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IceIX

Xeonic-Ice wrote:

Will you guys be adding a "News" button any time soon?

I appreciate the pop up but would definitely like a more manual way to get information that doesn't involve heading to the forums. It could be used for things like server issues/patch notes/etc. With the newfangled scroll-tech I'm sure that would be very helpful.

Theoretically possible. It's a screen real estate issue more than anything right now. Thought about adding one up by where the Daily Rewards and Alliances buttons are right now. We're a bit worried about turning that little area into a hall of indecipherable icons though.

Xeonic-Ice

IceIX wrote:

Xeonic-Ice wrote:

Will you guys be adding a "News" button any time soon?

I appreciate the pop up but would definitely like a more manual way to get information that doesn't involve heading to the forums. It could be used for things like server issues/patch notes/etc. With the newfangled scroll-tech I'm sure that would be very helpful.

Theoretically possible. It's a screen real estate issue more than anything right now. Thought about adding one up by where the Daily Rewards and Alliances buttons are right now. We're a bit worried about turning that little area into a hall of indecipherable icons though.

Thanks Ice, I wouldn't even mind if it were on the loading screen with settings/support button if you're worried about clutter. I just think most people won't look at the forums for any sort of updates and it would be nice if they were within the game/app itself.

IceIX

youngjk22 wrote:

IceIX,

Can you or another employee with knowledge about the game host a thread like this on a semi regular basis? I know you often go thread to thread answering various questions, but it would be nice to know if there is one thread that we as users know will get your or another employee's attention on a regular basis (weekly would be awesome, but I'd be happy with once every two weeks or once a month). I've enjoyed this thread so far and have learned a lot.

Thanks.

Unlikely that we'd ever centrailze a question answer section. Not impossible, but I don't think it would work so well for a couple reasons.

1 - Keeping something up other than random incursions like this would quite probably make players wait to pile on complaints in that thread "since they know devs read it". See any dev Q&A session that Blizz runs. We could look into doing something a bit more regular, but with our average workload, clearing off an afternoon to answer a flood of posts is a rough ask for a dev that is otherwise centered on tweaking an .ini for the next Event or somesuch.
2 - We read nearly every thread on the forums as it is, so the stuff gets to us. However, pushing the outlet for direct dev communication to one thread muddies the waters in the other direction. There are a ton of tidbits in this thread alone so far, but it means that every user needs to read 5 pages and rising so far to get all the info instead of reading a post about say, sharding, and getting info related to sharding there.

tbighead21

The Prodigal Sun event is easily my favorite PvE event in a long time. I usually lose interest because they become very repetitive fighting the same characters over and over. The mix in this one was awesome.
Did you guys see an increase in playing time compared to other events?

IceIX

pasa_ wrote:

When will there be a cooldown period preventing one to attack the same victim over and over and over? (possibly producing 2-3 losses for him while he plays a single game and more coming his way) Being harvested by a group is bad enough, by the same guy goes over the top.

Possible, but not necessarily something that needs a direct patch to stop it. A large part of this issue is in the remaining cases of MMR Hell. When users have two dozen or so other opponents to flip through randomly, with very few exceptions players don't seek out one single player over and over. This behavior changes big time though when you've only got 6. At that point, the person 400 points above you turns into the only opponent worth hitting and is well worth spending a little Iso to skip through to.

IceIX

aaronschmiz wrote:

Just to toss this out there in regards to Roster Slots (Not to be mistaken for Rooster Slots ).
Could they be added to the daily SHIELD Resupply? Or to event/progression rewards some how? Or would this kitty things up?

Rooster Slots wouldn't work anyway. Devil Dino would wander by periodically and eat them all.
Way back in the mists of time we were looking at adding Cover Slot Tokens as possible rewards. That's something worth considering again, yes.

Spoit

IceIX wrote:

pasa_ wrote:

When will there be a cooldown period preventing one to attack the same victim over and over and over? (possibly producing 2-3 losses for him while he plays a single game and more coming his way) Being harvested by a group is bad enough, by the same guy goes over the top.

Possible, but not necessarily something that needs a direct patch to stop it. A large part of this issue is in the remaining cases of MMR Hell. When users have two dozen or so other opponents to flip through randomly, with very few exceptions players don't seek out one single player over and over. This behavior changes big time though when you've only got 6. At that point, the person 400 points above you turns into the only opponent worth hitting and is well worth spending a little Iso to skip through to.

Not even 400 hundred points. Often, I skip through only a half dozen or so (realistically probably like 8-10), with only one of them actually being worth 25.

IceIX

alphavs0mega wrote:

A lot of the user base have been demanding a buff to the "hot dog stand" environmental move. I myself have been effected by this by collecting said environmental tiles only to receive 50 health. Please consider upping this to 100 health to help us vets survive these matches. Any updates on this critical patch would be greatly appreciated. Thanks and have a great day!

We've had a bunch of conversations internally about what to do with EO abilities. There are a bunch of underpowered ones like Hot Dog Stand, a bunch that are too powerful for cost like Oasis, and none that we'd actually consider just right. They're definitely one of those things that keep popping up on the agenda for "what's next in the improvement queue". We do appreciate the stories about how a level 230 Juggernaut will stop in his rampage of Headbutts to eat some of New York's finest All Beef footlongs for a whole 50 health though.

Unknown

Something I've been curious about. I figured now would be a good time to ask about it.

Looking over the Character and Skills Compendium Topic, there are currently:

3 Four-Star Characters
20 Three-Star Characters
12 Two-Star Characters
7 One-Star Characters

It may be wrong of my to assume, but I'm guessing the majority of the upcoming new characters will all be Three-Star Characters. As someone who has gotten a majority of the Two-Star Characters and have maxed their covers, I'm struggling a lot with making the transition to Three-Star characters. It feels like this is due to not only the odds in pulling those covers from Packs and and difficulty to reach those Reward Tiers in Events, as well as there being almost double the amount of Three-Star Characters as Two-Star, making it harder to get multiple covers of the same character. Has there been any talk about possibly doing something like

1) Making more Reward Tiers give Three-Star Covers in Events.

or

2) Change the tiers of characters, maybe changing some from 3* to 2*, or 2* to 1*.

And has there been any talk about adding a third cover back to the Solo Rewards for Events? Or possibly making separate Alliance brackets for different sized ones? This one is more due to the fact that I'm a member of an alliance with only 5 people. And we've been struggling to be able to get more members, let alone get to 20. So going into any event, I already know right from the start that we have no shot at the higher up Alliance Rewards.

IceIX

danikalil wrote:

With the Season ongoing, if you want to place high, you can't have a day off. You must play more than one hour per day, every day. This is scaring people away.

Is there any solution incoming? Could we have only some PVPs count towards your Season ranking, or another kind of feature that would slow the game down?

My second question is about the bracketing: no matter how many battles I skip (my MMR is too high and tanking no longer works), I face always the same opponents. Even when I defeat them, they come back for a second round. Is there any chance of improvement on this issue?

As stated above, nothing planned at the moment for Seasons changing up. We do get there there have been a few high profile cases of burn out lately, but we're actually not seeing anything abnormal about high level player's patterns at the moment. It's one of the things being actively monitored with the second season in full swing, and that being one of the hot spots for potential burn out.

Second, sounds like you're in the top end style MMR Hell. We've made some tweaks recently and aren't yet at the point where we consider it all good and proper. So yes, there will definitely be improvement on that front, but it'll be gradual as we find and figure out ways to break those pockets without breaking the overall MMR formula or opening it up to obvious exploits.

IceIX

Psykopathic wrote:

1. Do you all plan for every1 to have 3 abilities eventually?

2. Do you plan to make different environments more balanced?
(Making city and latveria not suck.)

3. Any intentions to make old characters more viable or shall the power creep continue? I feel like as difficult as it is to get a 3* and level them that they should all be viable, new or old, and all the new 3* being better just makes older 1's much less valuable and that much harder to transition.

1. Eventually, it'd be great. It's something that comes up every time a designer doing abilities gets a spare breath from working on the newest character.
2. Answered above.
3. Continued balance passes will help with this some. That being said, power creep isn't a *huge* issue right now. Magneto, Hood, and Patch are all characters at the top of the 3* tier at the moment and they were all designed back at launch (although Patch wasn't released till later). Meanwhile, Psylocke, Falcon, Daredevil, and even Black Panther haven't exactly flipped meta on its head with their power. There are definitely some pegs that are a bit higher than others, but the older characters tend to hold up decently to the newer ones.

Unknown

When can we expect fury in packs

IceIX

Jdberia wrote:

Mrazy wrote:

About roster slots:

Are you guys gonna move forward no matter what regarding the bulk purchases of roster slots?

Are single roster slot purchases out of the question permanently?

I set up a second account on my iPad and could only choose the 3 slot buy after about 5 open slots, but I opened up slot 33 on my main account with just a single slot purchase. I remember seeing something about this and wasn't too happy about it. I hope we can still get the choice.

It's not decided to unilaterally move forward forever with the Cover Slot packs. It needs to be out in the wild for a while and gather real user data to figure out if it is a good move or not. The problem with it is that the single style at low levels sets a large number of the userbase into a poor cycle of spending habits which often makes them hit a wall later on when the tiny purchases they made before stop being good stepping stones. Meanwhile, a couple slightly larger purchases would have set them up nicely, and likely cost them a little less money overall. But until those new starting users that are seeing these Cover Slot packs mature in time played, we can't tell if this is having the effect we actually want.

tbighead21

RichHurtz wrote:

Something I've been curious about. I figured now would be a good time to ask about it.



It may be wrong of my to assume, but I'm guessing the majority of the upcoming new characters will all be Three-Star Characters. As someone who has gotten a majority of the Two-Star Characters and have maxed their covers, I'm struggling a lot with making the transition to Three-Star characters. It feels like this is due to not only the odds in pulling those covers from Packs and and difficulty to reach those Reward Tiers in Events, as well as there being almost double the amount of Three-Star Characters as Two-Star, making it harder to get multiple covers of the same character. Has there been any talk about possibly doing something like

1) Making more Reward Tiers give Three-Star Covers in Events.

or

2) Change the tiers of characters, maybe changing some from 3* to 2*, or 2* to 1*.

And has there been any talk about adding a third cover back to the Solo Rewards for Events? Or possibly making separate Alliance brackets for different sized ones? This one is more due to the fact that I'm a member of an alliance with only 5 people. And we've been struggling to be able to get more members, let alone get to 20. So going into any event, I already know right from the start that we have no shot at the higher up Alliance Rewards.

I think having separate alliance brackets for different sized alliances is a bad idea. That would lead to A LOT of smaller alliances. Top members of alliances would leave and form smaller alliances.

IceIX

SolidQ wrote:

Is there any plan in future team battle? like 2x2 with special tourney

I don't know about a 2x2. Our system is pretty explicitly set up for 3x3 and gets cranky when you have below that in a group with more available characters you *could* choose. It's an interesting idea though, worth putting forward!

Nonce Equitaur 2

IceIX wrote:

SolidQ wrote:

Is there any plan in future team battle? like 2x2 with special tourney

I don't know about a 2x2. Our system is pretty explicitly set up for 3x3 and gets cranky when you have below that in a group with more available characters you *could* choose. It's an interesting idea though, worth putting forward!

It could be done with a Maggia, Doombot, Hammer, or Shield tournament. The player would be given a choice of one of the five Maggia, and then they'd go into battle.

IceIX

Der_Lex wrote:

Okay, I'll throw in a question: is there any possibility of shifting the event end times a bit to make things a bit easier for EU players? With rubberbanding still in existence, as an EU player you pretty much have to wake up at 5 am to keep your ranking in most PvE events. Having the events end two or possibly even one hour later would be a lot more pleasant, and would probably not affect US players that much, right?

Also, will a rooster slot price increase be implemented for those guilty of fowl play? Or are you guys chickening out on that issue again?

We've been discussing something like that internally but haven't come to any kind of consensus yet. Having a single Event/Tourney means that one area will always miss out. Having Double Shots like we used to where the ending times flip means that both sides always miss out equally, which also sucks in a different way. We could split out Events so that there are different ones for radically different time zones, but then you're playing with a fractured playerbase and we'd have to worry about different rubber banding/progression reward/mission pin values per region which gets nasty quick. Buncha things that need working through to make it work correctly. It's a case where we want to do *something*, but we also want to do it right.

No comment on the status of our roosters or their slots.

Unknown

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

IceIX wrote:

SolidQ wrote:

Is there any plan in future team battle? like 2x2 with special tourney

I don't know about a 2x2. Our system is pretty explicitly set up for 3x3 and gets cranky when you have below that in a group with more available characters you *could* choose. It's an interesting idea though, worth putting forward!

It could be done with a Maggia, Doombot, Hammer, or Shield tournament. The player would be given a choice of one of the five Maggia, and then they'd go into battle.

Just have 5 different nodes and each node would give a different loaner out

mohio

Forgive me if you answered in one of the threads it was talked about - as another poster said - link me and I'll gladly go read it. My question is if you guys have considered making refresh times for PvE nodes server-based (i.e. fixed to "real time") as opposed to the current situation? I was actually about to make a thread about this topic asking for people's input if it's something they would like or not, so seeing if it's something you're considering or not would be great.

Also thanks for doing this thread, it's been great - and precisely what I've been hoping you'd do for a while now.

Beast1970

It seems a minor thing, but has there been any discussion or consideration to making the player rank screen scrollable? It would be immensely helpful to be able to see what is going on outside the ten player or alliance range. Probably not feasible to scroll the entire list, but possibly expanded at least a bit from the current.