Topics for Brigby

firethorne

Brigby wrote:

Thanks for your thoughts on it! Definitely helps to see other players' opinions on the list. From what I've gathered, a large root cause to all these issues is that the reward doesn't feel equivalent to the amount of play time devoted to it. For instance, playing everyday to get Hero Tokens to purchase Covers only to get duplicates, or spending time on events that feel like they're not worth it to play because they take too long or scaling that makes it too difficult?

Would that be an accurate statement?

Yes, very accurate. And, I'd add getting 5* is 100% a function of random draws right now. So, that is where the dupe frustration hits the hardest. With 3 and 4 stars, you can make concerted efforts when a character you really want/need comes around as a progression reward, and slack off if you don't think it is worth the effort. With 5*s, that isn't the case. You have to put in the effort to see what the prize is, and the results are all up to luck. It could literally be a year before you draw that cover you really want. Hopefully guaranteed 5*'s for top progression are part of the plan for the next CL. Even if it required more points than the current CL, requiring full clears on every node for example, I'm sure there would be people very happy with that.

Brigby wrote:

And when it comes to frequency of character releases. Are they being released too quickly or too slowly?

Too quickly.

Tromb2ch2

Brigby wrote:

And when it comes to frequency of character releases. Are they being released too quickly or too slowly?

The general consensus is way too fast. But that is more because of the pool of characters and drawing. Since a new character (after the versus season) is thrown into the same pool as the others (in the form of Legendary tokens and classic tokens) it takes forever to get them covered. But at the same time it makes it harder to pull covers for other characters as well. Like as an easy example if you have lets say 5 4* in the game you have roughly a 1/4 shot at getting any given 4* now when you have what 42 4* you have a 1/42 shot to get a 4*. Then when you do pull a cover for a character you want you have a 1/3 chance of getting a cover color (which you might have at 5 so it gets wasted). At a rate of 2 per month unless you whale (spend stupid amount of money on this game) it will be hard to cover a new character in a better part of a year.

alphabeta

Scaling - 5* Rosters have to use same characters all the time because scaling is such that even boosted 4*s can't cut it till there base level passes 330+, having a 100 character + roster and using 3 characters plus essentials all day every day is beyond boring

Eliminating Duplicate Covers/Creating Colorless covers (or getting a usable cover) - Colour of cover only matters on the first 13 covers - especially transitioning into the 5* tier this is very very painful - I wasted 4 red Pho covers and with a draw rate well below advertised its highly frustrating (has sent me free to play so from a developer perspective its lost revenue)

Rate of acquiring 5* - my problem isn't the advertised draw rates per se - though classic legends could seriously do with splitting the dilution on any individual 5* is far to high now - my problem is there is no mechanism at all for ensuring you get anything close to the advertised draw rate over a reasonable sample size - my life time draw rate is hovering around 6% including wasted dupes vs advertised 15% and yet alliance mates are 30% plus - given there is one route to 5* tier I'm falling massively behind to the point of losing faith in the game

Frequency of character releases - for those into 5* tier not an issue - the new 5*s aren't coming to quickly yet and see scaling above - new 4*s are irrelevant

Frequency of character rebalancing - 5* cap need some love - few others - keep the philosophy buff orientated and it will be fine - there isn't really a single over powered character in their tiers but that are quite a few under powered in various tiers.

Skip tax in versus - Minor annoyance per earlier poster except for the MMR

Same 3-5 people showing in versus skips - in 5* tier this is major issue - BoP and Best friends where put the game away and go do anything else bad but normal events are pretty poor - you know people are unshielded and have similar rosters yet you can't see them - very poor experience.

Xp in versus - the money player predominantly are in PVP and yet we can't get XP in our preferred format - not going to kill the game but would it really matter if there where 50 xp points added to progression at say 1050 in that big gap between 900 and 1200?

Boss rush - game endingly bad - after anniversary 2 this really should not have happened again but seriously another mis step like that and I fear for the ongoing support of the spending players for the game - in 5* tier it was an absolute disaster - unplayable.

Amount of team up slots - could be higher - quality of life issue only

Amount of team ups that can be sent - could be higher - quality of life issue only

Inequality between steam users and other users - Hasn't been an issue for me (but I'm not on Steam, and I understand the Steam players often get the shaft).

Price of purchasing iso - if you are buying ISO you have way to much money.

Goons feeding ap to non goons - sorry but this should not happen - there are goons who feed AP colours other than those used by the playable character in every case that happens - switch them in - combined with 5* scaling it feels like a pretty big kick in the unmentionables that this stuff carries on (and continues in new events - Doc Oc with two green feeders in a recent new event).

Additions from me

Sentries - there is a great post on how they scale - Strange event highlighted this on one specific node.

General ISO availability - I've been playing for years and my net ISO deficit if no new characters are added and I earn no new 5* covers (latter feels likely given my current 0/37 streak) is over 10million ISO - current earn rates that's about a year and a quarters daily play and if anything on colourless or 5* progression ever improves it will just explode even higher.

Cupcakes - whatever the right and wrongs the line community that developed around the game is drifting away - I think we all accept cup cakes are dead but some fun needs injecting back in to the game and something that acknowledges that outside communities are the reason a lot of us have the time and money invested in the game we have - doesn't need to have big prizes but even a little iso would help with the shortfall but something quirky and above all fun (ie don't scale it at all) would help offset the general mood I'm seeing.

Tromb2ch2

I am all for adding new characters to the game but without more ways to pull the different characters or a way to separate them (like maybe class of 15 vs 16 or separating by strongest color or something like that) releasing new characters is kind of frustrating.

(Also a side note there is definitely a number of people on the forums that are agitated that there is hardly ever any releases of villain characters. This year we have only had one in the form of green goblin. More villains can lead to more story lines in story events which would be nice because we are kind of tired fighting the dark avengers over and over again but this isn't a game breaking problem so I omitted it from my original list)

Phaentom

Tromb2ch2 wrote:

Okay I thought we should start a thread about big problems we have with this game that we would like to be addressed. This is more of a topic starter for brigby and not a pitchfork meeting. Feel free to add more things (as I will have missed some)

Scaling
Rate of acquiring 5*
Frequency of character releases
Frequency of character rebalancing
Skip tax in versus
Same 3-5 people showing in versus skips
Xp in versus
Boss rush
Colorless covers (or getting a usable cover)
Amount of team up slots
Amount of team ups that can be sent
Inequality between steam users and other users
Price of purchasing iso
Duplicate covers
Goons feeding ap to non goons (refer to carrion pigeons comment for more detail)
Heroic story events (or being locked out of certain characters)

I know there are more but these are the bigger ones that I can think of. But once again this is introduction to topics not a place to flame.

The biggest one you forgot on the list is to bring an end to the war between Disney and Fox so we can get the characters we all really want in the game, instead of all these variants and reskins

firethorne

Phaentom wrote:

The biggest one you forgot on the list is to bring an end to the war between Disney and Fox so we can get the characters we all really want in the game, instead of all these variants and reskins

Silver lining, MPQ is doing a lot better on this front than some. I don't think Future Fight has a single character from the X-Men. We've got Beast, Psylocke, Colossus, Professor X, Iceman, multiple Storm, two Cyclops, multiple Wolverine, and two legitimate Deadpools to boot (Gwenpool does not count).

metallion

firethorne wrote:

Phaentom wrote:

The biggest one you forgot on the list is to bring an end to the war between Disney and Fox so we can get the characters we all really want in the game, instead of all these variants and reskins

Silver lining, MPQ is doing a lot better on this front than some. I don't think Future Fight has a single character from the X-Men. We've got Beast, Psylocke, Colossus, Professor X, Iceman, multiple Storm, two Cyclops, multiple Wolverine, and two legitimate Deadpools to boot (Gwenpool does not count).

Still an issue worth bringing up though. The last X-Men we've gotten was 5*Jean (which in itself was a variant) back in Nov last year. That's more than a year ago since the last X-Men release. Meanwhile in that time frame the variants has included 2 Venoms, Spidey, Punisher, Cap, Iron Man, Hulk, Black Widow, Cage and Blade, and I'm not even including guys like Peggy and Miles which are basically existing heroes represented by completely different characters, or even the double-release Strange. In total we had 27 new characters released since 5* Jean's release and more than a third has been variants. Considering how large the Marvel world is, I don't think it's a hard task to pick 10 characters that haven't been represented in game for development and release.

Right now I'm not even asking for more X-Men (which I acknowledge the game lacks), I'm just hoping to see less variants popping up in the game.

Daiches

Brigby,

With the release of the podcast interview, most of us veterans are really worried about the state of the game. The admittance that their testing methods are poor to say the least is something that is troubling.

Testing Boss Rush bosses one at a time, instead of in waves as the actual event works. Testing nodes and modes at base levels, because they CAN'T test at scaling and have to extrapolate..
But the numerous PVE tests that went before the current format, with glaring errors caught by the community immediately, learned us thinking Ex abstracto isn't their forte.

Can you bring us any news that eases the discomfort this news stirred up in the veteran community?

Dragon_Nexus

I'm liking Brigby already. I don't recall the last time we had this much one-to-one engagement with a red name.

On a personal note, adding another stack of paper to your growing "inbox", I'd like to offer a further explaination of the "Boss rush" issue that's been highlighted and my own personal issues with bosses as a whole.

The way those work is there's a Boss node with is set at a level depending on which round you're on (8 rounds with the boss gaining 50 levels per round up to...I believe 450? Might be 50 out either way). You have a shot at the boss, hopefully beat them, and then the boss pin is locked until you beat one of five pins connected to it. Once you beat a pin, all are locked and the boss is open again.

Now, my issue with bosses has been a long standing problem. The "minion pins" scale not according to which round you're on, but how much time has elapsed since the event started. As a result if, for example, the event began on a Monday and ended Friday (doesn't happen, but it helps to keep things simple), if you started on Monday you'd have low level minion pins and a low level boss, I believe they start at 50. You need to hit the boss as often as possible because 24 hours after the event starts, the minion pins increase in difficulty regardless of which round you're on. So if you made it to round 3 or 4 by the end of 24 hours, you're going to have a much easier time.

Now, someone starting on Friday will start the event with a week's worth of scaling already in effect. Their boss pin will be at level 50 because their on round 1, but the minion pins will be whatever their personal scaling is, so in my case that would be level 300-400. That creates an insane imbalance whereby often the boss becomes far, far easier than the supposedly disposable minion pins that surround it, all because you didn't kill the boss frequently enough before the scaling got too high. Instead, I feel the minion pins should also scale based purely on which round you're on. It makes no sense that round 1 minions are level 300+ on Friday while someone else has been grinding all week and face the same level 300+ minions on round 8.

...that and the general Boss Rush "You're supposed to lose" philosophy that just baffled us all since it was the exact same mistake as the year before repeated. I'd urge you to strap on a pair of waders have a look through a few posts in the Boss Rush topic.
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=53171

It's 42 pages, so I doubt anyone here expects you to spend the time reading every last post, nor do I expect you even *have* the time. But I'd suggest finding some of the highly thumbed up posts in that thread to see what people were saying. Boss events are a lot of fun at first, and for the first day or two I enjoy them. But eventually they feel like I'm trying to chew through a concrete wall just to get one 4* cover.

Tromb2ch2

Further adding on to what dragon_nexus said the bosses up to boss rush (Galactus, ultron, civil war) have all been alliance based where boss rush was not. I know some people didn't like the alliance aspect of it but it was really nice in my opinion.

Also the pre boss rush bosses went up in difficulty like he said (50 levels per round) but boss rush and the new boss (kaecilius) were scaled to your level immediately when it started. This was frustrating (with boss rush in particular) because it threw you into the hardest level enemies at round one so a lot of people had troubles with the first round (and therefore quit).

And the majority of the players that went to the later rounds usually used a combo team to make the boss not get turns. This led to a very bland experience were you just exploited the system were bosses should be at least a little fun because they are not the normal events.

carrion_pigeons

While it's definitely true that time commitment vs progress rewards is pretty stingy, the argument needs more nuance than that. The 3* tier of play is actually quite balanced in this regard. If you go lower, down to 2*s or 1*s, then Iso just floods in but all you want is HP for roster slots and covers for improving powers. The resources don't balance well, and this is something that could be improved via clearance levels. On the other hand, an advanced roster in 4* or 5* land makes HP and most covers largely unimportant, and Iso becomes the only thing that matters.

The game would be more fun if the distribution of resources matched what was needed at each level more evenly. For example, making purchases of Iso a practical choice when compared with HP would do wonders for the economy of the game. As it stands, if you want a lot of Iso, it's actually more cost effective to buy HP, and blow it all on tokens which you then sell, than it is to just directly buy Iso. This fact means that if you want to buy anything in the game, there's only one choice, and it leads to one style of gameplay: grinding Iso endlessly out of the game. Another consequence is that a wide roster at high level is irrelevant since you won't be able to afford to keep a lot of high level characters close together in level.

*Another* consequence, and this is a big one, to Iso being such a huge constraining factor is it strings out the playerbase enormously in terms of progression at the high end. This makes matchmaking impossible to do well, and leaves people playing against the same half a dozen players over and over and over. The game *needs* to have a solid class of endgame players near each other in progression who can see each other in order for competition to be enjoyable and meaningful. The current system leaves itself in an unfun state a lot of the time and is also ripe for abuse.

Dragon_Nexus

Tromb2ch2 wrote:

Further adding on to what dragon_nexus said the bosses up to boss rush (Galactus, ultron, civil war) have all been alliance based where boss rush was not. I know some people didn't like the alliance aspect of it but it was really nice in my opinion.

Also the pre boss rush bosses went up in difficulty like he said (50 levels per round) but boss rush and the new boss (kaecilius) were scaled to your level immediately when it started. This was frustrating (with boss rush in particular) because it threw you into the hardest level enemies at round one so a lot of people had troubles with the first round (and therefore quit).

And the majority of the players that went to the later rounds usually used a combo team to make the boss not get turns. This led to a very bland experience were you just exploited the system were bosses should be at least a little fun because they are not the normal events.

Important points for Boss Rush specifically. I was being more general with my post since I think there are unresolved issues with bosses in general, but you bring up some very accurate issues with Boss Rush specifically.

BTW, Brigby, if we seem over keen to burden you with tasks, it's because this is the first time we've felt like a red-name actually has the desire to listen to our issues, pass them on and hopefully get them resolved. We're optimistic, we're hopeful and most of all we're glad to have someone who seems like they want to join in with us. So if it feels like that moment at school when Teacher finally came back from wherever they were and is suddenly surrounded by school kids all wanting to ask them questions before they disappear again, it's because we're glad to have you on board. Not because we want to vent at an authority figure

Brigby

Daiches wrote:

Can you bring us any news that eases the discomfort this news stirred up in the veteran community?

As of right now, we don't have any additional comments to add onto what was already said during the podcast. Having said that though, we will be working closely with the development team to figure out what we, as a publishing company, can do to help assist in their development process.

Dragon_Nexus wrote:

On a personal note, adding another stack of paper to your growing "inbox", I'd like to offer a further explaination of the "Boss rush" issue that's been highlighted and my own personal issues with bosses as a whole.

Thanks for that analysis! From what I've heard so far, it seems to be an event that has amassed a decent amount of concern from the community. Like I said above, we'll be working with the dev team to figure out how we can help assist them, and providing them perspective from write-ups like yours is no exception.

Dragon_Nexus wrote:

BTW, Brigby, if we seem over keen to burden you with tasks, it's because this is the first time we've felt like a red-name actually has the desire to listen to our issues, pass them on and hopefully get them resolved. We're optimistic, we're hopeful and most of all we're glad to have someone who seems like they want to join in with us. So if it feels like that moment at school when Teacher finally came back from wherever they were and is suddenly surrounded by school kids all wanting to ask them questions before they disappear again, it's because we're glad to have you on board. Not because we want to vent at an authority figure

Haha. Not to worry. I hope I'm able to help out as much as I can. I really can tell the amount of passion and devotion to this game from its player base, and I want to help make this game awesome and enjoyable for everyone

Roguewookie26

The biggest issues i have in game are the pulling of duplicate covers that i cant use and the appalingly low frequency of 5* pulls. Im well into my 4* progression with 16 champed and several just waiting on iso, however i have no 5* that are anywhere near usable at this point. I have had several 4* where i have pulled multiple covers that i had to sell (sometimes as many as 10+) because i had 5 covers in that color. And i have given up on any hope of getting a usable 5* out of anything besides the latest legends pack. (My best is a 4/0/2 black bolt and all of the last 4 have been green so im going to hit that dreaded 5 i just know it.) Maybe if they could make a seperate legendary pack for each 5* where that is the only 1 available in it ( like they had for dr strange, black widow. Cap and im for their releases) it would help. 25cp per pull with a 15% chance of pulling just that 1 5*. And definately some kind of system so that 4* and 5* covers dont get wasted.
Also the frequency of new character releases is way too quick. It dilutes the pull rates and basically just adds a useless character to the roster as i have yet to see one that is usable within the first year. In my opinion the clearance levels need to be seperated more with the rewards being much better. I expected cl8 to have 2 4* in progression with cl9 having all 3 colors of a character and cl10 having a 5* in progression, man was i ever disapppinted. Only t10 get another cover? I would say you hit the nail on the head when you said the rewards are nowhere near enough of the amount of time and work put in for the most part.

*update: just pulled the 5th green black bolt. First 5* with 5 covers in a power, now it gets interesting...

**update 2: took 1 day to pull a 6th green black bolt. The last 6 5* i have pulled from latest legends have all been the same cover. How is that random out of 9 possible choices?

firethorne

I know this is sort of a vague topic, but would it be of any value to discuss a holistic view of the post-cupcake PvP landscape?

While I did discuss in a past thread how I thought cupcakes were a symptom of a problems in the game, I also thought that simply removing them didn't make the game entirely more healthy. There have been some complaints that the sense of community that grew around the PvP scene is now fractured. And, a number of the things that led to cupcakes still exist. These include questions such as, "Why are our teams able to play 10 matches at once? We only get direct control of one, and are punished for the AI making mistakes on the other 9, and end up losing points for a win."

I think also the heavy random nature of character acquisition (hello duplicates and unneeded covers) led to people doing whatever they could for a guaranteed cover. So, is the PvP progression reward where you think it should be? Top rosters should, obviously, be winning placement. But, are you seeing that transitioning rosters able to achieve progression, or is it more the catch-22 of requiring a 4* roster to get to the 3* and 4* progression rewards? Are these people just getting to the 10 CP midpoint and giving up?

Also, is Demi/D3 satisfied with team diversity now? The game still heavily favors quick, reliable victories. Yet, they still create and push for slower nuanced characters.

bbigler

firethorne wrote:

Oh, I did think of another for the master list.

Limited roster Heroic events. - It isn't at "the game is on fire" levels. At the same time, 0% of respondents in Punisher5784's poll (see: https://d3go.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=55106) listed any of these as a favorite event. The devs churn out new characters at breakneck pace, and then turn on a dime and say we can't use 90% of them for a week. It isn't as high of a priority as dupe covers or 5* random acquisition, but higher up for me than a skip tax or team up limits, moderately annoying.

I like limited roster PvE events. It forces you to come up with different teams and strategies, thus providing more variety = more fun in the game. You can still use your full roster for DDQ, Simulator, LR and PvP.

tizian2015

For me and other players we experienced a lower droprate for the 2* rewards since the patch which introduced higher iso-selling-rates for maxlevel-fullchampioned chars.

The issue is described here:

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=45460

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=51320

viewtopic.php?f=9&t=48217

Moon Roach

Generally, listening is not the same as hearing. I think Brigby is hearing us. And, even better, empathising. 5 million thumbs up.

Brigby

Hey everyone. I'm back again.

So upon further inspection, it seems to me like there are numerous issues that stem from one root cause: 5* Pulls
It seems like a more reliable method to pull 5* covers has been a general desire. Hypothetically if a reliable method was implemented, in your opinions, would the following analysis be correct?

If a more reliable method of acquiring 5* covers is implemented, the low probability is no longer an issue.
Since low probability is no longer an issue, having new heroes added so quickly that cause the probability to lower no longer becomes an issue.
On top of that, since there are now more players with 5* heroes, there are more players in the PVP pool for 5* tier, therefore higher chance of encountering a new opponent.
Not only that, scaling no longer becomes an issue, because you can reliably work towards strengthening 5* heroes to combat the increased difficulty.

If this analysis is true, then what kind of methods do you feel would offer a sufficient enough solution?

(Keep in mind this is all a hypothetical, brainstorm discussion for information purposes)

Tromb2ch2

Well if you raise the availability rate of 5* the new releases of 4* will still be a problem (for people trying to get said 4*). But it should help alleviate a lot of headaches.
Scaling will still be an issue (in pve) but having more 5* championed will definitely help but won't solve that.
And for PvP more people having 5* won't help. Seeing the same people over and over again won't change because that has to do with match making rating and shielding.

Edit: also adding more 4* doesn't change the availability of 5* because 5* are at a fixed draw rate.