#A Swift Rollback of Master Shard Crafting Requirements

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

elder solar
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These are not changes that ought to occur in the middle of an incentivized campaign for the simple reason that it results in radically disproportionate, retroactive outcomes across the wide distribution of individual playstyles. This is a principle I previously believed to be self-evident to any competent balance team. Handwaving a change of this magnitude as just a 'wacky little testnet adjustment' is embarrassing to any professional standard of integrity, but there is no reason to belabor this when all we can try to do is petition a change through the appropriate channels.

The change is simple: Rollback crafting costs of master shards from 800 dust (lmfao) down to the original cost of 80.

This accomplishes the following:
-Prevents the retroactive punishment (at a ratio of 10 to 1) of players whose playstyle did not include accumulating excessive shards
-Prevents the retroactive, unfair reward (at a ratio of 10 to 1) of certain players in the distribution who did accumulate an exorbitant amount of shards
-Avoids damaging the gameplay loop such that players would be made to watch the same 30 second capture animation even more than they already do.
-Avoids damaging the gameplay loop such that the EV of capturing stage 1 tier 5 illuvials is warped in an anti-fun way due to the massive disparity in shard capture power and price.

signal portal
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Increasing a lit bit would be ok, but 10x was insane.. please guys don’t start to look like the delusional axie board.. let’s be honest, this was not a good decision and will make the game boring to new players

elder solar
agile cipher
signal portal
agile cipher
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guys keep in mind this is a testnet Beta. Things are bound to change...

elder solar
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There is actually zero fun to be had monotonously RNG parsing for the specific kinds of illuvials we want and then RNG parsing again on capture.

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Especially when our chances are so limited!

signal portal
naive cedar
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enjoy)))

versed shoal
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I think the change is great tbh, winning the fight should be auto-capture. If you choose to theres a price to it

Now that normal shards got buffed and we can only capture 1 (multiple attempts at capturing) having master shards be the special, pricey choice makes total sense

Few people had a ton of master shards, even if they did its not that big of a deal has you now dont need it as much (we are used to only use that). Its now harder to catch illuvials but its much better like this imo

elder solar
marsh kite
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I think open beta’s launch state spoiled everyone and now the spoiled are angry.

One of the play goals of illuvium is to create that thrill of capturing something that is VALUABLE. Without scarcity, nothing is valuable.

agile cipher
versed shoal
# elder solar Thanks for the feedback! The capture power disparity is demonstrably beyond the...

i cant argue against the number as I havent seen the comparisons myself but tier for tier used to be ~35% iirc, people i was playing with earlier had 61-64 but with the drone upgrades and i dont think it used to be that high

Hopefully someone can confirm here what is the tier for tier % without drone upgrades. Would you agree with the general idea of having master shards be for special occasion if resplendant had a more reasonable %? 40, 44, 50?

noble sable
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imo a shard of the same tier should be at least 50%

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maybe lower for higher stages

elder solar
# agile cipher is it me or everything seems to be zero fun/anti-fun to you? How would you make ...

Gameplay loops that are repeated hundreds or thousands of times ought to be absolutely immaculate. Any design philosophy that doesn't have seamlessness as its first principle is wrong. Even something as simple as a 'skip cutscene' button is an example of adhering to this. There are plenty of examples already in the game. Satisfaction is derived from everyone's own unique capacity for efficiency, but the game has to allow it in the first place.

-Imagine if we had to physically walk up to every mineral and flora deposit instead of shooting them (and imagine if people argued in favor of this because it was more 'challenging' or 'realistic'
-Imagine if energy didn't regenerate so quickly after landing

anti-fun is jarring, it's slow, it's tedious, it's walking up to a large mineral deposit, holding the extract key, waiting 5 seconds, holding the extract key, waiting five seconds, holding...

elder solar
versed shoal
# elder solar Gameplay loops that are repeated hundreds or thousands of times ought to be abso...

I agree with you man. I dont know if you were there but we actually used to walk up to all rocks and click R for 3s, shooting them has been an insane upgrade. Im sure we will soon be able to shoot big rocks too

Lets keep in mind its still early in devlopment so some feature are in their earliest test phase. I love the direction its taking in general and how the team reacts to community feedback 💯

elder solar
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oh yeah, I forgot that was the original system lol

knotty solar
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I agree with you here. It's not just about what's the right gameplay choice for OW when open beta is launched (and I think it's probably right to ultimately make master shards more expensive), it's about introducing a very significant change in the middle of an incentivised campaign.
So if a player decided to start collecting shards before creating master shards and going on a capture rampage, they're now significantly at a disadvantage to complete a T5 collection...not very fair

haughty spire
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it takes around 5 runs on stage 3 world to get 800 shards just to craft 1 single master shard 👎

also resplendent shard has a capture chance of 36% on just tier 5 stage 1s..
so master shards are a must when capturing tier 5s so i will understand if they raise the cost of forging a little but but not at a 10x raise cost for forging lol.

elder solar
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I hope I put enough emphasis on the idea that the primary issue is retroactive fairness with these shards. The extent to which master shards need to be reworked is a slightly different conversation!

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Even though part of the insanity is the specific change of 10x'ing the cost..

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Also just noticed that we reached +25 in less than 8 hours! Hopefully we can move forward as soon as possible with a council member

cunning vault
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I agree with the point that the cost should not change that significantly in the middle of a campaign with monetary incentives, but I truly believe the post could have been worded better. Now it's mixed with emotion (specifically the first paragraph and some of the second paragraph). Those are not needed to convey why and what you want to be changed.

elder solar
warm rivet
elder solar
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Rich
The implications of a retroactive change is obviously distinct from a discussion about the system itself...

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He deleted, alright...

quiet wave
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I just disagree i guess

lean jetty
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Disagree, I see 400 as better than 800, but no one cares how it affects how much free money you get for TESTING A BETA. Game Design>Your Free Money

quiet wave
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Not gonna engage about it more though you guys have gone the correct route. Take it to governance

soft gate
soft gate
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T5 get so much points

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so naturally u would want to use master shards

cunning vault
harsh oracle
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I think we need data on what the game economy looks like without dependency on master shards.

agile cipher
pearl cipher
versed shoal
# soft gate so naturally u would want to use master shards

We "would want" correct, but we are simulating and practicing the real game. Mastershards should be the special option and you shouldnt have an auto-catch anytime you beat a decent illuvial. If you want to use mastershards and dont risk anything, fine you pay the price for it

elder solar
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Some of them are verifiably beneficiaries of the recent nerf though, so that explains portions of it

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It's disappointing that a principled rollback for the sake of fairness would receive pushback in part because certain people are incentivized to see it fail

soft gate
cunning vault
# elder solar So bizarre how the core arguments are never addressed by the handful of dissente...

Then let me share my opinion on your core arguments.

-Prevents the retroactive punishment (at a ratio of 10 to 1) of players whose playstyle did not include accumulating excessive shards -> I personally don't think not having Master Shards is punishing anymore. As mentioned, I can catch almost everything using Resplendent now. I won't get into what can be caught and what cannot be caught, but I feel like I can finally use even Epic Shards to capture T5s. In fact, I personally think that the system now is better with Resplendent now usable, which wasn't the case previously.

-Prevents the retroactive, unfair reward (at a ratio of 10 to 1) of certain players in the distribution who did accumulate an exorbitant amount of shards -> Basically same point as #1, so similar opinion as #1.

-Avoids damaging the gameplay loop such that players would be made to watch the same 30 second capture animation even more than they already do. -> Capture animation isn't 30 second if you fail, but I don't think it damages the gameplay loop. The capture animation was supposed to be a thing to get you excited, and with Resplendent and not 100% capture chance, I can already feel the thrill even in testnet. This argument is also weak as there are other countermeasures. Just add a skip button like any other gacha games so you can skip animation if it is really that annoying. Right now, I don't think it's damaging at all.

*-Avoids damaging the gameplay loop such that the EV of capturing stage 1 tier 5 illuvials is warped in an anti-fun way due to the massive disparity in shard capture power and price. * -> Not sure what EV is? So I can't comment much on this.

versed shoal
cunning vault
elder solar
elder solar
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"Yeah it's unfair, but at least resplendent shards actually represent 35% now!" What?

versed shoal
elder solar
versed shoal
elder solar
elder stag
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If Illuvium doesn't get the economy right the game fails.
Therefore, doing changes, such as this one, to work out the economy must come before any single person or group of people and their Open Beta airdrop amounts.
I'm not saying it doesn't suck when things change, it does, but that is the literally the reason we are here. We are here to test changes and make sure that when the game drops, when even more air drop points are on the line, as well as real money out of our pocket, it is a workable game with a solid economy.

elder solar
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"it sucks but..." "it's unfair but..." "it's a bad idea, however..."

Okay.

elder stag
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I care about the project success. You care about a few more airdrop points in your pocket. We don't view this the same way.

elder solar
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...

elder stag
# elder solar Interesting accusation based on nothing, would you be interested in posting your...

Based on nothing? No, it is based on your proposal but you are right, it was an unfair accusation as I don't know what is in your mind and I apologize for that. So, tell me, why is not fully testing the economy during this test phase actually better for the success of the project.
My name is Torial in the game. You can look me up if you want but I will save you the hassle. I have 11 Mastershards. I played approximately 200 hours to get what I have and have put in multiple bug reports and feedback ideas. I would have done so if they paid me nothing in airdrops. I have a lot more money invested in this project than they would ever give me in airdrop points so it is in my best interest for this project to succeed and give me a return on that investment. Besides, I like the team and community, I want to see this whole thing be a success.

elder solar
# elder stag Based on nothing? No, it is based on your proposal but you are right, it was an ...

Very simple. This isn't actually 'testing' the economy at all, I don't know where this idea even comes from, tbh
-Master shards require 10x more dust, they skyrocket in price, those who sweep the market and hoard shards take another massive patch note W
-Stage 1 t5 illuvials skyrocket in price. The gameplay loop is damaged so severely that they're effectively worth (~500%!) more, which means those who have put the most time in before the patch take a massive W (this is actually good for me personally, btw. Imagine how amazing it is for those who put 300+ hours into private beta)

You don't need an econ degree to understand what will happen from almost any individual change, because it was a retroactive SYSTEM change, not some bizarre way to examine market patterns, as if this primary to fairness anyway in an incentivized campaign

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If it is easier to acquire something, it will drop in price, and vice versa...

agile cipher
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I guess some people just don't understand the concept of betas and testnet.

elder stag
# elder solar Very simple. This isn't actually 'testing' the economy at all, I don't know wher...

We all understand the basic concept of supply and demand but the team needs more concrete numbers than "this go up, this go down".

All of the Illuvials we currently have are not real. It is not a win for me that my fake Rhamphyre just went up in value because it isn't real money. But I do want this all worked out before it is real money.

Anyhow, have a good day, I am out I want to go actually play the game instead of discussing it.

elder stag
elder solar
agile cipher
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you're welcome.

elder solar
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Starting to understand why this thread is polarizing in a much more terrifying way

knotty solar
# agile cipher I guess some people just don't understand the concept of betas and testnet.

Sorry but it is you and some others who are missing the point. I think this thread was NOT created to argue about what makes sense for Master shards for the open beta to be successful (I do agree they have to be much more expensive).
This is about the obvious fairness problem created in the middle of an incentivised campaign.
The airdrop amount is a linear function of number of points accumulated which is highly linked to the T5 and T4 completed collections.
How do you explain to newcomers that it's worth "playing for airdrop" when it's clearly very likely they'll earn a very small fraction compared to ppl who have already completed collections using master shards when they were cheap? Even if they spend on aggregate double the time those players spent in the closed testnet, they're not sure at all to get the same result...
N.B. I don't care about the airdrop, I know am not getting much given the limited time I can afford

agile cipher
soft gate
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what is the capture rate of resp shard on a T5

elder solar
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It actually feels even worse than that since we can't really dust resplendents anymore

knotty solar
agile cipher
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it feels great actually, you were never meant to use master shards as we were using besides the fact that the game was bugged. Get capture rate drone equipment and you'll have 50+% capture chance.
Cry less and play better.

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I can already see another wave of whiners next month when they implement illuvial combat crying how unfair it is that they have to fight illuvials when we had it easy of just chasing them. Never ends the crying of the try hard airdrop farmers.

elder solar
agile cipher
knotty solar
# agile cipher I can already see another wave of whiners next month when they implement illuvia...

"cry" "whiners"...my bad, I thought you wanted to have a real discussion. So we're not allowed to point out things that don't make sense to us?
I'll repeat, I personally don't care about the airdrop, I care about a fair system and set of rules.
But pls continue to think that ppl who agree with this post (who are the majority by the way) are just stupid crybabies.
Sadly, all voices are equal even the ones that disagree with you.

agile cipher
agile cipher
elder solar
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At least there is finally an admission that it is unfair. The proposal will move forward accordingly

knotty solar
# agile cipher you can't really expect a fair system when things are constantly changing and ge...

100% agree on the game testing part, but they could draw conclusions and deploy major changes during open beta when the next airdrop begins.
When it was decided to incentivise and attract new players through airdrop, then things have to be considered carefully.

Illustrative extreme example: what if they say today something like "any hour spent testing going forward only gives you 1 airdrop point" (instead of the 200 applied so far). Would that achieve the target of attracting new players? As a new player why would I test for airdrop (because that's what attracts a majority of newcomers, let's be honest) when I know I will get 200 times less than old players for the same amount of time spent playing.

agile cipher
elder solar
agile cipher
elder solar
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They can attach themselves to whatever heuristic they want to. They had an entire month of private beta to revise the structure of open beta before it launched. They now have two months to revise the structure again for mainnet before it launches. Fairness matters!

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Not to mention a handful of private betas before that

knotty solar
agile cipher
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as I said before this idea is pointless and won't have any future as a proposal. You don't need master shards to play the game now. And you shouldn't get used to something you won't be able to sustain when the real game comes out.

elder solar
agile cipher
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IMO it is much more dangerous to get players hooked on the idea that they can cheese their capture using master shards during testnet and then change things with the mainnet release. This is how it should have always been. You can check the discussions around the master shards when they were implemented and I was one of the ones defending for 1000x shard dust.

knotty solar
elder solar
elder solar
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The campaign is officially UNCOOKED

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🫡 200 iq creative direction

quiet wave
elder solar
quiet wave
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I’m asking legit haha

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Wasn’t sure if you were being sarcastic

elder solar
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I technically haven't reversed my stance on this, I would literally revert everything that has happened.

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but insofar as the holo changes have the exact opposite effect of the previous patch, might as well put trust in our fearless leader

soft gate
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master shard is more valuable now