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

Thanks Moles....cannot wait for the new age of Pox...aka when where back on steam (;

 

Pretty disappointed with a lot of these answers.

Here's what I got out of it:

Steam launch is happening ASAP, we can't wait to launch this incomplete product on Steam. None of the accessibility concerns voiced repeatedly by the players will be addressed before the launch, no major simplifications or changes will take place, and we're banking on the shiny new NUX taking care of all the problems that drove players away the last launch.

Base set runes for free? Psh. They won't appreciate it. (THEY WILL!) They gotta grind for it, man. People like grinding on a game they haven't gotten hooked on yet.

Lots of "crunching numbers" answers. What numbers need to be crunched about changing the turn timer? And I'm guessing there's no way we'll see a 2:00 timer before Steam launch.

So basically, Steam launch > everything. It must be NOW, NOW, NOW. What went wrong last time? Who knows! New NUX takes care of everything, though.

Sorry, but I'm immensely irritated.

 

My guess is

1. current playerbase cant be trusted
2. must crunch numbers to validate changes
3. not enough players yet for adequate number crunching
4. Steam = more players = better number crunching
5. Steam before changes

 

The way I see it, it's clear that a lot of resources have been expended to make sure that this steam release works out (as they should). However because of this, if the steam launch does not generate the revenue to pay for those resources plus some then it will destroy the game. There will not be motivation to make new content because there will not be enough buyers. All the money put towards making the steam launch the best it can be will be completely lost if it fails. Then they won't have the funds to support the game anymore and it will collapse in on itself.

so with this in mind, it needs to be of paramount importance that everything is in order for the launch. A new NUX will not save the game. A new grinding system won't save the game. The current community acting like mentors and helping new players as much as possible won't save the game. The game will be saved by giving the new players incentive to play. Grinding for runes is no fun, and getting through a NUX can be tedious and boring. For all of this to happen the game needs to at the very least be at a stable state, in terms of balance, bugs and accessibility.

While I am of the opinion that this game should have never been put to a free to play model, that is what it is being advertised as now and so that needs to be followed up. A base set of runes for free would absolutely help new players uderstand the game and how it works, and will give them incentive to play more. I don't have time to go into details about how this free set should be set up but with the sheer amount of runes available, giving new players a base set is far from a poor idea. Then having a cash for runes store would only increase the incentive to play and spend money for new players. Idk why this still hasn't been done.

Anyway those are my thoughts for now, more later

 

My quess is

1. Ran out of money, need players now.

 

This.

 

Yeah, this is like my #1 gripe right now. Even beyond all the beef I have with Ghost and rampant invulnerability mechanics, rune accessibility is the big concern - and turning the entire base set into a free foundation of runes for everyone would be an excellent bare-minimum step towards retaining more new players.

The excuse "They won't feel like they've earned it" grinds my gears in an ear-piercing, screeching, awful way. Why do they need to feel like they've "earned" a batch of runes that nobody in this game covets anyway? Makes zero sense to me. Sure, they can "earn" the rest of the 1000+ runes in the game, that makes perfect sense. But base set runes? It's just.... It's such an easy step. It seems like a no-brainer. I can't. Ugh.

 

simply reward the runes through the course of doing the walkthroughs and tutorials. bam. free AND earned.

 

I think he meant it more in terms of the sense of reward a player gets in completing something and gaining something from it -- you complete tutorials/achievements/ranked games, you gain runes or you gain gold or whatever, and from that you get a sense of building something.

It's a pretty standard concept in games, and makes them addictive. If you just have everything (or even a lot of things) right from the start you lose a reason to continue playing.

 

I agree badger, but the current grinding system gives far too little reward. It will take forever for someone to get a whole deck.

If they had a baseline set of runes it would still give them incentive to play. They can work on leveling up, and if you gave them, say, 100 runes over three different factions thhey would have incentive because they would know what deck building feels like, which is a huge part of the game. If we want to retain players we need to let them understand the game in full.

so my suggestion would be to give them enough runes to make three ff bg's from different factions. Give it to them after they complete the tutorial so that they have a reason to complete it.

now this system has some issues. Ideally, we could make the 30 runes that the player receives from the faction random, but because of balance issues that aren't fixed we can't do this. Some runes are particularly more powerful, popular, and therefore more valuable, than others. Sadly the rocky pathh that this game has fallen down has made this the truth.

So what would have to be done is each player is given 30 runes randomly from a faction out of a set of like 100. So 100 runes for UD would be sput into this pool, and when a player receives his base UD bg, he would get a random 30 of these. There would be a set number of commons, uncommons, rates and exotics in each BG. Then the player can trade, forge or make a bg as he pleases.

this may sound like a free giveaway, but really this is only a tiny amount of runes compared to what is available. They would have an incentive to level hem up and explore the game, which should be valued far higher than the small amount of runes given away for finishing the tutorial

 

At least skirmish gives some runes.. Even though it drains even more players from ranked.

 

Im in favor of giving out free base set runes of some sort in some way, it would help players have somewhere to start because one of the main questions iv had thrown at me so far is "where can i build a deck", the answer is in rune manager but they cant actually build anything until they unlock enough runes, which takes a little while. Deck building is hella fun and probably what draws a lot of people to TCGs/CCGs. I know its the thing i love the most, its alot of fun.

 

Free r00nz pls