Recent posts by spyke252 on Kongregate

Topic: Skyshard Heroes / [Dev] Skyshard Roadmap

Am I the only one that thinks that most of these are kinda bad ideas? Seems so :/

Originally posted by synapticon:

-World Map – Late January
We will be implementing a World Map which displays all players towns. This will include searching options to find other player’s towns. The World Map will serve as the basis for additional feature changes, including Raids and Conquest Season 4.

Sort of an okay idea, but this doesn’t really need to be fixed. However, games with this tend to have a negative impact on chat- the more active you are, the more people searching for your name in WM. And, I hope that you’re not planning on a BYM style world map- with tiles and upgradeable towns that take forever and get taken away too easily- I left there for a reason, y’know.

Originally posted by synapticon:

-Level Normalization – Late January
We will be moving “XP” to more of a vanity stat and changing the way levels are calculated. Levels will now be more representative of power level, calculated as the sum of Building, Hero, and Unit levels. This will provide a more fine-grained power level than the current Citadel-based system, which changes abruptly when going from (for example) Citadel 5 to Citadel 6.
The new intended level cap will be about Level 50. Many players will go up in level, and several will drop in level. However, this will not result in any functional difference except the range of players you can attack and be attacked by.

That’s a pretty huge functional difference, and again, not something that needs messing with- so, everyone playing now will basically be “about Level 50”, and everyone else will be newbs. OK. As long as I can still attack people with Cit7’s with my almost fully upgraded town (otherwise- be honest, what’s the point of upgrading if you’re only attacking people with same or better defenses than you?).

Originally posted by synapticon:

-Configurable Towers – February
To make defenses truly configurable and add another level of strategic depth, we are planning on allowing all towers to be changed to whatever the player wants – Mage, Archer, Flame, etc. This also gives us the ability to introduce new tower types (such as Lightning and Gatling) without increasing the total number of towers per town. All existing towers will persist (so nobody will lose any towers) but will be able to be switched.
This will require a significant rebalance as some towers are currently much more powerful than others. We will enlist significant player feedback on this, likely with a public test server.

This is a change that sounds great on the surface, but given the history of the game so far, will pretty obviously fall flat on its face. Two cases: either one, or a couple, towers will be overpowered, and so everybody just gets those, or they’ll all be balanced, and the only difference to what we have now will be changing out a couple archers/flame bunkers for lightning towers/gatlings. I mean, it’s kinda cool, but there are easier ways to do it (i.e. remove archers/bunkers and add lightnings/gatlings), and we haven’t quite been good at balancing stuff to begin with.

Originally posted by synapticon:

-Raids – Late February
With configurable towers adding another level of depth, we will refocus on collaborative PvE content that will offer exclusive rewards (such as new Tower blueprints and additional Contracts). Raids will be similar to the Guulak and Gunjack events, but will require collaboration amongst several players to defeat them. They will be limited time events but initiated by players rather than one-off global events. They will also be aimed primarily as end-game content (for high-level players) rather than as content for all player levels. However, we will also try to introduce a small amount of raid content for low-level players to give a taste of high-end gameplay.

Basically, we’ll have to attack Guulak 50 times within an hour in order to get the blueprints for a mage tower. No thanks; that’s been done in other games before (to death).

Originally posted by synapticon:

-Conquest 4 – around March
Conquest Season 4 will be focused heavily on integration with the World Map, and will also be playable by players without guilds. We will do away with the generic grid and will instead add more interesting strategic assets that can be taken over by anyone. Some strategic assets may offer sovereignty over regions on the World Map and give bonuses to allied players within a certain range. Other assets may provide additional resources or components for the Forge. Others still may give exclusive access to special raid content. This is still in preliminary design but more will be revealed soon.

So what’s the point of guilds, now? >.>
I assume we’ll be able to relocate our town, of course, to surround these important assets? Well, it will be a LONG while before we get more conquest cores, so hopefully we get enough to build some things in the meantime.

Final questions- how will what we’ve done so far be translated into these updates? And, what will be done in the meantime for all the other problems with the game?
All in all, these sound like ideas for a completely different game (an amalgamation of several other games, which have been mentioned above), to be released several months from now in all its buggy glory, and it sounds like there will be enough changes that anything we’ve already done (upgraded defensive towers will disappear maybe?) will be for naught. You guys already have a game, and it’s pretty good- rather than completely redesigning it in a few months, maybe make some changes to hero balance and upgrade the towers in conquest, along with maybe a couple more minor changes, that can be released in a few weeks.

Topic: Skyshard Heroes / Bring back the Gunjack event!

Originally posted by deathreapers:
its better to release gunjack events every 6 months so it give time to those who joined new and still had no chance to join it.

I would agree with this. However, Gunjack was released twice, within a month of each other, so my comment still stands.

Originally posted by tajtas:

The “older” players or hipsters already have rivet steel. Better yet they have cloudstone armor. Most of us who were lvl 20 during the event could of only farmed the 2nd mission which gave us 700 event points at most which was really insufficient. The hipsters were able to farm 15k points a pop.

I farmed RS from mission two the first time it came out, and Locke from it the second time. It was a grind, but I did it. Rereleasing the event every month (which is what you’re suggesting- it ended in december) only serves to cheapen the effort I put into it then.

I’m not against releasing the event again. I think opening it once every two months is sufficient. But it ended in the middle of December!

Topic: Skyshard Heroes / Bring back the Gunjack event!

Originally posted by tajtas:

Since ori cores are really scarce right now and there hasn’t been no content released for awhile we should bring back the Gunjack event. It will really give us something to do while we wait for new content to come out.

Yeah, bring out gunjack for two weeks every month! </sarcasm>

Topic: Skyshard Heroes / [Dev] Hero Balances

Originally posted by Bolibompa:

Why lower Alaric and Keris? Noone is complaining about them beeing OP?
Colette is the destroyer of the game since she can stun a hero for pretty much an entire attack even if Hero is wearing goggles.

Keris IS OP. Sorry.

@Rud:
I like them so far, but the numbers may need to be tweaked. I still REALLY think Isunda could benefit from an anti-stealth buff on MS (and would be fine if you put it on the list and don’t get around to implementing it for awhile).

I’d probably suggest a week where you say these updates will occur, and test them out; reverting or modifying the following week (since it’s such a big change to balance).

Topic: Skyshard Heroes / [Dev] Suggestions/Bug reports

A few more:
1) A lot of skills have, say, 5 seconds of effect, but they’re always rounded down, so they’re really, to go along with our example above, 4 seconds.
Not a big deal, just annoying when you’re trying to keep something in puncture or trying to keep keris in SW or keep something stunned or keep tarkus in roar or basically do anything that requires reapplication of a skill.
2) Building health is not accurately displayed after battle is over, while it’s repairing. It jumps up a bit, and then jumps back down when attacked.

Topic: Skyshard Heroes / [Dev] Hero Balance Discussion

Idea in chat: Maybe Divine Light could be town-wide, small damage (100-200 minus armor to each building) and stun? That amount of mana certainly suggests something of the sort.

Topic: Skyshard Heroes / [Dev] Hero Balance Discussion

Two things:
1) I’d much rather see several minor changes made relatively quickly, even if it’s only a test run for balancing, rather than one big major change made in a few weeks. That’s a personal preference, but I think others will agree with me.

2) Some heroes have kinda weird roles: Jorund is better as a defender than attacker, Tarkus is much better as an attacker than defender.

Topic: Skyshard Heroes / [Dev] Hero Balance Discussion

Originally posted by helg2887:

Gasket needs a damage and/or armor buff.

Damage is great- he needs either an armor buff (seriously? only 10 more than maxed alaric?) or health (SERIOUSLY 1k LESS THAN ALARIC?)

Topic: Skyshard Heroes / [Dev] Hero Balance Discussion

Originally posted by iPee:

Keris is not OP at all just use Collete then GG

Uh… no. Keris can still take out level 8 forts in two-three attacks, easy.
Maybe you’re just not using him well.

Topic: Skyshard Heroes / [Dev] Hero Balance Discussion

Originally posted by tajtas:

Keris passive Sticky fingers does not work properly. The damage boost that is promised is not working or applied. I suggest fixing this. Keris needs a buff and is one of the weaker heroes in the game.

lol, one of the weaker heroes? I think it should be fixed, but he’s not one of the most overused heroes for no reason…

Originally posted by forceofvolcanos:

okie dokie. Isunda, seripha, and locke are virually useless. If there was a way to give them some unique abilities to alter the basic format of battling (a.k.a. stun battle) that would be useful. Right now all i see is colette always defends to stun spam the attacker and it’s taken all strategy out of the battle system.

Isunda, I completely agree. I’ve heard that seripha is good at blocking keris, but I doubt that to be the case. However, she IS a goddess at killing airships.
Locke, I think really SHOULD be underpowered… Limited time only heroes should not give that much an advantage to those who were here at the time of the event. He already
gives +50 energy and extra tile cap and CR, I think that’s what he SHOULD give (for now).

ETA: There are two bugs with Keris. One is that rupture damage doesn’t count toward SF (which DEFINITELY should be fixed) and the other is that SF promises a damage boost that isn’t delivered.

Myself, I think keris’s damage is just fine. I’d take off the damage boost on the skill. If it were me, I’d like a few extra percent added to his res gain though ^_ (50% at level ten would probably be absolute maximum- thinking probably 40% would be great)

Topic: Skyshard Heroes / [Dev] Hero Balance Discussion

I believe giving Isunda’s Mechanized Sight a buff that hits invisible
heroes/units would fix a lot of the hero balancing.
Pros:
==Isunda is REALLY underpowered, would give her major use in defending.
==Keris is REALLY overpowered, his only real weakness is Permastun (and
even that is pretty bad sometimes, with goggles).
==This buff on this particular skill kind of makes sense.
==A lot more strategy is introduced- just like tarkus being anti-colette.
Now we’ll see some hero offense/defense cycles, and every hero save Locke
has some distinct purpose.

Cons:
==Keris might be weakened to the point of unusability. I believe this won’t
happen, as a Keris user. He still rocks campaign and AI for gathering res,
he rocks at getting a few quick hits in on a conquest cit, and he’s still
unbeatable if the defender is offline.
==Gives a little more weight to the whole “defense sucks, heroes have too much
impact” idea. However, I think that once the heroes are balanced AGAINST EACH
OTHER, then we can start figuring how to balance heroes in overall gameplay.
==People who already have a lot of heroes are more likely to already have isunda,
but I don’t think syn minds those who have been around longer to be stronger.

Topic: Skyshard Heroes / [Dev] Suggestions/Bug reports

Another bug- all my orbs are no longer accessible. No clue how it happened.

Topic: Skyshard Heroes / [Dev] Suggestions/Bug reports

Bug: Sticky Fingers does not actually add any damage anywhere to Keris.
Test:
Sticky Finger level 9, base attack is same as damage + equipment on status screen (so not added there).
Attacking someone with no reinforce gives damage to be same as total attack on status.

Topic: Skyshard Heroes / To the Kind and Considerate Devs of Skyshard

seconded.

Topic: Skyshard Heroes / [Dev] Suggestions/Bug reports

Bug: Damage over time skills (like Keris’s Rupture) do not contribute toward resources, event points, or (presumably) exp.

Topic: Skyshard Heroes / Dev fail!

Originally posted by synapticon:

We will be adding additional core rewards for the top 10 guilds later today.

You do realize that many of the top guilds have already moved around, right? You’re going to be working off the guild that we were in when conquest ended, correct?

Topic: Skyshard Heroes / Dev fail!

If this is about conquest prizes, I agree.
I kinda expected Agency members to be able to get two vermillion lenses, but a top 5 guild not even being able to get ONE? And all the other prizes are outclassed by campaign equips? Cmon, devs, get your act together.

To be fair, the blight charm would be amazing if it enfeebled too, but I feel goggles are most important relic right now, and Orb of True Sight looks okay, but range should be 4 instead (2 range isn’t that much). Besides, orbs are useless except in conquest.

ETA: I hate auto-formatting characters in forums and wish they were removed :(

Topic: Skyshard Heroes / [Dev] Guulak!

Some random stats I’ve come across:
Cit 3 cannot beat first mission of new campaign, but can beat up to mission 5 fairly easily. The account is stuck- only being able to earn 400 res an hour (25 energy campaign). HoH4 costs 7200 wood/metal res, so thats 18 hours of grinding mission 4 alone. IIRC, Cit3 AI used to give 3.5k wood/metal per clear. And, I have very strong suspicions that even a lvl4 hero can’t beat mission1 of new campaign.

Cit 6 can easily beat both first and second mission of new campaign. 33k for mission 2 (from what I hear) gives only a little more (7k) than Cit6AI. However, at 150 energy/pop, that’s almost 2 hours per one attack (i.e. 1/6th of the res previously gained from AI). To get 525k metal for TG8 upgrade, that’s 35 hours of grinding mission 2 until you can upgrade for it alone.

Neither of these are counting losses from attacks from other players. If the res isn’t buffed TREMENDOUSLY, then people will be stuck at the current level of their bases continually while being farmed by those stronger than them, and the general trend is people turtling in order to limit potential enemies from stealing what little res they have.

Edit: fixed stats for cit6AI.

Topic: Skyshard Heroes / [Dev] Guulak!

Please bring back AI towns until campaign resources are balanced- not fun getting 1/5th the resources I used to AND losing all my units to do so. :(
Cheers,
spyke

Topic: Skyshard Heroes / [Dev] Next updates

Knowing how much the cap is doesn’t really tell us much when we don’t know how much energy it takes to complete a mission ;)
Other than that, looks good!

Topic: Skyshard Heroes / Hacker in our Heroes.

Originally posted by popovk:

Long story short, you know nothing about security. Never head about breachs in server side ? It’s the easier way.

As any good Computer Scientist knows, the most vulnerable part of any computer system is the user. Sorry, you’re wrong on this point.
It’s not to say that breaches in the server don’t happen (I mean, even IEEE accidentally logged their users passwords in plaintext >.<), it’s just that it’s much more probable that Superman lost his account either through having a bad password or through giving it away (i.e. not Syn’s fault).

Topic: Skyshard Heroes / Is it just me?

Okay, so it’s back up after 7 hours.

Topic: Skyshard Heroes / Is it just me?

Thank you so much! I was really worried there.
Maybe Syn will consider adding a day (or two) to compensate…

Topic: Skyshard Heroes / Is it just me?

It seems like Kong is borked. It can’t access cdn3.kongregate.com, so almost nothing loads (no images, no stylesheets, etc.)
Already cleared my cache, but to no avail- I think it is a kong issue.

Topic: Skyshard Heroes / Event Mission 3 and 4.

Originally posted by SourFoe:

Shouldn’t take lvl 9 units and hero and lose casualties on mission 3, prob was talking about mission 4 and want mission 3 requirements.

Nope, she said she did. Her units split and some got killed. She got the level3 glitch, so she doesn’t have access to level 4 yet.