Dev Q & A (28th of April) 7 PM PDT

With Daily Offers now making (ofc, only non-cosmetic) pets available any time they’re Power-blocking, I see this as way less of a problem than it used to be, though :man_shrugging:

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I know I’m not completely sane, but I like the concept of treasure hunt, if only the rewards were better, I might actually play it more than just the forced campaign games… so this is something I would very much like to know too… I ain’t no yesterday’s grouses son and I do understand it’s not the nro. 1 priority, but just a shy nod would do…

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I’m chasing the pet leaderboard and because I’ve maxed out most cosmetic pets with gems i miss out on the cheaper pet offers since I’m not blocked on kingdoms.

Still a pretty big issue imo… I’m a casual end-game player, here’s tasks I’m stuck on for kingdoms thanks to Gemologica.

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Are you buying every available pet offer @NerdieBirdie ?

If so, that’s pretty surprising to me. I’ll need to recalibrate the advice I give to U3/4/5 people in my guild network, maybe (though we also coordinate gnome weekends such that all our guilds come pretty close to 24/7 rescues, so :man_shrugging: Maybe that’s why I don’t see it as an issue as much. And also because I don’t impose any leaderboards on myself that aren’t actually in-game and/or tied to actual progress in the form of better tributes or stats).

Today is the day, team!

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What leaderboard? Pet rescues don’t have one.

I don’t regularly do Arena, but I buy all the daily offer pets.

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Dev Q&A Session (Spring 2021)
Stream Summary Recap

Questions:

What’s Coming in the 5.5 Update?

Heroic Gems - New Gem types with special powers

  • Heroic gems are a way to shake up the traditional core gameplay.

  • Heroic gems can be turned on and off by devs for special events.

  • New troops will use heroic gems, which will be tied to campaign specific themes.

  • Themes will differ from campaign to campaign.

  • Lycanthropy gems and troops will use/create them will be featured in Campaign 5.

  • Lycanthropy gems will be purple gem replacements.

  • During Campaign 5, Lycanthropy gems will skyfall at 1 out of 20 of all Purple gems that skyfall onto the board.

  • Future campaign Heroic gems mentioned: Mana Potion gems (Campaign 6, gem generators) and Wildcard gems.

  • Heroic gems are a concept that has long has been something the devs wanted to do.

Uber-Doomskulls - Stronger Doomskulls

  • +10 damage and larger explosion radius

  • Devs can turn on and off Uber-Doomskulls for various events.

Why weren’t there a lot of new features in 5.4 Update?

  • Unity version upgrade. Upgrading the game to new versions of Unity to allow new features to be implemented, breaks many internal game functions which require significant time to repair.

  • Unity version was upgraded to enable support for PS5/XBX.

What’s the current progress with the Guild Wars Scoring Issue?

  • Problem is related to Mongo database issues.

  • Issue is caused when two players complete a match at the same time and is an unresolvable flaw with Mongo.

  • Issue may be resolved by future upgrade to a SQL database (in consideration for feasibility currently).

  • No planned compensation for issue.

  • Guild War bracket movement issue long-term resolutions currently under consideration for a future update.

Is there anything coming in the future that you can discuss yet?

  • “Gnomes for Days” - 5.6 update
  • New gnome types
  • New music for event

Treasure Hunt revamp still on the to-do list…

  • Side comments: The Vault was originally planned to be a kingdom with a banner and pet, never was implemented. Still looking at ways to make this perhaps happen in the future.

  • Specific Pet Hunting - Still thinking on how to improve specific pet hunting for a future update, in active discussion on how to implement this.

  • Pet Gnomes and Full-Day Pet Rescues - Pet gnomes cannot cannot spawn during 24 hour events because of limitations on how pet rescues work.

Is there any area of the game you’d like to focus on in a future update?
What’s the rumour I’ve heard about new Kingdoms?

  • Releasing classes that are still unreleased (Wargare, Elemental, Construct) via new kingdoms

  • PvP/Guild Wars

  • Treasure Hunt

  • Side Comment Trivia - Most hacks of the game occur via Treasure Hunt because of how old it is.

Will we see any more Kingdom Reworks?

  • Nim - Divinion Fields, Sword’s Edge, one more she can’t remember off-hand; kingdoms with no real “theme”

What’s happening with the affixes on Doom weapons?

  • They are FIXED, to be released during the upcoming Tower of Doom event

  • Sirrian is asking for feedback on additional weapons that have similar issues that need to be addressed (make a new thread for this feedback)

What’s going to happen when the Underworld fills up?

  • New kingdoms mean additional factions to be released, delaying the “finishing” of the Underworld.

  • Currently considering extending maps to allow space for new factions.

  • Heroic gems are a way to add variety to new factions.

  • Side question - Devs are interested in investigating ways to buy/get potions outside of faction events.

Will we get more Books of Deeds?

  • It is intentional that they are scarce currently.
  • As time progresses, more ways to obtain books (and in in greater numbers) will become available from existing (ex: Campaign Pass) and future sources.

Can we see more Tower of Doom events?

  • Tower will be eventually be a weekend event. Required coding changes to recreate the event as a weekend event. Planned for a future update; unknown ETA currently.

  • Tower still planned to be a week-long event between campaigns.

  • Devs are open to considering not running Towers during Guild War weeks.

  • Devs are considering alternate (non-flash offer) ways to get forge scrolls currently.

  • Side comment - Devs are looking at creating new collaborative events with guilds (like Tower) in the future (planned, somewhat distant update away)

  • Side comment - Devs know about issues with communicating World Event scoring in-game. Perhaps a limited web browser for this in the future? Sirrian is intrigued by the idea.

Don’t you guys ever run out of ideas for troops?

  • Nope. Not even after 1000+ troops.

  • Side comment - World events are sometimes intentionally designed around a theme or specific planned troop.

Open QA Questions

  • Warcoins and availability - Adventure board tasks for them are Epic/Legendary and have not been rolled yet (very bad luck). Planning ability to add them to Special Event rewards to address bad luck streaks in the future.

  • Warbands - Two more Warbands being planned for 5.6. Maybe 10-15 Warbands planned long-term.

  • Revamping Old GUI - Perhaps, when old systems are revamped. PvP is cited as a good candidate for this in the future.

  • Epic Vault Keys availability increasing - Unlikely? They were meant to be very rare drops.

  • Heroic Gems in Guild Wars - Yes, if a troop that creates them are used on a team. Devs will seek to not run a Heroic Gem event during a Guild Wars week.

  • New Boss Troops coming? - Yes, via campaigns.

  • Other ways to farm Explore tokens (Nysha)? - Unlikely (read: no).

  • Campaign pets after campaigns end? Yes, at some point to be planned. Perhaps in a Saturday pet rescue slot.

  • Better Arena weekend rewards? - Under consideration. Perhaps considering adding an Epic Vault key for 3 full reward laps.

  • Lycanthropy overpowered? Devs will watch the effects of this in 5.5 and will adjust as needed.

  • Lycanthropy and Valravens - Known issue, it is NOT resolvable because of the interactions of deathmark and transform. Don’t use Essence of Evil on Valravens.

  • Lowering costs of Epic Tasks? No.

  • Bonus traits on troops during events? Support is there (was used in first World Events), but was not used further because there was no good way to display this information to players. Might be revisited in future.

Bonus PQ3 Questions

  • Mini-games to be added? Likely in the future, not at launch.

  • PQ3 dedicated streams? Yes, once the game fully launches.

  • Changing color modifiers on gear to better present information? Unlikely. Changing elemental attunement of gear planned post-launch.

  • Respec player citadel? Yes, but not at launch. May be free respecs.

Next Dev Q&A planned before 5.6 launches.
Next Salty Stream announced to double up as 5.5 preview stream.

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You’re very much appreciated!

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Thank you so much @Lyrian for doing the stream summary. I never attempt to watch these streams due to my less than ideal internet performance.

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Here’s the pet leaderboard on gowdb. I’m tied for 5th.

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Did anyone ask where Ulf Harrigan’s face is?

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So here’s my thoughts and feedback on the Q&A.

It felt like a breath of fresh air to hear from the very people who make and design the game and are very aware of how features work or do not work. Feedback was readily listened to, recorded, and complimented.

This is also the first time in a long while I’ve felt excited about the future of the game. Many of the upcoming features discussed aren’t coming soon, per se, but there are good plans in place which players will enjoy, including (finally) QoL updates.

Perhaps the most important thing to note for forum users is that we need to work on consolidating and simplifying suggestions. An example would be a single thread for all text inconsistencies. These, especially when done with bullet points and not a massive wall of text, seem to be what the devs can most easily obtain valuable feedback from.

Overall, a wonderful stream, and an EVK to boot! Thanks @Saltypatra for doing a great job with so many questions!

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I’d agree with this.

Multiple times during the stream the devs asked for this type of feedback, if I remember right. Text issues and specific weapon affixes were mentioned off the top of my head.

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Nope. I believe it’s the same place where Knight Coronet’s face is.

Absolutely this!

There is a lot to get through on these forums, and my main priority is bug reports. (Which it should be!) I definitely go through QoL and feature requests, and having things updated in the first post of a thread that are easy to read (dot points are my best friend) saves me a huge amount of time when it comes to representing information as succinctly + simply as possible to the devs.

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Took high level notes. For anyone that missed the stream, here’s the post: Notes from Dev Q&A

Overall I strongly agree with @NerdieBirdie, this was a fabulous stream.

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Bullet point feature requests are often why feature requests are misunderstood. There’s not much room for context or justification in bullet points, generally.

But that aside — am I to understand purple gems are going to be replaced by lycanthropy gems during “heroic events,” or that some gems will simultaneously be purple and lycanthropic, (or something else)?

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I think the number is about 1/20 purple gems will be Lycanthropy gems. Purple gems will still spawn. Lycanthropy gems will match with purple gems and give normal mana.

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