Puzzle Warriors 3 Episode #57!

XaOs72
XaOs72 Posts: 404 Mover and Shaker
edited October 2016 in MPQ General Discussion
Website not updated yet, but you can stream via RSS or listen here:

http://puzzlewarriors3.podomatic.com/en ... 1_25-07_00

We interview the lead designer from Demiurge and do the entire show twice!
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Comments

  • David [Hi-Fi] Moore
    David [Hi-Fi] Moore Posts: 2,872 Site Admin
    Great interview with Dave at Demiurge! No, really. Lots of insider goodness there.
  • Noobulator
    Noobulator Posts: 176 Tile Toppler
    "David wrote:
    Moore"]Great interview with Dave at Demiurge! No, really. Lots of insider goodness there.

    Yeah dave, this was great! Thanks for sharing. Made may day, really distracted me from other things.
  • XaOs72
    XaOs72 Posts: 404 Mover and Shaker
    New show, website updated!
    ​Interview with Dave Guskin, lead designer at Demiurge!
    * Season 32 * Rocket and Groot event * Character Rebalances
    * Rebalance Plan * Crash changes * New Luke Cage
    * And... Iceman!

    Web link:
    http://www.puzzlewarriors3.com/pw3-e57.html
  • like1tiger
    like1tiger Posts: 76 Match Maker
    Another top class show guys keep up the great work.
    Really wish we got to hear the first upbeat version of Vanilia Ice icon_e_smile.gif
  • GrumpySmurf1002
    GrumpySmurf1002 Posts: 3,511 Chairperson of the Boards
    I found it most curious that he said CL8-10 haven't rolled out yet because (paraphrasing) "There aren't enough players to fill it out."
  • wymtime
    wymtime Posts: 3,757 Chairperson of the Boards
    I found it most curious that he said CL8-10 haven't rolled out yet because (paraphrasing) "There aren't enough players to fill it out."

    I agree with Grumpy I wish you had asked what % of the player base would be able to be in clearence level 8 and above? Then what % of player base needs to be 8 and above to open up clearence level 8.
  • IamTheDanger
    IamTheDanger Posts: 1,093 Chairperson of the Boards
    Yet another awesome show.

    Per the fortify tiles: Yes, you can fortify count down tiles. Not sure if Cage can yet, but that's pretty much all I use Goblin for. With Cap, Peggy and/or Steve, Ghost Rider, and various others. When I first got Goblin, I paired him with Steve Rogers. Not only were his CD tiles fortified, but the blue protect tile left behind remained fortified as well. Which I thought was great, until Moonstone stole a couple. Not so much fun then.

    Per the cp from purchase: That was a great idea. If I buy I Stark, I get 10 cp and ally gets 7. More cp is always good.

    Per the Heroic token share reward : might have been a display glitch. Long ago, in an Alliance far, far away, I saw someone send a Teen Jean cover. But the recipients got something else. Don't remember where/when I saw it or who it was. And like you guys said, could have been photo shopped, so....
  • IamTheDanger
    IamTheDanger Posts: 1,093 Chairperson of the Boards
    Per the Heroic token share reward : might have been a display glitch. Long ago, in an Alliance far, far away, I saw someone send a Teen Jean cover. But the recipients got something else. Don't remember where/when I saw it or who it was. And like you guys said, could have been photo shopped, so....

    That was someone in Dead Serious. Absolutely honest and trustworthy, and never makes jokes. It's a *boink*. The recipients reportedly get some 2* reward when sent.

    Apparently the "send gift to friends" function fires pretty much at random, not necessarily tied to the reward you just received.

    Ahh well, I knew it was something like that. It showed one thing and sent another.
  • GrumpySmurf1002
    GrumpySmurf1002 Posts: 3,511 Chairperson of the Boards
    Between CLs and slices, it will take a lot of players to fill even 1 bracket at all permutations (5 slices • 10 CLs • 500 per PVP bracket = 25K players in PVP, 50K in pve) .... and 1 full bracket in each won't cut it either .. and the playerbase will continue to be bottom heavy ... so, yes, I unfortunately believe them when they say there may not yet be enough.

    Problem is .... unless retention is boosted, unless new players start flooding in, if there aren't enough higher-level players now ... then when will there be enough?

    Rolling out the higher ranks and CLs would help with retention at the top ...

    Yeah, those are basically my exact questions. Although I think it's not *that* bottom heavy. When they lowered the threshold for CL6/7, it makes sense that it was to move more players to the top and smooth the groups a bit.

    From what I've seen, the CL6 & 7 brackets are flipping for PvE, and that's above any pre-filled brackets. (someone should really track this). So the question is how much competition they need. Is is 15k players? (5tiers x 3 brackets x 1000pve) Is it 25k?

    Would love to have more insight on this, because it smells like CL8 is a ways off.
  • Phumade
    Phumade Posts: 2,477 Chairperson of the Boards
    wymtime wrote:
    I found it most curious that he said CL8-10 haven't rolled out yet because (paraphrasing) "There aren't enough players to fill it out."

    I agree with Grumpy I wish you had asked what % of the player base would be able to be in clearence level 8 and above? Then what % of player base needs to be 8 and above to open up clearence level 8.

    I think it really boils down to them not arbitrarily trying to decide who's elibilbe for scl8-10. In the interview, they basically used roster as a proxy for how people play/how engaged they are in the game. The specifically mentioned that it wouldn't have been feasible to initially sort the playerbase by their specific activities (i.e. while they have logs on all our in game actions, they didn't think it would be either feasible, practical, or accurate to base your initial rank on past actions) I see and acknowledge those concerns.

    Its just a guess on my part, but we'll see SCL 8-10 come out after the anniversary seaon is over. By then, we'll have a month of activity incorporated into the Shield ranks, and they can make a much more polished attempt at SCL8-10 prize structure.

    Overall the designer, came off as fairly thoughtful and fully engaged in the player experience. There are lot of things they specifically said they wanted to tie into SCL, but they didn't want to rush it without seeing how SCL is used and implemented by the player base.

    This time of communication and messaging goes a long way towards explaining how the game will evolve and makes people comfortable about spending their money to support the game.
  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
    Thanks for the content!

    I think you guys glossed over some changes. In pvp, the lower prog rewards aren't because of the short season. They are because of defensive team and scoring changes. The devs want it to be harder to reach high scores, and to compensate. They are lowering the prog target.

    I don't think SS will be competitive in PvP now. But he is definitely a lot better.

    Solid interview with Dave and co. From Demi. I would like to have heard more follow-up questions about populating the higher clearance levels. What is the target population for rolling those out? I don't know how quickly 4* and 5* play is growing, but certainly at the level 450 5* tier, there aren't many players now and likely won't be any time soon. So should we not expect to see more levels rolled out until 2017?

    And of course more pushback on baking would have been useful. Dave framed the entire debate as "cupcakers block 'normal players' out from prizes." that's true for placement, but not at all true for prog rewards (as evidenced by the prog reward changes). Also, I think it would have been worth asking for more details about defensive teama, rather than expressly glossing them over.

    Also, re: character balancing it is interesting to hear some detail about their rebalance process. I am a little concerned that Dave said nothing about normalizing usage data for ownership. That might lead to older characters being over-resented with respect to rebalancing.

    Thanks to Demi/d3 for participating in the podcast and to the soon-to-be-named podcast network for setting this up.

    Also, re: iceman. 5/5/3 is absolutely the best build. No question at all. The massive single target nuke is way more valuable than a little extra blue tile conversion. Play him with im40. One of the best teams in the game. In general iceman is the single best 4* in the game. I think you undersold him in your analysis. You have offered much more praise for other 4*s (cough Drax! Cough) that are not nearly as good as ice.

    Re: champ'ing: it is worth champ'ing all 3*s and 4*s in the long run, but it's a very high starting cost. Champing rewards for 3*s and 4*s are especially useful sources of CP.
  • shartattack
    shartattack Posts: 370 Mover and Shaker
    Craig; the first 3 progression rewards in simulator are moonstone covers. Get hyped!
  • shartattack
    shartattack Posts: 370 Mover and Shaker
    Regarding clearance levels; I am on day 86 of a 3 year game. I am on clearance level 7. I'm not bragging, but I have a 2-3 star hybrid thing going on and I'm competing with champed 5 star rosters.
  • zeeke
    zeeke Posts: 153 Tile Toppler
    Good interview guys!

    Finally a lead designer that understands that a game like this needs the be re-balanced continually to stay healthy. Treat it like a fighting game Dave!
  • BigRussian
    BigRussian Posts: 166 Tile Toppler
    Regarding clearance levels; I am on day 86 of a 3 year game. I am on clearance level 7. I'm not bragging, but I have a 2-3 star hybrid thing going on and I'm competing with champed 5 star rosters.

    58607467.jpg

    icon_e_biggrin.gificon_e_biggrin.gificon_e_biggrin.gificon_e_biggrin.gif

    Ps, Who is your daddy, and what does he do?
  • Mitchjewitz
    Mitchjewitz Posts: 84 Match Maker
    edited September 2016
    Three things:

    First, great show as usual and great interview. I really enjoyed it.

    Second, The standard tokens might have in the distant past rewarded 4*s but now they say star.png , star.pngstar.png , or star.pngstar.pngstar.png Now I'm not a genius but I'm pretty sure that means the tokens can only reward 1, 2, or 3 stars.

    edit: But apparently there still is a chance to get a 4 star. Thanks D3

    Third, Look Ian, I'm not trying to tell you how to live your life but championing characters is the way forward. Not only do you get 4 stars, hero points, command points, Heroic and Legendary tokens, and iso (you eventually get all the invested iso back) but also xp! And what does this xp get you? More iso! If you magically get 13 covers of a 4 star then your plan works, but in reality if you champion now, you'll make back the iso and more by the time a 4 star is ready to be championed. So instead of stashing your iso in a mattress where you get minimal gains, invest it and help yourself out.
  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
    standard tokens do still include a miniscule chance of a 4*. That is was confirmed by hifi, or IceIX, or cthulhu when the labeling for the tokens was changed. It is fact. Just don't expect to actually pull any 4*s from those standards; the chance is tiny.
  • madok
    madok Posts: 905 Critical Contributor
    Third, Look Ian, I'm not trying to tell you how to live your life but championing characters is the way forward. Not only do you get 4 stars, hero points, command points, Heroic and Legendary tokens, and iso (you eventually get all the invested iso back) but also xp! And what does this xp get you? More iso! If you magically get 13 covers of a 4 star then your plan works, but in reality if you champion now, you'll make back the iso and more by the time a 4 star is ready to be championed. So instead of stashing your iso in a mattress where you get minimal gains, invest it and help yourself out.

    Some people you just can't reach. The Captain says it better than I can
  • Trilateralus
    Trilateralus Posts: 251 Mover and Shaker
    Every time Punisher comes up in discussion I'm reminded he is perhaps the most misunderstood character in MPQ. As most of us on the forums know, one of the key aspects of success in MPQ is speed, so it's strange to me that so many people prefer Punishers slower builds. Simply put, lowering the threshold to activating Retribution at the expense of lowering Punishers overall damage capabilities is unnecessarily handicapping yourself. A 5/5/3 Punisher can in most cases reduce a target to 30% as fast, or faster, than a 3/5/5 or 5/3/5 build can reach 40%. Retribution is one of the best, if not the best, moves in MPQ. As a team up. Punishers value lies in his abilities to quickly ramp up your damage dealing through the generation of strike and attack tiles and a cheap AOE. He shines in wave battles and is largely a waste of a character slot in boss battles.
  • madsalad
    madsalad Posts: 815 Critical Contributor
    madok wrote:
    Third, Look Ian, I'm not trying to tell you how to live your life but championing characters is the way forward. Not only do you get 4 stars, hero points, command points, Heroic and Legendary tokens, and iso (you eventually get all the invested iso back) but also xp! And what does this xp get you? More iso! If you magically get 13 covers of a 4 star then your plan works, but in reality if you champion now, you'll make back the iso and more by the time a 4 star is ready to be championed. So instead of stashing your iso in a mattress where you get minimal gains, invest it and help yourself out.

    Some people you just can't reach. The Captain says it better than I can

    If that's the way he wants it, well, he gets it. I don't like it any more than you do.