Message from the EP

"Daddio;304599" wrote:
Mr. Salera, now that your team has given the game a re-think, I think you need to give the game a re-think. Changing the fundamental design of the combat challenges the validity of numerous other design choices. For example (and in no particular order):

The game presently gives the player abundant character designs, but extremely limited development resources (e.g. see numerous threads on 'credit crunch' problem). The most effective solution for dealing with this design is to put all of one's eggs in a small number of baskets. IOW, to focus on developing a very small subset of toons to their fullest capacity. In your message, you state: "Our goals were to move the game away from that speed-only outcome, and instead make more characters and party compositions viable. We wanted to create interesting interplays between different strategies – providing counters of one type of party against another. Based on our testing, there should be a lot more diversity showing up in the game in the near future as players start experimenting with different builds." But your game design does not support this idea, with its resource shortage design. If you really want to achieve your self-stated goal, you'll have to significantly redesign the resource-to-effort reward ratio in this game so that players can actually develop those diverse teams.

Even before the design change, this game challenged my concept of just how much time I had to commit in a day to a single phone app game. After the design change, it will simply be impossible for me to keep up. If the time of combat is going to be so drastically lengthened, that calls into question the design choice of several dozens of low-cost/low-reward encounters per day. A lot of people are questioning that commitment at this point. Fewer encounters at higher cost/reward ratios would accomplish the same thing, but with more efficiency (and not to mention a greater sense of importance for all encounters, and not just one or two events.)

Related point: 5 minutes for arena combat is simply too short, now. If resist teams are to be viable, you have to lengthen this. It's a simple point, and telling that it was missed, IMO. Designers need to think harder about the consequences of their changes.

Personally, what I feel most disappointed about is that after spending weeks of my game time pouring all my resources singularly into jedi teams to win a Yoda (which I still don't own, thanks you your odd and frustrating approach to event availability), I seem to have spent weeks chasing a mirage. Even worse, I now have a dangerously imbalanced squad of toons, all in service of obtaining a toon you've nerfed. Weeks of work down the drain, and several steps backwards given the new design direction. It's one thing to say that now the paths forward are different. Quite another to make having followed the paths you previously laid down a fool's errand.

Finally, and on a related it's clear that the changes haven't merely re-balanced the game. They've just plain made it harder. There really isn't a good reason/excuse I can think of for that. No one, spender or FTPer, wants to pick up a game they were succeeding at yesterday and fail at it today.

As of this writing, I'm continuing to play, but I have an idea that I need to see these kinds of issues addressed. I really don't know if I'll keep playing beyond a couple more weeks if I don't get some indication that they will.

Very Truly Yours,

Daddio