4 Likes
I understand that made sense upon conception.
But 4 fire bombs to a level 10 and a level 1k take the same amount of time.
But more importantly, a match that I do in my guild does not take twice as long as if I was to be guild less. Though the PvP points currently seem to make us think that you (or whoever planned that) decided that.
The guild bonus stats isnāt that much of a game changer anymore.
You used to test PvP @Sirrian. Please do so again.
Do a half hour with the guild bonuses turned on (35 point 3 trophy matches). Iāll be happy to DM you what I feel are the fastest PvP builds in the game.
Then do another half hour with them turned off (70 point 3 trophy matches).
Youāll see with your own eyes that the stall Defenses donāt care what level you are. And the difference in ability is less than 10%.
It you canāt test for yourself. Then I feel like your data isnāt considering the experience of end gamers.
Actual new players do have trouble speed wise because of lack of experience.
But your system only looks at level, Kingdoms and guilds. So if I was able to use a level 500 alt account of mine. With my experience. I could literally score twice the PvP points of my level 1400 account in the same amount of time. Which simply feels like punishment for success, rather than a governor to slow me down to make it more fair for lower levels. (The governor is what I believe was the motivation behind the change. But you didnāt slow me downā¦ You took my engine away. 80% of my game time used to be in RpVp. Now itās 8% of it. Iām in no way the only player whoās felt a similar effect to the change.)
7 Likes
I do as well. It was the fact that this came back to us as a win for listening to player feedback that shows, in fact, how little said feedback is actually being taken into account. (pre-post edit: and now confirmed as this)
Will said data include which troops are in a given drop table at any given time? The version displayed in the client does not include this information. So long as we have that, I can actually consider this ārequest fulfilledā. Since the information will now be from an official source, albeit still having to go through an unofficial third party.
On this point, I believe there are still ongoing issues with matchmaking that are contributory to the larger scoring/rewards issue. Iāve been trying to bring this up every time I can. Did some cursory checks just today, and some instances are better (my lower accounts seem to be matched appropriately more often, short term). But Iāve been continually checking the matchmaking across multiple accounts since 4.3 landed, and I know that it always varies wildly depending on when I happen to be playing and what pools that happens to have landed me in at the time. The average three trophy match on my highest account at this very moment continues to be much too low, despite having already climbed to PvP t1, especially compared to the second highest one, which is at PvP t14 and is somehow not only getting consistently stronger opponent.
I believe if these matchmaking issues were fixed, most of the problem would go away and you could go back to working on the issue long term. Iāve also said this multiple times before, but again, chorus of voices and all that.
As an example, 13300 MSP account at PvP t1 (42W:0L) with:
12800 account at PvP t14 1:0) matched with:
~10k account at PvP t1 (35:6) matched with:
While it seems ābetterā than last time I checked, the three trophy options, which determine the maximum payout I can possibly take and thus my maximum efficiency when interacting with the mode, are still pretty bad and inconsistent.
This is fundamentally untrue as you approach endgame, though, which sees the biggest downturn in payout gaps versus score gaps. And even using my best and/or fastest teams across accounts with a greater than 3,000 point score disparity, the difference is virtually indistinguishable in how effectively I can clear through PvP.
Even if battles did always become more efficient the higher hero level you had (and/or collective stat bonuses), it is still better to have efficiency trend upward than the reverse. Core reward loop psychology and all that. I know that the current system is just trying to be āfairā (and in a way that is currently anything, but it was the intent and I can recognize that), but that should probably run secondary to having strong progress incentives and rewards being a consistent theme throughout.
5 Likes
Iām assuming that the information always has to be 100% correct. So Iād be shocked if drop rates were changed more than once a month. It used to be they were changed a lot more. Tarans info was never correct because of it.
Since the change will always make present information availableā¦ His info should be accurate as well. Just not officially official.
Weāre in agreement. Itās a problem. My example was more to point out that simple solutions arenāt perfect either (though I have a definite preference for simple ones, theyāre harder to exploit if done well). For every solution discussed in the office so far, weāve been able to concoct a situation where we can exploit it in an unfair mannerā¦ and that WILL happen within a week, with hundreds of thousands of players banging away at it every day!
As for dataā¦ thanks! I can pull data from our telemetry on popular/fastest builds, frequency and times on them, etcā¦ Also, Nimhain and I do play a bunch of PvP games across various level ranges every week (50% of which will be at 1000+), so we have a good feel where the frustration points are here.
Anywayā¦ Iām out for nowā¦ I have to finish my work on the Event Weapon stuff.
Cheers, everyone!
14 Likes
Ok I have to ask though. Who thought that the following were good design choices?
- Ofc people that started playing now are not going to have access to old weapons? They should have started playing earlier
- It will be nice if people have the chance to acquire a weapon once per year. Thatās a reasonable amount of time.
How you thought this would not be an issue? I know that I come as rude but I really struggle to understand these choicesā¦
Ty for the answer sirrian, i donāt care how long it will take to fix pvp points. I still prefer an answer, at least i know you trying to figure out a fix. I was a little mad about you guys because we been asking about this for 3 years long and never had a clear answer about thisā¦ like i said i prefer a vague answer than complete silence.
Keep up the hard work and ty again for taking the time to explain what happen
4 Likes
It seems thereās a difference between level 1k accounts who complete all guild tasks and those who donāt. Even if both their Kingdoms are max stats.
I get that you canāt stay stay here all day and answer questions. I just hope you realize that for serious matters this is a better platform than a Q&A. Here you can relax (somewhat) and delete anything you didnāt mean to sayā¦ Or edit before you post. Your first post took at least 30 minutes to do. The kind of thought you wouldnāt be able to replicate in a Q&A. That being said. I appreciate the time you spent here. I donāt wish that you wish that you did it more often. I wish that you had the time to do it more often.
Some final points as you how I feel from your responses tonight (I will read again later, I knew you werenāt (couldnāt) gonna hang around here long.
- As the game gets bigger and more widespread. The pulse you had on the community 24/7 widens to the degree of the time it gets to your ears itās been filtered through 8 others. Iām not saying that as criticism but as support that you make yourself available on the forums. Either you or Nim could benefit greatly from a hour session here once a month.
- I donāt know how ālikesā are interpreted on the forums. To me when a dev likes a post. I donāt feel like itās a pat on the back. Not that they endorse my post. But instead I feel good because (I hope) it means they actually read that I said. If answers arenāt available. The ability to physically show that you hear us is immensely important. I encourage you and all the devs to ālikeā every post that you read. (Assuming there isnāt a better option). Personally, I stopped doing bug reports on here because thereās no guarantee that a dev will see it. Or at least acknowledge that they see it. So I felt like itās pointless to scream while in outer space. (Joking not being a smart ass)
- While 4.3 was in development. I was on here pointing out how screwy PvP scores were. @Kafka was well aware of it. Instead of getting better, the score system got worse. I think Iām safe to assume that @Kafka had no idea what the plans were (or at least the effect) of PvP would be with 4.3. Iām not trying to beat a dead horse. I think youāre aware of the issue now and are working on a fix. My fear is, if support staff donāt know whatās going to happen after an update goes live. And the head honchoā¦ Youā¦(I believe) didnāt know at the time the effect of the update. Then how much trust can actually be given to your product that is dependent on retention first and foremost.
- Recently, the leaderboard implementation has been a huge success. Over half the players in the game like to compete. Itās just, they arenāt able to compete usually against those who can play 12 hours a day. Meanwhile, in PvP land, some players have a substantial advantage to making the LB. Show me since 4.3 has been implemented a single #1 Ranked PvP player for the week who during that week was in a guild that does legendary tasks (or still had the guild active bonuses). Itās not even possible. It seems that leaderboard has been roped off for other guilds and players to compete it. So players in my guild who loved ranked PvP and goal every week was to reach the top 100 canāt if they have too many Kingdom bonus stats.
- Sirrian, you donāt like that my guild averages 70+ LT a week (or the other platforms that are just as hardcore). But the changes like PvP score, Factions, and (alleged) tribute nerfsā¦ Havenāt affected our productivity what so ever. What it has affected is moralā¦ Not my guild moralā¦ But every player in the game. Because I have that pulse on the community that you used to be able to feel. On almost Bethesda type levelsā¦ You (the devs or 505) have managed to upset every player in your game except the ones too new to know better.
Iām not missing any weapons, but I donāt like 100% faction teams and PvP scores.
Others, like the PvP scores and Delves, but donāt like that they canāt get a game changing weapon.
Itās just a generalization and itās impossible to satisfy everyone. But currently, far too many have issues with the game. I feel like more veterans are playing out of obligation than actual enjoyment. Orā¦ They are like meā¦ Where they love the original design of GoW and have a faith in you to make the game fun again. It becoming redundant is always a fear. But distracting us from the redundancy with issues like PvP is surely unintentional, and never the way to go. - At what point do you stop expanding?
We both liked GoW a lot more when it was more simple. Thereās no going back to it. Some changes are great, some arenāt. Itās hard to determine which ones should stay or go. But at this point. Iām sure itās less time consuming just to keep them rather than remove them.
I pray for the days that my only complaints on here were about bugs and the lack of GW. (All my posts about cheaters were always removed or locked.
) - You need more staff. You know it. I know it. How can we make 505 know it?
I would love it if it Salty had back up in the form of a programmer like @Ozball who back in simpler daysā¦ Was able to listen to my issues and then look at the code the same way. Salty and I may not always see eye to eye, but I know sheās great at her job. Unfortunately, her job is to be the middle (wo) man and as far as I know, sheās not an expert coder. I think Cyrup was intended to be that role that Iām suggesting for Ozball but sheās too busy doing what you want her to do (and that I believe) 505 wants her to do.
I havenāt gone back and reread everything. But in the now hour that I have since sped read your OP. That comment has resonated with me.
And all I can think is āwhy?ā
Why does she, or anyone on the staff, have to raise such hell about an issue more than once? I think I know the answer to my question.
505ā¦(you Wizard of Oz you)ā¦ If any of you read this. Please advocate like a Salty to whoever is control there to only worry about the business side of things. Please let Sirrian make all the creative decisions. Set up bench marks in profit that if he fails to make with the game being 100% up to him. Then you can mess with the game however you see fit. Go ahead and dismiss my thoughts as just 1 player. Orā¦ Help make GoW a successful, profitable, and FUN game for everyone by simply getting the frank out of the way. 
(I made a longer thread for yāall if you want to further read my thoughts, but I donāt think you do so I wonāt bother linking it here.)
And with thatā¦
Iām gone as well. 
How are people not more excited about this?!
Itās great news for one of the most major complaints of the game right now!
It might have been a long time coming, and there are still problems to be fixed, sure, but we would all do well to take pleasure in progress!
13 Likes
[/quote]
- Recently, the leaderboard implementation has been a huge success. Over half the players in the game like to compete. Itās just, they arenāt able to usually against those who can play 12 hours a day.
Sirrian, you donāt like that my guild averages 70+ LT a week (or the other platforms that are just as hardcore). But the changes like PvP score, Factions, and (alleged) tribute nerfsā¦ Havenāt affected our productivity what so ever. What it has affected is moralā¦ Not my guild moralā¦ But every player in the game. Because I have that pulse on the community that you used to be able to feel. On almost Bethesda type levelsā¦ You (the devs or 505) have managed to upset every player in your game except the ones too new to know better.
Iām not missing any weapons, but I donāt like 100% faction teams and PvP scores.
Others, like the PvP scores and Delves, but donāt like that they canāt get a game changing weapon.
Itās just a generalization and itās impossible to satisfy everyone. But currently, far too many have issues with the game. I feel like more veterans are playing out of obligation than actual enjoyment. Orā¦ They are like meā¦ Where they love the original design of GoW and have a faith in you to make the game fun again. It becoming redundant is always a fear. But distracting us from the redundancy with issues like PvP is surely unintentional, and never the way to go.
[/quote]
I donāt think most people on this game play competitively, they realize through playing the game that the grind is the glory and those that are unhappy about it have left. (I donāt think your guild would play as much if there wasnāt new items to chase, even if there was your dream competitive game mode.) Thereās no way for players to effectively compete with each other on this game because the RNG nature of the game disallows competition within a short timescale. I sincerely believe that those who play this game do so for casual play. Guild wars is the only competitive game mode and itās such a poor decider as the margin of #1 vs. #5 is about 50-100k when guilds can easily deviate by that amount week-by-week. There is no meaningful competition in a game where players expect to win unless you can let law of large numbers takeover and then you have the problem of it taking too much time.
Gems of War has to keep creating more features/cards and it is going to destroy competition because power creep = destroy the board more often. Thereās at least 100k active players weekly across all platforms and Iād trust the numbers in their dataset more than the 200(?) people that post on forums, 250(?) people that watch each stream, and 2000(?) who chat on global weekly. I just want to express my confidence in the dev team to make their decisions as most F2P games would have gotten out of control by now. Just because they donāt fix concerns put towards them doesnāt equal them not listening to the needs of the players.
Edit: sorry, no idea how to properly do the replies, been a while since I hopped on here.
3 Likes
I donāt know if this is the right place. I would like to craft diamonds 1 by 1 instead of bulks of 10. So I wouldnā t have to see such numbers:
Well, I hate odd numbers, what can I do 
3 Likes
Still not sure why PVP scores were looked at and then made worse, as I said already. And that fix was done without attaching it to a total overhaul, so it could have just as easily been done the other way and made better without taking three to twelve months to do it.
And the time/difficulty/score calculations are a load of waffle, sorry. Someone said Firebombs are all the same time/difficulty at all levels and giving different scores. Iām thinking more like how I can vs a Life&Death or Rope Dart team and lose three troops and take 3-4 times as long as any other match I play, and yet Iām never going to see one of those 70 scores that people who are actually HIGHER LEVEL AND GUILD AND RESOURCES THAN ME seem to rake in.
THAT makes no sense at all and none of the posts have offered an explanation on the matter. Which, at this point, Iāve got to assume means an explanation canāt be offered. Possibly because its super embarrassing or something, who knows.
In line with another thing I suggested in the last 72 hours, it seems the fix is was(?) indeed attached to a total overhaul. And it will, hopefully, be awesome. Actually - re-reading the big post implies that it was the plan and they might try to move faster on it instead. We can hope.
See. Past tense, wanted to do. Before. Maybe not now.
Good that the weapons thing is being addressed and in what promises to be an effective manner. Iām just not as interested in it as I am the other thing because Iām only missing one weapon and its rubbish.
1 Like
Because like the Event Key limiter, Iāll wait till this new old Event weapons system is implemented in-game before rejoicing.
@Sirrian Currently the MINIMUM points someone can get for a 3T battle is 31. Wouldnāt a simple āband-aidā solution be to increase this to 50? Leave everything else as is until the proper fix just change this one thing?
Lower level/guildless players will still be getting a 40% boost at 70 points. Surely a 40% boost is enough?
2 Likes
Thank for coming and clarifying couple of subjects.
1: if we didnāt insist you guys wonāt have the motivation plus it took this long for ya to consider putting old weapons
2:Salty is a messenger but then arenāt we:thinking: for the rest of the players who are not on this forum. Donāt expect to do public relation job without headaches sp when u get paid for it. So letās move on
3:we donāt want full transparency but clearer communication.
4: you fight in office for us while we fight in game for you to keep players away from quitting
Next will be nice if can discuss the adventure board as I have 5-6 vets quitting my guild and the game all together if these changes come to force.
Thank you
FYI I am not saying the adventure board is poo as itās too for new players but then for the vets you should of made something to look forward too or a way to minimise these treasure maps in our invet
I sort of lost track of the focus but really like the @Sirrian post. I wish we could get a sort of peek in with some random updates maybe once a quarter? Twice a year? Heās a fun guy and seems to have a good sense of how to put some plates on the table and make me drool over what heās cooking.
The things I remember wanting to mention before I realized quotes and direct replies would be to complex are:
- I wish the chest drop odds had 1 more decimal place. I feel like this feature is being done for the regulators, not the players. I think if āoh no thereāll be even more false bug reports about bad percentagesā was a concern weād have stopped seeing % based abilities/traits a long time ago.
- I resent the accusation that, if I knew more about what was going on, Iād still pester the devs for updates. āBeing concernedā isnāt a binary proposition. Iām not āwriting essaysā or āperfectly happyā, Iām usually somewhere in between. If I know a thing is coming āmaybe in 6 monthsā itās stupid to ask for a status update every week. But when 6 months comes around, if itās not mentioned, Iām going to get curious and ask.
- I canāt get super excited about the adventure board and a handful of other features. My suspicion is 4.4 will be worse for players who play more ālong sessions on weekendsā than ālong sessions every dayā. A lot of the other features seem like theyāre needed, and the foundation for better things, but Iāll be more excited when I see the better things.
- I sympathize with discussions of the gameās complexity. I donāt think many F2P games are ambitious to plan to have grown this much over the years, I feel like they tend to stick to more narrow designs. Iāve pointed out several times the āone game that morphs into its sequelsā model has downsides and I feel like thatās whatās going on here. I miss the pay-to-play model sometimes. (This isnāt a request, trying to convert GoW over seems like itād be daunting enough to call ādumbā. Itās just an observation that itās easier to write a different game mode if you can start over instead of having to bolt it onto an existing game.)
I canāt shake the feeling there was some issue I care about that wasnāt covered, but honestly that kind of Sirrian post was the kind of thing I wanted. I never needed specific release dates. I just can only be told āthis is being prioritizedā for so many years before I start to suspect it isnāt!
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I know alot of us are nervous and concerned about these upcoming changes, however I would really like to see us all wait and see what the changes are. In addition donāt make judgement the second it is live, give it a few weeks to see what all the rewards are that are possible.
In the event that the rewards need to be improved please make your post in a manner that is not demeaning but more constructive. Donāt just say itās trash and complain.
Provide suggestions and solutions of what can be done to make it better also post what you do like.
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They have yet to improve Tower of Doom in any meaningful manner. Plenty of people have provided said āconstructiveā criticism.
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I loved GoW because I waited until all my quests were done then I got into PvP. I wasnāt able to dominate, but it felt great when I took down teams 4 times my power. Eventually, I caught up to their power level and was a joy ever since. Well, up until I got punished for being an end gamer and my ability to compete for PvP leaderboards removed completely thanks to 4.3.
I also loved when we could customize our PvP defenses to prioritize certain Mana over others. Sirrian removed that feature because he didnāt like what it was doing to his AI. I guess 4 fire bombs is a better necessary evil than custom defenses. 
I like pets but I donāt like that the Rescues are weightedā¦ Itās a kick in the head to get the same exact pet rescue back to back. Trigger at least 16 rescues a day but go weeks without seeing a newly released pet thatās available. (Not the ones that arenāt available).
I like the Factions idea, but hate the execution. Outside of 100% luck with CK, itās impossible to get any faction to 2500 without dumping millions of gold or thousands of gems. Nothing has been done with the gem or gold economy to offset this newish cost. 9 months ago? The difficulty of Delves was too muchā¦ Agreed by the devs. Yet each Faction released has only been more difficult than the last. (Minus during gem sink events where you can exchange gems for Potions to have a chance of your 
teams winning at 500.)
My overall point is, thereās a lot to like about GoW. A lot to dislike as well. Every update comes with a catch. I expect 4.4 to be the same way.
Hell, I even disliked the arena, but started to enjoy it when they added the talent trees to hero classes. But then they removed the ability to earn XP there for classes.
I would love to say one great thing about GoW without a ābutāā¦ But I donāt expect that to be true any time soon.
Maybe if I suggest making a game thatās challenging and fun without any of the gutt punching after effectsā¦(aka Chaos Orbs)ā¦ Right now then it will be a thing 2 years from now. Please pencil that in, in the development schedule.
7 Likes