Actually, I’m truly sorry for all this back-and-forth. I fully understand how difficult it is for the development team; it’s impossible to satisfy every single player, or even the majority of the community. That’s why I’ve been saying all along that the devs have done an excellent job balancing gameplay loops, loot farming rewards, and other core systems.
Personally, I was really upset when the altar affinity reroll mechanic got patched out. With the amount of time I’ve poured into this game, I will likely never be able to craft those Intrepid Warboots with double rare summoner affixes ever again. Even so, I never lashed out at the development team and fully stand behind this fix. I still believe this change is reasonable for a large portion of the playerbase. My core mindset is simple: I spend money to buy the game so I can enjoy myself. I don’t want to grind away fruitlessly like hammering a rock for hours on end with nothing to show for my effort, or get one-shot by a boss out of nowhere.
So imagine this scenario: I find an interesting new build, grind through the campaign, level up, grind faction reputations and farm required gear, only for someone to rush the devs into calling for a nerf halfway through my farming process. Let me be clear: my frustration is directed solely at that individual’s behavior, not the dev team. I paid for the DLC, yet I’m robbed of the opportunity to even test out this build because of their premature request. This grievance has nothing to do with whether the build was overpowered or whether the devs ultimately patched it. Fundamentally, their action actively blocked me and other players from enjoying a fresh build. I want to emphasize that I hold no resentment or ill will toward the developers whatsoever.
Regarding volunteer playtesters, I do appreciate the contributions they have made from that perspective. That said, this belongs to another contradiction.
Content creators on Bilibili dived deep into the game right after the DLC launch, thoroughly explored the new content, and created dozens of detailed build guides for the community to learn from, which earned them widespread recognition among Chinese players. In contrast, players like Duskdeep86 gave the impression on public social platforms that they had barely spent any meaningful time playing the full release of the DLC, let alone thoroughly analyzing the controversial new build.
Yet they hold the official channel to communicate directly with the development team. They hid behind seemingly harmless excuses such as “not intending to reply” or “returning to real-life priorities”, then subjectively called for nerfs on other creators’ builds without any proper testing and submitted those opinions as formal feedback to the devs.
From my point of view, this conduct bears little relevance to their earlier playtesting work. Unsurprisingly, many content creators have come to believe their primary motive was to uphold a self-constructed authoritative image as official liaisons, so they could perpetually reap prestige and clout within the player community.
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