On Recent Aspect Ratio Changes for Tablets

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Comments

  • Bad
    Bad Posts: 3,146 Chairperson of the Boards
    bluewolf said:
    I do know a LOT of people are posting negative reviews of the game on the stores after the change.  But then, the people who don't like something are usually the more vocal ones.

    Of course. And they wont hear any argument it could be given. They will do review bombing. Why? Its easy: because they dont care a thing about this game.
    bluewolf said:

    We know the playerbase is at best holding steady, at worst slowly dropping.  My snapshots of revenue of late show no increase there, but I am using a site which is possibly not capturing all the data.  However, I think it feels right to say the game's just stable at the moment at best.

    Another time I agree. Players still play.
    I think people doing comments here belong to 2 parties: one that actually dont want any change and others who want to see the game improving .
    Why are the firsts disliking changes? Because mostly they are f2p players or heavily influenced by them and any change that is not giving more resources or allowing to play the game totally free is a not welcomed change. So they need to blackmail, do bombing review, silence the arguing ones.
    The second party will be glad with new changes, new challenges, but will remain silent because is not pleasant to be battling with the aparently majority of the first party. Surely they didnt stop to think that they are heavily perjudiced by the others when the feedback is severed into childish vendettas trying to cause the game the most harm posible and actually not gaining any of their claims in all those years.
    Personally I would invite the first party to switch to other game more fitting of their skills, they could switch to candy crush. In there they wouldnt have to worry about resources, about fast 5* releases or about tricky powers.
  • JaGo
    JaGo Posts: 103 Tile Toppler
    I’ve spent, have subbed to VIP since day one of that feature’s existence, I play on an ipad mini and have for 1779 days. I’m not happy AT ALL about this change and am not going to quit playing but I am going to stop paying. And please don’t get me wrong, even though I’m not happy about this doesn’t mean I’m angry, but they took something away from my playing experience and I’m trading that for the cash I spend. GG bean counters.

    -JaGo


  • Pongie
    Pongie Posts: 1,412 Chairperson of the Boards
    HoundofShadow said:
    If you look at the criteria to be met to "bring back" old Steam UI a few years ago, they were either:

    1) they could code more efficiently
    2) the playerbase for Steam increased by a certain number.

    I believe the reasoning for tablet should be similar, but I'm leaning towards point 1: more efficient coding.
    I wonder how they calculate playerbase by devices though. Myself and others are probably playing on multiple devices. Would I count as both mobile and tablet playerbase? Or only one based on time spent, first joined? etc
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    I think they should able to churn out these data easily based on last x period (1 year or 6 months etc) and then arrange the data based on the most commonly used screensize. Each player has a unique user id tagged to their account. They could filter based on which screensize they use most often, but this seems like too much work. So, I think they might also count both devices used by the same user. Again, if these users are using multiple devices, they still have "backups". In a sense, they aren't really affected.

    Getting these types of data are the bare minimum for decent gaming company because they want to be able to determine which segments to focus on. Most mobile phone users are using between 5 - 5.5 inch phone nowadays. 
  • bluewolf
    bluewolf Posts: 5,819 Chairperson of the Boards
    I would think the devs can pretty easily collect macro data about who is using what devices and how much.

    They may or may not look at how much a specific user is using which device, but I wouldn't be surprised if they can easily see how many users used a specific device and for how long.  So, maybe they know that 80,000 people used iPhones (various models) for a total of 10,000 hours of play last month.  Or whatever.

    When you load up the game you log in every time; it would only make sense to use that required data connection to gather relevant user information.  I would think that device manufacturers would also prefer that information to tell developers when people are using their devices.  It's also worth considering that if you decide to log in with a different device, the game will popup a window forcing you to restart/log in again. 

    Recall that not long ago they stopped supporting older versions of iOS; presumably the numbers had reached a certain point where there wasn't much sense in continuing that, or maybe it was a precursor to this aspect ratio move.
  • Bad
    Bad Posts: 3,146 Chairperson of the Boards
    Rhipf said:
    My take on your comment is that you are actually the one that is exhibiting signs of being highly prejudiced again F2P players in general and any player that criticizes the game.
    I dont think so. Criticism is constructive and is a great way to make better a product.
    I could never have any problem with players that make constructive criticism.
    That wasnt what I was saying of course.
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    I'm using a 18:9 screen and I don't see it affecting my gameplay. It looks like nitpicking to me.  Looking at some of the feedbacks around here, some of them has stopped spending until they get back their old UI back. So, I don't think roster slot sale will appease those group of players.  Besides, roster slot sale is only  a temporary bandaid, but the UI change is permanent. I think the better solution is to adapt to the change or stop playing.
  • bluewolf
    bluewolf Posts: 5,819 Chairperson of the Boards
    Yes, instead of trying to make up a little for a significant number of players' anger they should just let them drift away.  If paying customers say they aren't paying anymore, it's probably a good time to look at what you can do to make them happy.

    Not present half-truths about what you have done.....very few players use a 2:3 device to play the game.

    Yes, it's much less intrusive now and on most non-iPad screens it's not a big deal.

    At the very, very least - tell us specifically what we should be looking for as far as positive changes for players.

    Generic "there are some improvements coming" statements don't get you very far in my book.  I know the devs are loathe to tell us what is happening because timeframes shift, maybe something doesn't work but surely they wouldn't have made this change if they weren't very very sure about what they are doing.

    We KNOW they are looking at something like saved teams because Paige said so on the stream.  How about a little info?  Just a preview.

    But that would take some effort to communicate and make your (shrinking) playerbase feel like you value them.
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited July 2020
    I'm basing my solutions using happiness index. If the players are so upset about dropped support for certain types of screensizes and want that particular screensize to be supported, then they will be miserable playing the game in the long run. No amount of roster slot sale will change their mind about spending again, neither would it help to wash these feelings away permanently. The other alternative is to adapt. Maybe they could see if there's any app that could help them make the display look better.

    Since you have already noted they have mentioned what the UI change is likely to be, and it's highly probable that it has to do with roster management or team selection, then I think the above is kind of self-explanatory because it's not something difficult to understand. It's coming soon, so we just need to wait for them to finalise the details. 
  • ElAkkra
    ElAkkra Posts: 7 Just Dropped In
    I completely understand why the developers have done this (supporting multiple screen aspect ratios, especially for mobile, is expensive on testing).

    That said, I have absolutely no qualms about dropping my VIP subscription because of it. I play on a tablet, and yes, it's only gone from 16:10 to 16:9 because I'm on a Samsung, but that's still a loss of screen real estate for no end-user benefit. I'll no doubt adapt to the cramped visuals but as a customer, I don't see any wins here.

    I'm also a bit puzzled by them specifically making it bad on iOS devices, since, last I was aware, iOS customers spend a lot more money than Android customers in the normal run of things. Perhaps that's not true of MPQ. It's not as if I have the stats available to check
  • bluewolf
    bluewolf Posts: 5,819 Chairperson of the Boards
    ElAkkra said:

    I'm also a bit puzzled by them specifically making it bad on iOS devices, since, last I was aware, iOS customers spend a lot more money than Android customers in the normal run of things. Perhaps that's not true of MPQ. It's not as if I have the stats available to check
    From what I can tell using the website Sensor Tower, MPQ gets approx 70% of revenue via Android players and 30% from Apple store purchases.  I mean there's going to be some % doing Steam, Amazon etc but that's a fraction of the revenue, I'm sure.
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    Visually impaired users are considered an exception, unless majority of the players are visually impaired as well. The point is, whenever there is change, some subset of players are going to get affected. Find me a game developer working on IP game that can satisfy every single player whenever they make major changes and I'll eat my word.
  • Bryan Lambert
    Bryan Lambert Posts: 234 Tile Toppler
    HoundofShadow said:
    Visually impaired users are considered an exception, unless majority of the players are visually impaired as well. The point is, whenever there is change, some subset of players are going to get affected. Find me a game developer working on IP game that can satisfy every single player whenever they make major changes and I'll eat my word.
    Nobody doesn’t know this. We just differ on the appropriate response from affected users. Just because you’ve staked out “THANK YOU SIR MAY I HAVE ANOTHER” doesn’t mean the rest of us should.
  • Bad
    Bad Posts: 3,146 Chairperson of the Boards
    Im kind of amazed visually impaired players playing videogames, its like not a good idea to me. Like that its not going to be better(free comment). Old Gameboy had an augment lense, maybe that could be a solution.
    Anyway on my mobile I found no change. On tablet actually it looks better altought framed on the sides. On that its like a YouTube video that you enlarge to full screen, you can enlarge all you want but the quality will still be the same. Before I thought it was enlarged and bigger but the image was not better. Now I think it has the correct size.
    On ipad I dont know how it is but on other post one player explained how to use zoom for better play.
    So it seems that its up to the player to see the pros and flaws of the new aspect ratio. And adapt to it, yes.
  • krakenoon
    krakenoon Posts: 355 Mover and Shaker
    @Bad

    Perhaps you are the type to feed on instigating arguments and like to incite negative emotions in some. If that is the case, please ignore this post.

    Otherwise, you may want to consider avoiding speech like your last paragraph in the post where you were quoting bluewolf. While I have no interest in censoring you and it is possible you are truly trying to be constructive, it comes off as being a bit elitist and insulting to others. This takes away from constructive conversations on the topic.

    Also, typo on prejudiced there.
  • Bad
    Bad Posts: 3,146 Chairperson of the Boards
    krakenoon said:
    @Bad

    Perhaps you are the type to feed on instigating arguments and like to incite negative emotions in some. If that is the case, please ignore this post.

    Otherwise, you may want to consider avoiding speech like your last paragraph in the post where you were quoting bluewolf. While I have no interest in censoring you and it is possible you are truly trying to be constructive, it comes off as being a bit elitist and insulting to others. This takes away from constructive conversations on the topic.

    Also, typo on prejudiced there.
    English is not my natal language and I studied it so many years ago, sorry for the typo.
    My last paragraph was a rant because Im growing tired of some players attitude that can be proved to exist just searching in this post and others like: 
    New a.i.m minions
    New welcome to shield 
    New introducing to...
    New next character release
    New character inmortal hulk
    New character maria hill 
    New shield training update. 

    Sorry for the rant anyway. It was as constructive as the attitudes Im talking about.
  • DyingLegend
    DyingLegend Posts: 1,208 Chairperson of the Boards
    You know what can distract players from this annoying uncalled for aspect ratio change?

    Stealth reward nerfs! Let's all start getting angry about that now along with this!

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