DEVS: Forging, could you give us your thoughts?

General
174

I may not have been clear on my point, and I appoligise for that. I don’t think that having the forge be RNG is obfuscating in-and-of itself. The way the dev made the point it sounded to me like he was saying “We don’t want to have a system that players can figure out” which I believe is a bad premise.

I do think you are over-stating skill here, as all of that information can be recorded as “if you see this, do this” type of notes. I’m sure the very best of the very best would find a way to stand out, but that is so few people that I don’t think it really bares talking about.

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Ah! I interpreted it more as “we don’t want a system that is immediately obvious, and want players to be able to learn mechanics, so that they can derive enjoyment from mastering it”

Hmm, that’s pretty true of most game mechanics for nearly every game out there

176

Sorry your thread got completely de-railed after specifically asking this to not turn into a debate thread

177

Rubix cubes come to mind, for me, here, not just for the above point but also for “the system shouldn’t be immediately obvious.” I agree, for the record, that players should be able to discover mechanics and learn/become better. However, at a certain complexity threshold (which is different for all people), that person is going to throw their hands up and look for a guide. For the cube, it might be to look for matching corners and what to do once you have them, here it would be compound order, what to do if you have X boon in the bar, when to remove bad points, etc. In both cases, the person looking up the guide is going to be worse at the thing than the person that wrote the guide, but unless they are racing (not sure what a forge race would look like, but could be a cool competition, maybe), the ends results will be the same/similar/within the same rough bounds.

178

Have you considered a two-tier power system as I’ve written about in the past where one can get more assured outcomes in exchanged for a cap on potential item power?

I think it’s possible to do both and please both camps.

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179

Definitely agree with most of what you say there

but I think you’re implying that this is a bad thing? Personally, I think that aspect of it is fine! We do want some amount of predictability in what we create from forging (to have stable shops, etc)

I don’t think it detracts from the challenge (and enjoyment) of forging …at least, it certainly doesn’t for me. For example, there are several aspects of forging that I find interesting (and rewarding):

  • Optimizing approaches to forging a particular type of item (for example take Merlin’s 3x3 aoe guide—I guarantee that took a fair bit of trial & error, and a lot of prior knowledge of the mechanics). There are a lot of interesting constraints to juggle.

  • While forging, understanding when to chance things, or not (and apply removal compounds, etc)

  • Using unstable/etc compounds on items I don’t care about getting perfect, and seeing what weird combinations I get

  • Looking for relatively unused boons and seeing what items they synergize with (for example, @Havok40k’s example of using gold items and forging for 100% crit rate)

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180

I don’t think it’s a bad thing, I think it’s great. I just want Dev clarity on this, because my interpretation of his remark is that they think it is a bad thing.

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181

Today I saw Quirks that made all blocks like ice, defects that negated the boons, items that only add forged effects at a certain time of day. I believe it’d be better if I didn’t have to deal with that rubbish. Honestly I felt less miserable about a forging outcome the time I hit exactly 0 Stability to see if the item survived and it didn’t.

The quirks and defects suck. Pushing a progression path involving them early on means players get items that suck early on, making an already bad experience worse. “Oh, I got a stupid quirk that means this item is only good 50% of the time. Still, at least I didn’t get any of the boons I wanted either! I must come back for more of this after I’ve enjoyed eating all this delicious barbed wire!”

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182

As far as a wiki copy these steps for best hammer’ A wider array of effects, a wider inclusion of more ingredients, careful balancing to give them (effects) all an equally viable use and a ditching of rng would have been preferable.
As it is, although you can’t exactly copy each others process you still end with only a few effects being “the best” and desired by all.

There could even have been effects you could forge onto a wep+clothing/armour to make strong set effects.
Player market would be great with far more variety in effects and items…Though I suppose it’s too late to do a significant redesign, owell :frowning:

183

It was a bug fix - which is the standard term we use for fixing a mistake.

The difference between a balance change and a bug fix IMO are:

  1. If you create something that works as you originally intended, but with more information you then learn doesn’t work as you now want, then this can be classed as iteration or a balance change.

  2. If you create something that doesn’t work as you originally intended because it contains mistakes, ie. code bugs or incorrect balance or incorrect text. When you then fix the mistake it’s common to call it generically a bug fix.

We described the change as a bug fix because it was the correction of a mistake. We regularly describe non-code fixes as bug fixes.

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185

Excellent respose, thank you.

Going back to pure boons.

First two caveats.

  1. I am not forging myself yet. My impressions are from the people of this board, who will be the ones teaching me how to do this when I get there. :slight_smile:

  2. I know message boards are, in no way, representative of the gaming audience at large.

I understand the thought process of players needing to go through the imperfect and quirky steps first…but it seems to be that the reality of the situation is that the intended progression isn’t happening. People are just skipping forging until they can use the better mats because no one wants to waste the mats, time and effort on items they don’t want to use and can’t sell.

Again, I don’t forge, but maybe if there was a far greater balance between defects and power. Make a version of pure boon that’s available earlier but results in far less power than what is possible from imperfect boons. Give a far greater incentive to accept the flaws.

The other complaints I’ve seen is that Pure 3 is actually easier to make than Pure 1&2.

And one more thing about RNG. I, personally, hate it. It hurts my sense of order. But my opinions have little weight here. But the real issue with the RNG, I think, is that the mats are hard to get and use. I spend all this time getting titanium. Possibly weeks getting past the gem wall. Hours getting the forging mats, days or longer acquiring the stats I need…and I STILL might end up with a weapon that is worth less than not forging it at all (See defects above).

You mentioned the mid game slog, so it’s good you guys are looking at it. But that scenario is what’s keeping people out of the forging game…or making people quit.

But it seems obvious you know this. And folks here can sometimes spend so much time screaming that their, often legitimate, points get lost in the noise.

Again, thanks to both you and @Steggs101 for responding. That kind of communication with the playerbase is unusual and greatly appreciated…even if it might not always feel like it.

I love your game and can’t wait to see where it’s going.

Now if you’ll could hook us up with some pillars…:wink:

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186

https://steamcharts.com/app/324510
Here is the state.
when the game release till today.
The highest peak is 832, till now only 441 players stay.
Its almost half people lose lol.

Also the time population start decrease happen after those balance patch release.

187

So given this, then, what was the difference between the changes to Pure Boon vs. The changes to the various bags of X and brew container Xs that the former is a bug fix and the latter are listed under the release notes where you put balance changes? Where those not, also, fixes of mistakes that were made earlier in development?

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If you want to establish a trend, the at least use the data in front of you and use comparable peak times, not the all-time peak with whatever happens to be at this minute. Nobody is saying the game is growing based on concurrents, and that’s not necessarily the aim right now - but if you look at that data you linked, the last Sunday night peak was over 600 on PC alone, so only down around 25% over the course of over a month post-launch.

lol

Compared to a lot of games, that’s actually not a bad decline post-launch as people jump in, try it out, etc. I’ve seen data for a range of service model and MMO games over the past ten years, so I know what we’re looking for. And while I’m not suggesting that PC and PS4 player stats are hugely different, you actually have no data for PS4, so it’s impossible to talk about global player base without making big assumptions.

Additionally, you have no data to understand the total player base activity over that time, and whether the actual engagement for those playing (active players) is high or low, whether in-game revenue is good or bad, whether play sessions are increasing or decreasing, etc.

All you have is a snapshot of who is playing at the same time on one platform, and drawing conclusions based on your own experiences as to why those missing players are obviously dissatisfied.

Now, if you want to form a hypothesis by narrowing down the data to just look at the PC concurrents then the data you linked - which is accurate as far as I can tell based on the admin dashboard - I see a gradual decline of around 5% in average concurrent users per week starting with the week after launch. There is no steep drop off or anything to back up your theory that [INCIDENT X] or [INCIDENT Y] has caused anything; the pattern is very clear. In fact, the only thing that I saw make a meaningful difference to the live data was around the time between identifying the server lag issue, and it being fixed.

Now. By all means, if you don’t like a change and want to offer your opinion - we want to hear that feedback. But otherwise, I’m afraid there’s no evidence to back up your claims, and on that basis - given that what I’m seeing flies completely in the face of your assertions - I’m going to call you out on it.

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189

Well, you can choose anything you want to believe which i am fine with that.

Also i want to be clear that, all the change never affect me at all.
As EA player, i can still make a lot of money in currently patch.

You guys should really think about new players how they feel about this game so far.

How about you create a new account and start from 0 without any help by any EA players in current patch.
Even with that you already have the experience and knowledge of how to set up things faster.

But new players they just start the game in 1 month, you should see how many new players mentioned they have trouble to find gems and their game progression.

Your attitude won’t help new players at all, this game is leading to a really weird direction.
When i joined the game, i never see people complain about grinding even without the forge system.
How come now so many people pop up and arguing at this stupid forum lol.

190

Well, different types of players at different times. EA players are very self-selecting, and most would understand the nature of in-development games. At launch, people have higher expectations - plus likely no knowledge that a certain discussion may have been had a hundred times already, and that’s totally fine.

By the way, I’m not saying that any points about balance tweaks or changes upsetting people are wrong. I’m sure everybody would acknowledge there are still some challenges to work through. As you say, there are plenty of people jumping in with their feelings. That’s great - they’re passionate about the game, about they way they play it. As are you - and that’s great. If people didn’t care, they wouldn’t post.

But to be clear, the engagement stats are good, and that’s really important - and that’s what I want to be clear on :slight_smile:

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191

I fully expect this game will require rehab centers for us, eventually :stuck_out_tongue:

Also, I’m guessing “good” undersells it a bit…

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192

An option that the Devs can do, but we can not, is when they ask a major poll question, like with the next feature they want, or beacons selling or buying. They could create a poll system in the game, that shows up when you first log into the game.

Edit:
Have the option to Opt Out, and once an account Opts out, or Votes, they don’t see it anymore. And have it run for like a week.

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193

As I recall that wasn’t regarded as a positive change after the bomb mining nerf lol.

194

People still use bombs?