April 2017 Tuning Discussion - PRELIMINARY

[mjmxiii]

Wow... I'm really hoping that reading through all of the great posts in this thread gives you folks at NF some food for thought on the upcoming NerF and the direction of future character balancing as well. Your player base is crying out to you in the most professional manner possible to put an end to the disappointing choices you have been making to basically ruin much loved and hated characters like the Prisoner.

I propose that instead of NerFing all these great characters, you create true counters for them. Perhaps more characters that wear Passive Aggression as it is or more characters that can disable it with some new passive for instance. Having a few more wear this passive would also help eliminate the need to ruin the Siege passive.

We all know there are better ways to resolve these issues. It's obvious that you should know this as well. The changes you have decided to make and possibly go through with will continue to negatively affect the playability of your game if you don't take some time to listen to what all these good people are trying to tell you.

We can all agree that adapting and overcoming is one of the key skills we all have to learn in all that we do at some point. Being lucky is only half the battle and should always go hand in hand with being good too. Being fooled on the other hand, is something that has surely happened to most of us, but being fooled repeatedly is something that will not continue to be acceptable. You will ruin the game if you continue to devalue our initial investments.

The main point here is that no one really wants to see you taking the easy way out, even if you feel that changing some coding and having to deal with some complaints was a hard choice to make... it should however, raise some serious red flags on the development and programming sides when your most dedicated players, that you are so fortunate to have supporting this game, voice their opinions in such a manner.

I really do think you guys should reevaluate some of your decisions and take some time to reflect on what the loyal people who have supported this project have to say before you go live with an update that has such a drastic change.

My hat's off to the community, I really do hope they're listening!

[Sparton_LOTB]

I haven't been replying to specific comments in this thread for a bit, but I'd like to chime in on the reactions to the character tuning in broad strokes:

• Reception to changes to the Prisoner is fairly divisive (unsurprisingly), but it does appear that the general sentiment is that the proposed change is going too far. We are reviewing alternatives posted here and may change the adjustment when the tuning update goes live. That said, no character in PVP should feel like they're almost always someone you should use for every team (PVP attack or PVP defense), and no character should only have itself as a consistent counter, and that is clearly where he is right now.
• We do not want to go about situationally banning characters from certain game modes. This obviously comes with the drawback that characters occasionally necessitate changes to not be overpowered in particular game modes, but that is the direction we are taking. That said, we aren't going to round the edges off every popular character until usage rates are flat... we merely don't want certain characters to have substantially more usage than others, or for certain high-rarity characters to basically have no usage.
• We are not currently considering allowing the removal of skill shards from characters. Our stance continues to be that these are permanent, long term investments to specific characters, especially due to the nature of how they are earned, their increased availability as the game matures, and how they are assigned into skills. As the game evolves, some characters will become more or less valuable for a variety of factors, and direct character tuning is only one of them.
• We are reviewing the work it would take to change logic for PVP point calculations relative to other initiatives we have. That said, points gained when you win and lose are the values they are after accounting for sand recharge time, expected attack win percentage, expected defense win percentage, etc, so reducing losses in certain situations means we'd need to also make changes to how many points you win, or what the requirements are for divisions (otherwise, everyone would blow well past 2100 and then the VP requirements for divisions below Warlord will become largely meaningless). We do not expect that everyone will get rewards for the top divisions, and that many less-competitive players will be fighting just for daily challenges/iron coins, which continues to hold true.
• We are still looking at making adjustments to PVP matchmaking. That said, activity from the player base shows that a greater percentage of players are playing PVP, and more are competing for the higher divisions. Recent changes to matchmaking appear to have removed the most extreme cases where players were attacked very few times and able to rank highly, and we believe we can make further adjustments to further reduce discrepancies that are still reported.

[Jofer16]

Cool lots of good news! The fact you're re-considering Prisoner based on feedback is an encouraging sign, even if it's inevitable.

[Patrice-1201]

I haven't been replying to specific comments in this thread for a bit, but I'd like to chime in on the reactions to the character tuning in broad strokes:

• Reception to changes to the Prisoner is fairly divisive (unsurprisingly), but it does appear that the general sentiment is that the proposed change is going too far. We are reviewing alternatives posted here and may change the adjustment when the tuning update goes live. That said, no character in PVP should feel like they're almost always someone you should use for every team (PVP attack or PVP defense), and no character should only have itself as a consistent counter, and that is clearly where he is right now.
• We do not want to go about situationally banning characters from certain game modes. This obviously comes with the drawback that characters occasionally necessitate changes to not be overpowered in particular game modes, but that is the direction we are taking. That said, we aren't going to round the edges off every popular character until usage rates are flat... we merely don't want certain characters to have substantially more usage than others, or for certain high-rarity characters to basically have no usage.
• We are not currently considering allowing the removal of skill shards from characters. Our stance continues to be that these are permanent, long term investments to specific characters, especially due to the nature of how they are earned, their increased availability as the game matures, and how they are assigned into skills. As the game evolves, some characters will become more or less valuable for a variety of factors, and direct character tuning is only one of them.
• We are reviewing the work it would take to change logic for PVP point calculations relative to other initiatives we have. That said, points gained when you win and lose are the values they are after accounting for sand recharge time, expected attack win percentage, expected defense win percentage, etc, so reducing losses in certain situations means we'd need to also make changes to how many points you win, or what the requirements are for divisions (otherwise, everyone would blow well past 2100 and then the VP requirements for divisions below Warlord will become largely meaningless). We do not expect that everyone will get rewards for the top divisions, and that many less-competitive players will be fighting just for daily challenges/iron coins, which continues to hold true.
• We are still looking at making adjustments to PVP matchmaking. That said, activity from the player base shows that a greater percentage of players are playing PVP, and more are competing for the higher divisions. Recent changes to matchmaking appear to have removed the most extreme cases where players were attacked very few times and able to rank highly, and we believe we can make further adjustments to further reduce discrepancies that are still reported.

Thanks Sparton, it feels good to be heard... and even better to be considered 👍🏻

[Tritium]

Thank you Sparton for your thoughtful response! I'm sure the majority of us here on the forums are glad that you are listening to us and forming your decisions based on our feedback.

While I have no doubt that some players will continue to find fault in the actions of the devs, it's quite easy to see how communication has greatly increased in the past few months. This is a welcome adjustment!

[Sag7272]

I can only respect your well though answer Sparton, it's not easy to be in your position right now I can imagine...
Thank you for your reconsideration on some parts of those nerfs, something obviously need to be done we all know & accept it at this point, it's a matter of amplitude I think.. Good to see you are listening & consider "adjustments"

[gmac]

Hi Sparton,

1 - Could you elaborate further on possible changes to the prisoner?

2 - Most of us are against Angel of Fear second nerf as well, please consider that too. (And please bring back Angel of Strife, he is gone)

3 - Skill Shards - I still think removable is the best option, but if not would you let us buy more then one a week with Iron Coins? Maybe less trooper points too?

4 -Any news on the self attack fix?

Yes, great that you guys interact with us, can't praise that enough. Hope you guys nail this prisoner adjustment and make everybody ok with it.

Cheers
Gmac

[Silentknight]

Wow! Miss a day,miss alot!!! Very Nice...'nuf said!!!

[Sag7272]

Wow! Miss a day,miss alot!!! Very Nice...'nuf said!!!

You arrived in time for the best part

[Silentknight]

You arrived in time for the best part

Waiting impatiently...