Wait, I'm confused. Am I part of a furious rabble or not?

Vhailorx

Combined with the alliance reward changes to Thick as Thieves, the Season XII PvP changes are a very nice raft of player-friendly tweaks. So thank you to the dev team. Hard to say if this will solve *everything,* but there is no reason to expect perfection.

That being said, I am very confused.

Prior to today, there were a whole boatload of nasty changes that pretty much had the community up in arms (even super-whales like Colog).

And now this whole new set of player-friendly changes following immediately on the heels of community uproar.

Is this total capitulation from demiurge? Or "New Coke" style machiavellian planning (yes, we will get them furious with us and then announce a few nice changes immediately after to make them forget! *twirl mustachios* Mwahahahahahah!)? Something in between?

On the one hand, it seems odd to announce so many major changes to PVP less than 24 hours before the new season starts. But I also can't imagine that many competent businessed would actually go forward with a strategy of deliberately provoking their customer base just to earn a modicum of goodwill back with subsequent changes.

TL;DR: today has seen a number of fairly positive changes for players, so thanks to the devs. But I really really wish I knew the internal development story behind all these recent changes. I think something odd is happening.

Unknown

Ssssh, it's all part of a largescale social experiment...

Flare808

They also couldn't have announced all of these changes yesterday since it was April Fools Day. No one would believe them if they said that draw rates would increase, Thick as Thieves would reward up to Top 100 alliance, or hidden MMR being removed.

Demiurge_Will

Vhailorx wrote:

TL;DR: today has seen a number of fairly positive changes for players, so thanks to the devs. But I really really wish I knew the internal development story behind all these recent changes. I think something odd is happening.

Nothing conspiratorial - the Season XIII changes were in the works for a while, but we were still nailing down a couple of the specific details up to the last minute, so the announcement came later than planned.

Scoregasms

Demiurge_Will wrote:

Vhailorx wrote:

TL;DR: today has seen a number of fairly positive changes for players, so thanks to the devs. But I really really wish I knew the internal development story behind all these recent changes. I think something odd is happening.

Nothing conspiratorial - the Season XIII changes were in the works for a while, but we were still nailing down a couple of the specific details up to the last minute, so the announcement came later than planned.

Vhailorx

Demiurge_Will wrote:

Vhailorx wrote:

TL;DR: today has seen a number of fairly positive changes for players, so thanks to the devs. But I really really wish I knew the internal development story behind all these recent changes. I think something odd is happening.

Nothing conspiratorial - the Season XIII changes were in the works for a while, but we were still nailing down a couple of the specific details up to the last minute, so the announcement came later than planned.

Thanks for the response Will. As I tried to convey in my post (via light-hearted tone), I tend not to be a big fan of grand conspiracy theories, and this is no exception. It doesn't make sense for these changes to be some grand scheme to make us happier with the game; that would be a self-defeating strategy. On the other hand, making big announcements at the last minute is also undesirable.

In my own job experience, when things like this happen its less conspiracy and more unexpected problems in the workflow. But that's still an interesting story about which it is fun for us to speculate! I would guess MMR tweaks caused the hold up since those seem like the superficially simple changes that can have big unforeseen consequences.





Also, Nice try demiurge! denying conspiracy theories only makes them stronger!!!!!!!!!!! Clearly this was all a grand plot to make us buy iso or something.

Arondite

Colog is a Whale, not a super-whale. Super-Whales currently have maxed Kingpins (and yes, they're out there).

Raffoon

You know, when I first saw the 12-5 tile Power Surge change, I figured that they probably wanted it to be 8, but they were getting smart and realized how big of a backlash a nerf would cause regardless of size. So they went with 5, and when they move it back up to 8 tiles they'll seem like heroes.

I realize now, that was probably just me being hopeful, though. Either that, or they've mistimed it. At this point, I think the damage is done.

SnowcaTT

Arondite wrote:

Colog is a Whale, not a super-whale. Super-Whales currently have maxed Kingpins (and yes, they're out there).

Sure, there are people that will buy the remaining covers and the iso to level the characters. But how did they get those first covers?

Someone ran numbers on how much it would cost (or how unlikely it would be) to pull the three correct covers for PX before his event was done, since there were maxed out PX's out in the wild. The numbers were...unbelievable.

And the accounts were quickly frozen as cheaters, if I remember correctly.

IceIX

SnowcaTT wrote:

Sure, there are people that will buy the remaining covers and the iso to level the characters. But how did they get those first covers?

Someone ran numbers on how much it would cost (or how unlikely it would be) to pull the three correct covers for PX before his event was done, since there were maxed out PX's out in the wild. The numbers were...unbelievable.

And the accounts were quickly frozen as cheaters, if I remember correctly.

Some were, yes. Others were in fact completely legitimate.

simonsez

IceIX wrote:

Some were, yes. Others were in fact completely legitimate.

"Completely"? You mean "legitimate" in the sense that the token packs were actually bought, but I can't help but imagine that someone out there is about to get a $10,000 itunes store charge on their credit card via someone who hacked their info.

MarvelDestiny

Of course, this IS season 13...

Trisul

IceIX wrote:

Some were, yes. Others were in fact completely legitimate.

Pretty much confirms the existence of 40-pack purchasing "super whales".

rednailz

Trisul wrote:

IceIX wrote:

Some were, yes. Others were in fact completely legitimate.

Pretty much confirms the existence of 40-pack purchasing "super whales".

So the mythos is true hey? Till now I thought they were the stories of old sailors that were boasted around a dirty bar tables while they sluggeded back cheap hearty brew.

NighteyesGrisu

simonsez wrote:

IceIX wrote:

Some were, yes. Others were in fact completely legitimate.

"Completely"? You mean "legitimate" in the sense that the token packs were actually bought, but I can't help but imagine that someone out there is about to get a $10,000 itunes store charge on their credit card via someone who hacked their info.

so they have the criminal energy and skill to hack someone's credit card and they're gonna spend these 10k $ on buying virtual currency? how likely is that?

also, when running the numbers you seem to ignore the factor luck. IIRC one guy in my alliance got 3 xavier covers from packs/tokens (don't know though if it was all the colours).