1.3.46 Google Beta - Release Notes

[NoSuchReality]

Just reading the debate in this thread, even with many things unspoken, it is so obvious this game is still broken.

Please fix the broken parts of this game.
At least try.

Unfortunately, the not speaking of what shall not be spoken is, IMHO, becoming a bigger driver of frustration than the exploits. I realize the devs don't want the discussion out there on things they cant prevent, but it already is. It also prevents the discussion between what i'll call intended play, targeted play, enhanced play, exploit and flat out cheat. It fuels the advantage animosity cropping up on the boards about PC versus Mobile. It fuels the frustration with ANB rankings. While I applaud the devs effort on closing holes there are still several Elephants in plain view.

[Coda]

Just reading the debate in this thread, even with many things unspoken, it is so obvious this game is still broken.

Please fix the broken parts of this game.
At least try.

[Nhat]

Yes, there is imbalance between PC and mobile, you can either accept it or not (ie. go play another game), same with the ability to buy things with money.

Suggestions on potential ways to help balance things would also be appreciated, but it's ultimately up to the dev team how they want to take the game - complains help point out the issue, I suppose...

Imbalance exists, but they in no way justify using bugs/exploits in order to "balance things out", or "find your own fun" - there wasn't anything stopping pc users from using these exploits either, nor paying players.


Edit:
And yes, there have been other offline-only games where I have, and still do, "make my own fun". But in those, my actions affects no one. Ah, the good old days of BG2 modding, published what I made and was taking requests for minor things for a while too

While Eternium doesn't have pvp, the Leaderboard enables a competition of sort among the players and obviously ranking during ANB matters. For every ill-gotten rank, one legitimate player missed out!

[Nhat]

I cannot see why abandoning a bad trial would qualify as an exploit? I've had to do it often when starting very close to a powerful elite group and dying repeatedly.

It's not, sorry for not being clear.

It's when the normal trial abandon is combined with "something" else, to make it an exploit...

The response was with respect to arionthe's suggestion for the tracking, which in my view wouldn't have worked anyway, due to the nature of the exploit being used.

[LStab]

The most unfair thing of Eternium is that mobile players have to compete with PC player .

[MarkHark]

What make you think they're not using the "official exit", aka "Abandon Trial" method? It's the "in addition to" steps that makes it an exploit.

Adding the penalty will hurts legitimate players who exit unofficially (via crashes and such, those ads...), and is not guanranteed to catch the exploiters...

Sorry for borderlining "discussing exploit" publicly...

I cannot see why abandoning a bad trial would qualify as an exploit? I've had to do it often when starting very close to a powerful elite group and dying repeatedly.

[Jose Sarmento]

Just to add my 2cents to the OP's analogy.

I have no problems whatsoever with people using "fast leveling" techniques (such as CoW, first-pack-abandon-repeat, Town Portal tricks, etc.) in ANBs. Such is part of mastery of the game, and makes total sense to do it within fair rules of competition. Some can, some can't. That's fine.

What I do have problems with is, different rules for different people. In the original analogy, it would be the NBA team being challenged by another team of professional players - also pros, just not as "prominent" - but during the match:

NBA team is allowed physical contact, for the other team it's a fault.
NBA team gets 4 points for shooting from outside the basket area, for the other team it's the conventional 3.
NBA team can dictate if the game clock stops or keeps counting when they make a subsitution, ball leaves court, etc. For the other team, clock always stops.

That is the problem here. There are rules in ANB that control what you can do. If you spend X hours gaining XP in trials, your event timer is supposed to discount those same X hours. Random Set Item milestone rewards are supposed to be random, not custom-fit tailored items. You cannot reforge more than 1 stat on an item. Etc. etc.

If some can bend those rules, and others can't (or choose not to), well, surely the first group will dominate every ANB. And not by their skill.

[techizhong]

This world is impossible to have a fair and pure
Is that going to limit the PC?

[NoSuchReality]

JIMHO, if they abandon via abandon button, its not an exploit, its a clear feature option to leave a level.

That said, i really doubt people are spending four event hours abandoning, mulliganning only works if you're exploiting the clock. Sure you can go in, slaughter the first mob and abandon in three seconds. You now need 1200 starts to.burn a hour of event time. Not happening. Pull the group of mobs, slaughter and abandon? Sure, what are at? Twemty seconds? Where's the line between just first mob and abandoning when the boss appears?

Ironically, the more discussion we have dancing around the exploits and more tips and tricks people discuss for advancing rapidly in ANB or things that theyve done in ANB, JIMHO, the more obvious how fundamentally broken is ANB. It seems the only people actually playing the game in ANB are those not getting the Celestials. The rest of us are micromanaging a very small aspect of the game and then throwing gems at further accelerating that micromangement.

Reading the boards is steadily making me more jaded on game.

[Nhat]

Now one open issue that is yet to be addressed... "Trial Mulligan". Is there any solution on the table for that before the next ANB? Personally I think a 2min or even 5min penalty for any unofficial exit from trial map would nicely fix this issue. Before players with questionable network signal quality howl in protest, perhaps a grace limit of 5 per league. It's hard to argue someone ISN'T trying to game the system if their unofficial exit trial numbers go beyond that in a timed event.

What make you think they're not using the "official exit", aka "Abandon Trial" method? It's the "in addition to" steps that makes it an exploit.

Clarifying edit: Abandoning trials is NOT an exploit. The exploit may use that method though...

It's hard to be clear without explaining what the exploit actually is. Comment is mainly in reponse to attempting to catch exploiters by tracking "unofficial exits", which in my opinion won't work...

--- edit end.


Adding the penalty will hurts legitimate players who exit unofficially (via crashes and such, those ads...), and is not guanranteed to catch the exploiters...

Sorry for borderlining "discussing exploit" publicly...

[Arionthe]

I still don't get it why it should be a good idea to limit ad's for any player here? Whales will still buy Event packages and will still perform way better than others. The unlimited ability to generate gems without putting amounts of cash into the game was the last fair thing for me. When you limit ad's, than don't make legendary essence boxes and these things available in Events. I still feel like April pranked..

Simple, without the daily ad limit, I can run a bot and collect 10,000 gems a day 24/7. So I can outspend most whales with the ability to dump 140k gems per league or 420k gem per ANB cycle. Would you like to compete with me? If you feel that's fair competition, then look me up in a First Person Shooter game that I will use aimbot against you.

Anyway a few cheats always ruin the fun for the rest of us. I see this daily ad limit being squarely aimed at the botters. Although a weekly 300 ad limit might be better, if it's as easy to implement as the daily limit, as some others have suggested.

Now one open issue that is yet to be addressed... "Trial Mulligan". Is there any solution on the table for that before the next ANB? Personally I think a 2min or even 5min penalty for any unofficial exit from trial map would nicely fix this issue. Before players with questionable network signal quality howl in protest, perhaps a grace limit of 5 per league. It's hard to argue someone ISN'T trying to game the system if their unofficial exit trial numbers go beyond that in a timed event. Adrian (Developer) ?

Btw much props for implementing those changes. I must say that my heart sunk a little when the final Gold LB was released. I had just a small hope that certain things will be patched. This is a huge step in the right direction I believe.

[Outlaw]

I still don't get it why it should be a good idea to limit ad's for any player here? Whales will still buy Event packages and will still perform way better than others. The unlimited ability to generate gems without putting amounts of cash into the game was the last fair thing for me. When you limit ad's, than don't make legendary essence boxes and these things available in Events. I still feel like April pranked..

[ShotDead]

其实我最终的意思是：花6小时游戏的玩家，他们的乐趣在a处；花3小时游戏的玩家，他们乐趣在b处；花1小 时游戏玩家，他们的乐趣在c处。当然这些都是不修改，不利用bug。而官方的意图是所有人在一起寻找乐趣， 这是很难实现的，而且也没有道理，就像我发帖比喻的一样，专业的nba球员不和普通爱好者一起打篮球，男人 和女人不一起打篮球，儿童不和成年人一起打篮球，但是所有的比赛都用一种规则。

This guy actually makes sense! I agree with whatever you said. The problem for developers is that they have no way to know who is a genuine player and who is "outsourcing" gem farming.

[Altheo 42]

Here's an example: higher Critial Rating

I rest my case then

[AimEoN]

I’ m not sure if there is a bug allowing players to get abnormally high gems in one day, my best record is 700-800 gems a day(normal story mode, 4+ hours solely for ad boxes, pretty boring). 50 ad boxes every day seems not very acceptable to me, not sure how others thoughts.