I think the downtime notice is sufficient.

Here's the problem....

You want formal communication.

Formal communication takes time.

Time to write formal communication has to come from somewhere.

The information with which to write this formal communication has to come from someone.


It's quite simple, if they're posting formal communication all day and putting out the equivalent of a press release for every whine thread, very little will get done at an acceptable speed.



You'll likely counter saying, you don't need formal communication... however, every attempt that i've seen to be informal has resulted in more whining from the player base about inaccurate or incomplete data... you're the cause of your own condition.


The communication and dev agility for this game is far better then most. What other FPS do you know that is releasing almost weekly patches/tweaks/fixes?

Exactly. Frame made announcement, saying TAR nerf is coming. Linked wolfmans details. Problem solved.

So what's the issue? They are messaging to you when things are happening and what things are happening.

Hi guys,

We have been looking in to the Mass Driver and we have identified two technical issues that are causing problems for it. Firstly we found that the way we check for splash damage is prone to GÇ£missingGÇ¥ partially occluded targets. We have now improved the system to solve this problem (literally yesterday). We will be testing it internally to make sure it causes no new issues and to see if it requires any rebalance on the weapon.

We have also found issues with the Mass Driver projectile and client/server de-sync. In poor network conditions the projectile can GÇ£miss the markGÇ¥ making the weapon feel unreliable. We are looking in to this issue as well.

We are considering increasing the splash radius but we are hesitant to make significant changes to the weapons balance whilst we are still encountering technical issues with its performance. WeGÇÖll keep you informed on how the new splash fix works out.

Cheers

CCP Wolfman

Also, just because CCP does it better than most doesn't excuse the need to do what is needed. The fact that they patch and communicate better than most FPS (not mmos though) is counter balanced by the shear number of mistakes made in development. CCP can and should do better.

Please STFU. The world and this game does not revolve around the TAC. I am speaking to a larger issue here than individual weapon balance. I am not a petty child. I want the best for Dust, the game I've chosen to invest so much of my time into. If you can't or won't help, at least get out of the way.

Here's the problem....

You want formal communication.

Formal communication takes time.

Time to write formal communication has to come from somewhere.

The information with which to write this formal communication has to come from someone.


It's quite simple, if they're posting formal communication all day and putting out the equivalent of a press release for every whine thread, very little will get done at an acceptable speed.

Thanks for the insult, but you know, that second post by wolfman is his THINKING what will be done. When they do it they will announce it. Go there provide feedback if you want, if you don't wait for the announcement when it is going to drop.

SIMPLE.

Replying to a few threads does not count as communicating with the player base.

Replying to a thread does not count as addressing a present concern of the community.

Because threads are only seen by a few and are quickly buried by other threads.

When something important is said by a CCP staffer, it NEEDS to be sticky'd or posted in the announcements forum.

Otherwise the important information will not be read by 99% of the forum users and thus will not be known by 99.99% of Dust players.

Example- Wolfman posted the upcoming changes to the TAR. As a reply... to a thread... that keeps getting buried. How many people know about the upcoming nerf, beyond hearsay?

Us forum users do try to spread the word of what CCP is doing to make this game better... but we have to work so hard to get that information.

So please, which ever staffer manages to see this, please send a company wide memo. And don't forget! Communication is critical and you are doing it poorly.

I would suggest bringing is a guest speaker or having a in house workshop to help your fellow employees learn the mechanics of HOW TO communicate with your consumers.

I will be bumping this regularly until I either have some kind of acknowledgement from CCP or until I get discouraged and quit.

Or until it slips my mind, (like talking to use slips yours)

I'd love to get some cleanup of the forums every once in a while, or better organization.

Basically have some moderators delete threads on a weekly basis that haven't been replied to for more than a week. Same thing with old information about dust.

If it's important, people will keep it bumped. If not, then it's deleted. This will keep the important stuff active and not buried. These moderators could also have a section to move the more heavily discussed topics to, and allow them to get more attention. No one can create threads in this area, but people can still post on those topics.

The same could apply to hot topics that devs reply to. Any important thread like this could be moved and allow for easier access.

My fellow wolf is correct, the mass drivers are suffering from a couple of technical issues. The first is a problem with how we check splash damage for partially occluded targets. The second is a client/server de-sync issue for the projectile which is exacerbated in poor network conditions.

We have made fixes for both of those issues internally and have been testing them over the last few days. So far weGÇÖve been getting good results. Unfortunately these fixes are on both the client and the server so they canGÇÖt be easily hotfixed in the same way as the TAC updates weGÇÖre putting out. They will be in the next full update.

CCP Wolfman