Limit Levels and Rifts Until Defined

[feral burrow]

ive read through everything and i think we can agree to disagree on multiple points
but this just seemed like a counterintuitive point
"Speaking to people I suggested playtest, they found the time requirements to get some of the prologue point challenges done to be on the extreme end for something that is just reset in a month."

why even bring this up when you try to argue that people should play to test things instead of playing for their cause and second shouldnt it be a time consuming thing to get these points as they then drive up the hours of playtest each player gives?

especially since these points can give the game for free(albeit a lesser version with unlocks missing). just that fact brings up the value of these points significantly and also makes these points bring losses for the studio, because at the end of the day every game developer is making a product and they need to make money from this product

this will probably be the last post on this topic from me as we both seem fairly rooted in our beliefs, while i would love to continue i feel like im starting to hit the point of where i no longer feel can keep a calm and collected attitude about this topic

its up to BD to decide and i will accept their decision, i may not be happy with it but i will accept it and aslong as there is some kind of long term goal in the playtests i will spend the hours achieving it (this season the leaderboard was just that for me) if there is none i will most likely play for the points and then quit the playtest soon after due to my motivation to play dwindling and other games looking more appealing

[feral burrow]

1. everyone doesnt need to get all skills to tier 3, their feedback is by far no less valuable than mine or yours as the under tier 3 is also part of the game and also needs the same amount of balancing and testing as the endgame needs
   2.what i can say here is that we all currently tested the pacing of the unlocks this league and from the feedback everyone thinks its too slow, easy fix, speed up the unlock progression (which is not easy to balance correctly)

2. why do we have to lean towards one of them? the grinders are still gonna grind even if there is no leaderboard system or they will just leave as there is no grinding, it would be better to accomodate every group as every game as 3 distinct groups "new players", "casuals" and "hardcore" and games cant survive without these three groups together, new players bring either casual or hardcore players, casuals bump up players numbers and earnings in a full game and while in a testing environment they bring feedback for the low-mid tiers of the game, while hardcore players is a consistent number of players that bring earnings if a full game and bring end game feedback for testing purposes

3. "Most people never reach a point of stability where it's fun, so I can't help but feel feedback is tainted." this feedback is NOT tainted, there is no feedback which is tainted and if you think so i feel for the peoples effort to give their feedback and then have someone disregard their feedback as lesser just because they didnt reach a point in where they "could" have had fun. if the problem is that before you can reach full stability it isnt fun, then the goal that should be taken from that feedback is to fix the unstable parts to feel fun but not punishing without removing the unstable part as thats the whole thing with roguelike/lites which this game is aswell as a moba, mmo, rpg

"all feedback is good feedback, some just dont align with the makers views"

(look at me ignoring what i wrote above about not posting more 😅 )

they may consider lvl 9 super early game but sadly IT ISNT in the playtests, lvl 9 in the playtests is at best mid game but most likely closer to end game

and to fix the leaving people behind, morridan had the perfect way to fix that, TIE the rift level to the lowest rank instead of average rank, that way i could have played the druid with so many people and not feel bad about it for A, either pumpin up the difficulty for people that considered rank 8 diffucult while i myself added that much ontop of their rank and B, not being forced to character switch to a character i dont enjoy or find interesting to play,

[young epoch]

I'm confused by the terminology here. Riftweaver? I assume you mean Rift Knight (the actual characters we play).

Furthermore, squashing everyone together wouldn't be a bad idea if it wasn't for the fact that the differences between players feeling "Like they're useless" or "Not contributing as a team-member" is already something I've seen when helping people. They feel as though they're getting a free ride and get in a slump because they don't know what to pick that would be most beneficial to the team at THAT given time.

It sucks people feel that way though. Not much I think I can do about it other than ensure them that everything is fine and that they should relax and ask questions.

As for there being more Barbarians and Druids, couple factors I would say: 1) That is the base character they start you as. 2) That's what people find the most fun / least complicated to approach. 3) "Its what some of the best teams have, so must be good derp." and 4) They're currently the ones that feel the most necessary (Healing early and mid, tanking late).

[feral burrow]

this would also allow people to see that ive put time into the game from first glance giving them the opportunity to ask questions about the game as its their responsibility to attain the knowledge and not mine to throw it out and backseat(wanted to use another word but too NSFW) their game

[young epoch]

Yeah well, its posted as Rift Knight everywhere else.

[feral burrow]

hot take: "riftweaver" rank or character level. one of those should dissappear as with both is confusing for new players

but why have a rank for the rift?

why not tie that to character level aswell

what would the difference be

i can see none

then just dont have derank?

[young epoch]

I'd say just make your individual Rank / Level the same. Get to a level? Finish a rift to increase rank up to that level.

[feral burrow]

its just an anti fun stressful component that adds toxicity to random groups at higher ranks

i hit 25 on my druid

and never wanted to play random groups with it again

just because i feared the derank

not a big deal?

its to me

its an hour of my time at worst

and what if i was rank 49

and got to 48

imagine the time loss there

just dont have some mechanic that completely wastes a players time

its unrespectful

exactly

and did you play with new players during that time?

see

thats the second problem with making rift ranks an average

yes

then its not the systems fault

its the lenght of the playtest

because the playerbase isnt there

look at steam chars

at average we had 30 people playing

at best it was 120

[young epoch]

I don't think its about cooperative play RATHER than competitive. I would assume that it would be both a cooperative experience with your teammates as well as a competitive focus with other groups.

[feral burrow]

exactly

but that is just normal character progression

thats not a problem

every rpg or ROGUELITE has that

the ONLY fix is making the playtests longer for this

as we cant bandaid the system just for a playtest when the overall experience for full game needs to be tested just as much

i have never said that

not once

but i like the challenge it gives nonethelss

[young epoch]

I want leveling to at least 23~25 to be not only possible, but doable. And the early game also fairly quick from 1~15. A bit slower from 15~22. And about where we were at now post 11 where we would be if it were fixed to be like that at 22~25. If not for the sake of equipment, for the sake of feeling like you're progressing quickly. If a new player hits a speedbump too early, they may just think its a total grind fest.

[feral burrow]

what i tested was what happens if i push this certain character to its limits

what sticks out

and what feels clunky

then why would the allow us to test an incomplete system

they need the feedback about it somehow

and thus they allowed it

it at this points just seems that you are mad about people in low ranks being left behind by people in high ranks,

[young epoch]

As unfortunate as this sounds, and I'm sure its not a great thing to hear, if it was "Complete", they would have far less reason to get feedback on it this early. If you don't know how it will end up, and you're just throwing the idea out there to get feedback on, getting a semi-playable system up for testing is more valuable than theorycrafting.

The Devs of Minion Masters (many of whom are the same ones who are making this game) are kind of loosey-goosey with their testing. They want to see if something is worth doing before committing to it.

They're not afraid of tossing something away or reworking it into a different form. Not being committed to a single state is pretty valuable.

[feral burrow]

i've always though of their equipment system as a best case "brainstormy crockpot of ideas put together to test if it works"

as that its what it feels

[young epoch]

it is, from what I can tell. Its a random bunch of stuff. Our feedback on it is really important. Cause if they can't get away with random ideas thrown onto equipment, it will probably require more time to cook up something more coherent.

[feral burrow]

as if two or three groups playing with their friends would harm anything, its not a big deal

[young epoch]

And placeholder jargon, "Not final, might change, early build, etc".

[feral burrow]

exactly

and first glance feedback is just as important as 50 hours limit testing it to the extreme limit

because the system needs to hold up in both cases

[young epoch]

But if that early placeholder stuff isn't working for people, and its not good, it will change. If people don't complain about it, well they're flying blind and hoping people like it currently so that they can just not bother with dev time on something that "Doesn't need changed". So it won't get changed until something happens.

I think they need better UI design for their tutorials. Just adding little hover text an stuff isn't really doing it. Needs far more integration. But they added "Some stuff" tutorial wise.

[feral burrow]

At the moment playing with people who can help guide people is basically the tutorial
this is absolutely true but veterans that play with never people gets punished for it or they punish the newer player which isnt fair in any case AT ALL

i would have answered so many people on the lfg eu channel if i could have played on my druid and helped them the last two days

i legit leveled up the barbarian to help my friend and complete strangers with challanges and rift 10s and while i didnt loathe the experience of the barbarian it was by far not the most fun i've had in the game, that was with the druid

while i would love to test everything im not gonna test stuff if im not having fun which games are all about and in this case its also about meeting new people and i would say i've met 1000% more people just this week that the rest of the week as i currently cant even stand the though of seeing people which is unrelated to this and something i need to fix as i cant live like this.
during this playtest i would say that i've met and talked to Leri(played with earlier than this week but i will count it as it came from this discord), Morridan, Shoshi and Chrissye, and also one more that i've talked to and played other games which was at the same time as leri. all this is just from project f4e

the problem with low rank players atm is that the game currently dont have ANY of the social systems it needs to function as a friendshipping game thus discord needs to fill that role which by itself is flawed as not everyone will be using the discord much less be active in it and join random people and befriend them in the small amount time that is a playtest season

(ok but for real this time, im out of this topic if i send another message regarding this topic, i give morridan or any other mod or something permission to give me a slap or equivalent)

[lucid ravine]

hey umm.. can we get some DL;DR?

[feral burrow]

i invoke my TLWT (too lazy wont type)

[young epoch]

You're asking him to write MOAR?! (kidding)

[lucid ravine]

i dont want to read a book about 1 little corner of the game that could change and the same opinion on repeat (just guessing)

i hope thats understandable

[young epoch]

Wut? I've wanted to include new players. I've wanted to make leveling easier. I've wanted everyone to have their cake and eat it to. I don't think anyone is shouting you down? Not what I thought was going on here.

I will be honest though, I want my cake the same as I want it for everyone else. That -includes- leaderboards. I don't want aspects of the game that I enjoy to get sacrificed. Not unless the payoff is immeasurably beneficial to me as well as the playerbase as a whole. That's my only difference of opinion with you I think.

No no, I got that. Which is why I didn't bring it up till now.

I just want you to know that the only thing I argued is that people feel like they don't contribute when smushed against one another (top end to low end).

And that's more of a feeling than an objective fact.

Yeah I got that. Its not about your math being wrong. Its about player sentiment. And maybe it gets fixed. I can't tell the future is all.

[compact fog]

This, TL;DR a short paragraph to summarize goes a long way.

Don't get me wrong I hit the discord message limit a lot, when an idea/thought is new its hard to be concise with it, but it reaches more people and is more digestible the more concise it is so having a TLDR can dramatically help with that.

Like I wish there was a TLDR because skimming through the thread I can't figure out the core problem that is trying to be solved (probably missed it through skimming) so it's hard for me to contribute.

[young epoch]

I'm curious: What exactly are we testing? And before you answer, I mean specifically. Have the Devs told us what each test will be focused around? What things are they wanting to hear feedback on -SPECIFICALLY- with each playtest? Can you recall?

I'm down to have everyone testing abilities, equipment, and everything equally. But it would be great if we knew what to focus on.

Just being handed the reigns on a playtest and let loose isn't really useful for testing either, all things concerned.

[young epoch]

Well, I'll still be playing. I enjoy the game. Even if they aren't directing us that well during the "Playtests". I would like for this to be a bit more structured. If you play during the next playtest, and there isn't a leaderboard for us competitive folk, we should play.

[young epoch]

For the record, I thought you brought up some good points.
I hope they give them a look.

[compact fog]

I don't think that's entirely true, I doubt there is anything they don't want us testing, any information is good information.
From memory they have mentioned things like end game maps aren't optimized and the focus is on early game progression. I can't recall them ever saying there is no value in testing lategame.

They have also said they have gotten value from our skill tier lists based on what we know about the characters end game capabilities.
Which has probably directly impacted balance changes with the characters.

[bleak zephyr]

Please don't stop providing detailed feedback. I'm one of those low level - don't have a lot of time to play - people and it was a pleasure reading the back and forth between your detailed statements and others replying to you.