ARE They Listening?

Colognoisseur

Right after the back-to-back poorly executed events of the first run of Boss Rush and then Strange Sights I, and others, complained that we were unpaid beta testers. We complained that there was a degree of tone deafness on how things they do for the middle of the player base unduly impacts those at or near the top. Anthony would admit that they don't test at the higher levels. After being smacked down I was frustrated and expressed it here on the forum.
This lead to a response from Brigby and Cthulu saying the development team was listening.
After the exchange I was going to use the next runs of Strange Sights and Boss Rush to see if they actually are listening. The first half of my assessment is here and I thought I'd give my response.

Problem with Run 1: Ridiculous scaling on the Ultron sentries in the Doombot sub.
Run 2 Response: Scaling adjusted appropriately I think those nodes were still plenty difficult but not near-impossible as they were on Run 1.
Verdict: They listened

Problem with Run 1: Kaecilius Boss required the player to bring attack tile generators if you were going to win before he killed your team.
Run 2 Response: Kaecilius generates his own strike tiles as a passive. These were beefy strikes which made removal critical. This as with the sentries made the node still difficult but doable. I wiped on one out of the three boss battles which seems close to a good ratio I think.
Verdict: They listened

Problem with Run 1: The reward for the Boss Battle was not worth the difficulty.
Run 2 Response: 3500 Iso for a node which was more able to be beaten.
Verdict: They listened

Problem with Run 1: The vault rewards were terrible.
Run 2 response: The rewards were better but the lack of single token purchase option still irritates me.
Verdict: They mostly listened

Overall I do feel like they listened to the feedback they received and very much improved the event all around.
From my perspective I feel like they are half the way to convincing me that they are paying attention to their beta testers.

The next run of Boss Rush is really the acid test for me to really complete the loop on their ability to understand what makes things fun for their players/customers.

Crnch73

except that final progression was not attainable by the standard amount of clears we usually need, so they made the same mistake as in a past event.

Otherwise, yes they listened on this event. Unfortunately, they screwed up PvP in the meantime... I may just be complaining to deaf ears, and I apologize if I am complaining way too much (seriously, I am very sorry)... but the PvP bug is much worse than the positive changes to the Strange PVE

Nabistay

They have done a good job of doing some real quality of life fixes, and although they didn't make everything the way we wanted it, they at least proved they listen to our gripes sometimes.

I can't say I know what is best for their game, and they always make the final call of what they think will be best for the game overall, but I always appreciate when game developers take steps to alleviate what pains the most passionate 5% of their gamers. (the top, the people who post, us!)

Thank you devs!

vinsensual

The max progression miscalculation has been pretty consistent for most wave node events. I think this is the 3rd time it's happened since Boss Rush.

Punisher5784

In order news, I just gave you your 3000th reputation point. Congrats!

Btw, I think they listened by having Galactus and Civil War instead of a re-run of Boss Rush. I hope I never see Boss Rush again!

Jarvind

Colognoisseur wrote:

The next run of Boss Rush is really the acid test for me to really complete the loop on their ability to understand what makes things fun for their players/customers.

I think you meant "litmus test" unless you usually go on an LSD bender before starting a boss event.

Dragon_Nexus

Punisher5784 wrote:

I hope I never see Boss Rush again!

Like...the event, full stop? Or that incarnation of it?

If the former, that's a little sad. If the latter, I totally agree.
Boss Rush is a pretty cool idea. It's like a Gauntlet style Boss event. See how far you can go. The execution was lacking, no argument there, but you can make it fun again by a few simple tweaks. Get rid of the boss waves and have it as a single boss, make the minions more fun to fight, that kinda thing.

It irks me when people say "That thing was bad, let's trash it and never look at it again" and fail to notice the potential in something if it was just adjusted a bit. Assassins Creed 1 had some great ideas but it was a pretty meh game. If they'd just trashed it straight off we wouldn't have had the awesome Ezio trilogy.

GrumpySmurf1002

vinsensual wrote:

The max progression miscalculation has been pretty consistent for most wave node events. I think this is the 3rd time it's happened since Boss Rush.

I'll say it til I'm blue in the face.

There's nothing wrong with the calculation of waves. They said clear it 4 times, clear them 4 times.


As to the OP, well said. There's work to be done, but they did a good job improving on this run.

spatenfloot

vinsensual wrote:

The max progression miscalculation has been pretty consistent for most wave node events. I think this is the 3rd time it's happened since Boss Rush.

If people keep coming up short by only doing 2 wave clears, then maybe they should be able to figure out that they should do more.

carrion_pigeons

Jarvind wrote:

Colognoisseur wrote:

The next run of Boss Rush is really the acid test for me to really complete the loop on their ability to understand what makes things fun for their players/customers.

I think you meant "litmus test" unless you usually go on an LSD bender before starting a boss event.

An acid test is a real thing and a common phrase in this context. Its origin is in using actual acid to test ore for gold. Litmus testing is something else.

TLCstormz

They aren't running Boss Rush again, so........

firethorne

carrion pigeons wrote:

Jarvind wrote:

Colognoisseur wrote:

The next run of Boss Rush is really the acid test for me to really complete the loop on their ability to understand what makes things fun for their players/customers.

I think you meant "litmus test" unless you usually go on an LSD bender before starting a boss event.

An acid test is a real thing and a common phrase in this context. Its origin is in using actual acid to test ore for gold. Litmus testing is something else.

Fun trivia, there are also a set of rendering tests for web browsers called acid tests. Most likely the name stemmed from the same gold standards.

http://www.acidtests.org/

OneLastGambit

carrion pigeons wrote:

Jarvind wrote:

Colognoisseur wrote:

The next run of Boss Rush is really the acid test for me to really complete the loop on their ability to understand what makes things fun for their players/customers.

I think you meant "litmus test" unless you usually go on an LSD bender before starting a boss event.

An acid test is a real thing and a common phrase in this context. Its origin is in using actual acid to test ore for gold. Litmus testing is something else.

Kudos for the correct definition there carrior pigeon. Perhaps colog doesn't go on an acid bender before boss rush Jarv but i think it could be argued the devs did before they designed it

Polares

Colognoisseur wrote:

Problem with Run 1: Kaecilius Boss required the player to bring attack tile generators if you were going to win before he killed your team.
Run 2 Response: Kaecilius generates his own strike tiles as a passive. These were beefy strikes which made removal critical. This as with the sentries made the node still difficult but doable. I wiped on one out of the three boss battles which seems close to a good ratio I think.
Verdict: They listened

I don't agree with you on this part. In the first run K already generated strikes on his own, they just changed how, he needed to get 5AP to start creating them, but he created two and then more with a countdown, this time around with a passive. But this time like the first time, the scaling of the boss was crazy high, which for me was the main complain of the first time (not the mode he used to create the countdowns). In fact this time was even harder to bring 3s and 4s to help in the fight, because strikes were created every turn. The first time controlling purple you could use your team to give K weak strike tiles and match those to hurt him, this time we depended just on blind luck.

Scaling was not adjusted. So, this one for me is a DIDN'T listen.

Then they didn't fix the progression rewards for the survival nodes.
So, they didn't listen either.

Sincerely, now that Gauntlet is running again, without changes in its rewards, after so many complains from previous runs, I dont think it is the best time to create a thread saying that Devs listen to us, because it doesn't look like they do.

Also we still have crazy scaling in the side nodes in the last boss event, essential node chars are not used for calculating scaling, classic LT dilution, no scl9+, etc, etc, etc.

It doesn't look like they are listening!

hodayathink

Polares wrote:

Colognoisseur wrote:

Problem with Run 1: Kaecilius Boss required the player to bring attack tile generators if you were going to win before he killed your team.
Run 2 Response: Kaecilius generates his own strike tiles as a passive. These were beefy strikes which made removal critical. This as with the sentries made the node still difficult but doable. I wiped on one out of the three boss battles which seems close to a good ratio I think.
Verdict: They listened

I don't agree with you on this part. In the first run K already generated strikes on his own, they just changed how, he needed to get 5AP to start creating them, but he created two and then more with a countdown, this time around with a passive. But this time like the first time, the scaling of the boss was crazy high, which for me was the main complain of the first time (not the mode he used to create the countdowns). In fact this time was even harder to bring 3s and 4s to help in the fight, because strikes were created every turn. The first time controlling purple you could use your team to give K weak strike tiles and match those to hurt him, this time we depended just on blind luck.

Scaling was not adjusted. So, this one for me is a DIDN'T listen.

Then they didn't fix the progression rewards for the survival nodes.
So, they didn't listen either.

Sincerely, now that Gauntlet is running again, without changes in its rewards, after so many complains from previous runs, I dont think it is the best time to create a thread saying that Devs listen to us, because it doesn't look like they do.

Also we still have crazy scaling in the side nodes in the last boss event, essential node chars are not used for calculating scaling, classic LT dilution, no scl9+, etc, etc, etc.

It doesn't look like they are listening!

So they did listen, they just didn't listen to the things that you wanted them to listen to.

TLCstormz

^ lmfao at "you". That person is clearly not alone.

How about US or A LOT OF PEOPLE or YOU ALL?

Smh.

hodayathink

TLCstormz wrote:

^ lmfao at "you". That person is clearly not alone.

How about US or A LOT OF PEOPLE or YOU ALL?

Smh.

The OP is about asking whether they listened to the complaints about the first run of the event, and his reasoning as to why he thinks they did. That post basically only refutes one of those arguments (and it's not a good refutation at that), then brings up some other things that people have complained about, and uses that to conclude that they aren't listening. Except that there's three other reasons why he thinks they did listen. So if they listened for those three (and he didn't argue that they didn't), and not the things he mentioned, that means that they listened, but not to the things he wanted them to. I never said (or implied, for that matter) that he was the only person that wanted those things.

And truthfully, some of his other complaints, we probably know the reasoning behind them even if the devs haven't explicitly state it (for example, no SCL 9 or 10 because there aren't enough people to fill up all the brackets), it's just that people don't want to accept those answers.

DFiPL

Crnch73 wrote:

except that final progression was not attainable by the standard amount of clears we usually need, so they made the same mistake as in a past event.

I had no issue reaching progression, and I'm not a green-checker, generally. Also, I got home late enough on the nights that event was running that I couldn't have green-checked much even if I had wanted to. I did my usual x4 when the sub started, made sure by the time I left for work the next day the waves were green-checked, and if I had time when I got home, I played a couple of the easy nodes, but that was about it.

I reached progression just fine.

Alsmir

DFiPL wrote:

Crnch73 wrote:

except that final progression was not attainable by the standard amount of clears we usually need, so they made the same mistake as in a past event.

I had no issue reaching progression, and I'm not a green-checker, generally. Also, I got home late enough on the nights that event was running that I couldn't have green-checked much even if I had wanted to. I did my usual x4 when the sub started, made sure by the time I left for work the next day the waves were green-checked, and if I had time when I got home, I played a couple of the easy nodes, but that was about it.

I reached progression just fine.

I guess that solves it. If it wasn't an issue for you, then it wasn't an issue for anyone else.

revskip

carrion pigeons wrote:

Jarvind wrote:

Colognoisseur wrote:

The next run of Boss Rush is really the acid test for me to really complete the loop on their ability to understand what makes things fun for their players/customers.

I think you meant "litmus test" unless you usually go on an LSD bender before starting a boss event.

An acid test is a real thing and a common phrase in this context. Its origin is in using actual acid to test ore for gold. Litmus testing is something else.

While you are technically correct I much prefer Jarvind's idea of what Colog was doing to get ready for PVE.

Tim Leary would have grinded out plenty of events in his heyday.