Oh, I understood you from the beginning. I just really believe that how it works in .35 was not really on purpose. I believe a mistake was made and all of the “oh the new mode is meant to be the primary source” is a retcon. I believe this because of the .35 patch notes.
I fully support your anger and frustration, here. I’m pretty angry and frustrated about the mana start bug that inexplicably requires a client update to fix. And while I personally think this was a “whoops”, because breaking your game on purpose without a fix already ready is…well it doesn’t make sense. However, just because it makes no sense, doesn’t mean it’s not correct.
The piece that still frustrates me is that it was stated that they could just increase the drop chance for relics, but it was not done because they did not want to have to change it in .36…so the decision was just nuke progress
I’m expecting 0.36 to be a huge update, personally. Especially, as the marketing machine appears to be revving up and the game starting to be marketed to the public with the upcoming PQ3 weekly streams. For that to realistically happen, the game has to be a mostly finished state.
So, I’m expecting things like the Event system and the monetization around that to be implemented. As I believe that the Event system will be the primary interactions with the game, I’m waiting to see how daily play is going to change with the update.
I can buy that. The multiple changes to the Follower system already point to this. Also, if anyone somehow has not realized this yet, the devs have been watching on how end-game players have been circumventing the game’s core systems, such as gear score, and very likely planning corrective actions.
Completely agree.
Agree here, also. The problem is that players’ first set of gear is the most impactful for that account’s development. For example, once a player obtains a legendary weapon at levels it to max, any other future weapons are side or situational upgrades at best (also explains why weapon shards have become extremely rare drops, especially superior weapon shards). Another example is in how easy it is to race through the story with 2nd - 5th characters with the gear developed by first character (up to the point that the first character has reached in the story). So, the majority of the game’s progression walls revolve around first clears.
The tea leaves from 0.35 suggest that evolution glyphs are still going to be very rare things that are going to keep gear for most players soft capped at 35, with a much harder cap at 45. Raising a piece of gear to 50 seems to be highly discouraged with extreme diminishing returns, but available for those who want to chase every last stat point possible.
Relics in 0.36 are still an unknown. Although, I’m expecting them to be a random reward from events. If the Events system is going to be somewhat analogous to Campaigns in GoW, there could be a weekly “event” for a given chapter, where one featured set of relics would be available for a given week and would rotate around from week to week. Also, waiting with baited breath for the PQ3 equivalent of Orbs of Chaos to implemented, which would be the intended primary source of relics from reaching event milestones (just like in GoW World Events) and where players can buy extra relic rolls per week with crowns if players want to chase upgrading a specific piece of gear from the featured chapter of the week.
How does a player acquiring a weapon affect the drop rate of weapon shards? I don’t follow this comment. Is the implication that players only need one good weapon therefore the developers purposefully made an adjustment to the drop rate of shards? How does that apply to minions, where every player would like to level many minions yet minion shards are the fewest in the game, both as drops and shop purchases.
EDIT: I will amend my question and acknowledge that weapon shards are infrequent drops currently. I’ve been doing a lot of shop observations and that is actually not the case in the shop where weapon shards are pretty common. My issue with the statement is that it implies some sort of dynamic response on drop rates. I’m more inclined to believe the drop rates on weapon shards have always been low.
Yeah, that connection needed a bit more explanation, as I was mashing together two different concepts without much context…
… which you picked up upon correctly.
As someone who was in a fortunate enough position guild-wise in 0.34 to almost have exclusive access to the ore deals, the distribution rates among the shard types were most likely an even split over the five types. In chests, the distribution rates were also generally even-ish, except for the anomaly that was lesser accessory shards.
Also, in 0.34, players could target specific dungeons to target specific shard types to farm. That was a highly effective practice for advancing gear quickly. Doubly so when a player could target a specific drop and that dungeon also dropped the right type of shard to level up that piece of gear.
In 0.35, all of that went out the window.
There is no way to target specific shard types anymore.
In all methods for obtaining shards (shop, bazaar, chests), the drop rates have become weighted. The more “useful” a shard is in upgrading something that has an active benefit to the player, the rarer that shard type became. Offensive shards (weapons, spells) drop more rarely than other shard types.
Weapon shards are further rarer than spell shards, which are already rare drops. When shards drop, weapons shards have maybe a ~5% (1 in 20) chance of dropping from a shard pack. I expect to see a single weapon shard pack per night of farming currently. Some unlucky days, I do not see any at all.
To put this in context, when 0.35 landed, my weapon and shield got the free bump to legendary and I only had to level each of them from 40 to 45.
In that time, I have had Toragon and Gemka craft Epic pieces for all of my remaining weapon armor and accessory slots (took ~2 weeks for the right rolls to happen), and I have leveled all of those pieces from 1 to 35. My weapon finally maxed out last week, and my shield is sitting at 41. If the shop and chest drops bless me this weekend, maybe just maybe the shield might reach 42. I make more progress from the 20 superior shard bundles when they appear than from farming most nights.
I know the game wants me to “give in” and by the 50 shard bundles when they appear, but I’m not coughing up 400 Gems for ~0.8 weapon/shield levels on principle. Surely, though, someone else will.
In the case of weapons, not only did the devs pause weapon ascension, they also put the brakes on players leveling up the weapons they already had to slow down player offensive growth in 0.35.
RE: weapon shards issue only… could this be rng? Because (I swear on the nearest holy book! lol) I get more weapon shards than any other. Close second is minion. (which is getting the rare shout out too.)
From what you guys are saying I guess I should be feeling lucky.
I have a decent amount if superior weapon shards from chests.
One thing I do feel is the primary way to get shards used to be drops, now it feels like the primary way is scrapping gear. So we are now scrapping to get .001 of a level of gear
I think I’m officially tired of beating this dead horse but a final thought on this, which still bothers me the most. Patch 0.35 was issued and there was tremendous emphasis in the developers’ language how they are listening to player feedback and that the changes were based on challenges players were facing. Additionally we were told this:
No one is lauding their transparency here. No one is confident about the direction of their development intent. This is why we all have to sit around and make guesses about what’s next and try to read the tea leaves about the developers’ direction because it certainly is not going to communicated to us. There is no doubt that the bulk of the implementations in 0.35 were about curbing game play progression, putting in place hard walls on player progress, and essentially buying time to continue to develop solutions to players “circumventing” the game’s core systems (which of course implies that the game’s core systems were and to a great degree still are fundamentally flawed since the players’ means by which they “circumvented” the system were to simply play the game).
There’s clearly a community effort here to provide feedback, identify bugs, address game play changes, and when necessary provide detailed responses to requests for more detail to assist the developers’ as they work towards bringing the game to launch. There has been tremendous goodwill demonstrated by players who genuinely wish success for the release of this game. And many of these players have plenty of experience with other games, including free-to-play (F2P) games and understand the necessity of balancing game play development for both the company and the players. I just hope that going forward the developers’ can recognize that and do a better job communicating their changes, for whomever it benefits, so that we as players can continue to play and interface with the game and provide feedback, instead of sitting around for weeks asking each other if we have gone insane because we don’t have a reliable way to judge what information has been communicated.
I am, or at least was, very excited about the potential of this game. It’s kinda sad that we testers (and that is what we are here, folks) are already getting the cone of silence.
TPTB… help us help YOU, by giving us clear, concise, ACCURATE, and timely information. It is absolutely ok to change it all, left and right, at this point. Just tell us the truth about how it is supposed to work at this very moment in time, and why.
I asked for transparency multiple times around updates and changes that were not listed.
I don’t think transparency will happen. Only in word, maybe.
And yeah, all very good theories but also all stuff they could have been upfront about. “Hey folks, you progressed faster than we had anticipated and we need to look at balance and our concepts, we will therefore block further progression for a few weeks” - in think most of us would have been just fine with such a statement.
Again, all foreseeable from their side and poor treatment of the community in my opinion.
I’m currently working with the team to get changes and fixes catalogued better in house so they don’t get missed in server push notes or patch notes. This is improving over time, and I’m sorry for anything that has slipped through the cracks in the past. I’m doing everything I can to get everything wrangled into one place, and for our changes to happen in batches so I can let you know several at a time.
I know there is frustration, but there’s no conspiracy. I’ve said several times that the main way to get glyphs and relics is coming. As the game is in early access all its features and resources are not yet available, and we weren’t able to bundle everything regarding these resources into one update. I apologise for any bad feelings this has provoked, but I can’t promise it won’t happen again. With development schedules and milestones in flux a similar situation may occur in future, though we will try to prevent it.
I am personally grateful for all the good will shown here, and meticulous bug reporting. Thank you.
On a final note I want to be clear on that fact that we will be making more changes moving forward, to every aspect of the game. I can’t tell you what all of these changes will be far in advance, and sometimes we have to make them quickly due to external influences. When they are made I will do everything in my power to ensure you know, by posting here and working on our internal processes to ensure nothing is missed. I may not always be able to tell you the exact reason something was changed, but I will always do my best to tell you when changes are made. And where possible I will shed light on what I can, in the capacity I am able too.
(Please also be aware that most of the time if I am not saying something it is because I can’t.)
I appreciate your response and I do look forward to seeing the upcoming changes whatever they are. As I’ve noted, I think we all understand that changes are a way of life for early access and generally players are patient and understanding as updates are made.
I do take issue with this:
I challenge anyone to say that this description is not misleading about what to expect in terms of the anticipated means of Relic acquisition:
I’ve harped on this already but I think any rational reader of these notes would infer that Relics are themed around Dungeons; you collect Relics associated with Dungeons; and Dungeon completions would be a reasonable means to attain Relics. It’s fairly clear that there is no indication that the drop rate of relics from dungeons completions would ultimately be <0.1% which honestly I would say is generous. You are more likely to get a relic from salvaging than from Dungeon completions; there is absolutely no way that is clearly communicated here. Furthermore, (again as I have said before), saying that something is a means to acquire something but making the rate equivalent to finding a dollar on the street is unsatisfactory. Without this other “main way” of acquiring Relics, the existing ways are no means to acquire anything at all. It would take presumably months and months of gameplay to chance luckily upon 4 of anything of the right dungeon and rarity to do an evolve. Does your data differ? Share it, prove me wrong.
This is not true. Glyphs have not been easier to find unless you mean some increase in frequency in the shop. Does your data differ? Show us, prove me wrong. Also, there is no indication here in subtle text or otherwise about “another primary way” (I still love that phrase, a mastery of obfuscation) of getting Glyphs is forthcoming. Can we assume so? I guess, but that’s not what was communicated.
3 days after the release of the patch notes and a collective head scratching from players as they attempted to find Relics by completing dungeons, you chimed in with:
I think we are all glad that you provided that update (otherwise our brains probably would have melted out of desperation to understand what was going on) but it seems a pretty big thing to mention that the newly released items that were presented as a means to improve the evolve situation and that everyone of course will be looking for is actually something so rare that there literally is zero chance in the current framework of purposefully finding them. That would seem worth mentioning. Additionally, you indicate that they will be included in “more” Daily Deals. That would imply that they were included in Daily Deals, which is not mentioned in the patch notes as a means of obtaining Relics, and to the best of my knowledge is not true, since I don’t know of a single player who has seen a Relic in a daily deal.
At the same time you said this:
This was the first mention of this as I indicated above, but even if that is the case, it’s the same issue with Relics. This new means to collect Glyphs appears not to be “the primary place” but really the only place other than shop deals. You essentially confirmed this when you said:
So I think we can agree on this point that the patch notes were again misleading as they were very rare drops before 0.35 and they continue to be very rare drops after 0.35. I don’t exactly see how that was communicated well when the notes said “It is now easier to find Glyphs after level 45 in-game”.
8 days after the patch after much frustration from players about the state of drops with the 0.35 release, you provided the following update:
So at this point it is acknowledged the main issue that exists is not that players are frustrated that you haven’t sufficiently mentioned the existence of other means of acquiring Relics and Glyphs, but rather that the current means of acquiring Relics and Glyphs is so low as to prompt the growing volume of discontent across the player base. You suggest that any tweaks to the current drop rates is pointless because the focus is on the new content to be introduced in the future which is supposed to work in tandem with the current rates (see above on that synergy). Furthermore, instead of providing a bridge to the new content with increased drop rates of Relics and Glyphs to provide motivation for early access players to engage with content especially given the scope of the new updates and the time it would take to roll them out, out of concern for players being upset in the future, no bridge will be extended. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the degree of disappointment about the reduction of bridge rates would be slightly less than the level of frustration that exists currently.
So, again, I appreciate the response, but I am also disheartened that your takeaway from all of this was that the community felt you didn’t tell us often enough that “the main way to get glyphs and relics is coming”. What should have been said was that the only feasible way to get glyphs and relics is forthcoming and any attempt to acquire glyphs and relics currently is essentially fruitless and that evolutions are essentially on hold for a month+ as a result.
To be fair, I don’t think this is your fault. If I’m being completely honest, my impression is that you are often given partial information as well and it must be challenging that you have to try to explain things when it seems as if you are being treated by the developers as just a bit taller of a mushroom than us. I look forward to hearing more from you going forward and I want to end my post here to say that none of my comments are personal; it is all about process. I harbor no ill will, and I caution any player to be judicious in talking about these issues and to not make personal attacks or insults a part of the responses here, even out of frustration. I do, however, believe in holding people accountable.
In future I will update the patch notes, and try to ensure they include the information you want. There has been nothing intentional done here, and I don’t write them, but I can do what I can to read over them and suggest changes prior to release.
Outside of that I apologise that I cannot do more. You are welcome to feel the way you feel.
Once more, there will be a lot more big changes coming prior to release. The game is unfinished and will be in a period of flux until it is launched. If this is something that is difficult I understand, but I want to be realistic with everyone regarding the future.
I won’t be able to comment on this further, as I am not able to say more.
I have taken feedback on how you want us to communicate with you in future, and will do what I can to see that it happens. It won’t always be possible, but I can certainly try. I am not agreeing or disagreeing with you, merely stating that I can work on improving things. We didn’t purposefully bottleneck everything, and are currently experimenting with systems and analysing the data to get the game to where we, and our publishers, need to the game to be. There will be a lot more changes coming, new features, resource drop rates shifting, where resources drop potentially changing, weapon and spell reworks, balance changes, etc etc etc. Some may be small, others may be extreme, but they will happen and will affect the game. Some of these changes may seem too big until we review the data and get a chance to correct things, which is a common practice in early access games. The economy will see several more changes so we can have it working as best as possible before launch, as there is nothing worse than having a borked economy after early access. This is me doing my best to set expectations as we improve PQ3 and approach worldwide launch.
I won’t be posting in this thread further, but you are all welcome to continue the conversation as long as it remains civil and doesn’t violate community guidelines.
I for one have not said anything incendiary. I did my best to document facts and provide observations about the quality of the efforts that supposedly are being proffered. You indicated that you would do more to communicate better. I think that’s laudable. I guess we will see.
With regard to clear communication - can we/you set or create a official response that identifies a question, issue, aspect of the game or economy where imposed communication restrictions mean it can not be answered further or expanded on more?
Kind of like how SoonTM is the answer in GoW for when is the next patch/release/update, but in this case more of a “here is all I can say on the subject.”
So perhaps something like NDA or No Further Comment (NFC) or End Of Information (EOI)
I see the benefit as being two-fold:
You can answer as much as you can and then put a hard full stop on the answer (though the community can continue to discuss - much like you have just done here)
the community will know that the issue has been acknowledged as heard - but also that we have all the answer/information we are going to get at that time
Just a quick chime-in to say: my issue has never been with @Salty 's communications per se; it has always been with 0.35 as it was wholly communicated. If anything, @Salty is the one that provided clarity to issues but after the fact as I documented. And it was ultimately laid out that 0.35 was knowingly a half-implementation that resulted in a huge progress block, when it was sold as a series of player improvements.
I just don’t want this to get lost in the back and forth. For me, this was never orginally about @Salty’s subsequent-to-patch communications, although admittedly I have taken issue with certain things that were said. Just as she said, she didn’t write the patch notes. My criticism has always been with the developers.