No more silent nerfs

Its long past time Small Giant be fully forthcoming about changes they make, especially when something is nerfed.

Be sure to post your agreement below to let the devs know how irritating that is. If we get enough comments, I’ll tag a staff member.

6 Likes

A lot of things can be rebalanced in games without expressly stating what they are, and not be the end of a game. That said, the things that do greatly influence the outcome should be clarified…

Building a better relationship with the community would only encourage more spending from many that are on the fence. The fact they’re trying a third method of alliance war matchmaking shows they are willing to listen to feedback… But why they feel it best to have such a one sided conversation I don’t understand.

4 Likes

Here is the problem: Yes, they have listened to feedback on SOME things but while they’re willing to spike the ball on those things for all to see, they will nerf other things without any comment and hope we won’t notice (Elemental chest loot, alliance search, alliance refresh, etc). Btw, this is their third attempt at better matchmaking in the wars but this is only the first time that they did so with an announcement instead of doing it quietly.

Edit: And while we’re on the topic of transparency: Give us the odds hero pulls and the drop rates of items! They’re asking me to spend my money blindly and I refuse to do it anymore.

7 Likes

What nerfs specifically have they done (or do you think they have done) that you want listed on a change log?

The last log was rather full, no? :slight_smile:

1 Like

We have no information about game. You need to read forum, collect statistics to find out simplest things. And this is 3-in-a-row game.


Edited by Rook. No naming and shaming please. Carry on. :wink:

1 Like

Pretty hard to tell, if the nerf isn’t on the changelog, and yet you think you perceive it in effect during your own personal gameplay, now is it? The question is not as easy to answer as you make it seem.

Of course we’re talking nerfs on items/rewards that are largely determined by random. So individual anecdotal experience is just that: one sample where one would need many, many more to make any (statistical) sense. Because we don’t know the odds. So to answer your question: I, personally, can’t specify such a nerf. One would need server data, or the game’s code to do so.

On one hand we don’t know the odds that govern the game. On the other hand we do know that undocumented changes are a given, intended or not, they do happen in online games.

So do we ask for transparency, publication of the (changing?) odds? I personally think that’d be a Good Thing ™ for a game like this, where random is such a strong pillar to the game. Or do we trust in the developer not to make any ninja changes that would blow up in their face should they ever come out? There definitely is a point in that as well, but it would be naïve to forget this game is not just a game, but also a business.

Which brings us to the other side of the coin: this game is a success, in number of players, player activity, financials. It really is. What that tells us is that SG must be doing not just something but quite a lot of things quite well indeed. The weird thing about that is that it’s both a confirmation of trust to the players (‘dem devs knows dem stuffs’), and a confirmation of mistrust to the players (‘dem makes lotsa monies from us’).

Meanwhile, bad luck sucks and if we can blame it on anything else than Lady Luck, then that in itself is a sort of comfort. Because it affirms that we should have been lucky someway somehow, and it turns our bad luck into an injustice, into something we did not deserve. Which doesn’t hurt one bit less but at least gives us a focal point for our outrage.

2 Likes

They have one by one started to nerf everything and try to do it slowly so people don’t notice. Why would they tell us those nerfs when they avoid telling overall odds? Before I thought they aren’t telling odds in a random loot generator etc. because those are so low and they need gamblers to give them money…
But now it start to seen like it’s not random at all. They intentionally control them closely and now they have probably enough veterans who always pay to them that they don’t actual need a give a darn of players what came after - unless they just get hooked to spending money trap what’s the idea.

I always buy stuff in game if the makers of the game and the game itself deserves it. But never when it forces it. Too bad that those who get hooked spend their lifesavings so they’re more valuable to the business.

I do not want to know odds or suchlike as it is the nature of the game to be random as that is what governs availability of heroes and the materials to ascend them. No matter what you spend, you still are not assured of quality only quantity.

That is why the raiding nerf is so infuriating. The devs have taken a non-random event and layered in an unknown formula that does affect tiers of players differently. The fairness RNG dictates is gone.

1 Like

There’s nothing peculiar about “nerfing things slowly”. Any game developer worth his/her salt will seek to make modest balance adjustments rather than big ones. Unless it’s unavoidable. In particular when it comes to nerfs. Big nerfs make for big outcries.

1 Like

:sweat_smile: Where is my ham?

A lot of posts here are stressing that veteran players are not affected, and new players are worst affected.

As a medium player (since October, every day ) my raid returns have about halved on average, will i get over it - yes , will I adapt - yes , I am upgrading farms earlier than I had planned.

Did I ever cup drop, yes I did lots , not recently ,and mainly to fill the chest until I realized that was wasted effort. What I did do, lots , was re-roll, up to 10 times until I found a nice fat target. ( that historically is what raiding was - outside of a game context). There is already a mechanic to limit damage to raided players so I don’t have any truck with that being an issue.

Personally I am disappointed as I was about ready to being competitive , having acquired 4 5* in the last couple of weeks (f2p) and had only one before. With vastly reduced ham income, levelling them will take a lot longer, and levelling troops is waaaay on the back burner now.

Maybe I can think about being competitive again in a couple of months, but I , and many other players just got sentenced to much more farming , before we can compete with the top players ( who pretty much agree here they are not really affected).

That’s 2 or 3 months of losing bored players for SG. Why on earth cant they concentrate on Season 2 to extend the game in content , rather than develop solutions that drag the existing content out for a longer period so that not ‘too many players are end game’. ( side question - how many players\alliances can handle 14* titans?)

In conclusion I would suggest firstly that SG start to release asap news about what the content of S2 is , if they don’t know then it must be an awful long way away.

Secondly the whole argument about cup dropping being an issue just seems fake news to me - I read pretty much every single post on here in the last 6 months, sure there is a few moans about bad boy cup droppers, but look how many posts and posters raging about this unnecessary change

2 Likes

I completely agree that SG needs to be more transparent on many things and not just post vague statements about changes they make to aspects of the game.

2 Likes

The devs don’t make these changes based merely on forum feedback. They make these changes based on server data over the whole player pool. The forum feedback points them to areas where things may hurt, but if the proof is in the pudding, then the server data is the pudding.

We’re just the vocal minority at work from our own individual perspectives.

My perspective (3.469 team strength, 2k-ish cups): If I look at how much time (and ham) I spent looking for a suitable target before and after the nerf, I’m definitely seeing a huge improvement. I spend a lot less time (and ham) filling my 40 heroes chests now, and it’s very enjoyable. I’m also seeing the ham loot from raids improve somewhat. Between that and less searching for targets I am actually making ham from raiding again, a lot less than I used to but I’m in the plus. TL;DR my raiding is far more enjoyable and I’m still making some ham from it. Call me a nutter but this change is beginning to grow on me!

1 Like

I was playing a year ago; they nerfed LiXiu and BoldTusk and Athena (several times!) and each nerf was clearly listed on the change-log.

Some things are plain as day and always have been.

Other things, such as actual damage calculation, have never been made public, and probably never will be.

I think they are as transparent as they can be without damaging the game. (This is my opinion as a fellow player.) You are free to disagree with me. :wink:

P.S. I still want to know that damage calculation! :grin:

1 Like

Yup: some things can be, and ought to be, be transparent. Others should not be.

Hero nerfs and buffs come into the former category, though SG are perhaps more transparent than they need to be in that respect, revealing the actual numbers. It might be better not to reveal actual hero stats, just to characterise them as being ‘strong’, ‘very strong’ or ‘massively strong’, for example. But whatever - this seems okay.

Revealing the chance of summoning (and training) heroes would be problematic, I think - as soon as they revealed that the chance of pulling a particular hero was 10%, piles of players who pulled less than 1 in 10 times and did not understand randomness would start moaning and bleating incessantly. Far better that be left opaque, I think, though I can imagine the argument for transparency.

When it comes to raid loot rewards and alliance war matching, it’s nearly essential that the mechanics not be explained. Making the workings transparent just provides another opportunity to game the system, which players have already demonstrated that they’re very willing to do.

2 Likes

4 posts were split to a new topic: Damage Calculation

As an attorney, I’d urge SG to be forthcoming in their transparency when it comes to risk rewards as it directly affects people’s decision to spend money. Make no mistake, this loot boxes are gambling, and it brings the full force of gambling laws of all the world’s international jurisdictions and the transparency laws they entail. Making silent changes to the risk/reward formula is playing with with class action lawsuit fire. GDPR is just the smallest tip of the liability iceberg.

3 Likes