Update 0.38 – Patch Notes

This seems counterintuitive and appears to be what is impacting numerous player complaints both in game chat and here on the forums. If you find that the changes you are making results in players being able to do additional damage, then the generic balancing mechanism is to increase enemies’ health or resistance totals. You do not create “balance” by increasing the enemies’ damage output. I keep reading this patch note over and over and I have no clue what sort of “balance” is being sought.

EDIT: To put a finer point on this, 0.36 you introduced difficulty changes that were likely necessary due to gear changes and other factors such as playtime completion, etc. but the feedback was overwhelmingly negative. You responded to this feedback by reducing both the damage changes (reducing a Diff X base level attack from ~25k to ~15k) and the defense stats (Health/Resistance/Armor pools were all lowered about 20% from the drastic increases of 0.36). So in theory, you achieved some balance around Enemy Damage output (still a challenge but not one shotting players in matches) and Enemy Defense (still takes more turns to complete but it’s not as tedious and leading to 30 minute match timeouts).

Now you introduced spell changes which increase the players’ damage output (in theory), but your response is to bring back the one-shot/two-shot damage capability of enemies. Again, how is this an effort to achieve “balance”? Increasing the Enemy Defense values makes sense at least.

5 Likes

I also just logged in and was still given the option to update or not.

Hmmm… I was being careful not to update and pretty sure I didn’t accidently hit anything during the 10 seconds of loading. (Playing on Android.)

Guess I’ll find out how marks, mana and such affect my play.

I’m on android and still playing 0.37. When I open the app it gives me the option to update or not?!

I don’t think I cheesed the build thing quite so much as others, with a tri-build Necro getting to 50 weeks back, 43 points into citadel, and gear score of 1589 (everything epic but one ring). Looking at each fight type though in .38, it’s looking pretty bleak.

Story: it seems pretty unlikely I’m going to be able to finish chapter 15 without enormous luck (crits, resurrections against final bosses etc.), as the skirmish level fights are level 42.

Dungeons/Skirmishes: Level 30 is too easy, Level 40 is too hard. In .37, I was doing hard mode for most dungeons, which was levels 35-38, and were a challenge. The jump from 35 to 40 means dying to the first mob every fight.

Daily Events: they are not one shots for me, but I’m having to frontload a lot of damage to beat the mini-boss, leaving little for the main boss, who one or two-shots me. This results in enough points to get a single chest. If I get a crit, I can beat either.

PVP: Never really bothered with it, won’t start now.

It seems like the best bet is to adjust my build to crit chance and cross my fingers each fight. This seems remarkably short-sighted. The main gold sink (1000 gold for dungeon marks) has been eliminated too, so I’ll probably just have 20K gold sitting around most of the time. Again, not a good move.

Pvp has devolved into a race for the T0 gear. It should be more challenging to face opponents.

The game economy is horrible. Gold, food, and runes need a sink. The shard tiers are still bad because the superior shards still drop at a much higher rate.

Kingdoms need a much needed buff. The kingdom bazaar is always out of stock. Buying marks with food is currently heavily rationed on a trust system for this reason. Get rid of the limits on buying goods or at least expand the bazaar. Give the kingdom more goals they can accomplish together.

What is the end game? Dungeons just lost the ability to farm marks. The chests you get with them are brimming with trash for you to salvage at a pittance. End game needs a better reward system.

Actual gameplay is still pretty static. The new mana system does encourage player to utilize more types of spells but there is no purpose of healing in the game because of how much damage is being done relative to a players life bar. Why heal or generate armor when gaining barrier from a Dwarven necklace is so much better? Enemies should have better board changing abilities and harsher debuffs. Comboing should be encouraged more so the gameplay is less mindless.

My 2 cents

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it works, just update to BlueStacks 5 / 64 bits / Pie beta.

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Here’s something that should have been considered in the changes to Marks:

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This update really killed chest gain.
Also, I have to say I don’t agree with removing marks from dungeons now as it really felt like a nice bonus to running dungeons. Now the gain of marks is massively tied to events and spending gems.

It ties into @Sibelios point of now making kingdom food deal even more of a burden as its the only way to be guaranteed marks.

I think the event change was fantastic and the store is not a bad implementation but I hope mark gain is revisited

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This is a head scratcher for me, as well. I mean I sort of get it. But with the other changes to dungeons and chest contents, and the pitiful trickle of marks in events, it seems there needs to be another source of marks. It doesn’t have to be a lot of marks, but some.

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Before the patch the game ran decent on my phone. I don’t have the best of phones and I had everything at low settings and so forth and nothing running in the back. Since the update if I get 5-10 minutes of game play before I game freezes (doesn’t matter where in game I am) and then I have to close the app. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling and removing apps I’m not using. @Jeto I haven’t see any else mention issues on the forum should I put a ticket in?

That would very likely have something to do with the new version of Unity engine that the game now runs on thanks to this update. It’s tanked performance everywhere. Even my mid range phone (Snapdragon 765G) is struggling around the place, I’ll be disappointed if they don’t optimise performance back to previous levels

I have had this issue even before the patch. There have been 0 versions where performance was good on a low end phone.

Game after only a few minutes will go down to less than 1 frame per second for multiple seconds. When doing some of my dailies yesterday, it took me around 5 minutes to cast 4 spells, something that should normally take around 10 seconds.

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Yeah I gotcha well I was doing better than that before the patch. Now I’m looking for alternatives till steam release or early access steam release if that is even a thing. So far I have gotten bluestacks to work even with others helping. Pie and cookie and blue somehow doesn’t got together. - :cookie:

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Apparently I am “lucky” to be playing Paladin with a gearscore over 1800. I am using the same 4 x yellow spells now as before Update. 38 - I just rearranged the order.

I have had a few goes at a Dungeon X, and got oblieviated. I am not to bothered about that, but I could do Dungeon X before update 0.38.

I can play the Events just fine, but I understand the frustrated players that now can’t do events, even being level 50, but apparently a certain gearscore is required.

Paladins now have an advantage because of their Ultimate spell. If you can’t stun lock a boss then the barrier will most of the times take the next hit, then you can stun again. So are the classes or just Paladins being changed next, since you keep making the fights harder and more difficult. Less mana to be gained, decreased at a couple of updates lately or increased spellcost or class specific spells…

Skulls are even more powerful and the spell damage or mana damage just isn’t nearly as good.
My Necromancer is doing amazing in pvp now as long as there are skulls.

You have been using a lot of ressources on graphics, little shiny details. At first it is nice to look at, but it is a mobile game and needs to be able to run on a mobile. I have 5 x level 50, one of each class and I have seen all the graphics - now I do not care about the different enemies victory dance, when I am defeated or how I look casting a spell, even if they are different depending on the weapon. After a while these details are just annoying and timeconsuming. You either need to have hundred of different graphics to keep them interesing to look at or we need to be able to skip them after a while.

You are using a lot of ressources on the shop, well I know that you have to make money and monetizing beyond believe, but your prices are insane, considering this is early access and we are basicly testning this game for you. Sorry but I am not using money on this beta version when you keep changing things for the worse. Why would I spend money, when something I buy is completely changed after an update or made indifferent? Because you then hope that I will spend more money to be updated? NOPE- not here. I bought a VIP pass for a month when I began to play, worst money spent.
I know some want to support the development, but I can tell you that these aren’t students working from the basement, this is a professionel company, with a huge income from at least Gems of War.

Thank you for removing the way too shiny Light appearing when opening a chest :+1:

25 more inventory space is no where near enough.
It should he 25 more inventory space for each level 50.
You do set bonuses, you make sure we can’t upgrade the followers unless we play more than 1 hero and with the change to boss being stun immune, then we need more storage to find out which gear set is working. Unless you want us all to play Paladin, and then you will change the paladin class at next update, is that the case?
After level 50, there just is not enough gear storage capacity for more than maybe 2 level 50 as it is now. And I have room for 140 pieces of gear.

Finally we are able to reset the Citadel. But the currect way the Citadel is, only support using 1 hero. Do I want mastery or one of the other options: crit, Block etc.
I suggest you rethink the Citadel. Maybe have a sub Citadel for each hero, so as an example when you play shaman you probably want green mastery but cant and wont Pay gems each time you need to or want to play another class.

This update all in all has not made me want to play the game more.
Most of my chest slots are now empty. Nothing new, fun or exciting was added in this update.

Kingdoms. What is the point in being in an actice kingdom? The bazaar is a matter of timezone and trust or you just will not get a food deal. After 0.38 the food deals are more than ever ripped away.
As a leader you cant see who are buying all these deals, only the weekly reset might point you in the right direction. You could add a bazaar deal bought counter next to Kingdom Crest counter.
How about some Kingdom events?

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Thank you for increasing our inventory size!! I really appreciated you giving us a few days where we could choose to postpone the update 38. Thank you. I’m pretty new to the game so it gave me time to prepare for the changes.

Going to be blunt here and say this is a lie, or at least it’s true but by mathematical means that is unnoticeable by the average player.

Best guess (because we have only ever been able to guess) was that the previous drop rate was approximately 0.1% or 1 out of 1000 Dungeon chests. A higher chance could be 0.2% or one out of 500 Dungeon Chests. Another means to this higher chance is just a function of removing Shards; since Shards are no longer in the drop table, all other items that are in the table indeed now have a higher chance. While any of these scenarios certainly yield higher chances it doesn’t have a meaningful impact to players.

Please feel free to share the higher chance rates.

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With the last Update (0.37), I listed several issues which I felt were still insufficiently addressed. So what’s the state of these issues now? Here’s my list:

Issues still are the same, even more so with the change to Marks as I mentioned here:

Grade: F

While some issues have been addressed like the disconnects in Events from touching the screen too much, inactivity disconnects remain an occasional problem and lag and game hangs up (e.g. retrieving mail, switching classes in PVP, navigating through menus) still persist
Grade: C-

Complete unaddressed. This is still a pain point for new players and the spell changes don’t make a bit of difference here. I still see numerous players just starting asking “How do I get more spells?”. Is four spells really so much to ask?
Grade: F

So we got an additional starting 25 Gear slots with this Update. As I’ve said elsewhere, I believe they are are taking an incrementalistic approach, so even though I feel that the gear situation is still a problem (persistent small salvages required, no incentive to raise Northelm to Mythic, etc.), it looks like they are likely to continue to tweak this in the future.
Grade: C

With this update we have a daily method to acquire shards of all rarities, albeit randomized, by spending the new Marks earned from Events. Additionally, Skirmishes are now the game mode where Shards are found, having been removed from Dungeons, which incentivizes Skirmish mode and gives us a reason to use some Wooden Keys. With the addition of the 0.37 Shop changes, this is a pretty nice step towards resolving the Shard economy. Shard rarity is still too hard to target and the randomization of Shard purchases both with Marks and with Ore from the Bazaar still feel like you are too much at the mercy of RNG, but overall this Shard economy is in a better place
Grade: B+

Completely unaddressed. Also, with the introduction of the new Marks, the Food Deal from the Kingdom Bazaar is even more rewarding so the fact that no changes were made to the availability of the Food Deal (full kingdoms are still punished as there is not enough to go around) makes this issue even more critical.
Grade: F

I still think this is a problem, but with so many changes to the overall economy with this update, the issue of Ore is one that probably is not as dire as others and probably will get addressed once all other economic changes have been made before launch.
No Grade

This Update gives us a new way to acquire Glyphs and at a reasonable price from an earnable game currency. I’ve demonstrated elsewhere the expected rate of earning Diamond Marks based on Event participation. Assuming that Marks will also be available from other event modes (perhaps Seasons?), it seems like there is a reliable, albeit random, way to regularly attain Glyphs.
Grade: A-

Completely unaddressed. Diamond Chests are still terrible, even more so since you only see chests when earned from game modes (rewards from Dungeons and Skirmishes, using Tickets, or playing Events). The prevalence of a full chest of commons/uncommons is just inexcusable at this point.
Grade: F

We finally have a Citadel Reset! First one is free, further ones are 300 gems. Obviously this was a much needed change. My biggest complaint is that you have to assign the points one at a time which for those with higher Citadel levels is a pretty tedious process
Grade: A-

Well my pet issue around Block seems to have been addressed. Also other elements of Stat presentation seem like they are correctly displayed. At least for now until something else bubbles up, this seems to have been handled well
Grade: A

Of course new issues always arise:

Obviously this is the elephant in the game right now for mid-range players. Plenty has been said about this elsewhere; hopefully they come up with a solution soon.

Beyond whatever improvements they have in mind (and it definitely needs to be improved both for the free and paid rewards, with the change to Horns earned from Events in this Update, it is now difficult once again to complete the Battle Pass with daily play without spending Gems. Remember, you must earn 900 Horns over 56 Days to receive all Battle Pass rewards. Currently, Horns are earned as follows:

  • 6 per week from each of the three formats of PVP (Open, Restricted, Elite) for a total possible 18 per week. Obviously if you are not level 50, then only 12 per week are possible.
  • 28 per week from Events based on no gem expenditure and daily play. Purchase the 100 gem cache regularly for the 3-day Dungeon Event (the most economical choice since you will often recover 50-100 gems from the leaderboard), you increase your total to 42 per week
  • Variable number per week from Bounties. If you use only the 4 free tokens daily, and choose the best available bounties from all 4 given, then you will earn ~42 Horns per week. Take time to complete Bounties one-at-a-time, you can expect to earn ~48 Horns per week.

So lets take a look at the typical Level 50 player, doing Events daily and spending 100 gems on the 3-Day Dungeon Event (42 Horns / Week), doing the minimum rewards in all 3 PVP formats each week (18 Horns / Week), and doing free bounties by choosing them one-at-a-time (~48 Horns / Week). Over 8 weeks that represents a total of 864 Horns, 36 Horns shy of completing the Battle Pass. If you don’t meet any of the conditions I used in my example (not Level 50, not spending gems on Events, not picking Bounties one-at-a-time), then your Horn deficit will be even greater. Typically these extra Horns will need to be picked up through Bounties, so you will need at minimum an additional 12 Gold bounties at a minimum Gem cost of 300 Gems to fill our your Battle Pass. At least for the time being, buyer beware!

As I said a couple posts previously, this is malarkey :poop:


Finally, late game gem income needs help. Currently the best way to earn gems for long-term players is doing Turn 0 wins in PvP for 500 gems / week (1500 gems / week for all 3 tourneys). Because gems are at such a premium, most “end-game” players are therefore forced to pursue color aligned gear setups to achieve this goal. Although it certainly has created “something to shoot for”, it makes PvP even more joyless than ever and the situation needs to be addressed.

/fin (for now)

9 Likes

I’d like to piggyback onto Sibelios’ excellent post about the dire state of kingdoms too, the kingdom feedback thread is chock full of great ideas that should be seriously considered quality of life features


Not really liking the change here - it feels cheap.

I think that a mini boss or Boss should only be encountered after fighting regular enemies. They are something you should fight once you’ve already had the chance to charge up your spells, put some protection up, or had some influence on the board before you start fighting them.

Their stats are way higher than the players, and will likely one or two shot a lot of players from physical attacks, and almost certainly one hit kill from a spell attack (saw 18k spell damage). Players need to either Stun the enemy to prevent it attacking - for which you gave them stun resist, so need to be able to kill it in 2 rounds, or be able to get Barrier up to absorb a hit.

Play styles that gradually built up power over multiple turns are ineffective here because the battle is so short and every other round they are immune to stun.

The changes to mana generation seem intended to slow players down - while giving them events where a fast start is more important than ever, further punishing those without ideal gear. Enough evidence of that coming through in the feedback of other players.

For the leaderboards I don’t understand why you dumped everyone from L50 into a single bracket. A quick glance of the current leaderboard show everyone who spent gems will make a net loss. Merging all the brackets into one has demonstrated it takes one person to whale the board for everyone (including them) to make a loss, so the incentive to invest any gems into it will continue to fall as the novelty wears off.

1 Like