What is currently wrong with the end game

[Kreegan]

Thanks Nate and everyone else, for the feedback.

Nate, if you don't have the resources to make frequent trend analysis, checking in-game issues, etc. - which you apparently don't as you are working alone - you can ask the community for assistance wherever possible. I've no doubt that many people here, including myself, will be happy to help. Of course I'm not talking about giving access to "classified" game data to someone who plays PoW but about using the tools which are already at everyone's disposal to provide feedback which can later be used to improve the game. This is already done in a sense but in a chaotic and unstructured manner, by everyone providing some opinion once in a while - if you think it's possible, you can organize the crew, give tasks and so on, then we'll do the job for you to the best of our abilities. I suppose you understand that threads like this exist because the game is actually very good and I (and other people) want to keep playing, not to spew random hate toward the not-so-flawless aspects of PoW.

I can say much more about Blood Gods and the difference between what it should be and what it is but that's pointless at the moment. Please consider the suggestion above. There should (and normally there is) a way to make a product likeable to nearly everybody, with the right approach.

[Nate]

As always, thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it. I'll see what I can come up with to help address some of the concerns that have been voiced. As you can see opinions run the spectrum from lots of things need improvement to everything is mostly fine. The main concerns I see are below and some quick notes on them:

- Gladiators having trouble making the jump from Primus to Blood Gods.
I have two thoughts on this. One is it is a big jump. The other is, Masters should be preparing for Blood Gods when they are in Primus. They should be gearing up using Conquests and The Gauntlet. I see some Masters doing that and their gladiators are hitting the ground running, the ones who are not doing that aren't doing as well. I'm sure those who are not doing it have their reasons. I'll see if I can help with this.

- Players who don't have the time to play as much as they would like to, but still want to remain highly competitive.
It is true as the game has grown the time required to play it has also grown if you want to experience all of it. The way most free to play games solve this problem is by enabling players to trade money for time as this doesn't affect power only the time it takes to get from point A to B. I'll see what I can do to help alleviate time issues for some players. One more note on this though. Nobody should ever expect to be able to walk up to the counter, drop a sack of gold and walk away with a "I win everything potion". I'll try and help those interested save time, but you'll still have to earn it.

- The speed and/or ability to get the exact gear wanted for a gladiator.
This is very subjective so there is no clear answer. What I will say however is there are tiers of items for a reason. Many people want to jump right from epics to legendaries and skip the fabled tier. That tier is there for a reason. That tier is what will help enable you to earn your legendaries easier. Pit of War is a journey not a destination kind of game. Everyone takes their lumps and everyone gets to deal out the lumps, the only difference is when it happens. Regardless, I'll think upon this as well.

I'll spend some time thinking about some possible quick fixes and then think up some longer term solutions as well for many of the concerns. As the game grows some areas lag behind, it is inevitable, however, they will always be addressed in time, that I promise. Keep in mind the game is always in development and the game you see now with whatever limitations you see is probably not the game it will be tomorrow and I probably already saw the limitations/issues before you did and have a plan to address them. I've got some interesting irons in the fire now for example that I think will be a lot of fun. Thanks again for your feedback.

Good luck in the Pit!

-Nate-

[Cynaidh]

Just going to throw my thoughts out there, I have a feeling i am in the minority on how i feel about some of these issues but what the hell doesn't hurt to try.

- Gladiators having trouble making the jump from Primus to Blood Gods.
I have two thoughts on this. One is it is a big jump. The other is, Masters should be preparing for Blood Gods when they are in Primus. They should be gearing up using Conquests and The Gauntlet. I see some Masters doing that and their gladiators are hitting the ground running, the ones who are not doing that aren't doing as well. I'm sure those who are not doing it have their reasons. I'll see if I can help with this.

This one part "They should be gearing up using Conquests and The Gauntlet" honestly makes me very sad, one of the things i have always loved about Pit of War (and duelmasters for that matter) is that they where pure PvP games, you matched up against other players, with countless possibilities per match, with how there strategy worked against yours, with each person constantly making changes every match up between two glads could be totally different fights. Now PoW has always had some small amounts of PvE with the tavern runs and arena challenges but these where not a large time sink at all and are in fact two clicks now total to do (yes i spend 2 trophies to do the tavern fights on all my guys till they are maxed out). PvE to me is boring, once you figure out a PvE fight its over, you now know how to beat it every time, they aren't even good reads cause they are just repetition over and over. So with this statement your saying to be ready for the end game PvP you now have to do the PvE, which probably for most people is fine for most but for me is just too large of a time sink and much more boring play.

Now as to how to fix this, i would like to offer a suggestion, the Conquests is a very nice PvE experience so why not make the Gauntlet be a PvP experience, keep the same format (you team up with a friend to fight) but instead of going against PvE minions match them up against two or three random gladiators from the arena. Keep it fair buy using the ranking system points, for example if your glad has 100 rank points and your friend has 500, you'd go up against two or three glads who have 600 + n rank points total (the n would go up for each level of the gauntlet your on, so 0 for the first round of fights, +50 for the 2nd round.... to make each round of fights more challenging, the first fights would be against two glads and the higher end fights against three, each round would just be one fight in this set up instead of 10 to keep the time constant low and to make up for the fact that facing real gladiators would be more challenging then the PvE minions). I personally think this would be a lot of fun and a good alternate way to get ready for the Blood Gods instead of being forced to PvE.

- Players who don't have the time to play as much as they would like to, but still want to remain highly competitive.
It is true as the game has grown the time required to play it has also grown if you want to experience all of it. The way most free to play games solve this problem is by enabling players to trade money for time as this doesn't affect power only the time it takes to get from point A to B. I'll see what I can do to help alleviate time issues for some players. One more note on this though. Nobody should ever expect to be able to walk up to the counter, drop a sack of gold and walk away with a "I win everything potion". I'll try and help those interested save time, but you'll still have to earn it.

I look forward to seeing how this is implemented.

- The speed and/or ability to get the exact gear wanted for a gladiator.
This is very subjective so there is no clear answer. What I will say however is there are tiers of items for a reason. Many people want to jump right from epics to legendaries and skip the fabled tier. That tier is there for a reason. That tier is what will help enable you to earn your legendaries easier. Pit of War is a journey not a destination kind of game. Everyone takes their lumps and everyone gets to deal out the lumps, the only difference is when it happens. Regardless, I'll think upon this as well.

I have no disagreements here, the only thing i would add is that currently going from epics to fabled is very hard if you only do the arena fights, its very hard to get 30 wins to get full points if your just in epic gear, i have 2 glads going threw this right now, in 4 weeks of being in blood gods i finally got enough points to get 1 fabled item (by spending trophies, if i would not have spent trophies i don't think they would have gotten any before the arena reset) and that seems really slow.

[oedi]

one of the things i have always loved about Pit of War (and duelmasters for that matter) is that they where pure PvP games

I totally agree with cyn on this, to me the game was at its best when it came out, almost no grind, just the strat, reading fights, fine tuning the strat and the anticipation for the next days fights. Pure joy and no boring stuff.

Now the game has turned more or less into mindless grinding work, more boring than my real work, and in my case I actually pay to do it. So why do I still play, I just got to much money and time invested in this game, and im done with all grinding, and with Rylok-Zul`s blessing I`ll never do it again. Im sad to say this but grinding out conquest in its current form is probably the most boring game experience ive had in 30 years of computer gaming. Its like Cyn said when youve beaten pve once youll rather not do it again, it becomes tedious on boring real fast.

Ive tried to quit but just didnt manage to do it, so instead I made some changes. Downsized to 10 glads, focused my efforts on 2 glads, which after a while just became 1122. So atm im actively playing 1 gladiator, tracking his fight que, changing strats and equipment to fit the next opponent. This is the only thing I truly enjoy about this game, and why I still play, even though there are so many things that make me go crazy from time to time.
Only grind I do is the tavern runs for the occasional fight token.

The small part of the game that I still enjoy is just AWESOME, and gives me the same feeling that made me play duelmasters for 15 years

[Adoede]

Absolutely agree the PvP aspect is by far the most compelling part of the game and the reason I got started and stuck around.

I loved Duelmasters for not muddying the PVP with magical weapons and armor and boosts and the grinding required to get them. Just a pure and incredibly competitively balanced strategy vs. strategy play. Lovely. So simple...but so rich an experience.

No "hump" to get over.
No arbitrary need to "take your lumps" as you're developing because you're always matched against relative peers.
And even though it was just PvP and there were no other "things to do" - I remember spending hours in my youth scouting opponents, planning challenges, and tweaking strategies.

[Dainoji]

Some of you must play much different than me. I don't feel like I'm grinding at all. I log in each day and do my routine, if I have time I'll do a few conquests and skip the heal timers if I'm in a rush maybe have a gauntlet run going as well that I check in on throughout the day. I work in front of a computer so it is easy. I'm sure that doesn't apply to everyone though. I like the direction the game is moving in and look forward to the PvE section getting fleshed out, especially the single player mode Nate mentioned. I also enjoy the PvP and get plenty of it in the arena and Blood Games.

[oedi]

1122 currently owns 29 legendary pieces, of those hes bought 6 with bgp(3 weapons and 3 armor pieces) Those 23 other pieces hes earned by grinding gaunlet and conquest, and you dont get 23 legendaries by casually running gauntlets and conquests. Its hard work and painfully boring. Im amazed by Sotec that still run conquests daily.
One thing im certain of and that is without channeling all my efforts into 1122 he still only be a wanna be contender.

[oedi]

Ok I just cant resist Ill add my own whats wrong to the list.
If I couldve made one change to the game it wouldve been how the blacksmith refreshes. You got your points, you got your rating, you know what you want, you saw it just yesterday and you took a screenshot, feeling a little sad that you couldnt buy it, but now you can and start looking.
after 100 refreshes you start getting a little annoyed, after 100 more frustrated, still 100 more angry, yet another 100 desperation sets in, 100 more goes down to much is lost you just cannot stop, another 100 now your just feeling stupid, close to 700 or was it 800 thropies you just give up an buy whatever shows in the list. Now you just want to cry, you write angry mails to Nate and promise yourself youll never buy another thropy.

Im feeling much better now, think this was about 6 months ago.
The point is that equipment is so important, especially the weapons/shields you just cannot alow yourself to waste 4 months of saved bgp on the random stuff that shows the last day of the season. And for war glads with the most choices in both weapons and armor the search sometimes feels just endless.

[Adoede]

Haha - I'm laughing and crying with you Oedi cuz I did the exact same thing this past seasons (only with about 300 trophies, not 800). I also vowed never to use trophies like that again and it so turned me off that I seriously considered not buying any more trophies at all. That's why I'm now okay with my glads being mediocre for a while.

Now...if there was a better system in place I might start buying trophies again - something that you could see more results for the actual money invested. (Not trying to manipulate Nate here...just being honest).

[Prinny]

Ok I just cant resist Ill add my own whats wrong to the list.
If I couldve made one change to the game it wouldve been how the blacksmith refreshes. You got your points, you got your rating, you know what you want, you saw it just yesterday and you took a screenshot, feeling a little sad that you couldnt buy it, but now you can and start looking.
after 100 refreshes you start getting a little annoyed, after 100 more frustrated, still 100 more angry, yet another 100 desperation sets in, 100 more goes down to much is lost you just cannot stop, another 100 now your just feeling stupid, close to 700 or was it 800 thropies you just give up an buy whatever shows in the list. Now you just want to cry, you write angry mails to Nate and promise yourself youll never buy another thropy.

Im feeling much better now, think this was about 6 months ago.
The point is that equipment is so important, especially the weapons/shields you just cannot alow yourself to waste 4 months of saved bgp on the random stuff that shows the last day of the season. And for war glads with the most choices in both weapons and armor the search sometimes feels just endless.

Completely agree iwht ya on this and I've dropped the issue on both forums and chats multiple times, the blacksmith refreshing really just plainly sucks especially for wars whom as you said have both the most weapons and the most armour options. It's so bad that I actually pick a rage when trying to find a weapon for my war because at the very least I will get 2 armour type options and 2 weapon type options less when cycling with a rage.

Hence I will drop it by here again, make an option to atleast let us disable getting light armour from the blacksmith when refreshing with wars because the moment my war is casually carrying light armour is the moment I am going to retire it.