State of the Game - August 2020

[Guild_Guardian]

Please show me one player that quit this game because there weren’t enough level cap increases.

YES. THIS.

[Sauron_Travis]

Regarding Level cap increase
I have a lot of guildmates who stopped the game because of the crazy 4 week level cap increase and outrageous gold needed to upgrade a skill of 1 hero. The badges costs 4k- 10k stamina each which is almost impossible to get when you are an f2p players. Please show a data that people quit because of prolonged level cap increase?! The gold reward would not even help an f2p player upgrade 10 heroes in 4 weeks! R11 is already super hard to reach and i cant imagine R12.

Balance of hero is still not good. If you are spending a lot in the game you will be successful to get to challenger 1 in arena and coli but if not, it will be impossible to reach that stage. Randall has ben nerfed bigtime after putting all your reaources on him.
Pattern of PB is to make an OP hero and after you spend on that hero PB will nerf it and make a new OP hero and the viscious cycle is just happening. It started with quora, darkwing duck, peter pan, merlin, jafar, randall then next is Mulan. PB has been consistently doing that. Well anyway PB is the game maker and you need money too because this is your source of income. So what can we do? You know what maui said? Nanya! Nanya business

[Jody_Caviness]

It’s good to see this update from PerBlue, and there’s some points in it that give me significant hope for the future of the game. But I’m going to follow the advice of the Mad Hatter and begin at the beginning…

I’m only one person, obviously, but I do like the changes made to Arena & Coli Challengers, Creep Surge, and City Watch. I hope all these areas will continue to be monitored, since just because something is working now doesn’t mean it will continue to work 3 months down the road, as more heroes get introduced and more metas are developed.

Since Randall, no hero has shown up in more than ⅓ of all challenger lineups

Maybe that’s true if you look at all Challenger lineups, but I’m pretty sure that Mulan is in well over half of the lineups in Challenger IV and up. Still, it’s very true that no one is dominating the game the way that Randall was for well over a month, or even the way that Jafar did for about a month during his prime.

This worked for many guilds, but we still have very active guilds maxing out their influence.

Yes, and I very much hope you’re looking at new perks, extensions to existing perks, and more consumable perks to address this issue. I remember Emitz suggesting a new kind of perk where a guild could just spend X amount of influence as often as they want and get Y amount of gold for each member, which seems like a good idea; I’d also like to see a second page of consumable perks, with Cosmetic Crates available to buy on, at least, a daily basis, as that’s something I think high-level guilds would appreciate getting more of.

we’re looking at other ways to make [Invasion] fresh and fun.

I think it would be nice to bring back the special invasions, at least quarterly if not every other month; they made Invasion interesting for a couple of days, at least, trying to figure out the best team(s) from a completely different roster of heroes. Though I do think it would help to expand the pool of featured heroes to at least 20.

Reviewing game rewards to make them automatically scale up, resulting in better rewards as players progress.

This could be a major positive, if the scaling at least comes close to matching the exponentially-increasing expenses.

We’d like to improve our pipeline for player feedback and requests to make it into the roadmap. […] We don’t know what form it will take, but we want to give you a bit more visibility.

This certainly sounds very good, and I hope the follow-through lives up to this proposal.

We’re slowly going through each system and identifying where rewards haven’t aged well.

Again, promising, but it remains to be seen how well the changes correspond to the increasing expenses.

For that reason, we will stick to a 4-week cadence for the foreseeable future and are not able to veer away from that.

Others have already mentioned that it’s been so long since we’ve had more than 4 weeks between level cap increases, the data from that period may not reflect how people would feel about that change now. Personally, I think the current pace of level cap increases is tolerable, if not ideal, and hopefully the proposed increases in income and rewards will help with that. My main beef is with the new rank being introduced every 4 weeks, with ever-more-expensive badges required; that’s the part of the game I absolutely cannot keep pace with.

it’s our hope that it will feel less like a grind when new content is released, and more like something new to experience and work toward.

That’s my hope too, and the game used to be like that, long ago. It’s unfortunately going to take a lot of work to get to that point again, IMHO.

[re: guild gifts] we tried a number of different items and the hero chip deals are some of the best sellers.

You have yet to try stamina, and the one time you offered diamond crates, our guild bought at least a dozen of them, as opposed to 2-4 for any other deal offered. Please, offer some more deals with items that everyone can use, not just the 20% of people working on a certain hero or the 30% of people interested in invasion. Give us stamina, or badge crates, or a decent amount of badge tokens.

Release more new heroes

I really hope this doesn’t mean releasing more than 4 heroes a month, because as it is I can only work on one or two new heroes a month; having even more interesting, powerful heroes languishing in white on my roster is a very, very unappealing prospect.

We put some extra work into the Queen of Hearts refresh

It shows; some of the other refreshes were good (Bob, Elsa, Wall-E), but the QoH refresh is by far the best one to date. Looking forward to more creative refreshes that give a hero a purpose to stick around even after power creep makes their raw numbers look mediocre.

Ensure releases are stable and address any bugs that pop up as quickly as possible.

Possibly the best news in this post. Best of luck with this goal!

[xApo]

1. Good thing if you striked during weekend xd

2. Ofc you win every guild war and grats i guess. My guild the mob had 3-4 people leaving for you guys recently and some for silvermoon. If people didn’t jump ships every day and actually tried to compete against the top instead of joining the top, things might have been different. The way people play this game is sad.

3. I agree that in the future people will be not able to keep up with you as things are now, but why not ask perblue to fix-reduce stamina costs and gold requirements, instead of offers. That would be more fair for everyone i think.

4. I don’t mind continuing this conversation but maybe it doesn’t match the point of this thread so pm on discord or in-game.

[big_kahuna_2319]

I agree that in the future people will be not able to keep up with you as things are now, but why not ask perblue to fix-reduce stamina costs and gold requirements, instead of offers. That would be more fair for everyone i think.

We are doing both
And we asked for invasion reward tier rework
Mana bot scaling nerf
Badges crafting cost decrease
More daily reward
Better contest mile stone reward also accessible to f2p to catch up
Bug fixes
War alghorithm change
Weekly challenges improvment
And cosmetic bonus removed or be farmed by f2p to catch up

“Apparently perblue was working on most things already”

But the deals and responses for them have been leaving a deeper negative impact everytime on us

[FireAngel08]

Thank you for this! This feels much more cohesive than the Feb SoG. That one felt like more fluff. This one actually addresses nearly all the concerns I see posted on here regularly. I might not like all the answers, but I appreciate having them as opposed to feeling like they are being ignored, I also feel like you made some very valid points and made me rethink some things.

Overall I appreciate every word of this and everything that you addresses! I’m also looking forward to seeing everything you have planned!

Sab

PS. Some mission speed up deals on server 16 would be much appreciated!

[ScroogeMcValentine]

Welcome back @FireAngel08

[Polaris]

I don’t think this has been tried for a long, long time

• When was the last time there was a 5 or 6-week cadence?
• How many heroes were live when the cadence was done?

It was this year. December 3, 2019 to January 7, 2020. For server 1 that was 5 weeks at Red +3 and it was very noticeable in our data that players churned out at alarming rates.

Thanks for the feedback and your thoughtful comments!

[Glitchnstitch]

Rarity and Team Level cap Increases

• We’ve been very consistent with a 4-week release for rarity and level caps. In a few cases, we experimented with slightly longer cadences of 5 or 6 weeks. It was exceptionally clear that more players left the game when there were more weeks between level caps, and even with the longer time between updates, the negative feedback around rarity and team level increases was not different. We know that cap raises are not popular with all players, but it’s a necessary part of maintaining the game’s health. For that reason, we will stick to a 4-week cadence for the foreseeable future and are not able to veer away from that.

Same Collection of statistics That said a server merge was not needed in server 3, and eventually caved and saw what people were saying really going on? I would like to see those statics posted too like other people saying bc I don’t believe it, as I’ve seen more people leave with my own eyes or talk about leaving with this four week schedule. Like others said , actual leveling in four weeks can be tolerated, but rarity needs to slow down dramatically or badges required need to be decreased/easier accessed. Like people have posted previously Countless times… guild perks such as more consumables like backpacks, cosmetic crates, virus reinfections, and Anti virus would be helpful. Expansion on current perks such as hire level up to Plus level 5 Instead of current three, more mercs can be placed for hire; gems,gold, stamania For checkins, reduce shop costs including badge bazaar shop, and increase double badge chance to current level on maps. Maybe increase guilds to fill all guild war cars would give war a new twist. And also feel ports need to start introducing red stamania and red coins. Yes can’t be sold, but can still be used for guild help or own toons. Speaking of guild help think be helpful if can trade or give away hero chips and red skill chips to guildmates, and lower the restriction from 10 levels below max to five. Maybe can introduce a friendship shop where u can send similiar things to friends like guild help shop to promote playing with other players.

Otherwise it’s a promising state of address.

[The_Real_Numi]

It was this year. December 3, 2019 to January 7, 2020. For server 1 that was 5 weeks at Red +3 and it was very noticeable in our data that players churned out at alarming rates.

Well that doesn’t say much as there could have been less updates, for one.
And other reason might be that by Red+3 people got burned out by the stamina costs. Could very well happen. Also the January was about the time I reached the cap. It was either that or early February.

Still, I’d say pretty well that you should favour level cap updates over rank cap updates. Also good for evening the field slowly across All the servers. Golden rank is a perfect opportunity for that.

Plus, I’m sure not only me but all the players would invite a brand new server with all current heroes starting at original cap. Would be nice testing ground if the game runs as it should. If it’s even viable raising 115+ heroes.

Coveted server 23.

[Kira]

A bit of a quick feedback, but I don’t think it is good to look at just the weeks in itself in terms of the 5 week test and rather look what may have caused player to move on more specifically.

First of all, one need to analyze is something might have driven people away.
Based on what I found the main 3/4 factors that could have influenced the data on the 5 week wait to be less reliable.

First one is the nerf of Randall Boggs, which at the time were a meta character. The date for this update was 19 December so might be good to check if the players leaving spike might be due to that.

Update 1.15 Patch Notes

Disney Heroes: Battle Mode Update 1.15 Welcome to the Disney Heroes: Battle Mode 1.15 Update! This release features brand new heroes, some old favorites getting a new shine with a refresh, and a spectacular list of Quality of Life improvements! Our hero lineup this release spotlights Linguini & Remy from Disney and Pixar’s Ratatouille, plus Launchpad McQuack DuckTales. Overview NEW! Heroes on their way! More more more! Quality of Life improvements Linguini & Remy [dialogue_linguini_and_remy] …

While the Solo deals first came to server 1 in November, it was around the 19 December it got added to all servers and around that time the old stackable deals was less and less common.

Server 1-20 only: New Solo Deals

Servers 15-20 will now also have solo deals following the 1.14.2 update. These solo deals allow us to offer more concurrent events that run for a longer amount of time, giving players choices on what to purchase and when.

The server merges could maybe have influenced the numbers as well in case they made some people want to move over to the other servers. Not likely that big of a factor, but could probably influence the numbers a bit.

Another thing would probably be just moving on in life since after Christmas they might be in a bit different life position than before Christmas and/or having different interest based on what they got for Christmas, although probably not that big of a factor. At least it wouldn’t be bad to factor in and compare to how it was in the same period between 2018-2019.

These are probably the main factors I can see after looking through the Announcements category, so might not be right to evaluate the 5 week test just based on that it was 5 weeks and instead what happened during the 5 weeks.

[Pipsqueak]

Hmm, I guess I thought that was just because of the Christmas break.

New goodies & gadgets from Santa could’ve been to blame, as well as other game-related reasons mentioned above it would surprise me a lot if 1 week extra without a cap raise (as a one-off, over Christmas break) would directly cause a significant outpouring of players

Not trying to undermine the data, but it does seem unlikely that the two are directly linked.

[Captain_C]

Agree with the more consumable options, would be nice if there was a perk to reduce the cool down timer between them too like suggested as guild perks in this post in May… Perk ideas.

Be nice if the normal guild perks and contest perks were increased more frequently as they are, but glad at least looking into possibilities of more.

And think I’ve seen more negative feedback on forums about rarity increases and kim not being around then guild gifts, and u listen to the guild gift negativity? The negative feedback I’ve seen about them are about what is being available (like ten old toon coins, or invasion things mainly after it became more of a grind with gizmo nerf and people gave up hope with it), but there as been positive things said when the diamond crate offer was given by majority of people (the only complaint about diamond crates was to getting majority of blue badges instead of new heroes/badges based on the players current level). Promising fluff, but as always I’ll judge after I see things happen.

[Filadae_Djaq]

I am not a developer

[FireAngel08]

I posted earlier but after giving it some thought and seeing what others were posting I had to admit that there are valid points on both sides in regards to level and rank up increases. I think there is room for compromise though.

I wonder how much thought you have given to staggering the level and rank up increases instead of doing them at the same time. I think having 1 or even 2 weeks in-between would do a lot to meet in the middle. You could still maintain a 4 week rotation for each, and we as players would have time to A. Reach the max level some of the new badges would require. And B. Have time to aquire the new bits and badges that will be needed for the rank up. The stamina/diamond contest would be a great contest to have in-between them too. I think it would help a lot of people feel more prepared for each rank up and it will help you keep the 4 week schedule that you have found is best in maintaining players.

Though I do have to agree with other people that I’m not confident you have truely tested out the 5-6 week rotation enough. Doing it back in Dec and Jan on one server isn’t a good test pool. The holidays are never a good time to measure activity level plus I believe you also had a server merger happen around then too. Those two things alone could account for the flux in players. It was also 8 months ago…maybe it was different on the test server but i know that on 16 Jafar was huge then and there weren’t many toons at the time to defend against him. Jafar lines made me nearly quit the game then, not going to lie. Lol

Anyway, my point is that there is room for compromise, and I truely hope you give my idea some thought. I only hope that if you do decide to test it out that you do it on Server 16

Sab

[AbuBakr-Umar]

New heroes are powerful, but not overwhelming

After reading it this is my reaction:

The Friend System refresh. We’ve talked about what this would look like and the design is done. This is a significant amount of development time, and while we wanted to get it done sooner, it’s currently planned for the 2.3 update

Thats good .Those friend syatem are not that interesting.

We sell what people buy

I agree but

When we launched the system, we tried a number of different items and the hero chip deals are some of the best sellers.

Is it really I do not think so
Bcoz my guild 15th ranked 12 people bought the diamond crate guild gift and no body even had A look on this Useless Guild gifts of invasion and chips.
Or
I think that the people who had a very great feedback about those USELESS guild gift have a phobia to type in forums.There has been a ton of negative feedbacks about it rather than positive…

The gap between free to play players and spenders is something we’ve been working hard to address on the older servers, and selling more things in deals makes that worse.

But still the gap is so so much.F2Ps cannot
Build a maxed coli team if they turn to focus on characters good in pvp then result:- Score In Invasion is low.

Change more systems to scale rewards automatically. This will ensure the rewards keep pace with player progression, and don’t rely on us adjusting them manually over time

Good Job That will be useful.

Continue hero refreshes and adding new red skills. We put some extra work into the Queen of Hearts refresh, and that was well received, so we’ll be doing a more in depth refresh to one hero, rather than small refreshes on multiple heroes. Our plan is to have all Red Skills in the game by the end of the year!

That would be awesome and really these refreshes are Totally changing them.

One immediate step we’re taking to make Invasion more enjoyable is to rework the tier rewards. This will be done in the 2.2.10 update, and beyond that, we’re looking at other ways to make the mode fresh and fun.

Was waiting for it for days

Since Randall, no hero has shown up in more than ⅓ of all challenger lineups, and with challenger seasons

So mulan isnt overwhelming?T and P,Hades they are too much in the challengers.

Cosmetic Collections give players more options for avatars and emojis in the game. In the 2.2 update, we’re adding the sticker avatars from Challenges to Cosmetic Collections.

I have seen a couple of whales who start playing after coametics collection wss in troduced their cosmetic lvl is too low.And the avatars badge are inccreasing every 4 weeks and decreasing the probability of geeting anything new.And please chapnge dupes percentage.It makes me so mad when i got 8/10 dupes.I have hardly increased cosmetic levels.And yes that was a very GOOD Job adding challenges giving cosmetics point.

As always, we’re grateful to have you as part of the game community. I really enjoy the banter with the community on the forums and empathise with your struggles and passion for the game. We know you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t enjoy the game, and thank you for being a dedicated Disney Heroes fan!

And yes the game system may have bugs or some things still to improve.l still enjoy it too much.
I really appreciate you and your team’s hard work.
And really i m nowuch more than a dedicated disney heroes Fan

[PawpsicleSticks]

It was this year. December 3, 2019 to January 7, 2020. For server 1 that was 5 weeks at Red +3 and it was very noticeable in our data that players churned out at alarming rates.

This is the same time frame as red skills being added, which initially had very negative feedback, verging on being a scandal. I doubt the cap raises were much to blame here. And as Kira said, the nerfs during that period, solo deals(!), and Christmas would have been a factor as well.

[Roman_Pilot]

If there’s one feature that’ll keep me in the game longer, it would be the ability to un-enhance a character to recover their badges (I’ll accept that the badge enhancements are lost there). It takes ages to level up a new character, and having a worthless Red-level hero drives me nuts seeing how much wasted resources I put into it.

[FireAngel08]

Definitely an interesting idea! I always had a similar idea about disk power. There are so many disks on toons I don’t use much any more that I would love to pull the disk power off of and out somewhere else. Even if it wasn’t a 100% return and you only get back 70%-80%, that would still be amazing!!! Theres so many disks…so little disk power…

The same could be said for mods too

[Renleigh]

@Polaris

Due to the surge update, I was really looking forward and was very excited about hire costs were going to decrease. However, after several days I have noticed (along with several other guild members) that it appears you haven’t balanced the game at all with the reduction in hire cost.

Example, I was able to clear area 10 with the same multipler and received LESS gold overall (not using the bonuses). It appears (many other players have mentioned the SAME thing) you reduced the hire cost, along with the reward for each cleared area…thus rendering your gold reduction for hire somewhat a joke.

I was looking for more gold…and seems that the surge area got WAY more difficult and less overall gold for completion. Please revisit this and patch it for the intended purpose that was stated in the recent patch notes.