I'm not quitting but yeah, I'm frustrated... My view...

I am a 45 year old small business owner. I teach kids math, science, and engineering using LEGO. LEGO used to be my hobby but I needed a new outlet. I found AL two years ago just after Christmas when I got a Nexus 7. I have been a faithful player ever since. Before I had my own business I was a Software Engineer for several companies including IBM, I also volunteered from a fans perspective in the development of "LEGO Universe" a LEGO MMO that in the end didn't last a year for various reasons which I don't need to get into. So while I only know a little about game development I know a lot about software development.

As a child some of my favorite computer games were Bards Tale and some Dungeons and Dragons games. This was back in the day when you needed graph paper and meticulous notes to find your way around the cities and dungeons of the game. Younger AL players would probably laugh at those games if they played them now. Plus you just played them solo, there was no internet so MMO's hadn't even been thought of yet.

I loved AL because the subject matter was cool. I had no desire to get entangled in a game like WOW. The mobile aspect of AL and the neat graphics, dungeons, and player interaction were just what I was looking for. I do by plat, almost exclusively during plat sales but I am definitely NOT a plat whale.

My frustrations are many...

First, it seems with every major update and/or event either a major exploit or significant technical problem has been introduced to the game. If this were to occur rarely I could deal with it but it is every single update or event. To me, as a software developer this tells me that QA (Quality Assurance) at STS is not doing an adequate job. I have no idea if STS has a dedicated QA team or if developers double as QA when needed. Either way exploits and bugs should not be being introduced to the game at the rate they are.

Second, there is a definite impression that STS plays favorites at times and caters to the loudest voices instead of sticking to their guns, rationalizing there decisions, and standing fast. I have no idea if those voices are as loud as their plat sales but ins some cases I assume they are. This just looks like favoritism, intended or not.

Third, this might be related to my second point above but the constant buff/nerf cycle is driving me nuts! Please stop it, please. Take some time, so some research, poll fans but figure out what will work and be interesting in game before you release it. Then explain your rational for the item, pet, gem, etc and stick to your guns. Event gems changes... make me crazy. Planar Tombs changes... drive me nuts. Planar Pendant drop rates... are making me insane (are they dropping now or not?).

Fourth, this Winter event... Not good. Crate prices crashed already. There is nothing interesting in terms of pets or vanities available for tokens. Ice Scales and Energy are dropping at an obscene rate, why? I have no idea. The only thing worth farming are Tarlok Gems but they are a long term investment only. There seems to be no good way to make a little short term gold in this event and nothing worth my while to purchase. I have no idea how STS is gonna make this event profitable. I don't see any real excitement or buzz over it.

Now to STS's defense. There was a huge dc issue at/after halloween which would have been difficult to pick up in testing. I am sure this took away resources from the Winter event. My issue is this, STS knows that Halloween and Winter are their two biggest events and they occur about a month apart. Waiting to work on Winter until after Halloween just doesn't work. Winter should have been basically "in the can" before Halloween leaving minor tweaking for between the two events. If that had been the case the major dc issues should not have had a major effect on the winter event.

Finally, it seems that often when STS fixes one issue they introduce another. Things like the planar pendent recipe getting buffed from 0 then put back to 0 without anyone's knowledge at STS apparently. Now its supposedly buffed again but is it at the same rate as before or some new rate? It is impossible to know, I just know I still haven't heard of anyone looting one since the supposed second buff. This just leaves the trust level between STS and players at an extremely low level.


As stated at the beginning, I am not threatening to quit the game. I have two years invested in the game, I am not going to give that up. I obviously enjoy the game if I have played it that long. I do think STS is having a major rough patch with the game though. Also because of the lack of desirable items in this event I may not have any incentive to purchase plat during this event. I hope I am wrong because I have asked for some gift cards for the holidays. If not I will just hold the money till later. This isn't a threat it is just reality. My desire is that after the Winter event that STS dedicates a full Month to bug and exploit fixing only. Lets get this game back on stable footing before anything new is added. Lets check drop rates for everything and make sure they make sense. I think as players we would love to see some progress in this regard. And lets stop the Buff/Nerf Yo-Yo!

The other thing bringing me down lately is some of the players in game. I hate drama and I have been in the middle of some high drama lately. If that isn't resolved quickly something will have to change on my end but I will still be playing the game.


Thanks for reading, I just like the game a lot and want to see it on track for future success as well.


-Thrindal

You are so completely right, I haven't bought a single platinum on this winter event, I thought it was not worth it and now that the event came I thanked god that I didn't buy plat.
Yeah also agree with the buff/nerf thing, don't worry you're not the only one driving nuts :) what we can do is to post more threads like this one and hope that STS will read it and try to do their own choices and not according with players. Very good and objective thread Thrindal!

I agree completely. A month of bug fixes would be great. Even if it meant that STS would have to hold off on content updates for a while, the overall stability of the game should be the top priority. Similarly, instead of launching works-in-progress, there should be a more extensive fine-tuning period between when new content is finished and when it is released. Like you said, the end of the year is a busy time and the events should have been in development sooner.

Another point you made which makes sense would be a sort of 'calibration' of drop rates before they are released. Lately, when I hear that an item has a low drop rate it means that I most certainly will not get it, so I just don't bother anymore. There are so many bosses that 1-hit and suck up my ankhs and potions so quickly that by kill number 100, I'm potentially millions in the hole with the same bleak outlook at obtaining anything of value as when I started. Additionally, judging by the forum posts in response to the yo-yo effect, nobody wants to farm items out of fear that it will be buffed/nerfed either. So, for those that are fortunate enough to get their hands on the newest and most valuable items, they can lose money once something becomes more abundant or obsolete overnight.

All of this can be summed up by saying that the content must be given more forethought before the release so that quick-fixes with negative repercussions can be avoided.

I totally agree; I get the feeling sometimes that STG forgets that a large part of its customers are adults not children, and that as adults we have certain expectations.

Tweaking an item by releasing it in a rough form and then changing it depending on peoples complaints isn't really working. What would be nice as many have stated, is to gather information in some form of market research (the test server works well for this) and then forming a justifiable idea and sticking to it. At the moment, items are released and then the richest players in game get their hands on it first and post a series of threads outlining how they personally want that item to be for the "good of the community," but really just in their own interest. This is a job which should be done internally by dedicated staff, before items are released.

New items / Concepts get changed an average of 2-3 times; this should not be the case. As the OP has suggested, we should be seeing well researched and well though out finished product releases, which STG does not alter once the item / content has gone live except in a few exceptional cases.

Yeah, original poster hit the nail in the mark. I hate how everything keeps changing due to people's complaints. There's always a way to counter the new op item/pet, but before exploring it, it gets nerfed. Breeze owners are out 3m, Arcane mauls dropped 20m overnight due to a fix that was 2 seasons late.

As for the pendent, there's still none in cs, that should indicate just how many are out there at the moment. The 2 second lag freezing to me is currently the most annoying!

The Eye of Syrillax changes are funny to me. As if its super complicated to add the crit % of multipule gems way before posting teasers about it. Why was it realized after event start date that 30%+ crit could be obtained with these gems? So everyone that spent time, gold and plat to reach plat tier on the first day gets their reward then BOOM. Nerf bomb.

Can ya take some time to do some simple math before releasing items like this? Especially the main item of the event? Come on now.

Great post!

I agree with your second point...specially because so many "outsiders" have been complaining and I dont see a dev/mod bothering to answer/clarify.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Thrindal

I am a 45 year old small business owner. I teach kids math, science, and engineering using LEGO. LEGO used to be my hobby but I needed a new outlet. I found AL two years ago just after Christmas when I got a Nexus 7. I have been a faithful player ever since. Before I had my own business I was a Software Engineer for several companies including IBM, I also volunteered from a fans perspective in the development of "LEGO Universe" a LEGO MMO that in the end didn't last a year for various reasons which I don't need to get into. So while I only know a little about game development I know a lot about software development.

As a child some of my favorite computer games were Bards Tale and some Dungeons and Dragons games. This was back in the day when you needed graph paper and meticulous notes to find your way around the cities and dungeons of the game. Younger AL players would probably laugh at those games if they played them now. Plus you just played them solo, there was no internet so MMO's hadn't even been thought of yet.

I loved AL because the subject matter was cool. I had no desire to get entangled in a game like WOW. The mobile aspect of AL and the neat graphics, dungeons, and player interaction were just what I was looking for. I do by plat, almost exclusively during plat sales but I am definitely NOT a plat whale.

My frustrations are many...

First, it seems with every major update and/or event either a major exploit or significant technical problem has been introduced to the game. If this were to occur rarely I could deal with it but it is every single update or event. To me, as a software developer this tells me that QA (Quality Assurance) at STS is not doing an adequate job. I have no idea if STS has a dedicated QA team or if developers double as QA when needed. Either way exploits and bugs should not be being introduced to the game at the rate they are.

Second, there is a definite impression that STS plays favorites at times and caters to the loudest voices instead of sticking to their guns, rationalizing there decisions, and standing fast. I have no idea if those voices are as loud as their plat sales but ins some cases I assume they are. This just looks like favoritism, intended or not.

Third, this might be related to my second point above but the constant buff/nerf cycle is driving me nuts! Please stop it, please. Take some time, so some research, poll fans but figure out what will work and be interesting in game before you release it. Then explain your rational for the item, pet, gem, etc and stick to your guns. Event gems changes... make me crazy. Planar Tombs changes... drive me nuts. Planar Pendant drop rates... are making me insane (are they dropping now or not?).

Fourth, this Winter event... Not good. Crate prices crashed already. There is nothing interesting in terms of pets or vanities available for tokens. Ice Scales and Energy are dropping at an obscene rate, why? I have no idea. The only thing worth farming are Tarlok Gems but they are a long term investment only. There seems to be no good way to make a little short term gold in this event and nothing worth my while to purchase. I have no idea how STS is gonna make this event profitable. I don't see any real excitement or buzz over it.

Now to STS's defense. There was a huge dc issue at/after halloween which would have been difficult to pick up in testing. I am sure this took away resources from the Winter event. My issue is this, STS knows that Halloween and Winter are their two biggest events and they occur about a month apart. Waiting to work on Winter until after Halloween just doesn't work. Winter should have been basically "in the can" before Halloween leaving minor tweaking for between the two events. If that had been the case the major dc issues should not have had a major effect on the winter event.

Finally, it seems that often when STS fixes one issue they introduce another. Things like the planar pendent recipe getting buffed from 0 then put back to 0 without anyone's knowledge at STS apparently. Now its supposedly buffed again but is it at the same rate as before or some new rate? It is impossible to know, I just know I still haven't heard of anyone looting one since the supposed second buff. This just leaves the trust level between STS and players at an extremely low level.


As stated at the beginning, I am not threatening to quit the game. I have two years invested in the game, I am not going to give that up. I obviously enjoy the game if I have played it that long. I do think STS is having a major rough patch with the game though. Also because of the lack of desirable items in this event I may not have any incentive to purchase plat during this event. I hope I am wrong because I have asked for some gift cards for the holidays. If not I will just hold the money till later. This isn't a threat it is just reality. My desire is that after the Winter event that STS dedicates a full Month to bug and exploit fixing only. Lets get this game back on stable footing before anything new is added. Lets check drop rates for everything and make sure they make sense. I think as players we would love to see some progress in this regard. And lets stop the Buff/Nerf Yo-Yo!

The other thing bringing me down lately is some of the players in game. I hate drama and I have been in the middle of some high drama lately. If that isn't resolved quickly something will have to change on my end but I will still be playing the game.


Thanks for reading, I just like the game a lot and want to see it on track for future success as well.


-Thrindal

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many agree with you, you are not alone.

Excellent and well thought out post. I'm with you and would also like to see the game back on track. Yesterday Remi was asking in chat box what we would like to see for quality of life for 2014, and it really boggled my mind! There are SO many current bugs that need fixing and attention, I can't believe they are ready to lay in new content with our frustration over current issues.

And yes this holiday event is a total dud. They blew it giving us a gem that is less than a super, not any interesting pets worth farming for, and the total disregard for the economy by introducing another set of mythic weapons a month after the Halloween ones. I also have not bought a single bit of plat during the event. I just crafted my energy and ran at night to reach plat tier, and now I'm done with the event.

Like you, I have invested time and money in this game and I want to see it flourish again!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kakashis

Yeah, original poster hit the nail in the mark. I hate how everything keeps changing due to people's complaints. There's always a way to counter the new op item/pet, but before exploring it, it gets nerfed. Breeze owners are out 3m, Arcane mauls dropped 20m overnight due to a fix that was 2 seasons late.

As for the pendent, there's still none in cs, that should indicate just how many are out there at the moment. The 2 second lag freezing to me is currently the most annoying!

---

Pendant is untradable I believe.


Back to topic:

It is frustrating for players to deal with the current issues. Things get released in rapid succession without crucial forethought and "fixes" end up doing more harm. STG has at their disposal a plethora of willing and knowledgeable players, but so far no serious ideas have been moved "off the back burners."

The game to me is clinging to life and all recent implementations appear to be methods of draining the remaining loyal players of their money. The future looks bleak...

Excellent points!

Hey guys, this is a great thread, very constructive tone with concise feedback. Please keep it up and know that even if we don't respond immediately, we are listening.

Have any of you seen the Jim Carey movie "Bruce Almighty"? He becomes god and decides to make everyone happy by answering "YES" to everyone's prayers. So a million people all pray to win the lottery, and they all end up winning which when split a million ways means the jackpot is about $5 per person.

Unfortunately, that is what has happened to AL over the past 2 years. In STS's attempt to please everyone, gear has become more and more plentiful in the game. It used to be that legendary items were rare and when you opened a chest and got one, it was cause for excitement. Now most of the time when you loot a legendary gear, you either sell it for 500 gold or you liquidate it.

Back in season 2, everyone would get excited when looting a legendary item, so STS had this brilliant idea to let everyone loot a legendary item every time in locked crates. Soon that turned into a disaster as the supply of these crate legendary items flooded the market. So STS shifted away from that making these items a bit more rare in recent seasons. But now they seem to be doing it all over again with these events.

I'm really surprised this has happened as they had once learned their lesson in Pocket Legends with this sort of strategy. Anyone who played PL remembers the Alien Oasis 3 expansion and how the legendary gear from that campaign is pretty much worthless. It was such a problem that in the following 2 campaigns for the level cap 56 & 61 (Sewers & Nuri), they made legendary items super rare, probably a way of overcompensating for their previous mistake.

But this is what has ruined the economy here in AL. It is not bugs and exploits, it is making everyone so common that everyone can have one of anything they want within a couple of weeks of release. So then everyone gets bored fast and says there is nothing to do until the next update.

The truth is that gear should be rare enough that you should be able to enjoy the game for many months without new content as it should take that long for most players to acquire the latest and best gear. Because when everyone has the best gear within a month, then nobody needs anything more and there are no buyers for anything still being farmed.

With the history of STS games and odd quirks of choices. I don't often get surprised anymore, just dissapointed.

They make great games, perhaps with a too short lifespan for my personal liking. But i guess it's ok to get something greater in return.
We are all entitled to our own opinion, so we don't always have to like what we get. Just say thank you when you do :)

From my understanding in the past news and inside info, most devs have moved on to a new game. This is really effecting AL and perhaps even STS in the long run.
Back in SL's primetime when they were building DL and later AL. SL was suffering from similar defects. Updates that needed patches and even patches that need patches. People quiting due lack of new content and fun.
Lately AL having this same exactly defects.
I'm amazed that a company can do this over and over without consequence. As an employee i would get fired when i would release bad quality over and over to my customers. The customer would quit too.
Customers first and mostly want quality than quantity.

This winter event is struggling due to all the effects of bugs. Every update is build on existing bugs, which seem to take longer to fix each and every time.
There was a test server for the winter event which seemed to have quite an amount of players. There were some bugs found, but nothing to this extent as on the live server.

All i understand from this is that STS doesn't have top priority for AL anymore. It seems that the new game is more important than keeping the current playerbase.
I wonder if STS sees players as customers or just as people passing by. Hoping new ones will arrive and take it (read less) for granted.
I've always understood: customer is king.
It's also 1 of the reasons i dislike communcating with customers. ;)
Luckily there are sales and support employees for those annoying customers. :D
I'm not saying that us players should rule whats happening. We are customers not shareholders :p but it should be important that we get a good product = game.
As a developer of a game, the designers should know best how to balance the game. With help of players could be fine, as long as it isn't just 1/100th of the players like the OP wrote.

AL is a good game. I like farming and doing events, but lately i'm more watching from the sideline how it all collapses than running maps. I hope that can be fixed in time and not being smuthered with an extra sale.

Aww, now I'm depressed. Consider that a testament to your writing skills.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Thrindal

I am a 45 year old small business owner. I teach kids math, science, and engineering using LEGO. LEGO used to be my hobby but I needed a new outlet. I found AL two years ago just after Christmas when I got a Nexus 7. I have been a faithful player ever since. Before I had my own business I was a Software Engineer for several companies including IBM, I also volunteered from a fans perspective in the development of "LEGO Universe" a LEGO MMO that in the end didn't last a year for various reasons which I don't need to get into. So while I only know a little about game development I know a lot about software development.

As a child some of my favorite computer games were Bards Tale and some Dungeons and Dragons games. This was back in the day when you needed graph paper and meticulous notes to find your way around the cities and dungeons of the game. Younger AL players would probably laugh at those games if they played them now. Plus you just played them solo, there was no internet so MMO's hadn't even been thought of yet.

I loved AL because the subject matter was cool. I had no desire to get entangled in a game like WOW. The mobile aspect of AL and the neat graphics, dungeons, and player interaction were just what I was looking for. I do by plat, almost exclusively during plat sales but I am definitely NOT a plat whale.

My frustrations are many...

First, it seems with every major update and/or event either a major exploit or significant technical problem has been introduced to the game. If this were to occur rarely I could deal with it but it is every single update or event. To me, as a software developer this tells me that QA (Quality Assurance) at STS is not doing an adequate job. I have no idea if STS has a dedicated QA team or if developers double as QA when needed. Either way exploits and bugs should not be being introduced to the game at the rate they are.

Second, there is a definite impression that STS plays favorites at times and caters to the loudest voices instead of sticking to their guns, rationalizing there decisions, and standing fast. I have no idea if those voices are as loud as their plat sales but ins some cases I assume they are. This just looks like favoritism, intended or not.

Third, this might be related to my second point above but the constant buff/nerf cycle is driving me nuts! Please stop it, please. Take some time, so some research, poll fans but figure out what will work and be interesting in game before you release it. Then explain your rational for the item, pet, gem, etc and stick to your guns. Event gems changes... make me crazy. Planar Tombs changes... drive me nuts. Planar Pendant drop rates... are making me insane (are they dropping now or not?).

Fourth, this Winter event... Not good. Crate prices crashed already. There is nothing interesting in terms of pets or vanities available for tokens. Ice Scales and Energy are dropping at an obscene rate, why? I have no idea. The only thing worth farming are Tarlok Gems but they are a long term investment only. There seems to be no good way to make a little short term gold in this event and nothing worth my while to purchase. I have no idea how STS is gonna make this event profitable. I don't see any real excitement or buzz over it.

Now to STS's defense. There was a huge dc issue at/after halloween which would have been difficult to pick up in testing. I am sure this took away resources from the Winter event. My issue is this, STS knows that Halloween and Winter are their two biggest events and they occur about a month apart. Waiting to work on Winter until after Halloween just doesn't work. Winter should have been basically "in the can" before Halloween leaving minor tweaking for between the two events. If that had been the case the major dc issues should not have had a major effect on the winter event.

Finally, it seems that often when STS fixes one issue they introduce another. Things like the planar pendent recipe getting buffed from 0 then put back to 0 without anyone's knowledge at STS apparently. Now its supposedly buffed again but is it at the same rate as before or some new rate? It is impossible to know, I just know I still haven't heard of anyone looting one since the supposed second buff. This just leaves the trust level between STS and players at an extremely low level.


As stated at the beginning, I am not threatening to quit the game. I have two years invested in the game, I am not going to give that up. I obviously enjoy the game if I have played it that long. I do think STS is having a major rough patch with the game though. Also because of the lack of desirable items in this event I may not have any incentive to purchase plat during this event. I hope I am wrong because I have asked for some gift cards for the holidays. If not I will just hold the money till later. This isn't a threat it is just reality. My desire is that after the Winter event that STS dedicates a full Month to bug and exploit fixing only. Lets get this game back on stable footing before anything new is added. Lets check drop rates for everything and make sure they make sense. I think as players we would love to see some progress in this regard. And lets stop the Buff/Nerf Yo-Yo!

The other thing bringing me down lately is some of the players in game. I hate drama and I have been in the middle of some high drama lately. If that isn't resolved quickly something will have to change on my end but I will still be playing the game.


Thanks for reading, I just like the game a lot and want to see it on track for future success as well.


-Thrindal

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Great post and sharing to Thrindal and Tearacan.

The essence of a good mmo is how long it can survive. I hate to quote WOW as an example, but which mmo is more successful than it? Not many.

The legends titles are the first and ground breaking attempt of an mmo in a mobile platform (essentially pick and play + strong community factor). Being the forerunner has its advantages but complacency will lead to its demise. Arcane legends is the ultimate end product of all the legends titles.

If you search Google play and apple store, there are many mmo(s) out there that is coming close to a desktop mmo capability but yet tone down to a pick and play genre. STG has an advange being a market mover, but that can only last if the product improves with the market and player base. I still strongly believe mobile mmo is the future of gaming. The money is here.

To move back to the topic, I'm glad to see STG creating the event functionality. The additions of gems which has indeed added depth to the item problems. Old items can retain its value with rare event gems in it. Also the end game Tombs, which even an avid PVPer like me would bother to do 3 runs a day. Keep up the good work.

My challenge to STG is this. Bring it to the next level. Take a look at some of the new mobile mmos and what they can offer. See if it can be brought into arcane legends. Don't make new games anymore, concentrate on Arcane Legends. WOW lasted so long and constantly evolved, so can Arcane legends.

After saying so much, my greatest wish is for STG to expand on pvp and guild content. I DARE to say I'm speaking for the masses on this, because I have read previous posts on it. It has been too long since any updates was done for these. I suspect the class balance issues might be holding you back. However, like all mmo(s), class balance is an ongoing issue. I hope that is not the reason why you are holding pvp content development back.

My 2 cents worth.

preety constructive thread +1 to all ideas

I wish STS could actually have a look properly at AL. Since other games are already on the edge of the cliff or already died by falling into the lava. Pretty much AL WAS pleasing but now there is so much pleasing that i can barely see anything in this game. I hope sts would actually work faster than they are....at this pace even the new gun is like cheaper than the elon gun. And already we have so many bugs....endless in numbers by birth and death. This game has changed alot and no more what is was. This game was very peaceful relaxing until this crazy expansions new types of players. And other "REVOLUTIONARY " things changed it.

Nice write-up. I agree, a month or two dedicated solely to bug fixing before releasing even more content would be awesome. Trying to do both mobile and PC for multiple games is a difficult task but at least for the most popular legends title, some more attention has to be shown. Having no one in the team that has played the game in depth makes no sense to me, for example.

Excellent post.

I haven't been in this game for as long as the OP, but I can say that there are two main reasons for the game's current status. Besides the numerous bugs, of course.

1. The introduction of hard-to-get (some impossible at all), expensive, mega powerful items, that created a huge gap between top players and the majority of people. For example, the difference in stats between a maxed out lvl 41 rogue and the average endgame one is now bigger than the difference between the average lvl 41 rogue and a level 30-something one.

2. The constant buff/nerf business, that creates a ton of unnecessary drama, causes people to lose money (both in-game gold and real life money), get frustrated, and sometimes even quit. I mean, is there a single item/pet/gem/drop rate/whatever, that has been released recently and hasn't been buffed/nerfed at least once since?