Light of the Immortal - Developer Follow Up

[Sparton_LOTB]

This post is a follow up for the Light of the Immortal event that ran last weekend.

Our team sat down and discussed the event, its implementation, and the learnings for the future. This event in particular is a great opportunity to bring the community into our process on event design and its particular goals given that this is similar to an event that ran approximately a year ago.

The goal of the event was to replicate what we offered last year but with a more even distribution of 5 star characters acquired across our players. Everyone should have been able to get 2-4 Immortal souls during the event (team speed/Ironite permitting).

Since the aim was for a more balanced experience where all our players could walk away with at least 1 high value Eddie, my solution was to use event challenges. These challenges provided a very clear goal to get one Immortal Soul, and if you completed them all, you’d have solid progress on getting a second.

Overall, that worked as intended; a far higher percentage of our player base got at least one soul during this year’s event compared to last year’s version.

Last year also had a target of approximately 4 souls. However, due to a variety of unforeseen factors, there was a massive disparity of early to mid game players literally getting nothing, and some late game players receiving a very large amount of Souls (in excess of 10-15 in some cases). While that was a windfall for some, it wasn’t balanced or fair for all.

Ultimately, while we understand that people were expecting the event to be as generous as last year's, we wanted to be open and transparent about how we got to this point. We believe the game will be more enjoyable if we better distribute the ability to collect high-value characters throughout the year rather than piling that into a single event. This is why we have introduced Frontier Coins, Lilith Souls, and Heroic Souls, and are working on more ways for you to get the specific characters you want.

We’re working with an ever evolving experience, and your feedback is important as we move forward.

[edsel]

This type of event is my fave. Waking up after the team runs all night to a pile of rewards is VERY rewarding. I ran over 1k ironite and ended up with 2 souls and 38 frags for next year. Many resetting server errors while starting the trooper auto feature happened each night when I was setting up the team to run while I slept. Despite this frustration the drop rate of fragments was quite low, as it should be for hi value Eddies. How could someone get 15 of these in last year's event?

Please run this again or something like it that can utilize extra fragments for Immortal soul.

[blade685]

2 or 3X less shard drop since last year i think
my case:
I played 2 days just not during my sleeping time and: 1 from 500 event shards, 1 really drop and stuck to 479 because of very bad drop particular at the end of event = impossible for me to reach the 500 for the 3rd :(
All players are very angry because normally it was the best event of the year and finally a disaster

For me a good compensation is:
- for all players near of 500 = gift shards to reach 500 for one soul
- If you won 2 souls (1 from 500 event shards, 1 really drop) = 1 soul gift
- If you won 3 souls (1 from 500 event shards, 2 really drop) = 2 souls gift --> my case
- If you won 4 souls (1 from 500 event shards, 3 really drop) = 3 souls gift ---> impossible with my drop rate

And if you play all the month for example changing the last day gift with a new famous soul(choose what character you want) that all players want

[MrFreeze]

I obviously don’t have the data to look at, but I gotta think the reason a handful of people (can’t imagine it was many) got 10-15 of them, was because they busted their ass playing for 2 days straight. I don’t remember how many I got, 4 or 5 maybe. I remember I couldn’t play much one of the days.

Once an account gets to where most of ours are, you need 10–15 of them just to have a chance at not getting a dupe. It’s good you guys are finally trying to do something about unobtainable characters, but it’s too little too late I think. Personally, I can’t bring myself to farm the same stuff over and over any more (it’s been almost 2 yrs). Slow progress has killed it for me. Give me something new to do in a timely fashion, and I’d love to have my interest in this game renewed.

[JJJ428]

I would love to know how people were unable to get anything last time. Once again I think they look at metrics and maybe don't look past the raw data to try and figure out the why behind it.

At the time I was maybe a 4-5 month player at the time and I busted my ass and got 6 immortal souls and that's only because I had the team for the gunner dungeon and not the assassin dungeon so I just stopped when it became unprofitable to keep trying to clear it. With the drops rates for last year there is no reason for even a low level player to have not gotten one unless they just weren't interested. Another thing I doubt you will be able to "measure" is how many players will quit because of this event, this was hyped for almost a year a lot of long term players expected to get 5-6 souls again if not more and we either had ironite stored or was willing to drop money to this game, and with RNG the way it is I need 10-15 souls to have a chance at the two eddies I am missing. But because this event was so terrible I stopped at 2.

Also because this event was so bad I really am not motivated at all to even care about the current event, it has nothing to do with how the current event is structured, rewards, or anything related to it, I am just demotivated by this immortal event. That is why just looking at raw numbers is not always the best way to look at an issue.

[Saigrim]

Considering the amount of people that were pulling the exact same two or three toons, mostly Visions and Viking, tells me the percentage rate between toons was not evenly split. Way too much for coincidence sake. Just more lip service to explain away the fact the event sucked for a lot of us.

You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.

[Askora]

My guess wasn't too far off.

4589

[JJJ428]

We can keep taking it or we can leave. Complaining does nothing when the data shows people don’t play anymore maybe then they will listen.

[Askora]

Also, much like JJJ428 I'd been playing almost 5 months for the first immortal event. Pretty sure I got 4 or 5 Eddies. Needing only one from the list now, my odds are super low to get it. So, more drops would have benefited new players more than long term players who would just have gotten fodder for sacrifice.

[JJJ428]

I don’t know what I find to be bigger bullshit that a large number of people didn’t get a soul last time or the fact they feel they have to punish the entire player base because some people are really good and grinded for 15 souls. The more I think about this response, I am starting to feel it is worse then the event itself and really illuminates how they feel about longer term players. I wanted to make it through the arena event and still grind for Alexander just because, but starting to think of leaving this and just focusing on MSF. It is a much better game.

[R1ck]

My experience, last year I spent money on the event because considered it was worth it. Was going to do the same this year but it was not worth this time.

[DIEDD]

I understand your point, but you know better than anyone how your rng works so you can imagine that getting some characters over the course of the year is very difficult, like mr. freeze commented some players played a lot to get the eddies they wanted, but of those 15 souls maybe 10 have been dupes.
My point is, why you have to be so greedy with everything? I do not remember anyone complaining because he got less souls than others, on the contrary I remember one of the few times we were all happy with the game.

[Amarthir]

Last year when I was a relatively new player I got 2 souls off of only a couple hundred ironite.

This year I had almost 300 ironite and I was barely halfway to just one soul and that included mission rewards.

Maybe you guys just shouldn't have touched the drop rate. If it were the same rate as last year, in addition to the mission challenges, it would have had MUCH warmer reception from all of us and would by definition be a bit better than last year. Instead you guys mucked it up like things have been for the last couple months.

As for whatever so called "majority of new players" who couldn't get one soul last year (lol) maybe they just need to get good ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ it sounds more like a them problem than an event problem.

[Zerynx]

Last year also had a target of approximately 4 souls. However, due to a variety of unforeseen factors, there was a massive disparity of early to mid game players literally getting nothing, and some late game players receiving a very large amount of Souls (in excess of 10-15 in some cases). While that was a windfall for some, it wasn’t balanced or fair for all.


I very distinctly remember this event from a year ago. I had been playing about a month. One of these early to mid game players you reference. I remember thinking I'd love any 5 star toon at that point, but specifically an Eddie!

I couldn't participate in the event because the frags dropped at levels 7-10 in the Dungeon. I was only able to clear level 6 at the time.

I think it's interesting that you note it favored late game players, when it was an event that seemed to only cater to late game players.

I was hoping for my chance at the generous event this year. Not mad, just feeling like the beat is going on. Got my 4th Viking Eddie for about 400 ironite. I guess that's an ok trade. (Though I got the final frags with one minute left in the event. Not kidding.)

[MrFreeze]

I very distinctly remember this event from a year ago. I had been playing about a month. One of these early to mid game players you reference. I remember thinking I'd love any 5 star toon at that point, but specifically an Eddie!

I couldn't participate in the event because the frags dropped at levels 7-10 in the Dungeon. I was only able to clear level 6 at the time.

I think it's interesting that you note it favored late game players, when it was an event that seemed to only cater to late game players.

I was hoping for my chance at the generous event this year. Not mad, just feeling like the beat is going on. Got my 4th Viking Eddie for about 400 ironite. I guess that's an ok trade. (Though I got the final frags with one minute left in the event. Not kidding.)


I didn’t remember that little detail about them only being available in 7-10.

Hmmm, I wonder if that might explain why some players didn’t get any souls. Yet NF uses that as an excuse for nerfing the event. Sad.

[FarmerEddie]

Sorry Sparton. I get that newer players may have had an issue last time. Like JJJ, I got my 4-5 souls last year on the gunner day due to working all weekend and not having a team to successfully autoplay assassin lol. The event challenge soul was a nice step to allow lower ranked players to get their 1-2.

BUT, that being said, us veteran players who were around for the first Immortal Soul event and who were told that it would be even better this time around have a reason to feel cheated. There really isn't much reason for us to keep on playing, especially for those who don't have time or desire for PvP, other than taking care of our fellow troopers and rounding out our collection of characters.

Troopers were adressed with auto-replay, which I love to be honest. I like the Hero souls and the other new options mentioned to acquire characters.

So here's my question: Who would it have hurt to allow the event to follow the same format as last year, as well as having the event challenges?

Newer players would have achieved their 1-2 souls and been happy with that. Older players would have burnt through their stockpiles of ironite and more than likely would have opened their wallets. (That was my plan. Instead I'll take my family to see the Knights of Valor jousting tournament next weekend with the money saved.) The devs would have seemed like they did care enough to toss their old players a bone. And everyone would have walked away happy.

After last year's event and the promise it would be better this year, the advent of autoplay and much better teams I was legitimately expecting 15 + souls. I know I wasn't the only one. All I know is I won't be opening my wallet for long time now necause of this. The disappointment is too strong. Like someone said in another post, I'm only halfheartedly doing the current event challenge s and probably wont finish them all. I just don't care right now.

In closing, I I know us old timers can be cranky and hard to deal with and I can definitely understand why your frustration with us can show up sometimes like in the Alexander thread. Most of the time Sparton, you make good points and counter arguments, but for this time we're gonna have to disagree. Hopefully the things Lexi hinted at coming later in the year will make up for the disappointment, but I honestly don't know how many of us veterans will be left. Good luck.

[OdoyleRules]

Let me drink a gallon of milk (I am lactose intolerant) and take a picture 20 minutes later. That will sum up the whole 'FEEDBACK.' The BS events after so many arena and other skill bugs, it just makes hard to believe a thing. 'Better than last year' would have snuffed the Cyborg Monday away. Instead you dropped a turd with the pathetic drop rates and not being able to buy a 5* eddie with twice as much frags. There is a huge bug on users not getting victories still plaguing the arena. If I was a project manager I would take care of that before I release any sort of 300, 400 500+ win arena challenge...and fast.

[Yup]

JJJ.. your mailbox is full. :)

[DIEDD]

what also makes me sad and angry is that NF does not see that actually changing the event was a mistake and a big one, for them it was really a success apparently.
I would have preferred that they admit that in reality the immortal event is not profitable (in financial terms) and that they stop putting that stupid "everything is in favor of new players" when clearly it is not.
Also, what stupid strategy is to punish experienced players to favor the newbies?

[Sparton_LOTB]

I would love to know how people were unable to get anything last time. Once again I think they look at metrics and maybe don't look past the raw data to try and figure out the why behind it.

Both the absolute number of people who got 1+ was up and the percentage of our playerbase that got 1+ was up (averaged across the days of the event). So even accounting for far more people playing now than 1 year from now, it's up in every meaningful way we looked at it.

Obviously the average amount of souls people got out of those who got at least 1 is down, but the intent was for 2-4 to be obtained by the most dedicated players, so the average being lower was expected.


Also because this event was so bad I really am not motivated at all to even care about the current event, it has nothing to do with how the current event is structured, rewards, or anything related to it, I am just demotivated by this immortal event. That is why just looking at raw numbers is not always the best way to look at an issue.

Your feelings (and their lack of obvious presence in data) is absolutely relevant, I agree, and the tuning of certain events in the future and the framing of how we communicate these kinds of events in the future will take this kind of situation into account.


Also, much like JJJ428 I'd been playing almost 5 months for the first immortal event. Pretty sure I got 4 or 5 Eddies. Needing only one from the list now, my odds are super low to get it. So, more drops would have benefited new players more than long term players who would just have gotten fodder for sacrifice.

If "more is always better" were true, we'd just tune the drops to be able to give infinite rewards and be done with it. There's obviously a balance to be struck.

As noted in the original post, there's more resources to be earned and more ways to get higher-tier characters than the same point last year. The tuning of the event had to change to reflect that, or we completely devalue everything from Legendary Souls, to Heroic Souls, to things like Cyborg Eddie Fragments (and Piece of Mind, and Vampire Hunter, etc). There's an argument to be made about how tightly we tuned it, and there's been great suggestions to improve this (or similar) events in the future, though, and we plan on taking all of that feedback into account with future events.


I couldn't participate in the event because the frags dropped at levels 7-10 in the Dungeon. I was only able to clear level 6 at the time.

The event last year allowed getting fragments at any floor, including Floor I. I literally used the same drop tables as last year, just pasting over older values with revised ones.

The drop rates are better the higher you go, like with any of our events that have this structure, but we've never made it so you needed to clear a certain floor or higher to be able to get fragments.


BUT, that being said, us veteran players who were around for the first Immortal Soul event and who were told that it would be even better this time around have a reason to feel cheated. There really isn't much reason for us to keep on playing, especially for those who don't have time or desire for PvP, other than taking care of our fellow troopers and rounding out our collection of characters.

I absolutely misjudged when I said the event would be "better", no doubt about it. It basically came about for two reasons:


The only real complaint I recalled from last year's event was people not realizing how much of a grind was needed to get even one soul. I knew that with event challenges I would be able to solve this problem.
That comment was made well before I sat down and reviewed projections about how many souls people would be able to get from this event (if you think the most people would have gotten was 15, you're way off)


Since the method of solving problem 1 is effectively another soul in the bag for anyone who's going hard at the event, that's why I figured it would be worth saying it would be "better" publicly, but I didn't take the whole picture into account. That's definitely something I'll be more mindful of in the future.


what also makes me sad and angry is that NF does not see that actually changing the event was a mistake and a big one, for them it was really a success apparently.

The world isn't so black and white that I could say "it was a success" or "it was a failure". We had a goal, and we made significant inroads on players getting at least one of the high-value reward without trivializing the effort needed to get it, but had missteps with other ways of measuring the success of the event (which at the very least starts with the sentiment some players have of it and future events).

[OdoyleRules]

The one thing you got right earlier this month is that you allowed users to purchase the Gemini twins at a higher frag price. That way, no matter what the effort, there was a payoff. With the Immortal Souls event, I spend 1900 Ironite and received 3 dupe Eddies. Now I did received a lot of shards and gold, but the payoff was zilch for what I was trying to accomplish. Discuss with the team a 'high' price purchase that the user can chose something themselves. That way the 40 hours straight my phone was running your APP could have had a payoff. When this event comes around again, I will not dare spend that much time and resources again. And I am not the only one. To continue to be successful or whatever you call it, you have to guarantee something for all users in this realm to be satisfied with. Whether its 2 Eddie for a new user or one for a player since day one who watch the Ad for the game at a concert in Tacoma, Washington in 2016.

[kkkreg5]

I absolutely misjudged when I said the event would be "better", .

Sparton, this is the main issue here. The choice of words. The "older" player base was expecting more. This event probably would have benefited from the use of the tiered battles system. 1000 wins earns X souls or X souls fragments. Leaving the player to choose how far to go.

The bad taste in my mouth came from being able to predict my Eddies from the forum. This needs an explanation. I knew that my odds were low to receive the two Eddies I'm missing but this just doesn't feel right.

To me, it's simple, I speak with my wallet. This can be verified by my account. I will no longer spend a dime on a "game" that does not return on my investment. All I see, moving forward, is a money grab, which is an insult to the Iron Maiden brand.

[Zerynx]

The event last year allowed getting fragments at any floor, including Floor I. I literally used the same drop tables as last year, just pasting over older values with revised ones.

The drop rates are better the higher you go, like with any of our events that have this structure, but we've never made it so you needed to clear a certain floor or higher to be able to get fragments.


I then, apologize for my memory on that matter. Perhaps I felt I was getting a low drop rate, and it would have been better at higher levels. I do remember a lot of older players loving the event and being frustrated that I wasn't getting anywhere. So I do appreciate that matter trying to being addressed. Too bad i couldn't have cashed in last year. :)



I absolutely misjudged when I said the event would be "better", no doubt about it. It basically came about for two reasons:

That's definitely something I'll be more mindful of in the future.


I gotta say, I commend you for coming in here and trying to explain. I'm sure this wasn't at the top of your list today.

[Patrice-1201]

What about those of us not able to play for 2/3 of the event due to server issues... was that also not a problem based on data analysis...

[Amarthir]

It means alot to come up and try to level with us on the thoughts behind the makings of the event, but I still think that reducing the drop rate of fragments was a poor decision in all regards.

There's always gonna be those players who are gonna get a ton of value out of whatever event is going on at the time. For the guy or girl who got 15 immortal souls last year, that sounds like a ton of free time, little sleep and alot of money. It doesn't sound like a flaw in the event.

I like to think of this event as one big messy line, and on that line is the entire player base ranging from new to old players. The new ones certainly won't benefit as much as the old ones in any regard because the old ones have more resources and more experience in the game. The difference is that last year, the line was rather jagged due to the difference in the players with good builds and alot of Ironite and those without.

This year you guys tried to level this line out by offering one "free" soul and lowering the possible amount of extra souls one could get. All in all, I feel like doing this has actually reduced the amount of souls in general that everyone is going to get,

So instead of

player A getting 3 souls
Player B getting 5 souls
and Player C getting 2 souls

It's more like
Player A gets 2 souls
Player B gets 3 souls
and Player C gets no souls

It may have looked good on paper but for someone who doesn't have enough ironite to get even the 1 free soul in this event, it's really a waste of time and what little ironite they have, when last year they certainly would have gotten at least one soul for the same amount.

[rags-6094]

Well I'm not going anywhere! I appreciate Sparton's effort to give us all some feedback good or bad, whilst I realise many here have bonified arguments, I'm simply grateful for the effort shown in getting back to us.
I find myself wondering when I put down my thoughts on these forums, is anyone gonna read this? are the Devs even looking at what's being written here?
Well I guess we have an answer!
So Thanks Sparton! however it is received the feedback is appreciated!

I was mostly bothered by how closely the light of the immortal event ran back to back with the previous one, which left me very short on ironite and unwilling to put more money into the game to rectify the situation.
So I got 1 x 5* dupe Pharoah Eddie (it's always Pharoah Eddie with me) and 168/500 fragments for my next immortal soul.
It just did not seem to drop fragments in the same rate towards the end of the event as it did at the beginning...

So my question for you Sparton is should we keep the immortal soul fragments for future events? Or will they become redundant and replaced with an upgraded immortal soul frag?

[hold]

This post is a follow up for the Light of the Immortal event that ran last weekend.

Our team sat down and discussed the event, its implementation, and the learnings for the future. This event in particular is a great opportunity to bring the community into our process on event design and its particular goals given that this is similar to an event that ran approximately a year ago.

The goal of the event was to replicate what we offered last year but with a more even distribution of 5 star characters acquired across our players. Everyone should have been able to get 2-4 Immortal souls during the event (team speed/Ironite permitting).

Since the aim was for a more balanced experience where all our players could walk away with at least 1 high value Eddie, my solution was to use event challenges. These challenges provided a very clear goal to get one Immortal Soul, and if you completed them all, you’d have solid progress on getting a second.

Overall, that worked as intended; a far higher percentage of our player base got at least one soul during this year’s event compared to last year’s version.

Last year also had a target of approximately 4 souls. However, due to a variety of unforeseen factors, there was a massive disparity of early to mid game players literally getting nothing, and some late game players receiving a very large amount of Souls (in excess of 10-15 in some cases). While that was a windfall for some, it wasn’t balanced or fair for all.

Ultimately, while we understand that people were expecting the event to be as generous as last year's, we wanted to be open and transparent about how we got to this point. We believe the game will be more enjoyable if we better distribute the ability to collect high-value characters throughout the year rather than piling that into a single event. This is why we have introduced Frontier Coins, Lilith Souls, and Heroic Souls, and are working on more ways for you to get the specific characters you want.

We’re working with an ever evolving experience, and your feedback is important as we move forward.

Right - let's take out all the unnecessary parts and take a look what's left: We are right! Nothing will change! Have less to enjoy more! Grind, sheep! Grind!

By Have less to enjoy more I of course mean have even less less because it's not like the slot machine is very generous in 1st place

With all those ever repeating chores (I refuse to call them events now) the devs are just are just deflecting the fact that new content is months away.

I don't know but I really have a different view on long term motivation - it's certainly not Grind for 1 year that the RNG god might give you the character you want!

The lactose intolerant answer in this thread comes closest to what I thought reading this try to justify the best event ever (and those server errors we try to stick under the carpet - and those odd double dupes - we won't even touch that with a 10" pole!).

[Yup]

Seems to be resources to grind for something keep getting greater and greater while the rewards for grinding keep getting worse and worse. The Immortal Event proves this theory.

I'm not buying the "spin". I see NF as testing the limits of their player base by making events slowly cost more resources and then slowly decreasing the rewards. I see price testing essentially, to find out what they can get away with. Events this month have markedly cost more ironite to achieve and absolutely offered less rewards.

Clansman Eddie is a natural 5 star.. so why is he only worth 10,000 essence at max and not the 12,000 like other 5 Star Eddies??

[scott-5496]

TThanks to Sparton for coming back to the community - appreciated.

But, like others this event was not 'better' in any way. That is fine as we knew the odds and it was, as was said, a poor choice of words - that can happen. But, nothing said about the server issues many faced? Nothing said about why no 50 frag drops this time?

I must fit the average on this event - I got two souls and played quite hard to get them - no way I could do 4 that is for sure. Once i got to 2 frags over for my second I stopped. it was an expensive ironite grind for sure but in the end I was OK with that but the two Vikings (saw others get the same) was surely a minor odds miracle - what are the chances of two of the same dropping as it did for many? Oh well!

What has been said in general backs up the 'recent' change in the direction of the game - to serve or better serve newer players and to be honest that make sense as I am sure as long termer are in the minority when you look at the different levels/bands of player type we fall into.

Playing on my kids accounts where they are really low in PVP I can see lots of teams under level 30 that have a great Eddie - it took them ages to get a decent Eddie as they started a long time ago but only dip in and out and are not serious daily players. Getting Soldier Eddie was the main break though on one account - Visions on another.....so it makes sense to give the new guys access or easier access to at least one potentially decent Eddie so that they can progress to mid-level sooner - that group will still be doing PVE lots like my kids do and they will need to get a decent Ed and a few toons to get to mid-level to get that set of decent 5 stars to complete the game - NF have to help these guys as they are likely to be less Maiden maniacs as they would have discovered the game years or many months ago and not now. It can’t just be people getting their first ticket to see them on the LOTB tour can it!?

Anyway, I get the newer approach - it makes business sense in the short-term and I imaging that once the tour is nearly done or done we will then get the next stage in new content so that they can throw all this at a hopefully bigger player base - all very logical I think. It test us long term player patience I guess but what will another four or five months of grind change - nothing really that we have not been doing for over a year or more anyway and most of us are still here.

I hope we do get the new content soon - the new player uptake over the coming months (one presumes anyway) due to the focus of the tour and also the massive increase in adverts for the game (anyone else notice Facebook adverts going through the roof over the last weeks or so?) may mean that the going forward plan will work for the game and for the money side - we will then get the new content I think in August or so.

Anyway, not too long to wait and really keen to see the new tour list of songs and not too long to wait for that which is great. Still not got my ticket yet as it is a fair trip for me - want to see the list of tunes first!

[MrFreeze]

I see no hope here. Later guys.



https://youtu.be/G7w4ZtL1dkQ

[JJJ428]

I want to thank Sparton for taking the time to try and communicate their thoughts on this I know he is the liaison between them and us and can’t be a fun job.

That being said the more I read into everything being said it just pushes me away. Last year was a mistake people got too many souls and it devalues other souls. Well if this is how they look at things they completely misunderstand the players and this game.

When I got 6 immortal souls it motivated me for months it also made me willing to spend money on deals when I thought appropriate. Getting those souls did not make me think less of legendarys, getting my 20th desert marauder from one does. I know they are trying their best to communicate to us but the more I read into what is being said it just furthers my conclusion I am done with the game because they are not interested in players like me.

YUP I cleaned my inbox then.

[Patrice-1201]

I want to thank Sparton for taking the time to try and communicate their thoughts on this I know he is the liaison between them and us and can’t be a fun job.

That being said the more I read into everything being said it just pushes me away. Last year was a mistake people got too many souls and it devalues other souls. Well if this is how they look at things they completely misunderstand the players and this game.

When I got 6 immortal souls it motivated me for months it also made me willing to spend money on deals when I thought appropriate. Getting those souls did not make me think less of legendarys, getting my 20th desert marauder from one does. I know they are trying their best to communicate to us but the more I read into what is being said it just furthers my conclusion I am done with the game because they are not interested in players like me.

YUP I cleaned my inbox then.

Fully agree, I don't even see how this makes business sense... if you are after the new guys, give them something to cheer about ;-) fix Event Souls, make them get rewarded so that they stay longer, I was motivated before but I am less and less...

[Sparton_LOTB]

So my question for you Sparton is should we keep the immortal soul fragments for future events? Or will they become redundant and replaced with an upgraded immortal soul frag?

Like most other fragments, those exact fragments will not be claimable in the future.

The only fragments that are "refeatured" in future events are ones that are statically available (such as Rare Class Soul Fragments, Heroic Soul Fragments, Legendary Soul Fragments, etc). The intent for fragments made for specific events is that they are converted to Precious Soul Fragments once the event is over (or kept as a sort of trophy list, as myself and some other people do).


I see NF as testing the limits of their player base by making events slowly cost more resources and then slowly decreasing the rewards. I see price testing essentially, to find out what they can get away with. Events this month have markedly cost more ironite to achieve and absolutely offered less rewards.

This is something I largely track, and that should not be true at all. The "cost" of events is nebulous, and is largely tracked on a per-event sort of basis (Arena events have par Sands of War requirements, monthly character fragment events have certain expectations for Sands of Time to get the featured character/get a Lilith soul, etc), but the rewards have only become larger over the last few months. Hell, June itself has like... 9 different kinds of fragments to be earned, some of which are earned and/or used in new ways done in parallel with existing event reward structures, all done in parallel with an addition to the game to be able to earn more of the new Nat 5 fragments every week (Cyborg Eddie Fragments, Warrior Child of the Damned Fragments, etc).

If you have actual numbers to back up that claim, though, I'd be happy to see if I'm missing something.


Clansman Eddie is a natural 5 star.. so why is he only worth 10,000 essence at max and not the 12,000 like other 5 Star Eddies??

Other than a handful of exceptions*, all standard characters' essence values are based on their natural star tier, type (eddie/ally), and class. A W/M/S Nat 5 Eddie, at level 100, is worth 10,000 essence (which Clansman Eddie is). Only Gunner/Assassin Nat 5 Eddies are worth 11,250 Essence at level 100 (for example, Vampire Hunter Eddie). Nothing is worth 12,000 naturally (although some Nat 5 Eddies could get there with skill shards).

Basically, the "par" essence for a Nat 5 is 10k essence; it's worth more if it's a Gunner or Assassin, and worth less if it's an Ally.

*There's a known issue that Warrior Allied Soldiers give 2x the essence they should (which, be warned, will be fixed at some point, I just didn't want to mess with people's expectations of that for the time being), and the four Eddie "The Bird" characters are worth 2x essence relative to other Nat 4 allies.


But, nothing said about the server issues many faced?

In what is a hilarious bit of irony considering the prevailing discussions, the drastically increased activity during the beginning of the event caused server instability, despite what people were saying about how they were approaching the event.

There was a period of about 3 hours between 6 AM and 9 AM PT on Sunday where responses were slow, but the servers were never down, just struggling with load. It's not a simple thing to solve (getting more people to play more stresses the servers even more), but I'll be keeping that in mind for future events to see if there's ways the team can better prepare our server resources/event design to accommodate that.


Nothing said about why no 50 frag drops this time?

That wasn't explicitly addressed, but it largely had to do with aiming for making 2-4 souls achievable. If the drops were 2, 5, and 50, then either the 50's are comically rare, or getting a fragment drop at all would be even rarer than it was. That's why I went with 2, 5, and 10; at least the fragments would be seen in match rewards far more often (while yes, still being fairly rare).

In general, there's a fine balance between making the fragment drop frequencies stable (ie not too rare), while giving out quantities that feel like making reasonable progress, while meeting a goal for how many souls can be earned across the event.

[Patrice-1201]

There was a period of about 3 hours between 6 AM and 9 AM PT on Sunday where responses were slow, but the servers were never down, just struggling with load. It's not a simple thing to solve (getting more people to play more stresses the servers even more), but I'll be keeping that in mind for future events to see if there's ways the team can better prepare our server resources/event design to accommodate that.



That wasn't explicitly addressed, but it largely had to do with aiming for making 2-4 souls achievable. If the drops were 2, 5, and 50, then either the 50's are comically rare, or getting a fragment drop at all would be even rarer than it was. That's why I went with 2, 5, and 10; at least the fragments would be seen in match rewards far more often (while yes, still being fairly rare).


Sparton, i am sorry but this is simply not true, I am based in France so 9 hours ahead of you and I can assure u that from Saturday morning to Monday morning my time the game was completely unplayable.

[Yup]

Well.. there may be more frags... I can't argue that.. but the need to expend ironite to get those frags has seemingly increased. Yeah.. I don't have game data.. so yeah.. I don't have the stats. All I can point to is player satisfaction... which you don't have stats regarding either. It's a fairly poor argument to always cite stats if they aren't public record.

However, thanks for explain the essence. That does make sense. I was checking Aces at level 91 he was roughly 11.2 or something so I just lept to 12k at 100. Class being a factor didn't dawn on me.

[kkkreg5]

The "evidence" we can provide is our experience in game play during this past event.

1. Servers "struggling with load" should never happen during heavy grind events. This is the pattern, a heavy grind event, servers "crash" causing players to lose SOT, costing ironite to refill. (Money to be made here.)
2. Duplicates that are supposedly high odds against receiving, being pulled back to back. RNG is not functioning properly. Something is off.

[Liebhild]

Lot of "blablabla", lot "we know", lot of "we are sorry".

They are tricksters and so the write. If they would care about new players, why then BNW on L10?

That they are frauders is for me 100% clear, since one of them wrote, that there is no defense bonus (funny that he edited his post later and not for typos).

And that they think, that all players here are simply stupid:
"This is something I largely track, and that should not be true at all. The "cost" of events is nebulous, and is largely tracked on a per-event sort of basis (Arena events have par Sands of War requirements, monthly character fragment events have certain expectations for Sands of Time to get the featured character/get a Lilith soul, etc), but the rewards have only become larger over the last few months."

WTF costs were not higher on light of the immortal? Huh, yes, larger rewards? What are you smoking????

That's also a blatant lie, like the the one with the defense bonus.

@Cyborg Eddie Fragments: Useless, as far as I remember nowhere is written, when the next Fragments will come, so when will there be enough to get the soul? 1 year? 2 years?

[Blade]

In general I really appreciate the communication from the devs. And also I see some of the reason for the change - 15 souls in the immortal event last year??? And on the other side some players without even 1 soul?? I think I had 2 souls last year and as it was said 2-4 souls is ok I think as 5* Eddies are just very worthy and must me rare therefore.
The wording ("better than...") was misleading for many players, that's a problem - hopefully won't happen again. Because of that "wording problem", the server problems and the reduced drop rates I would really recommend to have the immortal event in a higher frequency in the future. Also because for players that do not have time to play in these 48 hours of the whole year (like me...), its a real unlucky situation. So please consider a) announce it long before the start to enable better planning and b) let it happen maybe 3 or 4 times/year if you stay with the 2-4 souls/event concept!

[hold]

In general I really appreciate the communication ...

If communication =

- lame excuses for no new content (since August 2017!)
- soon
- soon
- soon
- our events are great!

OK

[T-Man]

Well.. there may be more frags... I can't argue that.. but the need to expend ironite to get those frags has seemingly increased. Yeah.. I don't have game data.. so yeah.. I don't have the stats. All I can point to is player satisfaction... which you don't have stats regarding either. It's a fairly poor argument to always cite stats if they aren't public record.

However, thanks for explain the essence. That does make sense. I was checking Aces at level 91 he was roughly 11.2 or something so I just lept to 12k at 100. Class being a factor didn't dawn on me.

Sacrifice info thread.
http://forum.ironmaidenlegacy.com/showthread.php?5102-Sacrifice-101-(Help-Me-Complete)

[surfingwithdje]

Thanks Sparton for the communication.
I perfectly understand your point of view, it's right that is now a lot of ways to get rare characters (heroic souls, specifics characters we can buy with frontier coins, specific characters fragments, etc...)
Also autoplay is a very great feature: it makes the daily farming faster and makes the fragments events less time consuming!
Also the immortal fragments drop rate was tuned for beeing coherent with the other rare characters fragments drops (lilith, etc...) what i can understand.
I think most of your events are good, making us earn new characters, a lot of essence for sacrifices events, etc... (lots of free souls and skillshards, etc...)

I just wanted to say my point of view of an old player and trooper of you since 2 years:
I love this game and like many other players my goal is to collect all the characters, talismants, relics, in order to stay competitive in pvp. I actually have all the characters minus 2 Eddies (POM and alexander) and the beast.

Why I feel frustration recently ?
Because during the last immortal event I got 10+ souls (including 4 new rare eddies) and during this one I spend more ironite and got 2 dupe pharaoh... what a disapointement, I even not participate to the event the 2nd day...
I had a lot of hope for this event because I felt it was the oportunity to farm like hell to have a chance to get my missing Eddie.
Like jjj said, an event with incredible rewards once a year can't be bad (or devalue anything) it's just great for us and boost our motivation (you can check my account and see how were my purchase before and after the last year immortal event)...

Also I didn't understand the "beast event", another source of frustration... why make a so iconic character available for only 2 days ? I didn't be able to get him from 50+ souls and now he is unavailable.
The problem is that he gives an incredible advantage in pvp and i think it's a very bad thing for the competition to give this advantage for only people who were lucky those 2 days...

Concerning the relics they are not a bad thing but you should limit their purchase...

The actual pvp is not as fun as it was... unlimited relics + the beast we can't get makes me i havn't as much motivation as before...

It was just my personal point of view, I hope the gauntlet will coming soon because we really need to have another source of iron coins to be able to get the relics outside of the arena... (sad to say that but I lose the desire to play in the arena - who was my favorite part of the game before)

Can you tell us when we are be able to have a chance to get the beast ?

Thanks

dje-8079

[hold]

... got 2 dupe pharaoh... what a disapointement, ...

Another double dupe trouble? But nothing wrong here I guess ...

- double Visions
- double Vikings
- double Aces High
...

[Mizrael]

Another double dupe trouble? But nothing wrong here I guess ...

- double Visions
- double Vikings
- double Aces High
...

Guess i was lucky then....no double for me...i’ve got AH and Visions (both dupes ofc.) :D

[Ip4]

how is possible that i found 5xsamurai and 3x Vision and never found VHE :(

[raka71]

how lucky am I, from 15 Eddies I actually got the samurai I needed ( except the iron eddie ) ... the only eddie I got from an event

[blade685]

how is possible that i found 5xsamurai and 3x Vision and never found VHE :(

never see him too :)

[kkkreg5]

... But there is NOTHING WRONG with RNG... :rolleyes:

[GrimDusk]

I got one immortal soul, and it opened up to... Cyborg Eddie! Except he was my first 5-star, fully sharded Eddie, so that made absolutely no difference. It's alright though, he's good sacrifice fodder I suppose. Honestly, this event itself didn't piss me off, but that's not to say I'm happy with the state of the game currently. I do like the changes in the May 26th update though, so I hope it's an indication of the future.