Please, deal with the issues of upgrading Epic/Legendary/Mythic weapon (problematic) upgrades already!

I wanted to add here that:

  • Part of the frustration (for me) also comes because there might be more tantalising upgrades further down, but to unlock them, we have to compromise by getting something we don’t want.

    • It’s not always as simple as, “Oh, just don’t get the upgrade, no harm no foul”

    • This is another way the unwanted upgrades are incentivised, like with Kingdom Power levels, à la:

  • It’s possible that some of the players who have given this feedback were mid- or mid-to-end-gamers, who have since become 'end-'gamers, including people from my guild or in-game/in global, although it’s hard to define that or forensically check

    • I know I sometimes appeal on behalf of other players when I hear complaints in Guild or Global chat

I get that length/clutter is an issue, just notes that I wanted to make, and thanks in any case - I hope this hasn’t been a ‘ripped to shreds’ experience.

I’m generally on board with how Mithran characterised the upgrades in his longer explanation, of course with minor foibles in the ‘Debated’ (makes sense, right? :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:) and ‘Good’ sections.

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Since the current appeal has gotten us no where. May I add the idea that the weapons affix can never transform a skull or a doomskull to anything else. It can only target actual Mana gems. Since it goes last in the cast order it should solve the issues mechanically.

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Good point.

Also, creating a skull or doomskull randomly on a board might be best to left out as well.

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You’ve received feedback on how unpopular some of these “upgrades” are for years now, the reponse was always that you are working on a replacement, it just needs a little more time to get it perfectly right. To be very frank, I doubt IP2 has the manpower and gameplay understanding to hit anywhere close to the mark.

I’d like to yet once again point out the solution likely to make most players happy, allow us to activate/deactivate any individual upgrades that have been unlocked, somewhat similar to class talents. That way players can tailor their weapons to their personal play style, whatever that may look like.

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IMO This is the easiest one to fix.

image

You got this amazing weapon that applies every single status effect in the game on a troop which is game changing, effectively taking the top troop out of the match, making him do no skull damage, and potentially ending turns with freeze. If you fully upgrade it there is a 10% chance that it will effectively cleanse all these effects you just put on and simply turn him into a frog instead.

All you have to do to fix this is apply the transform FIRST then apply all the status effects.

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That’s not a solution, it doesn’t solve the problem, it’s a work around, a bandaid. That’s bad development practice.

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I am quoting my earlier post here.

In an ideal situation, we would get the option to enable/disable certain upgrades and the order in which they trigger or occur, and the requirement for enabling such features would be a fully upgraded weapon.

HOWEVER, since this is probably not what we will get, we should get the weapon upgrades that make (more) sense and not adversely undermine our efforts. If we need to list the EXACT weapon upgrades that are doing so at the moment, I would be happy to provide the exact weapon upgrades and the included SCREENSHOTS, so that that all information is gathered in one place instead of looking in other places and summarize it all.

@Kafka, thank you very much for sharing with us publicly on this issue.
I hope it will be part of the 5.0 update package and that we will finally be heard after all this time.
I am sure that the game will become even more popular after this issue gets addressed properly.

P.S.: I haven’t edited my thread title, but I forgot to mention DOOMed weapons, which is crucial.

The issue with the weapon is the transform removes all the status effects, I don’t think it was ever intended to do this. I don’t think anyone would mind the toad transform effect if it did not result in all the debuffs becoming meaningless. This is a thread about upgraded weapons being worse correct?

Here is an example. You have essence of evil ready to go, your opponent has divine ishbaala ready to cast with alignment. You use EoE on their top troop, so their skulls do no damage and 4 matches of skulls end their turn… but instead… uh oh it turned the top troop into a frog because I upgraded the weapon fully, now my team gets completed skull matched to death in an endless loop because the toad isn’t rooted or frozen.

If EoE Applied the toad transform first THEN applied the status effects, the weapon is not ruined by the toad transform.

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That’s why I mentioned that it would be perfect if you could disable/enable weapon nodes/upgrades in a sequential order, not just disable or enable them at your own discretion.

Since this is probably not the system we are getting, it’s essential that all problematic weapon upgrades also include and take into account the TRANSFORM weapon upgrade, which is also a huge downgrade in the current situation and you already pointed out, why.

I’m note quite sure who you are responding to, so I’ll just pretend it’s me.

I’ve heard a story once about a company producing toothpaste. Their customers were unhappy, the toothpaste just didn’t flow well, it took way too much effort to get it out of the tube. They eventually offered a big monetary price for whoever could come up with a good solution for this problem. They were thinking they needed some change to their toothpaste formula, the proposal that collected the money was increasing the hole size.

I believe you haven’t understood the problem yet. Putting it simply, players don’t care whether you think something is “not a solution”, a “work around” or a “bandaid”. They do care that the weapon upgrade system is riddled with upgrades that, pardon my French, can best desribed as “a steaming pile of design turds”. They are such an outstanding failure in anything remotely resembling “good development practice” that players are even begging you to take their money, to undo “upgrades” they purchased without realizing how much it permanently hurts their account. Imagine that, eager to pay twice just to be allowed back to square one, and nobody willing to listen to the bells that have been ringing for years now.

Being able to selectively disable “upgrades” doesn’t change the formula, there’s still the same toothpaste in the tube. But at least we can use the toothpaste without causing a major mess every other time we try to.

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  • “Dear Mr. Plumber: my pipe is leaking, can you please patch it until you can fix it properly?”
  • “No, that’s not proper: let it leak until we get a new part in a few years”
    :roll_eyes: :man_facepalming: :vulcan_salute:
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Here’s a very quick list I was able to produce in a spreadsheet with the attached image. I do not have every weapon, but have all event weapons and mythics.

If anyone wants to list any more weapons that have problematic affixes, then please quote and I will update.

I am not aware of the affixes for Farsight Orb which has a create 7 blue gems as it’s cast. I think that’s the only one that would overlay anything if so.

I didn’t add weapons that transform after negative effects, other than of course Essence of Evil.

I also haven’t covered Mang and it’s ‘Warm’ as I suppose it doesn’t break anything.

Similarly with Dawnbringer the Dawn and Hot affixes actually can benefit, as I have know it to create a 4 gem match and even refill (against me of course…).

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It depends on your play style. I’m using Mang quite often against level 500 opponents, me getting an extra 4-match would make little difference, the opponent getting an extra 4-match plus resulting cascades would likely lose me the battle. The day my Mang ends up with that Warm “upgrade” I’ll probably delete my account and never return, way to destroy one of the most amazing tools for control play.

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True.

Wanted to make a list of the glaryingly obvious, and get feedback from others, so we can pass something as simple as an image to the devs to get them fixed. We get told make it brief, so can’t be much briefer than that.

We could include all affixes that create gems after an action, like in the case of Mang.

Then we get onto destroy random gems and such. I’ve recently had a couple of pvp battles where AI Rope Dart has refilled from destroying the three random red gems. Conversely, that could work our way, so we would have to include Dawnbringer and others.

A quick search of ‘warm’ revealed 9 other weapons that use the affix.

Bull’s Edge, Dragonfire, Fire and Ice, Gaard’s Wall, Golden Cog, Riftblade, Warlord’s Battlecry, Fire Sword and Order and Chaos.

Typing ‘warm’ also picked up three weapons with either Fiendish or Astral, purple and yellow create gem affixes respectively.

I would suppose we would need a consensus for altering all create and destroy affixes?

Change doom weapons to create a doomskull instead of colored gem, change eoe to transform last troop instead of first. Problem solved. No need to take 2 years to fix, probably take someone an hour at most.

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Won’t work out. Some players like casino play style, others hate it. If you now, after several years, alter the affixes that turn reliable weapons into random behavior weapons, those players that intentionally upgraded them for these effects would object. There’s really no way to win this one, except offering players a choice on which upgrades to use. This also includes some other borderline upgrades, like the Bonestorm on Secrets of the Crypt that does more hurt than help depending on how you use it.

I vote fix Watery and Carved on the Doomed Weapons, per @Fleg’s comment. Everything else is just gravy.

Mang is all I ever use in delves. Two casts and I kill most everything with skulls (not Glacyon). I don’t recall a bad beat with it, but I suppose the next poll about why players quit the game could include Mang’s ‘Warm’. :blush:

I suppose that then leaves a more complicated option of a toggle on the affix, but the weapon to still be classed as maxed when first upgraded and remain so with an affix toggled off. I don’t know if this would be easily done and/or devs be willing to push it forward.

For all those I listed - there is a clear and obvious problem of a gem appearing after a cast and interfering. Like some of the event weapons in there creating a mix of 2 colours multiplied by xxx allies having a random gem appear and potentially break a 4/5 gem match.

It’s clear that’s the main issue and that should get passed on ASAP. I would suspect that’s easier to deal with and the devs previously haven’t had a simple list of offenders, just requests. A clear and simple list should make it easily digested.

Will leave it a few days to see if any are missed and then submit if @Kafka is agreeable. At the same time we can ask if a toggle can be done on these weapons; and all other weapons that create or destroy and prepare a list of those.

That should please both sides of that argument. Any debate on it would possibly forestall any response on the gem creation or destruction on cast weapons.

I don’t have all weapons but can probably get all the affixes for them off Tarans. :slightly_smiling_face:

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I wouldn’t hold my breath, this has come up at least a dozen time over the past years. In those cases where the community received an answer the issue always needed “just a bit more thought to get it right”. As much as I remember the weapon upgrade question eventually got banned from Q&A sessions.

Hey, I even managed to dig up one of my rants when the design flaws first became apparent: https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/remove-detrimental-traits-from-weapon-forging/40840. June 2018, almost time for a second “Happy Birthday”.

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I feel like I’m not being enitrely fair here, so I’ll add an @Kafka. I don’t suppose it’s your fault that this whole weapons upgrade issue keeps getting… delayed. It’s just immensely aggravating that we are essentially being forced to buy these upgrades we don’t want in order to develop our kingdom power. I dread every new kingdom power 16/18 opportunity showing up, because it once agains boils down to the question which weapons to “upgrade” into oblivion. Please pass on the harsh words to whichever duhsigner/duhveloper is responsible for this.

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