Congratulations Fellow Beta Testers UPDATE:Red response p.3

Punisher5784

I do not understand why they wouldn't test high-level rosters. A majority of players with high-level rosters are normally players who've spent money (and probably lots of it) so why piss off your paying customers? I am also dumbfounded they did not test the bosses in Waves which is the whole point of Boss Rush.. I am assuming the "Rush" part of the PVE name is what it is, a Rush job. They could have simply re-ran Galactus or Ultron again for Anniversary if they weren't ready to release Boss Rush. Anniversary is not the time to make screw-ups when it's supposed to be a celebration.

I also do not appreciate the fact that the devs refused to comment on Boss Rush on the forums but can speak about it on this podcast. If they would have stated this on the forums, we would be much more understanding about it than hearing it on a podcast. I hope in light of this they do look into testing. We have a forum of users ready and willing to assist in any means necessary.

Dimh

I have been championing some sort of Public (or Private) Test Realm since before I took a break half a year ago. Blizzard does this in their games very effectively, it allows you to test rosters of all shapes and sizes in real world scenarios from a player perspective. That has to be very valuable to the developers, as they clearly are playing and designing a different game to what we actually play.

Polares

Punisher5784 wrote:

I do not understand why they wouldn't test high-level rosters. A majority of players with high-level rosters are normally players who've spent money (and probably lots of it) so why piss off your paying customers? I am also dumbfounded they did not test the bosses in Waves which is the whole point of Boss Rush.. I am assuming the "Rush" part of the PVE name is what it is, a Rush job. They could have simply re-ran Galactus or Ultron again for Anniversary if they weren't ready to release Boss Rush. Anniversary is not the time to make screw-ups when it's supposed to be a celebration.

This part specially also surprises (pisses, annoys, amazes... put your own adjective ) me a lot. I get the majority of players are in the mid-range, but forgetting completely the group of people that loves the most and probably spends the most in your game is... well, I don't have words for this.

And yeah I also agree not testing the waves when this is what you are adding to the Boss formula is really dumb (or they really had a very big release date problem).

hurcules

Punisher5784 wrote:

I also do not appreciate the fact that the devs refused to comment on Boss Rush on the forums but can speak about it on this podcast. If they would have stated this on the forums, we would be much more understanding about it than hearing it on a podcast. I hope in light of this they do look into testing. We have a forum of users ready and willing to assist in any means necessary.

Don't forget one of the devs actually commented they have very thin-skin and would crawl back into silence mode at the mere sign of harsh criticism. (I'm paraphrasing, of course, and not 100% sure of the actual words, but that's roughly what I remember reading)

Crnch73

It was nice to hear them admit the truth. Bear with me, as I did not read through all 3 pages of comments before posting this...

My concern here is that they admitted they don't have a highly leveled roster. To me, this may mean that they have a middling roster at best, and because they are developers, they can just add characters and levels whenever they want by editing code. They don't have to slog through the madness of building a roster. RNG doesn't hurt them. If they have 5 of any color on a 4* or 5* and they pull another of that color, no big deal, they can fix it for themselves. I have no 4* characters worth using. I only have 5 characters in 4* that have 5 of ANY color, and I have pulled a cover in EACH of those covers this week alone. Cyclops red (he is 5/2/3), Peggy blue (she is 3/0/5), Ghost Rider red (he is 3/5/0), Carnage red (5/2/2), and Venom green (5/0/2). That is 100 CP, which took me a good amount of time to earn because I am not a very good PVP player.

Maybe if they knew our pain, they would make changes to this super dumb method of getting a better roster. Anything after the 3* tier is such a time dump. Adding the 4* into SCL progression was great, but its not enough help with 40+ different characters.

Ludaa

Having real beta testers would be ideal, they could be "paid" just like the forum mods are with game resources. The biggest obstacle is probably keeping unreleased info from the public. They're are already super tight-lipped just so the Marvel blog can have it's cookie cutter interview to post.

I say take Brigby's pay/position and use it towards early testing. He's honestly just a middleman that won't be allowed to do much more than copy paste. HiFi was not the weak link in communication, and was more valuable in helping out individuals through pm's.

SnowcaTT

I've said many, many times I'd be a Beta Tester. I've begged for them to do this since I started 3* transition.

I've also said many, many times that the solution to scaling is discount your top "X" characters, where X= current number of 5*'s in the game. Eliminates the bad scaling for newbies who pull 5*'s (no more "should I sell 5*?" threads!). Eliminates the bad scaling for vets who have great 5*'s (no more "I improved my roster...and it hurt me!" threads!). Eliminates the bad scaling for 5* transitioners who are scared to move up (no more "should I soft-cap?" threads...for PVE).

Alternatively, allow players to choose which roster they'll use for events...and scale/MMR them to that roster. I'm not alone in pining for the 4* days where I had a large roster to choose from, diversity was found in the field, and the game was overall more balanced and interesting.

(All problems that could also be solved by increasing drop rate and ISO flow for 5*'s....instead of the worst issue in the game, RNG-only progression. )

El Satanno

Ludaa wrote:

Having real beta testers would be ideal, they could be "paid" just like the forum mods are with game resources. The biggest obstacle is probably keeping unreleased info from the public. They're are already super tight-lipped just so the Marvel blog can have it's cookie cutter interview to post.

Want an easy and well-nigh foolproof way of preventing unreleased info? Offer a bounty on such leaks. Seriously.

"Hey, players! Have you caught someone leaking screenies or details of beta test information? Send us proof and we'll credit you your choice of XXX Iso, XXX HP, or an X* cover of your choice! Your anonymity is assured!"

BOOM. Problem solves itself.

Ludaa wrote:

I say take Brigby's pay/position and use it towards early testing. He's honestly just a middleman that won't be allowed to do much more than copy paste. HiFi was not the weak link in communication, and was more valuable in helping out individuals through pm's.

No, and you're fired for suggesting such a thing. This guy is on top of his game now and I for one would rather encourage and nurture his level of engagement than cynically cut it down.

Cthulhu

Colognoisseur wrote:

After three years of suspecting the truth one of the developers finally admitted it.
If you haven't listened to the Puzzle Warriors 3 podcast you should.
Three of the developers show up and have the most informative 45 minutes on MPQ ever.

One of the things I have long suspected is they have no high level players on the team so they don't know what it is like.
When the developers answered questions abouy why Boss Rush was so bad they admit that they only tested each of the Boss characters individually and not in waves. Then they admitted that they only modeled it for their mid-range rosters. Which was why those in the middle had the most of a limited amount of success in that event.

They admitted the glitches for Kaecillius in the Dr. Strange event were also due to lack of modeling on anything other than the mid-range rosters they have.

Now they further go on to say they will make improvements in the second versions but you know what that makes all of us who don't have the same rosters as them? Unpaid Beta Testers.
In fact based on the resources most of us had to use to compete at the higher levels it was worse we were Beta Testers who paid them.

Just like it was after Galactus first run we have now done our job and they have a wonderful data set with which to improve the next run.

Sure we spent our resources but hey the honor of helping improve the game outweighs that, right?

That's right ladies and gentlemen work your way up to having a fantastic roster only to be seen as inconvenient and not worth developers time to correctly model their event.

I am once again pleading with the developer team to form a testing team of players with high level rosters. Despite all of the assurances that you have made in the past it doesn't exist on your end. You just admitted it.

I would really be better to have a small team of actual Beta Testers who can make your event better on day one than cynically using everyone else as a bunch of cannon fodder as you did with Boss Rush and Strange Days.

I promise we didn't mean to make you feel like beta testers, but since this happend we have definitely made steps to include more ranges of saves to test against to see what it's like, I got destroyed in my personal live account and we discussed using my save as an example along with others to see what the event is like from different tiers. For example, I couldn't beat Kaecilius because I didn't have any of the characters that helped get rid of his strike tiles to cause damage, so his boss fight was no fun to me.

We will continue to do our best at covering as much as we can. We have not only made the above part of the process but we have also made other changes internally to help get more constructive feedback before an event goes out. We will always try our best and read the feedback from the community.

Cthulhu

fmftint

No offense Cthulhu but isn't test at all levels day 1 stuff not YEAR 3 STUFF?!

Bondidude

Cthulhu wrote:

Colognoisseur wrote:

After three years of suspecting the truth one of the developers finally admitted it.
If you haven't listened to the Puzzle Warriors 3 podcast you should.
Three of the developers show up and have the most informative 45 minutes on MPQ ever.

One of the things I have long suspected is they have no high level players on the team so they don't know what it is like.
When the developers answered questions abouy why Boss Rush was so bad they admit that they only tested each of the Boss characters individually and not in waves. Then they admitted that they only modeled it for their mid-range rosters. Which was why those in the middle had the most of a limited amount of success in that event.

They admitted the glitches for Kaecillius in the Dr. Strange event were also due to lack of modeling on anything other than the mid-range rosters they have.

Now they further go on to say they will make improvements in the second versions but you know what that makes all of us who don't have the same rosters as them? Unpaid Beta Testers.
In fact based on the resources most of us had to use to compete at the higher levels it was worse we were Beta Testers who paid them.

Just like it was after Galactus first run we have now done our job and they have a wonderful data set with which to improve the next run.

Sure we spent our resources but hey the honor of helping improve the game outweighs that, right?

That's right ladies and gentlemen work your way up to having a fantastic roster only to be seen as inconvenient and not worth developers time to correctly model their event.

I am once again pleading with the developer team to form a testing team of players with high level rosters. Despite all of the assurances that you have made in the past it doesn't exist on your end. You just admitted it.

I would really be better to have a small team of actual Beta Testers who can make your event better on day one than cynically using everyone else as a bunch of cannon fodder as you did with Boss Rush and Strange Days.

I promise we didn't mean to make you feel like beta testers, but since this happend we have definitely made steps to include more ranges of saves to test against to see what it's like, I got destroyed in my personal live account and we discussed using my save as an example along with others to see what the event is like from different tiers. For example, I couldn't beat Kaecilius because I didn't have any of the characters that helped get rid of his strike tiles to cause damage, so his boss fight was no fun to me.

We will continue to do our best at covering as much as we can. We have not only made the above part of the process but we have also made other changes internally to help get more constructive feedback before an event goes out. We will always try our best and read the feedback from the community.

Cthulhu

Could you clarify what you mean by "saves"? Is that a set of rosters at different points in time or something?

Dekliko1978

What a lame excuse...

It's not like we haven't been mentioning the fact that not enough testing is done by the development team for over 2 years or so.....

Colognoisseur

Cthulhu wrote:

Colognoisseur wrote:

After three years of suspecting the truth one of the developers finally admitted it.
If you haven't listened to the Puzzle Warriors 3 podcast you should.
Three of the developers show up and have the most informative 45 minutes on MPQ ever.

One of the things I have long suspected is they have no high level players on the team so they don't know what it is like.
When the developers answered questions abouy why Boss Rush was so bad they admit that they only tested each of the Boss characters individually and not in waves. Then they admitted that they only modeled it for their mid-range rosters. Which was why those in the middle had the most of a limited amount of success in that event.

They admitted the glitches for Kaecillius in the Dr. Strange event were also due to lack of modeling on anything other than the mid-range rosters they have.

Now they further go on to say they will make improvements in the second versions but you know what that makes all of us who don't have the same rosters as them? Unpaid Beta Testers.
In fact based on the resources most of us had to use to compete at the higher levels it was worse we were Beta Testers who paid them.

Just like it was after Galactus first run we have now done our job and they have a wonderful data set with which to improve the next run.

Sure we spent our resources but hey the honor of helping improve the game outweighs that, right?

That's right ladies and gentlemen work your way up to having a fantastic roster only to be seen as inconvenient and not worth developers time to correctly model their event.

I am once again pleading with the developer team to form a testing team of players with high level rosters. Despite all of the assurances that you have made in the past it doesn't exist on your end. You just admitted it.

I would really be better to have a small team of actual Beta Testers who can make your event better on day one than cynically using everyone else as a bunch of cannon fodder as you did with Boss Rush and Strange Days.

I promise we didn't mean to make you feel like beta testers, but since this happend we have definitely made steps to include more ranges of saves to test against to see what it's like, I got destroyed in my personal live account and we discussed using my save as an example along with others to see what the event is like from different tiers. For example, I couldn't beat Kaecilius because I didn't have any of the characters that helped get rid of his strike tiles to cause damage, so his boss fight was no fun to me.

We will continue to do our best at covering as much as we can. We have not only made the above part of the process but we have also made other changes internally to help get more constructive feedback before an event goes out. We will always try our best and read the feedback from the community.

Cthulhu

Cthulu,

Thank you for taking the time to respond to so many of my concerns.
I do want to say something that in the three years I have played I have heard words like this but they have not been matched with an action which lets the players know you actually do care.

As part of actually showing an action that shows you appreciate your inadvertant baeta testers may I suggest that when Boss Rush 2.0 and Strange Days 2.0 come around the rewards are jumped up throughout the reward levels. I mean 3* covers where 2* are, 4* where 3* are, and 5* covers at the top of the heap plus double iso double hp and double cp.

In the past you've just thrown a token or two at us to mollify the masses. How about this time just for the second run make it up to all of us by allowing your beta testers to reap the fruits of their labor by playing the events as they should have been.

Please?

fmftint

The worst part of this, this is probably the last time we'll see (here) a unsponsored developer interview.

Polares

Cthulhu wrote:

Colognoisseur wrote:

After three years of suspecting the truth one of the developers finally admitted it.
If you haven't listened to the Puzzle Warriors 3 podcast you should.
Three of the developers show up and have the most informative 45 minutes on MPQ ever.

One of the things I have long suspected is they have no high level players on the team so they don't know what it is like.
When the developers answered questions abouy why Boss Rush was so bad they admit that they only tested each of the Boss characters individually and not in waves. Then they admitted that they only modeled it for their mid-range rosters. Which was why those in the middle had the most of a limited amount of success in that event.

They admitted the glitches for Kaecillius in the Dr. Strange event were also due to lack of modeling on anything other than the mid-range rosters they have.

Now they further go on to say they will make improvements in the second versions but you know what that makes all of us who don't have the same rosters as them? Unpaid Beta Testers.
In fact based on the resources most of us had to use to compete at the higher levels it was worse we were Beta Testers who paid them.

Just like it was after Galactus first run we have now done our job and they have a wonderful data set with which to improve the next run.

Sure we spent our resources but hey the honor of helping improve the game outweighs that, right?

That's right ladies and gentlemen work your way up to having a fantastic roster only to be seen as inconvenient and not worth developers time to correctly model their event.

I am once again pleading with the developer team to form a testing team of players with high level rosters. Despite all of the assurances that you have made in the past it doesn't exist on your end. You just admitted it.

I would really be better to have a small team of actual Beta Testers who can make your event better on day one than cynically using everyone else as a bunch of cannon fodder as you did with Boss Rush and Strange Days.

I promise we didn't mean to make you feel like beta testers, but since this happend we have definitely made steps to include more ranges of saves to test against to see what it's like, I got destroyed in my personal live account and we discussed using my save as an example along with others to see what the event is like from different tiers. For example, I couldn't beat Kaecilius because I didn't have any of the characters that helped get rid of his strike tiles to cause damage, so his boss fight was no fun to me.

We will continue to do our best at covering as much as we can. We have not only made the above part of the process but we have also made other changes internally to help get more constructive feedback before an event goes out. We will always try our best and read the feedback from the community.

Cthulhu

I know we are a bit too aggressive/bitter and a bit too crybabies in the forum sometimes, but please PLEASE use our feedback. We have been saying here for a while that the game has some serious problems like

- Scaling in the higher end
- RNG as the main form of progression for the 'endgame'
- Not cool at all getting 6th covers for any 5
- PvP MMR problems
etc, etc.

These are just a few of the serious problems that impact A LOT on the fun factor of this game and can even ruin completely the game to a lot of people (a lot of veterans have already abandoned the game because of these).

So again, maybe more beta testers is hard to implement, but at least use the feedback on the forum, this feedback is from people that love the game! There are a lot of great posts here that can help make the game better.

snlf25

Scaling in the mid range isn't great either. I only have a few 4* champs and a lot of times I struggle like hell to get 4 clears. It just isn't fun when its this difficult.

carrion_pigeons

Red posts in thread.

Forum immediately descends on thread with every off-topic complaint they can think of.

Great tactics guys.

This thread is not about rewards or making your clears or RNG. This thread was about poorly-implemented testing. That was the only thing the thread was made to talk about, and as it happens, that was the only thing Cthulu responded about. There's no reason to expand the scope of the thread just because a miracle happened and we got a response.

I would love to get more details on the testing process, personally. We might be able to offer some very useful input on things to test if we had some more facts about how it's being done now.

broll

I find it insulting that a dev finally took the time to comment on this and an apology was no where in the message.

pheregas

Punisher5784

Cthulhu wrote:

I promise we didn't mean to make you feel like beta testers, but since this happend we have definitely made steps to include more ranges of saves to test against to see what it's like, I got destroyed in my personal live account and we discussed using my save as an example along with others to see what the event is like from different tiers. For example, I couldn't beat Kaecilius because I didn't have any of the characters that helped get rid of his strike tiles to cause damage, so his boss fight was no fun to me.

We will continue to do our best at covering as much as we can. We have not only made the above part of the process but we have also made other changes internally to help get more constructive feedback before an event goes out. We will always try our best and read the feedback from the community.

Cthulhu

Although many players above are angry about the lack of apology or reward, I am still flabbergasted that we had to listen to a podcast to hear about the results of the poor planning of Boss Rush, and now after we made a post about, we hear about how there will be more testing. Why couldn't there be a more official response during or right after the Boss Rush event. Also, if you got destroyed and you weren't having fun, what would make you think we would do any better and have fun? At any point, did anyone think that maybe Boss Rush should be delayed and potentially replaced with Gauntlet or a re-run of Galactus (that finally worked after it ran twice)?

It's been over a month, clearly players are still angry and annoyed about it. The only thing I can think of is when we had an official response from Galactus last year, the players got angrier and maybe the devs thought it would be best to ignore us this time. Well ignoring problem is not better, we've been complaining about the lack of communication since IceIX left and it's been gradually worse. Even though it may not seem like I appreciate the response, I do but hopefully in light of these recent events we can see more of it, more interaction from the devs on these types of issues. I've said this before and I'll say it again, we're a very dedicated and intelligent playerbase, listen to our feedback. Most of us don't want "free" stuff, we just want things to be fair and work properly.