Where art thou devs?

Unknown

Disclaimer: This is based on my perception, I apologize in advance if I simply missed some discussion regarding the issues.

Based on what I've seen the past few weeks, it seems like the devs dropped the nerfs/"buffs" message and then pretty much fled the boards. I can't remember seeing any meaningful discussions with the development team since then despite the numerous calls for issues raised. I think David said something about a message coming "soon", but without word yet as to when "soon" is, it becomes increasingly frustrating dealing with the issues without any word regarding their status or if any work can/will be done on them. The top issues that come to mind that I've seen lately have been:

1. Alliance clear of Ultron event preventing others from getting the progression rewards.
2. Cascade potential of the Ultron PVE is a tad much, any chance of getting things toned down a bit?
2. Status of Scarlet Witch considering the amount of calls of OP or broken and whether or not we should invest in her given the nerf cycle of iron fist.
3. Bagsilver's status as a broken character in the reverse of SW since his power level seems extremely low compared to other characters.
4. Explanation of the magnitude of the direct nerfs and the indirect nerfs by way of health increases.
5. Release date of R75 since you decided to announce the leveling cost changes and no recompense for those that already have leveled characters. I know that I have stopped leveling characters and am hoarding my ISO for now, which I can only assume is not what you want at this point in the game.
6. Status of the PVP matchmaking changes given the low scoring potential and the amount of time that battles take now that we're seeing walls much earlier and, coupled with the boosts change and the health increases, the game has less potential for quick matches, instead favoring long drawn out slogs that simply aren't fun.

Without any reference to a Q&A recently, I can only assume you simply want to try to hide away from these issues, but we have real questions that need answers before we can continue to invest even more time and energy into a game that simply is losing its fun factor. I hope you can enlighten us on these sometime soon and let the chips fall where they may. And I know a good amount of people are satisfied with the changes/answers they received, this is simply my perspective on it and I hope no one takes it as I'm speaking for them...simply voicing my concerns.

TLDR: We have questions and no dev response has become deafening.

Nonce Equitaur 2

The devs are around. Five different devs have posted in the last two days, and some of those posts answer your questions above.

Go to the Members link, look for Red names, and search user posts.

Scarlet Witch is a fine character. She has a great Countdown, but it's still a 3-countdown.
Quicksilver is a fine character with the right partners.
The recent character changes all greatly balanced the game.

Accusing the devs of not being around is easily disproven when their posting history shows them here and engaged.

This is the sort of thread that the moderators should lock. Way too many threads on the Ultron event that are not in the Event area.

Unknown

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

The devs are around. Five different devs have posted in the last two days, and some of those posts answer your questions above.

Go to the Members link, look for Red names, and search user posts.

Scarlet Witch is a fine character. She has a great Countdown, but it's still a 3-countdown.
Quicksilver is a fine character with the right partners.
The recent character changes all greatly balanced the game.

Accusing the devs of not being around is easily disproven when their posting history shows them here and engaged.

This is the sort of thread that the moderators should lock. Way too many threads on the Ultron event that are not in the Event area.

Thanks for the reply and the information...but you seem to be putting words in their mouths based on your opinions.

My concern with SW is that we'll see an IF type of nerf...if the devs can simply allay that fear, then yay, otherwise it's a bit of a worrying point, but I haven't seen any dev discussion on the SW post in the character discussion post
QS's power level simply isn't in line with other 3*'s and since the recent buff/nerf cycle was to bring everyone up to a certain level, it seems that this character release eschewed those changes?
I'm glad you think character balance is great, but it doesn't answer why the nerfs are of the magnitude that they were rather than step process to try to get to a number that everyone can be happy with. I can't remember the last time I saw 4* Thor being used and there's been many calls that 4* wolverine is worse than some 3*'s. I'm not asking for placating responses, but real answers as to the reason for the magnitude, not the reason for the nerf.

The ultron event questions were simply a part of the issues that I've noticed, don't understand why you'd want to lock a post that asking some fairly legitimate questions in my mind, but sorry if I offended you.

Unknown

don't forget the all time classic

roster slots

Unknown

siebenvier wrote:

don't forget the all time classic

roster slots

Unfortunately they always seem to have the same "it's working as intended" response to that question as far as I've seen, though it would be nice if we could get more movement on that front

Nonce Equitaur 2

Xiphoen wrote:

Thanks for the reply and the information...but you seem to be putting words in their mouths based on your opinions.

You asked where the devs were. I tried to point you to their posts.

Xiphoen wrote:

My concern with SW is that we'll see an IF type of nerf...if the devs can simply allay that fear, then yay, otherwise it's a bit of a worrying point, but I haven't seen any dev discussion on the SW post in the character discussion post

It's been a few days since she's been released, and she isn't overwhelming PvP. Do you know of a specific exploit with Scarlet Witch. If so, post it in her character discussion, and that will add credence to the voices saying she's overpowered.

For example, Here's a Quicksilver exploit. With Iron Fist and Prof X, they can start an infinite turn engine.

Over a year ago, the devs mentioned a list of eventual buffs and nerfs. It took almost a year to cover them all, and they got asked about them constantly, so they tend to avoid pre-announcing buffs and nerfs now. Historically, if a character rises to be the #1 character in the game, expect a nerf. If they are a terrible character, expect a buff. They just gave nerfs to the #1 and #2 rated characters, mostly left characters #3-#9 alone, buffed #10-#30, and more major buffs for characters ranking under that. It was a good series of changes.

Don't expect them to map out who they'll be changing next. I'm an experienced vet, and this is the first time in the period of the game where I don't know the next likely Nerf target. There are a lot of good characters and good teams. One of my teams was TPKed by a Beast team recently. The characters are still being sorted out. I still see XForce and 4Thor regularly, but not to an overwhelming degree like a few weeks ago.

Demiurge_Kabir

Xiphoen wrote:

Thanks for the reply and the information...but you seem to be putting words in their mouths based on your opinions.

Nope, we'd echo what Nonce said.

Jasonzakibe

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

The devs are around. Five different devs have posted in the last two days, and some of those posts answer your questions above.

Go to the Members link, look for Red names, and search user posts.

(Removing the points you're right about)

Accusing the devs of not being around is easily disproven when their posting history shows them here and engaged.

This is the sort of thread that the moderators should lock. Way too many threads on the Ultron event that are not in the Event area.

Nonce, I've got a lot of respect for you, and I generally like your posts. However, you're way off base here.

The Ultron event was a huge deal, and a complete farce on their end as far as support. There should be more threads on this, not less. Especially when you consider how quiet the devs have been.

This event launched Friday. We're at Tuesday, Day 5 of the event. Let's look at those red posts and see how active they've been:

Demiurge Miles has the last post currently. It was a great thread about the new changes and very welcome but didn't address any of the OP's concerns.

Concerns addressed: 0

Maybe you meant David:

"David wrote:

Moore"]

Mawtful wrote:

Please address legitimate concerns raised by community about the end of the Avengers V Ultron event.

We'll be addressing that soon. I understand the concern. However, let's please keep threads on topic. Thanks!

Well at least they acknowledged there were issues and that someone was working on them. On day 4(!) of the event. This only mentions the end of the AvU event. What about the beginning? What about the Simulator and PVPs? Why in teh world would he post an ad for something else before even acknowledging the issue. Before anyone acknowledged the issue? Did I mention it was day 4!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Concerns addressed: .5? 1 acknowledged kinda.


Demiurge Kabir has the most direct post on these issues:

Demiurge_Kabir wrote:

Hey all,
Just weighing in on the issue Alliances are experiencing where the main Avengers vs Ultron sub-chapter is closed after Round 8 is done. We initially designed it this way because when you reach the point target in Round 8, you’ve beaten Ultron. This wasn’t intended to promote inter-Alliance combat, but it has and that’s not fun. Thanks for the feedback about this. We’re looking at fixing this issue in the future, but won’t have a fix in time for Run 2.

After this run of Avengers vs Ultron finishes tonight at midnight, if you got locked out of progression rewards because your alliance finished the event early, please contact support from in-game. We're looking into ways to make it up to you.

Thanks,
Kabir

Day 5 and the best we have is that they're still looking into ways to make it up to players, but only if they ask for help. Plus the bombshell that they designed this on purpose, and can't fix it for run 2. This means they didn't run a single test of this game with a 20 person alliance start to finish. They'd have figured it out in a heartbeat.

Concerns addressed: 0

Demiurge Anthony was here to help ...On Friday...

Demiurge_Anthony wrote:

More Updates!

We need to put out some fixes to our servers to completely address the issue. This, unfortunately, takes some time. We are putting out the fixes as I write this .

Everything should clear up soon. Thank you all again for your continued patience while we iron out these issues.

Soon as in things got stable on Sunday. No more posts after this BTW. No WAY this was a volume issue if the issue persisted after the initial buzz.

Concerns addressed: 0

Will posted about helping three people with an issue that never should have been possible, and before that he announced that the issues were fixed three days before they actually were.

Ice only posted stats on upcoming heroes that I could see.

It's possible I missed some posts or a name, but none of this can be considered helpful. Which posts were you referring to?

Unknown

Demiurge_Kabir wrote:

Xiphoen wrote:

Thanks for the reply and the information...but you seem to be putting words in their mouths based on your opinions.

Nope, we'd echo what Nonce said.

Thanks for the reply Kabir, can we possibly get information on the other questions that Nonce didn't respond to possibly?

Unknown

As a developer, if my stuff is broken I'm much more prone to be in there fixing it than I am to be reading a forum and responding to posts. They're people with limited time and resources.

Edit for clarity: I am a software developer, not a developer working on MPQ.

Unknown

Jasonzakibe wrote:

It's possible I missed some posts or a name, but none of this can be considered helpful. Which posts were you referring to?

You mean like the one posted 30 minutes prior to, and right above, yours?

Jasonzakibe

As near as I can tell, 0 red posts. Now, normally I'm not expecting them to post everyday. I just feel like maybe there's things going on right now that would justify at least one post a day.