Hidden Mini Drama at Meet and Greet PH (ft. Open Letter)

[ErickEych]

An Open Letter to the Developers from a Player who loved Dragon Nest, where he formerly spends more time to the game than his school.

Introduction
I'm a business finance major graduate from our university. I've been devoted to Dragon Nest since 2013, a well-rounded player who both plays PvE and PvP. I've been a witness, how Dragon Nest changed and how most of my friends in PvE and PvP quit the game one by one. I play most of the classes in PvP and been a participant and won several local DNPvP tournaments such as Mineski's MPGL, and other local tournaments that CherryCredits handled. I also won official online tournaments like the last PvP event of CherryCredits, the Guild Showdown 2016 where our guild, Ingenuous also won. And the recent online event that you guys from Eyedentity handled, which is the 4v4 Death Match event.

Dragon Nest's current problems

Changes in PVE is greatly affecting PVP

It's good to see how PvE's direction is going, but the changes being made in PvE is greatly affecting PvP. Factors like Special Attack stats, Super Armor and Super Armor Break computation of skills, Attack/Defense boost enhancements, adding more variables in the game, all of these are just some factors from PvE that pushes PvP away from game's title having the best PVP mechanics on an MMORPG. The only MMORPG that has been introduced in the local (PH) e-sport community. Now, it's no longer known and been entirely removed, assuming because of the changes for it reduces the skill and experience of a person entirely to be dominant.

Lack of community interaction with the developers

On September 7, Dragon Nest SEA was reopened having its new publisher, the developers of the game Eyedentity Games. As a business graduate, I usually tend to overthink stuff, agreeing that the opening was a success (well obviously, the server was so crowded all channels were full including the other worlds). Many were hyped of the new contents that ED released, including myself, I won't deny that fact. But the community interaction with the developers is basically one of their intro platforms, but its nowhere to be found. So, I questioned myself, will these number of players will maintain on the succeeding days? Will the excitement continues linger to every player and try to stay on the game? Being community first is really essential and one of the reasons why a game run at its fullest.

But one day, I do hope I'm not going to be one of those who stopped believing on the developers to realize the other path of Dragon Nest is taking.

- A player who loved Dragon Nest, where he formerly spends more time to the game than his school.

--
Hi guys, you probably heard this is me speaking if you went at the meet and greet PH. But I expected I'll be halted by one of the CherryCredits PH organizers for being straightforward I am. Yeah, probably because of the shift on mood in the environment. Or, something pushed me to the sense that I'm already on the point where I'm brave enough and have the audacity to tell in front of the public what's really going on the game and not going to be a hypocrite, for it slowly decreases the number of players which hurts me a lot as you already guys know, #DNISLIFE. (Disclaimer: I know that PvP is not the only reason why players are leaving the game, as well as PvE's certain mechanics that needs to be revamped).

Before I wasn't planning to do this in public and talk about this matter to the producer-developer (PD), K and her translator privately, but the staff interrupted our conversation and told me that if I want to ask something, there'll be a segment where you can ask directly to the developers. And now, they cut me again for saying "its too long and also to give chance to others" used it as an alibi. IT WAS REALLY INTENDED TO BE PRIVATE IN THE FIRST PLACE FOR THIS IS A SERIOUS MATTER, ITS FACTUAL AND REALITY.

So, there's this hidden mini drama behind it where a staff (the same staff who interrupted our convo) approached me (I know this staff for a long time, he was one of the staff that CherryCredits always assign when there's events happening in PH, since I do local tournaments.)
Non verbatim in Filipino (Translated in English)
STAFF: You know what's the problem is? The segment is QnA and you're trying to say is no longer a question but a...
ME: Yep, I know. I'm pretty aware that's much of a rant.

Me on my mind being toxic:
Yeah, probably you see me look like a child since I look young, I'm on the right age and I know what I'm doing. Thanks for embarrassing me in exchange to hide pro staff's incompetence. lul

-
Feel free to flame me, I ate criticisms for my breakfast.

[Naxsu]

Can I freely post what I don't like in our PVP?
1) Updates on Colo Shops are seemed to be forgotten
2) Hats are not allowed. Hats matter.

[lel0uch_zer0]

I agree, perspective of a business finance major graduate, Dragon Nest lover, pvp/pve player.

However, me as a programmer, i agree with PD K. The hardest problem of every mmorpg games, skill balancing (pve/pvp). They really love DN. If they don't, they've already abandoned the ship long time ago. He mentioned that there are 100 programmer/staff working with him. They are diveded in teams to focus on specific task. As for the skill balancing team, they are aware but lacks of communication with players to reduce/pinpoint the problem.

Kindly correct me. If in not mistaken, i've heard (PD K said) that they don't have enough tool/something...(can't understand well because of the translator's mic problem)

[darkb1ader]

 The hardest problem of every mmorpg games, skill balancing (pve/pvp).

It's true skil balancing is the hardest unforunately they just kept on releasing new classes even if they know it is the hardest.
They should've stopped making new classes and focused on the one's that have been released.
Unfortunately, that didn't happen...

[Riugа]

Well bravo to you. I asked people to give them (CC / ED) a reality check like this back in what was it... I can't remember but it was a live meeting event in the Philippines in either 2016 or 2015. I don't believe anyone mustered the courage to do so, for exactly the reason you said: that they don't want to change the 'mood' of the event.

If they allege a hundred or so staff members, which I think is cleverly worded to make people think that there are more developers than there actually are [1], then their problem is them overthinking the solution to this lack of communication in the first place. This is due in part to what I call their `professionalism complex`. There is nothing wrong about them talking to players in informal conversations on the forums, Discord, and other social outlets. Hell, as the rest of the world demonstrates, the most successful game developers are the ones who actually do this.

[1] - It takes several artists and modellers to keep pace with any decent developer, especially at this point in a project like DN where the core framework has been set in stone. If I'm generous I'd say they have a ratio of 1:2:4 for developers:2D/concept artists:modellers*, but realistically it should be closer to 1:3:5. If you expand either ratio and factor in miscellaneous staff (including writers, e.g. quest, lore, etc.), for which they should have at least 20-25 of, what you'll end up with is a dozen or so developers, if not less.

* - When I say modellers, I refer to the full spectrum including but not limited to riggers, animators, texturers, etc. Considering how they are recycling content all the time since the past ~2 years or so, I'd estimate that the former ratio is more accurate at this point.

[ErickEych]

There is nothing wrong about them talking to players in informal conversations on the forums, Discord, and other social outlets. Hell, as the rest of the world demonstrates, the most successful game developers are the ones who actually do this..

I agree.

[BlessedSign]

so basically there was nothing important or special shared throughout the event ? It's sad though seeing how they neglect pvp and just throw whatever in pve into pvp like they have 0 interest anymore.

[ErickEych]

There's a PvP proposal that we made and sent it through both hard and softcopy. Even the top players of SEA, NA, TW, INA helped throughout that collab. Hopefully, they do something about it. It's not perfect tho, but its a good start. We did our very best already. The game's future is solely on their hands.

[BlessedSign]

Yeah hopefully something will come out from that, thanks for your effort!

[Chelly]

Simple reason, PVP was neglected because it does not bring them income. Furthermore, revamping PVP will take too much time and resources that will slow down the PVE content therefore as you can tell, the developers choose to sustain the PVE scene of Dragon nest as a whole.
Tbh, DN is losing lots of money since many player has left the game due to the changes since 2015, i believe they do not have the funds to focus on two aspects of the game, therefore leaving PVP stagnant until they have the manpower/ funds to fix it.

[ErickEych]

Yeah, PvP doesn't give them money. But there are some ways that they can do with it, and we all know how big the other side of the game's community as well. They just don't know to iterate it. They just decided to kill the community as well.

Ik tho, and we are all aware of that. But the reason why they are losing is, the changes what they are doing just like you've said. The fault is on them, they should know where to stop updating in terms of level cap. Hence, depreciating old items plays a really big part on people's decision whether to stay or not. Not all people have the same time allowances that you can allocate to the game, like you have.

[NearLawlet]

My whole faith in them has completely disappeared after the whole fiasco with Raven and Shooting Star skill change. I mean, did they even bother sparing a few minutes to test the change before actually implementing it?

And to hell with priorities... Who cares about a dead class like Ruina who doesn't appeal well to the players, right? Go and boost Black Mara further, despite her current standing among other DPS class.

[ceruulean]

PvP can make money, but the new changes and skills make balancing hard, after all its obvious some classes are easier to use than others.
There used to be Dragon Nest World Championships right? Tournaments make money and promote game, DNC was capped to level 60, but now various skills from before level 60 were changed to be ineffective until level 90+. So now you can't just limit cap to 60 and say it's ok, because everything below level 60 is different.

but DN is a fighting game first and foremost, neglecting PvP affects PvE. Ever since they removed the orange mission rooms of every game mode except respawn/FFA, remove rumble mode, neglect guild rumble, fail to balance ladder, fail to make ladder gear relevant to PvE, remove guild achievements that require pvp, etc. it feels like the devs dont want us to play their game. Always doing PvE content is quite simply boring.

[ErickEych]

Tournaments make money and promote game,

I agree, this is one factor that dnpvp can contribute. It helps the game to promote to the other community as well. But they aren't aware of that.