DRAUGHT Petition to MA re. Mission Rebalancing Effective August 21st, 2012

EDIT: IN THE LIGHT OF THE FOLLOWING RESPONSE FROM MA, it now seems unnecessary to re-post the petition and collect signatures! It is not exactly what was asked for but it does address some major concerns. Please continue to comment.
EDIT 2: on reflection, it might be necessary to re-draft the petition. Please see my comment here (or on page 4, if i never get that link working)
EDIT 3 (10th june) : WILL EVERYBODY WHO "SIGNED" ON THIS THREAD PLEASE GO HERE, READ THE ADDITIONAL COMMENTS, AND SIGN AGAIN. Thanks

Bjorn|MindArk said:

I think many users will be very happy to hear that MindArk is devising a change to the mission rewards system that will allow individual missions to award non-tradeable Attribute Tokens, which can be turned in to an NPC in exchange for attribute points.

This system would address two of the major concerns we have received in feedback from participants regarding the mission rewards rebalancing-

1. A larger number of mission creatures can continue to reward mission efforts in the form of increasing attributes.
2. Participants will be able to choose the best time to redeem their attribute rewards, for example after having skilled up 'naturally' to a certain level.

We are finishing up the necessary adjustments to the mission rewards formulas and guidelines provided to planet partners to accommodate the new attribute token system and the awarding of fractional attributes. Once those adjustments are completed, planet partners will have the ability to provide everyone with an overview of the new rewards that will be implemented on Aug. 21, so that participants can make informed decisions as to which missions to complete over the summer.

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Note to players. This Petition has been written after careful consideration of answers given to this poll, and is designed to address the main concerns of the majority of players. THIS IS A DRAFT. DO NOT SIGN IT YET. I WILL RE-POST IT SHORTLY, after getting some feedback. Do you think anything needs to be altered? (and please post a thumbs-up if you don't think it needs altering)

Also: which forum do you think do you think the petition should be posted in?

jay

Dear MindArk,

Whilst the majority of players applaud most of the changes to the mission system, and believe them to be long overdue, we are not happy with the implementation, for the following reasons:

Many of us have started several simultaneous mission chains in good faith, and find we have nowhere near enough time to complete them all before the changes take effect

Equally, many of us had planned to raise our attributes by natural skilling before taking advantage of the attribute rewards. In this way, much time and many PED have been invested in preparing for the missions., as they stand. However since this activity is not obviously related to the missions, we suspect that it has been overlooked by you. The proposed schedule completely fails to take account of us.

To help save the situation, we propose the following (in order of preference)

A . An extended transitional period of at least one year, preferably longer , during which the player may choose to accept either the old reward or the new reward for any given mission.

or B. An extended transitional period of at least one year, preferably longer , during which missions chains that were started prior to the change will continue to offer the old reward rather than the new

or C. A n extended delay of at least one year before implementing the changes.

We also wish to be offered ASAP complete information as to which mission rewards will change and in what way they will change, to enable us to focus our efforts appropriately. In the event that no transitional period can be offered, this would be crucial.

We also wish to be assured that the Stamina point awards will remain unchanged.

Signed

If they don't respond to this nice letter then MA are beyond any reason!

(too short)

The draft version is looking nice.

It sounds a bit silly. For instance, I disagreed on attribs being offered as rewards in 1st place.

Besides that, the attrib reward is important only at 100/500 level. After that, the skill reward is worth way more. I mean reading this, it would appear that's more important for the undersigned to gain the 1 stamina after the whole atrox chain than the 60/70 tt dodge/evade

Also, MA announcement talked about rebalance of certain rewards, not about removal.

And, say you get a 1 year period of grace until aug 2013. How would this be fair for those joining in july 2013? You can't make all things perfect for everyone, but I for one am holding back from doing any mission for ...lol.. nova until I'll have a meaningful reward.

I fully agree with this letter!
I will for sure sign it!
This is one time I might actually leave if MA tricks me of reward for aurli/kreltin/eomon/sumima/scips just because (as excellently worded in letter) I do them simultaneously in good faith.
If there is a rebalancing to my disadvantage I demand that I (and all others) get more time

Kerham said:

It would appear that's more important for the undersigned to gain the 1 stamina after the whole atrox chain than the 60/70 tt dodge/evade

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For many people, the attribute gain are indeed more important. But that is not the point. the point is really that -as Charlie made clear- the attribute gains, in general, are under threat, the skill gains are not. Thus attributes, not skill, are the issue. No doubt, if MA had said they will replace some of the skillgains with attributes, we would have a petition about that. But they did not say that. They said the reverse.

And, say you get a 1 year period of grace until aug 2013. How would this be fair for those joining in july 2013? You can't make all things perfect for everyone...

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If they could offer us the choice (as in propsal A) then that actually would be fair to everyone. If they can't see their way to being fair to everyone then, obviously, those who have already invested heavily in the mission system as it is, should be given first consideration. That is the reason why people are pissed-off after all- because they put a load of time and PED into something they can't complete. A player who joins in July 2013 has invested nothing yet.

jay

PS @Kerham:
Actually the skillgains are under threat, in a way, because they will be spread more evenly accross the mission chain, instead of coming in a lump at the end.

That means, presumably, that if you don't complete the 10k Atrox before the deadline, then your skill reward will be less than expected.

THe proposals, however, do address this problem as well as the attribute problem

jay

So are you just ignoring the results of the poll you made to gauge people's reaction, which showed that most people are OK with the suggested changes?

This petition does not represent my views and I don't think it represents the views of the majority.

Oleg said:

So are you just ignoring the results of the poll you made to gauge people's reaction, which showed that most people are OK with the suggested changes?

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Are you ignoring the first paragraph of the petition that actually states as much?

However, at last count, only 20% had selected the option " I think the proposed changes should be implemented at the given date. I am unreservedly in favour" That is NOT a majority! The rest (apart from the small minority who are indifferent) had misgivings about the implementation of the changes and/or the nature of the changes.

The petition is desiged to address as many of those misgivings as one can reasonably ask. If you troubled to read it properly, you would see that at no point does it ask that the changes should not go ahead.

This petition does not represent my views and I don't think it represents the views of the majority.

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In that case, why don't you go through the poll and try to draft a better fit? That is precisely why I posted the draft- so that people can constructively criticise before it gets set in concrete


However, negative views from those who can't even be arsed with reading itproperly are not at all helpful. And that's the only kind of criticism that's been posted so far.

I'm therefore inclined to think that it hits the nail on the head. The majority have not said: "Hmm, better change that bit". Indeed nobody has suggested any actual changes yet
(apart from Rementoire , who pointed out that i mis-spelled "draft" Thanks. Rem. However, I cannot edit the title)

Some ppl may lose on attributes, some on skill rewards.
I think most people haven't even figured that out yet. Most people don't read forums, i bet there's many who haven't even heard about the planned changes.

In August, when all people realize what exactly happened, there would certainly be ragequits.
Question is, how many? Would it be just a few or a considerable number? Doubt anyone can predict how exactly ppl would react...

Better safe than sorry - A) is probably the best way out of this shitty situation.

jaywalker said:

A . An extended transitional period of at least one year, preferably longer , during which the player may choose to accept either the old reward or the new reward for any given mission.

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Let's just hope MA understands this too.

jaywalker said:

Are you ignoring the first paragraph of the petition that actually states as much?

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Perhaps ignoring wasn't the right word for me to use, "misinterpreting" would probably be more appropriate.

If we look at your statements A-C, only B has a direct equivalent in your poll: "Mission chains that have already been started should continue to offer the old rewards."

Given an open choice of any or all of the statements in the poll, 41.33% chose that option. That means that 58.67% specifically chose not to, which means a majority of people do not agree with statement B.

Statement A is not reflected at all by any of the options in the poll. Statement C doesn't have a direct equivalent but is probably most closely related to the option "Players should be given a realistic time span to collect all the attribute rewards if wanted" which was chosen by 37.33% or respondents, meaning that 62.67% disagree with this.

jaywalker said:

However, at last count, only 20% had selected the option " I think the proposed changes should be implemented at the given date. I am unreservedly in favour" That is NOT a majority! The rest (apart from the small minority who are indifferent) had misgivings about the implementation of the changes and/or the nature of the changes.

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If you use the word "unreservedly" then obviously you aren't going to get too many people choosing that. Given the wording I think that 21.33% is rather high.

If we add the 30.67% who chose "I require more information before I can be sure that I am happy about all this" (noting that these two opinions are mutually exclusive), we can see that 52% of people are not unhappy about the proposed changes (at least not yet). We also have 33.33% who chose "I am happy if noob missions, specifically, will be rewarded with skills not attributes" and 50.67% who chose "am happy that frags and tokens will be replaced with skills", reflecting a generally more positive attitude than you are indicating. We don't know what the level of crossover was between those options and the two positive options I mentioned above, so we can't be sure how many of those we can add to the 52%.

jaywalker said:

The petition is desiged to address as many of those misgivings as one can reasonably ask. If you troubled to read it properly, you would see that at no point does it ask that the changes should not go ahead. In that case, why don't you go through the poll and try to draft a better fit? That is precisely why I posted the draft- so that people can constructively criticise before it gets set in concrete

Click to expand...

I haven't drafted a petition because I don't feel there is any need for one. I'm basically happy with the changes (as far as we know about them). If anything I would prefer them to be implemented sooner, but I'm not going to petition anyone to do that because it's just my opinion and is probably not representative of everyone's view.

Generally I think people are OK with it now, after the initial negative reaction immediately following the original accouncement, which is inevitable in such circumstances.

jaywalker said:

However, negative views from those who can't even be arsed with reading itproperly are not at all helpful. And that's the only kind of criticism that's been posted so far.

I'm therefore inclined to think that it hits the nail on the head. The majority have not said: "Hmm, better change that bit". Indeed nobody has suggested any actual changes yet
(apart from Rementoire , who pointed out that i mis-spelled "draft" Thanks. Rem. However, I cannot edit the title)

Click to expand...

I hope my analysis is constructive enough for you now.

Oleg said:

Perhaps ignoring wasn't the right word for me to use, "misinterpreting" would probably be more appropriate.

If we look at your statements A-C, only B has a direct equivalent in your poll: "Mission chains that have already been started should continue to offer the old rewards."

Given an open choice of any or all of the statements in the poll, 41.33% chose that option. That means that 58.67% specifically chose not to, which means a majority of people do not agree with statement B.

Statement A is not reflected at all by any of the options in the poll. Statement C doesn't have a direct equivalent but is probably most closely related to the option "Players should be given a realistic time span to collect all the attribute rewards if wanted" which was chosen by 37.33% or respondents, meaning that 62.67% disagree with this.



If you use the word "unreservedly" then obviously you aren't going to get too many people choosing that. Given the wording I think that 21.33% is rather high.

If we add the 30.67% who chose "I require more information before I can be sure that I am happy about all this" (noting that these two opinions are mutually exclusive), we can see that 52% of people are not unhappy about the proposed changes (at least not yet). We also have 33.33% who chose "I am happy if noob missions, specifically, will be rewarded with skills not attributes" and 50.67% who chose "am happy that frags and tokens will be replaced with skills", reflecting a generally more positive attitude than you are indicating. We don't know what the level of crossover was between those options and the two positive options I mentioned above, so we can't be sure how many of those we can add to the 52%.



I haven't drafted a petition because I don't feel there is any need for one. I'm basically happy with the changes (as far as we know about them). If anything I would prefer them to be implemented sooner, but I'm not going to petition anyone to do that because it's just my opinion and is probably not representative of everyone's view.

Generally I think people are OK with it now, after the initial negative reaction immediately following the original accouncement, which is inevitable in such circumstances.



I hope my analysis is constructive enough for you now.

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Sry to interrupt, may i remind there was 76 voters total? Strictly speaking this doesn't represent anything at all...
Most likely it will be the same with the new Petition, would be very hard to reach substantial % of the playerbase. Means, we can't really claim we represent anything.

I would simply try to make some constructive proposals, state that there's number of people who support them and hope MA takes them under serious consideration.
Why shouldn't they, MA doesn't know any better than we do what actually people (will) think about this (in August 2012)...

Fifth said:

Sry to interrupt, may i remind there was 76 voters total? Strictly speaking this doesn't represent anything at all...
Most likely it will be the same with the new Petition, would be very hard to reach substantial % of the playerbase. Means, we can't really claim we represent anything.

I would simply try to make some constructive proposals, state that there's number of people who support them and hope MA takes them under serious consideration.
Why shouldn't they, MA doesn't know any better than we do what actually people (will) think about this (in August 2012)...

Click to expand...

Any petition can necessarily only represent those that sign it.

remontoire said:

Any petition can necessarily only represent those that sign it.

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Exactly.

Which also means there can be several declarations... why not?
Suppose someone comes up with a "Better Declaration". No problem really, cause neither would represent the whole playerbase anyway. Both would be equally valid.

Oleg said:

So are you just ignoring the results of the poll you made to gauge people's reaction, which showed that most people are OK with the suggested changes?

This petition does not represent my views and I don't think it represents the views of the majority.

Click to expand...

please tell us Oleg, how many iron chain and other attribute giving missions did you finish already?

Just to make sure we can take your comment as objective.


Let's not hope that you say you have 15+ stamina.

wizz said:

please tell us Oleg, how many iron chain and other attribute giving missions did you finish already?

Just to make sure we can take your comment as objective.


Let's not hope that you say you have 15+ stamina.

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Sorry, I didn't realise that having more than 15 Stamina makes my opinion invalid.

I already pointed out that I have recognised that my opinion is my own and I have no wish to inflict it on others.

I should have known better than to try to post an intelligent and reasoned analysis on this forum.

Oleg said:

Sorry, I didn't realise that having more than 15 Stamina makes my opinion invalid.

I already pointed out that I have recognised that my opinion is my own and I have no wish to inflict it on others.

I should have known better than to try to post an intelligent and reasoned analysis on this forum.

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Sorry, Oleg, but it does. It's very easy to say, "hell I dont care what they do with the missions" if you have already finished them yourself and claimed all the rewards.

But yes, you're right, you're entitled to your own opinion, but in this case, it means nothing because it will have little effect on you. So it's easy for you to say what you want.

wizz said:

Sorry, Oleg, but it does. It's very easy to say, "hell I dont care what they do with the missions" if you have already finished them yourself and claimed all the rewards.

But yes, you're right, you're entitled to your own opinion, but in this case, it means nothing because it will have little effect on you. So it's easy for you to say what you want.

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So what you're saying is, the opinion of people who have spent 90% of their time for the last 2 years doing missions is less valuable than that of people who haven't bothered doing missions at all. The more engaged with the mission system someone has been, the less worthy their opinion about the mission system becomes.

Do you want to have a think about that one?

And how does the number of missions I have done have anything to do with my analysis of the poll results? Do you think I faked the poll results to reflect my own opinion?

By the way, the reason I would prefer the changes to happen sooner is because I don't want to waste time getting more attributes and novas from the missions I have yet to complete. I would rather have the skill rewards in the new system.

I think many users will be very happy to hear that MindArk is devising a change to the mission rewards system that will allow individual missions to award non-tradeable Attribute Tokens, which can be turned in to an NPC in exchange for attribute points.

This system would address two of the major concerns we have received in feedback from participants regarding the mission rewards rebalancing-

1. A larger number of mission creatures can continue to reward mission efforts in the form of increasing attributes.
2. Participants will be able to choose the best time to redeem their attribute rewards, for example after having skilled up 'naturally' to a certain level.

We are finishing up the necessary adjustments to the mission rewards formulas and guidelines provided to planet partners to accommodate the new attribute token system and the awarding of fractional attributes. Once those adjustments are completed, planet partners will have the ability to provide everyone with an overview of the new rewards that will be implemented on Aug. 21, so that participants can make informed decisions as to which missions to complete over the summer.

Bjorn|MindArk said:

I think many users will be very happy to hear that MindArk is devising a change to the mission rewards system that will allow individual missions to award Attribute Tokens, which can be traded with an NPC in exchange for attribute points.

This system would address two of the major concerns we have received in feedback from participants regarding the mission rewards rebalancing-

1. A larger number of mission creatures can continue to reward mission efforts in the form of increasing attributes.
2. Participants will be able to choose the best time to redeem their attribute rewards, for example after having skilled up 'naturally' to a certain level.

We are finishing up the necessary adjustments to the mission rewards formulas and guidelines provided to planet partners to accommodate the new attribute token system and the awarding of fractional attributes. Once those adjustments are completed, planet partners will have the ability to provide everyone with an overview of the new rewards that will be implemented on Aug. 21, so that participants can make informed decisions as to which missions to complete over the summer.

Click to expand...

(Removed, my criticism is no longer valid thanks to clarification )

non-trade-able .. ok..

Oleg said:

So basically you've caved in to the loudly whining minority as usual.

Presumably this also means that attributes will now be buyable via the trading of tokens, which will take away most of the reason people seem to want them in the first place.

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The attribute tokens will not be tradable. Sorry, I should have pointed this out in my previous post. I have updated my post to prevent any misunderstanding.

@ Bjorn

Thank you for addressing the concerns of those who have been postponing picking up mission rewards for the reasons you mention. Please, however, make those tokes untradeable or, as has been mentioned, it makes the whole attribute system largely pointless.

Edit: damn my slow ISP.

Bjorn|MindArk said:

The attribute tokens will not be tradable. Sorry, I should have pointed this out in my previous post.

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Good, that's a lot better than the alternative.

Sounds like a nice improvement to me.

Haters gonna hate.

The fact that this allows postponing of attribute award pick-up implies that the attribute rewards will continue to be in levels instead of "volume" (i.e. tt value for skill chip). Can you confirm this?

Bjorn|MindArk said:

We are finishing up the necessary adjustments to the mission rewards formulas and guidelines provided to planet partners to accommodate the new attribute token system and the awarding of fractional attributes. Once those adjustments are completed, planet partners will have the ability to provide everyone with an overview of the new rewards that will be implemented on Aug. 21, so that participants can make informed decisions as to which missions to complete over the summer.

Click to expand...

Thank you.

Hopefully the planet partners will act as quickly.

Oleg said:

So what you're saying is, the opinion of people who have spent 90% of their time for the last 2 years doing missions is less valuable than that of people who haven't bothered doing missions at all. The more engaged with the mission system someone has been, the less worthy their opinion about the mission system becomes.

Do you want to have a think about that one?

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I sure do!

It has nothing to do with your time being less valuable whatsoever.

It's just that not all of us can afford to spend thousands of peds each month to finnish the missions. And besides that, some simply don't have the time to grind all day.

Personally, I had a plan all lined out about how I was to do the missions and had about 15 attribute rewards still unclaimed. But I just needed more time to finish some 10k's before claiming.

And that time is now being taken away. That's how I feel about that.

Oleg said:

And how does the number of missions I have done have anything to do with my analysis of the poll results? Do you think I faked the poll results to reflect my own opinion?

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The number of missions has nothing to do with the poll results indeed. But for me it creates a picture on the voting population (read: you). If I was you, I would say the same.

So, no, I don't think you faked the poll.

Oleg said:

By the way, the reason I would prefer the changes to happen sooner is because I don't want to waste time getting more attributes and novas from the missions I have yet to complete. I would rather have the skill rewards in the new system.

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The nova's are indeed a crap reward, well, more of an insult actually but hey, the end bonus would be great!