Wed Apr 30, 2014 6:11 pm
To answer the devs about "people staying". I left the game for over a month, and just played 3 matches right now that were OK.
But what made me leave was the utter frustration provided by the game. Let me explain:
- The stats are/were wrong. They seem to still be wrong. Unless you know the game by heart, and make some rough additional calculations, there will always be impossible to predict results. As an example, I played a VIP game, where my Lion attacked the VIP, almost killing it, then I had a spark that was in melee but wouldn't have been able to finish the VIP off. Then the enemy spawned a skeleton, which triggered the + strength when resist fear which game me enough damage to kill the VIP, yet it still wasn't shown on the health bar. I made a gamble, it paid off. But it shouldn't happen. Same for chance to hit, etc... It can be extremely frustrating to think you could kill something, but actually had way chances of actually killing than displayed.
In short: Player feedback is bad. You go without knowing for sure.
- What made me leave was two different battles, where I had 95% chance to hit on the last guy and... it failed, causing a riposte. Often, you get RNG that spits in your face despite your best efforts. While it can be OK in a tabletop game with lots of figures, the least units on the battlefield, the more frustrating it is when you miss that critical attack that should have connected because you did everything right, encircling the opponent, etc...
Maybe "smart" play should be rewarded more, with exponential bonuses the more you encircle an opponent, (+5% with 2 guys, +20 with 3, +50 with 4, etc...) to reduce RNG... The game provides this frustrating aspect of "when you take a chance, it works, but if you consider 1% chance of ricochet to be negligible you'll be bitten in the arse and kill your own legendary".
Basically, my biggest gripe with the game is how tactics count, but in the end they won't win you the game.
- Then of course there is the grind. That's a human problem: Most newbies don't understand that higher level =/= always better. They think it's sort of a pay to win. While it's true a high level mage is often better than a low level one, it also costs more... That isn't really explained. And when they meet their first legendary, they are pants down, butt cheeks pressed as hard as they can, but still get it hard and generally quit because that's pretty unbeatable for newbies. Many left due to Beta release having legendaries in the lowest tiers.
One of the things that could be done to promote the game would be to have "friend" battles be "unlimited". The idea is that they could build the company they want without restrictions to test things out in friendly battles, like on a table top where friends give your their models for a bit. Maybe you could pay a fee in Silver to play those battles so people wouldn't only play those instead of real battles.
I kinda like the game, its aesthetics and how it's been made, the gameplay is great too... But the grind is what makes a couple of my friends frown upon it.
But what made me leave was the utter frustration provided by the game. Let me explain:
- The stats are/were wrong. They seem to still be wrong. Unless you know the game by heart, and make some rough additional calculations, there will always be impossible to predict results. As an example, I played a VIP game, where my Lion attacked the VIP, almost killing it, then I had a spark that was in melee but wouldn't have been able to finish the VIP off. Then the enemy spawned a skeleton, which triggered the + strength when resist fear which game me enough damage to kill the VIP, yet it still wasn't shown on the health bar. I made a gamble, it paid off. But it shouldn't happen. Same for chance to hit, etc... It can be extremely frustrating to think you could kill something, but actually had way chances of actually killing than displayed.
In short: Player feedback is bad. You go without knowing for sure.
- What made me leave was two different battles, where I had 95% chance to hit on the last guy and... it failed, causing a riposte. Often, you get RNG that spits in your face despite your best efforts. While it can be OK in a tabletop game with lots of figures, the least units on the battlefield, the more frustrating it is when you miss that critical attack that should have connected because you did everything right, encircling the opponent, etc...
Maybe "smart" play should be rewarded more, with exponential bonuses the more you encircle an opponent, (+5% with 2 guys, +20 with 3, +50 with 4, etc...) to reduce RNG... The game provides this frustrating aspect of "when you take a chance, it works, but if you consider 1% chance of ricochet to be negligible you'll be bitten in the arse and kill your own legendary".
Basically, my biggest gripe with the game is how tactics count, but in the end they won't win you the game.
- Then of course there is the grind. That's a human problem: Most newbies don't understand that higher level =/= always better. They think it's sort of a pay to win. While it's true a high level mage is often better than a low level one, it also costs more... That isn't really explained. And when they meet their first legendary, they are pants down, butt cheeks pressed as hard as they can, but still get it hard and generally quit because that's pretty unbeatable for newbies. Many left due to Beta release having legendaries in the lowest tiers.
One of the things that could be done to promote the game would be to have "friend" battles be "unlimited". The idea is that they could build the company they want without restrictions to test things out in friendly battles, like on a table top where friends give your their models for a bit. Maybe you could pay a fee in Silver to play those battles so people wouldn't only play those instead of real battles.
I kinda like the game, its aesthetics and how it's been made, the gameplay is great too... But the grind is what makes a couple of my friends frown upon it.
