Upcoming Q&A with Game Designers - Spring 2021 Edition (Questions)

If Epic Games wins the Epic Games vs Apple case, allowing in game offers to be purchased out of game at a cheaper price; will you follow suit?

Will you start supporting your decisions with issues that have occurred (hamgate) with better explanation; other than “won’t upset economy of the game”.

It seems that beta testers are consistently saying that “this” or “that” wasn’t what we talked about or what we played; will you go under a contract of sort to Listen to beta testers or give a reason why you changed it.

Thanks for Q&A

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This is very encouraging. Thank you in advance for the time and consideration to listen to our questions.

Is it possible for your team to identify the Top 2 or 3 questions raised by the player base on a quarterly basis and give a response. Just an ongoing and continual dialogue that lets the players know that they are being heard and respected would go a long way.

P.S. 5* Duplicate Solution would be a fantastic question to start with. :slight_smile:

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I have just one question:

Why do the devs/ game designers keep forcing content out which nobody wants or requests but ignore the innumerable features that players do want & repeatedly ask for?

Examples:

  • Ninja Tower – Widely feedback as being “tedious”, “time consuming”, “monotonous” and “boring”, yet virtually no changes were made & got forced out anyways
  • Limit breakers – Players hate the idea, devs keep trying to force it out
  • Non-Season 1 Costumes – Players hate the idea, devs keep trying to force it out
  • QoL Features (too many to list here but I have done so previously to Staff via other communications) – Players keep asking for, devs keep ignoring.
  • Bug’s / Issues – Players report but seems to take an innordinate time to get fixed (see Alfrike blindness bug which took over 12 months to get fixed)

Is it simply that the devs & game designers don’t play the game at a high enough level/ not regularly that they don’t see these things? Or…

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Will you ever reward moderators for all their tirelessly contributions that they do, I mean, man, they are super and really all do such really great work.

OK, I know like they can’t be rewarded financially ect as “staff” may have an added advantage in the game more so than others…

Here’s a great suggestion… How about giving Moderators an award for all their great support, something like a Trophy especially made for them, the trophy itself is 1 of their favourite hero’s so if say Richard Season 1 is their favourite hero, the trophy will be a Richard.

Then a picture of them holding the trophy with a brief discription eg:

Guvenor joined the game in 2010, in 2012 till present has contributed his time doing x & y as a moderator and has done some exceptional work/exceptional support.
He lives in Antarctica, loves cats ect ect.
We’re proud and thank you for playing and most of all taking your time to help and support your fellow community.

If I was featured like that and got a trophy, I would pick Seshat as a trophy and I would be so grateful and happy and appreciated.
It’s not $$ or gems or loot, so I don’t get any added advantage in the game, but it’s a nice reward just the same.

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Thank you so much!

My first and biggest question is…

1. Can you make an annual cadence for corporate communications like this? Can SGG commit to an annual Q+A same time every year?

  • This annual commitment would improve player loyalty to the brand over time. Thank you!
  1. Farming
  • Atlantis Rises used to be significant on the calendar - as players used it to farm and use that window as relief from the farming grind. Since the changes to AR (reduced days), managing resources monthly and farming is making this game painful.

    • Question: What is SGG’s point of view on farming? Can there be QOL improvements to farming, like extending Atlantis Rising days?

    • Question: What is SGG point of view of making loot tickets a permanent part of the store? You can still do deals/offers - but why not have a set loot ticket package in the store?
      (these loot ticket offers are all over the place. in fact - the atlantis rises loot ticket offer doesn’t even become available until last day of farming.)

Hypothesis: looking to reduce the grind may increase purchasing in other aspects of the game.

  1. Comms between players
  • Alliance and Social aspects of this game is often cited as the #1 reason why they stay; so improving alliance comms and recruiting would increase loyalty and game-play.
    • Question: Will there be improvements to in game chat in the future? (if not, what about a partnership with LINE APP (owned by Naver in South Korea).
      Question: Alliance recruiting process is never ending and fraught with issues - is this an aspect that can be improved?

Hypothesis: looking to improve infra-alliance comms and alliance recruiting can increase organic growth.

  1. intra-alliance engagements
  • First off - thank you for the new inter-alliance matches!

    • Question: What is SGG’s point of view of enabling players to gift or purchase gems for other alliance mates? (We have holiday and valentine offers, but what if this was a permanent feature in the store where we could buy and gift gems to other players?)

Hypothesis: enabling gifting alliance mates will increase community growth long term, while providing a new revenue opportunity,

  1. Alliance war
  • everyone has experience people leaving the alliance while opted into war.

    • Question: What is SGG’s point of view on allowing alliance leaders to opt out players before war starts?

Hypothesis: players will stop complaining about this same issue going on for the past several years.

  1. IN GAME SHOP
  • This hasn’t changed much but with a little more CX research you could increase revenue from the shop by catering more to what the players needs and wants are now.

    HERO CAP INCREASE & EXTRA TEAMS

    • I purchased the maximimum of ‘extra teams’ and have liberally purchase more hero slots (back when I was a bit more naive and optimistic the HA may solve our duplicate problem). I don’t regret the purchases - but this seems to be a major issue with players.

    • Question: Why are we made to purchase Hero Slots with increasing prices? (logically if we have unlimited hero slots - people would be more liberal about purchasing summons)

    • Question: Why is there a 15 team limit for extra teams?

  1. Heroes
  • S1 five star glut

    • why not reduce ascension mat requirements for Season 1 5* heroes?
    • (Discuss out the scenario if S1 5* heroes took less mats to level vs S2 to S4/5/6 and how that would impact how players approach their rosters and how it would impact FTP and C2P.)
  • 4 star heroes

    • My journey as a player focusing on four star heroes just felt like an awkward phase towards five stars, instead of its own fulfilling phase.
    • why are there so much more 5* heroes being pumped out vs 4*?
    • discuss the scenerio of mid level player QoL if they could spend a little more time building out deeper 4* rosters .
    • Why does every HOTM have to be 5*?
  1. Base
  • why can’t we update/increase our iron and food storage further? (How long are we stuck on SH 25?)
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Here are my fan questions to Tim and Joel:

Creative
I love the character designs (artwork, basic story themes, specials, sound fx, etc)…
- How much storytelling is developed for the characters and world?
- Who is developing the story? Who writes the animatics in between stages?
- Who are designing the characters? The specials? The sound fx and animation? Tell us about the process!

Misconceptions about SGG
The community has an overwhelming image of SGG as a company with very little transparency…

  • Question: what are the most common or biggest misconceptions of SGG by the community? Can you set us straight and fill us in on what we get wrong about SGG?

Rise of community creators
E&P social contents ecosystem

  • there is growth in content creators … what do you think of this? Do you watch the content made by community? If so… tell us about contents that got SGG talking or found super interesting/provocative/etc.
  • would you consider co-creation projects with them?
  • for example… what about doing a zoom video interview in the future with youtubers like @NittanyLionRoar , @Mr.Spock , @JekylandHyde ?
    (Doing a video and posting it on E&P’s Facebook page would reach a lot more people than this forum.)
    ——-

Side Question: what is the name of the little dragon? (That we see in the commercial?) What’s his/her story?

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Observations:

Depth:

I get it. New seasons. And limit breakers for completionism. Titans, events, trials, tournaments and so on and and on.

I’ve also noticed that we are Ztracked.

The Metrics that Mattered to Zynga | by Amplitude Analytics | Medium

For session duration:

https://www.zynga.com/privacy/policy

* the number of clicks on an app feature or web page;
* the amount of time spent on an app feature or web page

Ok, you have a business and run it with intent! I applaud.

Is the horrid Alchemy recipe tapping a worthy sacrifice for already stretched thin gaming sessions?

You have developed great depth! But it has been limited by dupes that are converted to dust or continually recycled in an inefficient HA10 leaving the customer feeling unrewarded.

https://gamerbias.com/how-to-choose-a-healthy-gacha-game/

:point_up_2: read it E&Peeps!
A small portion reads:
"I highly recommend avoiding games that fail to celebrate special occasions with their players."

It is my observation that the depth is overextending.

Question:

Do you have any plans to balance discontent or burn-out against the aggressive depth?

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  1. A while ago, we were promised a solution for a duplicate 5* heroes (other than feeding them away). Should we keep waiting, or forget about it and feed away ones we dont need?
  2. When making new heroes, have you considered making unique skill heroes instead of pumping their power to insanity? Speaking of which, will there be other dark elemental defense debuff other than Guardian Panther (since all the other elements have two, at least)? Also, will there be other “enemy share damage” heroes other than c. Gunnar and Wilbur? And, will there be fire and dark Tarlak/Miki/Ranvir/Wu-like heroes?
  3. Have you considered retraining hero costumes, since only one is needed for unlimited number of heroes?
  4. Do you plan to introduce 3* and 4* alliance wars? Will formations be introduced to alliance wars? Will element boost be introduced to alliance wars (it was tested in Beta a while ago, as I remember)?
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The most fun parts in this game for me are the activities that involve 3/4* heroes. Tournaments, rare/epic challenge events, self set challenges like completing trials with only 4*.

This is mainly because I cannot compete with the 5* content. Without spending to much on the game, it is incredible hard to aquire the necessary 5* heroes. There is a solution to duplicate 5* heroes from tc20 but this one isn’t enough for C2P and F2P to keep up.

So I have two questions:

  • Will there be a way for C2P and F2P players to aquire more/better 5* heroes without the paywall? Like an improvement to Ha10, improved chances in several portals or unlocking hero (shards) by finishing content.

  • Will there be more attention to release more 3/4* heroes? At the current state of the game there are more 5* heroes than 3/4* heroes combined. Take the New Starfall Circus Heroes as example. It’s a release of five 3/4* heroes and six 5* heroes. I would love to see more attention to the design of more 3/4* heroes since that is the gameplay I’m most involved in.

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Recently there has been a huge change in the game meta regarding mana speed.

Previously the high damage AoE heroes were generally slow mana with fast high damage heroes limited to mainly single target.

You really had to decide if that huge ‘match winning’ AoE damage was worth the gamble that they would die before they fired so it was very much a trade off

Nowadays we have several very fast or fast heroes that inflict huge damage on all or multiple enemies(Odin, Frigg, Killhare being examples)

The end result is that old slow heroes such as Azlar, Quintus and Isarnia are now pretty much obsolete outside of the odd tournament.

Is this a recognised issue for SG and any plans to deal with it?

These huge, fast, bursts of AoE damage have made raiding for example very much dependant entirely on the opening board

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I would appreciate so much to know,

  1. if there are any plans to create a more equal playing field,

so to say.

As a relatively new player (Well, not so much anymore, I guess, I played for 10 months) - I would really like to see a chance to be anything but at the bottom of everything.

I used to think I could be successful in three star tournaments after I gathered a fair amount of those, but facing 100 emblem teams, with a high level of troops puts a stop to that. Unless I strip my few four stars of their emblems and go all in on the three star heroes, which, as far as I understand, is not a smart move, where I ‘am’ in game. (Just for the record, I do see myself as somewhat intelligent, and I do know how to use my heroes and when.)

Similar, in every single other aspect of the game. It´s those ‘up there’, that stays, and those ‘down there’, crawl slower and slower.

The match making is frustrating, just as the competition is. I would love to see events, such as a Mythic Titan, where no battle items can be used, at all.

  1. Are there any plans to implement that?

Obtaining the right heroes helps nothing, when you are up against players that spend more World Energy Flasks, Gems and Battle items, than you will ever have access to.The same goes for every single Challenge event. It sometimes matters little, which heroes you bring, it´s all about the Battle Items. Is that the intention?

I´m not asking to be in the same position as those that have played four years. I´m asking for something that encourage newer players to keep it at. I frequently look for another game, I could play instead, similar to E&P, that is new, so I could have a chance to catch up. Yet the finishing line seems to move further and further away, and things such as PoV is not even within reach for new players, since it´s locked behind completing S3 stages etc.

How about implementing match making, Wars and Tournaments, so players gets matched versus each other, based on how much they spend.

  1. Are there any plans to implement that?

I have, from the very beginning, struggled to find new players to play along side with. Every Discord channel I have been in consists only of those who have played for years and years. Even though they are absolute sweethearts, it makes newer players feel very alone, not to have many near their own level.

I might have been very unlucky, but something tells me, that is no longer the case. We are simply not many out there, that stick around. Maybe it´s the plan. Maybe it´s the intention to only focus on end game, since that is what makes the most sense, from a financial perspective.

But I want to believe, I want to have hope, that all player segments can somehow be ‘seen and heard’.

Thank you for E&P, it has brought me a lot of joy, and I hope it will continue in the future. :pray:

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In a game, where a lot of our time is spent on auto farming, are there any plans on making this less time consuming?

In today’s world, and the awareness of the health of our planet, keeping our devices turned on, just to auto farm, without even engaging is equal to turning on the TV without even watching.

I would love to see a more efficient way to auto farm, perhaps by it being on increased speed. Thank you for considering it :slightly_smiling_face:

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I would love to see those questions answered:

  • How is the “solving the duplicates” problem going forward? HA10 is not really the solution, it takes 7 days to get most likely another S1 no one with a working HA10 will eve use (if you are at HA10, it’s likely you don’t really need S1 heroes, but you really hope to get a nonS1 hero in the process). Are there plans on increasing the odds? reducing the conversion time? changing the format (e.g., add 2 or more 5* for doubling the changes of a nonS1 hero)?

  • How do you envision to fill the gap between new players and old players? Adding costumes on top of emblems, troops and limit breakers will only widen the gap between those groups, and the trend will only widen the gap more and more as new enhancements are released.

  • Are there any plans to extend the range of heroes that can go out from TC20? Will TC20 produce S1 heroes only for the next 40 years?

  • What is the design reasoning/choice behind releasing a slow minion creator (Noor) when Bera/Freya create strong minions at fast speed + buffs/ailments + mana cut? Aren’t slow heroes supposed to be disruptive and change the course of fights if you are lucky enough to charge them? Is there a dynamic the the player base has not captured yet but was the underlying reason why Noor was released at slow speed?

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This morning I woke up after new S4 provinces opened up and a new hero showed up in the gate. Days like this usually mean a ton of posts in Line, reporting on pull results, talking about new heros. Today - crickets. Almost like S4 didn’t open as expected. Quick check shows that it did indeed. Just the excitement was missing. Could be that many are just still tired after using many materials to fight the MT, and aren’t looking forward to the re-supply.
Or it could be that because this isn’t a game-breaking hero, no one cares. I myself pulled Russula, and my reaction could be the same as many. Whatever. With the scarcity of ascension mats in the game, I will probably not level her anyway. Waiting seems like the best option. Waiting to see if there is a use no one has found yet, waiting to see which hero is the next to undergo a nerf hammer, just waiting. And isn’t that just fun.

It almost seems like we are in some kind of psychology study that we were not aware that we signed up for, like the disputed ones done back in the day surrounding working conditions. A “Just How Much Will They Take, and How Long Will they Take it For” type of study. Because we know that you certainly don’t respond to player feedback.

Let’s review the past year.

Last year, you release a hero that had great synergy with two flanks, and it happened as everyone was getting their defenses to 20 nodes. It was ridiculous, and you proceeded to nerf both her, and poor Vela over and over until they were just shadows of their former selves. The time it took to you to do this, also meant that all the counters people levelled for this trio were also affected, and number was much higher than it should have been. Okay. So what were the key learnings?

Your’s seemed to be that flanks are more important than we first thought, so you proceeded to release 2 flanks that are crazy together, without the magic tank. Great.

Countering this trio, then the duo, and then the Queen of VF means ascending more heros, meaning the desperation for ascension materials grow, and the drop rates just as low, maybe lower than ever. Good for deal sales with mats in them I guess.

People leave after every cycle of VF war. Why? Because it is just no fun. Even when you do well, it is only relief. A “phew, got through it again”. The introduction of limit breakers means that we will be facing 5100-5150 defense teams in all the other wars. Result? Less fun, more RNG. You get what you need on your starting board, or you don’t.

You have stated that the purpose of them is to introduce harder events, where FTP will need better heroes to complete. Why then do the missions in beta so far for these limit breakers have a higher Team Power recommendation than most FTP players could field?

You have also said that active players will be able to max several heros in a short time, as the intent is to make them more plentiful that emblems. You have not said that you actually mean active players with high limits on their credit cards will be able to do so, but that is what we all suspect.

Why do we suspect that? Because through everything so far, you have proven to be kind of mean-spirited liars. #Hamgate statement that 80 crates of ham doesn’t upset balance? Clearly we must believe that you are liars. As the other option is that you are just absolutely clueless about your own game. That you are working on a solution for duplicates? We know that is very unlikely, after having said it for so long with nothing, so, a lie. As people have saved them for years, they have become less and less useful with the insane power leap you have introduced. One Ares is useless, let alone multiple.

If you require an example of mean-spiritedness, just look to the nerfing of titanium shields.

This game needs an increase in mat drop rates, to keep up with power creep, which needs to slow down, but I’m sure that will not happen.

So I guess my question is, will you do anything to prove me wrong? Or just introduce QoL “improvements” like the ones that make the heros stuck at 3-70 flash at you…

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Please like this post for visibility

I would love to do a zoom interview. I think increasing transparency is what players need.

My immediate questions:

  1. Can you explain how mana accumulation works for defending heroes?
  2. Why has it taken years still with no solution for duplicate heroes?
  3. Is there any desire on the company side to make competing in challenge events not just about who is willing to farm more boards?
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Purely from a corporate bottomline perspective, absolutely not. If people are willing to spend $200 on WE refills chasing those elusive boards, why kill the golden goose?

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I’ll keep it short and to the point.

  1. Will S2 heroes ever be added to training camps? Yes or no answer will do, no need for bedtime stories.

  2. If answer to the first question is “yes”, when will it happen?

Thanks for your time.

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We were promised a better solution to duplicate hero’s in hero academy a very very very long time ago. Will this promise ever be implemented or was this promise just air? Seems like years is a very long time to find a solution and it looks like we were lied too.will hero academy ever be adjusted or was all this just a lie cause it sure seems that way!!!

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When will a mechanism be developed to allow 5 star duplicates to be used as something other than just food? It was stated previously that Hero Academy was not the end all solution (and is isn’t, it just swaps one 5 star for another with the odds of getting something useful out of it pretty low) but there has been nothing else forthcoming in all this time since.

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many good questions up there, sorry if mine are repeated, i didn’t read all

1- with the massive roster numbers, MANY heroes and family bonuses need to be buffed to be considered good especially heroes who introduced a new mechanic that isn’t strong now thoth amun, musashi, perseus, aeron… etc. any plans to have big number of buffs coming?

2- similar thing with old regular quests, any plans to update them and their loot? some of the common quests got terrible rewards compared to the energy used

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