Video: Q&A with the devs (05/09/14)

This may take some time to process.



Basic Transcript: (watching the video is reccomended for a fuller experience)

Are you happy with progress on Steam relaunch - yes, we are hitting our goals - there is stuff for everybody, single player and PvP and more ways to get gold

Steam Preview

1. From Axeraiser: Rune accessibility is still a problem, can you confirm whether or not Legendaries will be forgeable ? Too many of them are key runes and theme enablers to not make this happen. - YES, probably going to be after steam relaunch
   
2. From Sepulcher: Can we give all base set runes free to every account so they can begin customizing decks immediately. - No, because it makes more sense that they earn it so they don't think its garbage, agrees that we need to get people into deckbuilding. looking at ways to make this happen.
   
3. From Sepulcher: Can we re-think the cash store for individual runes? - Thinking about it and crunching numbers, but wary of doing it right. Doesn't want dynamic pricing.
   
4. From Ragic: NUX is not what gets new players addicted, it is opening packs and building new decks, how do you plan to address this so that the re-launch succeeds? - Truth is, its about emotional investment. when you register you have no investment, opening packs gives an investment, which he likes. He would like to do something but its a stretch goal target and he's not sure if he'll be able to fit it in for steam re-release. He is also looking to add another way to get gold soon.
   
5. From GabrielQ: Do you have specific plans about early rune acquisition for new players? - YES! 5-7000 gold given for completing the NUX and updated the rewards system so you can get more than just gold for playing games, will give core set runes/packs as well as gold just for playing now.
   
6. From Nautilak: Can you talk us through your plans for a more comprehensive NUX? - We don't want to show players things they are not ready for, once they complete the tutorial they move on to the next unlockable, so players feel like they are progressing as they receive rewards such as gold for completing them. Once players finish the NUX they will knowledge of what PoxNora is about and have around 3 public decks and 6000 gold to get them started on Pox. YOU CAN TURN OFF NUX AT ANY TIME.

When will re-release go live: We hope to go live REALLY soon I'm still looking to add one more un-named feature. We are talking waaay under a month now
Senshu answers concerns of holding a beta: It would delay us by over 2 weeks to hold a full beta, we will be testing internally. If we were doing a beta it would be Monday thats how close we are now
Artists

1. From GabrielQ: How do you feel about rune reskins? are they hard to make or there is an ethical concern involved? - PoxZuo says: They do take time to make, collecting different skins of favourite characters is fun. Liquin_3rd Says: Reskins can be really fun, ethics don't really enter into it. Gedden adds: We would also like to formalize the concept of skins in the future it is well overdue.
   
2. From GabrielQ: Are there some particular rune/map art and/or sprites that you feel that are not up to par with the Pox Nora quality? - PoxZuo says: I know there are some of mine i'm not happy with. Liquin_3rd says: Same as above, i've also been trying to improve some of our weaker maps to make them feel closer to what people expect from a more modern game, without losing the painted pox feel.
   
3. From Goyo: Have you been working on new sprites? Can we have a sneak peek at them? (ST, SL, FS please) - PoxZuo: Yes. Maybe... (senshu adds they are looking to do a preview on the forums after steam re-release.)
   
4. From Kampel: Any work in progress to share with us? =P - PoxZuo: See the jpg (you'll have to watch the video to see the new in game UI 37:00 minutes.)
   
5. From ExiledTyrant: What rune do they feel is best represented by it's rune art? - PoxZuo: good question.. Cavernkeeper! Liquin_3rd: Maxxarek

Gedden adds that they are looking to increase support for larger resolutions for pox, especially for users on widescreens with large resolutions - Black side borders gone and replaced with Artwork, lobby expanded a lot and art added down the sides and looking to add full screen experience at higher resolutions
Gedden also aknowledges a bug in matchmaking that was causing certain maps to appear a lot more than others and cause a lack of variety, this has been completely fixed for steam re-release so map selection will be random and Auxillium will be back in ranked play.

From twitch chat: Will you be fixing stutter lag memory leak at steam re-release? - YES I think i've got the fix, but not 100% certain until everybody plays on it and give feedback on it.

Two more sneak peaks, First: 49:30 shows the expanded lobby and campaign screen with world map and art in place of the old black borders also confirms the new Bazaar tab. Second: 53:00 shows the brand new FW map which will be previewed again next week by Senshu in high quality.

Near future

1. From Grillado: When is the next patch and would it be possible to communicate whats planned better in future? - Next patch will be steam re-release, next balance patch will be as soon as possible after steam re-release. Could be a few days to a week after if no major bugs appear upton release.
   
2. From Multiple People: Any news on the hiring of new programmers or a new lead dev? - immediately after steam re-release will look to have interviews and intergrate new programmer. Not looking for lead dev, looking for a programmer to do the un-sexy things.
   
3. From ThBigChief: Can you give us a rough idea of when the expansion is coming out? - Steam release - balance patch - Ronin. Want to make it happen within a reasonable time of steam re-release. Gedden then explains normal expansion cycle
4. From twitch chat: Would you ever release a PoxNora book: I'd love to, as we have so much cool lore but i'd have to get somebody really talented that wanted to write it which is not easy.
   
5. From Chickenpox2: Are you going to balance all the maps once you have completed redesigning maps? - Yes. all maps should be ranked playable. Gedden tells Senshu to do a preview of new auxilium map next week.
   
6. From Multiple People: Are you going to be changing the turn timer any time soon? - It will happen in some form or another, but not at steam re-release. wants to crunch more numbers on it and hasn't had time yet.

Balance

1. From Regulate: Do you need to be a good player to be a good designer? If not, why not? - I think it helps but they are different skills, this is one of the reasons he has the council. Senshu adds, its one thing to balance it, and another thing completely to make it FUN and balanced.
   
2. From Kraska: How much do you consider the "flavor" of a champion when balancing a rune? - A LOT! Sometimes he likes to let the artist design a rune and then he decides its flavour based on how it looks, but usually he plans the flavour of every rune and likes to stick with it
   
3. From GabrielQ: Any plans to have a Faction Bonus review in the future? - This is a big task with a lot of effects, so its being discussed in the council but it will not be happening for a little while yet.
   
4. From Strings: What are you plans/thoughts on niche champ based counters? E.g. shatter/detection/anti summon/anti nora. Do you believe every faction/theme should have access to these (why)? - He likes blanket counters such as shatter and detection not sure about giving out counters to everything he prefers to give different thematic ways to deal with things or to tone down an ability itself if it is too strong such as ghost this is why it comes with limitations (cannot attack) Moles adds Ancestral Avenger? AA may need more work (moles suggests pariah) That is an idea I'd be surprised if the unit isn't changed at some point.

Misc

1. From Multiple people: We want more detail about plans for changes to single player mode - Most of the changes are the addition of Skirmish mode. Skirmish is now going to be a full new game mode, you can pick which faction you want to play against and it will pick a deck from either a player that has been winning or a public deck (64 variations) so the decks will vary a lot and keep things fresh. May add more difficulties etc in the future also. Hoping to fit some AI improvements to steam re-release but not sure if he will have time.
2. Gedden then shows us a unique image of the original poxnora loading screen and tells us a story about it (you'll have to watch the video for this 1:50:00)
3. From Moles1909: Do you think that you have communicated enough with the community recently (outside of Q&A's) - Do you think the drop in active players could be something to do with the lack of communication? - I think the dropoff is more to do with the lack of new content, I planned for this and think the steam re-release will be worth it in the long term. To address communication I'm trying to be less visible so I can get on with programming, so Senshu is your go to guy - he is the community manager and he will be providing more communication once we finish what we have been working so hard on

Please give feedback on your thoughts and how we can improve these!

 

Video linky no worky from my iPhone.

Also, thank you for the compiled list of questions and such. Will watch when I get a chance.

But my immediate interest is that first batch of questions specifically 1-5.

Transcript will be epic, ty.

 

still unavailable hope its up soon moles =p

 

05/09/14*?

 

i was thinking same thing
moles why is it taking so long?

 

Well he did say under 1 month, and nearly slipped on saying next week if theres no issues that arise with testing

 

Thanks for fielding my question Moles and I'm really excited about the new launch. I would like to make a little suggestion though.

My original question came as this:

Is there ever plans to implement formats other than the current 2v2, 1v1, ranked, casual?

(Ex. TCG's such as magic have Standard, Modern, Commander, etc.)

Do you plan to implement a comprehensive tutorial? The current tutorial system is rather quick and doesn't teach a lot of the specifics learned from playing the game.

(What skills are blocked/stopped by others, knock back, knock back direction, etc.)

When you reworded that it came as this:

Can you talk us through your plans for a more comprehensive NUX?

While I understand that my question applied to Nux and all that it stood for I really wish you would have specifically highlighted on the things I did.

I recently introduced a friend to Pox Nora. This friend is an avid tactics gamer and has played some card games so my friend understands attacks and templates such as the cones, spells, etc.

What she doesn't understand though are little nuances such as knockback being stopped by AP loss, disengaging costs, the direction a knock-back spell sends you, knock-back damage, shadow spawn, scrying, etc.

Things you generally learn by playing she has to learn the hard way, by having it used against her or just by happenstance.

That was more so my question and what I wanted addressed. When you asked it, whether your intention or not, it came off more so as 'walk us through what you did'. lol

Also, personally as I player I was much more interested in finding how their idea on formats varies from mine and other players than learning that it walks you though step-by-step.

Don't get me wrong, it was a good question and it answered plenty and i'm glad they went to so much detail, it's awesome and hopefully helps my friend.

I just mean it might not specifically have been what *I* was asking.

 

It's called "Gosho"

 

I suppose that answer is... acceptable...

 

I cannot be the only one who think the new tutorial takes way too long to even complete.

Most people take the first hour or so of game play (or first couple of game session if it's session base) to decide weather or not to stay with the game.
I understand tutorial is important but spreading it out too detailed in one go will still overwhelm a new player.

I think splitting tutorial into 2 a)basic tutorial b)advanced tutorial will be better option.

At the end of the day, if I spend a good amount of time into a game and I still have yet to meet any other players/ still stuck on tutorial and I still need to pow through them, I will not likely to play it the another day.

 

someone didn't bother watching it. It was stated countless times that u could disable it and just start playing the game with other players.

 

First off, I am watching the whole thing, still up to 1hr30min and still watching it, thanks for jumping the gun.

Secondly, if you start a brand new game, and after you play an hour or so you're still in tutorial or worse, at the end of second day you're still yet to complete it.

To me it seems like the casual pvp will be locked unless you finish tutorial (or turn it off) but as a game you have never play before, it is unlikely you would want to skip the tutorial altogether as the learning curve is rather steep.

 

How long is it taking you for the three tutorial missions?

Honestly, these tutorials are huge improvements. I mean, honestly, the number one issue we had before was when the tutorial was not up front and in person, the number of people that have personally asked me "Wait, how did you put that unit on the board" and then get frustrated.

 

mixed feelings watching this one

1. noticed one of my questions was asked.... happy
2. noticed it was not the question about ff ladders... unhappy
3. noticed it was a condensed version of my comment about NUX... happy again
4. noticed it was asked with the qualifier 'ragic actually asked a good question'.... not happy again, f off ****head, ALL my questions are good.
5. noticed geddens answer was as hand wavy and roundabout as usual... happy that my expectations were met, then unhappy that my expectations were met.
6. noticed gedden said he didn't have time to read the forums... unhappy
7. remembered that he liked a post in preview thread... happy
8. realized that this means he lied.....unhappy
9. someone asked senshu to take his shirt off... unhappy
10. he didn't... happy

net feeling is neutral.

 

Completed the transcript, hopefully this pleases the people that don't hear english well or are too lazy to watch the video!

 

What about Avatars? They cost more than a pack, and feel less exciting.
I almost didn't want to buy any, but they really make too much difference sometimes, with the extra health if nothing else.

Also, I have ZERO alts. I kind of wish I had, though, for more Renovators if nothing else.

Some Dailies are still stupidly hard, though. Sunderpede is annoying depending on what I'm playing, and the Serkan Superchamp daily I almost don't bother playing sometimes.
A grief I have with one of the current campaigns is having Boss runes on your team. I was playing the Land of Mutants third scenario, and the AI would Sandstorm my Boss from anywhere on the map, and I could not possibly save him. Also, it makes using Cataclysm a real pain.

 

I, who falls into the latter, thank you.

 

Anyone else start tripping out at the way Gedden pronounces Incorporeal ?

 

Inkaporeal

 

Thanks for the Q&A! You could improve the format by increasing the size of the Skype window. Most of the time the rune list tab is unnecessary, so you could use this space.

 

Thanks Moles for time and effort!