Does anyone actually care?

[Ynneja]

Truth be told, I am creating this thread because the Support Team refuses to talk any further until I go to the "official forums to post [my] thoughts" because the "Forums is[sic] the best form of communication between the players and the Dev Team" so let's begin.

 

1. Honestly, I am surprised that not more people are angrier / more annoyed by last event. Thanks to the 5h CD along with my working and sleep schedule, I can only open one lamp/day and maybe a few more on the weekend.

2. When the lamps suddenly stopped working, I searched high and low (all the news / announcements) from the first mention of the event to see if I missed this important information. Nothing. The Support Team refuses to acknowledge this SNAFU.

3. While looking through the forums to see if others shared this sentiment, the players were surprisingly silent about this matter. The shocker was when some players even defended the event because they managed to open all 60 of their lamps within the time frame. (Congratulations to them, but doesn't mean that employed players have the same luxury.)

 

Thank you for coming to my talk though I highly doubt anyone actually reads this, but at least now I can tell the Support Team that I did what they asked.

[Grimoir]

1. It is an event afterall. If NC would have to take into account everyones personal life and work schedules we wouldnt have any events. This is also not the first event we had with this concept. I mean you open as many as you can. My work schedule is also not that great but i always managed to spare 5 minutes to login, open a lam and log out.

 

2. It was announced in the systems preview for the patch we got wednesday and also on the lamps itself there was a date you could easily see. Also here it literally says Summer of Splendor event July 22 - August 19

https://www.bladeandsoul.com/en/news/dark-passage-break-patch-notes/

 

3.  I know a lot of players who didnt open even half the lamps cause of well..life and other obligations, but they acknowledge that the game does not evolve around their work schedules and try to get as much as they possibly can from the event.

[Ayanaye]

Hey,

I also misunderstood the function of the lamps. Assuming the event currency was actually the polishing clothes that can no longer be obtained after event ends. But I thought the lamps would still work during the reward redemption period, only that they can no longer be upgraded into wishing lamps. The jackpots for example always lasted through the reward redemption period, I have a years old juggernaught jackpot on one char, still working. xD Of course I can read item tooltips but I also think NC should have announced more clearly that the lamps will stop working immediately after patch day. I had about ten lamps left at the end and even could've opened/transmuted them, but started to slack because of this 5h cooldown. I mean, who wants to set an alarm clock in the middle of the night when they have to work the next day?

Edited August 23, 2020 by Ayanaye

[Rhiakath]

26 minutes ago, Ayanaye said:

Hey,

I also misunderstood the function of the lamps. Assuming the event currency was actually the polishing clothes that can no longer be obtained after event ends. But I thought the lamps would still work during the reward redemption period, only that they can no longer be upgraded into wishing lamps. The jackpots for example always lasted through the reward redemption period, I have a years old juggernaught jackpot on one char, still working. xD Of course I can read item tooltips but I also think NC should have announced more clearly that the lamps will stop working immediately after patch day. I had about ten lamps left at the end and even could've opened/transmuted them, but started to slack because of this 5h cooldown. I mean, who wants to set an alarm clock in the middle of the night when they have to work the next day?

Assuming things instead of reading the item description that pops up every time you put your mouse over the lamp is entirely on you. How more clearly can it get when it's literally there every time you open a lamp?

[Ayanaye]

They've had wrong/bugged tooltips in the past, showing a false date or no expiration date at all. Also I didn't say it was their fault, only that I misunderstood, "assuming" the event currency were the things we collected every day.

[Lee Nyan]

10 hours ago, Ynneja said:

1. Honestly, I am surprised that not more people are angrier / more annoyed by last event. Thanks to the 5h CD along with my working and sleep schedule, I can only open one lamp/day and maybe a few more on the weekend.

What I did was log in instantly after I get home and open my lamp then leave my char fishing or just afking for rewards and go do irl stuff. When I was done with everything I could open second lamp somewhere in the middle of my play time. Then get up in the morning and log in while I was eating my breakfast and open third. Did more on weekend and managed to open all 60 of them.

I honestly don't see how can you be able to open only one lamp a day unless you're guest in your own house and you literally spent there less than 5 hours.

[Nemises]

40 minutes ago, Lee Nyan said:

I honestly don't see how can you be able to open only one lamp a day unless you're guest in your own house and you literally spent there less than 5 hours.

For example if you're not at home at all on the weekends.

 

I would like to know the developers reason to set a 5 hours cooldown per lamp. What is the purpose of this cooldown?

- Letting people log in every 5 hours of their time awake? Sounds pretty annoying

- Letting people run to their pc after 5 hours for the event time? Sounds pretty annoying too

 

I thought events should be fun.

 

- Drawing attention to the game every 5 hours? To make BnS omnipresent in our mind?

- Why does the opening has a cooldown, if you're supposed to farm the daily limited clothes anyways?

 

This event felt essencially like a "how to set up a 5 hours timer for 1 klick and wait 5 hours again...

In general the event wasn't bad, but I do not unterstand the "necessity of a cooldown" decision here.

Edited August 23, 2020 by Nemises

[Amarathiel]

1 hour ago, Nemises said:

In general the event wasn't bad, but I do not unterstand the "necessity of a cooldown" decision here.

Someone else can correct if I have misinformation.

 

As far as I know there is a law in Korea that states every single game company in their domain has to have ways to limit player ingame playtime so they have less and less reasons to farm and play the game for like 15+ hours every single day since that can be a big problem there. Think most these limits in variety of places exists because of this law.

Secondly they really never bother to change much of game content to suit the western people. So those 2, apart the obvious one, are more or less the reasons for all these cooldowns and limitations ingame.

Edited August 23, 2020 by Amarathiel

[Cor]

2 hours ago, Nemises said:

 

I would like to know the developers reason to set a 5 hours cooldown per lamp. What is the purpose of this cooldown?

 

Because they give a reward even without using cloth, they don't want people to just open all lamps without actually playing the game.

[Rmccn08]

Let's look beyond the problems with the event, and lets look at the event itself. It was not very good. They should make better events. That's the real issue. Rather than complaining about not being able to open all 60 lamps, you should talk more about why we need better events.

[Nemises]

3 hours ago, Amarathiel said:

As far as I know there is a law in Korea that states every single game company in their domain has to have ways to limit player ingame playtime so they have less and less reasons to farm and play the game for like 15+ hours every single day since that can be a big problem there. Think most these limits in variety of places exists because of this law.

Yes, they are very strict in asian countries, especially in south korea. The devs lazyness to costumize the event before using it in the western market is a reasonable thought, but it's somehow poor regarding the difference in the audiance.

3 hours ago, Cor said:

Because they give a reward even without using cloth, they don't want people to just open all lamps without actually playing the game.

Could be a reason for the lamps, but the wishing lamps? An item that can be transmuted how many times a day? 3-5 (depending on premium or not)? Why did they give the wishing lamp the same cooldown, if you're actively played (or afk fished) for it?

 

I know those questions can be annoying, but I think the more of this questions could have a reasonable answer, the better an event would be. I feel like many desicions of the developers (that are not about monetization) aren't well thought or even discussed in their team. It feels more like one person said: "We do it this way, I have no reasons for this, don't question it, just do it."

Edited August 23, 2020 by Nemises

[Ynneja]

Oh boy, here we go:

 

1. No idea on Korean law on gaming, but the only way to "farm" for an event would be to make the event token available as an unlimited item that can be obtained through repetitive gameplay. This has never been the case since event tokens were always limited so not sure how that particular law is relevant here.

 

2. The lamps had three tiers all with different rewards with the higher tiers requiring gameplay to obtain another item (cloth) in order to transmute said higher tier lamps. If NCSoft wanted people to actually "play the event," they could have also made the lamps only obtainable through gameplay.

 

3. Agreed that the last event left much to desire and definitely should look towards the future instead, but how will the devs create better events if they do not learn what went wrong in the old ones? Make a stand. Tell NCSoft what they messed up on and hope they do better.

 

4. Events (and games!) should be fun. Not a chore. Rather than set an alarm every 5h, shouldn't a game focus more on GAMEplay and not, "Hey, come on every 5h to open a lamp!" (Moreover, the first thing I do when I come home is change, prep dinner, etc. and surprise, not turn on my computer just to open a lamp... but you do you.)

 

5. This is actually the first expired item from the past three years or so that become "unusable" while other expired items in the past were still able to open, process, use, etc., but were no longer used / redeemable anywhere else in the game. For veteran players, no idea how we would not be bamboozled by this.

 

6. This is also the first event in three years that utilize this strange CD function. Most likely, some of you are mistaking the "jackpot" pouches that was less of an event item and more of a gift that provided awesome things every 10h with a max opening of 10 stages. In other words, 10h CD / max 10 openings over a month timeline VS. 5h CD / max 60 openings over a month.

 

7. Don't get me wrong; I never expected to open all 60 of the lamps either. I was perfectly fine with opening as many as I could within the event + redemption timeline (usually 2 months), but then half of that expected time disappeared with no warning.

 

In the end, as mentioned before, this event was poorly designed (and should be shared as such with the devs if only they would listen), but the biggest issue is the lack of information on the lamps' expiration. The tooltip, announcements, etc. etc., nothing stated the lamps would become unusable except for the newest patch notes posted on Tues morning, about 17h before the maintenance.

Edited August 23, 2020 by Ynneja

[Laura099]

I will say a few things.
First off, the Korean Law dictating that players have some sort of limiter so that they don't collapse whilst gaming is indeed true. As such, much of the events of BnS were moved to fishing, and of course because it requires you to afk, the intention was "by the time you get the cloths to upgrade this lamp, the cooldown will be done"
Looking at it this way, it's not necessarily a poor thing. However we in the west actively game, we seldom AFK, only when we are sleeping or are working most times. However NCWest is under NCSofts foot, and must adhere to their word. NCSoft saw no value in changing the event, as the West team produces little income as is.
Onto the expiration. I believe this is something that is rather fair, however as was stated before by you, this is the first time in 3 years something became unusable on the day the event ends. It definitely threw some players for a loop. Also it's not the first event to utilize cooldown, but I believe it's the first event with a set number of items, making the cooldown more apparent.

Next onto all the people on the other side defending this crap. "well w-w-w-w-why cant you log in like me." Some people have their minds not so far up their asses that they would shove their lover, family, or work into the back of their mind because BnS. I know the argument that a true blue gamer always makes sure to get their crap done. But if I'm having fun, I'm not going to sit there and yell "hold the birthday party for a few minutes will ya? I have to log into BnS." People with proper lives put gaming at the back of their mind, not the front. Not to say you guys don't have lives, but clearly gaming is a priority in your life over being with others. That or you are genuinely having so much fun with BnS that it is where your mind goes to for a calm change of pace, which judging by your tones, is not the case. So do politely stop judging others for wanting to enjoy the real world because you enjoy the game world more.

Back to the OP, one final thing that I will say to defend all these people who are saying "y u no do dis". This games events were only made as events in 45 patch. Once the major Soul stages were introduced, events became mandatory, not fun. They are not called events because they are special, they are called events because it's just another mandatory thing whose gimmick changes, similar to the literal meaning of event. That is why many people will tell you "you should have just done it," because you're not choosing to ignore something fun, but something essentially mandatory.
 

[Ynneja]

^ That hit close to home.

 

To NCSoft, I want to say that as a big fan of Eastern MMOs, the last thing I want is for other US publishers to look at BnS' player base dwindle to nothing and think, "There is no interest in Eastern MMOs." Please do better.

 

To the player base, I hope in your love for this game that you are willing to help NCSoft do better by letting them know how and not just roll over whenever they mess up. Please remember that devs are the ones who design the game, but the players are the ones who shape it. (At last that is how it should be...)

 

 

[Cor]

6 hours ago, Ynneja said:

To the player base, I hope in your love for this game that you are willing to help NCSoft do better by letting them know how and not just roll over whenever they mess up. Please remember that devs are the ones who design the game, but the players are the ones who shape it. (At last that is how it should be...)

 

The playerbase can't do anything to improve the game because they do not care about our feedback in the first place. The game has been on the one-way-milking street for quite some time, all they do is reducing rewards all the time to push more people into using their credit card.

[Dokkoudou]

Support team (tier1 support) is solemnly existent to work through a protocol, which 10% of the time works.

if not you can always rate their work.

 

KR support (tier2 support) wont act unless you spent x amount in game (there was a yt guy playing such game /giggle)

if this doesnt resolve, they ask you to write in forum.

 

forum mods have to filter if legit post or troll (and by reading some posts I can understand why they are more than pissed most of the time)

and theese are mods, not devs. so, they cant resolve stuff either.

 

Seeing the pattern yet? No! ok, another exampled. Some youtubers did rants about BnS, and what does KR BnS site plaync do? They feature those videos. Lets emphasize it for once, they want publicity at all cost. Regardless if its good or bad.