Puzzle Warriors 3 Episode #65!

XaOs72

We interview Anthony, Dave and Patch from Demiurge!
Patch 114
New Community Manager
New Agent Venom

http://www.puzzlewarriors3.com/pw3-e65.html

Daiches

Pretty ballsy move by them to admit they completely messed up Boss Rush QA by testing each boss separately but not in a wave format.

Akari

Even if they tested each boss individually, how did they not realize that Logan, Banner, and PHX were 100% broken? I wiped within the first 3-5 moves more than half the times I tried after I got to round 6.

Phumade

This is the first time I've ever heard them admit to a major design mistake. I'm really impressed and glad that they were upfront and honest about the issue.


edit.
Everyone needs to listen to the first hour. They actually talked about a lot of issues and questions raised by the community. This podcast was exceptionally well done and informative. A monthly moderated session like this goes an INCREDIBLY long way to helping players understand the direction of the game.

This was much better and way more informative than the videos.

alphabeta

The concerning bit for me wasn't the lack of testing in wave format - that wasn't surprising news it was just nice to have it officially confirmed because it felt truthful that that was a big mis. It was that all testing is done unscaled and they have to model up to the levels players in the real world will face - no wonder 5* scaling in these events is so broken.

I'm 100% happy to offer to play couple of hours a week on a test server with a clone of my existing roster and give constructive feedback on the scaled playing experience because clearly the unscaled and model up doesn't work that well for anyone.

Ludaa

NO relief for 5* RNG anytime soon it seems. CL9 and CL10 hopes dashed.

IamTheDanger

They said that they wanted to make more Bosses like the Kaecillius, then how about making where you have to gather 15 or 20 ap of all colors or something. Or you have to cast 5 powers in a single turn to win. Or, give the Boss a lock tile function. Every turn, the boss locks so many tiles, like 5 or 6. You have to take their health to Zero before they lock all the tiles on the board. All tiles locked means you loose. Object is to unlock tiles faster than Boss locks them, or gather enough Ap to take them out before they lock the board. There are soooo many really great and interesting ideas here on the forum.

As for looking for time to run Strange Event #2, I truly hope they don't make us wait until the DVD release or something. Personally, I enjoyed that event.

For the Character Rush idea, I posted something very similar to it a while back. This is a traderight copymark infringement of my civil rights. You will be hearing from my lawyer pal !!!
Seriously though, I had a similar idea. I didn't call it Character Rush. It was something like Super Waves. It was a huge wave node that rewarded 5*. This was a solution I had to 5* being solely reliant one RNGsus and the ever growing iso deficit.

You would select 3 characters. Then you start against three 1* characters at base level. When one died, a fourth 1* comes in at max level. Then a 5th and 6th at max. After that, you progress to the 2* wave. Three 2* come in at max level. When one dies, a fourth 2* comes in at max champ level. After beating the six 2* characters, you move to wave Three which has three 3* characters at max level and then three at max champ level. Then you face a fourth wave with 4* characters that come in at max level and end at max champ level.

Then, for the fifth and final wave, you start off against three 5* characters at something like level 400. But after beating those 3, a final 5* boss comes in which is a max champ level. And if you have survived the whole thing and can beat the final max champed boss, you will receive a 5* cover. Not a leg token, but an actual cover. It should rotate like the 3* covers in DDQ and be added as an additional node to the Crash of Titans every 5 days.

Demi can't say that it can't be done either since we just saw TWO Crash of the Titans nodes in the same day. So it can be done.

Rewards could be along the lines of....
Wave One awards 100 iso and 5hp.
Wave Two awards 400 iso and 10hp.
Wave Three awards 1k iso and 20hp.
Wave Four awards 1,500 iso and 40hp.
Wave Five awards a specific 5* cover, 2k iso and 50hp.

Complete all waves of 27 random characters and one 5* champ boss and receive a total of 5k iso, 125 hp and a 5* cover. This will help against the evil RNGsus and also, since the only players that will be able to complete it will be the ones with high level rosters. And they are the ones in need of iso the most, so the extra 5k a day will help with that as well. All without fighting 100+ characters.

Of course, if they wanted to "piece meal" it, they could make each Wave a single node. First wave can be three 1* at base level, then the second wave is three 1* at max level. Then so on and so on. Each node had two waves and completing the 1* node unlocks the 2* node that unlocks the 3* node and so on. There ya go. Broken up so it isn't a single long kitty battle.

stochasticism

Most interesting fact from the interview.

Standard token drop rates:
4*: 0%
3*: just above 2%
2%: 14%
1*< the rest, about 84%

Tromb2ch2

Can a developer please give themselves an account with all characters championed and then just play one event. Even one day of a sub. And then tell us if they had fun or if it was tedious or a challenge or whatever.

fmftint

That interview confirms most of what the players have been saying for years, not only do they not know how the game works at the upper levels, THEY DON'T CARE

Dark Nova

LONGEST SHOW EVER!!

But if that's scaring any potential new listeners away, don't worry: there are 3 instances of Craig singing so you can just skip forward to save some time AND prevent your ears from bleeding. Win-win!

This show in particular is essential listening, with an awesome interview with Demiurge. They finally break the silence over Boss Rush and tease with a few hints about upcoming events/features. And even though a few of the questions were answered with 'can't talk about that right now' or 'I don't know', just knowing that the devs had heard them was incredibly satisfying. When it comes to meaningful communication and interaction, it's not about having all the solutions it's about acknowledging that you're listening. Kudos for the Demiurge guys for agreeing to come on the show and give us their insight into the game - may there be many more interviews to follow! Next guest needs to be Brigby, so he can properly introduce himself to the MPQ community.

Incidentally, the best fix for Boss Rush 2 would be to allow each new Boss battle to pick up where the old one left off. So, if you do manage to beat Hulk with your team but get instantly wiped out by Phoenix when she appears, the next time you attempt the node you go straight to Phoenix. That way, an obliteration is not annoying because you know you've still made progress in the overall quest. The number of Hit Points needed to clear a Round is equal to the total Hit Points of all the bosses combined. It flips the concept of wave nodes onto its head - it's normally a player team trying to survive waves of attacks from enemies, but this is now one team of enemy bosses fighting against waves of player teams! Rewards given for each single boss eliminated, with a big reward for beating the final one of the wave (Round clearance reward). Each round, the bosses get tougher.

To get a good team combos for Flaptain (and no apologies for using that nickname because I know it annoys Craig!), the trick is to get people who can create red AP without having to collect yellow to do it, so Cyclops and IM40 are out. Hulkbuster and Phoenix would work well, using black/blue/purple to generate red and put out strike tiles and shields that Flaptain can boost (the shields also making Divebomb more powerful when triggered). Also, Flaptain reduces the countdown on the resurrection tile so Phoenix, if she dies, can return from the ashes more quickly to take advantage of all the collected green AP that hasn't been needed until then.

Lastly, I share Ray's dying-on-the-vine Venom issue. My Venom is 5/2/5 at level 250, just waiting to be champed, but I can't seem to get that extra black cover needed. Green and Yellow covers, however, are stalking me - my last 3 LT pulls were 1 yellow and 2 green Venoms. RNGsus hates me!!

Thanks again for a great show, guys!

Tromb2ch2

Dark Nova wrote:

Lastly, I share Ray's dying-on-the-vine Venom issue. My Venom is 5/2/5 at level 250, just waiting to be champed, but I can't seem to get that extra black cover needed. Green and Yellow covers, however, are stalking me - my last 3 LT pulls were 1 yellow and 2 green Venoms. RNGsus hates me!!

You aren't missing out >_< poor venom is quite bad. But I agree yay dev interaction!

sambrookjm

Dark Nova wrote:

Lastly, I share Ray's dying-on-the-vine Venom issue. My Venom is 5/2/5 at level 250, just waiting to be champed, but I can't seem to get that extra black cover needed. Green and Yellow covers, however, are stalking me - my last 3 LT pulls were 1 yellow and 2 green Venoms. RNGsus hates me!!

My next Loki cover will give me a green Venom cover. That will give him enough covers to become a 7/1/1. RNGsus isn't too fond of me either.

wymtime

Really good interview guys. I am glad they talked about boss rush and Dr Strange. I am also glad they are looking into more ways to get 5* and specific covers.

A question I wish you had asked about Dr Strange event was the scaling on Ultron sentries and the health pool allowed to them and the mindless. This was one item that seemed a little high.

A question on 4* and 5* transition I would have liked you to ask or suggest would be a colorless cover. Even for 4* having to sell a character when you need 1-2 more covers is extremely frustrating.

One other suggestion or question would be when they come out with a new boss event could they just give unlimited health packs for the days the event runs. This way when we can try new things to fight tough opponents but not be punished by he restrictions of health packs. When scaling goes out of control it would also lesson the rage on the forums because we will be more willing to fail knowing we can just heal our team and try again.

Overall great job.

Mitchjewitz

I said it a while ago but I'll say it again. Falcap (3/5/5) and IMHB (3/5/5) are great partners. Use HB's black to generate red ap and strike tiles and use HB's blue to make more red and protect tiles for Falcap. Active Yellow, Red, Blue and Black leaves room for purple and red users like Rulk or Teen Jean.

Second I found a way for invisible woman and quicksilver to work together (It is more of a joke but in theory still works). All you need is for starlord to be on the enemy team and you need him to cast purple and randomly put his cds on team up tiles. Then and only then invisible woman can lock them and quicksilver can make use of them.
Talk about that for a Rube Goldberg Machine.

dfour24

Great episode guys! You had an extremely informative interview with the big shots amd much appreciated.

Next time maybe ask them of they would consider introducing a combo-breaker of sorts with 5* draws. Say you draw 15 pulls and no 5*? Maybe each pull there after has an increased % chance for a 5* until your next pull.

Also when asking about good team ups for flaptain i tend to use hulkbuster for his red generation in blue and black plus the bonus of boosting those special tiles created. I also use flaptain in the ddq final node with oml and antman with fun results.

Tromb2ch2

Wait what was the patch notes about crit tiles and obw? I thought they had fixed the thing where you would make a match 5 and it would make another match sometimes before the tiles fell. Was it something else?

GrumpySmurf1002

As hard as beating it in wave mode was, the issue with fighting the bosses was the individual ones, particularly WTFPHX and Banner. Whether or not they were tested with waves, there's no way WTFPHX was tested correctly against all difficulty levels.

bigsmooth

Great pod! The interview was very informative. I appreciate the candor from Demiurge.

One thing I wanted to point out regarding 4* Sam Wilson is that Aerial Avenger's interaction with countdown tiles is flawed because it always reduces friendly countdown tiles. This is usually fine, but there are many countdown tiles that you either want to keep on the board (such as 4* Cyclops Uncanny Strategist, 3* Luke Cage's Jab Jab Cross, and Star-Lord's Everyone With Me) or that you want to destroy/match away for best effect (such as 4* Deadpool's Countdown for What and Winter Soldier's Moving Target).

I find that this limits team composition with Sam, because his passive actually impedes certain teammates, and there's really nothing you can do about it. Personally, I think that power needs a rework.

Phumade

bigsmooth wrote:

Great pod! The interview was very informative. I appreciate the candor from Demiurge.

One thing I wanted to point out regarding 4* Sam Wilson is that Aerial Avenger's interaction with countdown tiles is flawed because it always reduces friendly countdown tiles. This is usually fine, but there are many countdown tiles that you either want to keep on the board (such as 4* Cyclops Uncanny Strategist, 3* Luke Cage's Jab Jab Cross, and Star-Lord's Everyone With Me) or that you want to destroy/match away for best effect (such as 4* Deadpool's Countdown for What and Winter Soldier's Moving Target).

I find that this limits team composition with Sam, because his passive actually impedes certain teammates, and there's really nothing you can do about it. Personally, I think that power needs a rework.

There's always bagman and his increase countdown power. LOL. In all seriousness just keep his TU handy lol

Straycat

I didn't like that they opened the boss rush discussion by praising the inter alliance competition. I thought the alliance was supposed to work together to beat the bosses, but with rewards for the members that carry the alliance. I feel like that was the way they described it would be, but I haven't heard them say if it was a mistake. Either way, hope its changed next time, if it does come back