User avatar
Nightingale
Senior Member
Senior Member
Topic Author
Posts: 397
Joined: Wed Aug 31, 2016 1:01 pm

An open letter to the Developers and those involved

Sun Nov 12, 2017 10:58 pm

Dear XII Braves/ Funplus / Diandian or whoever,

Hello. I am Nightingale, a casual player who has never stopped logging in to Valiant Force since I was invited for the closed Beta at the end of August 2016. The purpose of this topic is to give feedback based on my experience and some on behalf of my guild, brutal and honest as it's going to look, but a necessary one. I will also include some suggestions at the end on how you should improve, if you're open enough to admit your faults that is...

The good points of Valiant Force
- You have great character artworks, no doubt about that. But your women are dressed more and more skimpy as the patches go by.

- Your aura system is well thought. If your game weren't so buggy and gimped all the time maybe they could've shined more.

The bad points of Valiant Force (Wooo boy...)
- Your game is clunky. I don't know about other platforms but it is terribly optimized on android (Even went as far as changed my phone from Sony Xperia Z5 to Huawei P10+). What do I mean by clunky? Slow response, low frame rate, cheap animations, server delays, glitches. I can make a detailed list even with video logs, but honestly with the rate of when and how you fix bugs, I can't be arsed. You are on your own.

- You are greedy. As with many gacha games, your game suffers from those P2W models. Fancy bundles keep appearing left and right with each update offering selectors and resources enough to make F2P players quit. If that is not enough, you shove it right at our faces each time we log in and permanently stay at our garrison window as banners or irritating chibi versions of your game's mascot and Theia unless we buy them all. That is a cheap and unnecessary tactic, we are perfectly capable of visiting the premium shop by ourselves if we fancy some overpriced P2W bundle without your intervention. I should've known a game with the VIP system was too good to be true.

- You use underhanded designs for your cheap bundles. Which bundle you wondering? Those that pop right out during the transition window after the match after each unique event (Depleted energy, depleted job keys, battle loss, bankrupt on gold, etc) but let's pretend you didn't know that. Unintentional or not, The buy button is so conveniently located at where the transition buttons are, and if anyone who did not set their Google Play purchases with authorization, well let's just say you're not going to get a lot of fans for that.

- Poor implementation of new contents and features. For a game released well over a year, Beta features are still the norm here. Are you still in soft launch? Because it damn well feels like I'm still playing a half baked game here. By the way, insignia was too soon, way too soon...

- Game breaking bugs. Bugs are normal for every game yes, well not this one. Fix one bug, one or two appears with every patch, some even take months to fix (i.e. Pets not summoning, auras not triggering, game freeze/crash, blackscreens, certain sounds not muted, the list goes on) and some still never got fixed to this date. How did you pass the quality assurance check?

- Unbalanced & monotonous gameplay. You will almost always see the same setup which dominates the ladders in arena and raid. There is just no variation and diversity when choosing which heroes to use in a squad. People always choose to go for that 1 setup and abuse it to stay at the top of the ladder. The worst part about this is where you design new events and features to counter those setups, effectively raising the bar so high and screwing others over. 

- Little to no story. Main story has been stagnant since the game's initial release of Beta. They are also so short in dialogue you don't know what's going on and they lack any depth at all. What we get is just side cheesy events with short dialogues on every new hero release, and even that most have no impact on the main story at all and those that do only show so little it's hard to make a connection.

- Unoriginal. Knights of the Round? Fairy Tale? Nothing is more sad than seeing you guys turning these classics into one of your many money grabbing schemes with cringe worthy gender bending and dialogues. This kind of unoriginality reminds me of those cheap china games you find with copy paste characters. Your originality ended with the elves, or I daresay it ended when you start repeating event mechanics over and over again.

- Power creep becoming more apparent. You refuse to give old obsolete heroes their well deserved rework, but instead turning them into another form of money grabbing grind fest called insignia. No, I'm not talking about increase in potencies and stats like you terribly did last time. They need new skill/passive effects to keep up with the times.

- Segregation of your players. As if Gevalon wasn't dead enough already, you want to further... You know what? Nevermind, I give up. The list can go on with exclusivity, non-retroactive achievements and so much more problems, but screw it...

Suggestions
- It's time to let go your events schedule. What is keeping you from improving the infrastructure of the game seemed like your manpower has been allocated to bring scheduled events weekly and fort weekly which empties your well of ideas and creativity. The best time to do this depends on how conquest is played out.

- As for the problems which stems from your greediness, well... Honestly there's no cure for that, you guys are so far gone you can't be saved at this point. You need a miracle. Good luck!

This game had so much potential, many of us supported you, stayed with you, defended you against those doomsayers way back then and for what? To be disappointed in the end? Such a shame really... 

Yours truly,
Nightingale

P.S.
I quit, along with some of my guild members who's been with us for a very long time even from the start. This game is just not worth it anymore.

P.P.S
IMGA SEA is a joke, there wasn't even any real competition in there. LOL  :lol:
 
User avatar
Triglav
Official Member
Official Member
Posts: 57
Joined: Sat Dec 03, 2016 9:05 am

Re: An open letter to the Developers and those involved

Sun Nov 12, 2017 11:26 pm

Support, I am on the verge of quiting.now after wasting 12 5* heros to re roll the rigged aura system that heavily penalize players.

I guess u developers dun care anymore, the game is so.shitty now
 
User avatar
Ferico
Veteran Member
Veteran Member
Posts: 520
Joined: Sat Nov 12, 2016 11:49 pm
Location: Pluto

Re: An open letter to the Developers and those involved

Sun Nov 12, 2017 11:32 pm

Hail Nightingale!

True words have never been spoken before and as much as I want you to continue to be voice of the playerbase for the never-ending saga on waking up the VF devs with the reality and cruelty of their P2W models, I'm still happy that you've finally chosen freedom.

Tetta and Farewell!
 
User avatar
Silmeria
Senior Member
Senior Member
Posts: 211
Joined: Mon Mar 27, 2017 12:41 pm

Re: An open letter to the Developers and those involved

Mon Nov 13, 2017 12:40 am

If developers are not listening to this more player will quit I believe.
Some whales have left as we speak, btw :)
The playerbase are crumbling little by little and there's no real effort to bring new players in.
 
User avatar
Sn1v33
Senior Member
Senior Member
Posts: 209
Joined: Sat Nov 04, 2017 2:19 am

Re: An open letter to the Developers and those involved

Mon Nov 13, 2017 2:31 am

As much as I love the game, all points are at least somewhat true and some couldn't be true enough. I'd like to emphasize on ranger squads littering the higher tiers. Currently 4.1k in Arena and my god, rangers everywhere. I can't argue, though. Ranger trigger lineups are simply the best squads because of how much premium equipment and investment they need. I don't want to see them nerfed but instead, I want to see ranger-vulnerable squads(eg. mystic squads) to have better chances of faring against them. I really want to heavily emphasize on utilizing the MAG stat in physical damage reduction, similar to how the game uses the DEF stat to mitigate magic damage. Imagine your Elementalist Kiera with 15k MAG get two-shotted by a ranger squad. I mean, imagine if 25% of that 15k was added to her ~4k defense. Of course, the crits would hurt still but it would need more hits to kill her. If Kiera is buffed by DEF and MAG granting auras(like Kiera RM, Ronan RM, etc), she'd be a much harder kill for ranger compositions. Let's say she peaks at 18k MAG and 7k DEF. If you add 25% of her MAG to her 7k DEF, she can withstand 11k physical attacks. That means rangers will still be strong, but wouldn't be sure win squads anymore. Ranger squads wouldn't just need to crit all day to win. The player would need to come up with more thought-out strategies.
 
User avatar
Fenicks719
Senior Member
Senior Member
Posts: 176
Joined: Sun Jan 01, 2017 10:49 am

Re: An open letter to the Developers and those involved

Mon Nov 13, 2017 7:42 am

I fully agree. I came for the artwork, stay for the game play, but the new features and money grabbing tactics are starting to drive me away. Costumes went from 500 gems to 15 valianites and then real money. 
I will stay to look at artwork of new heroes. But maybe it's time to slow that down a bit.
I am not quitting yet but it's an eventual thing. 
 
User avatar
whodahackii
Senior Member
Senior Member
Posts: 489
Joined: Mon Nov 21, 2016 5:49 pm
Location: Taiwan

Re: An open letter to the Developers and those involved

Mon Nov 13, 2017 10:31 am

I agree on the money-grabbing part.
and Shove-down-our-throat banner system, could Valiant Force be at least ethical to setup the button 'DO NOT SEE THIS AGAIN TODAY'?

I loved this game, stayed fully of 365 days now, and just to see it went into wrong path, and suddenly 'service termination' because they are releasing new server to make whale dilute into different ranks, and in the same time, more bundles to milk them all.
 
User avatar
Ferico
Veteran Member
Veteran Member
Posts: 520
Joined: Sat Nov 12, 2016 11:49 pm
Location: Pluto

Re: An open letter to the Developers and those involved

Mon Nov 13, 2017 3:45 pm

And devs will never reply or even acknowledge this, I bet.
 
User avatar
Sn1v33
Senior Member
Senior Member
Posts: 209
Joined: Sat Nov 04, 2017 2:19 am

Re: An open letter to the Developers and those involved

Mon Nov 13, 2017 4:09 pm

I actually like the suggestion of 'do not appear again' option. I hate how I'm casually browsing my game then suddenly, a stupid bundle'll pop up. The bundle is a clickbait for noobs because those pop-ups are basically signing up to a scam. Who pays ~4 dollars to buy energy and xp potions, wtf? Any experienced player knows that is just not worth the money.
 
User avatar
Jaeger
Official Member
Official Member
Posts: 64
Joined: Sun Oct 30, 2016 1:19 am

Re: An open letter to the Developers and those involved

Tue Nov 14, 2017 12:37 am

Hello! I am here!

Thank you all for your feedback. 

A few points from me for you guys...

1) Genesis heroes may not be getting anymore reworks anytime soon as they are the oldest heroes in the game and have a new quest for themselves (Sacrifice oops!)
2) Kiera Revamp is a work in progress. Release date to be confirmed
3) The Mystic Design is something that is currently being looked into. Do note again that changing an entire class' playstyle is much bigger than just giving us suggestions as it affects the entire gameplay.
4) I understand that they are some questions regarding DEF to MAG ratio. I do not have the exact details from the developers but I can share a little bit about the powers of skills in arena.

a) Skills are dampened in arena, with skills dealing only about half or slightly more than half their efficiency compared to PvE. (Skill damage, healing etc)
b) There is a maximum magic mitigation, thus skills will never deal 1 damage. 
c) DEF provides a fair value to MAG resistance. I am really unsure what this number is.
As MioD already stated, no balancing only make them to insignia at this point.