XP in the LTQ, raiding glitch last night

[Zenobia]

Well CJ, I can't wait to see how your next bug hurts long-term, devoted players. Judging by the past few, we should see it in what, four days from now?

This reminds me of the feedback we gave on the first war and Gree's response:

1) Players: Please don't make future wars fall on holiday weekends. Gree response: wars on Easter, Mother's Day, Memorial Day, Father's Day.
2) Players: Please spread wars at the very least a month apart. Gree response: 2-3 weeks apart.
3) Players: Please keep the wars short. Gree response: okay, except for half the holiday weekends.
etc, etc, etc.

I swear it's like they actually listen to what the players want, then actively do everything they possibly can to do the exact opposite. Are they trying to make everyone quit the game? If so, it's working. The attrition rate is worse every week.

[Skyraiders]

Gaining experience is not a penalty from the design side of things, or else we would not have experience in the game in the first place. I well realize that the strategy shared as "optimal" by our theorycrafters on the forums is to level as little as possible, but the game is not intentionally designed with that in mind as a playstyle.

EDIT: Also, it is non-trivial to change the level even on a single account. Level is hooked into a whole lot of stuff on the back of things, and changing that without addressing all of those can royally screw up someone's game.

So if i particapate in the wars and now get less CP because i am a higher level....thats not a penalty?? Please enlighten me sir!!

edit: I know send a ticket into support so they can fix it......The CP earned has been well documented over the last 4 wars...please dont tell me that levels and CPs earned have no relation or that the problem is in the coding. HIGHER LEVEL=LOWER CP

Call me a liar i dare you!!

[Zenobia]

Gaining experience is not a penalty from the design side of things, or else we would not have experience in the game in the first place.

Okay, then change the wars so that I am not penalized CPs as compared to those who are attacking the same rival as I am but are a lower level than I am. Until that happens, leveling is effectively a penalty in the game. On the coding end, maybe not a penalty. On the playing end, definitely a penalty as wars are coded right now.

[CJ54]

How many people asked for it??? I choose to do LTQ even if i level up once or ten times......i dont even care about the gems i spent cuz i would have spent them anyway to do the ltq...However gree stance or yours has always been about....what exactly?? Fair play...equality.

I am happy you are listening to your customers by changing the XP to lower values because that is what we asked for. To do it in the middle of an event is absurd. I understand that you can not make everyone happy...in this case doing nothing (which seems to be the case with gree) would have been the best move...oops there is a problem with the code ...oh well just let it go.

Several hundred. For those people, doing nothing would have been "just another thing that was broken and they did nothing about". As you say, it is impossible to make everyone happy. Fixes/player requests are prioritized and gotten out the door as quickly as possible unless there is something else on fire. I'll try to address the rest of your message in a separate post.

Intentionally designed or not, that is how it seems to work in Conquest battles. So unless you are going to alter CP scoring to make level irrelevant, I think you have thoroughly hosed some of your more devoted players.

Well, then maybe it is worth revisiting CP scoring. The system was originally designed to allow factions/guilds/syndicates with mixed level members to be able to compete against each other on somewhat equal footing. There may well be a better way to do that and not make it feel like leveling is a punishment (in that regard, at least). We've had some excellent feedback on it over in MW that we have been looking at, and we'd welcome it from here as well.

[E-I]

Changing CP would be a good start toward making level less relevant. Level-based CP is the main reason why I am concerned about this bug.

[bgood]

Here is my suggestion do away with the ally cap of 500 and let it flow naturally based on level that way a higher level person gets the additional benefit of bigger army. That way the balance of losing war cp to gaining more stats at least provides so that leveling is not a complete detriment. Remove the cap of lvl200 too let the big fishies swim north

[Skyraiders]

Several hundred. For those people, doing nothing would have been "just another thing that was broken and they did nothing about". As you say, it is impossible to make everyone happy. Fixes/player requests are prioritized and gotten out the door as quickly as possible unless there is something else on fire. I'll try to address the rest of your message in a separate post.




Well, then maybe it is worth revisiting CP scoring. The system was originally designed to allow factions/guilds/syndicates with mixed level members to be able to compete against each other on somewhat equal footing. There may well be a better way to do that and not make it feel like leveling is a punishment (in that regard, at least). We've had some excellent feedback on it over in MW that we have been looking at, and we'd welcome it from here as well.

Pm me if you want that would be great!!

[Alexius]

Personally, I don't complain about much. I understand that people make mistakes. I also understand that when people make mistakes that the appropriate response is to attempt to right the wrong. I cannot appropriately express my level of frustration with the line of thought that "we kinda fixed the issue and if you were adversely affected because you play the game with too much excitement too bad," within the terms of use policy so I'll simply state, "I disagree with your decision on this matter" and move on.

[LordIndy]

Gaining experience is not a penalty from the design side of things, or else we would not have experience in the game in the first place. I well realize that the strategy shared as "optimal" by our theorycrafters on the forums is to level as little as possible, but the game is not intentionally designed with that in mind as a playstyle.

EDIT: Also, it is non-trivial to change the level even on a single account. Level is hooked into a whole lot of stuff on the back of things, and changing that without addressing all of those can royally screw up someone's game.

This is all fine CJ, but the fact of the matter is that level does matter and due to the fact the rules were changed in the middle of the quest means that players were impacted differently and some players are acquiring the same units and stats while leveling fewer times. This game is not so much about absolute stats as it is how you rate in your battle pool. It is undeniable some players were adversely affected by the decision to change the rules mid game.

[Cxxxmm]

This thread was about inequality - smooth transition to making the game better overall does not answer the inequality issue. It is not about game design, guild wars, etc etc

i assume that every player would want to be the strongest at each level - the change by Gree in the last quest made this not possible for someone who started the quest prior to the quest being changed by Gree - all things being equal

that to me is a PENALTY - for gree to state otherwise is mentally challenging for me

For Gree to not even make a feeble attempt to make the last quest fair for all is mind boggling for me - you don't have to redo anything - just add the proportionate correct stats to players who started the quest with a HUGE Penalty

but we can discuss how we are all listened to and kick this to the side of the curb.........

[SoCalWolverine]

My guild just lost a player that said this latest issue was the last straw for her. She was a lvl 162 player with 500k+ A/D, and spent mountains of gems both on LTQs and in wars. She was on 48/50 when the experience change happened. Once she heard she snapped, sold off all her buildings, and left the game. (At least she donated the gold to the guild, but that's little compensation for what we've lost in her.)

How is that not a penalty? It hurt not just her, but our entire guild. And congrats, Gree - you just lost about $1000 of income a month from just her. I'm sure there are many others ready to do the same thing so I suggest you consider your next move carefully.

Two observations for you Gree, I hope you share this with your management team and take it to heart:
1) Just because you didn't design the game to be played a certain way doesn't mean that playing it a different way is any less valid, especially if a majority of dedicated players do just that. Disregard the masses of people that *do* play that way at your own peril. People find new and innovative ways to play most games out there - usually in ways not intended or even thought of by the game maker - that is called strategy and that is what makes it interesting to them. If everyone plays the game the same way that will quickly become boring. Again, ignore these dedicated players at your own peril.
2) Making a snap decision to change the fundamental way something is working mid-stream when it isn't technically *broken* is just a recipe for disaster, as you can now plainly see. By all means take the complaints of customers into account when you launch a new event - but use that to shape FUTURE, not current events.

The bottom line is you are only making things worse by standing by your decision on this LTQ as being the right one, and by not trying to compensate the players you have now wronged through no fault of their own because it is "non-trivial" to do so.

A big first step would be to simply say "We're sorry, it was a mistake to change the event after it had already started." A meaningful apology would at least show you acknowledge what happened and regret it, and probably settle everyone down a bit as well.

An important second step would be to sit down and find some way to "make it right," as best as you can. If that means spending extra hours coding out a way to compensate people, or coming up with some sort of tiered compensation based upon where people were in the LTQ when the experienced changed, etc., then so be it.

Your credibility and reputation as a company are on the line now, and the decisions you make in the coming hours will have a major impact on your bottom line. On that you can be certain.

Regards and good luck.

- Wolverine

[Bb233]

If gaining experience is not a penalty then why was it necessary to fix the LTQ after it started? Even if "hundreds" of people asked for it why would it have been necessary to fix something that wasn't broken when all players would have been treated equally by doing nothing? Why was it necessary to address the concerns of these "hundreds" when doing so would treat them more favorably then the ones who decided to participate in the LTQ as it was originally setup? If you have "hundreds" of players ask you to give them restitution for the leveling they experienced by playing the LTQ as it was originally setup then I assume you will then address that concern? Does it need to be 100 or 999 requests for the issue to be addressed. Your answers and approach to this make no sense.

[TK275]

CJ,
The issue with changing the XP mid event is not a strategy thing. Its the simple fact that people were willing to pay the cost of the event when it started, and then Gree changed the cost because other people didn't want to pay the original price. Its the same as offering a high end weapon for a limited time at a cost 500 gems, then halfway through lowering the cost to 50 gems because people didn't want to pay the full price. The people who paid the original price are getting screwed in this deal.

As far as strategies go, leveling or not is a strategy and with the introduction of guild wars a player is at an advantage not to level.

[EtreusDread]

As a possible suggestion to be more egalitarian to those who started the thread early, (if such a thing happens again - heaven forfend), would be to reset the XP gain at a certain level into the LTQ. For example, correct the Level gain at L20 or L25 or L30 so that for those of us already in the middle of it, we don't lose the sacrifice, and then the others who didn't start will know that the game has changed and can again weigh the plusses and minuses - and at least experience some of the shared sacrifice.

As someone who lost 25 gems in the first battle due to those weird glitches, it was also disheartening to see everyone get 50 gems. Giving everyone a consolation prize to address the harm done to some basically the same or worse than no compensation? I am still down a net 25 relative to everyone else.

Lastly, every support ticket I have entered has been closed with the same generic email response within 5-12 days that basically says, "we closed your issue - are you still experiencing it?" While your statistics on "answering emails within X days" may look much better, the customer experience is really not appropriate. I believe I've entered probably 10 support tickets over the year I've been playing this and not once has a ticket been resolved by the support team response. As an IT Support Manager for work and money-spending customer for KA, this is quite frightening/disheartening...

[DEVASTATOR]

The true problem with this ltq is that it leveled people up while the campers sat it out. Once the campers found out that the exp was changed, they began the quest. So now these campers get to maintain their low lvl while the people who chose to play from the beginning, like myself, get the pleasure of leveling 3-4 times. Now I'm an even better target for the campers during the wars. Tis ENTIRE game is now centered around one thing, wars. No longer is this game about finishing maps, raiding/attacking, leveling buildings making friends, etc. it is about, how many gems will you spend during war? "And because of your higher lvl you do realize that you will have to spend more gems to earn the same amount of points right?" The only solution to this would be to change how points are earned. Yu can do this by; points are now earned higher or lower for strength of opponent, not lvl of opponent. So for example I'm a lvl 176 with 950k attack, and I attack a lvl 195 with 850k defense and I win, I earn the same amount of points as I would attacking a lvl 135 with 850k def. why should my lvl dictate the points I earn, or the points my opponent earns from me? it should about stats. Also, a lvl 135 attacking me would gain no more points off me then he would a lvl 115. and if you attack someone 100k stas below you, you earn less points, and so on. this will eliminate any one person getting destroyed throughout any given war. one person in my guild had over 10k losses. how is that fair to this person for playing the game? By doing it this way, it will also give people who put SKILL points into the attack and defense skills a slight advantage, but that's why we are given skill points right? Also, maybe change it so that one person can only be attacked X -amount of times during each battle.