to get rid of players: Gemsbok Counter, Gemsbok Coin Counter, Dammah Counter, Dammah Miasma bug, Oryx 3 Guards/Counters.

I would like to reiterate that the entire point of the years in development for this update was for that ideology, among other aspects to balance it into functionality. Instead, you have designed an event which shatters your own ideology, and as a result, leads to players taking drastically “toxic” actions, both verbally and with in game actions.

The argumentative fallacy that can be related here is “argumentum ad verecundiam” or, “a form of argument in which the opinion of an authority on a topic is used as evidence to support an argument.” - While it’s true, what they say is tacit knowledge; no one should be harrassed for playing the game normally; however, it is no fault of your own design that has lead to players taking such egregious actions against one another.

Post Script: This post probably wont become to popular, due to that fallacy, bystanders often don’t like seeing individuals challenge authority. But I said what I felt needed to be said, if a better system was in place where guilds, and small runs, discord or not, could organize, separate or privately from one another, there would be no lashing out between players, animosity between groups, or universal hatred for the rune system.

#2

ah yes, a decision that ruined everything in the endgame but O3, turning Halls into a boring grindfest in which death was a rarity just to reroll loot over and over again and creating an environment where toxicity, elitism, and blatant biasm thrives.

In fact, this very system of keys allowing for these runs is why there are elitists who think they are entitled to private O3 runs in public realm in the first place, which is especially toxic when you consider the fact that many of them weren’t even here to clear anything before liches in the first place and thus aren’t even really entitled to a chance at O3. Small group runs are still possible, one just has to go to dead realms and do all the heroes, put in the work and earn it for yourself instead leeching off other peoples time farming heroes, and sadly there is nothing the raid community is more against or opposed to than putting in actual work or enjoying themselves and so that never happens except for the few times dedicated and legitimately good players like CandyShi or Unicorn (just chose the first two who solo crazy crap that I thought of) do it.

No, please no, don’t add a way to do true private runs, don’t further fuel the elitist toxicity that has formed from those, pls make keys only usable from guilds while we’re at it to destroy the raid community almost entirely. Just don’t make O3 into another Halls where you can do ~100 in a day.

#3

Well said! I even have personal aggravations related to this, the legions of super-elitist players enter the most desolate realms at 5 and 10 remaining due to rampant and uncontrolled tracking discords, which is a problem in itself and has gone unnoticed for at least months. It’s quite annoying to conceptualize in the moment.
You are indeed correct in deducing that those individuals deserve hardly anything as they’ve done nothing but benefit off of the tracking host, and our clearing efforts.

#4

There’s a stupidly easy to access realm notifier on one of the RWT sites, no downloads it’s just a tab on the page. With things like this existing even with a dedicated group clearing a realm at the end they still don’t end up being small runs.

though we managed to get a good bit of 15 man O3’s yesterday.

#5

Although it’s certainly true that all of these actions are being taken, there’s also the “opposite” happening; people deliberately activating counters in otherwise controlled groups, not to “weed out the weaklings”, but purely to ruin others’ experience. And frankly, that’s not the event’s fault - it’s the mindset of the players.

#6

Deca: O3 should be done in public only

Also Deca: * Makes the runs require 3 super rare runes, adds trollable mechanics and gives the bosses extra strong hp scaling*
 

I just don’t get it

#7

I see this as a necessary and long overdue corrective to the way the game has been going.

The root problem is the way OP pets rendered the game impossible to balance. In-Realm content, godland dungeons, even supposedly hard dungeons like Tomb and OT, became trivial, getting rushed and steamrollered.

Attempts to fix this have been only partially successful. HP scaling and additional enemy phases mostly just made battles last longer. New content was introduced which was more of a challenge, and for a while seemed to balance the game once more.

But it led to another problem: groups steamrolling the supposed hardest content in the game, such as Lost Halls. This defeats the point of the dungeons – if a group can just walk past everything in Lost Halls it might as well not be there – and leads to other problems like a surplus of life/mana pots depressing their value.

This could happen with guilds, but it’s really taken off with Discord organised groups. Which is counter to how the game is meant to be played, as a casual game where you play with whoever you find in Realm at the same time.

So the changes this year have been designed to counter that. Vital Combat reducing pet effectiveness while boosting vit and wis. Nerfs to Damaging, Berserk, Armoured. HP scaling less linear to favour smaller groups. Other things like Priest being less OP.

And making O3 public is part of that. Stop it being a Discord/Guild only event, by having it open in a public place, one where the whole Realm ends up after battling O2. You can’t buy keys for it, you have to turn up for the WC and open it in sight of anyone else who got that far.

It’s meant to be casual game. All content in it should be accessible to players without needing to use another website to coordinate. So yes, O3 should be public. Hard, lethal even, but open to everyone.

If people can spoil the event for others then that is a design problem, or a user education one, or both. Dungeons like Shatters, Crawling Depths can be easily spoilt by careless or deliberate actions, but DECA seem in no rush to fix either dungeon.

#8

Funny you should mention that - in a recent QnA, it was hinted that the Shatters rework is on the list of upcoming changes.
Toastrz in particular has also expressed interest in changing the Woodland Labyrinth to have a more autumny look - which would pair well with changing the dungeon, and as an extent, the other epic dungeons - not to mention to properly base them off their newly-reconstructed counterpart.

#9

I know: they keep mentioning Shatters though and nothing has happened except for tweaks such as changing boss drops from chests. And there was something about overhauling the epic dungeons too, but who knows what direction in: I suspect it will be mostly a visual overhaul.

#10

Personally, just because counter has troll potential, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t exist. The counter mechanic is one that makes bosses more interesting than just shoot until dies because it adds “stop shooting here,” the best way to undermine trolls would be instead of removing counter, just make counter apply certain status effects to anyone who deals a set amount of damage during the countering state, like cursed and exposed, making it deadlier if you are one of the ones who activated it, and then lower counter shot damage so that it still does more damage overall to those who activated, but less to those who stopped shooting

#11

the playerbase is 100% the real enemy here. any mechanic deca could theoretically use to make O3 not just a freebie encounter post-O2 will be exploited and monopolized by the raid zombies in the name of efficiency. the one “rune” model that O2 uses works out well enough, right? what if the three O3 runes were instead the same item and it just dropped from all the dungeons that the current 3 runes drop from? would that actually change things? I seriously doubt it. the O3 raid discords will still seize control of the vast majority of all runes and use them for their own runs, like they did for vials in LH. it wouldn’t actually discourage the raid hivemind meta. things like the tracker shatter mentioned also seriously screw things up because if it’s too simple to organize it’ll be mobbed to death by outsiders who are too lazy to clear out realms.

I don’t think anything can be added to the game at this point that could even remotely be considered “endgame” that won’t get monopolized and dominated by raiding discords. it doesn’t actually matter at this point what it takes to get inside, they’ll find a way to optimize the process to hell and back and become so powerful anyone not on their side takes a massive hit in payout. these are the kinds of obsessive addicts who either desperately need help and don’t realize it and/or should be avoided at all costs for your sanity, and raiding discord culture puts them in charge.

here’s a scary idea I had off the top of my head though that might be fun to entertain: what if there was a cap on the number of a particular dungeon you could attempt in a day? I’d be willing to bet a lot of previously mindless decisions would have to be reconsidered if you walked up to a big O3 raiding discord and told them “hey btw you can only attempt 5 O3’s in a single day. slow your roll fam.” as a bonus, drop rates could be upped to something actually reasonable now that the system doesn’t have to account for soulless husks running 300 dungeons per day, everyone just gets 5 regardless of no-life status. maybe to avoid having things get boring you could allow them in for fun after the cap has been reached, they just don’t get loot. idk how harsh to make the restriction. there’s probably a downside to this, but I’m not seeing it rn because I have another thing I need to blather about elsewhere because school is important kids

#12

Quite a few. Key purchases will spike down hard, resulting in less income. As you mentioned, in order to balance it out, drops will need to be a lot more common, but that means people will be able to get the same overpowered gear without as much effort. In other words, it will be easier to gear up, making people get burnt out more quickly, as the loot motivation will already be gone. Group steamrolling will still exist, it just won’t be as active or prominent. Plus, while you can argue that was the original intent of these servers, it isn’t all about that anymore, at least for some people. As someone who used to RL for a halls server, I can assure you that it wasn’t all about steamrolling for loot. I did it mostly out of enjoyment for the dungeon, and for the playerbase that raided with me. I know not everyone who raid leads shares this sentiment, but I know that the majority of people I led with are the same way. We like to communicate with people, get to know them, and make the server/runs into its own little community, which you could argue is what an MMO is all about!

I disavow the toxic mindset that has been mentioned plenty of times above. I just recently came back to the game and am currently trying to learn o3s in the event, and it’s extremely frustrating to see veteran players intentionally countering in order to make it harder for me to stay. But at the same time, it makes everything feel that much better when I do end up completing it, and it helps me learn still too. If I can figure out how to survive under the worst circumstances, I’ll be able to easily do it under normal conditions. It’s just how MMOs work, people will try their absolute hardest to optimize the fun out of it, and there realistically isn’t anything that can be done about it.

Don’t know if this makes any actual sense, I’m really tired right now and kind of just rambling. Basically I think that’s a bad idea, though still a novel concept :stuck_out_tongue:

#13

While I don’t agree with the raiding mentality, I do find it quite amusing to see the different groups clashing. It really brings out the best in them, and makes it easy for me to know which communities to avoid. The ignore list grows…

#14

Im going to be honest, I thought long and hard at what you were trying to get at, and I couldn’t see it.

your opening and concluding paragraphs are about the rune system, sort of suggesting thats what your arguments are about, but the rest of the post (and title) are specifically related to the free O3 event, which comepletely ignores the rune system and has it free to activate. You seem to be trying to complain about both when they seem like seperate matters to me.

#15

This is actually a great idea. While DECA shouldn’t implement it word for word because key sales would drop tremendously, it would be really cool if like the first dungeon of the day (all dungeons have a separate counter) or first few dungeons you do that drop inside the realm have increased drop rates. That would encourage getting on everyday to run a few dungeons, but you wouldn’t feel like you are missing out by not no-lifing discords.

#16

you mean daily quests?

#17

You can do your dailies by popping in a discord and running a few keys, and you are also able to hoard marks. This would only apply to dungeons dropped in the realm. It would give a good reason to challenge yourself by not being in a big efficiency discord group and trying to complete it in a public setting

Like, if I am a casual player who doesn’t have a bunch of time to grind dungeons and only want to complete my dailies, I would 100% be in a discord because that is the fastest way to do it.

#18

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