September 2017 Tuning Discussion - PRELIMINARY

[Dank Brew]

Sorry one more thing:

Hi guys,

Just wanted to chime in to explain a few things regarding the reinstating of limits in the Trooper Shop.

First of all, this is not a change being made in isolation. There are many updates and changes to the game that will be rolling out over the next few months and these limits are just a part of balancing the flow of resources in the economy given those changes. Without getting into too much detail or revealing exact dates, here is a preview of some of the content and features related specifically to this change that we are in the process of developing:

1. We are in the process of looking at speeding up the use of Troopers, and of playing quests in general, which will increase the speed and ease of earning Trooper Badges.
   
   
2. There are more items coming to the Trooper shop within the next few months, including the long heralded Trooper Soul. Our current plan is to offer a one-time, high cost Trooper Soul as well as the farmable weekly fragment option. The price has not been finalized for this Soul, but generally speaking it should not exceed the cost of using 50 troopers over a 5 week period (i.e. between 40K-to-50K Badges) though this is tentative and could change. In regards to how much heads up you'll have about when to start saving up, we are also going to start advertising what events are planned for the month in the News Feed to give people a better idea of what's to come. In theory, by the time we announce the release of this soul, you should have enough time to save up for at least one pull or at least dramatically shorten the time it will take for it.
   
   
3. With many upcoming events, we are looking for ways to ensure all players have some way of working towards the event rewards outside of just using the ironite or souls they have on hand. To that end there will be many events which will be making more use of all 3 shops in the game in new ways (Arena, Troopers, and Gold Shops). For this to work, we need to make the shops more consistent with each other so that something like unlimited access to rare souls doesn't completely break the economy of the game as it will imbalance the value of various activities and game modes.
   

In short, with some of the upcoming changes, you'll still be able to earn the same amount of resources, if not much more, but you won't have to dedicate as much energy and time to things like using Troopers. Instead, via events and upcoming features, there should be more of a perceptible cadence to where you can ideally spend you time to maximize your rewards in the game. Yes, this does mean you can't hoard points to buy souls / shards in bulk, but this is also the reason we are communicating these changes now. If you have large stores of Trooper Badges saved up, you may want to consider spending them now as, outside of the aforementioned Trooper Soul, there won't be much reason to save them.

Hopefully that helps explain that particular change. Sparton and I will try and be around on the forums today to answer any additional questions regarding this or other updates from the patch preview notes.

Cheers,

-Kaz

Trooper souls??? Nevermind, I guess I'll save my points then...

[Jofer16]

Nice info Kaz, way to shine some light in the darkness.

This should have been released with Spartons communications. He literally encouraged everyone to blow all their trooper badges, and now you are saying theres at least 1 large purchase coming (Spartons advice now seems super deceptive).

I think you guys need to coordinate your communications better, or maybe you should just take the wheel completely when it comes to the forums. Doesn't affect me personally but I know people like Silent already spent their bank of trooper badges based on Sparton only giving half of the info and misleading advice. If I followed Spartons advice, I'd be pretty pissed off right now after you finally cleared the air. Without your nice follow up response, the initial announcement seems very bait and switchish.

[Kaz_LOTB]

This should have been released with Spartons communications. He literally encouraged everyone to blow all their trooper badges,.

To be fair, I am also suggesting that it's okay to spend all of your badges as by the time we announce the soul you should be able to earn it through natural play. But yes, our bad on the lack of communication. We'll work on improving that in the future.

-Kaz

[Dank Brew]

Nice info Kaz, way to shine some light in the darkness.

This should have been released with Spartons communications. He literally encouraged everyone to blow all their trooper badges, and now you are saying theres at least 1 large purchase coming (Spartons advice now seems super deceptive).

I think you guys need to coordinate your communications better, or maybe you should just take the wheel completely when it comes to the forums. Doesn't affect me personally but I know people like Silent already spent their bank of trooper badges based on Sparton only giving half of the info and misleading advice. If I followed Spartons advice, I'd be pretty pissed off right now after you finally cleared the air. Without your nice follow up response, the initial announcement seems very bait and switchish.

Completely agree, I almost spent all of my trooper points right away when I saw spartons message... Luckily for me I didn't before I saw Kaz's post... I would have been extremely angry.

[Sparton_LOTB]

Regarding the many comments about trooper store restrictions, and future items to be in the trooper store:

Please read Kaz's reply in another thread regarding trooper badge earning, (preliminary) Trooper Soul costs, and time commitments for earning related resources.

---

Until then, I'll try some crazy stuff at my Shaman,. FotD and Aces looks good. Please, take a moment to see Vision's Take numbers. He needs some love too.

Hm... he's still fairly frequently used on PVP attack teams, and has a substantially better win rate than the other two 5 star Sentinel Eddies. He's not a powerhouse of damage, which implies he shouldn't be dominating the lower divisions, which means he should still have moderately good use in the mid and higher divisions.

Still, I'll keep an eye on his usage and win rates after the next tuning update goes out.

Apart of not being happy with restrictions at all, in every aspect of life, I just wanted to know what is so hard on fix Viking's MR up skill... I have seen many updates and since the character release, no clue about this fix.

What issue are you referring to specifically?

Also, for the Gunner Valkyrie, she is the weakest of them all, is there a chance to give her some love to make her more usable like her sisters?

We don't have a lot of data on her usage and win rates yet, but so far she's looking more commonly used than two of her three sisters (eclipsed as a PVP attacker by, unsurprisingly, Astra, Valkyrie Slayer).

Eda, Valkyrie Knight is really helpful in certain Brave New World dungeons, especially ones that try to lay down a lot of negative effects (her permanent Perfect Immunity means she'll never get disabled, and she can then cleanse her entire team).

Can you clarify more about the fixes to 'reset' and 'revive'. Regarding reset, it sounds like that it should resolve the issue of a players team potentially becoming frozen when 2 Magus CotD both apply a blizzard shield during the same turn, is that indeed the case? And as for revive does this apply to Clairvoyant at all? I've noticed she becomes hard to keep alive once she has been revived herself. Her fury will not heal her but does rest of team fine, and instead of gaining a cleanse, she loses all positive effects instead.

Of the issues I know we've resolved, these scenarios are examples of what is fixed:

• A character with a reset skill is last to act on a team, and attacks an enemy team with Blizzard Shields. There's a currently-live bug where, if your last character's attack resets, the blizzard shield can expire after the initial attack (which can immediately freeze), but since the resetting character is trying to do extra attacks, it can't if frozen. Thus, a combat hang (in the upcoming update, the shields will wait until after all reset attacks are done before expiring and trying to do their expire effects)
• A character with a revival skill also adds beneficial effects. There's a currently-live bug where the extra beneficial effects don't always apply to the revived character (or at least won't look like it, but may silently be there). In the upcoming update, if a skill says it will give Endure to all teammates, it should do that, even for characters that are revived with said skill.

I just made a little calculation about the talisman change. Please correct me, if I'm wrong.

Pretty close. The stats for talismans are stored with a base amount integer and an increase-per-level integer, so it's sometimes a bit higher and sometimes a bit lower than the exact percentages I listed in the preliminary notes:

• Sorcery/Skilled: HP 1382, Def 122, MR 122, [Offensive stat] 275
• Onslaught: HP 1835, Def 132, MR 132, Special 126

In Updates info, there's a mistake on the copy/paste for FOTD Steal Breath description, the skill does Silence, not Blind.

Whoops, good eye; we will fix that for the final tuning notes release.

@Sparton: any plans to add new Missions to collect additional fragments? And, any plans for fragments that would add up to a skillshard?

There were plans to add Missions to this upcoming update, but we had to pull them out due to lack of time to ensure they were thoroughly QA'd. They'll make it in in a subsequent update.

In the meantime, there will be handful of new achievements in the next update which'll have Ironite and Skill Shards as a reward, iirc.

Also, we do want to add Skill Shard Fragments, but right now the Fragments feature only works with Souls, so it'll be some time before we're able to adjust that feature to give fragments of other kinds of items.

@Sparton, I really like that the bugs are getting attention, and some of the ability updates.
I know you have a lot on your plate but if you could please take a look at this thread and find if any other fixes could be included it would be great:
http://forum.ironmaidenlegacy.com/sh...?8565-Bug-List
I would *really* encourage the team to put an effort on fixing the "freeze/hang" (upon resuscitate mostly) related bug, this is a major pain point for so many that fixing it should be a priority.
Thanks.

There's quite a few combat hang situations that we have fixes for in the next update, they're just not items that we have in these preliminary tuning notes (because they're usually not character-specific, and they have more to do with the underlying combat system). We'll have more details for that as we get closer to the release of the next update.

I'll also pass along your post to our QA to ensure what's on there is in our system; it looks like most should be already (or is even listed as fixed in these prelim notes), but good to be sure.

but guys, please consider an adjustment for the purple valkyrie. many many guys just laugh about this ridiculous char but in fact it's sad. it's too much of a difference maker. it boosts an okay 20% def to 35-40%. that's really too much. and there are almost no counters for her. check the def% of the guys who have her and tell me that i'm wrong please, if you can...

There is a bug that Kaz has noted in this thread, which does inflate her usefulness in some cases.

That said, while keeping in mind she's still a new character, data so far indicates she's not used overly often on defense, and when she is, she has a stunningly low win percentage (pun intended). Like, worse than 3/4 the roster low. I could see her boosting the defense win percentages if you hang around the lowest divisions, but so would many other powerful characters.

People on the forum have discussed working around her; it's honestly not hard. She only punishes those who are not prepared, and her counters counter her hard. Her value is more in punishing certain defense when you use her as an attacker, and in certain Brave New World dungeons (absolutely tears through a lot of waves in the Garden of Life, even if she becomes a bit of a liability against the Dragon King himself).

will the sacrifice changes we discussed about be implemented in this update? would be extremly cool.

They will, we just don't have exact details solidified, nor do we have full patch notes for that change yet.

One suggestion for you guys to consider for the future.
Seems lot of us old time players are leaving the game. I came to the conclusion that this is happening for 4 reasons: bugs, lack of new content, inability to set new goals within the game and not being able to spend resources on new toons.
I assume and hope the first two is being taken care off. As for the last two, please consider a "toon of your choice" soul.
Make it extremely difficult to get, would require lots of resources (combined gold + tp + IC) and only available once a month. With new toons it's harder and harder to complete our rosters, or get the one we always wanted. This would make people aim at something. Also, this would be a good way to stay competitive at Arena, sometimes one toon makes too much of a difference and a player has only RNG to get (or not) this toon.

We are looking at systems to help with unlucky RNG for certain kinds of rewards (such as Eternity Souls). I'm not sure about the timeline for a "pick your own choice" soul, though... but I'm not entirely opposed to that if it's appropriately limited.

EDIT: Mariner-1212 has recommended elsewhere a kinda "make your own" character feature which is something we know we want to add eventually, which partially scratches that itch.

[Dank Brew]

Create your own character??? That would be awesome!!! Potentially OP though LOL

[Amarthir]

I didn't quite have my jimmies as rustled as everyone else over the news of this update, but for someone with my type of motivation, it seems like more work to keep up with all of the new extra rewards, my opinion of the idea of making them limited is that now I'll be more considerate about buying them to keep a good average in points and have a wealthy income of trooper points and iron coins, and even gold as well. I suppose in the coming weeks I'll have to renovate my trooper list and get more forum people on here, as it is I've been only playing the forum players and I have like, 5 of them on my team while everyone else has been collecting dust. But considering my rate of spending trooper points and iron coins, I think I'll be comfortable with these changes. I like that rare and legendary souls have been made slightly more accessible.

On a side note, I like the other positives that have been mentioned, including the event planning, trooper souls, making points easier to earn, sacrifice changes, etc. I'll be looking forward to how this change affects everything as a whole.

[Kardas]

Huh, that's a fairly varied list. Let's see:

The character changes are pretty good. Making FotD's Preying Claw AoE will make him a lot better in the Magus dungeon on auto too. Surprising seeing Mark get another power cost increase! I must be doing something wrong then, considering I barely use the move. Similarly, the changes to the Sorcery/Skilled/Onslaught Talismans is good news, as well as the buffs to Thorn Shield and Cyclone Shield.

I am very happy with Navigator's performance fix. Hopefully my phone battery will drain slightly less faster.

I am also happy there's an endgame use for Gold now; by extension, this makes Precious Souls more valued as well, which is good too.

I was a bit worried about the initial post about the Trooper Store limits but with Kaz's post it seems to make more sense. Good to hear the Sacrifice adjustment will come soon. Still need to get that one Tier 7 done one of these days.

Still, I have a few questions Sparton (or Kaz):
- Are the Hunter and Predator Talismans time limited? If so, will they show up in Brave New World at a later date?
- Recently there's some grumbling going around about characters with Immortal Talismans causing a game hang when Frozen. Has the problem been identified, and will that get a fix in the next update?
- One thing that bugs me with both the Viking and FotD Eddies is that in the Magus Lord of Light dungeon, they don't really do anything too often against Ghosted Lord of Light, even though Fear of the Dark can remove it instantly with Purging Shriek and Viking with Loot. Could there be AI adjustments to both characters so that they use those skills more often or intelligently?

[Sparton_LOTB]

Still, I have a few questions Sparton (or Kaz):
- Are the Hunter and Predator Talismans time limited? If so, will they show up in Brave New World at a later date?
- Recently there's some grumbling going around about characters with Immortal Talismans causing a game hang when Frozen. Has the problem been identified, and will that get a fix in the next update?
- One thing that bugs me with both the Viking and FotD Eddies is that in the Magus Lord of Light dungeon, they don't really do anything too often against Ghosted Lord of Light, even though Fear of the Dark can remove it instantly with Purging Shriek and Viking with Loot. Could there be AI adjustments to both characters so that they use those skills more often or intelligently?

• We intend to have Hunter and Predator Talismans as long term additions to the PVP store, just with a restrictive 1/month limit. We do not plan on adding then to the Brave New World.
• We've had difficulty replicating all of the possible scenarios that players have reported, but we have reproduced some ways of getting a hang. Some general combat system improvements should fix some of the hangs, with one other specific scenario that was reported is still being investigated (so I'm not sure if the fix for that will make it into the next update, or the update that follows that)
• I passed along your suggestion to Kaz, and he says he'll look into it. It doesn't look like the AI supports the exact thing you're asking for, but we might be able to do something close (and if not, create a task to look into fleshing out the AI accordingly)

[Dank Brew]

Quick question... I hardly ever use a secondary eddie (always bring them but hardly need them) - My question is: If the secondary (or third) eddie has a 1 turn passive/talisman, does it still work when you bring him in later even though it's his first turn?

Does this question even make sense? Maybe i'll just test it myself. I'm just curious.