April 19th 2017 Update Discussion

[90mphyorker]

My strike talisman are barely triggering, and while my Nomad is weaker than most, when I put him in defense and battle myself, I'm not seeing a huge difference. In fact, my prisoner, in-sharded is a bit better.

So, my question, the grief about the strike talisman, it's just because of the bug, or overall?

Eskiggalu-8063

Until the bug is sorted out I find it hard to comment. When I've gone first I've not had any issues yet. My Grim Reaper Eddie usually kills them in one go, especially Nomads but if not the rest of my team usually can.

The bug needs fixing. Just faced a team with a Nomad with Strike Talismans, they went first and I was destroyed. Was hit by the Nomad 5 times without actually attacking to cause a revenge. Frustrating, but hey, it's Legacy. Wouldn't be Legacy without bugs to frustrate you. Hopefully that bug is fixed and we find the true damage of these Strike Talismans.

EDIT. Just came up against a team with Strike Talisman where I went first and my GRE didn't kill it one hit (Shell Talisman) and my team couldn't finish it off. I was revenged 4 times.

[Ignatius92]

Has anyone else noticed in PvP toons making extra attacks when they arent supposed to? Got attacked 3 times by an AGS on the same turn without an extra turn procing, and just got attacked twice by an AoF without an extra turn procing.

YEP! happened to me and no, there was not the counter word when it happened. In fact, it appeared when it happened that there were multiple toons flying at me at once. Not to mention the AOF passive triggering long after he is dead.

[DaveMurray]

YEP! happened to me and no, there was not the counter word when it happened. In fact, it appeared when it happened that there were multiple toons flying at me at once. Not to mention the AOF passive triggering long after he is dead.

This happened to me more than 20 times, it almost happens once per day.
It's always GRE, Troll and AoF that causes that bug, i once got attacked 9 times in a row from Troll and it was before the new strike talis.

[Liebhild]

Next week, when lots of players will have 2 sets of strike (and the strike-bugs aren't fixed till then), it will be more lottery then ever.

[HomemLivre]

I don't know if any of you guys already reported this but I noticed a thing that I dont understand:
- Freeze damage.

In the description of the freeze says that the target take 5% max health at the end of the turn, just like the magic burn from ABB for exemple. Why the dif between 400 - 800 damage (freeze) and 1500 - 2000 damage (magic burn) if both are magic damage and supposed to do 5% max health damage?

Does anyone noticed that to?

[Nine]

Can we expect a fix for the most critical PvP bugs (Immunity passive, Prisoner blocking buffs from Talismans, and so on) and issues (Strike Talismans) this week?


I can't be the only one who finds it rather worrisome how long it takes until certain problems are fixed. While this was also the case before the arena arrived the consequences became much more drastic after the introduction of competition between players. Everything that wasn't game breaking was basically annoying before then but could be worked around - if you weren't a player in progress and one your essential toons suddenly broke. But now the situation is much more... lets call it "fragile" for lack of a better word. A character, power or even buff that no longer works and you have to restructure your whole team - if you can't or don't want to do that, well that's it, take a break from PvP (at least).

I don't want to talk about deliberate changes here. I am not one of those always against "nerfs". If it is easier to achieve balance by adjusting one character than to buff 20-100 others and risking new complications then it should be done. But unintentional changes and clear cut bugs (some of which are even known at the point the update went out) should be fixed immediately. And it has now been a week - again. In a pure PvE scenario that would be one thing, but with a competition that involes some kind of investment, especially if money is involved but honestly even time would be enough, that hurts the game a lot.

There are a lot of points I would want to take up but I am afraid the structure of my post would become rather confusing, so I'll just add one major point: The schedule of Updates and the Arena circle.

The way it is now, midweek updates (just by impression I'd say towards the end of week) and the arena ending on Saturday is something that should be reconsidered and somehow be changed. No update I can think of was fixed in the week it was rolled out. With the given arena circle that means two complete weeks of PvP are completely messed up. It of course especially hurts those people who were investing from Sunday till Wednesday or whenever the update accured but in some way everybody is affected. Suddenly your buffs no longer work, your characters become useless and what you did in a week up to that point is for nothing. One basic point is: Don't change the rules of game while people are playing. If a team is suddenly broken at the beginning of an arena circle that would be a clear message: Don't bother, next week it will be fixed. Strike Talismans aren't too bad in theory because everybody can abuse them (in practice it might be different but I don't want to go into that), they weren't an issue last week and least had no impact there.

I have to add that this is not a one point in time issue. And even disregarding all the bugs coming with each update: Characters shouldn't be touched while a week of PvP is ongoing (disregarding bug fixes. Altough those never seem to come alone - unfortunately). This game has so many characters, powers, abilities, it is so diverse that there will basically always some kind of character tuning. The above discribed propblem will acure every few weeks. The bugs just make it way it worse.

I am aware of the problems, or let's call it framework: The update has to go out midweek because you don't work on the weekends (which is not something I am criticising, I wouldn't want to either), PvP deadline on the weekend makes sense (more players have time to play, more players join the race, more ironite spent, more purchases. Again, nothing I want to crticise, it mot likely is fairer then any timemidweek). But those two don't go well together. I am not sure if an Arena ending Sunday (or even keeping Saturday) and updates at the beginning only on Mondays would change things for the better. Even if critical bugs being fixed within the week still means most of an arena circle has passed. So it's not clear what the solution would look like. One thought, but I have a slight feeling it will not be practical at all: make changes only apply to PvE when an update rolls out under the week and make them apply to PvP after the reset. Even if that results in PvE becoming some kind of beta test it surely would be better than the current state...


Ending with an appeal that is not even in context of everything of the above: Please uncouple fixes from updates. Even if it is for technical or whatever reasons that you can't apply quick Hotfixes, just please fix things first before adding new stuff that makes everything even more complicated and tends to cause new problems.

[blade685]

Can we expect a fix for the most critical PvP bugs (Immunity passive, Prisoner blocking buffs from Talismans, and so on) and issues (Strike Talismans) this week?


I can't be the only one who finds it rather worrisome how long it takes until certain problems are fixed. While this was also the case before the arena arrived the consequences became much more drastic after the introduction of competition between players. Everything that wasn't game breaking was basically annoying before then but could be worked around - if you weren't a player in progress and one your essential toons suddenly broke. But now the situation is much more... lets call it "fragile" for lack of a better word. A character, power or even buff that no longer works and you have to restructure your whole team - if you can't or don't want to do that, well that's it, take a break from PvP (at least).

I don't want to talk about deliberate changes here. I am not one of those always against "nerfs". If it is easier to achieve balance by adjusting one character than to buff 20-100 others and risking new complications then it should be done. But unintentional changes and clear cut bugs (some of which are even known at the point the update went out) should be fixed immediately. And it has now been a week - again. In a pure PvE scenario that would be one thing, but with a competition that involes some kind of investment, especially if money is involved but honestly even time would be enough, that hurts the game a lot.

There are a lot of points I would want to take up but I am afraid the structure of my post would become rather confusing, so I'll just add one major point: The schedule of Updates and the Arena circle.

The way it is now, midweek updates (just by impression I'd say towards the end of week) and the arena ending on Saturday is something that should be reconsidered and somehow be changed. No update I can think of was fixed in the week it was rolled out. With the given arena circle that means two complete weeks of PvP are completely messed up. It of course especially hurts those people who were investing from Sunday till Wednesday or whenever the update accured but in some way everybody is affected. Suddenly your buffs no longer work, your characters become useless and what you did in a week up to that point is for nothing. One basic point is: Don't change the rules of game while people are playing. If a team is suddenly broken at the beginning of an arena circle that would be a clear message: Don't bother, next week it will be fixed. Strike Talismans aren't too bad in theory because everybody can abuse them (in practice it might be different but I don't want to go into that), they weren't an issue last week and least had no impact there.

I have to add that this is not a one point in time issue. And even disregarding all the bugs coming with each update: Characters shouldn't be touched while a week of PvP is ongoing (disregarding bug fixes. Altough those never seem to come alone - unfortunately). This game has so many characters, powers, abilities, it is so diverse that there will basically always some kind of character tuning. The above discribed propblem will acure every few weeks. The bugs just make it way it worse.

I am aware of the problems, or let's call it framework: The update has to go out midweek because you don't work on the weekends (which is not something I am criticising, I wouldn't want to either), PvP deadline on the weekend makes sense (more players have time to play, more players join the race, more ironite spent, more purchases. Again, nothing I want to crticise, it mot likely is fairer then any timemidweek). But those two don't go well together. I am not sure if an Arena ending Sunday (or even keeping Saturday) and updates at the beginning only on Mondays would change things for the better. Even if critical bugs being fixed within the week still means most of an arena circle has passed. So it's not clear what the solution would look like. One thought, but I have a slight feeling it will not be practical at all: make changes only apply to PvE when an update rolls out under the week and make them apply to PvP after the reset. Even if that results in PvE becoming some kind of beta test it surely would be better than the current state...


Ending with an appeal that is not even in context of everything of the above: Please uncouple fixes from updates. Even if it is for technical or whatever reasons that you can't apply quick Hotfixes, just please fix things first before adding new stuff that makes everything even more complicated and tends to cause new problems.

+1000 just play vs ass golden son with my W troll and infinite shot of him again, i can't have any reflect Shield with my team now and can lose at first round

[Sparton_LOTB]

Can we expect a fix for the most critical PvP bugs (Immunity passive, Prisoner blocking buffs from Talismans, and so on) and issues (Strike Talismans) this week?

It's not coming out today or tomorrow, no. We do have fixes for some of the critical issues, but not all of them (and why we aren't releasing more small updates within a month is touched upon below).

I am aware of the problems, or let's call it framework: The update has to go out midweek because you don't work on the weekends (which is not something I am criticising, I wouldn't want to either), PvP deadline on the weekend makes sense (more players have time to play, more players join the race, more ironite spent, more purchases. Again, nothing I want to crticise, it mot likely is fairer then any timemidweek). But those two don't go well together. I am not sure if an Arena ending Sunday (or even keeping Saturday) and updates at the beginning only on Mondays would change things for the better.

I don't think it really would; even if we could ensure the timing of that, you're still looking at roughly 24 hours of weirdness, which causes problems for 1-3 days afterwards for things like matchmaking/etc anyways. Not to mention you're advocating things like "if something as bad as skill shards not working on auto battle/reflect triggering counter attacks is fixed on Monday and the build isn't approved until Tuesday or Wednesday, don't release that fix for another 5-6 days", which is not something I think most of the team (or I imagine most of our players) would be happy with.

One thought, but I have a slight feeling it will not be practical at all: make changes only apply to PvE when an update rolls out under the week and make them apply to PvP after the reset. Even if that results in PvE becoming some kind of beta test it surely would be better than the current state...

If we could do that, we totally would, but that effectively means we'd need to be able to test 2 different versions of the game to make sure it functions in parallel. Game projects are composed of tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of lines of code, spread across hundreds of files, with a single ability often using multiple parts of different code files to function. Suddenly increasing the complexity for our team is going to make updates come out much, much slower (in addition to whatever time it would take to be able to run two different versions of code from a single update, which I have never seen a game actually do; this is way more complex than what traditional MMOs would do to alter the values of some abilities for different game modes).

Ending with an appeal that is not even in context of everything of the above: Please uncouple fixes from updates. Even if it is for technical or whatever reasons that you can't apply quick Hotfixes, just please fix things first before adding new stuff that makes everything even more complicated and tends to cause new problems.

Unfortunately, that is also not practical. When we're approaching an update's "signoff" (ie doing checks and tests to ensure basic functionality is not broken, like "can you do the tutorial", or "does the Book of Souls work", and hundreds of other specific tests), we need to be very careful about all changes that go into an update, and most of the team can no longer work on bugs that aren't major issues to ensure new issues aren't introduced. If we assume that the technical checks and signoffs for a build takes 10% of our team's manhours for a month, that means that if we were releasing 2 updates a month normally (20% of our time is locking a build down and doing sign off), we'd instead be looking at 3-5 updates (30-50% of the time spend on signoffs). That has an obvious negative impact of taking a substantial amount of time away from creating new features, creating new content... and fixing bugs.

And don't get me wrong, when major issues arise, we definitely do look at what the viability is of getting a quick update out with targeted fix(es), and we have done it in the past. But even if it's obvious what a bug is, it's not always obvious how to do the fix in code, or to ensure a fix is in which doesn't cause other knock-on issues.

[Kutte]

short question: do we get some compensation for having an unplayable game since atleast two weeks? And another week, maybe longer?

[blade685]

short question: do we get some compensation for having an unplayable game since atleast two weeks? And another week, maybe longer?

i think not like before