TGIF! Development News October 13th 2017

Tango, Golf, India, Foxtrot. The end of another week of raids, wars and arenas. We’ve got a few tidbits of development news and a short update about what else we worked on.

First off, we had a pretty in-depth meeting going over the PvP changes that went out in LCN last week. We know these have been contentious and there are still some comments in last week’s TGIF and other PvP thread I haven’t replied to yet — I promise I will get back to you early next week. Our goal with the meeting was to recap on the rollout and come up with ways we could do this better in future, and in the interest of transparency, we want to share some of the key takeaways with you.

One of the biggest things we learned was that the change simply caught people by surprise. Especially in cases where we’re affecting how players built their characters, we need to give you guys more warning so you know when and how a change is going to affect you.

We mentioned the change in the TGIF and forums and linked them in-game, but players don’t always get a chance to see this stuff. We are looking at ways to surface this more clearly, but if you have ideas we’d love to hear them.

Along with that, we also need to include more detail about things like how big a % change in fight power you should see, or make it clearer how much inventory will matter vs. SP, that type of thing. It’s one thing to know a change is coming, but that’s not the same as understanding the impact on your specific character, and that’s what we need to deliver so you can give us the most useful feedback. This also makes sure we aren’t just looking at the big picture and give us more opportunity to understand how things will impact individual players.

I think the third big thing is that changes like this are probably best done in stages rather than all at once. Sometimes we need to move quickly to correct a mistake or problem, but if we are aiming our sights on an issue that’s been present for months or even years, our solution has to take into account the complexity and time involved in a change. It’s important to make sure our fixes are fair to everyone and give people a chance to adjust to balance changes over time.

This all surrounded a change that was specific to LCN, but the lessons learned apply to all games and all potential balance changes, and we’ll be taking them to heart, that’s for sure.

I also wanted to touch on a comment we made last week about further changes to PvP. With all these lessons learned, I want to make it clear that we don’t plan to make any other adjustments before rolling out some planned changes to inventory and improvements to the fight list. We’ll have more details on these as they firm up, but when those are out we’ll re-evaluate how things are going and decide if we think more changes are needed.

In other news, we rolled out a small update to Faction listings this week; on desktop, members are now ranked with Leaders and Officers at the top, just like on mobile.

Also, new loyalty items are coming out next week for all four games, so stay tuned for those and make sure to let loose with feedback if you’ve got input on the stats.

And for those of you excited by the loot chest/case and quest info last week, we have a special treat… Screenshots! Here’s a first glimpse at how the system will look in-game (with LCN as an example.)

This first image shows a new panel in the Godfather section that will list all your current cases, which you can save up or open right away, up to you. It also gives you the option to upgrade your case for better rewards - you can also win a free upgrade inside a case, too.



The second image here shows the quest interface, featuring a timer showing when your next quest will appear, progress bars for your existing quests, and the re-roll option for each active quest.



I also just want to clarify that this feature isn’t replacing any current mechanics in the game; it's meant to complement your normal gameplay by giving you extra, optional goals to strive for, with a sweet loot case at the end.

Last but not least, an awful joke.

What did the big chimney say to the little chimney?

Spoiler

You’re too young to be smoking!

Have a great weekend everyone!

 

Do you guys ever make items based off anime? Like Naruto head bands, bleach kimono, swords, maybe Halo armor or even assassins creed attire etc. That would be awesome!

 

nice to see that you also fixing some small issues like the order at the faction member list!
is it possible to fix the "wrong player name" bug at the left sided FRIEND LEADERBOARD?
some (not all) players are still listed with their old name before they changed the name.
i also see this "wrong name" bug at the GAME HISTORY and the Squad Alerts when acccepting/sending gifts...
maybe there are some places were this bug occures...

 

Can you elaborate on this more? How is the player name "wrong"? If I had to guess it could be a difference of using the player's alias (ie: in game name) vs their first name which we sometimes get for players who sign up from a social network like FB. If that is the case we can certainly look to use the alias for consistency.

 

here are some examples of names from the left sided list and the game history list ("listed name" -> "real player name"):

"Rosario2Vamp" -> "Carbon Monoxide"
"HiramF8" -> "Disabled VET Medic"
"Tokamat" -> "Romeo Whiskey"
"C2H6O" -> "BeerSlayer"
"BRAINLEGO" -> "Til Helvete Med Alt"

the "real player name" is from the player profile after clicking on the listed name.
for me it looks like they changed their name but the game system still shows the old names

BTW: all my comments belong to the game Zombie Slayer

 

Lets see how go work LOOT CASES, more time to spend?

 

I don't see anything but their first name on the left side, is this on FB?? that you are seeing it ??

 

no, its at AG.
the friend leadership list or the game history list should show the same names as shown at the players profile and not names from outside the game...

 

on armor and kong it has always showed the persons profile name instead of the in game name.

 

thats not correct.
just for example:
at the FRIEND LEADERBOARD or the game history list it shows the player name "HiramF8" but at the chat windows it shows "Disabled VET Medic" from the players game profile...
its a little bit confusing to mix up the names in the game.
it should be more consistent and show only the names from the ingame player profile.

 

Thank you Kano "One of the biggest things we learned was that the change simply caught people by surprise. Especially in cases where we’re affecting how players built their characters, we need to give you guys more warning so you know when and how a change is going to affect you." i almost quit the game!

 

nothing about raising stamina, get rid of Critical Hit that such a % diff why have it

 

Hi guys, Just a suggestion, what about a function where we can expel certain players off our raid bosses ( the ones who dont heal ) A button that we could remove a player from the raid all together..because we can see obviously who is all attacking and isnt healing ....Thanks Maybe that would solve the vampire issue!

 

oh my what next can't keep up

 

Really ??? as if that has not been asked for almost three years, lol besides Kano is not gonna do that, join private raids , and ya rarely have the problem

 

via last week's dev news:

 

Really ? I have not seen that suggestion, my apoligies........

 

Sounds good!

 

If you put all your SP to health and stamina how do you expect to win fights the skilled attack should be how you win. everyone is counting on loot instead of sp on attack to win their fights which shouldn't be anyone who has played fighting games know sp attack is suppose to be a lot stronger than loot items loot is used more to determine who wins if the players have the same sp attack and SP defense. boss damage is based on a player's sp attack just like all other features in the game other than fighting which really needs to be changed. having to continuously spend real cash to keep up is wrong.actually working to make a character stronger is the way this game should be played not seer who can spend the most money. I do have a suggestion for those who did allocate their skill to health and stamina kano needs to add a reallocate skill which should be for real cash so that players have the option of moving skill points from one stat to the other. reallocate skill should be done in 5 skill increments and only allowed to use one reallocate skill per day because it is the players fault they didn't allocate their skill to the attack or defense.

 

Kirsten, i have to admit, having a high level character in vc such as myself i dont find the raid boss vampires such an issue, i dont need to post to public, but where i play pc occasionally i do find having a low level character and posting to public this is an issue. All of a sudden i noticed "the vampires" Mostly high levels at that too doing that. Quite a strange event if you ask me.