Ask the Devs Thread for Devstream 67: October 21st, 2016

Have a question for us? Ask away in this thread, and we'll do our best to answer them on the Devstream on Friday, October 21st at 3PM EDT. 

I love the Dark Ritual Blade - Constrictor's Grasp is really fun - but is the dagger meant to always drop with Chaos Incentive & Hero Crit Chance passives? All other 750 iPWR weapons can drop with any of the common weapon passives for that hero. I would love to be able to get one with Nightmare Fuel or False Idol's Ruin - or better yet, both.

When do we get to hear about #TBT (The Big Thing)? Like...what month?

When is the steamroller enemy coming?

Will the spooky chests come back from last Halloween?

When, on God's green and blue Earth, are you going to make [[24592,users]] happy? ;-)

@SpiderDanX quote:

When, on God's green and blue Earth, are you going to make Knowsnolimits happy? ;-)

Good ***ing luck with that.

When we have a real unified end game difficulty that doesn't rely on gimmicky NM levels to be special, with modifiers that the player can pick and choose to customize their own experience and where I'm constantly challenged regardless of my gear. Also if they ever bring a revamped Aquanos back with the king of NM ie, Sharken as well as the amazing music, then we will talk about me being happy.

Since I don't expect any of that realistically right now, I guess I will never be truly happy in DD2. However I'm still willing to see what Trendy have cooked up for end game players.

Uh I guess I need a question to stay on topic here.

Hmmmm lemme think.

OK how about this? Something no one brings up, so you know this is special.

Can we have Dragolich available to everyone oh great and powerful Trendy overlords?

Being the most balanced pet in the game, he should either be farmable or purchasable for everyone to enjoy.

@SpiderDanX quote:

When, on God's green and blue Earth, are you going to make Knowsnolimits happy? ;-)

That's not possible. No matter what they do, they could cater to his every demand, he will still invent something to whine about.

@Hom-Sha-Bom quote:

@SpiderDanX quote:

When, on God's green and blue Earth, are you going to make Knowsnolimits happy? ;-)

That's not possible. No matter what they do, they could cater to his every demand, he will still invent something to whine about.

My demands? you make it sound like I'm a terrorist.

No for 2 years I and alot of other people (some of who have had less patience than me who have since left the game) have stated what we wanted to see and all of it is reasonable. It's up to Trendy now.

@Hom-Sha-Bom quote:

@SpiderDanX quote:

When, on God's green and blue Earth, are you going to make Knowsnolimits happy? ;-)

That's not possible. No matter what they do, they could cater to his every demand, he will still invent something to whine about.

C'mon Kupo! I was just trying to be funny. Then you have to go & make it a mean spirited & cynical post. Come on, Kupo! Be better than that!!

I'm with [[24592,users]]. Keep on doing your thing my friend! 

Will there be a feature to rearrange the order of heroes, in the heroes list?

Why does the Bastille Master wears chastity belt? 

Will the spells include stats ratios, detailed descriptions or just an indicator that the spell is affected by Hero Power, Ability power, Defense Power / Defense health? and if it got a chance to crit etc.

and will the *UPDATE COMING LATER* soon be done?

been there for a year or so i think.

Any plans to open the outside world more looks like a lot of interesting stuff out there.

1. Why do we have to wait months from the date at which we report a bug till the date it is fixed? I mean you are getting the community to Alpha test and report bugs, but you don't hold up your end of the bargain with fixing them. It feels quite disrespectful as its essentially wasting our time writing up reports. Very nice to see the new bug reporting system, will be fully convinced after the fixes start coming in.
2. Should I continue bothering to report bugs? Very nice to see the new bug reporting system, will be fully convinced after the fixes start coming in.
3. The DU map limit is only effecting the weakest defenses and builds (example: Frosties, blockades, LA's. LSA's, SA's & SGTs) while not remotely adding any challenge to the META or overpowered towers. All you are doing here is punishing those who build unique and non META builds and as a result just enforcing the META as the strongest and only option available to new players. Do you consider this an issue?
4.  This question was originally asked in another thread by Pegazul to Dani who was unable to answer it as hes not a Dev. So I pose Pegazul's question to you guys: 

"Give me an honest answer here. Why is the balance so bad?

 Who thought that PDT should spread its entire damage across the entire lane? Its like having 10 PDTs instead of 1. I understand small things or bugs. But things like the AL archers. Instead of the normal 3-5% dmg passive they had a 10% passive. Of course they where going to be 2x stronger than any other tower.

From the dev streams they keep saying your in charge of balance. Are you just not paying attention? Or are you so busy with other projects that you cant spend the time to adjust the values ? I'm not trying to be salty here i really just want to understand how some of these things end up in the game and why most of the towers are still very unbalanced."

What ever happened to the "Bladegun" (not the other way around) that you guys showed off on a devstream a long time ago and then never gave it to us?

Will you ever change Defenses like Obelisk and Volcano to be limited to 1 per map instead of 1 per character, or remove the limit all together?  As of right now people just end up building mulitple characters to build more then 1, making the limitation pointless other then a cash grab for people to buy more Character slots.

@mindlessdefender quote:

Will you ever change Defenses like Obelisk and Volcano to be limited to 1 per map instead of 1 per character, or remove the limit all together?  As of right now people just end up building mulitple characters to build more then 1, making the limitation pointless other then a cash grab for people to buy more Character slots.

Answer: NO! I like this mechanic. IF we can spam LA or Oil geysers or PDT or blockades or Frosty Towers, why not be able to spam Obelisk and Volcano? Like, it just fits with the current game setup. But, because they are so strong, they are limited to per char. Makes sense to me. I find it fun :-) If you don't find it fun, then you don't have to buy more chars. Simple as that.

@SpiderDanX quote:

@mindlessdefender quote:

Will you ever change Defenses like Obelisk and Volcano to be limited to 1 per map instead of 1 per character, or remove the limit all together?  As of right now people just end up building mulitple characters to build more then 1, making the limitation pointless other then a cash grab for people to buy more Character slots.

Answer: NO! I like this mechanic. IF we can spam LA or Oil geysers or PDT or blockades or Frosty Towers, why not be able to spam Obelisk and Volcano? Like, it just fits with the current game setup. But, because they are so strong, they are limited to per char. Makes sense to me. I find it fun :-) If you don't find it fun, then you don't have to buy more chars. Simple as that.

You contradict your self.  They too strong so they should not be able to be spammed, but they should be able to be spammed as long as you have to buy more character slots.  Don't make much sense.

It's not a contradiction, and this isn't the topic for this debate.

On topic: Is the devstream still happening this week?

@mindlessdefender quote:

@SpiderDanX quote:

@mindlessdefender quote:

Will you ever change Defenses like Obelisk and Volcano to be limited to 1 per map instead of 1 per character, or remove the limit all together?  As of right now people just end up building mulitple characters to build more then 1, making the limitation pointless other then a cash grab for people to buy more Character slots.

Answer: NO! I like this mechanic. IF we can spam LA or Oil geysers or PDT or blockades or Frosty Towers, why not be able to spam Obelisk and Volcano? Like, it just fits with the current game setup. But, because they are so strong, they are limited to per char. Makes sense to me. I find it fun :-) If you don't find it fun, then you don't have to buy more chars. Simple as that.

You contradict your self.  They too strong so they should not be able to be spammed, but they should be able to be spammed as long as you have to buy more character slots.  Don't make much sense.

I think you're seeing these towers all wrong. You're looking at it as if it's just an artificial arbitrary cap that has a cheesy work-around. That's not how I see it.

It is not: We have to limit this to only 1 because it's too powerful and we just didn't think of how people would figure out how to build more.

It is: Before this mechanic existed you could only play during combat waves as a DPS character, fighting enemies directly, or just passively hanging out behind your towers doing nothing. But now you can continue to actively play, as a builder, and still contribute by being able to move this powerful but expensive defense to where it is needed most. Being limited to 1 is just a side-effect of being able to move it around the field.

I am really liking the "active builder" play-style for the Mystic. I can move the Obelisk to Smite ogres in whatever lane they spawn in, and it only costs 100 DU. I don't need to spend 100 DU per lane, I can spend 100 DU one time and keep moving it around to wherever I think it will be most effective.

Why should I, as a veteran player, be anything other than irritated by the decision to block campaign defender medals from being earned by the existing player base?

If I start a new character and play through the new campaign, why am I not worthy of receiving the rewards?

(Hey Eliot, this is what you call a pain point!  )

Could you allow us to build test dummies during the build phase to see how are towers will react to enemies in specific lanes, so that we can see if we need to adjust towers or not?  (of course they will be destroyed once round starts)

For example I recently played a game using Cannon ball towers, and found out none of the cannon balls were making it to the location because of something being in the way canceling out The balls before it got there.  But sadly I can only tell during the wave of monsters and not in the build phase.

Why do you keep screwing with the DU limits on the maps?

Do you enjoy irritating us by breaking our builds?  (Hey Eliot, this is what you call a pain point!)

If we are not building the way you want us to, perhaps you should prebuild all the defenses for us, that way we don't do it wrong.

Okay questions...

I will say right now i am not angry with Trendy but yes very disappointed that yet again they have not learned to change their marketing tactics since the outcome is always horrible for the company.  I'll bring up somethings as food for thought to the Devs; they really need to listen to us this time and PUBLICLY find away to make amends with the community.

Now that said i'll ask about the new campaign nightmare.   With all due respect i would like to know how the Trendy Dev's could overlook such a huge issue and push a very large player base aside not thinking it would alienate them and cause them to leave?

I've read the response Isom posted and i'm glad to see some response (we normally get ignored on the forums) but it just alienates players more.  Handling the campaign like this was something a green marketing intern would do not seasoned professionals and will not retain players.

I also would like to know, does Trendy realize they are targeting a small select group of players when you say "Veteran Players" and "NM4 runs"?  This is hardly the Veteran player base and using the excuse that we could get medals in NM4 as a reason for not giving us the campaign should not have even been thought of as okay. 

 i also am curious, has Trendy seriously thought about training for those employees that interact with the public?  Honestly i can count on one hand those i've heard, read and seen who actually know how to talk to other living people; this can make or break a company.  For example every dev stream where a lie was thrust out to the public i said to myself "there goes another group of players" and could watch the numbers drop off because of one "white" lie.  They Need to Listen to us, please Isom, and show us they heard. 

 The saying i know is this, you see an owner with an unruly dog one day but the next week you see that same owner but this time the dog obeys.  Now you didn't see the dog being trained but from the dogs reactions you know it happened.  

• Will you give us the ability to change our character names and alter their order in the list of heroes? (I think someone already asked about changing the order of the heroes)

• Uber Spheres are a joke considering their effectiveness vs their cost (Elemental Chaos is the exception). At some point will you increase their damage output or make them cheaper?
  
  
• Ev2's Proton Beams and the Gunwitch's Two at Twice the Price are staple towers/abilities for their respective classes, with that said will you add Spheres for them to either change what they do/how they work or make them better?
  
  
• When will the Barbarian finally get released? That guy has been sitting in the character creation screen for far too long... side note: he looks like he has Jaundice, send him to the hospital to fix his liver :P
  

• (Super) Win of the day is tagged as "Better Loot" but we're still getting junk from the end chests, how is the loot rarity and ipwr for these calculated?

• Trading... What is happening regarding this? What issues are you having? Is there some reason it was left out of the game when it was such a big part of dd1? sorry to ask again but it just seems like something the community has been asking for since the game came out and we essentially get given "we're working on it" every time someone asks or when people submit ideas we get "we'll think about it".

I rarely post so please don't mistake my low post count/rank for inexperience.

I know this question's been asked before, but I would love some clarification on it.Will the inventory revamp for consoles allow split-screen players to manage their inventories simultaneously?Also, is there an ETA for when this will be pushed live?This is, in my opinion, what breaks the flow of the game the most.

@mindlessdefender quote:

@SpiderDanX quote:

@mindlessdefender quote:

Will you ever change Defenses like Obelisk and Volcano to be limited to 1 per map instead of 1 per character, or remove the limit all together?  As of right now people just end up building mulitple characters to build more then 1, making the limitation pointless other then a cash grab for people to buy more Character slots.

Answer: NO! I like this mechanic. IF we can spam LA or Oil geysers or PDT or blockades or Frosty Towers, why not be able to spam Obelisk and Volcano? Like, it just fits with the current game setup. But, because they are so strong, they are limited to per char. Makes sense to me. I find it fun :-) If you don't find it fun, then you don't have to buy more chars. Simple as that.

You contradict your self.  They too strong so they should not be able to be spammed, but they should be able to be spammed as long as you have to buy more character slots.  Don't make much sense.

Let me clarify. I was saying we can still spam Obelisk and Volcanoes (which is good), just not as much as other towers. So, no, I did not contradict myself. You just misunderstood. Prolly my fault for not being clear enough.

Basically  saying, we have a way to spam regular defenses and we have another way to spam OP defenses. I like it. Keep it as it.