RIFT Survey Result - Challenge Level

[Windasani]

I understand getting a sample of your general public for a general sense of the overall game, but if you want to focus on improving the game for your entire population then you need to segregate your audience and the questions you ask them.

You do not need to ask everyone about raiding. I would suggest a branching questionnaire that starts out asking how they spend their time in game then ask them questions that are pertinent to them.

Questions about raiding needs to primarily be answered by people for whom raiding is the primary driver of them logging in. This is the group that should be asked questions about encounter difficulty, gaining required equipment to reach required raiding stats, the faction grind etc.... While your casual social player, PVP'r, Crafter, or soloer may have an opinion on those things that affect raiding, that opinion is likely uninformed and basically of no use for your purposes.

Asking people that don't craft about crafting just muddies the waters etc...

The simple fact that the faction grind is not dwarfing everything else on your word map makes me feel pretty sure that it got left off the questionnaire,

And as I haven't seen the survey, I can only surmise that the equal and opposite reactions to raid difficulty is likely caused by whether the raider in question is in a Hardcore or Casual raiding guild. I do not feel any of the fights I have seen in the game are "too difficult" for serious raid guilds. I do think some encounters (where all 20 people all have to have fast reactions, and the enrage timers are so tight that 2-4 people dying blows it unless you have some over-geared people to make up for it) are too unforgiving for casual raid guilds even if they are appropriately geared.

I also believe there are too many required roles for clerics in the current raids - Clerics need a ST Main Tank healing build, a build for shielding the raid when massive AE's land, a Defiler build so the Tanks don't go splat, a serious AE healing build, a Tank build as they are the only tanks with the AE snap agro some fights require and a DPS build. Well that doesn't leave much room for solo builds or experimenting.

While this requirement may be fine in a HC raiding guild where the same guys show up every night and can divide the builds between them, its very difficult for a casual raiding guild when you regularly have folks out. Unrealistic to force folks to have no solo build, so each of them has to give something up. I am not saying its impossible to deal with, but it makes some raid nights tedious, and if you don't have 5+ clerics log on the night is going to be very painful.

so yeah I am rambling just felt like blathering a bit. I appreciate that you are asking for feedback, I am just wary of most surveys and their results. As Mark Twain said "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." Can make the results support whatever view you choose, just ask the question the right way.

[Grandevr]

The methodology used to select players to participate in this survey was:

1.) A random sample of players from among all RIFT players opted-in to receive email communications from Trion Worlds (this is a legal requirement to comply with CAN-SPAM regulations).
2.) Must have played RIFT since the launch of the Storm Legion expansion.

My goal was 2,000 responses.

To get statistically valid results, the minimum number of responses is 300 (±5.66% at a 95% level of confidence). The gold standard is 1,000 responses, which yields results in the ±3.1% range.

What are you referring to when you cite a flawed sample selection process?

Considering the size of Rift's playerbase, while 2000 as a goal may technically be larger than the 'bare minimum' of 300 ... it sounds as tho Trion's threshold is 'adequate enough effort". I thought Trion was about going above and beyond the level of adequacy.

In the meantime, such a small sample (of imprecise design, judging from the questions) seems destined to only provide flawed results that will have little meaningful value to Game Designers serious about their product.

Windasani had some good points ... I bolded a key part:

I understand getting a sample of your general public for a general sense of the overall game, but if you want to focus on improving the game for your entire population then you need to segregate your audience and the questions you ask them.

You do not need to ask everyone about raiding. I would suggest a branching questionnaire that starts out asking how they spend their time in game then ask them questions that are pertinent to them.

Questions about raiding needs to primarily be answered by people for whom raiding is the primary driver of them logging in. This is the group that should be asked questions about encounter difficulty, gaining required equipment to reach required raiding stats, the faction grind etc.... While your casual social player, PVP'r, Crafter, or soloer may have an opinion on those things that affect raiding, that opinion is likely uninformed and basically of no use for your purposes.

Asking people that don't craft about crafting just muddies the waters etc...

The simple fact that the faction grind is not dwarfing everything else on your word map makes me feel pretty sure that it got left off the questionnaire...

Here is a salient point that I'd like to make. Why not target the questionairre towards players who invest a certain amount of time (bi-weekly or monthly average) in Rift?

1) there are generally a variety of reasons why they continue to play extensively
2) as these players presumably 'burn thru content faster' relatively to others, whatever keeps them playing Rift as much as they consistently do must be compelling to deter them from migrating to other games
3) whatever 'hooks' these players will surely 'hook' the casual players and potential (new) players

ID-ing and polishing these 'hooks' will ensure that Rift's playerbase is strong and healthy.

Do not fall into the trap of trying to cast as wide of a net as possible, as generally those kind of nets are of flimsy quality, and you end up losing a good part of your catch. A well-designed net can be carefully expanded to continuosly catch more fish as well as retain all the fish already caught.

[Grandevr]

(Decided to make this two separate posts)

Personally, Rift had two 'hooks' for me in particular. The actual rifts themselves (a cornerstone of the game) and the dungeon/raid experience.

I have not yet had much raiding experience outside of TotDQ in SL, but journeyed up to mid-way in Hammerkneel in 'Classic Rift'. So I'll focus on the rifts and dungeons.

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With Storm Legion, I am finding the dungeons to be far less engaging than previously. I think part of the culprit lies in Trion cutting down too much of the trash content (in the spirit of 'streamlining') whereas now the predominant attitude is 'let get this done as quickly as possible, and exploit whatever we can'. Paradoxically, to compensate for the fewer trash pulls, some of the individual mobs were excessively buffed to the extent that players at times more frequently wiped on trash pulls than on actual boss fights themselves.

Just look at SBP for being the absurdly flawed dungeon it is. On SL release, it took *significant* time to complete. It was indeed a marathon slog. 2nd boss could take 5-7 waves of jumping, and usually finished with someone dead. Wipes occured on the combination of tough trash pulls and launcher fire enroute to 3rd boss. 3rd boss was excessively dependent on people handling the webbing *and* the person on the roof using the turret. The route to 4th boss had waves and waves and yet more waves of bugs, and two 'epic waves' at the end, followed by a deceptively simple final boss.

*Nowadays* players short-cut the heck out of this dungeon, as well as Trion enabling it. Players can get to the 1st boss in under 2 minutes by jumping up a cliff. 2nd boss was nerfed so badly you can down him with 1 jump. 3rd boss gets pulled out to the side for a tank&spank, ignoring all related mechanics. Players were once able to bypass the content separating 3rd and 4th by jumping over 4 hurdles, which is no longer possible, but the 3 mini waves are short-enough, and final boss only has one major wave.

If one was to look at SBP as representative of the Storm Legion expansion, they can only be absolutely appalled by what can only be described as embarrasingly poor design. Reduced to the utterance of "okay, let's try to finish this in under 20 minutes and move on with our lives". The only engaging dungeon in the SL expansion that comes to mind is Boneforge, which only 'quirk' is that the tank goes DPS for the final boss fight.

So the dungeons themselves are significantly less of a 'hook' nowdays for me.

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As for the rifts themselves, I thought the addition of hunt and greater hunt rifts were a good diversification. However, I'm discorted with how the 'difficulty' of the greater predominantly revolves around making it a very long time to kill the planarch (turrets reduce the buff, but the delay between the boss restacking the buffs is quite short, resulting in the boss having a high buff stack for most of the duration).

This versus the planarch being anything more 'difficult' than a tank & spank outside of some AoE damage ... and the other aspect of the 'difficulty' is channelling the rift progression into a grind by virtue of the above (prior stages rather short, planarch stage taking a longer than necessary amount of time. So ultimately the difficulty lies within the rift's function as a time-sink as opposed to being distincitvely different and challenging to complete.

So while part of me would like to 'complete' all of the various great hunt rifts, they have lost their luster due to the repetitive similarity between them. It is difficult to remain motivated outside of the 'need' for Torvan rep, which reinforces the notion that it is something to 'grind through." If we had the ability to convert planarite into IS, this would mitigate some of the 'pain' as players can improve their gear more directly along with doing the greater hunt rifts.

Thus the 'hook' of the rifts changed from being something fun to do now and then, to a form of a progresson grind (to complete them and for Torvan rep).

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A 3rd hook was the 'PvP' that you would be compelled to engage in doing the PvP dailies in Stillmore and Simmersand, as you would be auto-flagged atttempting to complete these quests. Now, it seems that PvP is completely limited to Warfronts and Conquest.

As the result of these 3 of my 'hooks' disappearing from the game ... which in itself is a reflection of the significant decrease in the challenge level of Rift ... I am only left with regret that I had signed up for the 1-year subscription (which included the SL expansion 'for free') ... as all the potential that I thought SL would deliver on (optimistically based on my enjoyable state as a player pre-SL) has instead been a major letdown.

[arus2001]

Narrowing your focus like that isn't particularly wise. After all, you can find out why people don't partake in certain content if you ask them about it. Additionally, what hooks the hardcores is unlikely to do the same for the casuals. If anything, the hardcores will happily take anything shoveled at them just to maintain a sense of loyalty and superiority they like to carry around to justify their own wants or shooting down the wants of others who don't fall into their same group.

[Glamour]

In the meantime, such a small sample (of imprecise design, judging from the questions) seems destined to only provide flawed results that will have little meaningful value to Game Designers serious about their product.

lol

you have no idea how research and statistics actually work do you

[Kerin]

Game will die if all the hardcores quit

Game won't notice if all the hardcores quit.

[Kerin]

lol

you have no idea how research and statistics actually work do you

Of course he doesn't, not when the results aren't those he wants to read.

[Essala]

So, I took your "Survey" and still notice it has level 50 as a cap. I think this may be throwing off the survey results because 1-50 was fine. Also, I notice I can take the survey numerous times which i am sure is not intended. All I had to was re-click the link in my e-mail and vola make another survey.


I have very little faith in this survey and I believe it to be made up with inflated compromised results.



http://surveys.questionpro.com/a/Tak...xt_ref=1375454

Have fun.

[Chenics]

Here is a salient point that I'd like to make. Why not target the questionairre towards players who invest a certain amount of time (bi-weekly or monthly average) in Rift?.

That's really not a great idea because there are loads of people who log in, do a couple of things, then just sit there chatting with the guild or /4.

Just because they've been logged into the game longer than someone else shouldn't give them an automatic survey. Those results would be even more messed up.

[drkdragon909]

Maybe this is me just being crazy but it seems to me while most people like "challenge level" of the game its clear from the word blurbs u posted that quests need to become more difficult and raids need to be toned down. Just based on your feedback using the example that if both have big words "Dungeons" then it means it's just right.

But i think the more important maybe even most important question is how accessible is the game and its content and to that i have to sadly say not very which imo is why you subscriber base seems to be shrinking making everything even less accessible.

I would venture to say, and i know i'm going to get some hate for this, that a system like WoW has with LFR(looking for Raid) would be perfect for a game like rift given the server sizes and the fact that people like to raid but finding a raiding guild is rare these days and not everyone has a solid set in stone schedule.

If you look at your example of what your doing perfect it's dungeons and what has made dungeons so successful? The looking for group tool.

I would venture to guess that almost all dungeons now days are run using that tool and that if one for raiding were implemented with a slightly toned down raid environment and slightly lower rewards you would breath new life into rift and give many players an extra avenue to explore that was not even up for consideration for many guilds and individuals.

[Xenoheart]

This is just weird. I'm a mathematician IRL and watching peeps argue with the methodology of the dev is just...well its funny lol.

But also from a marketting standpoint, remember the person who logs in twice an hour vs the person who logs in once a month, yet both have a year sub, still make the developers the same amount of money. To exclude one group from the survey for overal goals of the company would be a fatal mistake as it could lead to resources allocated to an area that'll ultimately lead to no noticable retention or aquisition rates.

In that respect it is vital to know what all people feel about the game reguardless of what they do, dont do, or how often they log in. A limited audience survey yields limited results. They can always extrapolate more concentrated results later from the same survey without having to limit the data pool.

In stats 101 they prove that directed human sampling from groups to come to a decision is way worse than that of random sampling from the population involved, no matter how right you feel it may be. This is usually the first exercise you are ever asked to do cause of such common misconseptions of statistical sampling like this. This is based on the principle of ...

Crap I almost dove into more complicated math than 1+1. I dont want to make any brains explode so I'll stop.

[pkudude]

For my play style, Rift is on the easy side of things. My style is: I level to 60, then abandon the capped character in favor of leveling a new alt. If a quest or task has the word "Daily" in it, then I might get to it maybe once a month, if even that. I've never capped a faction, only have been on 1 raid in Rift and that was an overlevel group (57 minimum) doing Infernal Dawn for achievements.

I've done a few dungeons, and the expert requirements are so low that I've got 2 toons up to "Expert Ready (TM)" and have run an expert on each of them, but that's it. I did a little bit of random dungeoning while leveling up my rogue, but have still only completed SBP (Normal and Expert), Golem Factory, Unhallowed Boneforge, and Empyrean Core (Expert). I've seen Archive of Flesh, but didn't complete it due to my 3-yr old daughter waking up and thus I had to drop group to take care of her instead. So obviously group play isn't really my cuppa joe either.

Never have done pvp in SL, never will. Pvp has never interested me. I did a few warzones back in the early days with some friends. they loved them, but after a few rounds I was done and never looked back. I was in the top 3 of the leaderboards -- one of my friends even asked me if I'd never done pvp before how I was so good at it, so it wasn't frustration or anything. It just didn't appeal to me. Never has.

So....... I like the questing and exploring new content part of the game, but I've got 3 60's and a 56 and the solo leveling is extremely easy, so I've already drifted away from the game again. I'll still play enough to get the 4th is to 60 (sooner or later, anyway), but once I do, then all I have looking at me is a long rep grind and a lot of quests with "daily" in the title, neither of which I care to do, so at that point I'll probably be "done" again until a new expansion comes out.

I don't mind that the solo content is easy -- I actually kind of prefer it. I play to unwind from a busy day at work, not to challenge myself. The occasional dungeon is a fun diversion, but it's not my sole reason for logging in. Rep grinds and daily quests have been a huge "you will go away now!" message in any MMO I've played. Sadly, I don't know what else the devs can do in order to get more content that isn't daily repeatable in the game -- I have no solutions there.

[arus2001]

Crap I almost dove into more complicated math than 1+1. I dont want to make any brains explode so I'll stop.

Guess I'll save my popcorn for another post~

[Ardor]

Game will die if all the hardcores quit

How many people have quit because of the hardcores?

I think you sorely mis-judge the impact that most "hardcore" players have on the more-casual community. Condescension and e-peening quickly will turn off the average player who has little interest in dealing with others' misapplied personal and social issues. (I am painting with broad strokes here to make a point, please don't take it personally).

Anyhow, it'd be great if Rift were a game for everyone, at all levels of difficulty. It's quite close to being that right now. I think we can all get along, with a little help from our friends. And from /ignore.

[arus2001]

Anyhow, it'd be great if Rift were a game for everyone, at all levels of difficulty. It's quite close to being that right now. I think we can all get along, with a little help from our friends. And from /ignore.

This has pretty much been my hope, but butting heads with the vocal "hardcore" minority can be an exhausting process without its shortage of personal attacks and presumption of personal ability or lack thereof. I may be a bit guilty of fighting fire with fire at times, but that's more to emphasize I'm not budging on my perceptions based on my own experiences in Rift and elsewhere. The fact some feel threatened enough to respond is probably victory enough on any given day, but in considering the MMOers of a decade ago are potentially part of the staff of various games now... it's not surprising some old trends haven't died to preserve that feeling of days gone by. Maybe another 10 years from now, we'll actually have that game for everyone.