If any dev on here somehow sees this, thank you for the hotfix. I don't care if it is perfect, or if it actually fixes all the issues with the meta we might have going forward for the next month. The fact that you did not shy away from instanerfing some obviously strong decks is exactly what we need. I hope you do these more often.
External link →Glad you like it. The team worked hard to get it in before break. :)
Not to be rude, but the fix you would need to make code wise, would be very simple. Do you mean worked hard because there was other stuff they needed to do/prepare for, as well as push this patch out after and make sure things would not break? I'm just confused, because changing just the mana costs should not be too hard. I'd imagine removing attune would be the one requiring to do a bit more. But yeah, I'm just curious what the hardest part is. I'd imagine it has something to do with how you guys push something live, and not the code bit being changed for cards.
Very simple code-wise. Not so simple in process.
Every change we make needs to go through a build process that takes hours (like most game development) before it can be tested in a full version by QA on their machines on various devices. If I make a change on Monday it likely can't get tested until Tuesday morning. If something isn't correct, then we have to go through the cycle again. A simple change can have a minimum of 1-2 days of turnaround even if things already go well, which means getting stuff in earlier.
Additionally, we have to figure out which changes to make. What's going to be best for improving the meta with minimum disruption to the players that like the card or decks we're affecting? If a deck is the problem, should we hit multiple cards a little in that deck or one card a lot? Which one? Even in the case of Champion's Strength being a clear target, how to nerf it? Should we lower the stat gain? Increase the mana cost? Both? Change the keywords? Maybe make it significantly weaker in stats but LOWER the mana cost? Multiple this across all decks that we could consider hotfixing.
Once we pick a direction, how much time should we spend playtesting to confirm it's a good approach? Playtesting takes time after all, and often we're trying to adjust win rates by under 10% for a deck archetype. If you play just 10 games with a deck that has a 58% win rate and 10 more with a deck that has a 49% win rate, the average win rate of each is 5.8 and 4.9. That's an average difference in just 1 win, and there's actually a decent chance the 49% deck matches or beats the 58% deck in results in this kind of sample size. If the two players aren't of exactly even skill level (which they never are on a dev team) the results are further warped.
And we aren't planning on delaying other important stuff for a hot fix if at all possible, we want to find time to work it in among other things. :)
First of all, thanks for such a thorough response! I have only ever made more indie-type of games and worked on a small scale server/data assignment that tracks records etc for college. And I know when we had to update something, pushing live was not much of an issue. BUT it was for only one platform as well.That actually makes more sense now, and I completely overlooked that. Compatibility issues. So many different devices you all have to worry about other than just something like PC, and makes sense why it would take longer to test across all of them.
Normally I'd agree with what changes to make or test, but I feel like with CS it was kind of obvious what to change. Because it is a card that even if not performing that well, is not very fun to go up against. And sometimes it still is not, if they get a lucky squirrel and get the mana down. But I could see the part where you think about other stuff to nerf with it to make the things it beat not become a power house suddenly.
Anyways thanks for the in-depth response, and helping me understand why such a simple change can actually end up being more work behind scenes. As I said, I only ever really dealt with the code side of things, not worrying about pushing stuff out and worrying about compatibility, QA, etc. So I enjoy learning about these type of things.
No problem. If it involved a text change that'd also involve localization across multiple languages and then QA'ing all those too, so it can add up really quick. Often a small indie project (which I've also worked on) is much faster - espescially if it's PvE oriented. A path of champions change for example is a bit lower stakes than PvP because the balancing point is inherently less precise.
If a given adventure ends up a bit easier or harder than intended, that's not a big deal - hard adventures and easy adventures can both be fun as long as it's in the same general ballpar. A small percent change in win condition matters way more.
When I worked on Faeria the technical hurdles to push to live for a single platform were much smaller (and the quality bar of optimization wasn't as high as Riot's) but the game design side of figuring out and testing the right balance point was still pretty time consuming. :)
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