[LCN] Addressing Player Concerns

Game design is tough!

It’s especially hard when you have a game that’s been going for eight years, outlasting many competitors and being supported by a strong community. Any change you make affects game balance for thousands of high-level and new player accounts alike, and there’s always a lot of feedback and debate to follow.

The difficulty of making changes, on top of the cost of maintaining a high quality game, are some major reasons why a company would shut down a game like Mafia Wars. As you may know, we’ve had an amazing influx of new players from that shutdown over the past couple months, and the feedback we’ve had has been great. Players are saying they’re thrilled at the stability and responsiveness of the game. We’re extremely proud to still be delivering Mob Wars: LCN with high uptime and low latency, and our development team is constantly working on optimizations. But the reason we’re bringing this up is that we are not the type of company to pack up shop in the face of these issues. We want to work with players like yourselves to continually improve the game, and we have no intention of shutting it down anytime soon.

We’ve had quite a bit of feedback recently about some recent changes, namely the Referrals & Rewards system, 60-day New Player Protection, and offering another 25 FP at startup. There’s some concern that we only care about new players, and that we’re ignoring the requests of the people who have supported the game for years.

We were definitely saddened to hear this because we’ve been working on new content, as well as making improvements to processes specifically for our older players. In the past year for example, we’ve released both the Victoria and Exham Penitentiary locations, both of which are only accessible to players over level 8670; these came with a full set of items and crafting recipes and represent a lot of development work. We released mobile apps for 3 of our 4 games, primarily to give our high-level players the ability to play on the go. And we’ve also been looking at revamping the item strength ramp up after the last few Locations and re-doing the curve to better match our highest players.

Our long-time players are extremely important to us, and indeed the majority of our releases are designed to support them. It’s important to us to appeal to new players as well, because new blood helps keep games like ours interesting, exciting and sustainable in the long run. At the end of the day, all of us have the same goal in mind: a fun and long-lasting game. We love getting feedback from players, because you guys have a unique perspective that we don’t get from playing on our test servers, and we combine that with what we know from our analytics to come up with mechanics that are both great for you guys and balanced as best we can.

In order to explain our design process and how it relates to players of all levels, I’d like to talk a little about stamina and explain what we have planned going forward.

We often get requests for more stamina from new and old players alike. Over the years we’ve brought out a number of ways to help players collect more stamina, and there’s now significantly more available than in the past:

-Stamina boosts from friends, 100% once per day
-Daily Rewards, up to 50% stamina on the 7th consecutive day (thanks for the correction, @BigPaul!)
-Characters with reduced timers for stamina regeneration
-More achievements that offer Skill Points attributable to Stamina

Throughout that time, players have been asking us to raise the limit of 50 stamina on levelling up. This is something we have certainly considered, given that new players are often confused when they first hit the limit, or because longer-time players need a lot more stamina to level.

One reason this hasn’t changed is that the stamina limit is there partially to make scripting and bot use less effective. However, the major issue is that we wouldn’t be able to apply this retroactively to higher level players. If we started offering say, 100 stamina at level 1000, a player at level 1999 would be missing out on 99900 stamina in total, whereas a player at level 999 would be able to gain the full amount of stamina as they leveled through that range. We don’t think this is fair, so we’ve been looking at ways to offer more stamina that will affect all players simultaneously.

The main thing we’re working on is a stamina boost offered as a reward for collecting daily GP. This would be a new source of stamina that is not retroactive, and the amount would be based on your current amount — either a percentage or a fixed amount based on level range.

Along with that, we’re looking at changes to the Daily Rewards system so that you can continue to accrue more stamina (if you choose) after 7 days, instead of the counter resetting back to the first reward in the week. Though we do have GP achievements already in place to reward players for total days played, we feel there should be a reward for continually logging in each day.

Though these ideas are underway, it’s important to note that developing features like this takes time. It’s not necessarily the actual programming (though that is tough), but the work involved with researching balance, testing, analyzing game data, and debating the right solutions. Our goal is always to make the game as fair and fun as we can, so these steps are just as important.

At Kano our singular focus is to create fun and long-lasting games. We believe it’s important to make changes to keep things fun and interesting for everyone, and feedback from our veteran players is one of the most valuable sources of input because of their long-time presence and deep experience in the game. We rarely implement suggestions directly however, because it’s critical for us that any changes we make will not affect the longevity or stability of the game’s balance. We know these aren’t the exact suggestions that you guys have made, but we hope they help address your concerns, and that you understand why we are making the call to approach problems the way we do.

 

Well I suppose it's a start, I'm still lost as to what u mean about the stamina and missing out on it? If you get 500 energy everytime but only 10% of that for a level it cannot be that hard Sol and it would not mess the game up that much. U think of all that energy we have lost out on in the levels we have gained because it won't go over what u have unlike the boosts do........

It will be good to see what is to come but I just hope it gets done now and not later down the line when people can be bothered as I think honestly it will be too late for you as a business by then!

 

Well a response at least, some parts do address some of the issues we have and I would congratulate KANO on that.

However one point I have to take issue with is the suggestion about the release of the new Cities/Jobs/drops/crafting. Whilest it is true you have to be of a certain level to open them up, if a lower player was on them they get the benifit of the drops etc which was never available 7 years ago.

Further the drops from jobs etc and the crafting items are pretty much redundant to the higher levels due to their woefully inadequate stats.

An idea I would also like to through into the pot is this, for a long time it has been requested that the 50 stam refill upon levelling up is changed due to not reflecting the XP requirements to level up at the seriously high levels (7500+) Maybe it could be considered that the level up bonus is a % of max stamina, therefore reflecting more of the requirements of XP. Yes I realise it is stated that it could not be done retrospectively, but maybe this would be something that the longer playing members would accept to reduce some of the disparity currently seen, my suggestion would be that this should be 10% of max stamina. So if max stamina is 5000 you get 500 when level up, 6000 max = 600 and so on. Maybe starting this at level 1000 would be appropriate, or possibly at any level when the player has a max stam of 510 or more (strange max stam, but 10% would obviously be 51, if from 501 max stam would be 50.1 which is not feasable)

Lastly one fact that is wrong in the original post is that max stamina achievable off daily rewards is 50% not 30%

 

Why is this taking so long when you can so quickly modify the script for Raids? That was changed in a heartbeat, so why haven't our concerns been addressed just as quickly? Are our concerns of a lesser importance to Kano? It feels like your are just talking to silence us...

 

smoke screens & mirrors wasn't the main concern players with a few weeks game time beating those of us playing for years that had to build slow and hard to get where we are. this is no longer a player vs player, skill/strategy game ... it's who can do the most raids, and has been since the introduction of them. the game changed at the introduction of raids, will never be the same again. each person has to decide to accept it or not, and whether a little stam is worth staying to play.

 

love when they said raids would not drive away people from vc.. we had over 1,2k players doing arena, now no more than 600 join haha

they reduced level to sign up
and raids are there to level instantly to that point

so.....


lcn just got a big income in new players but i believe they will go sooner

 

@Zoe Bell Not every feature is similar — raids have some fields we can more easily tweak, whereas a stamina reward based on GP is a whole new system we have to design, test and build from scratch. Some of the stuff that's been suggested involves major changes to the game, so I was doing my best to explain why these things take a while and how we decide which ones to do.

@Curves If there's anything I can explain in more detail, I'll do my best. I think most of the players who were able to beat up on older accounts have been banned for abusing the referrals exploit/bug. I haven't heard of people just participating in raids who are now able to defeat higher level characters, but if you're worried we've missed some people who've used the referrals thing, please let us know and we'll look into it right away.

 

@Scoughman unfortunately i'm no longer worried, falls on deaf ears that can't hear and blind eyes that won't see. how far removed you are from your own creation.

 

Thank you, Scoughman , for your reply. I am a former Mafia Wars player and I am happy we found your game so we have a similar game to keep us tied together with a common interest. I have been a little concerned with the complaints from some of the long-term members and am glad to see each one addressed here. I was especially concerned about one who commented that they thought the game would be shutting down soon and I am glad to see that addressed here and glad it is not the case.

 

Another game I play is the rewards stay at day 7 unless miss a day of play, then it restarts to day one rewards and have to wait the 7 days of daily play again for maximum rewards. Just a thought, maybe within to mull over with the team.

 

Thanks for an update on some issues, it's appreciated. I truly hope that something gets built, tested and implemented sooner rather than later, understandable things take time especially when it affects all players across the board. Last thing anyone would want is a rushed build, slower game, full of bugs and exploits. I like the idea of being able to save your daily boosts for longer than 7 days, perhaps 2 weeks worth of boosts would be good, I also like Paul's idea of a percentage of stam return per level, I don't see why that would be such a problem. Oh, bring back forum incentive program but only reward those for valid posts that will help the game progress, not some of these forum trolls who seem to think they know it all.

 

Scoughman said: ↑
We released mobile apps for 3 of our 4 games, primarily to give our high-level players the ability to play on the go.

Well, that is just a spin--the mobile apps are available to all players and help all equally "play on the go." Why would high-level players be more appreciative of this feature? It's sad that you have to stretch so far to think of ways you are helping high-level players. That said, I'm glad that the team is FINALLY listening to years of complaints about stamina, and hope you can make it work without encouraging players to use scripts here.

 

GATMAN said: ?

On KP2 server there is less than 2 dozen of us that you will find in nearly every raid opened, we spend a couple hundred a month and do a majority of the damage collectively. I; like 75% of that number are boycotting spending on the raids until Kano removes the ability for the raid party to be perished, increase the payout of XP and increase the likelihood of landing a superior drop.

also want more energy & stam per level up
at lvl6.7k the 50 stam 500 energy is a fkn joke

all the loyal players that bought all the 30fp LQ items at 300 total point combined & now they selling items for the same price but 754 total points combined & all the loyalty points used on old loyalty point items only to make them now useless & for alot not even in inventory as the LQ,sale,limited item,supp raid drops & loyalty point items today surpass the old stuff greatly
now noobs come along & can outbuy the old loyal players who funded kano & made it what it is today
mainly because kano won't update all the old purchased items we own

kano take $ from u when u deposit cash into the bank
banks don't work like that & where's the interest banks give u for the cash u have put away in the bank?
that's what banks do u earn interest on cash put away lol

sw gives 75-100% xp u would get from a pvp fight on average
BA seems about 35-40% xp
raids give u 50% of the xp u would get from a pvp fight
the common items are sht
if u do over 10k actions then it's more worth while to buy sale items than do raids

119/155 & 155/119 is current common weapon from raid even if u do 30k actions if not top of tier then u will likely get this reward
Igniter 125/120 exam weapon job drop
116/119 is exham boss random weapon drop
Elite Despot Pistol 128/124
vic drop is 106/109
119/155 & 155/119 is current common armor drop from raid
spaceghost armor is 117att
the common raid items are dropping out & or getting close to from pplz inventory already

the crates are a joke
for 17fp i can buy sale items at 650+ total points
& they think u will spend 20fp for a chance at a 891 total point item when the highest chance is a 365 total point item
when can get a 754 point item gauranteed for 30fp
even at 50fp each there is only a 35% chance at the legendary item from crates & highest chance is a 504 point item
it makes no sence whatsoever

70k health weak accounts riding the hitlist with 10+ big players chaining them
while they heal nonstop
while attacking you back
while listing plz
& manage to find rigs to kill themselves on all at the same time as they heal
yes that's all done within ToS & kano can't find anything wrong with said guy doing this
numerous alt accounts also ran by this guy
reported by everyone nonstop for over 1.5yrs but kano refuses to do anything as they continually buy crates

turning what was once a fun game called BA into nothing more than the now cash arena where the $ u spend determines how high you rank not level nor skill point distribution
accounts with 16k attacks in 10mins into BA that's 26.6 attacks per second every second
8.8 attacks per 3 stam per second
but nothing is done
fiddler being used to block you from going into def mode
this BA HAD 230 PEOPLE JOIN ONLY 130 EVEN PLAYED
we used to have 450 + every single BA B4 U MADE THE CHANGE NOW EVERY EVENT THE NUMBERS DROP MORE & MORE
100th place only got 16.2k points
10fp for getting 4th place when it will def cost u more than that to reach it

20fp for sw win & 10fp for 2nd place when u have to spend 48fp to gain the 2 placements

bounty blitz events which encourage the use of scripts fiddler & macros as if they aren't being used enough in sw BA & pvp fighting
with no risk at all because you refuse to do anything about it

mitch deleteing any post that shows kano in a negative light or about something he ddosn't want outed
rather than trying to resolve the issues
like my last post showing that his claims of actually playing this game are false & his low lvl account is inactive & has hardly been used at all or ardvaks lvl100 account
as i stated in that post if kano actually played this game every screw up in the last 12+ months would never have happened
we would not have gotten another weapon dropping boss it would have been a vehicle random dropping boss

you offer fp discounts for bought shots in challeneges early on then keep them 3fp later in game regardless of how many u buy at the same time

the lack of new world bosses
they have 5 bosses on vikings we have 4 idk bout the other games

the lack of new cities being created & the amount of people already high enough level to join the next few cities that will be released should never have happen kano should have had that covered from the very beginning & continued to stay ontop of it

no new attribute achs like health etc
there is a 5k punch ach but no 100k health ach?

the ridiculous ach rewards like 35k jobs helped
that is 1000 days of continually helping the max 35 ppl a day & u get rewarded with 20k xp?

1428 days minimum of dedicated gamepay to get the last gp ach
for that we are rewarded with 12k xp
i estimate that will be 1 level at around level 310
at level 6.7k i get 11841 XP from 1 challenge help

7.5k hitlist kills gives u 7.5k xp reward

the boosts we get from u guys stam & energy help a little
THE $ IS USELESS!!!!!!!!!!

that is what i can see wrong with kongregate just quickly thinking bout it lol

 

you guys need to rethink i almost stopped playing hoping something would come out but basically nothing is being done if its based of GP unless your giving 10 stamina per maybe it might be worth it but this idea is plain stupid. The energy and stamina needs to be a %, what about the crappy items, all the issues and this is the only thing you can come up with pathetic......... I want my money back, Im a unsatisfied customer.................. Shame i wanted to keep playing but youve made it pointless and you say you want your older players to stay but this is not going to do it...... Lost HOPE IN KANO Shaking my head.......

 

i dont care about the retro i want the benefit

 

Maybe a Poll should be taken on how we feel about a change to the Stamina on Level up and whether or not we are actually bothered if Kano cannot retrospectively award what we would have missed.

I for one don't care. A change now is a change for the better, I will not consider myself 'out of pocket' on stamina.

It is not a case of "look at what you could have won!" more a case of "look at what you have now!"

 

Unless I missed something in many of the forum threads {hey, its possible}, why were accounts upped to 60 day protection instead of the regular 30 days? Instead of having to wait 18 days to kill this person again {he was smart enough to attack before/after the comment}, I now will be waiting 48 days. I said nothing to the person at all. I was talking with Ozzy and nothing was rude at all until after he decided to be his wonderful self ........

 

You can always create a Poll here, it is one of the options when you create a thread

 

Yes, we had new locations, but from the full set of 20+ items 18-19 where useless as we had better ones from previous locations, and even the useful ones gave us slightly improvements. When we asked why they where useless all we got is: There is no mistake, this is what the designers wanted. You worked a lot on new locations and we got almost nothing with them.

The limiteds are gaining 100-120+ points each year, while with new job and boss drops we had an improvement of 5-10-20 points each year, and after 6 years of this there is a huge gap between them.

How about adding more strength to skill points invested in attack/defense, as I am sure their weight is outdated, as the limiteds are at least 10-15 times stronger now as 6-7 years ago, and the weight of skills is unchanged. Or we just should add all to stamina and energy?

 

All i know its at the point now where I dont wanna level, dont need too there is no reason only reason to level and unlock a new city would be to send the boss out to people who need it. I have rethought and I think i will snail crawl on leveling wont spend on a refill its useless now might as well sit around and buy items thats the only way to be powerful in this game and thats the messed up part Kano, you now have made this game about and only about who can spend the most and that is the bottom line if your pocket aint deep enough you wont get no where anymore............ Wondering why i log in anymore.