I know everyone is discussing CX finding game guides being bad for players - but for the record - I informed the team of the bug with dead ends, it wasn’t functioning how it was intended to and as such I was putting the needs of the many infront of the few as if you end up down a never ending dead end it really sucks.
I stand by what I said that the guides are really cool and this example from @Shadowfeld is one of them. Love it - on the team here we all know this information exists about the Underspire and which paths to take to avoid dead ends where the bosses are etc etc. But knowing all the information you’ve worked out the only thing we ever discussed or considered changing was the bug to the dead ends - not the other things you worked out. I promise if anyone had considered more than that I woulda fought them
We’re honestly not out here trying to give you folks a hard time, we haven’t gone and re-arranged the entire map generation for the Underspire like some maniacal corporate figures with cats in our laps - although if you saw our meeting room layout you’d probably understand why we joke about getting Sirrian a cat just for our conference calls.
We have only fixed the bug so that if anyone finds themselves in a dead end they’re not spending thousands of Gems and a bunch of real money to try to find their way out of it. If we were really nefarious we would have left it in and taken their money it would have meant we also wouldn’t have needed to spend the time or money fixing it.
For people who do work out how it’s coded so they can min-max it KUDOS seriously, you deserve the benefits that gives you. However, I don’t think the game should be so complicated that you need to reverse engineer the procedural generation rules to play it without spending all your premium currency and money - and there’s definitely other areas of the game that could use some improving on this front - no denying that cough World Events cough
If there are other changes I will be just as surprised as you so god I hope not.
I was told the issue was as simple as that one liner I posted - dead ends would try to fill the map - they are now restricted to no longer than 6 tiles.
As always, we will be keeping an eye out for any issues once we have the whole playerbase’s eyeballs on it, thousands of heads are better than 1 or however that saying goes.
Even knowing the rules I have gone further than 6 steps before by accident so that would have helped me as well.
We absolutely want all players to have success with underspire so that’s a good change for everyone.
Bad would be to toss out all rules so fight that fight for everyone, as you said.
That is true.
The game should tell people the rules. They’re simple enough to be included as you can see from the very handy graphic that was posted.
It is fun to see how things work for some people, but I guess that most players would love simple guides to how things work that they don’t have to try and find elsewhere.
Is it possible to explain exactly that to everyone involved in any upcoming final decisions that involve the implementation of the “RNG”-factor? While one-sided often described as… “fun”, for the majority of players it just isn’t, never was, never will be.
Players love fixed rulesets which are helpful and guiding, but sadly most of the time aren’t provided as complete info with the game itself and need to be discovered by the players instead over time. To know exactly how much is needed to play to achieve the individual goal is awesome, because players need a form of planning for themselves, not everybody has the time to play the game daily for multiple hours.
An example but nothing to do with Underspire: Most players would agree that it is perceived as “not fair” if someone semi-active “lucks out” after a handful of matches to get a horde mimic while others, actively playing explore daily don’t get it since its release. If that example was inappropriate it can be used with anything else regarding Underspire, I’ve seen surreal maps of users (not only with endless corridors) while others seemingly by design were “more lucky” in finding the correct paths very direct and quickly without any “obstacles” and therefore had way less investment neeeded and way less time (wasted) playing.
The thing is, whilst the developers might make the claim that they are not trying to get people to empty their wallets, the business division are definitely trying to do that. I’ve seen too many games get ruined because corporate wants to squeeze dollars out of people, while the developers are just trying to make something fun to play.
Props to you Kafka, I know a lot more people than just myself have appreciated your more frequent/detailed communication lately! I’m not one who believes you and/or IP2 are nefarious cat-petting overlords, but a lack of communication can certainly result in some poor or difficult decisions, especially when the community regularly points out issues which are not responded to for long periods of time.
I know every time you post someone will be upset, but increased communication is good for both the community and the quality of the game. Thanks so much for dedicating a little more of your time to us crazy forum-dwellers!
If the patch went through after the weekly rollover, it’s likely that this week’s mazes had already been generated. Might still be fixed for next week.
Am I the only one that has had the worst map this week ever in Underspire? Is it a coincidence that it’s the same week the devs “fixed” something in Underspire?
last week was my worst one by FAR, took me like 130 fights, i hit EVERY single dead end in every area, this week is way closer to average, looking like only 1 extra torch pack than expected for me
I’ve hit more triple splits than ever. Also while going for the 6th keystone the higher level rooms led me 7 rooms into another triple split of dead ends. I’ve never had that happen. It’s just been bad.
I’m checking with the team if the fix took longer to push out than thought to see if it possibly hit the live game after weekly reset which would explain why it didn’t work.
it would have meant we also wouldn’t have needed to spend the time or money fixing it.
