[AMA] Ask The Developer Anything - December 4th

[Engram]

Thanks for doing this!

Sure thing! Thanks for playing Crime City and prepping these questions for your team!

MAJOR EVENTS TIMES
Can you please change the deployment times of major events. These really should not be back-to-back, offering no breather time or break. Syndicate Players deserve a 12-24 hour break between events like Battle for Empire City and Raid Boss. Heck, I'd even settle for a 2-4 hour break! Syndicates need time to sort out player issues after these events, including booting players for non-activity and getting their replacements in before the next event starts. If not for all, please do consider it between Battle and Raid Boss!

We’re definitely looking into streamlining and optimizing our live ops schedule. Hopefully the changes that brings will help alleviate some of the community’s concerns. The suggestion posted below may also be a part of that solution.

NEW SYNDICATE RANKS/ROLES
Could you possibly implement new titles/ranks in the game? Currently, the leader is the only one with full power. Most Syndicates have players from all over the world to keep things rolling 24/7. It would be great to have a Co-Leader option to share the same full duties. Another great option or alternative would be to have Senior Officers rank in addition to the current Officer rank. Senior Officers could have a little more access, such as buying Hideouts and removing players, but maybe not changing the Syndicate name. These promotions would be given out by Leader/Co-Leader at their discretion, just like regular Officer titles are.

We’ll add this to our list of improvements to consider as we’d like to keep international guild memberships a functional and thriving aspect of the game.

ATTACK SCREEN
Why are the defense stats on the attack screen in Battles (and regular attacks) not scaled to fit, so the entire number is visible, across all device types? They are constantly cut off or shown with an ellipsis (...) and we are left to guess. A re-design on the attack screen would be wonderful!

Agreed! This is something we’re currently looking at actually, it’s been an issue across several of our titles and are working toward implementing a solution.

RANKING TAB UPDATES/EVENTS STATS
Would it be possible to update the Ranking Tab under Syndicates to include the total IP from Battles, Points from Street Assault, etc. There must be some place that this type of information could be captured, as it is lost as soon as an event ends. We shouldn't have to rush to take screenshots of every player moments before it ends. We should be able to access it and have it at least until the end of a cycle or until the next "like" event overwrites/updates the column.

We have been discussing the merits of a battle log for the game. Right now it is on our list of improvements to consider.

WALL HITS CAPTURED
Could you think about adding an additional column on the Battle for Empire City screen to capture Wall Hits (could call the column "WH"). It would be nice to capture each team members hits against the wall. Many say they hit, when they don't - so this would just be a nice feature from an Officer/Admin point of view...in addition to seeing their direct wins, offensive wins and losses.

This could also be a part of the battle log feature presented above.

BULK BUY UZIS
Will you add a "bulk buy" option for Uzis, as you have done with equipment? It takes so long to buy 120 Uzis, especially when you are constantly getting Raid Boss summoned and Raid Boss down popups in the way.

Consider it added to our list of improvements.

FLASH POPUPS
As said above, flash popups can be very annoying. Could you implement a way to turn them off after initial viewing, or create a NEWS tab in the player menu or under the Globe Icon where you can click to see them again? Being able to turn them off for Raid Boss would be great as well. Not everyone needs the reminder, so having that option would be great!

We’re looking into it actually, as it's pretty annoying for us too! We do want to try and make better use of our News tab/screen in game to capture more info and interrupt gameplay less.

GLOBE ICON
Why do you remove Globe Icon for events like Street Assault? Can't you just add the Street Assault icon in addition to? You don't take it away for Raid Boss. Sometimes it's nice to see what's coming up after that event.

We’ll add that to the list of potential improvements, our UI/UX designers will have to weigh in since as we add new features, the UI has to get shuffled around and there’s only so much space to play with.

PURCHASE via BANK
Can you make the personal bank the main purchase source for buying items, buildings and upgrades? When you buy anything in the game and don't have the funds out in the open, it always prompts you to buy cash from GREE. I don't know anyone that would do this as the first option if they have money in the game bank. It just causes more back tracking. In my opinion, it should pull from your personal bank and it should only prompt to buy cash from GREE if you don't have enough funds in the personal bank at all.

We might be able to add an alternative flow that allows you to “borrow” against your current balance via the bank to buy items while you’re accessing the store. Consider it added to the list of improvements to consider.

XP REWARDS
Why is XP treated like a reward? We get XP for hitting targets in the game, but when we complete that round, we get even more XP along with our reward. It's not a reward, it's more like a penalty for participating in events. Many players don't even attempt LTQ's for this reason (for fear of leveling up too quickly). Please consider replacing the "XP award" with RP or a brick or two. Leave the XP on the targets alone. It may raise participation in some of the events and more gold purchases for you!

We’re aware of the current fear of leveling up and how it affects big pvp events like World Domination. Currently we’re working on ways to actually make leveling up a desirable aspect of the game. Please look forward to future developments.

COLLECT ALL
Are there any plans to add a "Collect from All Buildings" feature? I hear there is one in MW, so why not CC?

Yes, many apologies for the delay, but we’re happy to deliver the feature to you in our 6.0 update!

DAILY SCRATCH
Are there any plans to improve the Daily Scratch card? It would be nice if there was at least a quarterly update with new items/prizes.
Are there any plans to give us any additional options on our user profiles? It would be nice to be able to add Time Zone or Country and Language. This would be very helpful for recruiting and when we receive unsolicited join requests.

Definitely! This is something in our list of upcoming updates (no ETA right now tho’, but in the New Year).

iOS vs. ANDROID
Do you plan on making features on iOS the same on Android and vice versa? There are some little things here and there that are not the same across both platforms. I know this because I use both types of devices to play.

Thank you for your feedback. We do our best to have feature parity between iOS and Android, but sometimes we are unable to make everything match 1:1 between the two OS’s. This is caused mainly by the fact that the client codebase is split between the two platforms - in a word, we have to create two versions of Crime City!

FIX MY HAIR, YO!
Finally, I was asked to find out why female player avatars hair float off the side of their heads? LOL! It only seems to do it in thumbnails on attack screens, Battle for Empire City list where IP is presented and in the Syndicate Members list. Regular profiles seems fine.

We’re very sorry. Totally our bad! That was an unfortunate bug which slipped through and will be fixed in our 6.0 update.

[M15]

It would be appreciated if you could shed some light on IP payout in battles. While the basic mechanism is pretty clear to the majority of the players, there are still some aspects that are rather vague.

- Does the number of players hitting the same player simultaneously have any effect on IP payout? Many believe IP will be lower than usual if 2 or more players attack one and the same player at the same time. Any truth to this?

- Does the defense of an attacked player matter as far as IP is concerned? Many believe IP payout tends to be higher if one attacks and wins against a player whose defense is close to one's own attack. Any truth to this?

- Is there a certain level difference that could be considered too high in order to score a maximum amount of IP?
For instance, a level 100 player trying to score maximum IP by attacking a level 250 player. Would the level 100 player be better off hitting a player whose level is not higher than, let's say, level 150-190?

Thanks in advance

[Engram]

How did you get such a cool job working at a big gaming company?

Our lead designer says: Lots of hard work, love of games and interest in what people find fun.
Me: Lots of hard work and luck. Started off as a game tester and moved up through the ranks. Made a bunch of console games with big name publishers, and now I'm here at GREE!

[Nighteg]

This is from previous Q&A:



There was no such this in the "next battle" ,which was 2 weeks ago (except for the top 2, but nobody was asking about the top teams). Why promise something if you're not gonna do it?

[Engram]

Thanks for your questions! I'll post quick answers for now. More later.

is it possible to have a standing leaderboard system for highest stats? attack and defense scores. perhaps iph. this seems like such a basic feature that most other games have in place. perhaps even a tournament style event for individuals. tiered of course.

Thanks for your awesome suggestions! We have plans for adding new leaderboard-based features and events in the coming year.

Is it possible to implement a raw stat counter on your profile? not just your modified stats? and perhaps sorted by catergory..

No promises, but we can look at your suggestion, as we are revamping parts of the UI.

Why isn't there better variety in modifier prizes? its always a 10-20% attack or defense modifier. This has seriously made thing boring for many. I can think of at least 20 other modifiers that would spice things up.

We are reviewing the types of bonuses we are giving out in prizes. However, we are trying to be conservative with what we give out, as certain bonuses will effectively break the balance of the game and exacerbate stat inflation.

Can you speak on the future of the game? specifically how long gree plans on keeping it alive. There are always people that dont know what theyre talking about, saying things like the game is on its last leg. You're clearly still developing for the game. But I get the feeling that crime city developers share duties across other gree titles. and that the only reason crime city is still around is because it doesn't have a dedicated staff. (that's more of that "not knowing what we're talking about" talk right there!)

We have a dedicated team of engineers, designers, artists, and testers working on Crime City full time and we’re hard at work to bring new features to the Crime City community!

Our 6.0 update will bring some exciting new features to the core gameplay in Crime City (more info coming soon!), and we’ll also be releasing a content expansion pack which will include 1) level cap increase to level 300, 2) 4 new areas, 3) new store items, 4) hood expansion and more!

We’ve got a pretty exciting roadmap ahead, and we want to keep Crime City going as long as possible!

Why not have AMA's more often? I understand that each question has to be studied, and answer carefully crafted. ok. but a little more attantion and interaction with the community would go a long way towards easing some of the regular frustrations with the game.

Absolutely! We’re planning to do AMAs on a regular basis. We’re happy to answer your questions and share information about what we have planned for the future.

thank you

Thanks for playing Crime City!

[Sleazy_P_Martini]

This thread is moving slower than a herd of turtles.

[Engram]

Could the developers add a "gift cash to friends" option?

Thanks for the suggestion! No concrete promises at the moment, but we would love to add some type of gifting system into Crime City.

[wayno]

How does ths funzio id and password work for transferring game from one device to another?
I tried this a while ago when I got a new device, and it didn't work. I ended up waiting for 3 weeks to get gree to sort it out via sending in a ticket.
This is not good as a leader, not being able to do anything for 3 weeks, and I would be worried when I have to do it again,

[Engram]

This thread is moving slower than a herd of turtles.

Didn't know turtles could type.

[Engram]

How does ths funzio id and password work for transferring game from one device to another?
I tried this a while ago when I got a new device, and it didn't work. I ended up waiting for 3 weeks to get gree to sort it out via sending in a ticket.
This is not good as a leader, not being able to do anything for 3 weeks, and I would be worried when I have to do it again,

Question to the Developer!
When are you going to get rid of the game transfer rubbish!...[snip]

My apologies for making you suffer through this process, but we have some good news! We're releasing a new account transfer feature in version 6.0 (iOS/Android) which should make this process much less painful and allow players with multiple accounts to manage them from a single device!

[Jason_Bourne]

Didn't know turtles could type.

Will you guys be answering the rest of the questions, since we are quickly approaching the end of our 'happy' hour??

[wayno]

Could something be added for leaders to view all members in a list with level, attack, defense, and iph in one place for admin purposes?

[Dipstik]

I've noticed that every suggestion so far has received a positive response... Even the really dumb ones like the "gift" system. Were you told to just nod your head at everything people ask you for?

My question: will you ever crack down on people selling their accounts? Is it permissible now or only for gold spenders?

[Clementine]

Thank you for joining the AMA. This thread is now locked for new questions. We know that not everyone's questions got answered, but our Developers will be popping back in over the next few days and trying to answer as many as they can get to! We look forward to doing this again with you in the very near future!

[Engram]

Hi, want ask about skill points, after last game update it doesn't work.. It's sad I was spent a lot of money for prizes with attack modifiers.. Can u made 1 skill points = 10% attack or defense) It will b clear and easy for all) sry for bad engl))

Sorry! Not sure if I understand your question very well. If you think your game is not functioning correctly, please file a CS ticket from the game and we'll do our best to help you.