5.1 Update

Please dont wait too long, all event rewards are still so 2018. Nothing a high end player still really needs…

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long term goals are important in games.

I will tell you, once again, everything I possibly can, @Razzagor

We are aware of the issue. It has been pushed back to even be looked at more comprehensively due to covid and the pressure it has put on our development cycle. I wish this wasn’t the case, but it is, and I am sorry. it is something that I have personally been adovcating for for quite some time.

My best recommendation to you is to assume it is never happening. That way you won’t get your expectations up. It is something we would like to rework, but don’t have time for right now or in the immediate future. It is not actively being looked at, and won’t be for some time.

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looking like the only way to do it is level a pet to 20 w gems as soon as they come up in a rescue.
buying them out in daily offers would take just as long as rescuing them wout spending gems.
it seems to me they made gems a highly valuable commidity for getting so many now, since you need gobs of them for many upgrading functions

are you allowed to hit on the customers?

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this is 2020. we don’t burn you at the stake.

we cover you in hot sauce and stake you to the ground for the ants.

I think she meant “he was being cute.”

I don’t think she was “hitting on him”.

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When I read the part about kingdom power, I was frustrated. I don’t care about kingdom power anymore, it’s gone from “a thing I think I’ll max out in a few years” to “a thing I can’t do because pets trickle in so slowly and I think the dollars-to-pets rate is too much.”

Then I read the part about the Vault updates and hot dang, that’s a lot of spicy stuff. I think the “timer” based nature of keys make Vault events feel like events now. It’s been a complaint from the start that they don’t.

This update is welcome and I don’t like the, “But where’s Sirrian spilling all the beans” conversation, I’d rather see @Shimrra’s point take off. I don’t mind new currencies, but I’d like to see modes that feel genuinely different like raid/invasion did when they released. Functionally speaking, world events are the same as Bounties or explores. I choose between 5 almost-identical (and sometimes identical) battles that drop identical rewards.

If I choose the left Dark Dryad, I might only get 1 point instead of 1 point for choosing the right Dark Dryad, so I really feel confident I should pick the right one. When a choice doesn’t matter, I shouldn’t have a choice. In Delves my choices matter, as I’m balancing, “Do I want to lower risk?” vs. “Do I want to increase rewards?” But too often in world events I face a choice between 5 of the same battle at the same level and why even have a choice at all?

So while I’m positive about the 5.1 update and don’t want to sour this thread too much, I think it’s notable the 5.0 showcase event is boring AF compared to the things it replaced. I wish this was called 5.0.5 (505 lol) so I could say, “I hope 5.1 is a refinement of the World Event”, but now I don’t know what number to use for vNext.

The only really good feedback I have about 5.0 is I think Elite Pass is priced well enough to make me get ElitePass+ pretty much every event. I won’t buy it immediately, but I can spread it out over multiple paychecks and get retroactive benefits. Please make more deals like this. This is how you squeeze dollars out of me: ask for < $10/month, deliver 30 days of something, and I have a hard time calling it unfair. This is $25/10 weeks, which is weird math, but still within reason and feels cheap enough I’m not as angry most of the rewards are “insignificant”. Some of my traitstone stores are getting low. Put more of 'em in the campaign rewards :wink:

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This is, in a sense, a pretty devastating comment about something players asked for (if I’m not wrong) over two years ago. I’m not arguing about the decision due the circumstances, and I commend you on the honesty.

Making notes and mumbling.

  • Weapons’ Updgrades being reviewed this year.: Not gonna happen.
  • Gnolls’ being properly reworked: With weapons out of the way MAYBE???
  • More Skeletons in the game: To check given a proper opportunity.
    :skull:
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That’s mostly about managing expectations, you might fare better by talking more about the things you plan (or no longer plan) to put into the game. Allow that double edged sword some time to dull. If you are interested I can elaborate a bit.

It’s not about an accurate time frame, it’s about feasibility. Let’s look at it a bit more in detail:

  • 50 Deeds of Color (Color must match the color of Book of Deeds being crafted)
    There’s currently no way to farm Deeds. At the current hard limited rate it takes players roughly half a year to obtain 50 Deeds of the same color.
  • 1000 Souls
    Marginal, takes a few minutes to farm.
  • 500 Jewels (Color must match the color of Book of Deeds being crafted)
    Can currently only realistically be farmed through Pet Rescues, at a very low rate. Takes players a month or two. Bottleneck resource, also required for weapons, troops and pet food.

That’s for one Book, which is entirely useless on its own. Players require several Books (ranging from 2 to 10) to upgrade a single kingdom a single time. What I’m trying to point out is that to the best of my knowledge the accurate time frame is realistically “never”. Independent of any of the factors you named, it should be apparent that none of them matter with these numbers.

Which begs the question, why is this recipe in the Soulforge? I don’t suppose we’ll see a huge increase in Jewels (they are too valuable on their own), nor a significant increase in Deeds (they are too valuable for lower level kingdoms). Did someone enter incorrect numbers? Did someone without any knowledge about the game economy insist on numbers? Is this supposed to be the linchpin to be able to claim that F2P players can still progress similar to paying players by putting in just a little more effort? Is there some secret master plan so astounding it will leave everybody flabbergasted once revealed?

There’s a vending machine in the entrance hall, selling candy bars for $1,000,000. Of course people want to know what’s going on, especially since they all just received a flyer promoting the sale.

There’s a fairly important nuance to “longer” here. The common understanding for things “taking longer” in games means “more grinding”. F2P players have to do the same activities (a lot) more often than paying players to achieve the same results. That’s how the Deathknight Armor and the Ring of Wonders work, you only need to farm about half as long to obtain the same amount of gold/souls/experience.

I believe the “longer” you are referring to means “later”. F2P player won’t be able to keep pace with paying players, no matter how much effort they spend. Because there is a hard limit on how much players will be able to improve their kingdoms (with the bottleneck resource Books), set exclusively based on the amount of money spent on campaign passes.

I would argue this is a very significant pay wall, especially with the huge time frame involved. Please correct me if I’m wrong, F2P players will be stalled to need several additional years to reach the same kingdom progress that frequently paying players will be at in a year from now, right? That feels like a pretty scary outlook, especially with all the cascading power boosts attached. I’m quite worried this game will not work well with a two class society, most prominently in regards to guilds.

There might be one that gets pretty close, allowing players to also purchase campaign passes with the premium currency gems. The price tag would have to be “high” (in a “hurts” sense) possibly requiring players to pass on multiple other opportunities they would normally spend their limited gems on (e.g. events, chests, power orbs, daily offers). This approach also essentially voids any P2W argument, F2P players could save up to receive the same (temporary) benefits as paying players, at the cost of having to prioritize their goals.

I believe this could be done without much impacting revenues when balanced correctly. Of course, my experience in financials probably wouldn’t even buy me a cup of coffee, so this might not exactly be a safe bet.

You seem to be holding it reasonably well so far. Thank you.

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With this new update… we should really get a Gnome weekend to uh, test things out… that would be just swell.

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This won’t happen for one simple reason. Players will expect equivalent exchange in terms of real currency to gems. The Elite Pass costs $10 USD (or equivalent currency exchange in one’s home country). Looking at the shop, $10 USD buys the Bag of Gems (at base price), which yields 100 Gems. Therefore, the Elite Pass should not cost more than 100 Gems at most, right? Fair is fair, after all.

Except that there’s two weapons, a cosmetic pet, a Mythic, and the likely upgrade component to ascend the Mythic to “Doomed”/Boss status. Any of those components, are far worth more than 100 Gems each. So, purely for the sake of this comparison, let’s arbitrarily say the base value of all of these sums to 10,000 Gems.

Even if the devs fairly price the purchases at their actual “gem value” of 10,000 Gems and set that as their offer, all the forums will do will scream that $10 USD only purchases 100 Gems and that the Campaign Pass must be equivalently valued at that rate. It’s literally an impossible ask and will never happen. And that’s before taking into consideration how extremely trivial it is for veterans to passively earn those 100 Gems…

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Here you go :stuck_out_tongue: When the RNG god is smiling, there’s no need to wait for the Vault Event

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:thinking:

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Yeah, I got 4 copies of Cedric. Worthless.

The SS I have seen outside of what seems to be a bug have been worse rewards than what normal vaults give.

So let’s hope Salty was mistaken and it’s not a bug.

And of course there’s the rather obvious problem that the Elite Pass gives gems as a reward: 90 for the $10 pass and an additional 120 for the $25 pass. Players who “buy” the $10 pass with 100 gems would be getting a refund of 90 gems…

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@Lyrian sniped me. (in the best way!)

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I’m not sure that’s the correct way of even looking at it. From what I’ve see from other battle pass systems in other games they give you enough currency in the pass to be able to unlock the next one if you complete said pass.

This is what I thought battle pass systems were all about. They offer great rewards, and give players something to work towards. If you can’t work towards it for whatever reason then you can use premium currency to to advance ahead. Once you buy into the pass and stay dedicated you are rewarded with being able to use the currencies earned in the pass to get the next one.

So what I’ve noticed from this battle pass is they’ve stripped all that away. There is no battle pass cycling here. The free rewards are laughable, and the tasks to to unlock the rewards are tedious and not fun at best.

Do all battle pass systems need to be the same? Of course not, however in this case I don’t think it’s such a good thing that it’s not like any of the others at all.

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The funny thing is, on non sunday dungeon gem packs, it costs 10,000 gems, unless that was intentional.

As for the hypothetical gems = $, the game already doesn’t do that such as in dungeons. In a perfect world, I could see anywhere from 1,500 to 2,000 gems. The top I would say should be 3,000 gems.

The price anchor would still be applicable, and the tasks still need gems to skip, so it could go much higher. Personally, I think that an option to buy at 3,000 gems is better than none.

Anyone who would complain it’s not 100 gems fails a basic understanding of not only the in game economy, but the game monetization idea of cash vs. resources for a buy in.

While I doubt it would be implemented, I think that a sweet spot can be found and any player taking 2 minutes to think would understand the price point.