[Not a Bug] "This Fox Rocks" event not working as announced

[TimeKnight]

@Fourdottwoone

Yes, I missed it in the event announcement on Monday.

Now you take my quote out of context.

You know full well I mean how did you miss it AFTER official statement. Everyone know something was wrong in this new event, we just didn’t know what until now.

@Fourdottwoone

Occam’s Razor.

Yeah, it was that too if you want to take it that way. And you know what is the simpler explanation why we didn’t know the rule change until now?

Because none of the community manager here didn’t know either just like us, we both only learn about it later when the trouble get big enough, that they have to take a time to ask the programers to explain what’s going on.

That’s one of the biggest misconception here on the forum, is to assume community manager have all the information, or they’re the one who program the game and cause the bug, when their job is just being a middle man between players and programmer. When information seems to be withheld by them, the simpler explanation is usually that they actually didn’t know too, instead of malice conspiracy that they’re told to not say anything until the problem is too big to be ignore.

@Fourdottwoone

They didn’t somehow forget to mention this “experiment to try something different” on at least half a dozen isolated opportunities throughout they week

As I said, likely just because they didn’t know until they ask the programer. Why didn’t they ask the programmer sooner, or why didn’t the programmer inform them about the change first before the week begin, is another issue entirely. Major miscommunication problem, but not the intended scam you implied.

@Fourdottwoone

What I didn’t miss is that this supposed “experiment to try something different” spontaneously appeared at the very end of the very last Australian work day of the week, like mana from heaven. A true miracle, we should consider ourselves blessed.

Except World Event feel strange right on Monday?

I always buy Tier 6 every week, with 10K battles in the past years, I’m familiar enough with them to notice something unusual. It’s normal for battles to change location on the map, but it’s not normal for the map to pan around with it too. I didn’t mention it before because I thought it was just a graphic improvement, when it was actually intentional, in a way to conceal the secret spot, by not alway have it on around the upper center of the map at all time.

So no, it’s definitely not “spontaneously appeared” in the game. We just know the explanation now on the board, nothing was changed in the game itself this weekend. And “a true miracle” would be everyone finally agree what the actual problem is, inside of being so paranoid to the point of inventing issues.

@Fourdottwoone

This statement is so over the top incorrect

@OminousGMan

the week’s scoring has taken into account that Inari is a much rarer battle… the event should (on average) require the same number of battles

How is it incorrect? Did you assume they did it wrong, because you know for sure how they did the calculation behind the scene?

In my understanding, they did take it into an account, but with assuming player understand the new rule, which none of the player did, so the our calculation with Gary’s bot become Tier 4 instead of intended Tier 1-2.

And they probably assume everyone at least use the circle loop approach too, to spread the odds, and land with that 8.3% chance. But in practice, not everyone does that, so when optimize path was not taken by everyone, battle required varied a lot between players. Sticking to one incorrect spot tactic is common enough too that 0% for Inari is a problem for that players, which lead me too…

@DroveCrazy

…that’s optimized in my eyes and has worked using that method every world event for years so why should I assume it would not now unless they said there was a change.

Well, it’s not optimized in general practice to take harder battles to get the same point. You’re just spending more time to win the battle than you should, so it’s not the best way to do thing.

@DroveCrazy

Never lost a fight to the high level spirit fox so why fight a level 10. Are those early battles your idea of fun? 10HP enemies?

I don’t think I didn’t lose any World Event battles for like a year now, so like a 4K win streak. This event is the easiest content in the game, with the right troop and enough medals. I can leave the level 10 behind and make the fight harder intentionally, but why would I, when there is no benefits for that all.

My idea of fun is to optimize my time, so yeah, winning point easily for my guild in a few second is fun to me.

@DroveCrazy

but if ur too scared to go after a level 100 spirit fox with a level 10 on the map to have an actual battle not just sneezing and everything be dead I dont even know what to say about that.

It’s not about being scared, it’s about being stuck in the same spot, having everything work against you. If most players just lower their pride and take that too-easy level 10, then we won’t even have 0 inari problem. If you didn’t understand that by now that a change in playing habit is needed to move forward, then I don’t even know what to say either.

@DroveCrazy

Im just saying that the method I use has worked for years

Well, now it don’t, especially with the new “Rare Tracking” rule added in.

@DroveCrazy

Some events level matter some don’t.

Oh my… That’s the thing, level NEVER matters in all events we had, even the scaling one.

Let’s take an experiment, what if Spirit Fox give 15 point, but 5 more everytime you beat it, but it will increase 10 level. What do you think happened when you take level 10 battle in 10/10/10/120 level setup?

Why would you, right? When you will only get 15 from it? Except no, all 4 battle would give 70 point, as appearance of level 120 tell you you already beat it 11 TIME, so next time will be 15+(11*5) = 70 no matter what. So again, why would you make your life harder by sticking to high level with no benefits?

@DroveCrazy

they stated all battles are the same value so unless specifically told we need to rotate them there is no difference in which battle I chose

So overall, unless they stated otherwise, rotating is just a better thing to do in general.

@Dwuemka

I usually go around, but some people prefer to pick the same spot on the map over and over so that they don’t need to think too long which one to pick - and there’s nothing wrong with that approach.

There is indeed nothing wrong with that, until now when the method can be extra punishing.

@Dwuemka

Until this point and this change, there was no difference in whether they stayed at the same spot OR went around.

There is indeed no difference in scoring point between two approach beside spending more time, until now when sticking to the same wrong spot also cause you to lose point on top of time wasted.

@Dwuemka

Introducing secret rules not published anywhere in a clear and precise manner - this is not on the players. This is on the development team & CX.

No argument against that at all. This whole problem is mainly on the devs’ site, because they didn’t communicate properly before. But two thing can be true, you know? The players can expect the devs to be better at telling us about rule change, and the players themselves can try to be better at picking the most optimized path for their own benefits too.

This issue cause all the different famous approaches players used, to come to light, so might as well use it as a learning opportunity, that there is a better way.

@TheIdleOne

They should do the same thing with this event then.

Anyone that doesn’t read the forums and have no way to be told about this are at a complete disadvantage

Exactly what I said before.

@TimeKnight

And personally, in this World Event issue, it might be better if they don’t add more complicated rule like this, considering the scoring order is still not available in the game.

They can’t really changed anything about this event now without causing more uproar, because then players who use all sigils everyday would be at disadvantage compared to the one who didn’t spend their sigil yet, no matter if the new rule was notified in the game, or being removed.

I guess the best option we have is full refund for all gems spend on World Event this week for everyone, while getting to keep all the reward they earn.

It seems unlikely though, but I hope at least there will be some kind of compensation for this. I would be so disappointed if it’s just acknowledge as “Not a bug” so it’s solved with nothing more to do about it. Regardless of technical definition, it’s still a major miscommunication issue.

[Dwuemka]

You’re forgetting about one thing & making at least one wrong assumption (if not two):

Scoring is never announced in the game itself, so it’s hard to guess/know without going outside the game (and yes, official game forums/website are places outside the game). We’ve been asking to have scoring in the game ever since WE no. 1 took place. Do we have that? No, we don’t. We got some semblance of scoring in Journey events - which happen every few months. This means this can be done, just the devs don’t want to do that for WEs. One more thing that’s on the devs, not on the players.

And there’s no rule in the world that says that every player needs to optimise their choices in any game they play. This is a game, with entertainment value, not a competition with money prizes for the player who is able to optimise in the best way. Players can do what they want to get their dose of entertainment - and there’s nothing wrong with that. You make it sound like they are bad players. They are not. No player should ever feel the need to optimise their actions in the game to the extreme. This is not fun. WEs should be designed when thinking about all groups of players in mind, not just about the best optimisers or end-gamers with a stash of gems to last them years to come. As things stand, the devs make decisions based on the handful of the most dedicated end-gamers, forgetting about casual players, who have 15 minutes to play a day and can’t spare the time to read long threads on the forums, forgetting about new players who can’t win more than a handful of battles in WE due to difficulty spike, forgetting about those whose goal in the game is entertainment, not optimisation. That’s also not on the players.

Also: the devs shouldn’t simply assume that players go around. The devs should know whether they do, based on logs. If their logs don’t collect the info - well, again, this is not on the players.

[Dust_Angel]

@Dust_Angel

Well, but in the name of science I took another tier (12 battles together with ravens) performing an experiment now that we know how the event is supposed to be played - INARI LOCATION spawned 3 times - Fenrir, Forest Guardian, Inari.

Adding 8 battles of today - INARI LOCATION spawned once (Kerberos).
In total - 4 LOCATION out of 20 battles.

[TimeKnight]

@Dwuemka

Scoring is never announced in the game itself, so it’s hard to guess/know without going outside the game

Literally mentioned twice in this thread, second one just a last quote right above, so it’s
a third time now.

I know I type a lot recently, but it’s hard to have a discussion when I have to keep bringing up my point again.

@TimeKnight

in this World Event issue, it might be better if they don’t add more complicated rule like this, considering the scoring order is still not available in the game.

@Dwuemka

Players can do what they want to get their dose of entertainment - and there’s nothing wrong with that

It’s not wrong, but if you didn’t take the most optimized path, then it will take your guild longer to finish the event, or in worst case, not at all.

What’s so hard about rotating your battles anyway? Why people really don’t want to do it?

@Dwuemka

You make it sound like they are bad players. They are not. No player should ever feel the need to optimise their actions in the game to the extreme.

That didn’t make them the bad players, maybe just uninformed.

If you are talking about player outside this board, then they just have to use common sense and pick higher rarity first. It work most of the time, level never matter. Event Intro story also said clearly we’re looking for Inari fight, the problem start when no one know before it can show up in only one special spot.

But if you’re talking about the player right here on the board, who choose to spend time here outside the game to learn more, then why not learning and adapt? You have all information you need right here, why choose to ignore it? There is nothing extreme about letting go of bad habit and try to be better.

Or is it most players are actually just here to complain and make snark comment at the devs only? If so, then that’s quite sad.

@Dwuemka

WEs should be designed when thinking about all groups of players in mind, not just about the best optimisers or end-gamers with a stash of gems to last them years to come.

While I agree maybe this new “Rare Tracking” design rule might not be the best approach right now, it’s quite subjective if it was communicate clearly beforehand. Some player might enjoy the rule, some may not.

And what does have gems have to do with anything? Minimum high tier requirement is bad? Then I can support that.

But from what the dev say, they did try to keep it at Tier 1-2 most of the time, and this event is Tier 4 only because the secret rule was not known. Gary’s bot calculation might be different if we all know in advance.

But if you’re talking about optimizing in regard to how to manage sigils you have, then it’s important and have nothing to do with how many sigils/gems you own, it’s about making the most of what you have.

In non-scaling, if the event is close to be done, it’s smarter to tell your guildmate to spend free sigils and buy low Tier if needed, instead of buying high Tier yourself. But in scaling event, your single Tier 7 will worth more than a few players who didn’t start yet, so it might be worth it to buy just to make it faster.

@Dwuemka

As things stand, the devs make decisions based on the handful of the most dedicated end-gamers, forgetting about casual players, who have 15 minutes to play a day and can’t spare the time to read long threads on the forums

That’s just speculation. All you need really is just a scoring formula, and which is the best approach to pick. No need to read more in the comments.

In fact, I make the guide for my guild, similar to Hawx’s, for guildmate in the family who are 70% not on here, and they’re doing just fine with all necessary details. Even Playtime of my own can be considered casual too, as I usually don’t spend more than 2 hours daily to do all my thing.

@Dwuemka

forgetting about those whose goal in the game is entertainment, not optimisation

Why can’t optimisation be entertaining too? Isn’t it fun to do less, but accomplished more effectively, especially when it’s so easy to do?

[Fourdottwoone]

@TimeKnight

@Fourdottwoone

Yes, I missed it in the event announcement on Monday.

Now you take my quote out of context.

You know full well I mean how did you miss it AFTER official statement. Everyone know something was wrong in this new event, we just didn’t know what until now.

The official statement was on Friday. Until then everybody was assured that there isn’t anything wrong at all with the event.

@TimeKnight

@Fourdottwoone

This statement is so over the top incorrect

@OminousGMan

the week’s scoring has taken into account that Inari is a much rarer battle… the event should (on average) require the same number of battles

How is it incorrect? Did you assume they did it wrong, because you know for sure how they did the calculation behind the scene?

In my understanding, they did take it into an account, but with assuming player understand the new rule, which none of the player did, so the our calculation with Gary’s bot become Tier 4 instead of intended Tier 1-2.

And they probably assume everyone at least use the circle loop approach too, to spread the odds, and land with that 8.3% chance. But in practice, not everyone does that, so when optimize path was not taken by everyone, battle required varied a lot between players. Sticking to one incorrect spot tactic is common enough too that 0% for Inari is a problem for that players, which lead me too…

I seem to recall you proposed just recently to stick to concrete facts, not insist on speculations. Fact is that the average buy-in this week is tier 4 - 5, not tier 1 - 2. This is based on a huge amount of live game data the community extracts each week, the very definition of “average”. It is entirely irrelevant how many things you think the devs probably assumed without ever telling the players about it and how many things players could possibly have done differently if they had ever been told about it. The relevant part is that the event costs on average at least three times as much in shop currency as the devs still officially claim it is going to cost by the end of the week. That’s the very definition of “incorrect”.

[sylverscale]

@TimeKnight

That’s one of the biggest misconception here on the forum, is to assume community manager have all the information

No, we actually don’t always assume that. But we can only get hold of the CX team and talk to them so that’s what we do.

[Tresk]

Thank you for chasing down all of the information, regarding this mishap. It IS a mishap, however. The fact that event scoring information is not provided inside the game, is also a major mishap. If I could speak directly to the dev team member(s) responsible for world events, I would say this:

World events need a lot of help in terms of providing fun and variety. Absolutely. So, I understand the desire to experiment. However, it should be a bigger priority to get the “rules” into the game itself. I would also say that changing the method of scoring from week to week, does not make WE more fun or interesting, in any way. It merely adds tedium and confusion to the blandness.

Finally… I’m never that person that clamors for compensation for mishaps. I’m not going to start now. But I’m starting to understand the mindset. Major game changes that continually go undocumented, week after week after week, is creating a mini-game of “catch the shady dev practice.”

[terberos]

To quote a forum visitor who is most likely having a little break… First I thought I’m “punching myself in the face” for still just nodding and adjusting to the secret changes that were made, but after my guildies started seriously conversing to quit spending even one gem to WE after this I realized that it’s not me who’s punching him/herself in the face. I’m not even going to ask for players to participate in WE anymore. When the time comes that I quit spending gems to the event, the strongest feeling will most likely be relief (have never liked it). Just as I stopped playing kingdom pass, made my life a lot better… Kinda reminds me of that fairytale where someone was trying to put children in the oven, so she could eat them and get fat, but ended up in the oven herself…

[TimeKnight]

@Fourdottwoone

The official statement was on Friday. Until then everybody was assured that there isn’t anything wrong at all with the event.

Everybody, including you, who make this bug report on Tuesday? Everyone is assured, when we were having a discussion about something went wrong in the official weekly post? How am I supposed to even respond to this?

@Fourdottwoone

Fact is that the average buy-in this week is tier 4 - 5, not tier 1 - 2.

Now we’re getting to a discussion about how Gary’s bot work. Isn’t it based solely on leaderboard data, that’s why if you run the bot too early, you will get faulty data?

And you know, Gary’s bot is actually not an official source, while OminousGman’s post is. Why are you basing the entire argument on third party’s bot outside the game, and discard official information as incorrect?

And if the bot does only sample the leaderboard, 100 of millon players can barely be called “huge amount of live game data”.

@Fourdottwoone

The relevant part is that the event costs on average at least three times as much in shop currency as the devs still officially claim it is going to cost by the end of the week.

Unless they never said Tier 1-2 is the minimum requirements here, they said “number of battles”.

@OminousGMan

the event should (on average) require the same number of battles to be played as any other weekly event to reach the goals.

Let’s assume that’s around 60 battles. If you know about Inari’s location and keep at it, it might be possible to reach 2,134 point, the minimum for full guild, with just Tier 1-2.

But no one know before, so no one did that, and it’s a problem.

I’m kinda tired of typing now when we can’t even agree on reality. So just let me sum it up and move on.

This week’s World Event have a problem with secret rule that they didn’t notify us until now, so the minimum requirement is unintentionally higher, and also cause wide variant between player, making the whole event unfair. So a compensation of some kind would be appreciated.

Did they do the calculation for minimum requirements wrong? Did they intentionally do this to force player to spend more gem? Why did they withhold information? Why did they lie? Why didn’t I get best results when I don’t optimize my battle order? – All this questions are based on pure speculation, so not much point in finding answers for it.

All we can do now is wait and see if there will be any compensation or not, that’s all.

End of the story.

[Fourdottwoone]

@TimeKnight

Everybody, including you, who make this bug report on Tuesday? Everyone is assured, when we were having a discussion about something went wrong in the official weekly post? How am I supposed to even respond to this?

The community was having a discussion that something went wrong. The official stance was that everything is working exactly as posted. You could respond by quoting some official statement that says otherwise.

@TimeKnight

Now we’re getting to a discussion about how Gary’s bot work.

No, we are not getting to that discussion. If you have the technical background to understand how Gary’s bot works you can’t but agree that it is accurate even by high scientific standards. And if you believe that the official information gets anywhere close to that you really don’t understand enough about it to contribute in any useful way. Sorry to put it so bluntly and no insult intended, if you want to learn about data analysis, please make a seperate thread.

@TimeKnight

Unless they never said Tier 1-2 is the minimum requirements here, they said “number of battles”.

Shop tiers = sigils = number of battles. There’s a tightly bound range of battles you get for any given number of sigils.

[ANGI]

what i see:
this bug report was done early in the week and was changed to [Not a bug] and this is not right.

[Asmodous]

I have multiple guild members, including myself that have only found their first inari today and it was only due to this forum post we had any chance at all.

This, quite frankly, is not an acceptable experiment.

[RootsSeed]

Are you guys fine with they doing whatever they want with us like that?

[terberos]

@RootsSeed I think it’s just been such a magnificent last two months that people have ran out of pitchforks…

[Kezef]

@ANGI

what i see:
this bug report was done early in the week and was changed to [Not a bug] and this is not right.

That word does not mean what you seem to think it means.

The communication was abominable (and non-existent), and that’s a problem. But the event was acting the way the programmers meant it to act; it’s just that the players didn’t have sufficient information about that to change our behavior to adapt. And the corporate forum mods/observers similarly didn’t have this information to be able to communicate that to us like they should.

An issue like Kris Krinkle tripping the auto-bans is close(r) to a “bug”. An issue like Vash’Dagon creating soft-locks when its’ devour/summon is a “bug”. (And one that ought to be fixed posthaste.)

This is just poorly documented crap.

[MattDB87]

I got my first Inari on my 83rd battle.

[PythagorasGamer]

I disagree that this is not a bug. I bought to Tier IV, and have played all the battles. I still have not seen an Inari battle.

This can’t be how you intended it to go. Tell me you are not treating your loyal fans like this.

[Evildave]

@OminousGMan Why did you put potions, medals and all the mechanics to make the game easier for new players, and at the same time, make the weekly event almost unreachable for the majority?

The economy of the game? Yeah, it’s true that mad clients are way more interested into putting money in the game…

You are cutting the tree branch you are sitting on…

[Stratelier]

@TimeKnight

And they probably assume everyone at least use the circle loop approach too, to spread the odds, and land with that 8.3% chance.

And in most cases wouldn’t you want to pick the lower-level (i.e. faster to win) battle?

@TimeKnight

While I agree maybe this new “Rare Tracking” design rule might not be the best approach right now, it’s quite subjective if it was communicate clearly beforehand. Some player might enjoy the rule, some may not.

Agreed: Assigning different “encounter tables” to different locations on the World Map actually opens up a lot of design possibilities, but this NEEDS to be something either communicated to the players officially, or at least not (too) difficult to discover experimentally.

@TimeKnight

so the minimum requirement is unintentionally higher,

for clarity: “minimum requirement” i.e. to appear on the Top 100 leaderboard? Because without context, there IS no “minimum” (other than belonging to a/any Guild) to participate in World Events.

@Fourdottwoone

The community was having a discussion that something went wrong. The official stance was that everything is working exactly as posted.

And that’s why we asked for more than just a simple yes/no answer. Now that we actually got it, everything makes sense.

@PythagorasGamer

I disagree that this is not a bug.

Are you a programmer yourself? Because in the programming context there actually is a very specific, precise definition of “bug” which does NOT encompass broader issues like flawed/poor design or problems caused somewhere “between chair and keyboard” so to speak

[Jonathan]

@Stratelier

for clarity: “minimum requirement”

It’s this:

@OminousGMan

the event should (on average) require the same number of battles to be played as any other weekly event to reach the goals.

Which in context here –

@Stratelier

@Fourdottwoone

The official stance was that everything is working exactly as posted.

[…] Now that we actually got it, everything makes sense.

– is the part of the explanation post that still doesn’t quite add up. Afaik you agree, given:

@Stratelier

[…] but this NEEDS to be something either communicated to the players officially, or at least not (too) difficult to discover experimentally.

I get that you were still clarifying what “minimum requirement” meant, though… (It’s the average shop tier purchase required per guild player to complete all reward stages for an event – I understand it may not have been immediately familiar or understandable, as you mentioned not spending in events generally:)

@Stratelier

…and this, admittedly, does not apply to me since generally I don’t even spend Gems on events, so my perspective is fundamentally different to begin with.

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I know I’ve likely just made it worse, but this thread feels a bit too cluttered…