Friday PotA Check-In With Elandrian

Greetings Defenders!

We’ve been pouring through your feedback and reactions this week, so I just wanted to check in and let you know what we’re working on to address it, and some fixes that are coming up in this next week!

First, here’s a quick rundown of some of the fixes coming next week:

• Several fixes for people getting forced back to the HUB or Private Tavern in the middle of an Onslaught floor with their friends, and other matchmaking errors.

• Fixed an issue so that we now show the right Onslaught Floors available to you on the War Table.  It was set to one floor below where it should have been.

• Removed the Cybork / Geode schedule from the Onslaught rotation.

• Fixing some of the bugs with Mutator and Schedule Blacklisting.  This was making some combinations of mutators and enemies to get paired together when they shouldn’t have been.

• Console billboards should be easier to read and their scaling was adjusted.

• Fixed an issue with double billboards showing up on some modes/maps.

• Fixed an issue with not being able to tab over to all your bags

• Fixed an Xbox One X crash.

• And more!
  
  

In addition to the fixes coming next week, we’ve also read through all your input and comments about Onslaught, Ancient Power, and The Lost Temple map.  Here’s some of the things we’ll be addressing after the holidays and in the coming months:

• A way for Defenders to possibly Retry maps two and three in an Onslaught Floor.

• Quality of life changes for Shard and Item Management

• Some sort of Free-play-esque Mode where you can select your map.

• Quality of life Mastery improvements to make it easier to understand the challenges and limitations.

• Improvements to public game visibility.  Improving browsing for games that you can see and join.

Thanks for all the thoughtful replies, and even some of the not-so-thoughtful.  All of the feedback has been useful for us, and we can’t wait to continue evolving the game into something better.

You already know who it is,

Elandrian

@Elandrian quote:

Greetings Defenders!

We’ve been pouring through your feedback and reactions this week, so I just wanted to check in and let you know what we’re working on to address it, and some fixes that are coming up in this next week!

First, here’s a quick rundown of some of the fixes coming next week:

• Several fixes for people getting forced back to the HUB or Private Tavern in the middle of an Onslaught floor with their friends, and other matchmaking errors.

• Fixed an issue so that we now show the right Onslaught Floors available to you on the War Table.  It was set to one floor below where it should have been.

• Removed the Cybork / Geode schedule from the Onslaught rotation.

• Fixing some of the bugs with Mutator and Schedule Blacklisting.  This was making some combinations of mutators and enemies to get paired together when they shouldn’t have been.

• Console billboards should be easier to read and their scaling was adjusted.

• Fixed an issue with double billboards showing up on some modes/maps.

• Fixed an issue with not being able to tab over to all your bags

• Fixed an Xbox One X crash.

• And more!
  
  

In addition to the fixes coming next week, we’ve also read through all your input and comments about Onslaught, Ancient Power, and The Lost Temple map.  Here’s some of the things we’ll be addressing after the holidays and in the coming months:

• A way for Defenders to possibly Retry maps two and three in an Onslaught Floor.

• Quality of life changes for Shard and Item Management

• Some sort of Free-play-esque Mode where you can select your map.

• Quality of life Mastery improvements to make it easier to understand the challenges and limitations.

• Improvements to public game visibility.  Improving browsing for games that you can see and join.

Thanks for all the thoughtful replies, and even some of the not-so-thoughtful.  All of the feedback has been useful for us, and we can’t wait to continue evolving the game into something better.

You already know who it is,

Elandrian

Good to know you guys are active and checking all of our feedback, I really like the changes that are coming but I don't see some changes to the reset system, like some better numbers: 5% instead of 1% and 2,5% instead of 0,5% Ancient Power point, 25% XP and Gold instead of 5%, some numbers that make people really want to reset cause it's rewarding, something that's not really worth it right now.

Thanks again and I hope you guys don't let your community down, remember that you guys are making a game for everyone, so don't debate your ideas just between yourselves.

Yes do this more. Less patch notes more road map for you.

@Chappyy quote:

Yes do this more. Less patch notes more road map for you.

Unexpected twist: I've been writing/editing the patch notes THIS WHOLE TIME!  @_@

@Elandrian quote:

@Chappyy quote:

Yes do this more. Less patch notes more road map for you.

Unexpected twist: I've been writing/editing the patch notes THIS WHOLE TIME!  @_@

O_o I feel like you are currently unsupervised by a legal adult due to food poisoning.  This can't be a true statment.

I'm just glad the writing size is changing. This was a complaint that I've had and now it's getting sorted. I won't make judgements about ancient power until I have it but Trendy you are being good to us.

Let me save you some trouble. Don't even bother with this if its going to be like the trials test mode we used to have. The one where you picked the map but got no loot. Nobody wants to play and get nothing. Just change trials to a selectable map system period. No reason to have random maps in trials and random maps in onslaught.

@Elandrian quote:

• Some sort of Free-play-esque Mode where you can select your map.

Mastery. Not a good enough balance. You still only cater to your diehards.

Onslaught - maybe retry floors? Really? 

Free play mode - the one game mode we have been asking years for should be THE MOST detailed. 

Onslaught = Prestiging with very little reward with three times the effort. A game mode theorized to be a come back for casual players and instead focused again on try hards. 

I am passionate about DD2 which is why many of us are passionately disappointed. 

Trendy has or takes great ideas and poorly implements them. Your quality and quality of life testing needs to begin meeting a much larger threshold of player types. 

@Elandrian quote:

Greetings Defenders!

• A way for Defenders to possibly Retry maps two and three in an Onslaught Floor.

You already know who it is,

Elandrian

Why only possibly? The starting the whole floor over when failing the last map is seriously killing the fun. Especially when failing to some random glitch. Please make it so we definetely can retry the actual map we are on, not the whole floor. 

You´ll see zmiles and zunshine from us all, if you grant us this wish!

@MaJean quote:

@Elandrian quote:

Greetings Defenders!

• A way for Defenders to possibly Retry maps two and three in an Onslaught Floor.

You already know who it is,

Elandrian

Why only possibly? The starting the whole floor over when failing the last map is seriously killing the fun. Especially when failing to some random glitch. Please make it so we definetely can retry the actual map we are on, not the whole floor. 

You´ll see zmiles and zunshine from us all, if you grant us this wish!

Ooemgee yesh!

@MaJean quote:

@Elandrian quote:

Greetings Defenders!

• A way for Defenders to possibly Retry maps two and three in an Onslaught Floor.

You already know who it is,

Elandrian

Why only possibly? The starting the whole floor over when failing the last map is seriously killing the fun. Especially when failing to some random glitch. Please make it so we definetely can retry the actual map we are on, not the whole floor. 

You´ll see zmiles and zunshine from us all, if you grant us this wish!

seconded.  this is honestly the only thing keeping me from playing the game.  I don't even mind the ridiculous lane combos.

either implement restart map or fix every bug that makes losing on map 3 so infuriating.  it's not like you will implement restart map and then suddenly beating floor 114 will be trivial for everyone.  at this point it just feels like unnecessarily high risk:reward.

Fantastic to hear. I'm a big fan of transparency, so these types of roadmap updates are great to see. 

I’m not sure onslaught progression is working as intended. I think it’s still using some form of item power level in the formula instead of strictly being based off of the floor.I did get better drops from 10-11, but I also equipped my mule and did a Chaos 4 trial before doing 11. In I’ve done 11 twice (once I didn’t realize I needed to do 2 maps, once the PS4 crashed going into the second map D:). I got better items each time I did 11, equipping my mule as normal. So, onslaught 11 has given me more powerful items the second time I did the level.Also, my husband is playing with me. He does not use a mule. On the same onslaught level he is getting relics dropping only 4,300 for stats. My relics almost all break 5,000. His armor is dropping around 1400, mine is dropping around 1700.While this could “just” be rng, I don’t think it is.

Removed the Cybork / Geode schedule from the Onslaught rotation.

FeelsGoodMan , Feels Good to oblivion,  just FeelsGoodMan.

I like this news Format ElanDaddy, do it more often xD

No fix for the heavy segregating of the playerbase? [[3957,users]]

At least let people join lower floors no matter where in the 3 map cycle they are.

It's a pain to play together with friends...

Trendy give as Power of the Ancient. This power is global, so Trendy want to see as play in party. Mb just give as exp and gold bonus, bigger chance to get new boxes then we play party? It's simple and importent at the moment, and will solve a bit reset problem.

@Elandrian quote:

• Removed the Cybork / Geode schedule from the Onslaught rotation.

Why? I like difficulty of Onslaught, just need add restart map not floor. Mb add button to change difficulty, like in campain. Harder difficulty = more monsters in rotation and mutators = more exp, more gold, bigger chance to get new boxes. Mb hardest difficulty don't give to players do restart map, just restart floor. It's simple idea and solve for new and old players.

My feedback

Mastery

Mastery forces players to either play with all heroes or not bother, how does this work for those with only the classic 4 heroes? Has anyone tried to do mastery with the original 4? (I never bothered trying as when I started out I just wanted to get it done) This is a problem I had with the game back when the first heroes were being released. Content was balanced to the new overpowered heroes and those with the originals had to just farm medals to then start playing.

In addition to this some of the achievements just seem designed to be annoying rather then fun. 10+ defense types, 1 of each defense type, build in under 30s+ the aforementioned defense types. There are a few more but I cant remember them as I quit dd2 mid M4 for the above reasons.

Onslaught

Forcing players onto your new map on every level past 60 (or whenever this starts) is just awful. Stop forcing players into tiny map pools or single maps its the worst thing you did since NM4 incursions, and you just kept repeating it in trials and now even worse in onslaught. The community was so so clear about this issue and iamisom took notice and past this feedback on. Yes we get monster scheduling may have been an issue but its just not good enough anymore. Let players choose maps or pick from a pool that includes all your maps.

Forcing players to replay 3 maps to progress one level makes no sense, just have one map per level... why make it more convoluted and ambiguous then it needs to be? When you guys were explaining how the leveling worked on the live stream I honestly had no idea what you were trying to explain, it was so unclear and overly complex.  If 1 map per level is to simple or somehow breaks existing difficulty scaling just give each level 2 maps, none of this 1 map then 2, then 3 then repeat nonsense and just have it automatically save progress after each successful map.

Ancient Power

brings back the problem of having 1 hero per defense as it further compounds the oringal ascension level problem. When blacksmith originally suggested this system the idea was 1 hero could dps and build all towers. Sadly at the time pet stats mattered way more and ascension scaled to 999 per tower/ability etc. This was semi corrected with the caps being reduced and new content where pets did not scale removed them from mattering also. Now new players have always had this issue with needing multiple heroes, but once you had 500+ ascension one couold start to actually have a couple of defenses per hero and also be able to DPS. But with Ancient power this problem is going to return and stay due to caps increasing and the constant reseting of ascension.

Was this problem even considered? whats the solution to not having 1 hero per defense tower and the return of the builder/dps issue?

New map

Remove new lanes opening as you play, it just slows down the game and turns the whole experience into a slow drawn out ordeal especially considering its always the 3rd map on each Onslaught level. What a horrible experience on the first play through missing a lane opening on wave 5 and being tricked into a 3 map loss. Stuff like that is annoying, wakes up my wife when I sware at the PC and causes me to insta log out. I do not have the time or patience to play 3 maps every time I make 1 silly mistake.

@Zimmermann quote:

My feedback

Mastery

Mastery forces players to either play with all heroes or not bother, how does this work for those with only the classic 4 heroes? Has anyone tried to do mastery with the original 4? (I never bothered trying as when I started out I just wanted to get it done) This is a problem I had with the game back when the first heroes were being released. Content was balanced to the new overpowered heroes and those with the originals had to just farm medals to then start playing.

In addition to this some of the achievements just seem designed to be annoying rather then fun. 10+ defense types, 1 of each defense type, build in under 30s+ the aforementioned defense types. There are a few more but I cant remember them as I quit dd2 mid M4 for the above reasons.

Onslaught

Forcing players onto your new map on every level past 60 (or whenever this starts) is just awful. Stop forcing players into tiny map pools or single maps its the worst thing you did since NM4 incursions, and you just kept repeating it in trials and now even worse in onslaught. The community was so so clear about this issue and iamisom took notice and past this feedback on. Yes we get monster scheduling may have been an issue but its just not good enough anymore. Let players choose maps or pick from a pool that includes all your maps.

Forcing players to replay 3 maps to progress one level makes no sense, just have one map per level... why make it more convoluted and ambiguous then it needs to be? When you guys were explaining how the leveling worked on the live stream I honestly had no idea what you were trying to explain, it was so unclear and overly complex.  If 1 map per level is to simple or somehow breaks existing difficulty scaling just give each level 2 maps, none of this 1 map then 2, then 3 then repeat nonsense and just have it automatically save progress after each successful map.

Ancient Power

brings back the problem of having 1 hero per defense as it further compounds the oringal ascension level problem. When blacksmith originally suggested this system the idea was 1 hero could dps and build all towers. Sadly at the time pet stats mattered way more and ascension scaled to 999 per tower/ability etc. This was semi corrected with the caps being reduced and new content where pets did not scale removed them from mattering also. Now new players have always had this issue with needing multiple heroes, but once you had 500+ ascension one couold start to actually have a couple of defenses per hero and also be able to DPS. But with Ancient power this problem is going to return and stay due to caps increasing and the constant reseting of ascension.

Was this problem even considered? whats the solution to not having 1 hero per defense tower and the return of the builder/dps issue?

New map

Remove new lanes opening as you play, it just slows down the game and turns the whole experience into a slow drawn out ordeal especially considering its always the 3rd map on each Onslaught level. What a horrible experience on the first play through missing a lane opening on wave 5 and being tricked into a 3 map loss. Stuff like that is annoying, wakes up my wife when I sware at the PC and causes me to insta log out. I do not have the time or patience to play 3 maps every time I make 1 silly mistake.

The new lanes opening is what makes it so good on the new map tho Cx

@Naythen quote:

@Zimmermann quote:

My feedback

Mastery

Mastery forces players to either play with all heroes or not bother, how does this work for those with only the classic 4 heroes? Has anyone tried to do mastery with the original 4? (I never bothered trying as when I started out I just wanted to get it done) This is a problem I had with the game back when the first heroes were being released. Content was balanced to the new overpowered heroes and those with the originals had to just farm medals to then start playing.

In addition to this some of the achievements just seem designed to be annoying rather then fun. 10+ defense types, 1 of each defense type, build in under 30s+ the aforementioned defense types. There are a few more but I cant remember them as I quit dd2 mid M4 for the above reasons.

Onslaught

Forcing players onto your new map on every level past 60 (or whenever this starts) is just awful. Stop forcing players into tiny map pools or single maps its the worst thing you did since NM4 incursions, and you just kept repeating it in trials and now even worse in onslaught. The community was so so clear about this issue and iamisom took notice and past this feedback on. Yes we get monster scheduling may have been an issue but its just not good enough anymore. Let players choose maps or pick from a pool that includes all your maps.

Forcing players to replay 3 maps to progress one level makes no sense, just have one map per level... why make it more convoluted and ambiguous then it needs to be? When you guys were explaining how the leveling worked on the live stream I honestly had no idea what you were trying to explain, it was so unclear and overly complex.  If 1 map per level is to simple or somehow breaks existing difficulty scaling just give each level 2 maps, none of this 1 map then 2, then 3 then repeat nonsense and just have it automatically save progress after each successful map.

Ancient Power

brings back the problem of having 1 hero per defense as it further compounds the oringal ascension level problem. When blacksmith originally suggested this system the idea was 1 hero could dps and build all towers. Sadly at the time pet stats mattered way more and ascension scaled to 999 per tower/ability etc. This was semi corrected with the caps being reduced and new content where pets did not scale removed them from mattering also. Now new players have always had this issue with needing multiple heroes, but once you had 500+ ascension one couold start to actually have a couple of defenses per hero and also be able to DPS. But with Ancient power this problem is going to return and stay due to caps increasing and the constant reseting of ascension.

Was this problem even considered? whats the solution to not having 1 hero per defense tower and the return of the builder/dps issue?

New map

Remove new lanes opening as you play, it just slows down the game and turns the whole experience into a slow drawn out ordeal especially considering its always the 3rd map on each Onslaught level. What a horrible experience on the first play through missing a lane opening on wave 5 and being tricked into a 3 map loss. Stuff like that is annoying, wakes up my wife when I sware at the PC and causes me to insta log out. I do not have the time or patience to play 3 maps every time I make 1 silly mistake.

The new lanes opening is what makes it so good on the new map tho Cx

Totally agree! The thrill baby!!!! The thrill!!!! The aesthetic is too good that I'm lovin' it when new lanes open!

I'm actually fine with the difficulty and how its playing out tbh. BUT PLEASE have a replay map button! I'm a solo player and have poured twelve hours of my life to losing at 57.  I've only made it to the third floor six or seven times in twelve hours. I don't have time to keep doing that. Not being able to redo a map is ruining my favorite game for me. Or change the cap to actually get ancient power to floor 55 to streamline it better. i just want to grind it out my dudes. D:

@Paloverde zfogshooterz quote:

@Naythen quote:

The new lanes opening is what makes it so good on the new map tho Cx

Totally agree! The thrill baby!!!! The thrill!!!! The aesthetic is too good that I'm lovin' it when new lanes open!

Its annoying the first time as you don't see it coming, so usually thats 3 maps failed (repeat of bloodmoon incursion back in NM4 where skeletons would spawn outside lanes, which was a flop as it annoyed players the first few times around and then the novelty wore off and people knew the spawn locations.), though once you learn about it its not remotely challenging its just build a new lane, so its like having + lanes per map, which is hardly thrilling its just more lanes. There is a reason no one likes Bastille.
I will put money on you no longer liking this concept come one month, but its good people enjoy it I guess right now, I personally like the maps  aesthetics (still to big and slow to build though), the fact the lanes are different each time you play it is a novelty now but will not be fun to farm/grind. 

I am not saying this to just be negative, I am saying this based on previous experiences and previous mistakes I have made regarding this kind of thing in the past. 

Anyway time will tell ultimately, but I pray this is not Bastille 2.0.

btw an easy solution to this is the following:

• Double the drops
• maybe add an animation short to inform you a new lane is opening just like Bastille incursion lets you know the boss is spawning. With the option to cancel it and remove it in the options.
• Double the chest rewards (both loot and shards)
• Double the XP and gold
• Basically treat these long slow maps as 2 maps in one.

@Zimmermann quote:

@Paloverde zfogshooterz quote:

@Naythen quote:

The new lanes opening is what makes it so good on the new map tho Cx

Totally agree! The thrill baby!!!! The thrill!!!! The aesthetic is too good that I'm lovin' it when new lanes open!

Its annoying the first time as you don't see it coming, so usually thats 3 maps failed (repeat of bloodmoon incursion back in NM4 where skeletons would spawn outside lanes, which was a flop as it annoyed players the first few times around and then the novelty wore off and people knew the spawn locations.), though once you learn about it its not remotely challenging its just build a new lane, so its like having + lanes per map, which is hardly thrilling its just more lanes. There is a reason no one likes Bastille.
I will put money on you no longer liking this concept come one month, but its good people enjoy it I guess right now, I personally like the maps  aesthetics (still to big and slow to build though), the fact the lanes are different each time you play it is a novelty now but will not be fun to farm/grind. 

I am not saying this to just be negative, I am saying this based on previous experiences and previous mistakes I have made regarding this kind of thing in the past. 

Anyway time will tell ultimately, but I pray this is not Bastille 2.0.

Of course, perceptions will change once it comes to speed grind........

@Paloverde zfogshooterz quote:

@Zimmermann quote:

@Paloverde zfogshooterz quote:

@Naythen quote:

The new lanes opening is what makes it so good on the new map tho Cx

Totally agree! The thrill baby!!!! The thrill!!!! The aesthetic is too good that I'm lovin' it when new lanes open!

Its annoying the first time as you don't see it coming, so usually thats 3 maps failed (repeat of bloodmoon incursion back in NM4 where skeletons would spawn outside lanes, which was a flop as it annoyed players the first few times around and then the novelty wore off and people knew the spawn locations.), though once you learn about it its not remotely challenging its just build a new lane, so its like having + lanes per map, which is hardly thrilling its just more lanes. There is a reason no one likes Bastille.
I will put money on you no longer liking this concept come one month, but its good people enjoy it I guess right now, I personally like the maps  aesthetics (still to big and slow to build though), the fact the lanes are different each time you play it is a novelty now but will not be fun to farm/grind. 

I am not saying this to just be negative, I am saying this based on previous experiences and previous mistakes I have made regarding this kind of thing in the past. 

Anyway time will tell ultimately, but I pray this is not Bastille 2.0.

Of course, perceptions will change once it comes to speed grind........

thats my point though, in a month they still want you to play and you will still have to play this map every 3rd map in Onslaught which will cause a lot of frustration. I just don't see why we need to not learn the lessons of the past and make maps according to those lessons?

Anyway maybe only a loud minority dislike Bastille, and maybe im just unaware of the silent majority that enjoy it. Again, not trying to hate just seeing some things that are glaringly frustrating to me and seem to just be repeating the problems of the past.