Viper Changes Thread - Share your thoughts

[CKNovel]

No, it feels closer to "We identified that Noxious gash would put too much stress so we planned on removing it but only in 7.01. We didn't removed the positionals as the community was against it."
It's best to take at face value their communications.

But I still hope they'll understand that some form of stress is good.

[Carighan]

I am not just speechless, I am actually pretty mad. Same thing that happens to healers, or with DRK feedback - a wonderful "You think you do, but you don't" mentality on the developers part. The disconnect is real.

Where do you get that from?

He quite literally says they were adjusting until right on release, and had already discussed removing the need to mentally track a debuff before. Then they got that exact feedback they had feared the job with the debuff might get, so they removed it:

With regards to the changes for Viper, we had adjusted right until the last minute and we did have in mind the possibility that some players might provide feedback that it was too busy to play. We did release the job in that state, and then we found a lot of players say it was very busy to play to the extent that they were not able to see mechanics.

Do we want the devs to listen to their playerbase now, or not?!

[ovIm]

Where do you get that from?

He quite literally says they were adjusting until right on release, and had already discussed removing the need to mentally track a debuff before. Then they got that exact feedback they had feared the job with the debuff might get, so they removed it:

Do we want the devs to listen to their playerbase now, or not?!

A little bit later:

We announced that we were considering making adjustments to the job, but the response to that was a lot of feedback from players who had already reached the level cap and were already used to playing with the job, and they were happy with the way it played. However, we had already identified some actions which would inevitably be a cause of stress for players. Eventually, we just went through with adjusting what we had initially planned, and that was unrelated to the community feedback. However, I believe probably there was some misunderstanding on the community's part.

He openly admits that despite players wanting to keep the job the same gameplay wise, they wanted to force their vision without taking in feedback from the customers that were using and enjoying their product.

[Lyth]

I don't really understand this statement in the interview:

Eventually, we just went through with adjusting what we had initially planned, and that was unrelated to the community feedback. However, I believe probably there was some misunderstanding on the community's part.

given that the 7.05 Job Adjustments Overview section at the bottom of the Job Actions page specifically states this:

We've received feedback that viper's unique combo system, and the managing of its combo routes, have proven relatively difficult to handle compared to other melee DPS jobs. We believe one of the reasons for this has to do with the action Dread Fangs and its status effect Noxious Gnash─more specifically, finding the most opportune time to reapply and maintain this effect on enemies. To address this issue, we've removed Noxious Gnash and replaced it with Honed Steel and Honed Reavers, effects that are applied to self.

This is still written there on the official site, even now. Don't these two statements completely contradict each other? Where was our misunderstanding in this?

[jonimated]

Honestly if I take what Yoshi-P said at face value and believe the Viper changes were not based on community feedback, but on a change they "thought" they were going to have to make anyway, that feels so bad.

Why not just let the community play with the job you released and decide for themselves if it feels too busy or not? Like arresting someone for a crime you think they might commit. It's such a wild reaction to a non-issue.

[CKNovel]

given that the 7.05 Job Adjustments Overview section at the bottom of the Job Actions page specifically states this:

This is still written there on the official site, even now. Don't these two statements completely contradict each other? Where was our misunderstanding in this?

In JP it also uses the word "feedback" so it can't be a mistranslation.

There's one scenario where this statement would be not a contradiction:
The feedback has been received before 7.0 and from a party other than the community.
Therefore it can only originate from their playtester.

And this would explain a lot about the feeling of disconnections between changes and feedback.

[W00by]

Honestly if I take what Yoshi-P said at face value and believe the Viper changes were not based on community feedback, but on a change they "thought" they were going to have to make anyway, that feels so bad.

Why not just let the community play with the job you released and decide for themselves if it feels too busy or not? Like arresting someone for a crime you think they might commit. It's such a wild reaction to a non-issue.

This. This is the problem that people are failing to realize. I plan on doing a whole breakdown of why the response is terrible in a little bit, but this just makes the issue even worse.

We were frustrated because they announced changes to the job so soon after release, and we complained that they shouldn't change it. They changed it anyway, and we complained that we did not like the changes. Now they are saying, "don't worry, we didn't make these changes based on feedback -- we were gonna do it anyways! So don't worry, we aren't listening to people who want the jobs dumbed down, we just want to dumb them down ourselves! LOL"

What got them into this mess was horrible communication. No official job changes survey to really gauge how the playerbase is feeling, and an official forums that is not popular among the western audience (and therefore leaves out a lot of potential voices). Their response to our concerns about communication? "Don't worry, we don't listen all the time anyway, only sometimes." So what is even the point of speaking? All of the hard work that dedicated Vipers have done, discussing whether these changes are fair, fun, and warranted is evidently for nothing, because Yoshi-P just admitted that this isn't a decision they made based on feedback.

Who cares if you were initially scared that NG was going to make the job hard? We liked it. There was no reason to change it, even if you initially thought there would be. This is just a huge turd in the mouth of everybody who has been waiting to hear something. Nothing about "We hear that you are upset about the changes and are looking into solutions." Just "This is the change we made, don't like it, don't play." Horrible, really.

[mallleable]

Honestly, wouldn't be surprised if the decision to remove Gash was made shortly after when they realized live during the initial DT live letters that VPR got all the buff/debuff timers that were already going to be removed from MNK. Still very indifferent towards the removal of Gash.

[Leonus]

This is still alive…?

[TheAmazing3]

I'm not sure what's worse, that they completely failed to acknowledge the horrible state the job is currently in after their changes that nobody asked for, or that they straight up told us that they don't really care what we think anyway.

I'm pretty sure I even saw someone in this thread or one of the other viper threads that actually called it, that this was a change they had decided to make anyway and just didn't do it in time for launch so they dumped it on us as soon as they could regardless of what feedback was going around at the time or not.

I didn't think I could be more disappointed with this game's job design than I was. I am surprised yet again.