Future updates and general discussion from another thread

[Nate]

I've created this thread to move a couple of conversations from other threads.

There has been talk of Season and Blood Games prizes. Blood Games prizes have indeed been extremely generous for some time now because the game currently has a limited number of ways to reward gladiators and I wanted to extend the "Grand Opening" phase of the new Blood Games format which admittedly has gone on a little longer than planned. Yay for time constraints! :) In the not too distant future Blood Games prizes will be changing as will Season prizes. Anyone who would like to make serious suggestions as to what those prizes could be are welcome to post them here and I'll see if I can work them into the design.

There has been some discussion about the leveling speed in Blood Gods not being fast enough for some, just right for others. As always, you'll never make everyone happy, however, to move the needle closer to making more people happy, I'll be introducing the ability to speed up Blood God leveling even more for those players interested. Pit of War was designed with an "old school" spirit and for many it brings them back to a days when games were slower paced and long lived. Many of today's games are designed to be hyper paced with very fast progression with the consequence of being short lived. It's why many of us install and uninstall numerous games on our phones on a daily or weekly basis and move from game to game without a second thought. Supply has outstripped demand and never before has there been so many games available to us. Pit of War has thrived for over four years by evolving somewhat to the trends but still trying to remain true to its roots. The support of many players in our community has made this possible and I am thankful everyday for that and will continue to do my best in making PoW a fun and flexible game that can accommodate as wide a range of gaming habits as possible.

Good luck in the Pit!

-Nate-

[mallafax]

IMO the pace of the game is great.if i wanted a disposable game i would play one of the many out there.love pit of war!!!

[Team Kaos]

I grew up playing PBM war games, gladiator games and sports games. For those not in the know PBM means "Play by Mail" and I'm not talking email either. Lick a stamp, send it on its way and wait till next week for some results mail, so POW is lightning in my opinion.

I thought the 2 fights a day at the birth of POW was just right for planning and anticipation as well as anxiety.

On the prizes question, membership extensions and vault spots would be welcoming in my opinion. Gear is great but the need to continuously having to delete other gear is a bit upsetting.

[Adoede]

Ideas for prizes:
Simple fix:
Blood Games - Keep as is
Seasons - Separate set of ranks like the Blood Games prizes corresponding thusly:
Top 1-3 rank = 1st place finish
Top 4-6 rank = 2nd place finish
Top 7-10 rank = 3rd place finish

Or these other prize option ideas:
1) A potion to switch one stat with another on a new slave. (So if the roll up was awesome, but had 90 presence and 65 size, you could switch those two stats)
2) Your choice of any 1 existing legendary piece of gear
3) Bonus 10,000 BGP at the start of the next season
4) Trophy prizes: 2500 trophies for 1st place (equivalent of 1 piece of legendary gear), 1250 trophies for 2nd place, 750 trophies for 3rd place. (Plus the achievement prizes above)
5) A potion to switch the specialty of your glad (matching skill points used; losing all gear pieces that are no longer usable by your new specialty)
6) Conversion of one additional achievement slot so that it can be purchased with gold instead of trophies
7) A potion that permanently boosts a base stat of your glad: i.e. potion of Strength +5 (so you can use it on any of your glads to boost their base strength by 5 points - to a max of 100)

[Stormcloak]

I'm quite happy with the levelling pace, and find it more rewarding to have a slower progression. With how Blood Gods is structured to stay fighting within the same tier, you also don't feel like you're getting pummelled and outclassed.
The gear progression seems a bit on the slow side (even with conquest grinding) - if we could carry over more BGP that would help.

As for new rewards, I like some of the ideas mentioned above by Adoede and Kaos. I'd be careful about ones that give a significant permanent performance advantage, especially if it can be stacked and the advantage can keep accumulating.
I think some games that embrace the "free to play" philosophy over the "pay to win" model look to vanity rewards (example - a custom weapon picture, or coloured dye for an armour piece, etc) as part of the reward system. Perhaps some of those can be included in?
Another interesting idea could also be a custom made weapon or piece of armour. For that though, the winner would probably have to pm with you on what they were looking for within certain parameters (eg - "I want a medium helmet with a bonus to strength, presence, and block" and you would create something for them that fit within the game balance but was in line with what they're looking for).

[Apoca1ypse]

Leveling feels really slow to me, despite having played back when it took ages to complete anything (when PoW started)

I didnt mind the slow levelingfrom 50-55 back when all the gladiators were doing the same slog as things were still rather even, and you didnt feel behind the 8 ball. With lvl 55 gladiators now being well established, having a new gladiator take the grind from 50-55 really sucks, and it's disheartening. I know that it is in part because I'm impatient, and want my new glads to reach the 'end game' where my other glads are, but 5 months to get to 55 has just put me off altogether, and doesnt make me want to invest the time in new gladiators/classes when the time comes.

Like Cyn, I remember way back when new gladiators/builds were appearing all the time when there was the lvl 50 cap (even before buying extra fights was a thing). You could easily come up with something, and test it within 2 months. If it didnt work, you could just get another slave and test out the next idea. Now, if you want to test something, it will take 6 months (at least) before you can see if the concept actually works, not to mention the time to find the gear to go with it. Sure, you could retrain existing gladiators, but that will take forever with how many training points you get in Blood Gods, and how long you have to wait to get the end of season reward of 200TPs if you perform poorly.

I guess my point is that such slow levelling to the end game is not fun for many of us, and I feel that it stifles creativity.

[Kreegan]

I'm fine with the levelling speed and the slow start in Blood Gods doesn't really bother me. I can see where the others are coming from though so increasing the progression pace somehow wouldn't hurt, at least. Blood Gods currently almost completely lacks gold economy so perhaps something to spend gold on, like a paid version of the Pit Fights where you can earn XP (up to a daily cap) instead of items could do the trick.

[Stormcloak]

What if there was a stable upgrade where you could pick up two "training glads" for lack of a better word? They could compete against each other but not in any of the brackets or games. You could train up all skills (points and xp but no gold from tavern runs) but only have 100 training points sunk into them at any time. They could use any strategy, equip any weapons or armour you have, and reassigning training points is free. This way you could try different builds against each other to experiment. It would still take the 6 months to bring up a competitive glad, but at least this way you'd have a better idea of what you were doing beforehand.

[Nate]

Thanks for the feedback everyone, I appreciate it. I'm working on some options to help those who want a faster pace to have it and for those who like it slower can just keep playing as normal. I'll release a few of the easier to implement options soon and then more involved ones later. Regarding prizes for the Blood Games and Seasons they'll be moving more towards customized items, vanity gear, gear only attainable via rewards, gladiator enhancements, things impossible to do within the game currently, etc.

Thanks again for all the feedback, and if you haven't added yours yet, feel free to do so anytime. :)

Good luck in the Pit!

-Nate-

[Apoca1ypse]

vanity gear

Gimme my dumbbells!

[Lunarion199]

Hi Nate,

I am a casual player of this game and can't do any grinding due to time constraints but I am around here since long. Appreciate the development that keeps happening to the game from time to time. I have some suggestions, few of them from a couple similar games I play; hope you won't mind at least giving a thought.

- Slave restart: Sometimes the slave is just outstanding in his base attributes so we may not want to lose him; but if for any reason we want to change his build altogether it might help if we are able to do so with an ample trophy cost, bringing him back to level 1 and with a choice to choose a fresh school and speciality for him.

- Slave renaming: If for a small trophy cost if we are able to change the name of a slave, maybe to give a better name or to correct the spelling mistakes, it might be good.

- Achievement slots: If the third and forth of the achievement slots can also be purchased optionally with huge amount of gold it might be worth a place for ongoing investment of the earned gold. Otherwise once we have the right gear on the gladiator the gold just accumulates to that 999,999,999... limit and thereafter generally only used to auto repair and stuff like that.

- Choice of prize: If a player is given the choice of selecting one of the rewards it might become more interesting. Say between a gear piece and a set of training points, one might choose gear if he needs one; or one might choose training points if he feels them more worth picking.

- Pit fight weapons: If I am not wrong Entangle skill triggers only with nets or whips. If we base our build on it the skill may not trigger in the pit fights if the gladiator doesn't get a whip or net there. So in pit fights it might perhaps be fair if the weapon a gladiator gets is the same actual weapon he is equipping in the equipment slot.

If I am saying anything vague or redundant please ignore. Sincere thanks for making it a good game to play.
Regards

[Pit Lord]

I'm against permanent stats boosts in any form (switching cheap stat for expensive stat included) or any additional advantage as reward. I dislike the blood games achievements like +833 block +667 bleeding and + 667 armor and I suggest to actually remove them unless you can argue why 15 times winner would need such enchantments.
I like:
- vanity gear;
- special text lines at the beginning of arena match / during fight / on winning the fight / using abilities;
- gladiator name in the rankings can have different color;
- things that won't influence game balance;

[Adoede]

In general, I have to say I agree with Pit Lord that stat boosts and massive achievement boosts can create balance problems in the game...if anyone ever got them. So if they were to fall by the wayside, I would be totally fine with that.

I really like the idea for customizable gear though! Artwork-wise, I know it is costly, so I'd be fine with just being able to select what bonuses that custom gear would have...and choosing a cool name for it:) If you keep the artwork the same, then it won't cost much to implement and perhaps more glads could qualify for the prizes...say top 10?

[Apoca1ypse]

I'm a big fan of anything that does not lead to an in game advantage. Vainity gear/text is a great way for people to feel rewarded without getting a combat advantage :)

That, and I really want Ahhnold to wield a barbell as his 2H weapon :P Feel da pump!

[mallafax]

How about being able to sell eq bought with bgp back for bgp instead of just gold?

[Nate]

Thanks for the additional feedback and suggestions.

Good luck in the Pit!

-Nate-

[Seventhunderz]

Hi Nate,

I am a casual player of this game and can't do any grinding due to time constraints but I am around here since long. Appreciate the development that keeps happening to the game from time to time. I have some suggestions, few of them from a couple similar games I play; hope you won't mind at least giving a thought.

- Slave restart: Sometimes the slave is just outstanding in his base attributes so we may not want to lose him; but if for any reason we want to change his build altogether it might help if we are able to do so with an ample trophy cost, bringing him back to level 1 and with a choice to choose a fresh school and speciality for him.

- Slave renaming: If for a small trophy cost if we are able to change the name of a slave, maybe to give a better name or to correct the spelling mistakes, it might be good.

- Achievement slots: If the third and forth of the achievement slots can also be purchased optionally with huge amount of gold it might be worth a place for ongoing investment of the earned gold. Otherwise once we have the right gear on the gladiator the gold just accumulates to that 999,999,999... limit and thereafter generally only used to auto repair and stuff like that.

- Choice of prize: If a player is given the choice of selecting one of the rewards it might become more interesting. Say between a gear piece and a set of training points, one might choose gear if he needs one; or one might choose training points if he feels them more worth picking.

- Pit fight weapons: If I am not wrong Entangle skill triggers only with nets or whips. If we base our build on it the skill may not trigger in the pit fights if the gladiator doesn't get a whip or net there. So in pit fights it might perhaps be fair if the weapon a gladiator gets is the same actual weapon he is equipping in the equipment slot.

If I am saying anything vague or redundant please ignore. Sincere thanks for making it a good game to play.
Regards

I really like this "Slave Restart" idea. I just retired a gladiator that, ever day I played him, I wished I hadn't made him what I did. Really good stats, I just was a total failure with the build I chose.

Also, "Pit Fight Weapons"- I've run into some problems with this too. Had a Pole Arms War, used Spear & Lunge, did well enough in PF when he got a Spear, but was poor with other Pole Arms better served with bash.
Presently have a Shadow, using Exotics, but not Nets & Whips, and no skill in Entangle. Up to level 40, he was very consistent in getting into the top 10 on days I had time to work him there. But at 40 and on, it seems he almost always has either a Whip or Net, and looses well over 50% of his Pit Fights. (now at level 50, win % = 68.8%) I think he would do about that well in Pit Fights without Entangle, Nets & Whips involved in his use of weapons.