[quote name="Thrawn" date="2014-12-27 19:41:31"][quote name="Dygii" date="2014-12-27 19:07:46"] People shouldn't have to feel the need to grind for hours and hours--and that's, tbh, a poor choice if they do over a virtual pet...[/quote]
Please don't make assumptions or judgement on people who grind for long periods of time in coli.
Maybe some people are chronically ill, disabled, mentally disabled, and maybe this is all they are able to do.
Maybe they can't afford to buy gems, let alone going out, so this is what they do for entertainment.
Maybe some people, like myself, work long hour desk jobs, and grinding coli is all I have to do to keep me from dying of boredom.
Maybe you don't think grinding for hours for a virtual pet is a "proper use of time," but you don't know everyone's story, so please don't judge.[/quote]
@Thrawn I'm not exactly judging, per se, but I'm talking about the people who put 12+ hours into a single grinding period. That's a whole day, and really not healthy. I understand there are people who are in certain situations that leave them few other options than coli grinding--and believe me, I put a lot of time into this site, too!
But coli grinding especially is a huge strain on the hands and wrists for that long, and staring at a screen is a strain on the eyes. I get it if you're stuck at a desk and have nothing else to do, but if you have a [i]choice[/i] on what to do, even if it's limited, at the very least a person should be taking breaks to let their eyes rest. ;^;
That said, I've spent... mmmm, maybe 8 hours on and off in the coli in a single day before? But I also multitask/take breaks to avoid that much strain.
Please don't think I'm being overly judgmental--I just wanted to make a general statement, at the end of the day this is still a game and people shouldn't risk their health over that.
Thrawn wrote on 2014-12-27 19:41:31:
Dygii wrote on 2014-12-27 19:07:46:
People shouldn't have to feel the need to grind for hours and hours--and that's, tbh, a poor choice if they do over a virtual pet...
Please don't make assumptions or judgement on people who grind for long periods of time in coli.
Maybe some people are chronically ill, disabled, mentally disabled, and maybe this is all they are able to do.
Maybe they can't afford to buy gems, let alone going out, so this is what they do for entertainment.
Maybe some people, like myself, work long hour desk jobs, and grinding coli is all I have to do to keep me from dying of boredom.
Maybe you don't think grinding for hours for a virtual pet is a "proper use of time," but you don't know everyone's story, so please don't judge.
@
Thrawn I'm not exactly judging, per se, but I'm talking about the people who put 12+ hours into a single grinding period. That's a whole day, and really not healthy. I understand there are people who are in certain situations that leave them few other options than coli grinding--and believe me, I put a lot of time into this site, too!
But coli grinding especially is a huge strain on the hands and wrists for that long, and staring at a screen is a strain on the eyes. I get it if you're stuck at a desk and have nothing else to do, but if you have a
choice on what to do, even if it's limited, at the very least a person should be taking breaks to let their eyes rest. ;^;
That said, I've spent... mmmm, maybe 8 hours on and off in the coli in a single day before? But I also multitask/take breaks to avoid that much strain.
Please don't think I'm being overly judgmental--I just wanted to make a general statement, at the end of the day this is still a game and people shouldn't risk their health over that.
[quote name="Dygii" date="2014-12-27 21:59:48"][quote name="Thrawn" date="2014-12-27 19:41:31"][quote name="Dygii" date="2014-12-27 19:07:46"] People shouldn't have to feel the need to grind for hours and hours--and that's, tbh, a poor choice if they do over a virtual pet...[/quote]
Please don't make assumptions or judgement on people who grind for long periods of time in coli.
Maybe some people are chronically ill, disabled, mentally disabled, and maybe this is all they are able to do.
Maybe they can't afford to buy gems, let alone going out, so this is what they do for entertainment.
Maybe some people, like myself, work long hour desk jobs, and grinding coli is all I have to do to keep me from dying of boredom.
Maybe you don't think grinding for hours for a virtual pet is a "proper use of time," but you don't know everyone's story, so please don't judge.[/quote]
@Thrawn I'm not exactly judging, per se, but I'm talking about the people who put 12+ hours into a single grinding period. That's a whole day, and really not healthy. I understand there are people who are in certain situations that leave them few other options than coli grinding--and believe me, I put a lot of time into this site, too!
But coli grinding especially is a huge strain on the hands and wrists for that long, and staring at a screen is a strain on the eyes. I get it if you're stuck at a desk and have nothing else to do, but if you have a [i]choice[/i] on what to do, even if it's limited, at the very least a person should be taking breaks to let their eyes rest. ;^;
That said, I've spent... mmmm, maybe 8 hours on and off in the coli in a single day before? But I also multitask/take breaks to avoid that much strain.
Please don't think I'm being overly judgmental--I just wanted to make a general statement, at the end of the day this is still a game and people shouldn't risk their health over that.[/quote]
People tend to exaggerate the hours spent, or they lump together without accounting for time they have spent on breaks. I work eight-ten hours shifts, yes, so naturally, I'm only spending 6 of those hours sporadically grinding coli.
That being said, I reiterate what I said before- you don't know some people's stories. On my days off, if my fibro is acting up, I don't have the energy to do anything but lie in bed and watch videos while grinding coli. When you have chronic fatigue or the like, you don't even have the mental strength to read, and coli is wonderfully mindless when grinding.
It's not always risking health, but helping get over the road bumps one's health throws at them.
and that being said, I've known people play WoW or DAI for twenty hours straight yet they get called hardcore gamers. Why should a pet site have any different connotations attached? It's something they enjoy.
Dygii wrote on 2014-12-27 21:59:48:
Thrawn wrote on 2014-12-27 19:41:31:
Dygii wrote on 2014-12-27 19:07:46:
People shouldn't have to feel the need to grind for hours and hours--and that's, tbh, a poor choice if they do over a virtual pet...
Please don't make assumptions or judgement on people who grind for long periods of time in coli.
Maybe some people are chronically ill, disabled, mentally disabled, and maybe this is all they are able to do.
Maybe they can't afford to buy gems, let alone going out, so this is what they do for entertainment.
Maybe some people, like myself, work long hour desk jobs, and grinding coli is all I have to do to keep me from dying of boredom.
Maybe you don't think grinding for hours for a virtual pet is a "proper use of time," but you don't know everyone's story, so please don't judge.
@
Thrawn I'm not exactly judging, per se, but I'm talking about the people who put 12+ hours into a single grinding period. That's a whole day, and really not healthy. I understand there are people who are in certain situations that leave them few other options than coli grinding--and believe me, I put a lot of time into this site, too!
But coli grinding especially is a huge strain on the hands and wrists for that long, and staring at a screen is a strain on the eyes. I get it if you're stuck at a desk and have nothing else to do, but if you have a
choice on what to do, even if it's limited, at the very least a person should be taking breaks to let their eyes rest. ;^;
That said, I've spent... mmmm, maybe 8 hours on and off in the coli in a single day before? But I also multitask/take breaks to avoid that much strain.
Please don't think I'm being overly judgmental--I just wanted to make a general statement, at the end of the day this is still a game and people shouldn't risk their health over that.
People tend to exaggerate the hours spent, or they lump together without accounting for time they have spent on breaks. I work eight-ten hours shifts, yes, so naturally, I'm only spending 6 of those hours sporadically grinding coli.
That being said, I reiterate what I said before- you don't know some people's stories. On my days off, if my fibro is acting up, I don't have the energy to do anything but lie in bed and watch videos while grinding coli. When you have chronic fatigue or the like, you don't even have the mental strength to read, and coli is wonderfully mindless when grinding.
It's not always risking health, but helping get over the road bumps one's health throws at them.
and that being said, I've known people play WoW or DAI for twenty hours straight yet they get called hardcore gamers. Why should a pet site have any different connotations attached? It's something they enjoy.
[quote name="AlfredFJones" date="2014-12-23 02:01:22"]"Nocturnes are not worth it anymore"
Oh trust me, when you finally get an egg or scroll, usually everything was worth it.[/quote]
[b]
Not so true! I've gotten a nocturne scroll and two eggs but seeing the community getting upset over the event just gives off a bad aura. Events are supposed to be fun??? Grinding for chests in a turn-based battle game and waiting every day for what can sometimes be a measly ammount of prizes - which aren't always good - isn't really my idea of fun, nor many people's I would think.
When I think of events similar to this I think of events in some MMOs. The methods of completing them are typically catered to the level of the player but while the coliseum has venues for 5 different level ranges, gathering has no alterings made to it during these gathering events meaning lower levelled players have the advantage as they find less items while digging.
[i]I believe there would be 3 solutions to a problem like this:[/b][/i]
[size=3][b]1[/b] - [b]Make levels irrelivant during events[/b]. It would be damaging if it went on for too long but two weeks at the end of each month isn't that bad. This would mean everyone would get the same potential items at the same rarity thus removing (or at least reducing) the ammount of players disappointed by their ammount of chests as it would be fair. Having a possible lower find rate at higher levels gives no reward to maxing out levels!
[b]2[/b] - [b]Raise the commonness of chests[/b]. While this would be damaging to the auction house by altering the commonness of chests people would have more oppertunities to stumble across these very rare items, resulting in happier chest openers.
[b]3[/b] - [b]Freebies[/b]. If you cant win them over then why not try and make the pain of a grind-based event a little less painful with some semi-valuble freebies? Perhaps in the method of grab bags? Pick a bag related to an item genre like Apparel or Familiars and get some free event related items? It's just a thought but I think that'd be a nice idea regardless of anything else. For those who don't want to go to the trouble of expending themselves for the full event, why not open a little free gift?
AlfredFJones wrote on 2014-12-23 02:01:22:
"Nocturnes are not worth it anymore"
Oh trust me, when you finally get an egg or scroll, usually everything was worth it.
Not so true! I've gotten a nocturne scroll and two eggs but seeing the community getting upset over the event just gives off a bad aura. Events are supposed to be fun??? Grinding for chests in a turn-based battle game and waiting every day for what can sometimes be a measly ammount of prizes - which aren't always good - isn't really my idea of fun, nor many people's I would think.
When I think of events similar to this I think of events in some MMOs. The methods of completing them are typically catered to the level of the player but while the coliseum has venues for 5 different level ranges, gathering has no alterings made to it during these gathering events meaning lower levelled players have the advantage as they find less items while digging.
I believe there would be 3 solutions to a problem like this:
1 - Make levels irrelivant during events. It would be damaging if it went on for too long but two weeks at the end of each month isn't that bad. This would mean everyone would get the same potential items at the same rarity thus removing (or at least reducing) the ammount of players disappointed by their ammount of chests as it would be fair. Having a possible lower find rate at higher levels gives no reward to maxing out levels!
2 - Raise the commonness of chests. While this would be damaging to the auction house by altering the commonness of chests people would have more oppertunities to stumble across these very rare items, resulting in happier chest openers.
3 - Freebies. If you cant win them over then why not try and make the pain of a grind-based event a little less painful with some semi-valuble freebies? Perhaps in the method of grab bags? Pick a bag related to an item genre like Apparel or Familiars and get some free event related items? It's just a thought but I think that'd be a nice idea regardless of anything else. For those who don't want to go to the trouble of expending themselves for the full event, why not open a little free gift?
@
Pokemon
I don't think you read my answer properly.
'If you're given a special way to earn something,
then it's completely valid to acquire the thing through normal means, yes, and I'm not arguing with anyone who chooses to do that because I probably will too, but it doesn't have the same participatory feel to it.'
I should have probably added 'for me' to the end of that sentence. I apologise for upsetting you. Your playstyle is entirely valid.
@
Pokemon
I don't think you read my answer properly.
'If you're given a special way to earn something,
then it's completely valid to acquire the thing through normal means, yes, and I'm not arguing with anyone who chooses to do that because I probably will too, but it doesn't have the same participatory feel to it.'
I should have probably added 'for me' to the end of that sentence. I apologise for upsetting you. Your playstyle is entirely valid.
I went to the pictures tomorrow
And took a front seat at the back
A lady gave me a banana
I ate it and gave it her back
So, people who don't grind much and are annoyed at the drop rate are "Selfish entitled whiners," and people who grind a whole lot and are annoyed at the drop rate are "Living in their mum's basement"...
Maturity and empathy reign. =/
You know that criticising something like this is a good thing (as long as we keep it civil, which the vast majority of us have been) because it helps the admins to learn from their mistakes and make it better and more fun next time, right?
So, people who don't grind much and are annoyed at the drop rate are "Selfish entitled whiners," and people who grind a whole lot and are annoyed at the drop rate are "Living in their mum's basement"...
Maturity and empathy reign. =/
You know that criticising something like this is a good thing (as long as we keep it civil, which the vast majority of us have been) because it helps the admins to learn from their mistakes and make it better and more fun next time, right?
Y'know, I still like the concept of this game, and I congrats the admin for what they did, like always giving something new that probably requires a lot of artwork, but the more I'm here, the more glitchy it seems.
I've never fixed a glitch so of course I'm in no place to say weither it is or isn't hard, but I'd like to at least hear them. Sometimes they do answer and imply they're working on a way to fix the glitches, but sometimes it just feels like they're ignoring.
The whole gathering system just bugs me. I never throught I'd see a game where levelling up is actually a bad thing. I already saw complaints of it before the event (again, mostly ignored) but now it's made obvious. It dosen't matter how many gathering turns I get, because I have high levels in both scavenging and digging, I'm pretty much guaranteed to get no scroll/egg or even chest
It's nice to see the admins get recognized for their work, but I'd like everyone to aknowledge the obvious flaws too.
Oh and @
Bananadog , Maybe you think you're funny...
But trust me, you're not.
And if your way of being funny is to bash people because they have different points of view, you're no better than someone who "live in their mother's basement"
Y'know, I still like the concept of this game, and I congrats the admin for what they did, like always giving something new that probably requires a lot of artwork, but the more I'm here, the more glitchy it seems.
I've never fixed a glitch so of course I'm in no place to say weither it is or isn't hard, but I'd like to at least hear them. Sometimes they do answer and imply they're working on a way to fix the glitches, but sometimes it just feels like they're ignoring.
The whole gathering system just bugs me. I never throught I'd see a game where levelling up is actually a bad thing. I already saw complaints of it before the event (again, mostly ignored) but now it's made obvious. It dosen't matter how many gathering turns I get, because I have high levels in both scavenging and digging, I'm pretty much guaranteed to get no scroll/egg or even chest
It's nice to see the admins get recognized for their work, but I'd like everyone to aknowledge the obvious flaws too.
Oh and @
Bananadog , Maybe you think you're funny...
But trust me, you're not.
And if your way of being funny is to bash people because they have different points of view, you're no better than someone who "live in their mother's basement"
To people responding to BananaDog:
I hate to be that person, but don't feed the troll.
Comments like that one, actively written to be antagonistic and childish, exist solely to get a response out of people. Responding only encourages it. There have been a few people who've responded to this thread with thought out and rational objections to the overall negative critique of the event (even if I have largely disagreed with them), and they're absolutely worth the time to respond to, because they're taking the time to be civil and think out what they're saying (hi, Pokemon!), but comments like that are only worth one thing: ignoring.
To people responding to BananaDog:
I hate to be that person, but don't feed the troll.
Comments like that one, actively written to be antagonistic and childish, exist solely to get a response out of people. Responding only encourages it. There have been a few people who've responded to this thread with thought out and rational objections to the overall negative critique of the event (even if I have largely disagreed with them), and they're absolutely worth the time to respond to, because they're taking the time to be civil and think out what they're saying (hi, Pokemon!), but comments like that are only worth one thing: ignoring.
[quote name="VagabondSentinel" date="2014-12-26 18:23:11"]I've been reading this thread from the beginning, and there are a few objections to people taking issue with this event that are being brought up over and over again that really bother me.
[b]One: Comparing this game to major, "hardcore" games like Pokemon and World of Warcraft is invalid.[/b]
I have never been a shiny-hunter in Pokemon. I just don't care. That said, I do play WoW (For the Horde!), and I have ground and still do grind in that game on a pretty consistent basis. Allow me to momentarily call out all the reasons this analogy is invalid, most of which have been brought up patchily elsewhere, some of them several times, but just to consolidate.
1. Hardcore games are skinner boxes designed to appeal to hardcore gamers. Flight Rising is a browser game skinner box designed to appeal to casual gamers. The kinds of things you can expect out of a [i]hardcore[/i] audience does not compare to the kinds of things you can expect out of a [i]casual[/i] audience. Do people play Flight Rising hardcore? Yes. Is it a hardcore game? Not even a little bit. Games must be designed with their audience in mind, and that means that if you are making a game for casual gamers, you have to bear in mind that they are [i]casual[/i] gamers. Is there anything wrong with that? Absolutely not. As with any game, however, knowing what your target audience is and designing [i]for[/i] your audience is critical to good game design. If this is a mistake that the devs are making, then it is an egregious oversight that is unacceptable in professional game design.
2. I know for a fact this has been said before, but hardcore games [i]do not put a time limit[/i] on events like this. That super-rare shiny, that rare-drop mount, those can be acquired [i]at any time[/i]. I'm [i]still[/i] intermittently grinding for Ashes of Al'ar, and that is seven year old content. Now, Ashes of Al'ar is something I could easily have if I would grind more seriously, something I just don't care enough to do, but the point remains that it is seven year old content that I can still grind for. A two week time limit changes this dramatically.
3. As per the beautiful post several pages back regarding gating, there are only two gates on shinies (find it, catch it) and only two on rare drops in WoW (get the drop, win the need/greed roll). There are, what? Nearly a dozen, if I recall, listed in that post to the rare drops in this event? Again, the analogy falls through.
[b]Two: People complaining about not getting anything are [i]not[/i] entitled.[/b]
I'm sorry, no. It's not about entitlement. If random gifts were handed out to every player by the devs, with 2% of them containing something better than the others, and people who got the other 98% were complaining that they didn't get the "best" gift, that would be entitlement. This is not that. This is being told, "You can [b]maybe[/b] have this, if you work for it, work for it some more, work for it some [i]more[/i], and [b]get lucky[/b], and we're going to do it at a time of year that, regardless of your upbringing and religious views, you, if you are in the [i]majority[/i] of the first world, have been trained to view as a time of generosity and giving, which means that it is going to be perceived as a gift."
To say "that is a flaw in the views of the players" is intrinsically incorrect. See "target audience", above. Sorry, no. The devs chose a time of year where anything they do is going to be perceived as an attempt at a gift, and then they made it an event where, if you work really, really hard... you [i]might[/i] get something. The devs are wrong.
Furthermore, and this is something important to bear in mind: this game is a skinner box. A skinner box functions by getting a person to perform x action for y reward. If pushing a button fifty times will give me a treat, I'll push the button fifty times. If pushing the button one hundred times might give me one treat and might give me three treats, I'm going to push it one hundred times. If pushing a button three thousand times might, possibly, give me a treat, if I'm lucky... why would I push it? By making the event function this way, the devs have inherently undermined their own core game element: they broke the skinner box.
[b]Three: Statements to the effect of "It's like you've never seen bugs before" and similar such commentary are not only condescending and rude, but also thoroughly discount the purpose of having active devs.[/b]
You know what this isn't? 1990. Games released now, even console games, are regularly [i]updated[/i] with bug fixes. That is the purpose of having active devs working on them. Even terrible, horrifyingly buggy games are regularly updated to fix bugs.
You see, even with a dedicated QA team of 250+ employees at one location and three total locations doing QA, I watched a game go through production at a major AAA developer with bugs that had to be fixed after release. Do games get released with bugs? Yes, 100%. Is it right at all for anyone to expect a game not to have bugs? Absolutely not. It isn't coherent or sane.
That said, the title I'm thinking of had a day one patch to fix a bug that was found post-shipment. Almost everyone sees patches like that on games. When a bug is found, it is fixed with some relative speed. While completely game-breaking bugs are fixed on Flight Rising, as has been brought up several times already, the devs have a habit of choosing to deny that their bugs are bugs. The gathering bug is something that I have been seeing threads about for ages, some of them extremely well thought out and well presented. The response is always the same: "working as intended". If that is true, the intent is broken.
The purpose of actively developing a game is to fix those bugs. No, it is not possible to release something completely bug free, even with a AAA budget, which this game did not have. Yes, it [i]is[/i] possible to move forward and repair them as you go on. If the staff is not currently up to doing so, then a problem exists with the staffing.
If you can't do it with the people you have, get more people.
[b]Four: The Coliseum is not a core game element, or, if it is, then the devs have failed abysmally.[/b]
Several people have said that the Coliseum is a core game element, and that those who say they don't participate in it are ignoring a major aspect of the game. This line of thinking is intrinsically wrong.
First off, core game elements are things that either cannot be avoided or are largely detrimental to avoid. Gathering is a core game element. Breeding is arguably a core game element. Pretty much everything else is not. If you can play this game and get a lot out of it for a year without touching the Coliseum, it is not a core game element. If it is intended to be, then that is a critical design flaw on the part of the devs.
Secondly, if the Coliseum is a core game element, then there is a very, very serious problem, because [i]the Coliseum is and has been broken[/i]. There are a half-dozen or better [i]known issues[/i] with the coliseum that significantly detrimentally impact a player's ability to perform. While that by no means makes it impossible (I regularly grind in the Coli, myself, with a very high success rate), it is not acceptable for a core game element in a game to be broken and remain unrepaired for this long. If it's a core game element, something is wrong, and if it's not ... something is still wrong, because it is made critical to the completion of this event.
[b]Five: Stating that you can just 'save and buy it' is not a solution.[/b]
I'm not going to spend much time on this one. I don't need to. The long and short of this is that, if the solution to the broken elements of this event boil down to, "pawn the problem off on someone else and just buy the stuff you want", then the problems are too significant to function. This is not solving the problem. This is throwing a rug over it and hoping nobody notices. This was released as an event, not a purchasable in the marketplace. As such, it needs to be considered and analyzed [i]as[/i] an event - not turned into a purchasable on the auction house and called 'good enough'. That doesn't fix anything.
[b]In conclusion:[/b]
The big issues with this event stand: the RNG is abysmally low, the lack of a guarantee of anything is detrimental to the type of game this is, the objections to people not enjoying the event are flawed, and the problems with this have become so glaring that a not-inconsiderable sum of people feel the need to voice their objections and, in many cases, give up on participating in the event, because it is disheartening.
This event needs to be a lesson to the dev team. It's not realistic to salvage it now, though there are ways to salve the figurative wound, but it [i]needs[/i] to be an object lesson. Mistakes have been made. To object to people calling them out is detrimental to the advancement of the game and a hindrance to everyone, not a help.[/quote]
Bringing this back because I think it could use a few more eyes. I'm a couple days late to the party here, but @VagabondSentinel I want to congratulate you on a great post.
VagabondSentinel wrote on 2014-12-26 18:23:11:
I've been reading this thread from the beginning, and there are a few objections to people taking issue with this event that are being brought up over and over again that really bother me.
One: Comparing this game to major, "hardcore" games like Pokemon and World of Warcraft is invalid.
I have never been a shiny-hunter in Pokemon. I just don't care. That said, I do play WoW (For the Horde!), and I have ground and still do grind in that game on a pretty consistent basis. Allow me to momentarily call out all the reasons this analogy is invalid, most of which have been brought up patchily elsewhere, some of them several times, but just to consolidate.
1. Hardcore games are skinner boxes designed to appeal to hardcore gamers. Flight Rising is a browser game skinner box designed to appeal to casual gamers. The kinds of things you can expect out of a hardcore audience does not compare to the kinds of things you can expect out of a casual audience. Do people play Flight Rising hardcore? Yes. Is it a hardcore game? Not even a little bit. Games must be designed with their audience in mind, and that means that if you are making a game for casual gamers, you have to bear in mind that they are casual gamers. Is there anything wrong with that? Absolutely not. As with any game, however, knowing what your target audience is and designing for your audience is critical to good game design. If this is a mistake that the devs are making, then it is an egregious oversight that is unacceptable in professional game design.
2. I know for a fact this has been said before, but hardcore games do not put a time limit on events like this. That super-rare shiny, that rare-drop mount, those can be acquired at any time. I'm still intermittently grinding for Ashes of Al'ar, and that is seven year old content. Now, Ashes of Al'ar is something I could easily have if I would grind more seriously, something I just don't care enough to do, but the point remains that it is seven year old content that I can still grind for. A two week time limit changes this dramatically.
3. As per the beautiful post several pages back regarding gating, there are only two gates on shinies (find it, catch it) and only two on rare drops in WoW (get the drop, win the need/greed roll). There are, what? Nearly a dozen, if I recall, listed in that post to the rare drops in this event? Again, the analogy falls through.
Two: People complaining about not getting anything are not entitled.
I'm sorry, no. It's not about entitlement. If random gifts were handed out to every player by the devs, with 2% of them containing something better than the others, and people who got the other 98% were complaining that they didn't get the "best" gift, that would be entitlement. This is not that. This is being told, "You can maybe have this, if you work for it, work for it some more, work for it some more, and get lucky, and we're going to do it at a time of year that, regardless of your upbringing and religious views, you, if you are in the majority of the first world, have been trained to view as a time of generosity and giving, which means that it is going to be perceived as a gift."
To say "that is a flaw in the views of the players" is intrinsically incorrect. See "target audience", above. Sorry, no. The devs chose a time of year where anything they do is going to be perceived as an attempt at a gift, and then they made it an event where, if you work really, really hard... you might get something. The devs are wrong.
Furthermore, and this is something important to bear in mind: this game is a skinner box. A skinner box functions by getting a person to perform x action for y reward. If pushing a button fifty times will give me a treat, I'll push the button fifty times. If pushing the button one hundred times might give me one treat and might give me three treats, I'm going to push it one hundred times. If pushing a button three thousand times might, possibly, give me a treat, if I'm lucky... why would I push it? By making the event function this way, the devs have inherently undermined their own core game element: they broke the skinner box.
Three: Statements to the effect of "It's like you've never seen bugs before" and similar such commentary are not only condescending and rude, but also thoroughly discount the purpose of having active devs.
You know what this isn't? 1990. Games released now, even console games, are regularly updated with bug fixes. That is the purpose of having active devs working on them. Even terrible, horrifyingly buggy games are regularly updated to fix bugs.
You see, even with a dedicated QA team of 250+ employees at one location and three total locations doing QA, I watched a game go through production at a major AAA developer with bugs that had to be fixed after release. Do games get released with bugs? Yes, 100%. Is it right at all for anyone to expect a game not to have bugs? Absolutely not. It isn't coherent or sane.
That said, the title I'm thinking of had a day one patch to fix a bug that was found post-shipment. Almost everyone sees patches like that on games. When a bug is found, it is fixed with some relative speed. While completely game-breaking bugs are fixed on Flight Rising, as has been brought up several times already, the devs have a habit of choosing to deny that their bugs are bugs. The gathering bug is something that I have been seeing threads about for ages, some of them extremely well thought out and well presented. The response is always the same: "working as intended". If that is true, the intent is broken.
The purpose of actively developing a game is to fix those bugs. No, it is not possible to release something completely bug free, even with a AAA budget, which this game did not have. Yes, it is possible to move forward and repair them as you go on. If the staff is not currently up to doing so, then a problem exists with the staffing.
If you can't do it with the people you have, get more people.
Four: The Coliseum is not a core game element, or, if it is, then the devs have failed abysmally.
Several people have said that the Coliseum is a core game element, and that those who say they don't participate in it are ignoring a major aspect of the game. This line of thinking is intrinsically wrong.
First off, core game elements are things that either cannot be avoided or are largely detrimental to avoid. Gathering is a core game element. Breeding is arguably a core game element. Pretty much everything else is not. If you can play this game and get a lot out of it for a year without touching the Coliseum, it is not a core game element. If it is intended to be, then that is a critical design flaw on the part of the devs.
Secondly, if the Coliseum is a core game element, then there is a very, very serious problem, because the Coliseum is and has been broken. There are a half-dozen or better known issues with the coliseum that significantly detrimentally impact a player's ability to perform. While that by no means makes it impossible (I regularly grind in the Coli, myself, with a very high success rate), it is not acceptable for a core game element in a game to be broken and remain unrepaired for this long. If it's a core game element, something is wrong, and if it's not ... something is still wrong, because it is made critical to the completion of this event.
Five: Stating that you can just 'save and buy it' is not a solution.
I'm not going to spend much time on this one. I don't need to. The long and short of this is that, if the solution to the broken elements of this event boil down to, "pawn the problem off on someone else and just buy the stuff you want", then the problems are too significant to function. This is not solving the problem. This is throwing a rug over it and hoping nobody notices. This was released as an event, not a purchasable in the marketplace. As such, it needs to be considered and analyzed as an event - not turned into a purchasable on the auction house and called 'good enough'. That doesn't fix anything.
In conclusion:
The big issues with this event stand: the RNG is abysmally low, the lack of a guarantee of anything is detrimental to the type of game this is, the objections to people not enjoying the event are flawed, and the problems with this have become so glaring that a not-inconsiderable sum of people feel the need to voice their objections and, in many cases, give up on participating in the event, because it is disheartening.
This event needs to be a lesson to the dev team. It's not realistic to salvage it now, though there are ways to salve the figurative wound, but it needs to be an object lesson. Mistakes have been made. To object to people calling them out is detrimental to the advancement of the game and a hindrance to everyone, not a help.
Bringing this back because I think it could use a few more eyes. I'm a couple days late to the party here, but @
VagabondSentinel I want to congratulate you on a great post.
10 hours ahead of FR time -- may be slow to respond to messages
@
VagabondSentinel
Your post is a thing of beauty.
Especially the points regarding audience and core elements, as these are two things the site has had problems with for a long time but has usually been swept under the rug before or not taken seriously.
Almost all of the problems with this event can be summed up in one word: "Maybe".
Maybe you'll get an egg or not.
Maybe you'll get a familiar or not.
Maybe you'll find something before time runs out and not.
That "Maybe" is one of the biggest problems. This is a browser game, and this is a timed event. Events are fun because you get something out of it. There needs to be a reward, but so far getting one feels so abysmally low that it doesn't feel worth it. And to people saying that you should wait until the end of the week to say anything, that is not how an event works.
Another problem is how events always lock themselves into digging and scavenging. I really need to spend some of those turns gathering food, and since I'm neither a coli player nor very rich I can't just farm or buy it - I've relied on gathering for food since I joined. And the food we get from the chests are a joke.
@
VagabondSentinel
Your post is a thing of beauty.
Especially the points regarding audience and core elements, as these are two things the site has had problems with for a long time but has usually been swept under the rug before or not taken seriously.
Almost all of the problems with this event can be summed up in one word: "Maybe".
Maybe you'll get an egg or not.
Maybe you'll get a familiar or not.
Maybe you'll find something before time runs out and not.
That "Maybe" is one of the biggest problems. This is a browser game, and this is a timed event. Events are fun because you get something out of it. There needs to be a reward, but so far getting one feels so abysmally low that it doesn't feel worth it. And to people saying that you should wait until the end of the week to say anything, that is not how an event works.
Another problem is how events always lock themselves into digging and scavenging. I really need to spend some of those turns gathering food, and since I'm neither a coli player nor very rich I can't just farm or buy it - I've relied on gathering for food since I joined. And the food we get from the chests are a joke.
[quote name="VagabondSentinel" date="2014-12-26 18:23:11"]I've been reading this thread from the beginning, and there are a few objections to people taking issue with this event that are being brought up over and over again that really bother me.
[b]One: Comparing this game to major, "hardcore" games like Pokemon and World of Warcraft is invalid.[/b]
I have never been a shiny-hunter in Pokemon. I just don't care. That said, I do play WoW (For the Horde!), and I have ground and still do grind in that game on a pretty consistent basis. Allow me to momentarily call out all the reasons this analogy is invalid, most of which have been brought up patchily elsewhere, some of them several times, but just to consolidate.
1. Hardcore games are skinner boxes designed to appeal to hardcore gamers. Flight Rising is a browser game skinner box designed to appeal to casual gamers. The kinds of things you can expect out of a [i]hardcore[/i] audience does not compare to the kinds of things you can expect out of a [i]casual[/i] audience. Do people play Flight Rising hardcore? Yes. Is it a hardcore game? Not even a little bit. Games must be designed with their audience in mind, and that means that if you are making a game for casual gamers, you have to bear in mind that they are [i]casual[/i] gamers. Is there anything wrong with that? Absolutely not. As with any game, however, knowing what your target audience is and designing [i]for[/i] your audience is critical to good game design. If this is a mistake that the devs are making, then it is an egregious oversight that is unacceptable in professional game design.
2. I know for a fact this has been said before, but hardcore games [i]do not put a time limit[/i] on events like this. That super-rare shiny, that rare-drop mount, those can be acquired [i]at any time[/i]. I'm [i]still[/i] intermittently grinding for Ashes of Al'ar, and that is seven year old content. Now, Ashes of Al'ar is something I could easily have if I would grind more seriously, something I just don't care enough to do, but the point remains that it is seven year old content that I can still grind for. A two week time limit changes this dramatically.
3. As per the beautiful post several pages back regarding gating, there are only two gates on shinies (find it, catch it) and only two on rare drops in WoW (get the drop, win the need/greed roll). There are, what? Nearly a dozen, if I recall, listed in that post to the rare drops in this event? Again, the analogy falls through.
[b]Two: People complaining about not getting anything are [i]not[/i] entitled.[/b]
I'm sorry, no. It's not about entitlement. If random gifts were handed out to every player by the devs, with 2% of them containing something better than the others, and people who got the other 98% were complaining that they didn't get the "best" gift, that would be entitlement. This is not that. This is being told, "You can [b]maybe[/b] have this, if you work for it, work for it some more, work for it some [i]more[/i], and [b]get lucky[/b], and we're going to do it at a time of year that, regardless of your upbringing and religious views, you, if you are in the [i]majority[/i] of the first world, have been trained to view as a time of generosity and giving, which means that it is going to be perceived as a gift."
To say "that is a flaw in the views of the players" is intrinsically incorrect. See "target audience", above. Sorry, no. The devs chose a time of year where anything they do is going to be perceived as an attempt at a gift, and then they made it an event where, if you work really, really hard... you [i]might[/i] get something. The devs are wrong.
Furthermore, and this is something important to bear in mind: this game is a skinner box. A skinner box functions by getting a person to perform x action for y reward. If pushing a button fifty times will give me a treat, I'll push the button fifty times. If pushing the button one hundred times might give me one treat and might give me three treats, I'm going to push it one hundred times. If pushing a button three thousand times might, possibly, give me a treat, if I'm lucky... why would I push it? By making the event function this way, the devs have inherently undermined their own core game element: they broke the skinner box.
[b]Three: Statements to the effect of "It's like you've never seen bugs before" and similar such commentary are not only condescending and rude, but also thoroughly discount the purpose of having active devs.[/b]
You know what this isn't? 1990. Games released now, even console games, are regularly [i]updated[/i] with bug fixes. That is the purpose of having active devs working on them. Even terrible, horrifyingly buggy games are regularly updated to fix bugs.
You see, even with a dedicated QA team of 250+ employees at one location and three total locations doing QA, I watched a game go through production at a major AAA developer with bugs that had to be fixed after release. Do games get released with bugs? Yes, 100%. Is it right at all for anyone to expect a game not to have bugs? Absolutely not. It isn't coherent or sane.
That said, the title I'm thinking of had a day one patch to fix a bug that was found post-shipment. Almost everyone sees patches like that on games. When a bug is found, it is fixed with some relative speed. While completely game-breaking bugs are fixed on Flight Rising, as has been brought up several times already, the devs have a habit of choosing to deny that their bugs are bugs. The gathering bug is something that I have been seeing threads about for ages, some of them extremely well thought out and well presented. The response is always the same: "working as intended". If that is true, the intent is broken.
The purpose of actively developing a game is to fix those bugs. No, it is not possible to release something completely bug free, even with a AAA budget, which this game did not have. Yes, it [i]is[/i] possible to move forward and repair them as you go on. If the staff is not currently up to doing so, then a problem exists with the staffing.
If you can't do it with the people you have, get more people.
[b]Four: The Coliseum is not a core game element, or, if it is, then the devs have failed abysmally.[/b]
Several people have said that the Coliseum is a core game element, and that those who say they don't participate in it are ignoring a major aspect of the game. This line of thinking is intrinsically wrong.
First off, core game elements are things that either cannot be avoided or are largely detrimental to avoid. Gathering is a core game element. Breeding is arguably a core game element. Pretty much everything else is not. If you can play this game and get a lot out of it for a year without touching the Coliseum, it is not a core game element. If it is intended to be, then that is a critical design flaw on the part of the devs.
Secondly, if the Coliseum is a core game element, then there is a very, very serious problem, because [i]the Coliseum is and has been broken[/i]. There are a half-dozen or better [i]known issues[/i] with the coliseum that significantly detrimentally impact a player's ability to perform. While that by no means makes it impossible (I regularly grind in the Coli, myself, with a very high success rate), it is not acceptable for a core game element in a game to be broken and remain unrepaired for this long. If it's a core game element, something is wrong, and if it's not ... something is still wrong, because it is made critical to the completion of this event.
[b]Five: Stating that you can just 'save and buy it' is not a solution.[/b]
I'm not going to spend much time on this one. I don't need to. The long and short of this is that, if the solution to the broken elements of this event boil down to, "pawn the problem off on someone else and just buy the stuff you want", then the problems are too significant to function. This is not solving the problem. This is throwing a rug over it and hoping nobody notices. This was released as an event, not a purchasable in the marketplace. As such, it needs to be considered and analyzed [i]as[/i] an event - not turned into a purchasable on the auction house and called 'good enough'. That doesn't fix anything.
[b]In conclusion:[/b]
The big issues with this event stand: the RNG is abysmally low, the lack of a guarantee of anything is detrimental to the type of game this is, the objections to people not enjoying the event are flawed, and the problems with this have become so glaring that a not-inconsiderable sum of people feel the need to voice their objections and, in many cases, give up on participating in the event, because it is disheartening.
This event needs to be a lesson to the dev team. It's not realistic to salvage it now, though there are ways to salve the figurative wound, but it [i]needs[/i] to be an object lesson. Mistakes have been made. To object to people calling them out is detrimental to the advancement of the game and a hindrance to everyone, not a help.[/quote]
Cosigned.
I like that they tried a new way of introducing a new breed. But the drop rate should be higher, breed change scrolls selling for more then $50 worth of gems is outrageous.
Opening more than a thousand chests with nothing is ridiculous.
The broken gathering needs to be addressed.
I have been lucky in this event, and I think that there needs to be a higher drop rate. Make it a challenge, but a surmountable challenge!
I wouldn't mind as much if it had more skill or puzzles, perhaps if nocs could somehow be put in to the flashgames. (A challenging flash game where you get a noc past a certain level perhaps?)
I know some games, like several years ago Gaia actually brought on an economist to help straighten out the game's economy. That could help here.
There may not be time to fix this event, but down the road I hope they learn a lot from this and are open to suggestions.
VagabondSentinel wrote on 2014-12-26 18:23:11:
I've been reading this thread from the beginning, and there are a few objections to people taking issue with this event that are being brought up over and over again that really bother me.
One: Comparing this game to major, "hardcore" games like Pokemon and World of Warcraft is invalid.
I have never been a shiny-hunter in Pokemon. I just don't care. That said, I do play WoW (For the Horde!), and I have ground and still do grind in that game on a pretty consistent basis. Allow me to momentarily call out all the reasons this analogy is invalid, most of which have been brought up patchily elsewhere, some of them several times, but just to consolidate.
1. Hardcore games are skinner boxes designed to appeal to hardcore gamers. Flight Rising is a browser game skinner box designed to appeal to casual gamers. The kinds of things you can expect out of a hardcore audience does not compare to the kinds of things you can expect out of a casual audience. Do people play Flight Rising hardcore? Yes. Is it a hardcore game? Not even a little bit. Games must be designed with their audience in mind, and that means that if you are making a game for casual gamers, you have to bear in mind that they are casual gamers. Is there anything wrong with that? Absolutely not. As with any game, however, knowing what your target audience is and designing for your audience is critical to good game design. If this is a mistake that the devs are making, then it is an egregious oversight that is unacceptable in professional game design.
2. I know for a fact this has been said before, but hardcore games do not put a time limit on events like this. That super-rare shiny, that rare-drop mount, those can be acquired at any time. I'm still intermittently grinding for Ashes of Al'ar, and that is seven year old content. Now, Ashes of Al'ar is something I could easily have if I would grind more seriously, something I just don't care enough to do, but the point remains that it is seven year old content that I can still grind for. A two week time limit changes this dramatically.
3. As per the beautiful post several pages back regarding gating, there are only two gates on shinies (find it, catch it) and only two on rare drops in WoW (get the drop, win the need/greed roll). There are, what? Nearly a dozen, if I recall, listed in that post to the rare drops in this event? Again, the analogy falls through.
Two: People complaining about not getting anything are not entitled.
I'm sorry, no. It's not about entitlement. If random gifts were handed out to every player by the devs, with 2% of them containing something better than the others, and people who got the other 98% were complaining that they didn't get the "best" gift, that would be entitlement. This is not that. This is being told, "You can maybe have this, if you work for it, work for it some more, work for it some more, and get lucky, and we're going to do it at a time of year that, regardless of your upbringing and religious views, you, if you are in the majority of the first world, have been trained to view as a time of generosity and giving, which means that it is going to be perceived as a gift."
To say "that is a flaw in the views of the players" is intrinsically incorrect. See "target audience", above. Sorry, no. The devs chose a time of year where anything they do is going to be perceived as an attempt at a gift, and then they made it an event where, if you work really, really hard... you might get something. The devs are wrong.
Furthermore, and this is something important to bear in mind: this game is a skinner box. A skinner box functions by getting a person to perform x action for y reward. If pushing a button fifty times will give me a treat, I'll push the button fifty times. If pushing the button one hundred times might give me one treat and might give me three treats, I'm going to push it one hundred times. If pushing a button three thousand times might, possibly, give me a treat, if I'm lucky... why would I push it? By making the event function this way, the devs have inherently undermined their own core game element: they broke the skinner box.
Three: Statements to the effect of "It's like you've never seen bugs before" and similar such commentary are not only condescending and rude, but also thoroughly discount the purpose of having active devs.
You know what this isn't? 1990. Games released now, even console games, are regularly updated with bug fixes. That is the purpose of having active devs working on them. Even terrible, horrifyingly buggy games are regularly updated to fix bugs.
You see, even with a dedicated QA team of 250+ employees at one location and three total locations doing QA, I watched a game go through production at a major AAA developer with bugs that had to be fixed after release. Do games get released with bugs? Yes, 100%. Is it right at all for anyone to expect a game not to have bugs? Absolutely not. It isn't coherent or sane.
That said, the title I'm thinking of had a day one patch to fix a bug that was found post-shipment. Almost everyone sees patches like that on games. When a bug is found, it is fixed with some relative speed. While completely game-breaking bugs are fixed on Flight Rising, as has been brought up several times already, the devs have a habit of choosing to deny that their bugs are bugs. The gathering bug is something that I have been seeing threads about for ages, some of them extremely well thought out and well presented. The response is always the same: "working as intended". If that is true, the intent is broken.
The purpose of actively developing a game is to fix those bugs. No, it is not possible to release something completely bug free, even with a AAA budget, which this game did not have. Yes, it is possible to move forward and repair them as you go on. If the staff is not currently up to doing so, then a problem exists with the staffing.
If you can't do it with the people you have, get more people.
Four: The Coliseum is not a core game element, or, if it is, then the devs have failed abysmally.
Several people have said that the Coliseum is a core game element, and that those who say they don't participate in it are ignoring a major aspect of the game. This line of thinking is intrinsically wrong.
First off, core game elements are things that either cannot be avoided or are largely detrimental to avoid. Gathering is a core game element. Breeding is arguably a core game element. Pretty much everything else is not. If you can play this game and get a lot out of it for a year without touching the Coliseum, it is not a core game element. If it is intended to be, then that is a critical design flaw on the part of the devs.
Secondly, if the Coliseum is a core game element, then there is a very, very serious problem, because the Coliseum is and has been broken. There are a half-dozen or better known issues with the coliseum that significantly detrimentally impact a player's ability to perform. While that by no means makes it impossible (I regularly grind in the Coli, myself, with a very high success rate), it is not acceptable for a core game element in a game to be broken and remain unrepaired for this long. If it's a core game element, something is wrong, and if it's not ... something is still wrong, because it is made critical to the completion of this event.
Five: Stating that you can just 'save and buy it' is not a solution.
I'm not going to spend much time on this one. I don't need to. The long and short of this is that, if the solution to the broken elements of this event boil down to, "pawn the problem off on someone else and just buy the stuff you want", then the problems are too significant to function. This is not solving the problem. This is throwing a rug over it and hoping nobody notices. This was released as an event, not a purchasable in the marketplace. As such, it needs to be considered and analyzed as an event - not turned into a purchasable on the auction house and called 'good enough'. That doesn't fix anything.
In conclusion:
The big issues with this event stand: the RNG is abysmally low, the lack of a guarantee of anything is detrimental to the type of game this is, the objections to people not enjoying the event are flawed, and the problems with this have become so glaring that a not-inconsiderable sum of people feel the need to voice their objections and, in many cases, give up on participating in the event, because it is disheartening.
This event needs to be a lesson to the dev team. It's not realistic to salvage it now, though there are ways to salve the figurative wound, but it needs to be an object lesson. Mistakes have been made. To object to people calling them out is detrimental to the advancement of the game and a hindrance to everyone, not a help.
Cosigned.
I like that they tried a new way of introducing a new breed. But the drop rate should be higher, breed change scrolls selling for more then $50 worth of gems is outrageous.
Opening more than a thousand chests with nothing is ridiculous.
The broken gathering needs to be addressed.
I have been lucky in this event, and I think that there needs to be a higher drop rate. Make it a challenge, but a surmountable challenge!
I wouldn't mind as much if it had more skill or puzzles, perhaps if nocs could somehow be put in to the flashgames. (A challenging flash game where you get a noc past a certain level perhaps?)
I know some games, like several years ago Gaia actually brought on an economist to help straighten out the game's economy. That could help here.
There may not be time to fix this event, but down the road I hope they learn a lot from this and are open to suggestions.
Flag by osiem
