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My personal review of Sanctum map

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Comments

  • Yeah, but I doubt you were complaining that it was too easy, as kitten noted above.... cause if you thought it was too easy there were always higher difficulties you could have done.
  • ManthroManthro Posts: 2,752
    edited December 2017
    Just to reinforce the point I'm getting at... Here is a breakdown of lanes and classes on map 3:

    vvfnecb5arwk.jpg

    Look at the right side of the map.. you can actually choose a set of lanes whereby a 3 team squad can have a reasonable class advantage run and/or stack up to the mods reasonably well.

    Now contrast this with the left side... it's a total blender. Each time you try and pick best bot for the class/mod setup, you shoot yourself in the foot later in the map.
  • SerapthSerapth Posts: 157
    Scump45 wrote: »
    New map forces the alliances to set the difficulty level accordingly to their lowest capable player ,you cant save his mistakes, you can't back him up in battles you just throw him in the battle and tell him either to spend all his energon (money) for "teamwork sake" or to let all the members down. I'm already anticipating huge changes in most of the best alliances by the end of the round. And a serious amount of players stepping down or even worse quitting the game....

    As you may have noticed, I've been extremely gloomy since this change has gone in, and your post and many others in this thread summerize exactly why. As you've said here, this either pegs the difficulty to the lowest level player in the alliance, or it forces those players to constantly spend. This is of course problematic, as you 99% of alliances will always have players at different levels of progression.

    It goes even worse than that; even the best of players has a bad day occasionally and these changes punish that horribly. You basically need to do 3 or 4 fights in a row with the exact same bot and if you blow any of those fights time to break out those revives. There is absolutely no ability to back other players up and if you make any mistakes, you're punished heavily.

    Funny part is, many of the players here are higher tier alliances with the range of roster to play these maps. For us its a matter of finding the sweet spot difficulty wise for the greatest number of players. The people who got REALLY screwed in this change are the ones that were in the 50-75 range on map 2, as Map 3 even at level 1 is brutally punishing.

    Basically with this change Kabam have absolutely destroyed casual play. Now its be perfect or play way below your level or break open your wallet. Those are the only three options.


    Map 3 will kill the game if unchanged. God knows it's killing my desire to play it. Funny part is, one small change would improve things massively... Drop from 3 lanes to 2 per side and 99% of the problems go away. Yes, some mods are overpowered and such, but with 3 players per 2 lanes, it gives alliances the ability to deal with it, while also enabling their players to have a diverse level of bots/talent as well as enabling us to occasionally have a bad fight without being forced to revive.

    As it stands now, these changes feel like a naked money grab and I hope that wasn't the intent. If they are kept in, I guarantee the level of burn out is going to be off the chart.
  • that1guythat1guy Posts: 374
    With regards to the rewards, its pretty damn obvious Kabam is trying to make earning T2A's much harder on AM than it was in SL. For all the hype that was given for the rewards would be better, this really ain't the case.
  • When you do get enough for an AS crystal and your rewarded with a revive???8iytntbwk8ky.jpeg
    Thats just insulting.... especially when you have used more than 5 just to complete 3 rounds. Im quickly losing my patience with this game. Very irritated right now.
  • ManthroManthro Posts: 2,752
    edited December 2017
    St0rmCr0w wrote: »
    When you do get enough for an AS crystal and your rewarded with a revive???8iytntbwk8ky.jpeg
    Thats just insulting.... especially when you have used more than 5 just to complete 3 rounds. Im quickly losing my patience with this game. Very irritated right now.

    I dunno, I'd take revive kit rewards all day every day on this map, but that's just me lol. In the long run, they are the most valuable imo.

    Would be nice to get higher tier ones from this crystal though.
  • edited December 2017

    Hey everyone!

    Thank you all for the feedback on Map 3 thus far. I definitely agree that there are some pain points that need to be sorted out with this new AM.

    DESIGN GOALS

    Before I jump into everyone's concerns, I want to first highlight the goals of our new map:

    • We want players to dig deep into their roster to find the best bots in order to overcome each path
    • We want to create new buffs to challenge players with regards to strategy and playstyle
    • We want to create a map where all players must contribute in order to complete the map


    FEEDBACK


    I'll try to address all the main issues you guys have brought up in this thread:

    Manthro wrote: »
    First and foremost, the singular biggest problem with this map is the complete elimination of any team based play.

    The reason this is an issue is because of the bot/mod combinations and the class matchups placed on the lanes for each theme.

    ...

    Since other players in the BG can't double up or cross into alternate lanes midway through to support with their team on a bad matchup, individuals are stuck having to revive repeatedly.

    The intent behind the map layout is to encourage teamwork during the bot selection and planning phase. We want players to communicate and choose a variety of bots prior to joining up and not just stick with what is currently strong in the meta (ie. G1 Optimus and Ratchet for synergies).

    We expect that it may take a few iterations of AM for players to fully understand how these buffs work and figure out effective strategies to counter each one. That being said, we also realize that our encounter designs may not be ideal and in some cases, may warrant switching out different bots as we move forward.

    Manthro wrote: »
    It's absolutely ridiculous to have a power gain mod that is shut off by DOT effects. You need to rethink what is happening here, and severely reduce the power gain bestowed by any power mod if you insist on retaining that mechanic. The nature of AM is extremely high level bot AI, they gain power way too fast, and it turns back on far too quickly for what it does.

    The new buffs are supposed to add a different layer of challenge, but it looks like in some cases, they have been overtuned. We will be reviewing a number of these buffs over the next few days and iterating on them. Expect a bunch of updates to buffs in Map 3 next week. I will also make sure to post a detailed update on what has changed.
    St0rmCr0w wrote: »
    Now the other thing is mixed time zone bg’s can no longer function correctly. I use to be able to field all sorts of time zones in a single bg and through talking and teamwork we could accomplish defeating the map. Now im having to look at switching players with other alliances so everyones time zones work together and in sync.

    This issue is a bit trickier to address. On the one hand, we definitely want players in all time zones to be able to play together. However, our goal was to have a map where all players must contribute. The mini bosses have only 2 linked nodes leading into them, so you would only need 2 players to open up each boss. Making sure that you have 2 players that are able to move together on those separate paths might help. Unfortunately, it's not something we can find a quick solution to :(

    Manthro wrote: »
    On top of all this, the daily payouts for this level of insanity are not worth the time, effort and energon spent to get through even low difficulty Sanctum maps.

    I've been following the feedback on this one closely. We've even had devs who play the game at a high level complain that there isn't enough motivation to be competitive. I've brought this up with the team and we will be reviewing the rewards and which channels we put them in to make things more competitive.

    Danhansen wrote: »
    No, it is not that simple because they now restricted map2 to level 65
    So you are left between a teamwork-map2 limited to level 65
    Or a sololaned map3, relying on 18 individual to take a lane on their own, without any possibility of any teamwork on a mission that I thought was supposed to be teambased play.

    We cut off Map 2 at Difficulty 65 as we thought that those were the players that would be ready to move on to a map with more complexity and strategy. We had some concerns that the number of active players required would hurt some alliances, which is why the PI of Map 3 difficulty 1 is roughly around where Map 2 difficulty 40 is, so we left another 25 levels of overlap between the two. Perhaps we may have been too aggressive with the cutoff.

    Pred554 wrote: »
    Here is the issue with these games. And this is why I bet on the company not the game.
    You invest thousands of hours or dollars or both into a game and you are at the mercy of the decisions the company makes.
    Please don’t let us down.
    Please know that WE know what’s going on here. That maybe the bottom line is not great so you were forced to make a new map that squeezes every dollar out of its CORE Money Spending players.
    Please do not insult our intelligence by saying “ohhh phases is teamwork” and “we are just trying to give you a challenge”


    Our intention isn't to squeeze money out of our players. To be completely honest, yes, it helps that our players sometimes spend money on the game if they feel like it is worth their while. However, no one is going to spend any money on a game that causes them frustration or makes them not want to play. Map 3 is supposed to create a challenge for players who are ready to move onto a more complex challenge with a group of like minded peers. But like most difficult content, it is hard to strike a balance with the right challenge and our intended player-base. We will definitely monitor both the forums and our data to make sure that we work towards finding that balance moving forward.
    The part I don't like (like many otthers) is that really there is almost
    It's not as simple as saying go back to map 2 if we don't like it. They took away the 66+ maps. There isn't anything of interest for some alliances to go back to.


    We definitely do not want our players to feel discouraged and think that the solution is to go back to doing Map 2. We released Map 3 because we felt like a large part of our player base was ready to take on new challenges and Map 2 was becoming outdated and bland.


    WHAT'S NEXT?

    • We know for sure some of the buffs will need some tweaking, as well as some of the encounters.
    • The team will get together and talk about the rewards we're giving out and how we're giving them out.
    • We'll also visit on Map 2 Difficulty cutoff and if it should be extended.
    • Expect to see an update posted here before the next Alliance Missions starts.

    Thank you everyone for the feedback so far. I also want to apologize again for the rough start we had over the weekend. I hope that all of you will find the next Alliance Mission Event more enjoyable :)

  • SerapthSerapth Posts: 157
    Thank you for the feedback but you missed several points.

    The biggest of which is that there are now 6 paths requiring all players in a BG to completely 100%, which is probably the single biggest problem right now.

    How are you going to address that, this is what is forcing people to spend and is completely killing teamwork.
  • DavienDavien Posts: 758
    edited December 2017
    we have been downgraded in rewards which is the biggest issue. SL rewards don't match with Santum's rewards at the same difficulty.. Yet for Sanctum it is WAYY harder to complete due to mods there and players can't help each other.. forced to slug it out with potions or skill/good bots.

    Furthermore, stupid Sanctum crystals likes to gives revives potions often.. for all our hard work earning 1 crystal on average a day??


    ignore my rant. just noticed Kabam Karma's reply. Looking forward to u guys improving it... :)


  • The intent behind the map layout is to encourage teamwork during the bot selection and planning phase. We want players to communicate and choose a variety of bots prior to joining up and not just stick with what is currently strong in the meta (ie. G1 Optimus and Ratchet for synergies).

    We expect that it may take a few iterations of AM for players to fully understand how these buffs work and figure out effective strategies to counter each one. That being said, we also realize that our encounter designs may not be ideal and in some cases, may warrant switching out different bots as we move forward.


    So in order to do map3 you excpect people to just give up on the bots most have been building since the game was released. 99% are no where near an r5 and have wasted hundreds of bots to forge into an r4 they may finally have gotten these past few weeks. And now, scrap them, start building new bots, get stuck in the same upgrading-hell a year for it to happen again?
    Yeah, great plan. We waste a year upgrading and forging, no where near completing and then you create a map where you want people to start from scratch to adapt to a map? Does that Sound like a great plan?

    On top of that, you think that coordinating who bringes along what bot is teamwork?
    You are missing the point. Teamwork in games is being able to help each other and play together. Not 6 individual lanes. Why have an alliance if I can not play with the members?
  • SerapthSerapth Posts: 157
    Danhansen wrote: »
    On top of that, you think that coordinating who bringes along what bot is teamwork?
    You are missing the point. Teamwork in games is being able to help each other and play together. Not 6 individual lanes. Why have an alliance if I can not play with the members?

    This, this and this again. There was far more teamwork in map 2. Now it's 6 players playing in parallel where failure is not an option or the entire alliance suffers.
  • Serapth wrote: »
    Thank you for the feedback but you missed several points.

    The biggest of which is that there are now 6 paths requiring all players in a BG to completely 100%, which is probably the single biggest problem right now.

    How are you going to address that, this is what is forcing people to spend and is completely killing teamwork.

    Hey Serapth. So, one of our main goals with this map is to make sure that all players are contributing regularly to battlegroup progression. I think if anything, team communication and encouraging your teammates to log in and contribute will become a bigger factor. Although I can see specific instances where this might be frustrating if some players aren't able to log in.

    In regards to players getting killed and forcing spend on the isolated paths - I think we can address this by tuning certain encounters and buffs. An ideal scenario for us would be for the individual path encounters to be interesting, but not overly frustrating (provided players are bringing in the correct bots). The mini-bosses where the 3 players meet should feel challenging like a boss encounter, encouraging all 3 players to work together before unlocking the next area.

    Davien wrote: »
    we have been downgraded in rewards which is the biggest issue. SL rewards don't match with Santum's rewards at the same difficulty.. Yet for Sanctum it is WAYY harder to complete due to mods there and players can't help each other.. forced to slug it out with potions or skill/good bots.

    Furthermore, stupid Sanctum crystals likes to gives revives potions often.. for all our hard work earning 1 crystal on average a day??


    ignore my rant. just noticed Kabam Karma's reply. Looking forward to u guys improving it... :)

    :)
  • You minimized the possibility to farm 4* shards to the point of ridiculousness and now want people to start building again? Why? How is that a challenge? The challenge of farming? Og wait, not possible either because the rewards was nerfed.

    You seem to have no ability to see and admit how much have been taken away from the players and still expect the same participation over and over.

    You still charge 2500 energon for a full 4* and gives next to no way to farm that either Besides the occassional raid store

    So how excactly are we supposed to build squads for the new map?
  • Danhansen wrote: »
    So in order to do map3 you excpect people to just give up on the bots most have been building since the game was released. 99% are no where near an r5 and have wasted hundreds of bots to forge into an r4 they may finally have gotten these past few weeks. And now, scrap them, start building new bots, get stuck in the same upgrading-hell a year for it to happen again?
    Yeah, great plan. We waste a year upgrading and forging, no where near completing and then you create a map where you want people to start from scratch to adapt to a map? Does that Sound like a great plan?

    On top of that, you think that coordinating who bringes along what bot is teamwork?
    You are missing the point. Teamwork in games is being able to help each other and play together. Not 6 individual lanes. Why have an alliance if I can not play with the members?

    Hey Danhansen. We definitely don't want players to feel like they're being 'reset'. Of course, we're not trying to get you guys to scrap your best bots. We just want you to add in a couple of bots that we feel like are good, but under-utilized because in the past, we didn't challenge players with specific bot interactions. Instead we simply increased PI and health of encounters which further encouraged players to zero-in on bots that were simply good all around.

    In terms of the 'upgrade-hell', we hope that with some reward tuning changes, players won't feel 'stuck' as much as they have in the past. I can't guarantee that we'll give you everything you want, but I think we can do better.

    I definitely think that coordinating with your BG and bringing in the right bots is teamwork! But as I pointed out in earlier posts, I think that some of the encounters on the single paths may be over-tuned and so we will do our best to address that in the future. We want the mini-bosses to feel more significant, and players shouldn't feel frustrated with the paths to get there (unless you're not bringing in the correct bots).
  • Also on addition to this some Miniboss are even harder then the real boss like the galva with Randomizer.
    That’s completely insane ,
    He can take out your 3 bots ,
    While 1 bot is taking out whole boss ;(
    Pls do something about it.

    And Now there is no team work needed for this AM you can sperate the game play as we can’t rely on any one and no one rely on me.
  • Hey @Kabam Karma,

    Thanks for your responses and at least responding to the concerns we have.

    I disagree with the teamwork portion. We have players that we plan beforehand to bring to AM, but after that we dont even talk. Everyone already has assigned paths, etc. even with the correct bots we are getting chewed up and left for dead. In map 2 we could at least help a teammate if they lost a bot or 2 by having a bad day. We could bind together and “carry” them through if we had to. All by talking together and planning as we went to get people on those lanes to take out bots so we could all get 100%.

    Another part is if we had someone that had to work, family emergency, went away for a week on vacation, we could still plan and properly do the map 2 (although a reduction in level). This is impossible with map 3.


  • Also on addition to this some Miniboss are even harder then the real boss like the galva with Randomizer.
    That’s completely insane ,
    He can take out your 3 bots ,
    While 1 bot is taking out whole boss ;(
    Pls do something about it.

    And Now there is no team work needed for this AM you can sperate the game play as we can’t rely on any one and no one rely on me.

    We had a bug on Randomizer for the first few days of Map 3 :(
    There was a fix that was implemented on Friday that fixed the issue. Again, apologies for the rocky start! We had some compensation packages go out to all affected players and there will be another round going out for the delayed fixes to both the Randomizer mod in the Spotlight missions and Phase 3 Evolved Power in Map 3.
  • that1guythat1guy Posts: 374
    Hey Karma, I appreciate the time your taking out to reply to the community, really shows you guys want to have an open dialogue with the community.

    With regards to bugs that have been reported by the community, can we expect some sort of compensation for items used to deal with them? I recall phase 3 of Megatron being a huge deal for many that could not get passed by that phase, and Rhinox on the far right side dealing shock damage regardless if it exceeded damage threshold or not after recharging his shield the first time. How will these or any other bugs that have caused players to use items due to inadequate testing be addressed by Kabam?

    Moreover, seeing how the lunch of Ancient Sanctum has been less than pleasant (being very nice here), how will Kabam address future updates to ensure they are close to bug free as possible? I understand this last question can't really be answered, as time will tell, but you have to understand that bugs such as these really frustrate your playerbase as its something out of their hand and with Kabams history with bugs/issues...well you get the idea.
  • Do you guys even take that in account cutting down the map 2 to 65 also cut the rewards.

    Just look at the daily rewards they are not even worth doing after what a user spent for them ,
    250 t3c it will take years to complete a whole one t3c cause there are 6 class in total and other crap like revives and t1A in this .
    Just who want t1A from map-3 :(

    Sorry but the reward system is working on too low rates

    And what difficulty you guys are pushing on us is way to higher .

    Or least do revise on the mini bosses all I ask .
  • that1guy wrote: »
    Hey Karma, I appreciate the time your taking out to reply to the community, really shows you guys want to have an open dialogue with the community.

    With regards to bugs that have been reported by the community, can we expect some sort of compensation for items used to deal with them? I recall phase 3 of Megatron being a huge deal for many that could not get passed by that phase, and Rhinox on the far right side dealing shock damage regardless if it exceeded damage threshold or not after recharging his shield the first time. How will these or any other bugs that have caused players to use items due to inadequate testing be addressed by Kabam?

    Moreover, seeing how the lunch of Ancient Sanctum has been less than pleasant (being very nice here), how will Kabam address future updates to ensure they are close to bug free as possible? I understand this last question can't really be answered, as time will tell, but you have to understand that bugs such as these really frustrate your playerbase as its something out of their hand and with Kabams history with bugs/issues...well you get the idea.

    Hey! We're currently working on compensation for the super-buffed Megatron in phase 3 as well as Shock-happy Rhinox.

    Again, we're really sorry that Map 3 went off to such a rough start. I think we, as a game team, underestimated the complexity of this map and the potential for additional bugs that this causes. We've had a post-mortem on this release already and we're looking at working closer with QA to help the testing process and just giving more time in general for bugs to get caught.

    We know we can do better, and although compensation packages are nice, we'd prefer to get it right the first time :)
  • Do you guys even take that in account cutting down the map 2 to 65 also cut the rewards.

    Just look at the daily rewards they are not even worth doing after what a user spent for them ,
    250 t3c it will take years to complete a whole one t3c cause there are 6 class in total and other crap like revives and t1A in this .
    Just who want t1A from map-3 :(

    Sorry but the reward system is working on too low rates

    And what difficulty you guys are pushing on us is way to higher .

    Or least do revise on the mini bosses all I ask .

    Yes, we are definitely going to review Map 2 cutoff as well as the rewards we're giving out in Map 3!

  • ManthroManthro Posts: 2,752
    The responses are much appreciated, I look forward to seeing some progress on map adjustments.

    Nice to know these concerns are being taken seriously and I'm also glad that for the most part, this thread has had highly constructive criticism and suggestions, with minimal angry ranting.

    Cheers!
  • DIKAIODIKAIO Posts: 18
    Yawn....
  • DIKAIODIKAIO Posts: 18
    Valid points on both ends, BUT, Kabam Karma you just said one of the things Kabam is trying to get us to do is use bots we don't usually use e.g. OG/Rachet etc. The rewards for Map 3 aren't great as many have pointed out, I personally would have liked to see more T3C... what do we get 250 T3C essence, lord I may have a new R5 in 2019 at that rate. If what you say above is accurate e.g. your intention is to not make the players spend more money and is to get the players to use different bots then it should show in the rewards, help the players rank up these different bots by providing rewards that allow them to do that without having to buy your deals. As of now Kabam's actions contradict your message.
  • D3v1LD3v1L Posts: 65
    edited December 2017
    Thanks for all the responses Kabam Karma.
    Here is my suggestion to makes matters more lively and enjoyable in the AM,in the Alliances and in the game as a whole.

    Increase the member cap in the Alliances to 24 members.This will be something huge.

    1.We will have 8 players per BG and this way each side of the new Map will have a backup guy.

    2.I find the paths not extremely hard,but the minis are.The three players on each side have to deal with 3 minibosses alone and after that finish their lanes till the end.There is no teamplay cause if there is no bosskiller here,you just get slaughtered by the minis.
    There are guys who are great at path clearing and others are bosskillers.On this Map we feel alone on each side.

    3.Do not change the mods in my opinion,but just increase the member cap and teamplay will come into work.We will grow into the new challenge together and the fun will be back.

    Off topic,but is related.So I will try not to spread myself too far.

    4.Increasing member cap in Alliances will open more spots for the motivated and skilled player in the midtier Alliances who want to play with the top boys.This will make people push harder to advance faster,so they can join the best Alliances.At the other hand soon many new players will sign in filling the gaps in the beginer and middle tier Alliances.People will be more motivated to try harder and spend cause now they are more and can share their success with more teammates.The social aspect is what keeps people playing these games for so long and with the more people you can share,the better you feel.

    5.You guys just need to alter the milestones in the Alliance events and raise them to be equavalent to the current ones,but based on the new member cap in the Alliances.

    P.S. Even raising the member cap to 21 players in an Alliance will be a huge step forward for the game.
    Thank you for your time.

  • KingChris2KingChris2 Posts: 101
    edited December 2017
    I personally like the new map. Meaning everyone has one path to take and be responsible to take it. It force players to do something, rather that staying back not moving up and letting others to do the dirty job. Everyone has to pull their wait, I really like that. Hope it stay six per BG.

    Yes, there are some mods that need to be tweak and make the reward a bit better.
  • KingChris2 wrote: »
    I personally like the new map. Meaning everyone has one path to take and be responsible to take it. It force players to do something, rather that staying back not moving up and letting others to do the dirty job. Everyone has to pull their wait, I really like that. Hope it stay six per BG.

    Yes, there are some mods that need to be tweak and make the reward a bit better.

    I have to disagree with you in some form. If I had a player not carry their weight they were let go after AM finished and we could still get the job done in map 2 at 100%. If a player decides to not carry their weight in map 3, the other 17 players are now down a third of their completion rewards. It could be they may have a bad day and run out of resources to revive.

    It also doesnt allow for an alliance to take on a player that may be learning the higher tiers and just needs a helping hand to get better rewards. That will no longer be doable. Everyone in map 3 has to be able to clear a path by themselves and take a miniboss. Alliances will now be more picky in who they bring into their alliance if they are running map 3.
  • LaprasLapras Posts: 258
    I understand a section or two having 5 or 6 paths, but the whole map having 6 paths is just dumb. As everyone points out, no teamwork and it is now more of a solo game and feels like playing the expert spotlight.

    This new content really missed the mark IMO and does not motive me to play more.
  • KillMasterCKillMasterC Posts: 3,105
    Some suggestions:
    1. Add a Swap feature so that in each AM, the Leader and Officiers have a total of 3 chances to swap two players during the map run. This can encourage players to communicate more often and make adaptive decision during the fight.
    2. Disable all lanes currently occupied by other teammates in order to prevent accidental overrun.
  • St0rmCr0w wrote: »
    KingChris2 wrote: »
    I personally like the new map. Meaning everyone has one path to take and be responsible to take it. It force players to do something, rather that staying back not moving up and letting others to do the dirty job. Everyone has to pull their wait, I really like that. Hope it stay six per BG.

    Yes, there are some mods that need to be tweak and make the reward a bit better.

    I have to disagree with you in some form. If I had a player not carry their weight they were let go after AM finished and we could still get the job done in map 2 at 100%. If a player decides to not carry their weight in map 3, the other 17 players are now down a third of their completion rewards. It could be they may have a bad day and run out of resources to revive.

    It also doesnt allow for an alliance to take on a player that may be learning the higher tiers and just needs a helping hand to get better rewards. That will no longer be doable. Everyone in map 3 has to be able to clear a path by themselves and take a miniboss. Alliances will now be more picky in who they bring into their alliance if they are running map 3.

    If the player does not want to carry it weight they are acting naive and does not want to spend items. It could hurt him/her in the long term when finding new alliance.

    Is almost impossible to spend 15 items if they do they simple suck. Sometimes I have bad day on AM, but don't spend that much items.

    Alliance are now going to be more clearly what type of player they need on what path it become available.
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