Puzzle Quest 3? 
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So does this mean you’re actually working to address the RNG issues that people have been complaining about for nearly three weeks, with absolutely no acknowledgement or feedback from the dev team?
It’s very nice to get a reply but, to be frank, this is really underwhelming. The Impervious fix is a small part of the problem. What does quality of life actually mean? The main issue I see is that it’s never even been said, “We hear X, Y, & Z concerns and we’re looking into them. We’ll keep you posted as we have more to say.” Something that freakin simple would make a huge difference.
Instead we get nothing for a couple of weeks, then something so vague that it’s barely helpful. Surely you must see the problem?
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Yeah, when I can practice a dozen times with a team and feel confident then I go into GW and lose right off the bat…it’s maddening. The only defense is Mab, but she’s only blue/purple. On red days for instance there is no Fey Slayer (which is another rant all together), effective freeze troops, or well, anything. All you can do is pray the starting board doesn’t say “Time for the wisps to win”
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We are still looking into the RNG, as it is midnight in Australia I can’t really go and ask the programmers each fix that is going out. I know a few of them of course, especially the major ones, which include Impervious and the issue with one shot spells. I’m happy to do some more asking around on Monday, but that will be the absolute earliest you have more information.
Quality of life should include some fixes to the aspect ratio bug (which is particularly prominent on console) as well as a few other things.
If I am not commenting on something, it is often because we do not have a company stance as it is still being investigated. I have commented on our RNG many times in the past and it has not brought further satisfaction from the forum community, so typically once I have posted I will not continue to do so to reiterate myself.
Until I am in office Monday I will not have much further information for you outside of what I already know. Also, it is the weekend, so while I might be on the forums, I won’t be as active as normal.
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No, it’s definitely
Puzzle Quest: Gems of War Edition! 
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I disagree with the policy regarding bug fixes. Keeping platforms in sync for patches is a great idea, because you can then release troops simultaneously across platforms and expect them to behave the same (rely on the same set of mechanics, etc). But:
Why does PC have to wait for Console to get a bug fix?
This makes no sense to me. The release you have in escrow right now is a minor one that introduces no new features and simply fixes the most glaring issues caused by the last patch. Why is parity so important that this couldn’t be released on the more permissive PC/Mobile platforms while you play the release-pipeline game with Sony and MS?
And most importantly, if this was to be the new policy going forward, why not tell us ahead of time? At least the community could grumble and accept it that way. But instead, the pot boiled over here because we simply didn’t know.
From the outside looking in, the company seems to be playing its cards much too close to its chest. That’s fine for “roadmap” style questions, about things we don’t yet have (new troops, features, etc). But when the things we have are not working the way they should, it’s extremely important to keep that player pulse alive. The backlash specifically against the pace of the game as of 3.0.5, as well as the Impervious/One-Time Spell bugs, is honestly the product of perceived indifference.
If it means you are repeating yourself in rephrasals, so be it. But I’m not convinced the devs really understand the very legitimate concerns of committed players, and the resulting impedance mismatch should be your top priority.
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I guess my biggest irritation right now is when Fizzbang was overpowered from the start, it took 3 days to fix. For weeks The Wisp Menace has been making GW and pvp unbearable for most people. It can single handedly destroy your entire team on turn 2 and you are done without any way a skilled player can turn the tide.
I am personally ok with the the AI and the new RNG. Makes it more challenging honestly. What I am not ok with is a troop turns a battle from skill into luck. I hope we don’t have to wait till the next update (with individual unique defenses) for this to be corrected.
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Especially after PC got to “beta test” Unity for two months before the other platforms got nerfed patched.
I’d add that @Saltypatra’s response really seems to underscore this. If she “doesn’t have a dev around to ask” then does that mean in her entire time in the office for the past couple of weeks absolutely nothing has been said about working on the RNG issues? So then we’re to assume they aren’t listening?
And I’d love it if she would point me to her comments about how they’re listening to our feedback on RNG and the awful meta and want to address it. If it exists then it seems like absolutely everyone missed it. In looking at her history, all I see is a bunch of shit I don’t care about and a mention of Impervious. Literally not even an acknowledgment that they’re aware of the RNG issues. The only thing I see is from 19 days ago that says, “We’ll look at all points people have raised over the weekend” which came right as the update shipped.
I’m sorry but all I’m seeing here are disingenuous cop outs. And I think we’re being super reasonable here. Our request is literally to just acknowledge our feedback in timely fashion and let us know if you care or not.
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For those not in The Lounge, here’s a response we got from @Saltypatra. Still not satisfactory, IMHO, but thought others would be curious.
TL;DR: She’s very busy but still can’t give us straight answers except that they’re now also maybe going to do something about Wisp at some point in addition to the Impervious bug. And other very vague things that will surely make it all better.
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God, imma be so pissed if we find out they’re working on PQ3 and that’s why things have been so shitty this whole year. But I guess that would explain why Guild Wars took forever and had tons of problems, then they rolled out this update with tons of problems, and why they generally stopped all transparency/communication in the intervening period.
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I’ll only be pissed if PQ3 is F2P.
If it’s a REAL PQ game that I can snag for $10 on the Steam store I’ll know going in that it’s going to be fun and actually worth the price of admission, and that I’ll be able to finish the whole game without being nickel and dimed or worrying about nerfs “to protect the economy”.
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I don’t think this is true at all. I think this is the result of lacking communication and odd policy decisions rather than a company refocus. Let’s not start rumors.
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I paid, what, $40 for PQ1 in the Nintendo DS days? I’d be shocked if PQ3 was offered at 75% discount more than a decade later (makin’ @Sirrian feel old here!).
I’m not sure I’d have paid $40 for it, but I did buy three copies…one for PC, one for PSP, and then a second PC copy when it went on sale a few months ago for $5. (The original PC copy is on hubby’s Steam account and I wanted my own copy.)
I’d pay $15-20 pretty easily for a quality PQ game, I was just throwing the $10 figure out there as an example. To be fair, the match-3 category is pretty saturated nowadays so it would have to be something pretty incredible to command a premium price in the face of all the competition. For the record, though, the only PQ game I really didn’t care for was Galactrix. I enjoyed PQ/PQ2/Puzzle Kingdoms.
This is probably straying a tad off topic so my apologies for that. I just saw “PQ3” and even though it was a hypothetical comment it got me excited 
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@Delinquent
You see, the work of a community manager is not that easy. In the life of a programmer, every statement you make and let public - can be used, misused and all over again.
They can’t afford to say anything specific unless they are 95% sure it’s going to happen and it is already in a state that won’t break the game.
If a statement that is probable, but not sure, gets out - the community literally starts assaulting developers for standing behind their words.
That not only doesn’t help the cause as it adds stress to their work (=lower quality), but it also derails the behavior of their playerbase - making the game less enjoyable.
I understand there are plenty of reasons to be dissatisfied - but the job of a Community Manager is not one. I can acknowledge the work @Saltypatra is doing, with Ozzball joining the club lately.
Their job is to accumulate the problem and roots of dissatisfaction and forward them towards developers, who are obviously flooded lately. So if anything, Go tell your employers to hire more of them, Salty!
Thank you for working overtime and stuff.
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I think @Saltypatra is speaking about the posts about Console RNG (which is the one that we get on PC/Mobile… sadly).
This kind of posts: AI getting too many drops on console, still? - #21 by Saltypatra
There is another one where @Saltypatra said that they found that there was something unintentional and so on, AI were less AI in terms of Casade… which was fixed when adding Unity: Who flipped the "F*** You" switch? - #22 by Saltypatra (take ages to find it… 
).
Because this is how it is working everywhere.
PS4 players had to wait for Microsoft’s approval and then even tho we had our patch approved earlier we were getting it later. So now the process will lengthen for PC and mobile crowd too.
It’s the same with Hearthstone where the nerfing and updating process takes longer because approval process for Apple and Google is much longer.
Like I said, the policy makes no sense. In a game that supports competitive play between Console and PC, sure, you need them to be in lock-step so the playing field is fair. In Gems of War, Console and PC are completely separate competitive environments, so that argument is toothless.
“Because this is how things are elsewhere” is not, in and of itself, a good excuse. We’re talking about a few fixes for some common issues that impact golden-path game scenarios.
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@turintuor: Those are from June/July, before the update.
@peterix: I don’t envy @Saltypatra’s job, that’s for sure. But if they’re at the point where they’re submitting it to console then that means whatever they’re doing is locked in. That also meant it already went through QA. And that’s after they worked to address the issue.
There are four clear points where they could’ve said something:
- When players first reported the problem they could’ve simply acknowledged it and said they’ll look into it.
- When they identified the problem and began working on a fix.
- When they fixed the problem and the build entered final QA.
- When the build entered review.
But they said nothing at any of these points in time. We’re now approaching release and they still haven’t clearly articulated anything they’re doing, apart from the Impervious fix.
That leaves two options: They ignored us, or they listened and are actually fixing stuff but for some bewildering reason they haven’t said anything. Neither are good options. One is infuriating while the other is moronic.
Based on @Lyya’s comments – and for some reason she seems to know slightly more details about what’s going on than Salty – they removed surges on 4-matches in the beta build. So clearly they’ve heard and done something. Which is why it’s so bizarre they would never say anything.
What could possibly be the justification for allowing people to rage endlessly for weeks if you’re actually aware of their concerns and working to fix them?
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