Developer Q&A - v2 and stuff

[Nexumus]

1. For chat I've always wondered why it seems to be a game by game responsibility and not a corporate resource issue. Why doesn't Kabam just pool resources to get a good chat system once as an internal product that can be dropped plug and play style into each of it's games? That way proper resources can be expended to make a full and feature rich chat system who's cost can be amortized across games rather than each game figuring it out itself and duplicating resource use by each game.

2. On trade, I would suggest you live test anything you try to do before really putting it in place. Offer up a bounty to players to try to break the system. Something like post your proposed trade rules, pick a 5 star card, and offer the top X suggestions on how to break the trade system on a first come basis as incentive for players to think about and disclose the vulnerabilities. You could also do this on the front end to generate creative ideas about making a balanced trade system if you're searching for ideas.

[gorocz]

My engineer says that this option is already available but it depends on your Android o/s version. Should be 2.3 and higher.

My forum thread about this
The problem is that when I move the app from phone to storage, it doesn't move its data with it (i.e. the several hundred megabytes of card images). The app alone takes nothing... This could be just Sony Xperia thing, but it's serious nonetheless as my phone only has ~1.5GB of storage on device.
Screenshot of my android version
App is on Device
When I move it to Storage

[RenegadeTerragor]

Can you please add the option to rematch end of city bosses. When farming in city 1 it can be a pain after every battle coming right out and going right back in again. A simple rematch button upon end of battle would greatly speed this up and farming wouldn't feel such a chore at times

Thanks for reading this

I second and third that!!! would reduce the time sink quite a bit

[Super Noobyyy]

Thanks for taking the time to organize this Q&A and for giving a lot of information. It's nice to have at last some communication.

A. Could you also list all the changes that will come with V2? If it's scheduled for next week then the 99% of the content (save the nerf) must already be ready.

B. My take on Shiver = OK for a nerf but:
1/ Keep the AOE
2/ Slightly reduce the damage level (20% or so). Currently, it's on par with Khufu & Sun Mage (given it's a Legendary, so slightly more powerful) so nothing shocking here.
3/ Reduce the attack debuff by 50%
4/ Reduce the proc rate
and 5/ Compensate players who paid for Shiver in the ice cave BEFORE it was handed out for free (selling a card then giving it for free to all players = 100% scam)

[minimoff]

<<<CLICK TO VIEW

Can you please add the option to rematch end of city bosses. When farming in city 1 it can be a pain after every battle coming right out and going right back in again. A simple rematch button upon end of battle would greatly speed this up and farming wouldn't feel such a chore at times

Thanks for reading this

[lolahsieh]

1. Adding new city (great news), not lowering the stats of boss on city 5 so that 95% of the population can pass it (fail). The 5% of players who can beat it all buy gems so they are pretty much the only ones who will be able to access the new city.

2. Summon rates.. so far from my experience 3* cards have a 96% chance of summoning, 4* cards have 3.5% chance, 5* cards 0.4% and 6* 0.1%. People work hard and earn their money.. would be nice not to feel ripped off.

3. Shiverheart... leave it as is.. people will eventually get over it

4. Have a system in place where you can earn gems for "FREE" yes thats right Kabam.. FREE!!

5. Have an achievements/goal/targets.. once a player meets this.. they get a reward. e.g. killing a boss 10, 20, 50, 100 times.. repeating a quest 100 times.. 1000 times... whatever... makes the game more fun

6. Open list of what can "actually" be summoned. people don't like to be left out of the dark.. for instance it was not only till this thread popped up that I realised that Gaznar wasn't available. Imagine if you needed it for a combo and spent hundreds or even thousands and then found out it can not be summon... how ****ing pissed would you be.

7. EMPLOY MORE SUPPORT STAFF!!!! Support is virtually non existing... business/life works in circles... hire staff ----> support players ----> players feel happy ---> happy players spend money ---> your hip pocket gets bigger ---> you give your staff a raise...(or maybe not) EMPLOY MORE STAFF!!!

Anyways.. that's my rant.. good game but needs A LOT of work.

[FiireWorksX]

- Is it possible to make the very same Arean's twice at the same time?

Currently we have on our server ca. 15 Top Players who "rules" the Arena. They rank themself on 1-3 and its quite impossible to earn might in a fair way.

[Kalerix]

Will 2.0 be pvp or pve

Status of the game today for at player that started october:

As a fairly new player the game offers this:

Cities: You can pve once through the cities up to the point where you are stuck - then its farming only.
Arena: You can try to get to 1300 might or 1500 might rewards, once in a while you can go all in and try to get around 2000-2500 might.

Game balance is based on how far you have evolved your cards. Where old players keeps getting the rewards to keep them on top and new players keep being left behind.
With feeding drop rates it will take you 6-12 months + to get to where top is today and then top will have moved on meaning you are still stuck.


In December a game changer came.
The outlook for the game changed from being a farming game to what I saw being a game where being active allowed for a better rank.
Shiverheart card came which in my opinion should only have been the first card in a new series of available cards.
Feeding rate also allowed a not so slow enhance rate as normal.

I loved the game changer and looked forward to more dungeons.

Top players started complaining.
I read what the complain about translated to this:
"Shiverheart card now sometimes interrupts our winning streak, meaning we can no longer farm arene on everlasting ticket cycles. We know that the same players still reap all the rewards but we sometimes have to pay more tickets"

The same elder players are the ones that are more active on the forums meaning that the discussion about power is seen from end game and now overall game point of view.


My pointers for what I want is:

More cards like shiver gained from dungens that occurs once or twice every month.
Faster enhancement of cards by either upping the feeder rate or decreasing how many feeders are needet to enhance.

I would like to see a new line of * cards come out every now and then. When they come dev team takes a stand to the power of existing cards and decrease their * level to correspond to how powerfull they are.

[RenegadeTerragor]

We had considered this in early development but ended up going with the "easy, medium, hard' tag. We can revisit this option.

in my experience these tags are bs (sorry)
they give absolutely no indication of the opponents relative strength against your own deck or against the other two available opponents,
it used to be correct for your first 3 opponents upon newly entering an arena (arena guadians), but with the last few arenas, some arena guardians were changed

after the guardians, opponent "hard" may or may not be hard,
but it is completely by chance for opponent 3 to be "easier" than the other two
it looks more like "meet your 3 opponents, they are randomly named Sir hard, Sir medium and Sir easy"

afaik only your current arena rank determines your next opponent pool
so maybe just state their rank instead of "easy, medium, hard"

[Malice_Mizer]

Any trading regarding on how strict the restriction is going to kill kabam and those mid rank player and low rank player.
Trade is going to encourage people to sell those legend for real life cash. 1 galzra for XXX dollar?
Imagine this going to hit hard on kabam hoc revennue and it will widen the gap on top 1-3 player to the rest. the catch up will be impossible
I dont believe trading would work inregardless how strict it will be as the card pool are only 110 count now.
So small how to survive?
Since we know the kabam management style and mode of operation, how good u believe the control will be?

Allow trade, but with many restrictions to prevent abuse from players with multiple accounts:
* Daily trade limit. No building killer decks in a single day.
* Single card swaps only. No three weak cards for one strong one.

Thanks for making this happen, Curtis and Aaron! It's a huge step in the right direction for your team to be so open to our questions and suggestions - and for being so tolerant of our many complaints! This game has great potential and I really want to see it grow and thrive.

Here are my topics of interest. I've included my initial suggestions and reasons. No complaints, just ideas for improving the game.

--== TRADE ==--
Allow trade, but with many restrictions to prevent abuse from players with multiple accounts:
* Daily trade limit. No building killer decks in a single day.
* Single card swaps only. No three weak cards for one strong one.
* Card for card swaps only. No cards for potions/stones/etc.
* Same star level swaps only. 3* for 3* is fine; 4* for 1* is not.
* Base card swaps only. Tier one, level one. No trading upgraded/evolved cards. Perhaps offering an upgraded card for trade resets it to base. Worth the sacrifice if it means getting the last card you need for a combo.
* Login reward, Arena reward, and Boss cards are bound to the originating account and cannot be traded. Essentially, players may only trade stone summon, charm summon, city exploration drop, and city final boss drop cards (e.g. Mystic Raven, Dire Bear, etc.).

--== CHAT ==--
* Create disable chat option. Chat is distracting and the conversations are often juvenile and/or vulgar.

--== PLAYER LEVEL ==--
* Raise cap to 100.

--== GOLD ==--
* Drastically reduce drop amounts.
* Alternatively, allow purchase of summon charms and/or 1 and 2 star feeder cards. The cost should be relatively steep since many of us have in excess of 1 million gold.

--== STAMINA/MANA ==--
* Allow paid redistribution. Fewer customer support tickets and more revenue.

--== SUMMON STONE DROP RATES ==--
* Publish drop rates. Transparency and managed expectations engender trust. Or, at the very least, make for fewer complaints.

--== PARTY/TREASURY ==--
* 100/100, or more, rather than 80/100
* More robust sort option. (e.g. sorted by Clan, *then* by Atk. Or x stars only. etc.)
* Treasury warning message when nearly full.
* Treasury does not delete old cards when full.

--== DECKS ==--
* Multiple, saved decks to eliminate frequent swapping. (e.g. farming deck, camelot deck, druid deck)

--== ARENA ==--
* Require three *full* teams. Eliminates single team combo/exploit/bug.
* Create "Star Arenas." x stars and less, x stars and above. Will add variety and new challenges. Design rewards to balance participant power levels. (e.g. 2 star and less arena rewards 3 star cards at best, so newer players can fight amongst themselves while veteran players compete elsewhere)

--== HELP ==--
* Correct spelling errerrs.
* Move tab to main screen so new players can find it.
* Expand, expand, expand. (e.g. include an Evolution guide with various methods such as speed, speed enhanced, perfect, etc.). I'd be happy to write the copy in exchange for some stones.

--== THE ART! THE AWESOME ART! ==--
* I really enjoy the art and it's half the reason that I'm still playing! Can you publish a collection of card images online? Or provide it to some dedicated player (winkwink) so he can start a wiki? Can you tell us who the artist is so we can find his other work?

--== GAME DATA ==--
* Option to save to SD card on Android phones. Currently saves to internal memory only, so I have to clear data and log in again every other day.

Thanks again for your efforts!

[Shirl86]

The base percentage will not change for v2.


At the moment, we have no plans to publish the summon rates. We do however want to improve the summon experience. All the comments in this thread have given us a lot to think about. Thanks!


Like other summon feedback, your comments are much appreciated. We will look at all options.

Curtis these 3 answers about Summoning Stone are in clear contradiction to me... Shall you explaine better this point?
Because ppl are not satisfied with the current drop rates and if you first state that you ain't gonna change it but at the same time you wanna improve the summon experience... well... that's contradiction.

This is definitely one of the more popular questions in this thread. We've been exploring various ideas internally, like increasing enhance/evolve costs and future features like crafting etc. Some folks have brought up purchasing Arena tickets with gold. This is a good at idea at a glance. We'll look into how this could effect Arenas.

This answer about Gold Usages is both good and bad... i mean: increasing existing costs is NOT something we want to see, for sure, newer players will be gimped in their growth and older players will not even feel the change because they are drowning in gold...
We need new features like you said in the 2nd part, not increased costs, keep in mind this please.
Buying Arena Tickets is a "must happen fact" imho!!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In regards to all the rest i can say myself satisfied with the answers given, some are unclear but we will discover once playing V2

Looking forward for more answers and news and thanks for keeping in consideration my feedback about the Shiver's nerf

[RenegadeTerragor]

Hi, nice to meet you Curtis

1. What about guild vs. "freelance" balance?
will it be required to join a guild to "use" the new dungeon?
(I play several hours each day, but for HoC I am not really interested in "social interaction",
I play when I can, but I cant always play when guild event says I have too)
In my experience with other games guild events are just a way to enlargen the gap between the strongest players and the rest
as naturally the strongest only accept their likes into a guild and then go on to take the top , often game breaking rewards

2. What I need in this game right now is a larger inventory.
I really hate to have to evolve cards early just to make room

3 What are " parallax" cards?

[Curtis_Kabam]

Thread is back open. Thanks everyone for your patience. I haven't finished answering all the questions but i'll get to it as soon as I can. If your question wasn't quoted, it's possible someone asked the same question.

Responses on the first page

[Curtis_Kabam]

Hey everyone,

Really appreciate the active participation in this dev chat. I'm going to close this thread for a few hours to give me an opportunity to catch up and answer as many questions as possible.

Questions/Answers will be updated on the first page of this thread. Keep in mind, personal support questions should be kept through our support ticketing process. I've spoken with our customer support manager and he will check on any tickets still in queue.

Thanks,

[AtomicDoom]

What is the real purpose of this thread? If the gm and devs actually read and answered stuff in the "suggestions and features" area of the forums they will find all of these questions and plenty more good ones that have been asked with out any real answers except from Aaron there? This one thread seams to be exactly the same as that whole section! What needed to happen here is live chat. Tell us when the devs or gm will be on from this time to this time so people can be on to ask and get live answers now so we wouldn't have to see the same questions or statements over and over and over again like now and lock it out untill said times!