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Patch Notes reading "X changed to Y #/credits/damage/etc." You aren't fooling anyone.


Felioats

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We know that unless it says "increased," it's a reduction, so why not provide all the information? I want to know what it was reduced from; how significant the nerf was.

 

I promise it won't send me into a frothy nerd rage. I'm actually more annoyed (and even a little insulted) by the omission of this information.

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We know that unless it says "increased," it's a reduction, so why not provide all the information? I want to know what it was reduced from; how significant the nerf was.

 

I promise it won't send me into a frothy nerd rage. I'm actually more annoyed (and even a little insulted) by the omission of this information.

 

:rolleyes:

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You sure about that?

 

LOL.. yeah... I think I just saw some drip on his keyboard. :p

 

OP, MMOs are meant to be explored. If they told you every single detail in the patch, including specific numbers, you would complain that Bioware is revealing spoilers and that you have no reason to log and check things out. :)

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LOL.. yeah... I think I just saw some drip on his keyboard. :p

 

OP, MMOs are meant to be explored. If they told you every single detail in the patch, including specific numbers, you would complain that Bioware is revealing spoilers and that you have no reason to log and check things out. :)

 

Since the data being omitted is no longer in the game, it's not there to be explored, is it?

 

And I can't say I've ever been excited to log in to check out a tooltip, in any case.

 

FROTH FROTH FROTH

 

:mon_tongue::mon_tongue::mon_tongue:

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Is there a particular note you'd like more information about? We do want to include specific information about increases and reductions where possible (you'll notice many notes with "reduced x by y (down from z)" ), but some notes may not have as detailed information as others. We'll continue working to make sure notes are as detailed as possible - we know the information is important! Edited by AllisonBerryman
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Is there a particular note you'd like more information about? We do want to include specific information about increases and reductions where possible (you'll notice many notes with "reduced x by y (down from z)" ), but some notes may not have as detailed information as others. We'll continue working to make sure notes are as detailed as possible - we know the information is important!

 

The example that led me to create this post is from today's patch notes:

 

The weekly Nightmare Pilgrim mission now rewards 4 Black Hole Commendations.

I'm pretty sure it used to be 6. And that's cool -- like I said, I just like knowing what it was changed from.

 

Thanks!

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Thanks for the response! I'll see if I can get more specific information about the note. We'll also continue working to make sure our notes are as detailed as we can make them - we may not be able to provide all details for every note, but it's our goal to make sure they're clear and informative!

 

edit: I inquired about this note, and it appears this was a bugfix and that this particular mission was not granting commendations as intended!

Edited by AllisonBerryman
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I'm pretty sure it used to be 6. And that's cool -- like I said, I just like knowing what it was changed from.

 

Thanks!

 

It didn't used to be anything... We've killed it twice and for both weekly's, it only gave money. Nothing in the item slots in the quest reward window.

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If they told you every single detail in the patch, including specific numbers, you would complain that Bioware is revealing spoilers and that you have no reason to log and check things out. :)

Explaining game mechanics, mission rewards, crafting material requirements or whatever is hardly spoilers.

 

I not only agree with the OP but would ideally like to see every minuscule detail added to the patch notes, including minor typo fixes in bonus missions or whatever. It's not like any changes will go unnoticed in a game of this magnitude anyway so it's far preferable to know the actual facts than having to extrapolated based on personal experience alone.

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I not only agree with the OP but would ideally like to see every minuscule detail added to the patch notes, including minor typo fixes in bonus missions or whatever.

 

We do our best to find a balance between giving players detailed information and condensing notes that have less impact on players to make the notes more readable overall. We always want to note (in detail) changes to mechanics, fixes to issues that could prevent progression on missions, new options, and fixes to high-visibility problems (like things on our known issues list), but we do tend to condense notes about typos, minor art changes (like fixes to seams in terrain), and other minor changes into broader notes. You can see good examples of this in the 1.2 notes with the general notes about cinematics polish and other similar notes.

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I would suggest making a short summary of notes for people who don't really care, and then very detailed ones (similar to what you must have internally) for the people that do. In general, the people looking at the notes want the tiny details, the average player isn't going to read them at all.

 

A lot of times the notes feel like they have been filtered through so many layers that the meaning is lost. There have been quite a few misleading word choices in the past that were probably an honest attempt to simplify things that can't really be simplified.

Edited by XavinNydek
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I would suggest making a short summary of notes for people who don't really care, and then very detailed ones (similar to what you must have internally) for the people that do. In general, the people looking at the notes want the tiny details, the average player isn't going to read them at all.

 

A lot of times the notes feel like they have been filtered through so many layers that the meaning is lost. There have been quite a few misleading word choices in the past that were probably an honest attempt to simplify things that can't really be simplified.

 

In general, the players looking at the notes don't want the tiny, unimportant details, they want the important changes.

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We do our best to find a balance between giving players detailed information and condensing notes that have less impact on players to make the notes more readable overall. We always want to note (in detail) changes to mechanics, fixes to issues that could prevent progression on missions, new options, and fixes to high-visibility problems (like things on our known issues list), but we do tend to condense notes about typos, minor art changes (like fixes to seams in terrain), and other minor changes into broader notes. You can see good examples of this in the 1.2 notes with the general notes about cinematics polish and other similar notes.

I understand that perfectly, and I recognize that my personal preferences regarding this are neither universally shared by the player base nor an efficient use of resources.

 

None the less I'd prefer to read all changes, as I'm the guy that tend to silently rage over getting stuck in that terrain seam, having an NPC facing away from me in a conversation that I'm watching for the tenth time, watch the planet I'm just jumping away from still hanging on in the side of my ship's windscreen while the 'stars' pass over it and so on.

 

I'm not complaining over the way things are as such, I just wish for... more. :)

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We do our best to find a balance between giving players detailed information and condensing notes that have less impact on players to make the notes more readable overall. We always want to note (in detail) changes to mechanics, fixes to issues that could prevent progression on missions, new options, and fixes to high-visibility problems (like things on our known issues list), but we do tend to condense notes about typos, minor art changes (like fixes to seams in terrain), and other minor changes into broader notes. You can see good examples of this in the 1.2 notes with the general notes about cinematics polish and other similar notes.

 

Oh really? I suppose the stealth nerf to the Second Wind talent(For Guardians) and Payback talent(For Juggs) had very little impact to us Jugg/Guardian players. I'm sure you guys could have mentioned that in the patch notes, but why bother?

 

Most Juggs are horrible, and when I was complaining about the nerf to Payback, people had no idea that the heals couldn't crit anymore.

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Is there a particular note you'd like more information about? We do want to include specific information about increases and reductions where possible (you'll notice many notes with "reduced x by y (down from z)" ), but some notes may not have as detailed information as others. We'll continue working to make sure notes are as detailed as possible - we know the information is important!

 

The 1.2 patch notes for example. Every single beneficial change for operatives was noted like this:

• Laceration now costs 10 Energy (down from 15) and deals approximately 10% less damage.

 

Whereas, any nerf was noted like this:

• Backstab now has a 12-second cooldown and deals approximately 5% more damage. [which should read up from 9 seconds]

-and-

• Lethality now increases critical chance by 1% per point. [which should read down from 2% per point]

-and-

• Razor Edge now increases Shiv damage by 4% per point. [which should read down from 5% per point]

 

I would quote the changes for other classes, but I don't know them well enough to recognize a buff from a nerf given the lack of information in the patch notes. The way patch notes are represented, one needs to do a bit of forensic accounting to figure out whether an ability was buffed or nerfed.

Edited by ironix
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Explaining game mechanics, mission rewards, crafting material requirements or whatever is hardly spoilers.

 

I not only agree with the OP but would ideally like to see every minuscule detail added to the patch notes, including minor typo fixes in bonus missions or whatever. It's not like any changes will go unnoticed in a game of this magnitude anyway so it's far preferable to know the actual facts than having to extrapolated based on personal experience alone.

 

With this, there is a catch 22. There are those who would like to see every single thing fixed in the patch notes, then there are those that would complain and say "you brought the servers down for this???? really?" and they don't seem to care that it could be a hotfix for said problem for example.

 

There are also things that most MMO's do not put in patch notes..exploit fixes etc for obvious reasons. What it comes down to is, they cant please everyone and that's why we get what we get. Not enough details in patch notes can give the impression that they are hiding something (nerfs etc), but there are also times where the changes are mostly backend and nothing is really affected on the user side.

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For this matter I prefer patch notes of the type that instead of stating

X now is Y

have a wording of

X has been increased to Y

A has been decreased to B

 

Even without giving precise before/after numbers, such lines unambigously state the direction of the change, which is important for many people who don't calculate and compare the exact numbers, but at least want a rough qualitative comparison.

 

Personally, whenever I read patch notes that say "X is now Y" the first thing I expect is a nerf, hidden behind an ambivalent wording in the hope that not too many people immediately realize there is a nerf. Even if such an interpretation is completely wrong and unintended, it would serve everyone, both Bioware and us players, much better to use a wording that does not allow such ambiguities.

 

P.S.: When I wanted to reply to this thread, I landed on a "you are not logged in, click here to log in" prompt. After logging in I was sent to my account management, not back to the thread or the reply editor.

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For this matter I prefer patch notes of the type that instead of stating

 

have a wording of

 

 

Even without giving precise before/after numbers, such lines unambigously state the direction of the change, which is important for many people who don't calculate and compare the exact numbers, but at least want a rough qualitative comparison.

 

Personally, whenever I read patch notes that say "X is now Y" the first thing I expect is a nerf, hidden behind an ambivalent wording in the hope that not too many people immediately realize there is a nerf. Even if such an interpretation is completely wrong and unintended, it would serve everyone, both Bioware and us players, much better to use a wording that does not allow such ambiguities.

 

P.S.: When I wanted to reply to this thread, I landed on a "you are not logged in, click here to log in" prompt. After logging in I was sent to my account management, not back to the thread or the reply editor.

 

I totally agree with this. When trying to sort out class patch notes, you sometimes end up having to pull up pages from several different web sites to sort out exactly what is happening.

 

As to the earlier claims that one should discover this sort of thing, the logical extension of that is that we not have any patch notes at all and you try to figure out what has happened. That's ridiculous as is the basis of your argument. The patch notes are there to inform. If they don't inform accurately, then they aren't doing their job. A simple rewording of these patch notes to indicate not only what the new value is, but what it has been reduced/increased from would go a long way towards making these notes more informative.

Edited by Corlantis
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The 1.2 patch notes for example. Every single beneficial change for operatives was noted like this:

• Laceration now costs 10 Energy (down from 15) and deals approximately 10% less damage.

 

Whereas, any nerf was noted like this:

• Backstab now has a 12-second cooldown and deals approximately 5% more damage. [which should read up from 9 seconds]

-and-

• Lethality now increases critical chance by 1% per point. [which should read down from 2% per point]

-and-

• Razor Edge now increases Shiv damage by 4% per point. [which should read down from 5% per point]

 

I would quote the changes for other classes, but I don't know them well enough to recognize a buff from a nerf given the lack of information in the patch notes. The way patch notes are represented, one needs to do a bit of forensic accounting to figure out whether an ability was buffed or nerfed.

 

This is exactly what needs to be done, more transparency into game mechanics is always better.. in addition there are in fact alot of stealth fixes that should be noted, as another poster has already mentioned.

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We do our best to find a balance between giving players detailed information and condensing notes that have less impact on players to make the notes more readable overall. We always want to note (in detail) changes to mechanics, fixes to issues that could prevent progression on missions, new options, and fixes to high-visibility problems (like things on our known issues list), but we do tend to condense notes about typos, minor art changes (like fixes to seams in terrain), and other minor changes into broader notes. You can see good examples of this in the 1.2 notes with the general notes about cinematics polish and other similar notes.

 

Everything about the game affects players. Detailed notes would be greatly appreciated.

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We do our best to find a balance between giving players detailed information and condensing notes that have less impact on players to make the notes more readable overall. We always want to note (in detail) changes to mechanics, fixes to issues that could prevent progression on missions, new options, and fixes to high-visibility problems (like things on our known issues list), but we do tend to condense notes about typos, minor art changes (like fixes to seams in terrain), and other minor changes into broader notes. You can see good examples of this in the 1.2 notes with the general notes about cinematics polish and other similar notes.

 

You leave things out so it's more readable? How about you do this: A full version, and a short version...

 

Not hard. Problem solved, don't be lazy.

 

That is all.

 

Goodbye.

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