@Vintermyst- Yeah no problem, in no ill way was I trying to distract users from the time you took to explain your side. Just simply cautioning that there’s always another side. And in these threads, it’s easy for a post like mine to get buried and bullied because it will always appear that I’m in the minority. Simply because I’m surfing in your backyard.
Again, hope you get some of your concerns addressed! Enjoy your weekend.
@Vintermyst Well thought out post. The reason why @Huginn responded, is putting together an in depth response, and will sticky this thread is because you consolidated issues and privided them in a clear, concise manner without bashing and screaming your head off and cussing everyone out. Tip of the hat to you.
I agree with @ll_Guardian_ll that I don’t think the forum represents even a fraction of the user base so not sure if it truly captures everyone’s thoughts. I agree with some of your points but others not so much. But you do make some fair points so I’m looking forward to the response that is posted by HH.
I usually refrain from complaining too much as I know the job of a dev is tough. Plus, I prefer to balance my criticism with praise. But this statement is so true. I gave up reporting anything to the ingame support. It truly is abysmal. Not sure if it’s in house or sourced out but it needs to be looked at. If I see a bug issue, I’ll just report it here because I don’t like chatting with the ingame support team.
I do want to clarify that my intention is not to stir/incite discontentment in the game or it’s management. Any discussions here should be kept in a rational, open discussion, regardless of opinion or game-play choices.
As someone who is concerned with the future of the game, and the health of the community-company relationships, this is really designed to make sure that isn’t threatened. (Especially while the devs are focused on updates and may not be as available to talk 24/7).
For me, I need to make sure I answer in a way that is (1 balanced and cordial, (2 doesn’t make hasty promises or assumptions, and (3 recognizes that all things take time and can change.
@Vintermyst! Greatly spoken! I agree with most things you said. As a 700+ day player I’m missing the excitement I felt the first time I managed to do all five stages in Gauntlet. When I made the highest lvl of the raid or coop.
It was a long time since I felt that. Months, maybe even a year.
I don’t see any problems with HH wants to make some money out of the game. And as I appreciate the game I’m VIP12 atm. But I see the increased need for gold. And the gold ain’t worth the same now as it was 6 months ago. This have made me not buying any more gold in 2019.
Looking forward to the response from @Huginn.
What I really feel is that there is a lot of difference between players.
-High players, or very competitive but not maxed
-New players or those who are so far from the firts ones.
So, since maxed players and competitive ones don’t really need those new heroes to get on top rankings pvp/alliance, (I’ve read about top players who killed or even make more damage than 95 level platin 7 stars bouty heroes’ healt so, limiting their participation with the “playable only with new hero bounty” won’t really make a difference, either with pvp which, unless the new hero is overpowered (technique used before with lot of heroes in order to sell it faster or in a bigger ammount).
Based on this and since the game won the award for new innovating game on the Play Store, maybe they are doing this weird update in order “to milk” money from new players cause they’re their real objective now.
This post is great and you addressed pretty much every problem I have with the game at this moment I feel they took a really good fun game to play for free if a person wanted to…and turned it into 100% pay to win…I’ve personally been playing this game for over a year now so I’ve seen a lot of growth from when we didn’t have bonus factions and new hero’s every month to new skins and all kinds of fun great things…but I’ve also seen VIP 15 players quit this game because of the direction the updates have made the game go
I’m personally debating on quitting this game and im really vested in this game…beck its the only game that I play and have played in over 1 year…I really hope they can fix this game soon and turn it back around if not for my sake then at least for the community’s sake…thank you for taking the time to create this discussion @Vintermyst
Part of this issues may be solved by players. Just make challenge for yourself.
Gauntlet is very funny mode if you try comlpete all sector with 1 or 2 heroes without death. This is hard even for 10* heroes with plat bars. Also you try play with 1-2 heroes but with wrong class (energy against mech etc). If devs make variuos reward based on this – this will be awesome. I mean less hero more bucks.
For Gorgon’s – yes, this boring, but let’s try find combos for fastest walkthrough. Sometimes this make not popular heroes shine. Like Anvil/Oro/Halo combo. Or try beat with your weakest characters. This often very funny too.
i agree. Kinda like playing playing pokemon with only 3 pokemon
you are right bro im f2p player im understand when i see players with 10 star heros and then i see there profile and realized he is played this game less than mine and im not even got 10 star hero…
Good morning, sorry this took longer than I expected but I wanted to make sure to communicate the right things. I may still do some editing for clarity, or add things as I think of them throughout the day.
I. GAUNTLET 
There is another thread going about this. Gauntlet has taken 11 days of my spare time
We do have a plan for a complete rework of Gauntlet. The primary goals of the rework are:
Due to it taking less time to complete and difficulty scaling Quick Win probably won’t be a thing. But we are totally open to feedback on this. We’ll share more about the specifics once we have it more finalized.
We evaluated making Quick-Win a short term solution. But with everything else going on in the April Update we just can’t squeeze it in. April is a monster of an update! One of our largest ever. And the team is working on getting that in it’s best possible state.
II. CONVERSION PURCHASES 
–> 
This is something we’re keeping a close eye on. We will be talking about this more Monday as a team once we’ve collected all this feedback and gotten some data from our analytics group.
The intention is not to move to Pay-to-Win. It’s a balancing act we must do between giving as much value as we can for the things that you can purchase while keeping the game fair for everyone.
III. NEW HERO FRAGMENTS + HERO ACQUISITION 
IV. HERO DEVELOPMENT & DESIGN 
V. DEVELOPER COMMUNICATION / INTERACTION 
This one is pretty near-and-dear to me. For those who have been around since Beta, they might recognize my name. I was one of the first developers to join the community. I’ve enjoyed talking with players where ever I can. I’m active on the forums, Discord and often am in-game chatting. I run Co-ops and do PvP with players (you’ll see my red tags if it’s me, and if I crush you I generally send you some PvP gems anyways). I try to be very involved but still do my job to a high standard of quality.
I would say that I have “thick skin” and as a developer, you really need to have this as a trait to communicate with players directly. It can be hard for someone who put a lot of effort into creating something they are passionate about to then read messages like “this is crap”. It’s hurtful and demotivating.
Jesse Anderson did a good job communicating some points when he addressed similar issues in the Anthem community. You can read more here.
Delivering Updates is a safe way for us to communicate things that are coming up, and present them in a way so that we can get feedback. It is also much easier to communicate with all the players this way. I often find myself answering the same question in chat multiple times in just a few minutes, which takes time from answering other questions. The plan is to share more information on what we’re doing then just once a month.
This is something we can work on. The truth is that we have a wall full of fan art near the team. Fan-fics get talked about and shared, we laugh and we think about some of the stories you guys tell. I do think we can communicate our appreciation much better.
We can look into more Dev-astation Events. It’s just a matter of getting the team together.
@Huginn This communication and transparency is exactly what the community needed right now I think, so thanks a bunch for taking the time to give an in-depth explanation from a dev point of view.
Regarding conversion purchases, I sincerely hope that you guys realize how badly this change affects low spenders. And while I realize that low-spenders aren’t the ones that get the bills paid, I don’t think it’s possible to argue that this change accomplishes anything other than hurting people that don’t buy 5+ conversions per day. Nobody but the top spenders are putting more than that into conversions and it’s ridiculous to suggest that this change was an improvement for low VIP players.
Ok this is a big one and I take issue with what you’re saying here because it reveals that you’re either intentionally misrepresenting our concerns or simply ignorant of what the problem really is (and honestly I’m not sure which option scares me more).
Your carefully chosen verbiage glosses over the real root of the problem and suggests that you think it’s satisfactory for players to unlock the new hero at any point before bounty ends.
I want to make sure I emphasize this: It’s not.
I appreciate that we no longer need to unlock each co-op difficulty and can jump straight into 85+, but this model STILL results in an 8-day unlock time. With your co-op release time, you are intentionally and knowingly putting purchase pressure on players by deliberately making it impossible to have the new hero in time for bounty.
The release model you’ve chosen is that players can, at best, miss out on having the new hero for HALF of bounty.
And that accounts for zero upgrade time.
There is no excuse for this. It is a deliberate way to hurt players that don’t fork over the money for the special offer.
Let’s talk about a compromise, because this model isn’t it. If you guys released the new hero 2 days earlier (the Thursday of non-bounty week), I think that would be a fair middle ground. It gives a great solid advantage to those who pay directly for the new hero. They are able to get familiar with how to use them and they have time to upgrade the hero sufficiently.
This would also mean that grinders are able to barely get the hero in time - assuming they are able to max out at 7.5+ frags/day (realistically limiting it to 85+ high power players and others that pay gold for resets to get extra frags).
However, there is still a clear-cut advantage given to paying players. Those that buy directly are able to upgrade the hero as far as possible (plat5) while grinders can expect to get somewhere in the gold range at best (maybe plat) but with pitiful skill levels in time for bounty.
This pleases everyone.
I don’t care what your MTX analyst team comes up with, a freemium game cannot survive by only catering to the ‘whales’. Keep in mind that whales are only willing to be whales if they have a player base of non-whales that they can gain advantage over.
Please don’t let this game die by pushing away your non-whales.
Thanks for making it this far.
#PlanktonLivesMatter
I’m glad to read this post, @Huginn
I know I’ve been…upset about some turns you’ve been taking lately.
This clarifies some of my main concerns, and specific the Gauntlet issue. Doing that for 700 days is surely not that funny… 
@Huginn Thank you for the very informative post. As Papa_Marsh said this communication and transparency is what we needed to see. I look forward to seeing what comes next.
Thank you for the remarks, for your comments and time. I love the game, love all events for the most part and the simulator is awesome by the way. Bounty is my favorite, love it being 3 days, and every other weekend is nice. I dont enjoy sudden changes to the game, but I do my best to adjust and not complain. Have a great day, and keep up the good work.
Hey @Huginn, @Muninn and friends! This is a fantastic response to the various concerns, and was both balanced and level-headed. Thanks for this! I wanted to offer a acknowledgement/follow-up to what you said:
I. GAUNTLET 
This is an excellent change. It seems that the biggest area was that the challenge level was easy for high-level players.
- The increasing difficulty is well-spoken of in Min’s danger simulator, and will be a welcome feature in Gauntlet. I LOVE the idea of risk/reward elements, which gives players a chance to exceed their comfort zone.
- Knowing that updates take longer to create than players expect, not having a temporary quick win is totally fine. Simply having an idea of the game-plan for Gauntlet will set players at ease. With that vision, even having a window (April-May) would be fine in my opinion.
Excellent work all. 10/10 update that is very helpful.
II. CONVERSION PURCHASES 
–> 
- As long as it is being looked at and discussed, that is also good. It’s hard for players because we (rightfully) can’t see the statistics on how many people are buying 5-10 purchases at a time, and how many people who are buying 1-2 at a time, which is something I’m sure your analytics crew can speak to.
- My rationale behind the suggested gold prices was one that accounted for the fixed rate, but one that didn’t actually exceed the value of what is actually being purchased. 25 gold for <90k cash can be hard for a thrifty player to cope with, especially so for f2p. #f2pLivesMatter
Again, please keep an open mind to this, it’s certainly a hot-button topic:
III. NEW HERO FRAGMENTS + HERO ACQUISITION 
- An increasing number of random frags makes more sense, but I’m curious to why it’s a random hero (as opposed to a different faction hero, considering the faction month theme). That’s not an urgent question however.
- For the New Hero itself, it also goes off of what you said in your response:
- If I’m understanding this correctly, the New Hero is structured to be acquired for free (as a ‘grinder’) during the first bounty, but not before.
.
By logical deduction, does the value for ‘buyers’ comes from the ability to use the hero for the whole duration of the first bounty?
.
This is where some make the argument of a p2w model. I won’t give my opinion on this, but the real question I think of is “What do you mean by value?”
.
Value can be interpreted as “getting a hero quickly”, “getting a head start on the first bounty”, “geting a high rank in competitions”, “getting good rewards”, or something else. Therefore, if the value of buying the hero is to get an object/item in return, then this is the very definition of “pay.” Pay-To-Win.
.
In my opinion, this is where the focus of the discussion needs to be.
- The combination of 8 daily frags combined with resets and the variable frag return makes co-ops very confusing, not to mention suffocating. I cannot understand how this works, and have spent a long time trying to grasp how it makes co-ops more balanced. This, in of itself, should be addressed.
IV. HERO DEVELOPMENT & DESIGN 
YAS! I do hope that a cost-effective, timely solution can be found, one that can be implemented routinely. I do know there are websites that provide voice-over services with client feedback and voice samples, many with price quotes. This could remove the need for a physical studio.
I do hope that the next hero after Yeager has this feature, whether it’s the big man himself or someone different.
And again, if you ever need a suave, bassy voice to use…you know where to find me. 
But whatever you do, DO NOT USE THE WORD “YEAH.” AT ALL. ZIP. ZERO. NADA. TOTALLY ABSENT. A COMPLETE LACK THEREOF. 
V. DEVELOPER COMMUNICATION / INTERACTION 
- I’m very glad you guys you guys do still have that interest. Lot’s of players appreciate it, especially ones who spend time on the forums.
- Unfortunately, there are always people who will open their big mouths and blather something that is simply worthless. There are players who will offer more rational, balanced feedback, even if it’s accusative in nature, which is why I wrote this post originally (and deleted some of my more harsh comments
).
.
Patience is key, for developers, moderators, and players. At the end of the day, there’s always someone who has a stick up their butt, sometimes it’s me. It’s spoiled cowardice behind a screen really, and it exists in many areas, not just gaming.
.
(To any player reading this, if you insult and belittle developer updates: make your own game. Don’t trash the person who can make something you can’t. If there is dissatisfaction, balanced and humble feedback must be given, cause I know I couldn’t fix it.)
.
So yes, thank you for what you do sir.
- This does make sense. This was more of my opinion rather than something I’ve heard from others. I can see where the communication is better this way. I know there are games that do “snapshots”, or previews of the update before it comes out, but that can be challenging for mobile game formats. Your response is the kind of stuff that helps keep the forum ship steady, so this is very helpful.
.
Very enlightening, understandable point.
- This is fantastic to hear as well. Again, it doesn’t need to be a consumption of time. Maybe for 10 - 15 minutes every couple of days, you guys can have a “fan break”, and write some things you guys really like in the Community Gallery. Nothing big, nothing time-consuming.
I’m actually curious to hear what you guys think of the funny moments thread. That’s one I love to look at. (Mauler’s “intense gaze” from Nyris
- The Dev-astation events were more of an afterthought that explained the developer events. It wasn’t in the main issue list, so this is low-priority for sure. Just a suggestion.
Very great thread! I look forward to what you talked about coming to fruition! (Yes I write too much)
-Vinter
Devs, answer our questions directly… please avoid coating your words.
I have just played and traded for today’s Helios 85 missions and yet, I’m stuck with 8 yeager frags from yesterday and today… I’m sure this is also happening for everyone
Already we are having so much difficulty unlocking yeager before the first bounty, now this happens. Kindly give us an answer and make it clear, our patience is wearing thin
@Huggin, we appreciate your response, but honestly speaking, you guys have taken a wonderful game to a P2P.
I buy gold drops every month, because that’s what I can afford; but now I’m shown the middle finger just because I can’t afford $30 on the spot; that is unfair.
And this 8 hero fragments idea is also daft, @least make it 10 or better.
I REALLY LOVE THIS GAME, but you guys are pushing us away!!!
