[Feedback] Upcoming Balance Change MEGATHREAD

I tried to get 2 enchanted and a barbed... failed and failed again. If you can get those three cards in your hand at once it is very lucky or you have maxed out the Enchanted and managed to get the 1 barbed you can have. Remember you still have to draw the cards you just dont have to discard them.
Most you could have is 12 deadly sparks per wizard (needing 2 of the same legendary) and then if you want the better electro trait x3 you are left with 3 blue tokens for the rest of your slots so not ideal (since a D-wiz then can't have Perfect Toughness). BUT Deadly Spark IS quite effective in the couple of tests I have used. Yes there are 2 armors that will shut it down, but armor destruction is pretty easy. IF you run 3 wiz Akon's Amulet or a Perplexing ray should be enought to eliminate most armor based threats.
But I do think that once again Dwarves are getting the extra advantage in this game, this time with Encumberance. I still think (and assume this would be a pain from a programming perspective) that the answer to step attacks should have been race based. So every step beyond base movement = ecumber 1 duration 1. Not a huge nerf (and none for elves) but stops the feeling that Dwarves and to a lesser extant humans dont ahve a penalty along with higher HP.
If you think about it Dwarves can not be encumbered more than 50% (of base movement) while humans 66% and Elves 75% (although much harder to do encumber 3).

 

Since encumber stacks again it really isn't all that hard to stack to encumber 4. Actually it is probably easier to stack to encumber 4 than it is to chance on drawing encumber 3. I was on Live just today and there was a guy who was keeping my elves pretty much either pinned or at 50% mobility the whole game. If I recall correctly he had just the one Ice wizard.

 

Stexe is right and it is much to do with psychology but rather than debate where the money is, let me start by saying it is no secret that fun is subjective and what is fun to 1 person may not be fun to the next. Most players however will still fall loosely into a "player type". Sometimes games will focus on one or two, most of the time though you want accommodate as many as possible.

I hear what your saying and I don't blame you for coming to that conclusion but I'll try and explain why regardless of my personal bias this is still a legitimate problem and (not to be overly dramatic) may severely impact the game in unforseen ways.

Your absolutely right here. The game can still be challenging if you make it that way... but lets just say you log into the game and you check Randi and see 2 or 3 items that you really wanted for MP. You currently have 130 gold to your name and you are literally on the clock to come up with the rest by the weeks end. What do you do?

Do you play the game in a challenging way (slow but fun) OR stack your party with the best items you have in order to get through as much as you can quickly (fast and not fun)? Also keep in mind that there is a significant amount of players that will always take the fast option because they are only really interested in the pvp side and want to get back to it asap.

Fair point as well, I didn't take that into account and your right. There is still a reason for SP orientated people to buy skins while playing single player. My point is though that there is also an established player-type that buy skins in games so that other people see them. This group wont do BM much good if they are spending all their time farming SP... the urge to get the skins wont be there until they get back to pvp.

This is the key point to my whole argument so I will try and make it as clear as possible. With the first suggested change to Randi, at 10 per day with 260 odd legendary items it would take about 4 weeks to see all of the items cycle though right? Which ultimately means that if you see an item you want really badly but don't have the money its not so bad, save up and get it next month. No problem, its not that long.

With 10 per week it could take around 20 weeks. Suddenly it has just become a lot more important that you pick up that item when you see it. What will you do? Pay for it with your credit card or farm up a storm?

And there you have it, you have just basically forced the portion of the pvp-orientated players (who don't like to buy items but are happy to buy skins) to engage in an activity that will lead them to stop playing the game for a more engaging one.

With 5 per week I assumed that it would still be enough to satisfy the portion of the community who liked working towards an item over the course of that week but maybe I'm wrong and its not enough? What I am trying to say is that whatever number it ends up as needs to be one that accommodates all player types (that is, if you want all player types to maintain interest).

From a business point of view, you could say that with so many items cycling why would anyone buy items for real money? The answer to this would be the same reason they do for other f2p games. There is another established player type that spend money so that they can play at a higher level without investing the same amount of time it took those who don't spend to get there. In order to get them spending though, you first need to fill that MP lobby! The best way they could do this is to keep around players like me, those who decide to build their collection from participating in MP.

I really think this game has HUGE potential but I cant afford to keep putting this much effort into persuading BM to open it up to a larger audience. If its not something that has happened by the end of reading my rant I sincerely wish them the best but wont be around to find out. Lol, big loss right?

 

If your main concern is getting people interested in multiplayer, the best solution isn't one that will hose single players in the process. Making it more rewarding to play multiplayer will instantly make it more popular. Better multiplayer rewards also don't affect people that choose not to play multiplayer.

 

How does it hose SP orientated players?

Its not about making multiplayer more rewarding at all OR encouraging everyone to play MP, you are missing my point entirely. Its about accommodating player types and not compelling them to take part in activities they don't find engaging AND as a direct result losing interest in the game.

 

Making it too easy to complete collections will stop a lot of people from enjoying the game their way. If there were some way to make playing multiplayer a way to grind for items no one would be forced to play single player. I know that probably isn't possible but better rewards is a step in the right direction.

 

You do realise that with 17 a week its inevitable that SP focused players will complete their collections sooner rather than later anyway right?

If that means that these players will stop playing then not only will you be ignoring established player types that will fill the MP lobby you will also be losing potential customers still actively playing the game. Lose/Lose.

There are other ways to encourage people to keep playing SP that don't involve these trade offs.

 

I agree with what you say that yes, this game should appeal to mp players. I'd say its a bit of a stretch to say this player-type as you describe would as a unified group display such averse reaction to upcoming changes. My question I guess is, would you really quit if they keep randimar's as they are planning? Not second-guessing you, just seems a bit extreme reaction to a somewhat innocuous change to me, but hey if it saps enjoyment for you that much, perfectly reasonable.

I would offer the supposition that the balance changes in themselves are BM's way of increasing MP retention and enhancing longevity. To me the extra loot upcoming in randimar's is just icing on the cake, and another potential valuable revenue stream for BM. 10 per day or 10 per week? Either way it's not like we can farm enough gold per week to buy legendaries in this number (well maybe a small few could but the time investment would be extraordinary, like nonstop with no sleep for a week ) , so many players will save up their gold and wait for the right one to spend it on, pretty much as is right now. The other option is converting pizza to gold for the wallet warriors to build their collection. Already this is a hugely accelerated rate available in comparison to pre-balance randi's and will attract the type of player looking to grow their collection primarily through monetary investment, P2W or not, its going to happen to some extent, either way I just see as more ppl to play against and keep the lobbies filled.

Just can't get behind your thesis the randimar change will force a significant portion of a rather diverse community to act in such a specific way, with lobby a ghost town, all of us MP players feverishly grinding away in SP to get enough gold for our new shinies, unable to resist the lure of so many newly available goodies, trapped in a never-ending cycle of temptation, and miserable because of it. Rather I expect to see a few more primarily SP players make their way over as they obtain items to create builds they finally consider competitive enough. To summarize : I don't believe BM are acting contrary to promoting a larger, healthier MP environment with their proposed changes.

Basically if I understand right, you're saying you wish to grow collection through MP only, don't want to spend money on items, but fine with purchasing occasional cosmetic stuff, a valid position. Maybe resetting the epic chest chain after 20 wins could help, or increase MP reward structure somehow, stuff like that. Just can't picture the upcoming randi's change as a factor in creating a deserted MP lobby or forcing me to play in a certain way.

 

That would be wonderful if such a number existed, but the fact is that there are too many player types (not just SP and MP, but those who are attracted to SP or MP or both for any combination of a myriad of aspects). Invariably one cannot accommodate all types and interests in a change, or through non-change for that matter. Really it's a rather thankless job I suspect. Someone makes a product that is so good we're willing to dump hours upon hours of our time into it, yet all they hear from us are our dissatisfactions rather than our appreciations.

 

Sadly, I would. Don't get me wrong, it definitely wouldn't be out of spite. This is exactly how it would happen: I would log in when the changes hit live and be absolutely loving it, trying new combinations and feeling really good about my time investment because BM were also investing the time to make sure that MP was as fun as it could be. Then at some point (maybe straight away, maybe in a week or two) I would look at Randimar's and see [insert awesome item here] and immediately be enticed by the possibilities it would give me, combine that with the fact I know that I wont be seeing it again any time soon and now I am enticed enough to feel compelled to grind for it. Its during this grind that I would lose my will not only for the item but the game itself.

As to why I think it will be felt in the MP lobby is that by nature its the players who don't like to grind who end up being the ones that spend the majority of time in there for that very reason. I'm not saying the lobby will be a ghost town but I do believe that it will continue to be an insignificant showing of how many people are really playing and this will have a direct impact on the amount of players deciding whether to pay to catch up. The wallet warriors as you put it wont sink a bunch of money into a game that doesn't appear to have a very healthy amount of players in MP.

Scarponi, I get the sentiment. I really do. I hope you believe that I really take no joy in thinking that I may be upsetting the devs by speaking my opinion. One thing you should understand though is this type of feedback is really hard to come by as a indie developer. I know because I am one, though a small fish compared to BM. Big companies spend massive amounts of money on market research and its something that I know that BM cannot afford.

 

Interesting conversation. Just a few points from me and the incentives that guide me in the game, for whatever it's worth to BM. I guess the more of us raise their voice the better it's for BM to understand their player-base.

I used to be more of an MP player, but I stopped playing CH after the meta-game narrowed down and got boring (got interested again and finished the expansion after I've heared the news about the upcoming meta-tweaks). Although I like the SP I don't find it interesting after beating it once and doing quests feel like grinding to me. The qaranteed higher rarity loot sounds interesting at first but after doing a few I loose interest after seeing the same opponents, tactics and boards.

Similarily to Genki I found that although I'm an MP-oriented player I used to play quick SP campaigns whenever I had something nice at Randi's and was still low on gold. Even if you're on a winning streak in MP I found that I got more gold from just doing the campaign and that in a way pushed me from something that I liked (MP) into something I find less fun (SP grind). Also, I sometimes play SP over MP because of the chest timer reset. For example I wouldn't have a quick MP game over lunch if I than plan to get a purple chest in the evening.

How will that change now with daily deals and 10 extra legendaries per week? It's very hard to say. It will definitely feel like an impossible task to raise the funds for all items I would like to buy (including epics and rares) and I definitely don't plan to spend more time than necessary in SP.

One thing that I know for sure is that I won't buy any items with money given their current price, which is a shame since I don't have that much time for games and I would definitely throw some money at BM if the prices were reasonable. For example, a 'micro-transaction' for a single legendary translates into 3 beers at my local pub. This is just too much. Then again I'm biased since I don't feel that I need to own all the items just yet. Although I like MP, I don't care if my equipment is not as good as the top players, that makes the victories sweeter and the losses less bitter

What I care for the most is to have a steady influx of build-enabling items, so I'm not stuck for weeks with the same exact MP build.

 

Whelp since the topic has apparently shifted to the ramifications tied to being able to buy more legendary from the shops and potentially for real world cash.

I'm not really apposed to either more available items or the idea that I at some point might spend some cash on them. However after crunching some numbers (which I probably shouldn't do this early in the morning) they would need to change the pizza to gold ratio if I was ever going to consider buying in game items for real world moneys. First let me put my figures down so people can poke holes in them in the event that I am mistaken, which is always a possibility.

1 Pizza = 5 Gold
$10 = 330 Pizza
1 Pizza = .03c
$20 = 690 Pizza
1 Pizza = .0289c

Here is where it gets funky and they would probably have to get rid of Eloquence or remove its effect on vendors pricing because they will tank any hope of people buying items for money if they cost 10,000+g as they easily can when you have low Elo. At reasonable Elo Legendary items are 2500g and that is where I'm going to figure cost from.

2500g/5 = 500 pizza
500 * .03c = $15
500 * .0289c = $14.49

So in theory it would be ~$15 to outright buy a legendary item from a shop with the current max Elo modifier. Which isn't 100% correct because you can't just buy 500 pizza. You can either buy 330 or 690 pizza, realistically those would be the only Pizza tiers that I would personally consider. So there is no way you are parting with anything less than $20 assuming your intent was to purchase a legendary item entirely with pizzagold. Now admittedly you would have leftover pizza either way but either way you are out the full cost of that pizza upfront. Suffice to say that $15 is well outside of my impulse purchase range for a full game let alone a single virtual item from within a game.

Again it is early and my brain could be firing on too few cylinders so I could be totally off on my numbers, it has been known to happen and hilarity usually ensues

Plus I think I have mentioned in previous posts that I have been part of a few F2P games (Tribes Ascend comes to mind) where they got into a really bad habit of releasing an item that was OP letting people buy the ever loving snot out of it and then nerfing it a few weeks to a month down the road when sales tapered off. We have already seen one round of massive impending changes that while probably for the best and are only one instance so they don't exactly spell out a pattern, are setting off a slew of pre-existing redflags that I have brought with me from previous F2P games.

Anyhow I guess that was a big roundabout "I wouldn't necessarily be apposed to spending money on Legendarily from time to time, but..." and to be honest I would probably prefer spending pizza on bigger and better expansions for Single Player or buying cool costumes.

 

I've gone over the math and economics of the structure before with Jon and Farbs. I can only hope they actually increase the pizza to gold ratio to 10 or 15 (or 20 if they really want to push it). People would still be spending like $5 a Legendary and considering most parties need three or four at the highest level that doesn't seem unreasonable for a single build.

 

@Genki - UiA said it better than I ever could, but I would like to bring up a few points. Even with the higher frequency of items I still think you'll be tempted to grind SP. Let's pretend they go forward with the 10 a day change. Say you have just enough gold to buy a legendary item and on Monday you get 3 that you could really use in your MP build. You choose the 1 you think will help best. What about the other 2? Even if for whatever reason you WANTED to grind SP you can't get 2500 gold in a day to do that. So you say you'll be fine with waiting until the next time it comes up. Say you get lucky and one of those 2 shows up the next Monday. You've had a whole week. Do you get enough gold playing MP in a week to buy it then? My guess is no since I play exclusively SP and don't make that much in a week unless I hardcore grind and I hate doing that. So now you've missed that opportunity twice. This could go on for a while. Really, your best recourse is to use money. (And I'm glad the conversation shifted that way because that's the most realistic option.) I support making gold conversion better OR just being allowed to buy a Legendary item for a certain amount of pizza from Randimar's an option. I think that approach is the best for everyone. SP don't grow their collections too quickly, MP can do little reasonable micro-transactions here and there, and BM makes some money.

I think giving Legendary items two costs; one in gold and the other in pizza, might be the answer. The pizza cost could be a better conversion rate than the standard gold. Or maybe just the daily deal has the pizza discount. I don't know what's the best answer for those numbers.

 

Ah, why not. Like the discounts in LoL: they are only discounts when using the pay-to-get currency (pizza here).

 

I think this is a great idea. Rather than discount gold across the board, a discount for buying items with pizza appeals to me. I can't even really explain why. It just seems better.

 

Or the drop rate of treasures in MP can be increased, like for example one rare treasure guaranted in each gold chest.

Otherwise I do agree that 3$ a L seems to me the right price. Don't forget that money hasn't the same value in the different countries. 1$ is a meal in thaïland when the cheapest meals in US are like McDo menu for 5 bucks. And the game is global.

I think that BM get some income with the actual gold converting but that shouldn't be a reason to keep the converting at that rate. Indeed, giving people more gold per pizza will provide less income per transaction but a lot more of transactions will take place redenring the change worth it.

Gamers hate pay to win games but a game is, or should be, considered pay to win when the only way to get something that can influentes the outcome of a battle is by spending real money to get it.
examples:
-if people could only get the actual VP by spending pizza and there were no way to drop it by playing --> pay to win
-costumes can only obtained with pizza but changing the look of your toons won't affect the outcome of a battle (no need to quote me for the fun by saying it has a psychological impact) --> not pay to win
-a game can be considered pay to win if you can buy VP with pizza at any time while you have 0.01% chances to drop it after 30 minutes of playing a high level adventure making it like impossible to get

At the moment the game is in no way pay to win (more get lucky to win) and increasing the converting rate of pizza to gold won't change that so have no fear.

Finaly I would like to point out that BM agrees that no item should be a must have, hence the balances. So the number of L in Randimar shouldn't matter if you do your testing tasks. The blame, if there should be any, is or will be on you.

 

That just makes the economy unnecessarily more complicated. Gold is for buying stuff from shops, and secondarily for entering leagues. (Miscellaneous other stuff you can purchase for a nominal fee: retries in the SP campaign, new characters, brown chests...)

Only item purchases are large enough to see any major impact from a better pizza > gold conversion rate, and the secondary effect on leagues is simply that a casual player short on change can buy his way into a gold league for a couple slices of pizza, which is a very good thing in my book.

 

Sorry only read throught this last page, so sorry if I hit the wrong tone

I do not worry too much about the extra legendaries. At first it seems abundant, but then again, as it is, Randi is very greedy with his shopkeeping.

I do like to have some nerf, and I feel the new rules are interesting. Since they make all cards more equal.

But then again I really like the fast pacing of the step.

What if:
nimble strike would get some of these options:
discard a move card ( which could include a second nimble strike)
discard a card
take 2 damage for every step
take 4 damage

The armor keeping, would not keep this. Put higher value on some rare armors maybe.

( I have no vibrant pain btw )

 

Harnesses other than OH won't stack anymore