Proposed ANB changes draft #1 [discussion]

[Adrian (Developer)]

Thanks everyone for the feedback provided in the previous thread.

I've identified a couple of major issues and proposed a set of changes to solve them:


Crafting
High level items obtained from crafting are too big an advantage and luck is too big a factor. Especially when certain players find a way to improve the luck by exploiting bugs. Even after the latest fixes, with players being forced to be online while crafting, some people still found a way to abuse it. Let me put it this way: the chances to get a perfect level 77 weapon from only 16 crafts is abysmally low - players detected using this exploit will not get a rank reward.

Solution: Ephemeral Crafting. During events all items crafted are ephemeral, they’ll expire when the event ends. Crafting costs will be greatly reduced. We think that crafting is a fun part of the game and being able to craft cheap items will level the playing field. You will also get to experiment a lot more with crafting and various builds, we see this as an added bonus.

Medal Rewards
Many players have complained that medals make veteran players stronger during ANBs. We wanted the medals to be more of a symbolic reward for performing during events, hence the diminishing returns set in place for accumulating them. Maybe the minor stat improvements are too strong. As a solution we can nerf the bonuses and disable them during events.

Celestial Rewards
As you suggested, players should be able to use the celestial transforms awarded during the event and receive them via mailbox after the event ends. I think this combines well with ephemeral crafting.

Trial difficulty
Maybe the TL 100 with the new trial difficulty curve is too high for the second celestial. On the other hand we want celestials to be somewhat of an achievement, hence the difficulty to obtain them.
But yes, it was a screw-up we didn't announce the trial difficulty changes before the season#2 started. As you might have noticed we are really trying not to make the ANBs a money grab. That's why we introduced free ephemeral jewelry and items. The trial difficulty increase was not introduced to increase revenue and if you are curious about it, it didn't.


Waiting for your feedback on these changes.

[Fish knife]

Hi Adrian,

I like the idea of ephemeral crafting during ANB . But you spoke rather generally of "events". Does that mean this change would also apply to season events? That would be a mistake imho....

Nerfing the bonuses from medals would greatly reduce the incentive to get them in the first place. Why should I then push for a high position in the leaderboards? Disabling the bonuses during ANB might be a solution.

As for the change in trial difficulty many are still curious about the reasoning behind that change. Care to explain?

Also, I really appreciate your efforts to evolve and improve the game and that you give us players the opportunity to discuss changes and give some input. However, may I suggest that you devote some time and energy to fixing some of the more annoying bugs? You may have noticed that ANB Gold #3 has left quite a few people angry and frustrated...

[Christian Lamine]

"As for the change in trial difficulty many are still curious about the reasoning behind that change. Care to explain?" - oh, yes! I still wait for an answer to a question that I posted like 2 or 3 weeks ago...

[Christian Lamine]

...and proposed a set of changes to solve them:

[...]

Trial difficulty
Maybe the TL 100 with the new trial difficulty curve is too high for the second celestial. On the other hand we want celestials to be somewhat of an achievement, hence the difficulty to obtain them.
But yes, it was a screw-up we didn't announce the trial difficulty changes before the season#2 started. As you might have noticed we are really trying not to make the ANBs a money grab. That's why we introduced free ephemeral jewelry and items. The trial difficulty increase was not introduced to increase revenue and if you are curious about it, it didn't.

So, what's the proposed change here? Turn down difficulty again? "Relocate" the second celestial to a lower level?

[Radz]

Ephemeral Crafting + Celestial Transform sounds perfect for ANBs.
Additional suggestion: Ephemeral Crafted items should all have equal attribute values to avoid the luck factor of getting Perfect value. This will also prevent the crafting exploits.
All ANB players will have almost equal stats and attributes. it's up to the players where to use their Celestial Transforms to achieve that Perfect Value on their desired items.
Everyone will be at equal stand point in terms of Crafting/Items, the results of their performance during ANBs will be solely base on their own decisions and not by crafting luck.

Ephemeral Celestial Orbs may also be a good idea?


General improvement on EXP gain or make ANB triple or quadruple bonus exp?

[LStab]

need more EXP!

[Burgeoso]

Please don’t make trials easier or lower the TL for rewards. This ANB was one of best I’ve played (for me, I know others had a different experiences due to bugs). I was on the edge of my seat the whole time 2nd guessing every decision I made if it was the right one to hit TL100. It cost me a lot, but I got to TL102 and had a blast. The adrenaline of knowing I couldn’t screw up a single level or decision made it way more fun than just rolling through and winning with ease.

[Anjaeka]

“Ephemeral Crafting”..... All I can say is that you’d better make it REALLY cheap. Spending time and resources on something that is going to vanish after the event does not excite me. Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy crafting gear, but the expense is prohibitive. Also, you’d better make sure that those “Ephemeral Crafts” are truly deleted OR converted back into resources after the event. We’ve seen the cluster f*** that happens when those items get used by the regular accounts.

“Medal Rewards”... Personally, I’m getting pretty sick and tired of my stuff getting nerfed. I earned those rewards. Leave them be. HOWEVER, they definitely need to be removed from ANB. One of my biggest complaints about this game is that I bust my butt and invest time/resources into my characters only to have it become worthless. We need MORE incentives in this game, not less.

Trial difficulty is definitely an issue with this current update. If you make crafting temporary gear CHEAP during ANB, the TL 100 for a CT isn’t going to be too high.

I want to add add a suggestion here. The lack of good drops at lower trial levels and the scarcity of greater BOL’s during ANB has got to change.

Finally, improved communication is critical. I/we all appreciate you making this post and the one previous about proposed changes and input. It’s a step in the right direction, but more is needed. The miscommunication about the 2 hour time increase was an absolute disaster and completely unfair to Travis. Y’all left us hanging and got several players genuinely pissed off while Travis was left holding the bag. Not cool.

You guys really need to utilize the in game mail to communicate with us. Depending on the forum and discord for second/third hand information is unreliable at best.

[Ozymandius]

+1 on the thumbs down to Ephemeral Crafting - one of my major goals for running an ANB is to hopefully pick up one or two items via crafting or drops that will be an upgrade in my regular account. Keep the E-boxes and E-jewelry but leave the crafted and dropped gear transportable to main account.

[Tempest1503]

I consider myself a top25 player, reaching that placement or better in the past 3 anb leagues and last season. This isn't any bragging here just for better classification of the following feedback and suggestions. First time played the game about 3 years ago, took a long break then. Returned about 8 month ago and played very frequently since then.

Crafting

I really like to hear that after trying to compete with my lvl72 shield against players with lvl75+!
Making all crafts ephemeral and highly reducing costs sounds like a decent fix. I'd suggest to add some kind of material/currency bank during anb then, recording farmed mats/currencies to hand them out at the end of the event. That way crafting expenses aren't only "wasted" on anb (as all crafts will disappear after the event) and we'll also get to use the farmed mats for season.

Medal Rewards

Quoting Cereblon on discord regarding this,

People without medals complain how Op they are. People with medals complain how worthless they are.

Personally i don't think impact of medals is too big with their diminishing returns. Disabling them in events would make them completely worthless and remove any incentive trying to compete on ANB leaderboards, unless you add different rewards. Although is my opinion having at least 3 medals each. But to make anb a completely even playing field you would have to make even more major changes, like reducing the impact of gems and crafting RNG even more.

Celestrial Rewards

Sounds good to me.

Trial Difficulty

I didn't have trouble reaching TL100 in gold, should be way easier to get it in bronze/silver. But i also heard a lot of people having trouble to reach it in time. Don't really have an opinion on that part, I'd be fine with how it is right now, but wouldn't mind getting them earlier either.

Edit: Just noticed Radz suggestion on higher xp bonus during anb, i like that idea especially with new trial difficulty. It would make it easier to reach TL100 reward as well.

[mousse]

I've got no problem with the trial difficulty as it is, but the clear time to skip trial levels. That killed me. Certain bosses are impossible for me to defeat and skipping them is the only option. Garm is impossible for my warrior to beat because he's always in close so the shockwave always stuns him. Skipping Garm/TBD is the only option there. Magroth is impossible for my Mage. TBD is impossible for my BH to beat.

The other option is for me to 'get gud.' But I think 2+ year of experience, I'm at my limit.

[Ozymandius]

I disagree with your comment that not allowing medals in an ANB would "remove any incentive for trying to compete on ANB leaderboards." People will still compete to get a higher spot on the board without medals; they were doing that in ANBs long before medals were even introduced.

You cannot have a "new beginning" unless everyone enters at the same level,and for me that means leave the medals out of ANBs.

[Tempest1503]

No problem, opinions are different. Just saying that the impact isn't as big as people complaining about medals are thinking. But gem impact is quite big... Anyway it's definitely possible to climb up the LB in any event without a single medal.

[Wolf86PL]

Pay Travis more! God dammit!

[Argon]

My thumbs are up for all the changes suggested!

Even though I will finally have a full set of medals when the rewards of ANB Gold are handed out. I prefer loosing that advantage in order to maybe in the future get that light-hearted rabbit hole chasing groove back into the forums.

What I really appretiate a lot is that you are communicating with us. Please keep doing so! This could massively reduce player frustrations...

[Adrian (Developer)]

Finally, improved communication is critical. I/we all appreciate you making this post and the one previous about proposed changes and input. It’s a step in the right direction, but more is needed. The miscommunication about the 2 hour time increase was an absolute disaster and completely unfair to Travis. Y’all left us hanging and got several players genuinely pissed off while Travis was left holding the bag. Not cool.

Indeed communication about the magnitude of certain issues should certainly be improved. Also the time when the issue is communicated.
But again, my mistake, as usual I suppose. Post-mortem: I proposed, hastily, a solution to the perceived issue. Then after actually checking the analytics, I've discovered only 20 players out of 1500 were using a deprecated client. So we didn't get through with the ANB extension.

[Anjaeka]

Adrian (Developer) , Are you referring to the old (easier) game version as the reason for a possible extension? I was under the impression that the reason for the proposed time increase was because of all the players whose trial progression was repeatedly reset back to 7.

[Adrian (Developer)]

I didn't have trouble reaching TL100 in gold, should be way easier to get it in bronze/silver. But i also heard a lot of people having trouble to reach it in time. Don't really have an opinion on that part, I'd be fine with how it is right now, but wouldn't mind getting them earlier either.

That was the reason we had admission tickets to ANB Silver/Gold. To limit access of users to a more difficult event bracket.

More on the trial difficulty increase. One obvious "explanation" is that we want to make the trials more difficult. A better explanation is that we want the progress in trials to feel more rewarding, and we think that can be achieved by having a steeper difficulty curve so you can actually perceive an increase in difficulty when going from trial N to trial N+1. And we want that to start at lower trial levels. Right now the damage/hp scaling in trials is exponential, so it kicks in way too late. We could also add a linear factor to the equation, enabling us to better control the progression.

[Adrian (Developer)]

Adrian (Developer) , Are you referring to the old (easier) game version as the reason for a possible extension? I was under the impression that the reason for the proposed time increase was because of all the players whose trial progression was repeatedly reset back to 7.

No, the time increase proposal was due to users using a deprecated client. Unfortunately we couldn't fix the trial progression reset in time during this event. On our priority list to fix it for the next events.

[Fish knife]

Indeed communication about the magnitude of certain issues should certainly be improved. Also the time when the issue is communicated.
But again, my mistake, as usual I suppose. Post-mortem: I proposed, hastily, a solution to the perceived issue. Then after actually checking the analytics, I've discovered only 20 players out of 1500 were using a deprecated client. So we didn't get through with the ANB extension.

On Friday I was at TL 90 with two hours left on the clock. After the announcement that we'd get two extra hours I decided to spend a lot of time farming TL 80 for XP, materials and gear. By the time I realized that we wouldn't get those two additional hours after all it was too late. I ended up running out of time at TL 93, although TL 100 and Top 100 should have been doable for me.

I feel that I just wasted a lot of gems for nothing. Adrian (Developer) any plans/ideas for rectifying this situation?

[Jose Sarmento]

Adrian, I had voiced my suggestion via PM so I won't repeat it here. The issue I see with Ephemeral Crafting is, once I have enough medals not to care about them much (and that happens fairly quickly, by the very intended nature of the medals), what is my motivation to craft during an ANB once I've secured the T100 reward? Why should I spend resources that I can get on my main characters in the end, to craft something that will disappear at event finish?

Please have a think if we're not suddenly getting too much "ephemerality" in the game. We've only recently moved to ephemeral LBs (Seasonal) and Ephemeral Celestials (to be salvaged after ANB end).

The above said, overall, I feel your proposed changes would be beneficial.