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Lightwind
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Re: Heroes Changelog

Fri Jun 16, 2017 10:01 pm

+1 to Revenance's post. It does essentially boil down to trust and complements what I said in an earlier post last week about how the game will die unless certain things are done soon. (And kudos to the devs for addressing a good number of those things this week.)

We as players/customers trust the developers will do a great job of creating their content (be it through proper testing or whatnot) so that it provides entertainment value to us instead of frustration or disappointment. 

Now that trust has been affected; I will tell you that I'm personally conflicted about spending more money on this game because I'm scared they'll do something like what they did to Sven a few months down the road. I stopped renewing the Emiko's delivery already. 
 
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ashenwind
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Re: Heroes Changelog

Fri Jun 16, 2017 10:52 pm

Yeah, I agree with most of Revenance' post.

The only thing I do not agree is that what we see as drastic change in the game system is harder to do and takes a long while to prepare. Thinking up a solution is easier than making it reality. Which is why I say making everyone else to on par with the current power trend, or maybe what you say complement each other evenly, is easier said than done. It's only possible to do in the short period if the developer has enough manpower, time, and resources to do so. Which I kinda have some doubt that they have enough at the moment.

And such as it is, it's a given that they'll take the next easiest path and what most PC mmo games (and all card games that has tournament play for that matter) do in response to a bug or overpowered aspect : Nerfing the said aspect.

 I used to play mmorpg on PC (more so than phone online game), where power creeping rarely happened, and nerfing is a common thing to happen. So my mindset already tell myself that it will be an eventual nerf instead of major rework to everyone else. There was one case where a game developer decided to rework everyone else in order to make older contents to catch up with the dynamic of new one. It did work to some extend, but it also leads to more work as the change in the system also (will unavoidably) birthed unintended bugs (even on games that being developed by bigger company). This is what the dev might have tried to avoid.



To be honest with myself, I feel that the attack trigger system is what kills the strategic value of this game. Mostly because the attack trigger can go on and on and on like there is no tomorrow if some conditions are met. This make several heroes ( if not all heroes who are incapable of triggering attack, or incapable of dealing their highest damage in shortest amount of time, in fact) got drowned to the pit of recycle-able waste (fodder), only find some niche uses, or only usable on arena where some value strategy is still involved. But addressing this matter will likely to cause another uproar. After all, not everyone like drastic change, be it good or bad. So let's forget it for now.
 
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YayuSheng
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Re: Heroes Changelog

Sat Jun 17, 2017 12:25 am

For me the commotion about sven zerker nerf because of bad communication & the late response from dev when ppl consider sven as an OP zerker,  also suddenly summoner hero will be gone from valianite, that make ppl feel like traped into MLB their summoner. so IMHO sven nerf needed even it's already really really late from the issue & also my IMHO sven zerker still strong & useable(even he's trickier to use now). & also it's not Revenance fault if he's angry, actually this time dev & the team are at fault.



PS: before nerf sven can be considered the only SSS champion in the game
Last edited by YayuSheng on Sat Jun 17, 2017 3:43 am, edited 1 time in total.
 
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YayuSheng
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Re: Heroes Changelog

Sat Jun 17, 2017 3:05 am

Yeah, I agree with most of Revenance' post.

The only thing I do not agree is that what we see as drastic change in the game system is harder to do and takes a long while to prepare. Thinking up a solution is easier than making it reality. Which is why I say making everyone else to on par with the current power trend, or maybe what you say complement each other evenly, is easier said than done. It's only possible to do in the short period if the developer has enough manpower, time, and resources to do so. Which I kinda have some doubt that they have enough at the moment.

And such as it is, it's a given that they'll take the next easiest path and what most PC mmo games (and all card games that has tournament play for that matter) do in response to a bug or overpowered aspect : Nerfing the said aspect.

 I used to play mmorpg on PC (more so than phone online game), where power creeping rarely happened, and nerfing is a common thing to happen. So my mindset already tell myself that it will be an eventual nerf instead of major rework to everyone else. There was one case where a game developer decided to rework everyone else in order to make older contents to catch up with the dynamic of new one. It did work to some extend, but it also leads to more work as the change in the system also (will unavoidably) birthed unintended bugs (even on games that being developed by bigger company). This is what the dev might have tried to avoid.



To be honest with myself, I feel that the attack trigger system is what kills the strategic value of this game. Mostly because the attack trigger can go on and on and on like there is no tomorrow if some conditions are met. This make several heroes ( if not all heroes who are incapable of triggering attack, or incapable of dealing their highest damage in shortest amount of time, in fact) got drowned to the pit of recycle-able waste (fodder), only find some niche uses, or only usable on arena where some value strategy is still involved. But addressing this matter will likely to cause another uproar. After all, not everyone like drastic change, be it good or bad. So let's forget it for now.
regarding trigger, it's not just kill a strategic value, but also kill the existence of some dependent frontliner such as Freiya Gladiator & etc(In case dev doesn't understand about why i still think freiya gladiator lazy revamp), but i also agree we can't dismiss trigger from vf, bcs it's vf uniqueness. 
So... I just hoping dev will thorough next time before changing something drastical, if they feel they are not certain regarding the impact when it's implemented. pls give community PTR like blizzard do(i know it might be costly) or u can choose a player(that active in community or have a youtube channel) from dev region which is singapore to try it & give us the his/her thought about the experience during PTR.
 
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newnar
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Re: Heroes Changelog

Sat Jun 17, 2017 3:24 am

Hey bro. I think there is a serious misinterpretation and understanding between us. But first, please calm down and read this post and the first post of mine with an open mind.
I reiterate this, I am definitely someone who is the same as you, who hate nerf. Especially when we invested in heroes that have their glory right from the moment they were born with. But the reason why I am defensive has probably caused you and several people to misunderstand my intention. Also, I am partly to blame for not trying clear this in the first place.. although I tried but I'm sure when we are heated up, we overlooked what we are trying to achieve.

I'm not sure how my very first and initial post trigger you because it was extremely clear, my intention as i have stated, is not to diss or say "serve you guys right". I really don't know how you conclude that I am "happy" about this nerf. If anything, i am agreeable but i may or may not be happy about it. I believe i have never express any of this throughout my post. What I wanted to say is every hero or whatever hero, as long as a game is constantly updating, there will be changes, that's why I say "should have expect it".

Changes are balancing game. It's just like what you say. Why cant they buff everyone? I myself also have the capacity to think the easiest way out. It's either you push everyone up to the same playing field or you pull down the benchmark which in this case, the developer decided to implement both because this gap between the summoners and normal heroes is too wide, they boosted heroes and pull down the top tier units.
Before I comment, I asked myself is it necessary to implement such a harsh condition on this bread and butter DPS?
And you've already realised it before i mention it. It's because Sven is one of the hero that does not need to rely on other to trigger and the reason why many people pick him: he is very flexible (he is a one man army standing in for 2 roles - trigger dps and sweeping) to the point that he's broken because he doesn't have to be pair with anyone, he's a solo triggerer as long as he can summon wyvern, he can trigger his wyvern (range) to finish those he couldn't reach or lower the HP enough for other units to one shot. Overall, he is the most ideal unit to be able to deal damage to the far end units without even moving.
What draws the line between him and the other triggering units like the rangers is his flexibility. But in order for rangers to trigger they require 3 conditions (chances, stats, another compatible hero) whereas Sven only require 2: the chances and his wyvern positioning. This itself is undoubtly the defining moment between your difficult to invest Rangers (which you need a minimum of 2 proper equip units to achieve) compared to a single trigger unit like Sven because you don't have to invest in 2 rangers but 1.
When the developer first introduce Sven, I was delighted because I saved 1 slot. This 1 slot is what causes all these commotion. But if you refer back to my first post as to why I say "we should expect this" is because this character's nature already defies the initial intention of tactical gameplay which comprises of different units to come up with a proper formation.
What conforms a tactical game when VF was first introduced? Has Sven achieved what VF envisaged?

I applaud the effort for the developers even though like what you've mentioned that I seem to bootlick or worship the cattle, is because I like how creative they are to come up with Summoners mechanic. But because it's a first, it's new, there are bound to have many underlying factors or future problems which we couldnt see (again, I can't emphasis how important it is to look ahead from here). Perhaps I'm in a profession that requires constant look out. I'm a project coordinator with an Engineering background. I design for the worst case scenario. I always searching for solutions and an alternative for the what-if situation. I'm trained to look for possible structural failure be it present or future but I'm not perfect because I'm only human, I don't know when a fire will break out in London Grenfell Tower or how the aluminium plastic cladding cause the whole building to be engulfed in flame. I make mistske. So we can only experiment with elimination, mitigation and substitution. It's tiring to always be on the toes but it's our jobs to safeguard the owners. I'm so used to it that maybe this nerf doesn't seem to affect me like how it affect all of you because I'm all prepared for the netf. Like you say, my thinking has been dulled which I agree. I'm so used to it and tired of explaining safety features and designs to owners to safeguard them, only to get shot down because it's extra cost to safeguard their lives or the designs are just plain atrocious but so be it. We tried our best and we are prepared to face the consequences but we just don't know when. Even then something bad happens we still get part of the blame anyway. Maybe we didn't try hard enough. Or maybe our jobs are meant to take blame. Just like what these game developers are experiencing. Just like what our SMRT engineers are experiencing. We are constantly getting bashed endlessly to the point that we became dull and ask ourselves why we even try in the first place. But in the end, it is still for you all that we are still trying hoping that one day, you guys can see us like the way we see you all.
In this case, from the moment Sven was released, there's a constant fear of him being nerf but why do I still bother building him is because although I invested in him, i don't wish to say I wasted my resources on a unit that would undoubtly be nerfed in the future.
Why? Because I know that when every hero reaches the pit bottom, it is the duty of the developers to pick them up. How can I be so sure? Valiant revamp. Heroes changelog. And we could see most heroes are buff at the price of Talissa and Sven nerf. But from my view, it created a levelled playing field. Now we have to fork out a fodder lifesteal unit into the formation and like one of the players have mentioned, it doesn't diversify but narrow down the option which I have to disagree because we have a few units that come with life leech and healing aura. Although they don't won't worth much now, but by incorporating their units into your service, you will be able to appreciate the other units more. This is what the developers want: to diversify by limiting yourself and find another unit to coexist with the unit you love.
I love all the characters in the game. When I first invested in Lucille, I have a witch doctor while everyone gets an inquisitor even though she's a godsend unit in pve. My 2nd Lucille i ride along an Archbishop role when I could have chosen Inquisitor. Again, I try to explore the use of other units and I came to realise that although Inquisitor is very good in PvE, AB has a constant HoT which makes up for her single heal mechanic. I am not trying to glorify myself or ask you all to follow my playstyle. Personally, I just like tactic games. But I felt that it's the responsibility of the players to devote themselves to explore the usage of other units that the developers have given but often, covered in dust. I have Royal Huntsman Cybella and Kane when they were so close to extinction. I have a high defender Darrion which is nothing more than just a tank. But overall, I come up with different ideas on how to incorporate them into my services.

Anyway, it's fine how you all want to think. I'm not a good person in many people's eyes. It's fine if you think I'm sitting here laughing at you. Honestly speaking, there's nothing I can achieve here. I'm just wasting time explaining myself. But for the sake of making this discussion fruitful and debatable, I decided to just draw a line here. I'm done.
Read your first post, because you clearly don't understand the implications that you've made throughout all of it. It isn't our job to interpret "abstract" details regarding your post that literally says the opposite of what you think you're trying to convey. Some of us even went ahead and lectured you on your language skills because you can't seem to understand why we reacted that way on your post. Regardless of your intention or not, the failure of communication is on you, not on our end, and you only have yourself to blame.

There weren't even any implications at all that you said you disliked the nerf. All you said was that "we should have seen it coming" as if we have to look forward 2 months in the future since Sven's release to see that he will be nerfed eventually. That's what made your post unhelpful and antagonizing - you didn't provide any feedback whatsoever except to simply lash out at the people who are complaining about the issue.

Yes, changes do happen. But the biggest difference with this issue with regards to all changes is that it took so long for them to do so. It's been more than 2 months since Sven was released, but they never told anyone beforehand that Sven was "broken" or needed to be adjusted. Sure, there were complaints in arena, and there have already been at least one update to address that, but nobody complained about his power in PvE. The even bigger issue is that everyone who was able to at least complete the event managed to get one for free, so nearly everyone had one they could raise and use, and as such nobody complained about PvE because everyone had him. This abrupt change makes it clear that the developers are reckless - they don't test or think it through before pushing out updates. And I'm not talking about the recent update, no - the very fact that Sven went through and was released with his current kit and remained ignored for two months is THE issue that I'm talking about. 

So now what can we deduce with this situation? That the developers aren't testing enough.  They didn't think Sven was powerful before they decided to give him to everyone in the game that was playing at that time, because they didn't test it beforehand. Now somehow they make a snap decision and see that Sven was actually too powerful for  his own good, and then change it without addressing everyone first. I'm sure everyone agrees that it would be painful to see resources like valianites and gems go to waste, and this was one of the bigger problems people had with the sudden change. If they had tested well beforehand, then they could've made these adjustments PRIOR to his release to the public, and none of this would have ever happened. But nope, they thought of it too late.

This current step in design where they make sure that heroes have to dependent with another hero is an extremely poor design choice. It's easy to see that making heroes reliant towards specific compositions of squads destroys everything tactical about the game. I'd be confident to say that all those heroes that are dependent on specific squad set-ups are the mistake here. What should really happen is that heroes should COMPLEMENT each other, not be dependent of each other. That way, we would be seeing more and more variety when it comes to squad set-ups and whatnot. The moment they actually release a hero that is flexible enough, instead of following a similar design choice to similar heroes, they make some half-assed designs on the following summoner heroes that barely complements any other hero. 

See where Matilda, Sora, Talissa, and Tristan are right now - while Talissa is popular in PvP she never sees the light of day in PvE. I've seen some people using Sora to an extent but not that broadly because her kit doesn't complement much of anyone. Matilda and Tristan are too niche to even bother using, especially when there are more heroes within the same role that can do their jobs so much better. It is clear that the developers have issues making a consistent and appropriate design choice to truly fit into their intention to make this game a "tactical game" when they limit freedom of squad composition like this. And again, all of this is because they simply won't test things. They don't test and explore new innovations, find new abilities that can improve squad diversity, or place effort in making sure older heroes can interact well with newer ones.

In fact, going back on your point saying that Sven is a "self-reliant hero", there are also plenty of heroes, most especially most of the summoners, that show they are the same as Sven - they're self-reliant and can do well in nearly any composition. The problem is that Sven does his job really good, while at the same time has the ability to complement others through his aura, which is why most people favored him over others, and the rest are basically forgotten. This is honestly why I preferred them to take measures to ensure these older characters are improved by making sure they complement well with other heroes. But all they did was to slightly adjust their numbers when what they really need is a more drastic change.

Developers are supposed to be used to criticism, because it's going to be there all the time, regardless whether they are justified or not. If we suddenly think that these developers should be immune to any complaint or criticism, what would happen to legitimate and otherwise critical criticism that might really help push the game into the right direction? Sure, maybe people should cut some slack and applaud the developers with their efforts at times, but this is pretty much why people show their appreciate through their wallets. If they enjoy the game and the direction to where it's going, they're going to invest. It's nice to praise them from time to time, but even better to contribute in a way that really defines the reward they're looking for with the job. But things like this issue can really cause some trust issues with their customers and may end up doing more harm than good.

If the path the developers wish to go down with is nerfing any hero they weren't able to test through and was found to be too powerful in their perspective, then would these players even attempt to invest on these new characters they release, which is now where most of their revenue is coming from? Definitely no. In fact, players always love to find ways to maximize everything, like learning some secret tech/interaction in some games that the developers never thought of happening, so it's nearly inevitable that sometime along the way they're going to face issues on what they see as overpowered". In this regard, if their choice is to make sure that those kind of stuff never happen, they should place more efforts in testing to ensure all factors are considered before it would be released to the general public.

There was no constant fear of Sven being nerfed back then, because all players assume that the developers should already know what they're doing - if this is the direction they want to go through, then so be it. If you feared that he would be nerfed eventually, then why didn't the developers foresee this fear themselves and made efforts beforehand in testing it out, or at least warning the players who are simply going through the flow of the game that this particular hero was eventually going to be nerfed? Again, this is why testing is so important, but their failure to do so has certainly caused a strain with the relationship between them and the players, as we see from all the recent feedback so far.

Are you aware of the term "power creep?" If you're an avid player of mobile games this is one of the most well known design choices in these kind of gacha games to ensure people will continue to spend money into the game. While power creep is usually frowned upon the general player base, the difference between this kind of theme and what the current developers of Valiant Force are doing is the realm of consistency. Most of the time though, power creep still manages to consider old heroes so developers make adjustments for them to make them useful for the current meta (if you play or have played Brave Frontier, which was one of the first ever popular gacha mobile games, you can see this trend come to light). Still, they don't make sudden changes to new releases especially when they know some people might have spent on them. The developers made the wrong move through their inconsistency - changing the core kit of a character drastically that everyone has likely spent on is one of the best ways to lose trust on the consumer base.

You are not unique as you think you are. I also love most of the characters in the game - most of the time, instead of limit breaking heroes, I tend to make the classes I don't have yet to make sure I have a complete roster of heroes to use in case someone other than myself figure out a new way to use them. I have a Blood Knight Darrion that was my very first 5 star that I used quite a lot in my early days, and I picked him mostly because I loved his cool looking armor. But now I never use him anymore, and there's nothing to blame except the current direction where the game is going. There is hardly any tactics going on with the game - there is no intricacy with the battle system that would call for unique set-ups or strategy as the game wishes itself to be: a tactic game. This may be somewhat going beyond the issue at hand here, but my main gripe is that, because of their lack of testing and new innovation with the current system in place, the game is going farther and farther away from its tactical core that they  like to advertise, and now we're left with inconsistency on balancing and change, making it difficult for players to decide on which to invest on.

If you didn't like explaining yourself, then, as I reiterate, you should have acknowledged your mistake or apologized on your intention to antagonize in the first place. Again, there is no one to blame but yourself.
Revenance, this is a mighty well-written post, but I would have to disagree with you on many points you have made. I would say that most of your analysis is the result of hindsight fallacy.

- First, the hindsight fallacy. All of the arguments made based on "devs didn't test enough" falls under this category. There is a big difference between devs being negligent in testing and testing "enough". If, by testing "enough" you mean by "testing to an extent where no further changes need to be made after the patch is live", then sorry, the devs aren't clairvoyant, and as much as one can attempt to test as hard as one can, if an observer only looks at whether there are still problems after release, then the testing will never be "enough". There fore, it is practically impossible to perform so-called "enough" testing. How much is enough? One can only choose to draw a mark at a certain point in testing and iterations, everything that happens after that are pretty much out of one's hands. Also, claiming that "because they won't test things" requires you to somehow prove that the devs have done literally no testing or close to no testing on the character hence what we are playing is quite literally ver1.0. If you are unfamiliar with game development, you should know that the Sven we players saw at release definitely wasn't Sven v1.0, but more like Sven v14.6.9. We see it as Sven v1.0 only because we are not the devs nor the testers. As a player, one's limited knowledge makes one think that all unintentional effects could have been averted, but many online games across a long period of time have proven time and time again that you actually can't really do that perfectly. Some things just don't surface during testing and there is nothing devs or anyone can really do about it. The best option is to patch it up carefully once these issues are found post patch. To be honest, this kind of hindsight fallacy is very commonplace and I too fell to such antics when Sven first released. I was like,"How can they release something so utterly broken? Clearly not enough testing was done!" But a while later, I critically thought about it and realized that it isn't very fair to the devs nor in any way helpful to the game when I'm stuck in this fallacy. What I should do is just to utilize the broken Sven in a natural way such that it reflects his broken-ness (in other words, simply overuse him since he's OP, for my own in-game gains no doubt) and just allow the background statistics of the game to show the devs exactly what went wrong and most importantly, what exactly needs fixing. In short, claiming that devs don't test enough is nonconstructive and only makes sense in hindsight, unless you can tell the devs EXACTLY when to stop the testing and you can guarantee no problems after that. Suggestions to having PTRs or beta servers can help but in VF's context I'm not too sure about the viability of this option.

- Complaining that the 2mth duration the patch took too long directly contradicts your previous point that the devs don't test enough/don't test at all. If they don't test enough, then clearly they need to test more right? That would require more time and effort for version iterations and reiterations. If you wanted the devs to work out something in say, a week and immediately implement it, some more game-breaking bug is more likely occur and then you'll complain about "not enough testing" again. Unless you mean to claim that the devs are not actually spending the 2mths of testing but merely arbitrarily decided to make the Sven nerf come 2mths later just for fun and giggles, then this point is pretty much null. If you want quality content, you can't skimp on the testing. But remember the thing about testing - having testing or having more testing makes the game much better than having no testing or having less testing, but there is no such thing as "enough" testing such as to completely remove all possibilities of new problems surfacing on release.

- With regards to the claim that the devs somehow have some obligation to inform us 2 mths in advance what kind of balance changes are to be applied, I can only say that this is just absurd. Take any online game, I'll use Dota2. Valve's patches for Dota2 are almost never preceded by any kind of notice or hinting, especially regarding balance. However, there are some analyzers of DotA who can predict what will be nerfed/buffed in upcoming patches (with surprising accuracy even). How do they do this? Simple. By experiencing the current patch and critically thinking about what is OP/UP or Overused/Underused this patch. With some experience and logic/critical thinking, it is a difficult but possible feat. This is pretty much the same for Valiant Force. There will be those who genuinely aren't surprised at things such as the Sven nerf while there will be always be a lot more people who are, this is just how game balance works. If everyone was notified of the incoming changes so early (2mths in advance), nobody would be playing the current patch (as of then), and the devs would not be able to gather accurate and genuine data from he playerbase. Imagine if the Sven nerf was broadcasted 2mths ago, people would use him much less, leading to him actually not being overused and hence not needing to be nerfed anymore. Then people will complain again,"hey how come the promised nerf never came?" Simple. Because by announcing the nerf, the nerf become no longer needed. Which, afterwards will cause people to swarm towards Sven again, knowing that the nerf was a lie, then Sven would become overused and needs to be nerfed and it goes round and round again.

"There was no constant fear of Sven being nerfed back then, because all players assume that the developers should already know what they're doing"
- Please do not speak for all players just because you assume all players are like yourself. It was rather obvious to many people including me that Sven was in need of a pretty severe nerf, that or have other heroes buffed up to his level (which in turn would cause the PvE content to become relatively easier and requiring some scaling-up, so probably not this way) And "why didn't the developers foresee this fear themselves"? Because the devs are not psychics nor soothsayers and they can only conduct testing to a certain extent, but nothing beyond it. Every game has balance patches to address issues that did not surface in internal testing.

"heroes should COMPLEMENT each other, not be dependent of each other"
- First let me present my assumptions. I assume that by "complement", you mean that a hero can work independently on their own but also gains a large improvement when used in conjunction with other heroes. I also assume that by "dependent", you mean that a hero is pretty much unable to do anything on their own, and requires the use of other heroes in conjunction to achieve anything at all. If so, I would reject your view that there should never be high-dependency heroes, and only heroes that complement each other should exist. Personally I call this thing "flexibility", but I'll revert to your terms to avoid unnecessary confusion. My view is that there should be a plethora or spectrum of different heroes that operate at varying levels of complement and dependent. Those who are more complement but less dependent perform more averagely and their improvement when used in a good team is significant, but limited. Those who are less complement and more dependent should have vastly stronger effects when used in proper conjunction, with a much higher impact potential than the former type. If all heroes were complements of each other and no dependents exist, it would actually be less tactical since being more complement means that the interactions between heroes matter less, because they are still very workable on their own, without a very strong need for a compatible team. Of course, having entirely highly-dependent heroes will also be an equally terrible experience for players, since RNG will dictate with an almost terrifying accuracy whether or not one is capable of clearing stages and performing feats. Hence, having a good mix of both highly-complement heroes and highly-dependent heroes with a wide spectrum in between them ought to be the most desirable manner of designing heroes for VF.
 
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ashenwind
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Re: Heroes Changelog

Sat Jun 17, 2017 6:51 am

Hey bro. I think there is a serious misinterpretation and understanding between us. But first, please calm down and read this post and the first post of mine with an open mind.
I reiterate this, I am definitely someone who is the same as you, who hate nerf. Especially when we invested in heroes that have their glory right from the moment they were born with. But the reason why I am defensive has probably caused you and several people to misunderstand my intention. Also, I am partly to blame for not trying clear this in the first place.. although I tried but I'm sure when we are heated up, we overlooked what we are trying to achieve.

I'm not sure how my very first and initial post trigger you because it was extremely clear, my intention as i have stated, is not to diss or say "serve you guys right". I really don't know how you conclude that I am "happy" about this nerf. If anything, i am agreeable but i may or may not be happy about it. I believe i have never express any of this throughout my post. What I wanted to say is every hero or whatever hero, as long as a game is constantly updating, there will be changes, that's why I say "should have expect it".

Changes are balancing game. It's just like what you say. Why cant they buff everyone? I myself also have the capacity to think the easiest way out. It's either you push everyone up to the same playing field or you pull down the benchmark which in this case, the developer decided to implement both because this gap between the summoners and normal heroes is too wide, they boosted heroes and pull down the top tier units.
Before I comment, I asked myself is it necessary to implement such a harsh condition on this bread and butter DPS?
And you've already realised it before i mention it. It's because Sven is one of the hero that does not need to rely on other to trigger and the reason why many people pick him: he is very flexible (he is a one man army standing in for 2 roles - trigger dps and sweeping) to the point that he's broken because he doesn't have to be pair with anyone, he's a solo triggerer as long as he can summon wyvern, he can trigger his wyvern (range) to finish those he couldn't reach or lower the HP enough for other units to one shot. Overall, he is the most ideal unit to be able to deal damage to the far end units without even moving.
What draws the line between him and the other triggering units like the rangers is his flexibility. But in order for rangers to trigger they require 3 conditions (chances, stats, another compatible hero) whereas Sven only require 2: the chances and his wyvern positioning. This itself is undoubtly the defining moment between your difficult to invest Rangers (which you need a minimum of 2 proper equip units to achieve) compared to a single trigger unit like Sven because you don't have to invest in 2 rangers but 1.
When the developer first introduce Sven, I was delighted because I saved 1 slot. This 1 slot is what causes all these commotion. But if you refer back to my first post as to why I say "we should expect this" is because this character's nature already defies the initial intention of tactical gameplay which comprises of different units to come up with a proper formation.
What conforms a tactical game when VF was first introduced? Has Sven achieved what VF envisaged?

I applaud the effort for the developers even though like what you've mentioned that I seem to bootlick or worship the cattle, is because I like how creative they are to come up with Summoners mechanic. But because it's a first, it's new, there are bound to have many underlying factors or future problems which we couldnt see (again, I can't emphasis how important it is to look ahead from here). Perhaps I'm in a profession that requires constant look out. I'm a project coordinator with an Engineering background. I design for the worst case scenario. I always searching for solutions and an alternative for the what-if situation. I'm trained to look for possible structural failure be it present or future but I'm not perfect because I'm only human, I don't know when a fire will break out in London Grenfell Tower or how the aluminium plastic cladding cause the whole building to be engulfed in flame. I make mistske. So we can only experiment with elimination, mitigation and substitution. It's tiring to always be on the toes but it's our jobs to safeguard the owners. I'm so used to it that maybe this nerf doesn't seem to affect me like how it affect all of you because I'm all prepared for the netf. Like you say, my thinking has been dulled which I agree. I'm so used to it and tired of explaining safety features and designs to owners to safeguard them, only to get shot down because it's extra cost to safeguard their lives or the designs are just plain atrocious but so be it. We tried our best and we are prepared to face the consequences but we just don't know when. Even then something bad happens we still get part of the blame anyway. Maybe we didn't try hard enough. Or maybe our jobs are meant to take blame. Just like what these game developers are experiencing. Just like what our SMRT engineers are experiencing. We are constantly getting bashed endlessly to the point that we became dull and ask ourselves why we even try in the first place. But in the end, it is still for you all that we are still trying hoping that one day, you guys can see us like the way we see you all.
In this case, from the moment Sven was released, there's a constant fear of him being nerf but why do I still bother building him is because although I invested in him, i don't wish to say I wasted my resources on a unit that would undoubtly be nerfed in the future.
Why? Because I know that when every hero reaches the pit bottom, it is the duty of the developers to pick them up. How can I be so sure? Valiant revamp. Heroes changelog. And we could see most heroes are buff at the price of Talissa and Sven nerf. But from my view, it created a levelled playing field. Now we have to fork out a fodder lifesteal unit into the formation and like one of the players have mentioned, it doesn't diversify but narrow down the option which I have to disagree because we have a few units that come with life leech and healing aura. Although they don't won't worth much now, but by incorporating their units into your service, you will be able to appreciate the other units more. This is what the developers want: to diversify by limiting yourself and find another unit to coexist with the unit you love.
I love all the characters in the game. When I first invested in Lucille, I have a witch doctor while everyone gets an inquisitor even though she's a godsend unit in pve. My 2nd Lucille i ride along an Archbishop role when I could have chosen Inquisitor. Again, I try to explore the use of other units and I came to realise that although Inquisitor is very good in PvE, AB has a constant HoT which makes up for her single heal mechanic. I am not trying to glorify myself or ask you all to follow my playstyle. Personally, I just like tactic games. But I felt that it's the responsibility of the players to devote themselves to explore the usage of other units that the developers have given but often, covered in dust. I have Royal Huntsman Cybella and Kane when they were so close to extinction. I have a high defender Darrion which is nothing more than just a tank. But overall, I come up with different ideas on how to incorporate them into my services.

Anyway, it's fine how you all want to think. I'm not a good person in many people's eyes. It's fine if you think I'm sitting here laughing at you. Honestly speaking, there's nothing I can achieve here. I'm just wasting time explaining myself. But for the sake of making this discussion fruitful and debatable, I decided to just draw a line here. I'm done.
Read your first post, because you clearly don't understand the implications that you've made throughout all of it. It isn't our job to interpret "abstract" details regarding your post that literally says the opposite of what you think you're trying to convey. Some of us even went ahead and lectured you on your language skills because you can't seem to understand why we reacted that way on your post. Regardless of your intention or not, the failure of communication is on you, not on our end, and you only have yourself to blame.

There weren't even any implications at all that you said you disliked the nerf. All you said was that "we should have seen it coming" as if we have to look forward 2 months in the future since Sven's release to see that he will be nerfed eventually. That's what made your post unhelpful and antagonizing - you didn't provide any feedback whatsoever except to simply lash out at the people who are complaining about the issue.

Yes, changes do happen. But the biggest difference with this issue with regards to all changes is that it took so long for them to do so. It's been more than 2 months since Sven was released, but they never told anyone beforehand that Sven was "broken" or needed to be adjusted. Sure, there were complaints in arena, and there have already been at least one update to address that, but nobody complained about his power in PvE. The even bigger issue is that everyone who was able to at least complete the event managed to get one for free, so nearly everyone had one they could raise and use, and as such nobody complained about PvE because everyone had him. This abrupt change makes it clear that the developers are reckless - they don't test or think it through before pushing out updates. And I'm not talking about the recent update, no - the very fact that Sven went through and was released with his current kit and remained ignored for two months is THE issue that I'm talking about. 

So now what can we deduce with this situation? That the developers aren't testing enough.  They didn't think Sven was powerful before they decided to give him to everyone in the game that was playing at that time, because they didn't test it beforehand. Now somehow they make a snap decision and see that Sven was actually too powerful for  his own good, and then change it without addressing everyone first. I'm sure everyone agrees that it would be painful to see resources like valianites and gems go to waste, and this was one of the bigger problems people had with the sudden change. If they had tested well beforehand, then they could've made these adjustments PRIOR to his release to the public, and none of this would have ever happened. But nope, they thought of it too late.

This current step in design where they make sure that heroes have to dependent with another hero is an extremely poor design choice. It's easy to see that making heroes reliant towards specific compositions of squads destroys everything tactical about the game. I'd be confident to say that all those heroes that are dependent on specific squad set-ups are the mistake here. What should really happen is that heroes should COMPLEMENT each other, not be dependent of each other. That way, we would be seeing more and more variety when it comes to squad set-ups and whatnot. The moment they actually release a hero that is flexible enough, instead of following a similar design choice to similar heroes, they make some half-assed designs on the following summoner heroes that barely complements any other hero. 

See where Matilda, Sora, Talissa, and Tristan are right now - while Talissa is popular in PvP she never sees the light of day in PvE. I've seen some people using Sora to an extent but not that broadly because her kit doesn't complement much of anyone. Matilda and Tristan are too niche to even bother using, especially when there are more heroes within the same role that can do their jobs so much better. It is clear that the developers have issues making a consistent and appropriate design choice to truly fit into their intention to make this game a "tactical game" when they limit freedom of squad composition like this. And again, all of this is because they simply won't test things. They don't test and explore new innovations, find new abilities that can improve squad diversity, or place effort in making sure older heroes can interact well with newer ones.

In fact, going back on your point saying that Sven is a "self-reliant hero", there are also plenty of heroes, most especially most of the summoners, that show they are the same as Sven - they're self-reliant and can do well in nearly any composition. The problem is that Sven does his job really good, while at the same time has the ability to complement others through his aura, which is why most people favored him over others, and the rest are basically forgotten. This is honestly why I preferred them to take measures to ensure these older characters are improved by making sure they complement well with other heroes. But all they did was to slightly adjust their numbers when what they really need is a more drastic change.

Developers are supposed to be used to criticism, because it's going to be there all the time, regardless whether they are justified or not. If we suddenly think that these developers should be immune to any complaint or criticism, what would happen to legitimate and otherwise critical criticism that might really help push the game into the right direction? Sure, maybe people should cut some slack and applaud the developers with their efforts at times, but this is pretty much why people show their appreciate through their wallets. If they enjoy the game and the direction to where it's going, they're going to invest. It's nice to praise them from time to time, but even better to contribute in a way that really defines the reward they're looking for with the job. But things like this issue can really cause some trust issues with their customers and may end up doing more harm than good.

If the path the developers wish to go down with is nerfing any hero they weren't able to test through and was found to be too powerful in their perspective, then would these players even attempt to invest on these new characters they release, which is now where most of their revenue is coming from? Definitely no. In fact, players always love to find ways to maximize everything, like learning some secret tech/interaction in some games that the developers never thought of happening, so it's nearly inevitable that sometime along the way they're going to face issues on what they see as overpowered". In this regard, if their choice is to make sure that those kind of stuff never happen, they should place more efforts in testing to ensure all factors are considered before it would be released to the general public.

There was no constant fear of Sven being nerfed back then, because all players assume that the developers should already know what they're doing - if this is the direction they want to go through, then so be it. If you feared that he would be nerfed eventually, then why didn't the developers foresee this fear themselves and made efforts beforehand in testing it out, or at least warning the players who are simply going through the flow of the game that this particular hero was eventually going to be nerfed? Again, this is why testing is so important, but their failure to do so has certainly caused a strain with the relationship between them and the players, as we see from all the recent feedback so far.

Are you aware of the term "power creep?" If you're an avid player of mobile games this is one of the most well known design choices in these kind of gacha games to ensure people will continue to spend money into the game. While power creep is usually frowned upon the general player base, the difference between this kind of theme and what the current developers of Valiant Force are doing is the realm of consistency. Most of the time though, power creep still manages to consider old heroes so developers make adjustments for them to make them useful for the current meta (if you play or have played Brave Frontier, which was one of the first ever popular gacha mobile games, you can see this trend come to light). Still, they don't make sudden changes to new releases especially when they know some people might have spent on them. The developers made the wrong move through their inconsistency - changing the core kit of a character drastically that everyone has likely spent on is one of the best ways to lose trust on the consumer base.

You are not unique as you think you are. I also love most of the characters in the game - most of the time, instead of limit breaking heroes, I tend to make the classes I don't have yet to make sure I have a complete roster of heroes to use in case someone other than myself figure out a new way to use them. I have a Blood Knight Darrion that was my very first 5 star that I used quite a lot in my early days, and I picked him mostly because I loved his cool looking armor. But now I never use him anymore, and there's nothing to blame except the current direction where the game is going. There is hardly any tactics going on with the game - there is no intricacy with the battle system that would call for unique set-ups or strategy as the game wishes itself to be: a tactic game. This may be somewhat going beyond the issue at hand here, but my main gripe is that, because of their lack of testing and new innovation with the current system in place, the game is going farther and farther away from its tactical core that they  like to advertise, and now we're left with inconsistency on balancing and change, making it difficult for players to decide on which to invest on.

If you didn't like explaining yourself, then, as I reiterate, you should have acknowledged your mistake or apologized on your intention to antagonize in the first place. Again, there is no one to blame but yourself.
Revenance, this is a mighty well-written post, but I would have to disagree with you on many points you have made. I would say that most of your analysis is the result of hindsight fallacy.

- First, the hindsight fallacy. All of the arguments made based on "devs didn't test enough" falls under this category. There is a big difference between devs being negligent in testing and testing "enough". If, by testing "enough" you mean by "testing to an extent where no further changes need to be made after the patch is live", then sorry, the devs aren't clairvoyant, and as much as one can attempt to test as hard as one can, if an observer only looks at whether there are still problems after release, then the testing will never be "enough". There fore, it is practically impossible to perform so-called "enough" testing. How much is enough? One can only choose to draw a mark at a certain point in testing and iterations, everything that happens after that are pretty much out of one's hands. Also, claiming that "because they won't test things" requires you to somehow prove that the devs have done literally no testing or close to no testing on the character hence what we are playing is quite literally ver1.0. If you are unfamiliar with game development, you should know that the Sven we players saw at release definitely wasn't Sven v1.0, but more like Sven v14.6.9. We see it as Sven v1.0 only because we are not the devs nor the testers. As a player, one's limited knowledge makes one think that all unintentional effects could have been averted, but many online games across a long period of time have proven time and time again that you actually can't really do that perfectly. Some things just don't surface during testing and there is nothing devs or anyone can really do about it. The best option is to patch it up carefully once these issues are found post patch. To be honest, this kind of hindsight fallacy is very commonplace and I too fell to such antics when Sven first released. I was like,"How can they release something so utterly broken? Clearly not enough testing was done!" But a while later, I critically thought about it and realized that it isn't very fair to the devs nor in any way helpful to the game when I'm stuck in this fallacy. What I should do is just to utilize the broken Sven in a natural way such that it reflects his broken-ness (in other words, simply overuse him since he's OP, for my own in-game gains no doubt) and just allow the background statistics of the game to show the devs exactly what went wrong and most importantly, what exactly needs fixing. In short, claiming that devs don't test enough is nonconstructive and only makes sense in hindsight, unless you can tell the devs EXACTLY when to stop the testing and you can guarantee no problems after that. Suggestions to having PTRs or beta servers can help but in VF's context I'm not too sure about the viability of this option.

- Complaining that the 2mth duration the patch took too long directly contradicts your previous point that the devs don't test enough/don't test at all. If they don't test enough, then clearly they need to test more right? That would require more time and effort for version iterations and reiterations. If you wanted the devs to work out something in say, a week and immediately implement it, some more game-breaking bug is more likely occur and then you'll complain about "not enough testing" again. Unless you mean to claim that the devs are not actually spending the 2mths of testing but merely arbitrarily decided to make the Sven nerf come 2mths later just for fun and giggles, then this point is pretty much null. If you want quality content, you can't skimp on the testing. But remember the thing about testing - having testing or having more testing makes the game much better than having no testing or having less testing, but there is no such thing as "enough" testing such as to completely remove all possibilities of new problems surfacing on release.

- With regards to the claim that the devs somehow have some obligation to inform us 2 mths in advance what kind of balance changes are to be applied, I can only say that this is just absurd. Take any online game, I'll use Dota2. Valve's patches for Dota2 are almost never preceded by any kind of notice or hinting, especially regarding balance. However, there are some analyzers of DotA who can predict what will be nerfed/buffed in upcoming patches (with surprising accuracy even). How do they do this? Simple. By experiencing the current patch and critically thinking about what is OP/UP or Overused/Underused this patch. With some experience and logic/critical thinking, it is a difficult but possible feat. This is pretty much the same for Valiant Force. There will be those who genuinely aren't surprised at things such as the Sven nerf while there will be always be a lot more people who are, this is just how game balance works. If everyone was notified of the incoming changes so early (2mths in advance), nobody would be playing the current patch (as of then), and the devs would not be able to gather accurate and genuine data from he playerbase. Imagine if the Sven nerf was broadcasted 2mths ago, people would use him much less, leading to him actually not being overused and hence not needing to be nerfed anymore. Then people will complain again,"hey how come the promised nerf never came?" Simple. Because by announcing the nerf, the nerf become no longer needed. Which, afterwards will cause people to swarm towards Sven again, knowing that the nerf was a lie, then Sven would become overused and needs to be nerfed and it goes round and round again.

"There was no constant fear of Sven being nerfed back then, because all players assume that the developers should already know what they're doing"
- Please do not speak for all players just because you assume all players are like yourself. It was rather obvious to many people including me that Sven was in need of a pretty severe nerf, that or have other heroes buffed up to his level (which in turn would cause the PvE content to become relatively easier and requiring some scaling-up, so probably not this way) And "why didn't the developers foresee this fear themselves"? Because the devs are not psychics nor soothsayers and they can only conduct testing to a certain extent, but nothing beyond it. Every game has balance patches to address issues that did not surface in internal testing.

"heroes should COMPLEMENT each other, not be dependent of each other"
- First let me present my assumptions. I assume that by "complement", you mean that a hero can work independently on their own but also gains a large improvement when used in conjunction with other heroes. I also assume that by "dependent", you mean that a hero is pretty much unable to do anything on their own, and requires the use of other heroes in conjunction to achieve anything at all. If so, I would reject your view that there should never be high-dependency heroes, and only heroes that complement each other should exist. Personally I call this thing "flexibility", but I'll revert to your terms to avoid unnecessary confusion. My view is that there should be a plethora or spectrum of different heroes that operate at varying levels of complement and dependent. Those who are more complement but less dependent perform more averagely and their improvement when used in a good team is significant, but limited. Those who are less complement and more dependent should have vastly stronger effects when used in proper conjunction, with a much higher impact potential than the former type. If all heroes were complements of each other and no dependents exist, it would actually be less tactical since being more complement means that the interactions between heroes matter less, because they are still very workable on their own, without a very strong need for a compatible team. Of course, having entirely highly-dependent heroes will also be an equally terrible experience for players, since RNG will dictate with an almost terrifying accuracy whether or not one is capable of clearing stages and performing feats. Hence, having a good mix of both highly-complement heroes and highly-dependent heroes with a wide spectrum in between them ought to be the most desirable manner of designing heroes for VF.
This too.
I've been meaning to make some example from PC MMOs and MOBA about how nerfing doesn't always come after the dev told us that they will nerf. And even some OP existence may sometimes be overlooked for quite a long period of time before being nerfed. But I was reluctant because not all of us has the experience of playing online games on PC. They may just shrug it off by saying that Valiant Force is a phone online game, not a PC one etc.

Also, the little fact that I was actually fuming with anger and dismay inside makes me afraid that I will just ended up making a post that is provoking or just tad bad.

I feel better now though.

One little example of OP existence being overlooked until it's too late was the Warlock class from Blade and Soul online. I won't tell too much about the class, but last year, a player using this class won the world championship title without even scoring any round loss at all. The cause of it was that the warlock at that time has strayed far from how it was back when it's first released. Few months before the tournament, all of the classes received rework to their skills, including warlock's. This rework change the original warlock who were rather slow caster dps that require setup to be effective (even then their strongest skill still come very slow that it's quite easy to block), to become a fast-paced long-range dps that can deal substantial damage just from setting up for their quick, instant, yet deadly strongest damage skill. Did I mention they also have the best kind of buffs in the whole game? One of the buff refills Warlock's mp and refreshes their skill cooldown every few seconds. The buff only lasts for 10 seconds and has 1 minute unrefreshable cooldown, but with how fast and big Warlock's dps is, 10 seconds is enough to finish off a pvp fight. See how this will turns out, yes?

The developer only nerfed Warlock right after the tournament. Months after the rework has been released. An oversight on the dev part? Maybe. But you see here even on a game that is big enough to hold a world tournament, on a game that even has a separate server to test things out  where they let several hundred of selected players to try and test the content before release to see if it's op or not, something like this can also happened.

Do people complain? Not really. Not that I'm aware of. Because it's already apparent to them that the warlock is an OP class, especially so after the tournament clearly showcased it. Because as I said on my previous post, nerfing is common practice in an online gaming world and class rework only come once or twice after a year or two.

The dev didn't announce before the nerf that they will do so too by the way. MUCH LIKE EVERY OTHER MMORPG and MOBA GAMES.The dev nerfed the warlock's new pacing pretty hard that they better off playing the older version. Do the player rage-quit? No they didn't. At least most of them didn't. Because even then, with how slow the warlock is, there is still some way to get over it and they are still a good contributor to party play with their buffs.
See the similarity here?

Even after nerf, Sven still kicks ass in the arena. For PVE content, all you need to do to compensate the hp loss for longer battle duration is by including a lifesteal aura hero to sustain the wyvern. The huge damage of the wyvern's attack will also cause a rather huge amount of lifesteal. Personally, I have tested Sven on capitol defense, the only game content that I'm not sure I can reliably finish without sven's help. All I did was removing an archer (I use 3 archers squad, Sven, plus one melee dps before), put in Leon Blood Knight behind Sven, then have Leon back off a tile to make space when Sven summon wyvern. The lifesteal was enough to sustain the wyvern long until it is able to cast the sacrifice skill. The hp loss for my wyvern was around 2-2.5k while the lifesteal heals around 3k per attack.

People are willing to include 3 otherwise near-useless-on their-own heroes (aura slave) to compensate for Drake. Why can't you include one for Sven? All he need to compensate the wyvern's drawback was a measly 1 units, not 3 like SDD that essentially make the squad role to be specialized for only one thing. You can still put in 3 other heroes that can help trigger/buff(Warlords and Vincent berserker) or pour in reliable dps (Archers) or increase survivability(Faye and Lucille) or any other hero that you like.
 
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kazamai
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Re: Heroes Changelog

Sat Jun 17, 2017 1:19 pm

First, I also hate the nerf. but saying "That the developers aren't testing enough" and everyone seems to be agree with it, is a bit too much. I work in product development as well. So I'm just going to say that the Dev do a pretty good job in testing. found many bug in game? I don't think so. 

Regarding Sven, I dare to say that at one point the Dev does think it's a good idea to have a champion class that able to do long range attack and able to trigger like a ranger, basically whatever you want to describe Sven. Not testing enough? definitely Not the case. Design flaw? probably. 
So now they ended up creating a OP hero and already implement him in the game. Should they forsee it in the first place? maybe they should. but you can't expect perfection from human can you?  

but I do think they could've handle all these thing better. Like many said before, the nerf comes too late, when majority (I think) of the player already spend the time and effort to build him. 
Should they communicate the nerf? honestly, no. I know it's their right to do so. but this is where I think they can do better. They do communicate the valiant revamp, why can't they do the same with Sven? I personally think it's a good thing to do, to communicate with your player base.

I've just re-read and found this statement from Milo
"Sven was blowing everyone away in PvP.
He was blowing everything away in PvE.
We want him to blow some away in PvP.
We want him to be strong in PvE, but not without a cost."

Ok so they do want to nerf him in PVE too, In my previous post I mention they aim is off the target. but ok. I get what they want now. but I still think the cost in PVE is a bit too much.
I won't discuss PVP much, as the nerf actually doesn't do that much. 
Let's break it down PVE shall we:
In raid: just see the ladder, and please let me know how many Sven zerk in there? there's one in this current week for boss 3 If i'm not mistaken. 
my opinion: nerf Sven here won't help anything but to wider the gap between high rank guild with other mid to lower/new guild. high rank guild probably don't use them that much. I don't have the data, just guessing based on the ladder. Now for mid/lower/new guild, from what I know, like in my guild. we rely heavily on Sven. next raid will be a new thing to face. especially boss 2 and 3. I bet more time will be needed to clear or if we will be able to clear the raid at all, while some top guild will still clear the raid in a few days.

Event: Well yes. Previously I do mention that generally event hero is needed and Sven will help A LOT. but still what do the Dev expect here? Top player will have no problem getting new hero and clearing it. other player in middle will have a harder time, but I know of some player that already clear master. new player that invest all their effor in Sven? well even harder time for them.  

Do I want a easy game? well no, but I just want to remind Dev, what's their purpose of doing thing. what they want to achieve? will the nerf achieve what they want? I just think that the HP lost do more harm than good. the skill cool down is fine. (just my opinion ok)

one point regarding what @ashenwind replied to me. why should Sven be so strong? it's not even main hero, or a valiant, why he get to be special?  well, I can't really answer anything beyond why not? Sure. even with the nerf he's still better than most champion class, thanks to his unique design. but again, I don't know what do you expect. they surely can't change leon or freya into summoner, or give them any ranged attacked. Yes, you also mention remove the HP lost nerf but reduce his overall DPS too. well, ok maybe, but I don't know. I still prefer if they can remove the HP loss and just restrict the pet's trigger to one target and stopped if the target dies. 
 
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Re: Heroes Changelog

Sat Jun 17, 2017 2:28 pm

one point regarding what @ashenwind replied to me. why should Sven be so strong? it's not even main hero, or a valiant, why he get to be special?  well, I can't really answer anything beyond why not? Sure. even with the nerf he's still better than most champion class, thanks to his unique design. but again, I don't know what do you expect. they surely can't change leon or freya into summoner, or give them any ranged attacked. Yes, you also mention remove the HP lost nerf but reduce his overall DPS too. well, ok maybe, but I don't know. I still prefer if they can remove the HP loss and just restrict the pet's trigger to one target and stopped if the target dies. 
Fine then :lol:
Valiant Force does not have fixed lore yet as of now anyway. I can't argue back about that since there are still a lot of hole in the lore. Dev also really need to work on this >:)

About your concern for the pet's trigger, this just simply strengthened my point that the trigger system is what causes all this debacle in the first place. IF from the start of his release Sven does not have his attack trigger aura in a way that the wyvern can trigger itself continuously, then maybe this nerf won't even happened.

What about if they make his aura as just a normal trigger aura like Warlord Vincent/Freya & MB Kai/Shizu, something like 30-35 % chance to trigger the wyvern to attack with 100-120% attack and maybe buff attack of everyone in his aura range when Sven himself attack? 

This kind of aura should keep his theme as self sufficient and quick dps unit while also limiting the trigger amount AND allows him to contribute to the team when the wyvern is on cooldown in a good way. Also, it keeps the wyvern as an auxiliary unit like all other summoners instead of being the main dps. At the same time he'll still be stronger than both Vincent and Freya berserker because he can deal extra dps with his attack quicker than any of them, although now he'll have to close in to the enemy like all other champion should be.

Since the wyvern won't be attacking more than twice in a single turn without assistance of other hero's aura, it should be fine to retain the atk buff, the old cooldown, as well as removing the hp loss when the wyvern attack (isn't this last part is the reason of everyone's uproar in the first place? :lol:)

This will be my final suggestion because I think I have made too much suggestion for this single thread already. I'd better stop now. If he must not be nerfed, better to rework him in a way that keep him strong and don't have that crippling drawback while at the same time not being overpowered. Am I right? ;)
 
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kazamai
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Re: Heroes Changelog

Sat Jun 17, 2017 4:06 pm

About your concern for the pet's trigger, this just simply strengthened my point that the trigger system is what causes all this debacle in the first place. IF from the start of his release Sven does not have his attack trigger aura in a way that the wyvern can trigger itself continuously, then maybe this nerf won't even happened.
Probably true. Sven may not be as popular as he was without the pet trigger. anyway. can only wait and see now. Milo and Satsuki been quite for some time.
 
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Zayler
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Re: Heroes Changelog

Sat Jun 17, 2017 5:39 pm

Nice balances except for a few. I've posted my hero-by-hero view of the changes in my (post-update) tier list topic viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4078

I'm going to focus this post on Sven because of all the controversy. If you disagree please try to be civil in countering my opinions.

Before i start my list, I would like to point out that the nerf should have been implemented much closer to Sven's release or failing so, the developers should have given some indication that there will be a nerf as this is a game with IAP and players could have whaled real cash to build Sven. The developers should take this as feedback to improve and learn to better manage their customers' expectations or risk losing customers' trust. This is a relatively new game so there's bound to be more severe backlash since this is the game's first ever big balancing patch.

Putting aside the timing of the nerf; try looking at Sven as a fresh new hero and evaluate him from that point of view. I'm certain that you should be able to see that he is still amazing but will require support to reach his full potential. This is a strategy game, hence the change makes players decide between taking the risk of losing the pet to deal big burst damage in 3-4 turns or keeping your pet alive to deal one Nuke and buff Sven's ATK during turn 6 like other berserkers. Doing both is still possible with setup or luck since it's an independent 75% proc chance that does not necessarily trigger together with the chain attack trigger.

I'm not going to argue about the complaints on lack of developer testing since Newnar has already provided a strong solid counterargument.

TLDR on list below - Sven is still a strong hero but is no longer a one man show.

Now to begin my counter-complaint list:
  1. Sven's pet dies too fast -> If his Pet dies solely from recoil damage, it means that it has done 5x ranged attacks with is a great amount of damage. If you want his pet to last longer, use some support or give Sven a lifesteal rune since his pet also gets his skill-rune lifesteal effects (Rune does not work). Valiant force is not a one-unit game.
  2. Sven is now useless in PVE/Raid -> There is currently no other hero in game that is fully self-sufficient and can deal enormous amount of damage with "unlimited" RNG self-triggers. Sven still has potential do deal top tier damage with decent setup/support.
  3. Developer did not fix him being OP in PVP -> 3 turn CD means you have an additional to reduce Sven's hp to 25% before he summons or kill him on the 4th turn since he still loses a turn when summoning. He is still strong in arena but he is now more vulnerable to front line Ninja teams or Ranger teams. Also, if he's paired with another summoner, the opponent AI will summon twice in a row meaning an even wider window to kill off the opposing summoners.
  4. Sven does not have same ATK boost as other Berserkers -> He should not because he's not the same as other Berserkers. Sven can summon a pet that deals huge RANGED damage. He can also summon the pet twice since it's a 3T cooldown versus the 6T cooldown of other Berserkers. He can have BOTH the pet attacking AND the self-ATK buff whereas other Berserkers only have the huge self-ATK boost on turn 6.
  5. The nerf makes the game less diverse -> on the contrary, it frees up Sven's reserved spot in ALL teams meaning you now have 5 slots for heroes instead of 4 slots + 1 Sven. If you wish to use the new Sven to his full potential, then you will have to build a team that fits him just like all other heroes in the game. This means that for certain scenarios, other team compositions are now actually a viable option since it could be better than a team with Sven in it.
  6. Sven is now an overly-dependent unit -> No he is not, Sven can still deal a large amount of damage on his own but will need a form of support for sustained damage output. It's ridiculous to expect Sven to be able to continuously deal a sustained stream of huge damage. During turn 3 (4 in Arena), on his own, Sven can use his pet to deal up to 5x hits with 10k pet ATK stat (10k being a reasonably reachable figure).
Last edited by Zayler on Mon Jun 19, 2017 8:41 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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