May Community Q&A open for questions!

esoxnepa

_RiO_ wrote:

Question: What are your plans to balance the unfair advantage in PvE for mobile players vs players playing through the Steam version of the game from a fixed home system?

Steam players play mostly according to a single large burst of play in the evenings. This can be backed by an additional short period in the morning before leaving for work/school/etc. but the amortized modus operandi here should be assumed to be just that single evening burst of play: you cannot expect the average mentally sane person to get up out of bed one to two hours early for every day of the week while a 7 day event is running, just to place well. Maybe one or two days every other event, but certainly not the full week.
.

I think you are hitting more on how unfriendly this PvE game is for people with jobs, lives, and families, as Ben Grimm and others continue to bring up. Those of us on Mobile Clients, that work or are in school, often have to play only in the morning and evening, missing the same refreshes you do. Balancing the final grind down, initial clear of a fresh sub, and the first refresh, force choices between life responsibilities and the chore of PvE timing for high placement.

Before the 8hr refreshes, you were really crippled on steam. I was surprised they never just split the steam clients into shards separate from mobile.

I think you're at more of a disadvantage in PvP, where on the final day you can't play a match here and there to keep position before you're final shield hopping climb.

Unknown

_RiO_ wrote:

Question: What are your plans to balance the unfair advantage in PvE for mobile players vs players playing through the Steam version of the game from a fixed home system?

As a given, we have the 7 day PvE event time; the 24hr limit on PvE subs; the 8hr refresh period on PvE nodes; the 2.5hr refresh period on health-packs; and the natural regeneration period(s) of the characters.

Mobile players can, through on-the-go / pick-up-and-play matches, make good use of 3 (almost) full point-refreshes of nodes within a 24hr sub-event, with room to spare for their health-packs to have regenerated and their characters to have naturally recovered to (near) full health inbetween each sweep across the nodes.

Steam players play mostly according to a single large burst of play in the evenings. This can be backed by an additional short period in the morning before leaving for work/school/etc. but the amortized modus operandi here should be assumed to be just that single evening burst of play: you cannot expect the average mentally sane person to get up out of bed one to two hours early for every day of the week while a 7 day event is running, just to place well. Maybe one or two days every other event, but certainly not the full week.

Given just the single burst of play in the evenings, that means Steam players get one full refresh per PvE sub. For more points, they have to replay nodes at diminished returns, opening themselves up to less point rewards at equal risk to mobile players. In doing so, they also do not get the benefit of regenerating their health-packs or letting character health regenerate naturally in-between runs, which confers a further handicap in how much points a Steam player can gather before being shut down due to roster knock-out.

It would be interesting to see a breakdown of how many windows users play it on a desktop vs a touchscreen laptop or windows tablet. I've always found match-3 type games using mouse / kb to be quite uncomfortable, but I do sometimes see people playing Bejeweled etc.. on their laptops on trains with trackpad instead of touchscreen.

Unknown

theHappyDance wrote:

_RiO_ wrote:

Question: What are your plans to balance the unfair advantage in PvE for mobile players vs players playing through the Steam version of the game from a fixed home system?

As a given, we have the 7 day PvE event time; the 24hr limit on PvE subs; the 8hr refresh period on PvE nodes; the 2.5hr refresh period on health-packs; and the natural regeneration period(s) of the characters.

Mobile players can, through on-the-go / pick-up-and-play matches, make good use of 3 (almost) full point-refreshes of nodes within a 24hr sub-event, with room to spare for their health-packs to have regenerated and their characters to have naturally recovered to (near) full health inbetween each sweep across the nodes.

Steam players play mostly according to a single large burst of play in the evenings. This can be backed by an additional short period in the morning before leaving for work/school/etc. but the amortized modus operandi here should be assumed to be just that single evening burst of play: you cannot expect the average mentally sane person to get up out of bed one to two hours early for every day of the week while a 7 day event is running, just to place well. Maybe one or two days every other event, but certainly not the full week.

Given just the single burst of play in the evenings, that means Steam players get one full refresh per PvE sub. For more points, they have to replay nodes at diminished returns, opening themselves up to less point rewards at equal risk to mobile players. In doing so, they also do not get the benefit of regenerating their health-packs or letting character health regenerate naturally in-between runs, which confers a further handicap in how much points a Steam player can gather before being shut down due to roster knock-out.

It would be interesting to see a breakdown of how many windows users play it on a desktop vs a touchscreen laptop or windows tablet. I've always found match-3 type games using mouse / kb to be quite uncomfortable, but I do sometimes see people playing Bejeweled etc.. on their laptops on trains with trackpad instead of touchscreen.

I'd love to do both, but unfortunately accounts are seperate. I'm majority a mobile player so I can have something to do when I'm not in my mecha.

Unknown

raisinbman wrote:

I'd love to do both, but unfortunately accounts are seperate. I'm majority a mobile player so I can have something to do when I'm not in my mecha.

Agreed. The originally actually did have FB integration on PC but they removed it for new accounts very early on. Missed the cutoff by a couple months, so I'm mobile-only, like you.

Deadsider

Q: What are the differences between the platforms that you've noticed (group size, playstyles, buy rate etc)?

_RiO_

esoxnepa wrote:

Before the 8hr refreshes, you were really crippled on steam.

Not really. With 2.5hr refreshes you could atleast get in two clears in the evening and extend the second one with points from diminished returns. Rubber banding did the rest to close the gap after a day of non-play. This would atleast get you the final progression reward and maybe a top 150 finish. It is now; with reduced rubber-banding and with 8hr refreshes, that Steam players are really crippled.

Also; do you remember the 'true healing' debates? Well; I theorize it was mostly Steam players that were using true healing to get more of a stretch out of their roster and health packs for their consolidated long evening runs... As the developer and publisher so aptly put it: that's not fun, and they don't want people to not have fun while playing. They're right: it wasn't fun. It was a necessity to be able to register a competitive PvE score as a Steam player. However, instead of completely axing true healing as they did, the developer should have looked a bit further and should have tried to figure out why people were 'exploiting' true healing and then fix that instead. (Hint... hint...)

esoxnepa wrote:

I think you're at more of a disadvantage in PvP, where on the final day you can't play a match here and there to keep position before you're final shield hopping climb.

PvP was and remains mostly unwinnable through regular (i.e. as-intended-by-the-developer) play. The best a Steam player can do is take a peek at the time slices; figure out which slice ends at a favorable time; and then register with about 1hr left on the clock for the slice, while praying you end up in a fresh bracket. Forget completely about progression rewards and settle for a top 100 finish.

esoxnepa wrote:

I was surprised they never just split the steam clients into shards separate from mobile.

That would certainly solve issues, but the population size on steam is probably too low for it to work without being continuously pooled with the same set of players. Still; I would heavily prefer it to the current situation, which is just one big crapshot no matter which way you look at it.

turul

Are there plans to make the AI more intelligent / more humanlike?

Not-to-be-idiot level optimizations:
Not matching own special tiles, especially ones created just before.
Not casting sentry-sacrifice when this gives up the match.
Not casting a power which is already in effect (like Vision/Same density)
Using powers properly (Quicksilver Idle Hands = create a match)

Too smart AI = bad player experience type of optimizations:
Proper power casting orders, like Thoress blue->red, IW blue->green, Vision, etc
Using powers properly (GSBW/MnM purple)
Choosing the better powers.

Humans makes mistakes...
AI matchmaking in a more human manner:
can "properly" find possible match5s
can choose a better-color match3 than an off color match4
can miss a match5 or match4. (based on random and not on determinable tile-composition)

Cymmina

Why does the game suggest moves that it would never make as the enemy team?

I have never ever ever seen a match-4 suggested as a potential move, only match-3s. I've seen cases where the game will suggest that I make a match-3 with 3 of the tiles that would potentially make a match-4 (we're talking simple match-4, not one that would happen due to a cascade).

I used to play Puzzle Quest on the DS and it always suggested the best single match I could make on the board (match-5 -> match-4 -> match-3; if there were multiples, it would highlight whichever one would do the most damage).

Hayek

Can you tell us how roster character levels affect PvE nodes starting levels (not scaling after event starts).

DrNitroman

turul wrote:

Are there plans to make the AI more intelligent / more humanlike?

Sarcasm?
(<insert picture of Sheldon here>)

I mean dumber could qualify for more humanlike . Seriously, smarter AI is a good think for any game... but this would change the overall difficulty of the game and consequently demand for a revision of progression reward and so on, are the devs ready for that

Argon Flame

Will the prize structure of 7-day events be increased as compared to a 3/4-day event?

Both the completion tiered reward system and the progression rewards over a 7-day event are currently much worse on a covers-per-day basis then for a shorter event. Having to keep up a specific pace just so you can stay in the pack over 7-days is pretty harsh. If the tiers were wider (we are playing for 'twice' as long) and/or the progression rewards more generous (you can see what you can get if you do participate more) at least you'll feel like you can achieve something.

For Hulk I'm looking at getting 2 LDaken Covers and the Colossus cover after 7-days of playing = 3/7 covers/day On a 3 day event i'm looking at getting 2 generic cover +1 after 3-days = 3/3 covers/day etc

Disclaimer: Haven't sifted through all 9-10 pages so don't know if this has come up before!

Arondite

Do you plan on regularly bending us over a table with weekly releases, or was that a fluke caused by Netflix / Cinematic / Large Event releases?

Unknown

Question. Will you do something about the current AP bar?

You seem to acknowledge that not being able to see AP at all times is an issue, but this current bar is worse than the previous incarnations, and we got no feedback on the complaints.

Add a random amount of ap to every ap color then fire off a Nightstalker, see if you can tell what color was drained on the quarter of a second the AP bar pops up.

Unknown

Question: A lot of the controversial changes this games had have been legitimate attempts to address problems, but strange design choices that tended to make matters worse. Are there any plans to implement some kind of feedback system, and voting by the community prior to making substantive changes to the game? Additionally, some mechanism to ask the community for the optimal implementation method.

Examples:
Character rebalances, new character releases and optimal power tweaking so as to not be over or underpowered.
Health increases -> removal of true healing etc.. - healing did create problems that needed addresses, but without changing the reward structure of PvP, blanket health increases as happened at the same time and more recently are almost universally hated.
Boosts to characters the community find underwhelming, specially their powers and not blanket health increases that just draw out matches more and make them a chore
Roster slots
Optimal PvE / PvP configuration, etc..

Having the community vote on what it wants, and then implementing those changes, could create a much more satisfied player-base, rather than just making changes that are assumed to be preferable to what the community might come up with. Of course this assumes the community sticks around long enough for such a change to be implemented to begin with. It seems like forums are much slower, and most players who cared about the health of the game have moved on to greener pastures.

Unknown

1 - In view of the increasing number of characters 4* why you do not put as a prize for the winner an event PVP or PVE cover 4* a choice both as a character and as a color?

2 - Why not give the possibility of having 15 covers and then utilizzarne 13 changing from time to time their character depending on the strategy that one wants to use?

mr_X

Good thread!

1, When looking at alliance scores the top three player have a gold, silver and bronze cup next to there name. Is there any plans to actually award something tangible ( however small) to reflect the placing at the end of events.

2, It would be nice if each time you opened an event or heroic token and subsequently sold the cover in addition to the small amount of Iso you get you also got a point which you could save up and then spend on something. Sort of puzzle quest supermarket loyalty card scheme. Loki points or something.

Others have mentioned similar ideas on recent threads as a away of mitigating the disappointment of continually pulling dupes.

3, Any plans to rework the Pve reward structure. As it stands you be as well come 11th or 50th bar the a small difference in iso that you can make in a single battle, there is no real incentive to push. Especially the case if you do not have the 4 star essential.

jimstarooney

I'll say it again because its my biggest gripe with this game atm.will u be removing the rule where every1 can see u when you are high enough on pts.after 3 unsuccessful climbs to 1000 and spending a considerable amount on hp getting there I wont try again because getting sniped at 900 by people from 100 is not fun and certainly not fair after all that time/money getting there.
Before this rule came in I would spend about 300hp sometimes more sometimes less to get to final progression reward and probably averaged 900 pts per pvp.
Now ill spend 75 on a 3 hr shield and end up around 800.
Im surprised there is not as much uproar about this and as your main business model seems to be in the purchase of hp it seems like an unusual choice.at least reduce cool down on shields if u are staying on this path as it doesn't make any sense to me.

Malcrof

With weekly buffed characters, could you also include special variant type cover art to go along with them for their week? This is an aesthetic thing, but if you are going to buff them, make them stand out!!

BillyBobJoe

The difficulty of PVE increases the better the roster you have. Yet the rewards (experience in the form of iso) remains constant.

Q: Are you looking into adjusting the per battle reward structure?

Ex/ Clearing a 395 Ares, Daken, Venom a second time often results in a 20 Iso reward.

BillyBobJoe

The battlefield seems leveled off: balanced characters, boosted characters, raised health, etc...

I am not so concerned about the length of a match as I am about the point structure in a PVP tourney. A player may have the exact same team as me, but because he started later, he is slamming me with a 40 pt loss to my 5 pt gain if I play against him. Also, when I am shield hopping to 1000, I am immediately thrown into other players queues. I play a match worth 30 pts to me, I am attacked by 2-3 other players which results in 30-40 pt loss each to me each.

Q: Are you happy with the scoring and queue mechanism in PVP?