More PVE content please! (RE Cory's podcast comment)

    • More PVE content please! (RE Cory's podcast comment)

      In a recent podcast, Cory said something like (definitely not a precise quote) "we can't just release more dungeons and encounters for the campaign, people want features too"

      I'm writing to say that I vehemently respectfully disagree.

      I love new features. Mercs are fantastic*! I'm really looking forward to Strongholds (and guilds and raids and...).

      BUT
      I'd be really happy to have just more content. AZ3 with no extra features at all would be extremely welcome****. Alternatively some mini-updates that add a node here or a dungeon there -they don't even need to bring new cards*****

      The campaign isn't big enough and even with the replay value of mercs and classes** the content is very limited. It is my impression*** that new features are much the biggest timesink in new PVE content at this point. Clearly art and encounter design do have costs (time and $) but I know HXE have people who could throw interesting decks together very quickly (Dino's already got a whole bunch from 4Keeps!).


      Possibly if I knew the actual requirements for everything and the current state of development, I'd agree that it wasn't worth it but I definitely disagree with Cory's sentiment that new features are so necessary to PVE updates that their absence precludes new content.
      (if that's not what he meant then that's certainly what it sounded like)



      * Though we should have non-merc nodes as well or at least some incentive to play the actual characters
      ** Why oh why only 12 slots?!
      *** please correct me if I'm wrong
      **** not as a substitute for those features but as a gap-filler while we wait -you would have to be clear on that and there would still be some complaints but there will always be some complaints about anything.
      ***** a whole dungeon without any new cards would be a bit of a misfit but new mechanics certainly aren't needed ..and a dungeon that dropped Alachian Sea packs (so they can be obtained without starting a new character) would be very welcome (especially if it could drop Alachian Sea Primal packs! -without the junk and with at least a Rare)

    • small content can be time consuming for developers also, not sure how long it take to 'create' dungeon with 6-10 nodes ... but im guessing that actions like this will slow down overall development/releasing new stuff...

      Its all about how much resource it needs to be done versus how long this will give you a fun.

      If they could bring to live some dungeon in few days its OK, but if this takes weeks its not worthed.

    • PVE is in deseperate need for strongholds, which hopefully add new features, quests and some type of end game. Strongholds quests that have certain deck restrictions is a much better way to get gold then speed farming.

      New content would be nice, but resources are limited. Strongholds seems more important then new dungeons.

    • Yeah, I think that's a bad plan too. Features shouldn't hold up content.

      How hard would it be to release a new dungeon with each set? Toss a few decks together based on a core mechanic and commission a drawing for the dungeon map. BAM, instant dungeon!

      They wouldn't even need to create more cards for it. Just take one PvE card, one AA, and one mercenary out of the chests and put them in the reward pack. You could use random Commons and Uncommons from the set to fill it out, so that it can be farmed for even longer AND helps out F2P players get a taste for the set.

      If you want to be really fancy, add a very rare random encounter that rewards the most recent Kismet pack!


      An example for Scars of War might be that you're travelling to the Deepwood to recruit the Drokka for your side. There would be four fights, one each using the art from the Drokka troops and then one Ardent or Underworld fight depending on faction. The rare fight could replace the faction specific node and use the Mystic Naturalist AA art - she's trying to stop you from allying with the Drokka because it violates some Silver Talon mandate.

    • Galliard wrote:

      Yeah, I think that's a bad plan too. Features shouldn't hold up content.

      How hard would it be to release a new dungeon with each set? Toss a few decks together based on a core mechanic and commission a drawing for the dungeon map. BAM, instant dungeon!

      They wouldn't even need to create more cards for it. Just take one PvE card, one AA, and one mercenary out of the chests and put them in the reward pack. You could use random Commons and Uncommons from the set to fill it out, so that it can be farmed for even longer AND helps out F2P players get a taste for the set.

      If you want to be really fancy, add a very rare random encounter that rewards the most recent Kismet pack!


      An example for Scars of War might be that you're travelling to the Deepwood to recruit the Drokka for your side. There would be four fights, one each using the art from the Drokka troops and then one Ardent or Underworld fight depending on faction. The rare fight could replace the faction specific node and use the Mystic Naturalist AA art - she's trying to stop you from allying with the Drokka because it violates some Silver Talon mandate.
      This sounds like a fantastic way to tie pvp and pve together. If the PvP is supposed to be telling a story, it would be logical to have some component of it fall over to the pve. Lovely idea.
      Gamer. Streamer. Photographer. Writer. Anime Lover. Possessor of Stuffed Animals.

      Also... I'm terrible at this game.

    • I mean Cory is 100% right in what he said. People do want more features. They can't only do PvP sets and AZs for the rest of time. Have you not seen the multiple posts per day about guilds and multiplayer that have been going on for the last year or so? I think you just misinterpreted it as him saying they want new features to always come with the PvE updates but he was saying they just need to work on new features too.

      -- Single Dungeon Updates --

      Now I think the bigger picture needs to be looked at here. I want PvE updates as much as anyone else but I don't think a dungeon being added will really do anything. If anything it seems like it would just make the content launches even worse since it would distract them from the main AZ updates.

      So first of all it's being assumed by people here that features are delaying the AZ updates. Is it possible that features don't actually hold back content but hex just decide to launch features with those updates? We've already seen strongholds get taken out of AZ2 to not hold it up and it's not like new features only come with the AZ launches. We saw the artist display change get put in with the set 6 patch and a couple weeks before that we saw the system to let us select battleboards, they're not to the same scale as something like strongholds of course but it's still new features to some extent.
      On a different argument we've also heard it mentioned before that Cory has a lot of hexes future story planned out, is it possible that sometimes for the next AZ to come out a new feature needs to be added in order to progress the story to where they want? I'm not saying this is the for certain but maybe when we faced the Shin'hare or Human in AZ2 they are planned to be core story characters later and it was important we got to see them now and without the mercenary system being in place they couldn't be fulfilled (This is only an example, I'm aware this isn't exactly a solid argument).
      ^These two points obviously don't go together but since none of us actually work at hexent we have to think about the possibilities of this being the case

      Next what does 1 dungeon actually give us? This doesn't apply to everyone obviously but I've finished all the dungeons the first time I've played them in less than 45 minutes. I've got a whole playset of a single dungeons drops in 2 days.
      A whole AZ on other hand takes me a couple days to get through the first time and over a month to playset.
      Personally I would much rather get that month of play every 8-10 months rather than 2 days of play every 2 months with the 1 month content coming every year instead.

      Next what would it take for hex to actually make these 1 off dungeons? This is what I think most people are missing when they suggest this. This is actually a huge amount of work for hex to do. I'm assuming these dungeons will have a larger than normal amount of unique drops because otherwise they would be really disappointing (Normal dungeons have around 6 unique PvE cards and equipment for those cards). Personally I would be expecting about 15-20 cards + equipment in these 1 off dungeons otherwise the content just wouldn't be exciting to me, I would play it but I would blink and be done with it.
      Then they need to make a story for the dungeon. In a single dungeon I think this is around 300 lines but I haven't counted and this could vary a lot based on the dungeon size and characters. More importantly we know hex has an overarching story so this dungeon would need to fit in that story. Also the current AZ would need to possibly be adjusted to allow for this dungeon.
      Then they need to design the actual dungeon which could be between 8 and 20 nodes (I think that's what they said in the past). Again I would expect this to be on the larger side since the dungeon is supposed to serve as a standalone bridge between the new main content. They also need to get the visuals for the dungeon and need to adjust the current AZ map to cater to this dungeon.


      I think this is just what a lot of people who make these posts about PvE updates miss. Bear in mind they aim for 4 months on a PvP set here. Now look at what an AZ has in comparison to PvP. They come with about 2/3s of the cards of PvP set does, twice the equipment, 1000's of lines of dialogue (PvP sets have none), over 100 encounters (again PvP sets have none), the AZ overmap and dungeon maps (again PvP sets have none). This is a huge amount of work even without anything else. It's just not realistic to be expecting these to come out any faster than once every 2 sets.

      Also one final point. I see it get brought up a lot that the PvE isn't very long which might seem true to us who have played the game for a long time but the 2 zones so far are taking most new players 25-30 hours of play to beat for the first time even with guides so it's not exactly short for a F2P games. Especially considering there's a bunch of replayability in the content too.


      --On the side points made--

      *I don't understand this point. I assume you've made the character because you want to use them in some way. The mercenaries just enable an alternate deck type to play and the merc nodes are an extra incentive because most players use the character most of the time. I don't need to offer and incentive to use the default
      **12 is more than fair even now to me. Though we already know they intend to add extra character slots as an options in strongholds somewhere along the line. So at that point 12 is a more than fair default as well. You don't need every class/race combo, in fact I don't know anyone who uses more than 3 or 4 champions once they've maxed out their level (myself included).
      *** You said some stuff I don't agree with but I don't have anything to tell you you're wrong about so I can't correct you i'm afraid : (
      **** The gaps fillers are the PvP sets and Seasonal events. Seasonal events give you a new reason to play the dungeons for a couple weeks (Or days if you just go for playset) . PvP sets give 6 new mercenaries to try and get to try some new deck types and then about 285 new cards to make new decks with. There's more to the PvE content than just the zones and dungeons themselves you know.
      *****I would just prefer they let us repeat earn the Alachian Sea and Howling Plains packs from map main map encounters (maybe a % off a win) instead of making us buy them from the store or keep redoing a dungeon to get them. I've already said how quickly I finish the content and it would feel even more lackluster if it was giving something I already have. There's already a form of primal chance on the Alachian Sea and Howling Plains packs if you get them from the store, they might give one of the racial cards when you buy them. And if you mean you wanted an actual primal pack that doesn't seem like a very good idea for content that can already be infinitely farmed for free.

      The post was edited 1 time, last by Reeplay ().

    • I'd just like to chime in and say I'd be perfectly happy to have more content even if it's feature-free. Obviously more large features are best, but a light content patch with another half dozen dungeons scattered throughout the 2 zones (or a small new zone of its own) with some more cards would also be very welcome.

      Also, I really like Timlagor's idea of a dungeon (or ANY other method) that drops more Alachian Sea packs. It continues to rankle me to no end that there's no way to farm these packs, considering how much time you have to completely waste to get a new character to this zone to even START getting more packs.
      --ossuary

      "Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none."
      - Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well

    • Until we get the 2 remaining classes, the remaining class levels/talents, strongholds/keeps, guilds, and raids I agree 100% with cory.

      New adventure zones are great and do certainly want them but I won't consider the game truly complete without these features. I am would not mind getting a dungeon every pvp set but I also would not be particularly excited about it either and I feel their money and time would be better spent elsewhere.

    • Reeplay wrote:

      [lots of stuff -it's above]
      [ ...I can't work out a way to break up the quotes here so I'll just comment outside and hope you can put it together. ]
      1) I may have misinterpreted Cory's comment but I don't think so.

      2) A single dungeon update might be a bigger effort than I think. If so then fair enough (I did say something to the effect in my OP)

      3) Yes I believe that features are delaying content. I think there's ample evidence for this from comments made by Devs around the AZ2 release (delayed for mercs as well as strongholds which ultimately didn't make it) and since, including the comment on the 150th podcast. I could be wrong but in the absence of a statement from Devs that this isn't so I am going to keep believing it*.

      4) If they feel the need for particular features for a planned story then they can invent a sidestory for a gap-filler or make it work somehow. I don't believe for a moment this is happening but would be appalled by it.

      5) I'm not advocating less total content. I'm making the point that I'd much rather have no-new-feature content than no content. The main point is PRIORITISE CONTENT OVER NEW FEATURES. I do want features but not as much as content.

      6) Reeplay is a very unusual player. I emphatically do not need lots of unique cards for a dungeon to be worth playing. I can enjoy encounters for their own sake. an AZ does not need to have 2/3 of the new cards than a PVP set has -this is not quite my point but very similar -if that's a problem I urge them to dump it as a requirement.

      There is an enormous amount of room for more encounters within the mechanics and cards we already have.


      7) I do acknowledge that I don't really know how much work this content involves but I feel I've been led to believe that an AZ3 without new mechanics would be comparatively low-work.

      8) AZ1+AZ2 is indeed impressively substantial.. but I <actually not going to go into this in greater depth here>

      9) ** I want to have all race/classes. I expect I would play them all up to max level -very likely I wouldn't "farm" with many of them but I'd play them onwards when there was more content.

      10) ** 12 isn't enough to get playsets of the race cards -and will continue not to be enough next time they come around.

      11) *** :P






      * I'm not going to go looking for citations because I started this thread to express my view to the Devs not to debate whether the comments made previously can be interpreted differently.

    • Reeplay wrote:

      Next what does 1 dungeon actually give us? This doesn't apply to everyone obviously but I've finished all the dungeons the first time I've played them in less than 45 minutes. I've got a whole playset of a single dungeons drops in 2 days.

      A whole AZ on other hand takes me a couple days to get through the first time and over a month to playset.
      Personally I would much rather get that month of play every 8-10 months rather than 2 days of play every 2 months with the 1 month content coming every year instead.

      Next what would it take for hex to actually make these 1 off dungeons? This is what I think most people are missing when they suggest this. This is actually a huge amount of work for hex to do. I'm assuming these dungeons will have a larger than normal amount of unique drops because otherwise they would be really disappointing (Normal dungeons have around 6 unique PvE cards and equipment for those cards). Personally I would be expecting about 15-20 cards + equipment in these 1 off dungeons otherwise the content just wouldn't be exciting to me, I would play it but I would blink and be done with it.
      Then they need to make a story for the dungeon. In a single dungeon I think this is around 300 lines but I haven't counted and this could vary a lot based on the dungeon size and characters. More importantly we know hex has an overarching story so this dungeon would need to fit in that story. Also the current AZ would need to possibly be adjusted to allow for this dungeon.
      Then they need to design the actual dungeon which could be between 8 and 20 nodes (I think that's what they said in the past). Again I would expect this to be on the larger side since the dungeon is supposed to serve as a standalone bridge between the new main content. They also need to get the visuals for the dungeon and need to adjust the current AZ map to cater to this dungeon.
      You're adding a whole bunch of requirements here, then arguing that there's too many requirements:
      • Current dungeons are 3 U, 2 R, 1 L. If you use PvP uncommons, you only need three new cards.
      • The largest dungeon I can think of is 11 nodes. The average minimum nodes to finish a dungeon is about 6, with several only having 5.
      • Frost Ring Arena has something like 6 lines of dialogue. I think that most dungeon fights don't have much more than 5 lines each, so we're looking at 25-30.
      • If you're getting playsets of Legendaries from dungeons in two days, you play way more than me. And I play too much. The fastest content consumers can never be satisfied, so you don't aim for them.
      • Most of the dungeons we already have don't tie into the overarching story. A dungeon with each PvP set would actually tie in more than the ones we have!
      • I would hope that adding a node to the map is easy. Even then we get sent to Crayburn Castle through a dialogue option, so there's no reason there can't be an NPC in town recruiting us to help.


      I think the main advantage of a dungeon with a PvP set is that it gives PvE players extra incentive to interact with the new set. I suspect an issue with PvE monetization is that once you hit a certain point, you don't really need anymore cards to beat content. Players will go after the new content and once they have some cards with the new mechanics, they'll have a reason to start building decks around them and buy more.

      Ultimately, frequent free updates also encourages the player base that the company is actively engaging with them. And more even releases also help keep players engaged. Right now a PvE player could basically disappear for 6 months and not miss anything of note.

    • Here is my suggestion to stimulate short term freshness in the air for PvE.

      • Move Arena into Entrath as a special HEX Holiday Event Dungeon. That spawns in AZ1 - accessible through a NPC dialogue choice in the starting Ardent or Underworld town.
      • Give the player options - like the dialogue choices for Armies of Myth Encounter to choose the tier they want to fight at the start of the dungeon.
      • They can only choose a tier higher, if they perfect the tier prior. Can add more challenging higher tiers as hard modes.
      • Make the final boss a special encounter - meaning - have a rotational special boss designed for each HEX Holiday Event (This is the only created content, outside of Holiday drops)
      • In essence, you would only need to complete 5 encounters in total - 4 'Arena Encounters', and a Boss.
      • Because this content would be rotational, the normal drop-tables could be semi-rotational as well. Or grant a random AZ pack as a reward + holiday items.
      • Allow for special spawn like Uruunaz or something to really spice up the excitement.

    • NicoSharp wrote:

      Here is my suggestion to stimulate short term freshness in the air for PvE.

      • Move Arena into Entrath as a special HEX Holiday Event Dungeon. That spawns in AZ1 - accessible through a NPC dialogue choice in the starting Ardent or Underworld town.
      • Give the player options - like the dialogue choices for Armies of Myth Encounter to choose the tier they want to fight at the start of the dungeon.
      • They can only choose a tier higher, if they perfect the tier prior. Can add more challenging higher tiers as hard modes.
      • Make the final boss a special encounter - meaning - have a rotational special boss designed for each HEX Holiday Event (This is the only created content, outside of Holiday drops)
      • In essence, you would only need to complete 5 encounters in total - 4 'Arena Encounters', and a Boss.
      • Because this content would be rotational, the normal drop-tables could be semi-rotational as well. Or grant a random AZ pack as a reward + holiday items.
      • Allow for special spawn like Uruunaz or something to really spice up the excitement.

      I'd like that idea, with two caveats:
      • I'd still want to be able to use PvP champions
      • They need to add at least two new enemies per PvP set

    • Galliard wrote:

      Reeplay wrote:

      Quote of me
      You're adding a whole bunch of requirements here, then arguing that there's too many requirements:
      • Current dungeons are 3 U, 2 R, 1 L. If you use PvP uncommons, you only need three new cards.
      • The largest dungeon I can think of is 11 nodes. The average minimum nodes to finish a dungeon is about 6, with several only having 5.
      • Frost Ring Arena has something like 6 lines of dialogue. I think that most dungeon fights don't have much more than 5 lines each, so we're looking at 25-30.
      • If you're getting playsets of Legendaries from dungeons in two days, you play way more than me. And I play too much. The fastest content consumers can never be satisfied, so you don't aim for them.
      • Most of the dungeons we already have don't tie into the overarching story. A dungeon with each PvP set would actually tie in more than the ones we have!
      • I would hope that adding a node to the map is easy. Even then we get sent to Crayburn Castle through a dialogue option, so there's no reason there can't be an NPC in town recruiting us to help.


      I think the main advantage of a dungeon with a PvP set is that it gives PvE players extra incentive to interact with the new set. I suspect an issue with PvE monetization is that once you hit a certain point, you don't really need anymore cards to beat content. Players will go after the new content and once they have some cards with the new mechanics, they'll have a reason to start building decks around them and buy more.

      Ultimately, frequent free updates also encourages the player base that the company is actively engaging with them. And more even releases also help keep players engaged. Right now a PvE player could basically disappear for 6 months and not miss anything of note.
      I'm not arguing there's too many requirements though? I'm just pointing out the work they would have to do in order to do the dungeon as it's what they've done for every dungeon so far.

      -I'm aware of the current pattern.

      -The thing is it can't be a regular dungeon. A single dungeon is not much content, it's why there's 6 in AZ1 + the main map and 4 in AZ2 + the map and boat segment. If a single dungeon is coming out on its own it needs to be larger than the other dungeons we've seen just because it needs to hold attention longer than a single regular dungeon does otherwise it's almost as if it never launched a week after it's out.

      -FRA isn't a dungeon. It's very standard for the dungeons to have their own mini-story. Of course the number of lines depends on the dungeon you're talking about. I will concede that my 300 number was probably fairly off thinking about it but I did say I hadn't counted. It's probably nearer to 70-100.

      -Obviously the people who do it fastest won't ever be satisfied by it (though I'm still satisfied with the campaign now, I go back and play it every couple of weeks). But 2 days for a playset is what I've done for every campaign pack. In fact I've done it it in 4 or 5 hours for 2 of them. It normally only requires about 30 packs in my experience. I didn't bring it up as a brag though. I brought it up purely as a reference to how long a dungeon takes compared to a whole AZ. (2 days vs just over a month).


      -They totally do merge in. I don't have every dungeon dialogue memorized but smoldering dead reveals the whole goblins stuffing ruby shards into zombies situation which leads you to smoldering dead where you do a whole dungeon based off that idea facing the goblin doing it all at the end. That leads you to the eventual conversation to go to the Alachian Sea (though you could actually access the sea before the smoldering dead dungeon. Then the burning zombies are revisited at the end of Kukatan where you face another Goblin who has started doing the same thing.
      And for the record the stories of herofall and scars of war are brought up in the campaign are brought up through dialogue but only as a reference. Remember Entrath is a planet and there can be more than 1 overarching story, so far it looks like the PvE chapters are intended to be their own separate thing to the PvP set stories and placing those randomly in campaign AZs with no attempt to merge them would seem very out of place as a story.

      -Nothing is ever as simple as you hope when it comes to a growing game. They have to consider not only what already exists but also what they are adding later They probably already have plans on which directions they want you to travel which means no additional nodes can go in that direction. They also need to plan out the unlock condition for that node, when it will appear, when players will first meet it. When they do this in single AZ update it's much simpler (per node) because they can path it exactly in the order they want but when they're adding in a single node or dungeon they need to consider what it does to the progression of the game for both the existing and new player.

      If a single dungeon (especially a regular one) is enough to get a player more excited for PvE than 6 mercenaries and 285 cards + equipment wasn't I'm not sure what they're goals of the game really are. Eventually yeah people will get to the point where they have all the cards they need to be beat content but if they've stopped collecting cards because of that then what does a dungeon change exactly? You then say a contradicting thing where a dungeon of 6 cards (assuming you got your thought of it being a regular dungeon) would be enough to get players collecting again to try new decks yet the PvP set along with it of 285 cards + equipment wouldn't have been enough? If anything the way they solve that would be to have encounters or dungeons that require you to use certain types of card (like only blood, 20 basic actions or something) but if they were to introduce that it would almost certainly be done in a full AZ update.

      I mean I don't know what difference a single dungeon is making in terms of engagement when it's launched alongside a PvP set. It's true a PvE player might leave for 6 months after it comes out but the same thing can be said about PvP player a month after a set launch. That's the real goal challenge hex has to get past. They need to try and remove this mentality of PvP or PvE player as if people can't be both. By ignoring one side people deny themselves a huge part of the game and as long as they choose to ignore the otherside they'll never have the content to stay active all the time (unless they really like the content that is out).

      The thing is I wouldn't complain at new solo dungeons coming out every so often even if they were like a regular dungeon. I just think it would be a huge waste of resources on their part. It just has such a minimal impact on the game overall and it would be finished by the existing players so quickly and I could only imagine it slowing down the actual main AZ patches as they have to divert the attention from that to the dungeon for a few weeks.

      == On difficulty options ==

      I wouldn't mind difficulty options. The issue is I don't know how they would be done. They could be a 'cheap' option where they just increase health, hand size, starting charges or something but if they do that it doesn't really do anything, the players who faceroll it will still be able to faceroll so it won't change much for them. The other option is they remake they're decks to actually be harder at which point it becomes much longer of a job and I would much rather that effort goes into other new encounters.

    • This "Arena"/"Dungeon" could potentially still be accessed through the non-campaign screen. Allowing for PvP Champions to run it too.

      Forcing updates to PvE content on PvP cycles does not seem to be the direction HXE wants to go as a company, outside of equipment, PvE chest loots, and Mercenaries (which is already a lot).

      While there are more holiday events than PVP set releases per year, off-cycle farming of this "rebranded" Frost Ring Arena, could also be peppered with unique bosses. IMO, drop tables for this content should still only match holiday and adventure zone content. It may be a clever way to solve the Racial Card grant issue, by having unique bosses tied to racial cards, and those racial cards could be granted as rewards.

      My idea of tier 5+ hard modes would include with normal "encounters" starting with extra resources / cards in hand / cards on table etc. / with more equipment slotted inventory potentially as well.

    • Splitting this up since it's getting long.

      Reeplay wrote:

      -The thing is it can't be a regular dungeon. A single dungeon is not much content, it's why there's 6 in AZ1 + the main map and 4 in AZ2 + the map and boat segment. If a single dungeon is coming out on its own it needs to be larger than the other dungeons we've seen just because it needs to hold attention longer than a single regular dungeon does otherwise it's almost as if it never launched a week after it's out.
      This is what I meant by adding requirements. You're looking for something that would keep you (or me) playing for more than a week. But that's not the goal of my idea.

      Reeplay wrote:

      -Obviously the people who do it fastest won't ever be satisfied by it (though I'm still satisfied with the campaign now, I go back and play it every couple of weeks). But 2 days for a playset is what I've done for every campaign pack. In fact I've done it it in 4 or 5 hours for 2 of them. It normally only requires about 30 packs in my experience. I didn't bring it up as a brag though. I brought it up purely as a reference to how long a dungeon takes compared to a whole AZ. (2 days vs just over a month).
      30 packs is at least 15 hours for the average player. We're two extreme outliers on playtime/dungeon clear time so we're only going to get so much benefit.

      If it helps, compare it to a Convocation pack. I ran Smoldering Dead around 70 times last summer to get my playset of the Legendary. That's a big spike of play for a few days and less active players will get even more time.

      Reeplay wrote:

      -They totally do merge in. I don't have every dungeon dialogue memorized but smoldering dead reveals the whole goblins stuffing ruby shards into zombies situation which leads you to smoldering dead where you do a whole dungeon based off that idea facing the goblin doing it all at the end. That leads you to the eventual conversation to go to the Alachian Sea (though you could actually access the sea before the smoldering dead dungeon. Then the burning zombies are revisited at the end of Kukatan where you face another Goblin who has started doing the same thing.
      You named two of three dungeons I consider merging into the main story. The other is Devonshire. So 6/9 don't, which is why I said "Most", not "All". :)

      Reeplay wrote:

      And for the record the stories of herofall and scars of war are brought up in the campaign are brought up through dialogue but only as a reference. Remember Entrath is a planet and there can be more than 1 overarching story, so far it looks like the PvE chapters are intended to be their own separate thing to the PvP set stories and placing those randomly in campaign AZs with no attempt to merge them would seem very out of place as a story.
      It would tie in the same way as Fort Romor or Brutecrown Bluff. You get pulled into a fight to help your faction.

      Reeplay wrote:

      -Nothing is ever as simple as you hope when it comes to a growing game. They have to consider not only what already exists but also what they are adding later They probably already have plans on which directions they want you to travel which means no additional nodes can go in that direction. They also need to plan out the unlock condition for that node, when it will appear, when players will first meet it. When they do this in single AZ update it's much simpler (per node) because they can path it exactly in the order they want but when they're adding in a single node or dungeon they need to consider what it does to the progression of the game for both the existing and new player.
      That's why I would be fine with an NPC sending you to the dungeon. I'm not expecting it to be trival to add, but they already have the resources.

      They just need to convert a Lore story into a dungeon and pull a few cards they've already designed. They can even use their playtesting decks as a jumping off point for the enemies to save more time.

      Reeplay wrote:

      If a single dungeon (especially a regular one) is enough to get a player more excited for PvE than 6 mercenaries and 285 cards + equipment wasn't I'm not sure what they're goals of the game really are. Eventually yeah people will get to the point where they have all the cards they need to be beat content but if they've stopped collecting cards because of that then what does a dungeon change exactly? You then say a contradicting thing where a dungeon of 6 cards (assuming you got your thought of it being a regular dungeon) would be enough to get players collecting again to try new decks yet the PvP set along with it of 285 cards + equipment wouldn't have been enough? If anything the way they solve that would be to have encounters or dungeons that require you to use certain types of card (like only blood, 20 basic actions or something) but if they were to introduce that it would almost certainly be done in a full AZ update.
      It's not contradictory because players don't suddenly receive cards when a new set is released. It's a similar concept to the Limited tickets that are part of account leveling. Give the players a chance to try a new mechanic for free, so that if they like it. I can't speak for everyone, but the new mercenaries in my set drive a lot of my specific AH purchases. If Nettlemoss were one of the dungeon rewards, then suddenly people have a reason to seek out Conscript cards.

      Reeplay wrote:

      I mean I don't know what difference a single dungeon is making in terms of engagement when it's launched alongside a PvP set. It's true a PvE player might leave for 6 months after it comes out but the same thing can be said about PvP player a month after a set launch. That's the real goal challenge hex has to get past. They need to try and remove this mentality of PvP or PvE player as if people can't be both. By ignoring one side people deny themselves a huge part of the game and as long as they choose to ignore the otherside they'll never have the content to stay active all the time (unless they really like the content that is out).
      Right, but they don't (usually) go a year between PvP sets either. If people are board of the existing dungeons/FRA then they definitely have no reason to get cards from the new set. Providing them a challenge gets them thinking and looking at new cards.

      Finally, not everyone enjoys PvP. Some people just don't like competitive games. And there's people who don't enjoy PvE, though I can't personally fathom their reasons. Expecting everyone to do PvP and the game being F2P are competing goals and something has to give. New dungeons make a good selling point to the F2P crowd, which is where you get your whales from.

    • HEX have income of onlt 1-2 mill $ per year wich is not much for a company with 20-40 staffs.
      For this reason they need to focus most of there time on makinig new stuff that make money., like new set and other stuf for shop.
      AZ1 and AZ2 dont make money. Like you I want AZ3.
      Question is just how to make players pay the cost to make AZ3.
      I am guessing AZ3 will cost 0.5 mill $ minimum.
      Maybe full assec to Az3 should cost 20-50$ - I am not fan of this idear how else to pay for develoment??

    • Opalia wrote:

      HEX have income of onlt 1-2 mill $ per year wich is not much for a company with 20-40 staffs.
      For this reason they need to focus most of there time on makinig new stuff that make money., like new set and other stuf for shop.
      AZ1 and AZ2 dont make money. Like you I want AZ3.
      Question is just how to make players pay the cost to make AZ3.
      I am guessing AZ3 will cost 0.5 mill $ minimum.
      Maybe full assec to Az3 should cost 20-50$ - I am not fan of this idear how else to pay for develoment??
      You don't seem to understand my point.
      My understanding is that is is the new mechanics that eat the vast majority of the $.
      My point is that I am happy with content that doesn't introduce a lot of (or any) new mechanics*.

      IF it would be relatively cheap then I would love to have more content without new mechanics. In any case I would like more emphasis on content over mechanics.

      Reelplay does not agree with me which is fine but I want to make it clear that I don't share his opinion** and suspect this might be the rare occasion I'm with the majority (rather than just being right ;) ).

      Clearly I can't make any real judgement without knowing the actual costs (at least comparatively) -this isn't so much an objection to the decisions made as a cry against what I perceive to be the priorities driving them.


      * Apparently Strongholds are near enough to done that they should be a priority anyway and I'm not for a moment suggesting that new feature development should halt but (from this point) I'd much rather (for example) have 3AZs with 2 new mechanics than 2 AZs with 4 Mechanics.
      ** and the opinion Cory appeared to have taken as universal.

      The post was edited 2 times, last by Timlagor ().

    • As a rule of thumb for any project, the bigger the team (and 40 bodies is a rather large team for game development), the more specialized roles you have.

      An indie 1-man dev team means the dude/ette has to do everything (game design, coding, art, music, marketing...), i.e. wear all the hats.

      The bigger your team, you increase your coordination costs (managers, producers, etc), but ideally that allows your teammates to wear just one hat (ideally again, the hat that fits them best), which should make (ideally again! =) things faster.

      That in turn usually brings another challenge (this is where good project managers shine), which is being able to juggle things just right so everybody can stay busy while wearing their hats (rather than sitting on their butts and wiggling their thumbs or, worse, checking facebook, since there is nothing for them to do).

      That's when the concept of "pipelines" apply: game designers desigs, artist draw, coders code, writers write, etc.

      But that's pretty much the reason while MMOs (that usually have a rather large content pipeline, with lots of world-builders, quest-writers, and such) aim to churn content at a steady pace, many times without any extra features: usually game mechanics require a lot of coding effort, while content like quests are usually done via a world-building editor (that requires little or no coding), so in facts is two different teams (game designers and coders working on mechanics, leveld designers and artists and writers working on quests) working on two different fronts of the game.

      Put this other way: when you have a big enough project, with several fronts, and a big enough team, it's actually in your best interest to work on several fronts (up to a point, within reason) simply because different people in your team have different skills, and you need to give them all something to do.

      (An opposite example would be: is not very efficient to put your artists, writers, and musicians to code the network backbone, even in the case that network backbone was the most crucial feature).


      So, all in all, having the content pipeline focusing on releasing content without new mechanics (like suggested above, a Dungeon in which the AI opponents use existing cards), while the game mechanics pipeline focus on the big PvE mechanics (Keeps, Raids, etc), actually does make quite a bit of sense.

    • Opalia wrote:

      HEX have income of onlt 1-2 mill $ per year wich is not much for a company with 20-40 staffs.
      For this reason they need to focus most of there time on makinig new stuff that make money., like new set and other stuf for shop.
      AZ1 and AZ2 dont make money. Like you I want AZ3.
      Question is just how to make players pay the cost to make AZ3.
      I am guessing AZ3 will cost 0.5 mill $ minimum.
      Maybe full assec to Az3 should cost 20-50$ - I am not fan of this idear how else to pay for develoment??
      You are making a bad assumption that PVE players don't spend money.

      Some players just buy cards / packs with real cash just to play around with PVE. More PVE - More players spend on cards and stuff.

      The only problem is that there is no ''direct'' connection with AZ3 cost and AZ3 income. Making AZ3 cost sometihng just helps in the process but how much will you lose from players that spend money on cards to pass time on AZ3.

      If Hex continues to come out with PVE stuff and is able to make it replayable then it will continue to have revenu from.