Current policy seems to be to ignore all balance feedback in beta and release the heroes brutally overpowered.
Only once everyone has dropped a small fortune do they then “balance” them… Got to milk our wallets first
2 Likes
Personally, I always thought beta testing was to catch any bugs and unintended hero interactions before the patch is released to the wild. Which is kind of why I take it with a grain of salt that SGG would take into consideration anything else. To clarify, to me, if they incorporate beta testers’ suggestions about how OP a hero is like is kind of a bonus and not necessarily SGG’s goal of beta testing.
4 Likes
I have to say that was my belief too. That and being allowed the opportunity to try new things before they went live and to flag up any “errors” …. But also to have my say if anything was “bad” like OP heroes or “difficulty” levels in proposed new events etc etc
But testing for unintended hero interaction or “synergy” was impossible in the last two beta. We only had a handful of 2nd LB heroes and didn’t know what the additional aether skill was in advance of allocating a new 2nd LB to heroes in our existing rosters.
Still waiting for a summary of the feedback Beta testers gave in the last iteration @Petri @PlayForFun
In Beta players defence we did give a list of ideas and opportunities for Zynga to consider / implement before alpha aethers and aether skills went live in the game …
10 Likes
My issues with the release of second aethers are:
- I am tired of having to go back and relevel my heroes again and again. The completionist part of me want to say these heroes are done and have them stay done. Adding new levels for every hero means none of my heroes are maxed anymore so this is basically several huge steps backward toward my goal of at least finishing the heroes I have. I make an exception for well designed costumes like Poseidon’s that enhance the value of heroes by giving them two distinct niches that are both useful, since these make me enjoy my heroes more. This naturally does not apply to poorly designed costumes that are the same hero but with bigger numbers (looks at Odin and Finely), largely identical with minor tweaks (Isarnia and Richard come to mind), completely outclass the original to the point that the original is never used (Perseus, Marjana, Alasie to name a few), or are outclassed by the original and therefore only act as a stat boost (Khagan costume 1, Lady of the Lake).
- Because it encourages focusing on the same heroes that were already maxed, it discourages focusing on new heroes. I have several heroes’ I would like to level but I won’t get a chance if I have to level my old heroes yet again. This is largely a problem because the resource support needed to level a hero before it becomes obsolete is just not there. Food production is too slow, as is feeder production. Either leveling costs need to be adjusted down or availability of these resources needs to be improved. Or both. When heroes retained value fairly well this was acceptable. In a time when new heroes are released very shortly after a similar hero (See Anne from October 2022 and then Jove in November 2022), the time to max a hero should not be measured in months anymore.
- The first round of aethers created many imbalances as people rushed to limit break their defense teams leading many players to struggle in war and on raids. Due to the slow trickle of aethers, it took over a year for balance between offense and defense to be restored. It does not appear that SG has learned from this, and in fact looks to be worse for the second round of aethers because of two key changes: top defensive heroes hit so much harder than they used to back in the day (remember GTV was a stall and whittle away type team. Current defenses just outright destroy you with heavy, immediate damage at high speeds) and aether powers, particularly the damage boosting ones (which have been added onto many of the top threats. i.e. does Anne really need a free attack boost at the beginning of a match? Does Jove need a special skill boost à la Glenda?) Just exacerbate the power imbalance between offense and defense.
- The imbalance between offense and defense will be drawn out even more this time because SG got it into their heads that a portal was the right way to introduce the new alpha aethers. With only a chance at the alpha aethers (until they inevitably sell them) for all players and no fixed ways to get them, like the current Omega quests, these will take longer to acquire for all heroes used on offense.
28 Likes
Okay. Thanks for clarifying. So if I understood correctly SG is a company that has less than 50 employees and they made the platform for testing. They don’t want to employ the testers because they are poor, so thousands of people are doing that for free just to see what is going to happen before it happens? This is very interesting from a business point of view, to have people working for them, correcting their mistakes and they don’t even have to pay for that. They don’t even appreciate it. Same cycles are happening again and again, Telluria-Vela, Krampus, M&M etc. 
9 Likes
May I present to you the Microsoft business model? That’s been always the case for software developers. You get some free testing and users get the satisfaction of seeing the latest and greatest first. Quite frankly, no business could employ the amount of people that a proper beta test would provide.
2 Likes
Yeah, though I would guess that’s really SGG’s discretion whether they want to take it. I think any new features, such as 2nd aethers is going through regardless. I remember there was something about costumes past 1st season and how everyone was against it. All it did was delay the inevitable as they eventually released them.
That does sound a bit rushed and a reason to delay. I doubt it’ll stop them, but if not properly tested we can see the havoc that results when these go live.
1 Like
Okay. I understand. I’m not a beta tester myself but I would really like that all beta testers get at least some form of payment even in gems or something like that. It must be frustrating if you do something and you say something logical but it falls on deaf ears.
9 Likes
I second your proposal 
many beta testers work very hard and take their duties very seriously
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What was wrong with the current LB system and aethers?
It was/is a simple way to improve stats nothing more.
Should have kept the abilities for reaching maximum level of 100 etc (when all chevrons are coloured.,)
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When all chevrons colored to purple I fear Staff has third color in their mind…
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$GG: Yo Dawgs, we heard y’all like leveling up and Limit Breaking your heroes, so we went ahead and added 3 more colors so you can break your heroes to 300.
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Oh, well, I did not manage to remain c2p after the NY as I initially said, maybe this time.
The biggest problem for me it’s not the Alpha Aethers as such (they were to be expected), not even the ridiculous passives, but having a new portal for gambling to gain a new resource to upgrade your heroes it’s just plain lazy and greedy
2 Likes
The alpha aethers will be available through MV aswell which is a step in the right direction imo. Need everything to be obtainable in Mv.
3 Likes
Yeah. Those books was something that sprung on my mind. They’re also supposed to drop from various sources. I got one Legendary book (Golden Tomes from Tourney - btw. here we know that it drops 1% of time for Top 1%, so we can probably see how it will go with Alpha Aethers) and bunch of Epic ones. Or trainer troops for that matter, the occurence of which I can count on my one hand.
Otherwise I don’t like this. Stack RNG on RNG. That is bound to go well. But SGG doesn’t care.
4 Likes
- All players will receive a gift of 10 Alpha Aethers when this feature goes live
Your charity is duly noted.
- Alpha Aethers now may be obtained as loot from:
- Mirages of Omega quests
- Rare Wanted Missions
- Rare Titans
- Alliance War Chests
- Mystic Vision
Is this supposed to heal all the wounds? Well, it’s a start anyway. The next step would be to make the chances >0.000000001%
- Aether Power effects are dispellable
Again, a pitiable attempt but its something to work with at least.
- All Aether Summons produce “Combos”
- Combos contain Aethers & Trainer Heroes of varying rarities
- All players will receive a gift of 50 Aether Crystals when this feature goes live
The charity seems proportionate to the anguish it has caused; at least in Zyngopian maths. I welcome it, since it’s better than nothing.
- Battle Item capacity is doubled
Umm, thanks?
- Added a selection refresh countdown timer to the Fated Summon
Welcome additon!
- Hero Portraits in the Museum no longer look slightly squeezed
Seriously, is this what you consider priority?
- Cupido’s Special Skill
- Healing Gift → Mindless Heal
I’ve to unwind all the “negative of a negative = positive” maths in my head now.
- Covenant Quest enemies no longer generate mana faster than intended
A bit too late, don’t you think? Will you also refund the flasks, battle items and the anguish it caused? Not to mention those who couldn’t finish the last stages and missed out on rewards entirely?
- Mindless Attack no longer fails to prevent certain boss enemies’ and Titans’ normal attacks
Thank goodness!
Overall, if not soured by the release of 2LB, this release has many welcome changes/fixes. Thank you for all the hard work in keeping this game entertaining and challenging but please, sometimes just say no to the greedy overlords, okay?
13 Likes
…they defintiely had time to add costumes for the rest of the Springvale Heroes and they really couldn’t be bothered to attempt those before releasing this update…
Once those alpha aethers become active and even RARE tournaments become unplayable, I’m going to sent my raid team to 5 random feeder heroes with feeder troops and refusing to engage with any of that.
Aside from that, glad to see they didn’t really add anything new here. Now, for the monthly balance update. I don’t think that’s happened yet. Who’s getting nerfed!?
Will we be able to see in advance (before using alpha aethers on a hero) what kind of aether power they will get, or will this come as a surprise?
In Beta we could see the aether skill after the first LB … not before
As an improvement we said the aether skill should be known prior to the hero receiving the first LB …
Or at least make an LB reset token available if we want to make a change within your roster …
5 Likes
They’re releasing second aethers too fast. They should have tested it longer and released it in-game gradually (or not release it at all, in a ideal scenario), starting from 3/4s and seeing how it would affect the game globally. I fear more than one aspect of the game could suffer in terms of participation. If they actually screw it up, there’s no coming back like “we are fixing covenant/musketeer because we voluntarily made it frustratingly hard, noticed a drop in participation and now we have to bring it back to a decent level”.