DEVS: Forging, could you give us your thoughts?

General
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?

188

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?

195

Also @james and @olliepurkiss – For what it’s worth I think the progression curve is fine as it is. it’s not easy, but there are many of us who don’t LIKE easy.

This game does not have a wall in it. Diablo 3 (the original version) had a wall in it. The time it takes to go from a titanium (or iron) hammer to a mass-craft of compressed diamonds is something like 12 or 15 hours for a relatively intelligent player. (Especially with the use of stone chisels.)

People will always complain about how things are too hard, and I understand that those opinions matter. Be aware, though, that there are players (like myself) who will lose interest if you make progression too easy.

Thanks.

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196

Dude, to even UNLOCK the ability to Make Titanium Hammers, you need to enough Diamonds to make a Workbench Coil. So it’s much more likely for you to Mass Craft Gem Hammers, far before you can craft Titanium, unless Gem Hammers need more than 500 power. I don’t know, I don’t have any power, so I have no need to unlock Tools lvl 3

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197

I decided the titanium ones are too expensive anyway. I just used iron. Granted using the stone chisels for the tunneling on the high level worlds was better. That’s 4 hits per block-size space (max, ever).

So that’s fair, but I jumped straight from iron to diamond and that was the time estimate I used.

With iron and stone tools I can easily get 360 diamonds in 10 or 12 hours.

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198

Sounds like they need to nerf Chisling and make it so only blocks placed in a beacon, and placed by a player, can be chisled.

199

Well, the chiseling outside a beacon no longer gives you exp, and a fully-skilled miner with an iron hammer can kill a block on a T6 world with an iron hammer in 4 hits anyway.

The chiseling is just a temporary solution for a low-level character, and personally I think its disadvantages balance with its usefulness at this point.

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200

Is it really a disadvantage? I didn’t think on it before, but now that I am, I forgot that you the game isn’t like Minecraft or other Voxel games. When you chisle in the middle of 2 blocks, and make a one block hole, you CAN move through it. Where as in any other game, it doesn’t matter how it looks, there is still a Box there for the block.

And unlike Hammers, you don’t need to hit a block 4 times to get around it. You only need to hit it twice, 3 times if turning a corner.

But even without the EXP gained, it’s still exploiting the system. Chisling should never work outside of a beacon, because Chisling is meant to shape stone in player created creations. They removed EXP because people were just chisling the ground all over the surface for max xp. But now they are using it to exploit mining on high tier worlds.

Remember, lvl 6 worlds aren’t the highest there is, there will be more higher leveled worlds released one day. Right now, Chisling is 1 hit better than a Max skilled miner, but on World 7? 8? 9? and higher? Chisling will be much easier to use than tools to explore the underground.

201

It’s great for hunting with on t3+ worlds. Especially 2.9meter iron bombs vs roadrunners.

202

I use them for hunting on t3 plus worlds. Really fun too.

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