2.1 in progress...can we have infos?

Send me all the money from your retirement accounts, because it’s clearly unfair that you are hoarding for future needs where you may not be able to earn as much money as you do currently. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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My understanding is that they’re now alternating between Major and Minor updates so they have time to work on big-scale stuff while still keeping the game feeling fresh with smaller-scale stuff. We just got 2.0, a Major, so next will be 2.0.1, a Minor. We have yet to get a Preview for 2.0.1, but it should be this week (or really should’ve been last week) based on @Sirrian’s past statements about their new goals for turnaround times.

For 2.1, they’ve said that it will be broken up into two parts. I don’t know if that means a 2.1 and 2.1.1, or a 2.1 and a 2.2 with a 2.1.1 in between. It would be great to get clarification on this.

Last but not least, I think it would be great if they over-communicated on the plan for 2.1/2.2. Like as soon as 2.0.1 is released they should issue an overview so we have time to voice our approvals/concerns (similar to what happened with 2.0). The changes to Guilds and introduction of Guild Wars feels like an update that could make or break the game’s future. Get it wrong, and I can see mass abandonment. Get it right, and I can see all new levels of engagement and support for many months to come.

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Comparing real life to a game makes no sense. I’d love to have more than enough money to live my life without the need to work or worry about anything, but I would not want every video game I buy to come with all resources maxed and everything unlocked, as that makes playing the game pointless.

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Hoarding only has a negative impact when it’s a zero-sum game focused on a limited pool of resources. It’s not like my hoarding of troops negatively impacts other players. The only part of the game where my hoarding has an impact is if I don’t spend my gold, which results in other players getting more gold for beating me in PvP. So, if anything, hoarding by end-gamers is actually good for everyone else.

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Is that even true anymore? I don’t think PvP losses are causing me to get less tribute, like they used to…

ow come on, that was a funny comment :smiley:

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I thought the more Gold you have stored, the better rewards others get when they beat you in PvP? Thus hoarding = benefits to others.

At any rate, I feel like we’ve gone off on a tangent. I’m much more interested in getting some updates on 2.1 progress and there being a two-way conversation about the design so we don’t see a mass exodus (and instead see the continued growth and success of the game).

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Hoarded and unspent gold never had any effect on your worth in PvP. Only uncollected kingdom gold had any effect on this, but that’s mostly a function of how long you did not play (up to 24h), so has little to do with the matter at hand.

This is only true for games that have true PvP (of which, GoW does not since you never play against an actual person, only the computer using the other player’s resources) and in which wins and loss have equal impact. Losses in GoW have little impact and thus, overall have little effect on players. I’m level 300 and regardless of if I fight a level 100 player or a level 1000 player, I gain (or lose) relatively equal amounts. The difficulty of the fights is also not very different. Once you reach level 200, the next 800 levels are pretty negligible if you know how to build capable teams.

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This thread really derailed. Aren’t we supposed to be talking about how it would be nice to get some info on 2.1 in advance so we have the opportunity to express our excitement/concerns?

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The official word is:

Soon :tm:

The official word on patch notes for 2.0.1, or for a rough outline of the changes coming to guilds?

@Studs

Soon :tm:

That doesn’t answer my question… AFAIK, they’ve not said anything about giving us info on the changes coming to guilds.

Assume some of this is from looking at the files, but that traitstone from guild bit… not sure where you are getting that info, but would greatly appreciate arcane traitstone guild tasks!

Respectfully, I couldn’t disagree more @Mr.Strange.

1st. In just about every online game with resources and releases, be it console, pc or otherwise… folks tend to build up resources in anticipation of the upcoming release. That in itself, is part of the fun. However, not all have the time to put in advance, so some push on after the new whatever releases. I’ve seen it in MMOs almost like it’s part of the mechanic.

Great and Fair are perspective and are both relative. The more you force me as a player to enjoy a game world fiction your way, and not my way, when I have time, the less I enjoy it and tend to move on. When I’m given freedom to collect horde resources as my schedule and time permit, then when something new drops, I can improve my odds of obtaining / completing said new objective or collection faster. That is a constant state of happiness, for me! I want to use the new whatever, ASAP. I do not want to grind away at it foreover hoping to get something… that is not fun. In this game, when a new tool / card drops, I want to be able to get it immediately if possible. I’ve put enough time in to position myself to make several rolls when something new drops, and that’s by design. That’s part of what keeps me playing each week, getting ready for the next content drop… and all have the same ability to do the same thing. It’s just a time / rewards equation.

I’m not sure what you mean by “gaining a big boost.” Eventually, all could get whatever the new thing is. Some might get it very early after drop, by chance alone, and others might spend rediculous amounts of resources and never get it in the first month of release. Who has the advantage then? It’s the nature of this game to imbalance card collections for example… and it further imbalances resources amongst players directly related to the time they can spend in it doing activities compounded by the RNG and performance of their guild. Now, even if someone has everything unlocked and traited… what is this big boost you speak of? We are all just playing to improve our own kingdoms and our own contributions to our guilds and our own collections. We play against the AI… It’s not like we are playing PvP against real players who just cannot win against us and so, we are negatively impacting someone else!?

There is no real ‘competition’ in this game. It’s just a personal growth model. Sure, I face other teams built by other players, but the AI is playing them. I’m measured on ladders how they play vs. how I play against your AI.

Fun is something we have, building collections, unlocking traits, gaining / generating resources… YOU may have your fun in just waiting for RNG to drop after new content is released, but we all don’t perceive it that way. Many of us who have played this and other online games for quite some time, most definitely plan and build… THAT is part of the fun, to us.

The good news is, the game allows YOU to play your way, and allows others to play THEIR way. All can have options and enjoy it at their pace and plan or simply go with the flow… those kinds of options and choice, or what give a game legs. Perhaps it’s just a happy accident with Gems of War, but options and choice should be celebrated and protected. It’s part of your life-blood in this fiction.

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I’m not sure we’re really very far apart in our feelings here.

Let’s look at traitstones in GoW.

When traitstones were added, nobody had any. Which means, the entire playerbase started from a collection of 0 traitstones. That was a good addition, because it allowed people to gather at different rates, and allowed us to measure the rate of gather for different types of players. There was a lot of discussion about which method for gaining traitstones was the best - and as the community settled on a few answers to that question the drop rates & styles were tweaked a bit, rinse & repeat.

If, alternatively, some players had simply been given 1000+ of all arcane stones then the conversation would have been very different. Those players wouldn’t have been interested or invested in the discussion about how best to earn traitstones, because the answer would have been “be part of this group that just started with a bunch.” That’s not exciting to hear, and doesn’t motivate folks to play more.

Instead, the answer was “be sure to build up glory each week, so you can buy lots of the troop bundles that come with specific arcane traitstones.” Since that bundle is available to everyone, then the community is energized to each accumulate glory in proportion to their desire to trait new cards.

So this really has nothing to do with restricting choices - it just means that the developers are always trying to introduce new content which is NOT affected by resource hoarding. Thus hoarding doesn’t give you any advantages.

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Okay, this answer in contrast with your above is now confusing to me.

In your latest answer, you seem to embrace the fact that everyone is energized to play, ‘hording’ glory in anticipation of the new troop drops, right? To that end, when they make their new purchases, they would also be building reserves of arcane trait stones to use as they see fit, right?

But earlier, you said hording the resources was a bad thing.

I’m confused how your prior and latest responses are congruent thoughts.

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Trying to “get a jump” on an anticipated new feature by keeping something that is low-value now in anticipation that it will be high-value after the new feature is released is bad.

But remember, I’m a dev not a player. When I say it’s bad, I don’t mean “players shouldn’t do this” but rather “we should not release features in a way that encourages player to do this.”

Building up resources for a known or anticipated rewards is good - that’s motivation and increases retention. Deliberately doing something counter-productive is what we want to avoid rewarding.

“Hoarding” isn’t a good or bad player behavior - players do what they do. But it’s not something we should encourage with the features we develop. And understanding our mindset should, (I hope) help convince players that hoarding isn’t something they need to be doing in order to stay competitive in the game.

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