The Fundamental Issue with Power Creep

Well said my friend. Couldn’t agree more!!

It’s the top 10%. I was working on a gaming app and researched these things

Isnt this a general problem with this type of commercial game?
Any good examples to refer to where they managed to develop the game AND make a healthy profit without offending players?
And the decline accelerates when bought up by a major company looking to max their profit asap.
If they were in for the long haul, they could slow the process so we gradually get slightly more powerful heroes while keeping the game basically intact.
What offends me most is when they release vastly OP heroes and then proposes a mass nerf.
If they are uninterested we need to stop spending.
I have enough good heroes that will last me a year of levelling.
Steady 2800+ player
I dont need anything from the store.
I will just be patient.

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So clearly you figured out long ago what many of us also realized at or before the same time, and many more are now finally, begrudgingly admitting:

When they say “Balance Update”, they want us to think that they mean “Game Balance Update” when in reality they mean “Bank Balance Update”.

I’ve been saying it this way — that it is always about bank balance, NOT game balance — ever since the Q&A you refer to. Many tell me I’m being an unfounded conspiracy theorist to make that claim. As time marches onward, I hate the fact that I was right all along; oh how I wish it were otherwise. But here we are.

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… and I think this is the biggest issue. The game has developed so fast over the last year, that I had periods where it simply left me breathless. When I started to play I had to wait for heroes I wanted to pull for (I only say Finley :heart_eyes:…) From design to go-live it is mostly a month now. How can this not be rushed? One might think a live game isn’t a testing platform but currently it appears this is what’s happening.
I do understand the try to keep the game attractive, I do understand there need to be heroes everybody is drooling about. I understand it’s a business on one side and a game for us. But I don’t understand the rush these heroes are pushed out.
Then we talk about powercreep, nerfs and at the same time want to nerf heroes like Milena, Rhys who helped to make a comeback from the powercreep. hmm… no, I don’t understand it. Isn’t this exactly what is intended with the big balance update? To ensure comebacks are possible?

Again - I perfectly understand something needs to be done to the current powercreep.
But then stop rushing heroes out, test longer to get the required numbers and statistics, and leave support heroes as they are.

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How SG can distinquise from which wallet they receive money? But let’s say they can what about the players who are not whales but they like spending about 50 bucks per month, what is there’s impact in the game? Thing is that the game is well designed for people to spent money cause it’s addictive. But they can choose not to.

I agree in the rest. Probably if this game didn’t have alliances and wars and chat probably people wouldn’t attached into that so much. So mayby the problem is not (only) the whales or SG directly but also the fact that people get too attached to this game.

Making post like this E$P Community “Walk-out” Protest does really changes anything? And for who? It’s just a game.

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It’s good that people who have gained respect throughout the game and also spent a lot of money for it can bring up the issues with it in a rational manner.

And fortunately they are much less attacked for it. Because usually there are a lot of replies “You don’t like it, quit”, “It’s your fault for giving money to the game”. And while these are valid points to a degree, they tend to shut down the player and put all the burden of responsibility on them, normalizing the :poop: stuff the company does.

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indeed. and responses like

also tend to ignore the fact that: maybe when the player spent money, it seemed worthwhile / for a good product. but if the product has degraded over time in an unexpected manner (due to e.g. too high power creep, unexpected nerf…) then is it not reasonable for a player to be angry?

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It does play itself out during actual play.

I spend too much money on this game. Most people in my Alliance do not. When weekly events and twice-weekly wars come around, the frustration is expressed in our chat and on Discord.

Imagine if there were chat capabilities between opponents in Raid and War…:grimacing::grimacing::grimacing:

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I wonder which is a carry over from which. I imagine many of the forum users are in an upper tier competitive alliance. Frustration in the game can lead to venting on the forums. Which leads to argument and a siege mentality. A microcosm of American politics :rofl:

But the majority of players are not on the forums and are not in the upper tier competitive alliances.

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Well, I’m the only one in my Alliance who ever comes to the message board at all. Our Leader logs on once every several months to recruit for our group that routinely has several 0s every Titan.

The conversation surrounding the Haves and Have-Nots still take up a solid portion of the conversation. Probably because of the lineups I’ve been able to put together with my stupidity with microtransaction purchases.

The lineups we sometimes face due to higher Alliances sandbagging by putting out a lineup or two with 1400 TP and the rest being 5100+ is a trigger to complain about how long some of us have gone not even getting a HotM. Meanwhile, I get 5-15 of the same HotM every month.

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LOL I have 9 HOTM total after five years, 1/3 are from HA10. I certainly don’t begrudge you your bench though. Happy gaming.

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I ended up getting Reuben FIFTEEN times. It felt like I was getting trolled.

And, you don’t get a good value in return for feeding them. :man_shrugging:

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Thank you for stating clearly what many of us have tried to sputter out incoherently.

One must have a rye sense of humor to not be upset about feeding that many reubens.

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Heya :slight_smile: Honestly I think part of the issue as that the player base is collectively barking up the wrong tree.

SG announces nerfs and the player base reacts ‘OMFG nerfs.’ But that is misdirection. The issue is LB2 passives. SG has created a broken game design and, rather than acknowledge and fix mistake, they have gone to the only lever they know: ‘balancing’.

Meanwhile such changes are going to exacerbate the defensive scaling issues that are the crux of the problem.

To a hammer, everything is a nail.

I will not spend another dime. I’m almost grateful that they are doing this. I was spending to much money and this was the wake up call I needed. My wallet will thank them later.

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I won’t spend more money, and I’ll loose a lot of cups. Zynga & SG could start to lick my an…
I’ll stay here until the game explodes

Nice comment. So what actually this means for the majority of non spenter players? What if if people didn’t spent at first place would this game had developed differently? What if this game didn’t have a forum? What is the correlations between players, money and SG? I think this game is a microcosm of what is going on in societies.

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This right here guys is the BS that SG comes up with.
Propose nerfs for Milena.
At the same time release a hero which is more OP than the current form of Milena… in the same portal.

And people still continue spending on this game, why?

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