Grey Havens you've made your endgame worse. Why?
I want one reason as to why shadow lairs were changed at all. Whoever the mastermind was behind this change, please give at minimum a single reason as to why it occurred or the "thought" behind it. We have not heard a reason for this change. I didn't think it possible but you somehow made the overall gameplay experience of your game worse. We were wondering what you had in mind when you were making this change.
Again, just even a little bit of the thought process that went into the idea of making the 8 year old dungeons (shadow lairs) take two or three times longer for no added reason or reward would be so very much appreciated.
Thanks.
I say there are some serious cognitive dissonance going on between GH (and its cheerleaders) and the average SK players. GH thinks that players would like a challenging dungeon, but that is just the yapping of GH cheerleaders (there is a reason why I call them that) that they listen to.
You can see this with their latest dungeon, the trea(sh)sure vault: A highly punishing dungeon, with an unimaginative boss and payout you can get in RJP's first level. A trinket that is cool in concept but probably won't worth the slot when comparing to modules and heart lockets. Three new floor hazards with little to no explanations or warnings. And it replaces a dungeon level that I actually look forward to.
They did no testing on the dungeon and simply released it, GH seems to have made these decisions in a vacuum. Instead of addressing the issues still present in their games, GH charged head on and wasted 1~2 years of development time on a very rare dungeon. I honestly wonder if any GH developer actually play SK without any kind of cheat/mod power, if they did, this game wouldn't be this tediously grindy. Play 100+ vana runs is not fun by anyone's standard.
When GH shut themselves away from their playerbase, they are doomed to their own errors and incompetence.
The reception to lairs on release was "wow, this is just going to be FSC 2, how original." Improving their crown payout just switches you from one daily chore to another. It would still be grind. It doesn't need to be a bigger crown pump than FSC.
That's still no reason for DFV to have negative total payout though. Worse payout per-second than FSC, fine, but negative? Even splitting the key three ways you're paying like 30k to get in for only 20k back, all with energy being what's actually getting sunk in the process. So you drive up E prices and lose money in the process. And all of the unique armor is worse than BK except for maybe mercurial demo. And as DJ said about vault trinkets, nothing is as good as heart pendants in LD.
Ngl I agree that shadow lair difficulty should be reverted or optional its killed off most people wanting to do them anymore but...immediately asking for them to revert other things because they just reverted something else comes off to gimme gimme if you know what I mean. Not to mention they are still focused on the auction house at the moment, to soon and not a vibe that can be respected. Give them some space goober.
Grey Havens can take things at their own pace you know. We haven't had many changes in 9 months, this is very unusual for the developer team, who knows what they're up to? Honestly Grey Havens can do more than we have already gotten in terms of Quality of Life. We did not leave this feedback as early as we should have. What Grey Havens has been doing all this time is a mystery as they haven't really said anything, the fact they were able to turn off the Auction House update so quickly tells me they are capable of working when prompted. I don't see any harm in leaving the feedback here.
Exe we're grateful for the change we got with the AH but just remember that they are capable of doing this exact change to the game in a short amount of time. For instance, the enemies in the unknown passage in "it came from below" were fixed in mere days. The change itself is minimal effort and nearly no time is required, yet its effects would have a massive amount of positive impacts on the game.
(and plus 9 months is plenty of time to repeat a fix that they have already shown themselves capable of doing in just a few days)
How much space do you need to give them before you realise they're seemingly not using the space they're given?
9 months since the last notable content update seems like enough space that something of significant value should have come out of the last update, but no.
I'm still waiting for a reason as to why the duration was doubled and difficulty skyrocketed in these 8 year old missions with no increased reward given. Thanks.
I speculate that they were (are?) planning on releasing the core boss and working on that, and needed to make more depths to add on to the game. The shadow lairs are likely set to some final variable, final meaning that it doesn't change and is used as a sort of marker, in this case representing the final depth. Since this variable changed, the shadow lairs were unintentionally set to be the unreleased, unpolished depth with no extra loot attributed to them.
Around this time one of the developers, Ray Greenwell, left the team. He may have been the only developer, they may have hired another, its difficult to say. This lead to the stagnation of your beloved levels.
As to why you're not being heard, they likely ARE planning on fixing this, but reverting it would be a waste of their time because they're likely making the new area. Telling you this officially would be a huge spoiler.
Yeah I'm aware Ray left, but the fact that he may have been the one to have changed the passage and not sls in that patch meant that this was intended, so there's no real stagnation. This was intended to be the difficulty sls were to be set at, and I want a reason as to why that exact bugfix did not include shadow lairs.
Remember, "Shadow Lairs will continue to be difficult" was in the same patch as the It Came From Below bugfix.
Well. The lairs are probably intended to be at the new depth, and the It Came From Below mission simply wasn't.
Indeed they are intended to be. If duration is doubled and difficulty increased, why wasn't the choice taken to increase reward? That's the question I want an explanation to.
I recently put on my nerd goggles and found that in new shadow lairs, enemies have double the base health and defense, and 1.52x the base damage, and loot as well as player's stats only scale to the end of tier 3.
Cheers, and thanks for any reason as to why you thought for this to be healthy for the game Gh!
without a lot more enemy hp, def and dmg, its possible to flinch enemies, easy to out-dps healers, and you can take more than 2 hits before having to heal.
with a lot more enemy hp and def you can't flinch enemies and have to bring poison if youre soloing a SL that has healers.
increased dmg makes it more fun when the servers are very laggy and the game takes all your health away for letting the $10 servers lag.
the fact that it takes 4x as long now to kill enemies that were already as bad as t2 arcade for profit/hour and not having any reward increase for them is fair and balanced.
i like doing the new SLs and taking 1-2 hours slowly crippling down enemies to get less profit than i would get from a 20min vana run.
GH never replies to these type of threads lmao, they go full silent
this change is by far the most gameplay affecting part of the breach the vault update and it
wasn't
even
announced
I want a reason as to why this was thought to be something healthy for the game.
Again, all the change was was a x2 to base enemy hp and defense, and a 1.52x to base damage, but it killed the endgame for tons of people. Gh why did you worsen the shadow lairs on purpose?
Gh said, when they fixed ICFB, that "Shadow Lairs will continue to be difficult" Hey, guess what, the majority of your playerbase already thought they were difficult. No, they won't continue to be "difficult". They will continue to be monotonous grinds that are unfair for the majority of your playerbase. Even if you find them easy, they take SO SO SO long, and have no increased reward, AT ALL.
Reminder: DFV solo, even if you find it easy, takes 2 HOURS. Twice the clear time as before, and loot not so much as increased in the slightest.
Just...why? Still waiting on just one, one reason please I'm begging you why did you do this to your game.
Did anyone send a support ticket to Grey Heavens with regards to this?
Multiple people have submitted several different tickets about this issue (Myself Included). Of course the only responses we get are generic sounding ones like "this will be passed on" that look like they were written by a robot (but they aren't). Multiple forum posts over time have been made as well. Have they looked into SLs and their ridiculous difficulty? We have no idea. GH's complete lack of transparency and community interaction makes trying to get any changes in this game next to impossible. We finally got to them with the last update following community outrage, but I seriously doubt they are listening to any of our feedback now. They always claim that they test every update before release, but that is clearly untrue with SLs (unless they spammed sparks and thought it was ok for players to undergo this hell).
Let me repeat that this change is the largest gameplay effecting change in your entire update. It wasn't announced.
The change to shadow lairs is the biggest change veteran players have seen since you acquired the game, and it's negative. You are turning people away from your endgame with this. People legitimately avoid this endgame content because it can take upwards to 2 hours for a run that has the same reward as before. Remember! When you make the game harder, make sure there's a reward attached to the difficulty or else people will avoid the difficulty!!! This was taken into account when elite difficulty was released, and also when shadow lairs were released!!! The armors are shit but we'll cross that bridge if we ever reach it. Please either increase incentive, revert the change, or god forbid give us a reason as to why it happened.
Thanks.
If only anyone checked the forums.. Or perhaps they are now boycotting us after Outbid update rant and lost hope in the community, haha
The silence is because they aren't honest with any of you. The game is all smoke and mirrors and if they came out and just admitted their follies you'd all leave.
That means we wont be releasing something right away. It takes time to:
- Compile feedback
- Determine if the feedback should be implemented
- Figure out how to change it
- Change it
- Test the changes
- Fix whatever that magically broke that is TOTALLY UNRELATED
- Test again
- Fix whatever that somehow broke.... etc etc etc
Hey grey havens, you yourselves said what I posted above on the "Arcade" discord server when the vaults were released. If there is any truth to this at all, you have compiled feedback for this change but, at step two, have decided, yourselves, that it's not worth changing. When you came to that decision, what was the reason. Please tell us why Shadow Lairs haven't been reverted or compensated. Just one reason, thanks again!
Another complaint towards Grey Havens..
Let's just appreciate that the game is still alive in some way. Thanks to them it has been up and running for 9 years now. Normally this game would've died if no one took the initiative to let it live on..
You have to realize that this change affected the game negativley for their veteran players. I understand we should be grateful for them keeping the official servers running but this change to shadow lairs is something that needs explanation. This is not a complaint, I am genuinley asking for a reason here as to why they made their endgame worse. Tier 4 configs may mean more content in the future, but why scale the enemies that hard now?
Again, just one reason for making these as hard as they are, take longer, and not increasing reward or incentive would be very much appreciated.
This change remains the most gameplay effecting thing you've done for the game since you acquired it in 2016 and it's harmful to your own endgame. Please tell us why it's still in the game. It's been a year.
Sadly my friend, and i dont say this to offend you, but you arent the first asking about this, they ignore the others with the same question and they will do with this one.
and because that we going to have the same doubt until either they finally tell us why, or the game finally closes, we can only especulate why they did that:
1) probably was "ups i didnt expected this and i dont know how to fix it" and thus why shadow lair is tanky as heck (people like to think this is the answer)
2) some says they were experimenting with T4 and the code got leaked to depths like shadow lair (thats what some "dataminers" says") and due this little accident would also tell them how players would deal with T4 with T3 gear and then balancing them once the depth is released with new gear.
but then again all of these are pure speculations.
i would like to think its the option 2, there is a few players in the game, but even less players that would dare to try shadow lair and get enough data for whatever they are working and then have to extend shadow lair t4 to get more data before fix it. then again take my word just as opinion and not something that confirm this the reason why they leave it like that.
Your change was purely negative. People would be upset about this but the fucking over the auction house has much more dire consequences than shadow lairs. People log onto your game to afk in haven, not to trudge through a 2 hour dungeon for some of the most shit armor in the game.
Change the shadow lairs back. Yes the new shadow lairs are difficult. If the shadow lairs are "going to remain difficult" atleast increase the reward??????????????
It's so confusing. There still hasn't been a reason given out for this. You guys have owned the game for 6 years and havent touched balance at all. Literally not at all. You havent changed the stat on a weapon in 6 years. And you can trust me when I say the balance is absolute shit especially considering armors. Is there any effort? Is there a reason I should keep playing your game? You obviously don't care about the enjoyment people have while playing the game if you make shadow lairs take twice as long while also refusing to touch rewards at all.
In most games, an optional, super difficult end game challenge is normal, almost expected. Usually it's purely there for the challenge and thrill. Shadow lairs are not this. You must pay 1800e for a single run. Not only that, but the rewards are dogshit. Shadow lair armors might have been okay in 2012, but this was before the chaos buff and bk. These sets are BOTTOM OF THE BARREL. Despite this, they are locked behind content that is nearly impassable for the average party of players. Sorry, but what the fuck is this design.
I get keeping the servers alive, that's great and all. But when you actively fuck over your game is when I start to question just what your motives are.
Even though the auction house change was laughable you still gave a reason as to why it happened, which is good! You said that there was an instance of someone losing cr during a loading screen. I have to beg the question, who in the fuck asked for current shadow lairs. Nobody. Not a single person wanted shadow lairs to take twice as long, be impossible for your average player, while having the rewards untouched.
It's been over a year and there hasn't been a reason given as to why shadow lairs were changed.
You can't even call the game as being in a museum state because you literally have made the game worse with this change. It's not worth my time to play a game where the devs:
A: don't communicate
B: don't use the community as a resource
C: actively make the game worse with their updates
Reminder that this change WASNT EVEN IN THE PATCHNOTES. You guys understand that the shadow lair change was by far. BY FAR. by far the largest part of your vault update for most players. It wasn't. Even. Announced. You never cease to amaze me.
I see Fish has understood 10^-100 th of a percent of my hatred towards GH.
Did anybody playtest these? How is this not fixed. How do you make your game worse seemingly on purpose. You guys, what is this. Was there *any* thought put behind this change? Was it on a whim? Who asked for this? When will we get an answer? Will we get an answer? You guys have to understand that making your endgame content so hard that nearly nobody in your community can solo them without dying, and long as fuck, and not increasing any sort of reward is not acceptable, especially when it goes UNANNOUNCED. I know some of you dip into Lego's stream every once in a while. The last time he streamed a shadow lair it took way too long, was far too difficult, and he even mentioned that hes never going to run another on stream because there is no point.
Grey Havens please listen. The armors from shadow lairs are so bad, it's almost seen as trolling for you to use them seriously. Shadow lairs were made multiple times longer, so hard that to most they will feel impossible, and you did not increase anything for the player.
Scaling the enemies to depth 40 and not giving the player
-tier 4 usables
-higher vitapods
-larger heart drops
-more loot
is not fair. This is so half baked. It's a joke. It wasn't announced. Remove it. How has it been over a year with no reason for this. This is the most you've impacted the game in 6 years, and it's making me want to stop playing the game. Why. A single reason. Please. Just one reason.
One reason as to why difficulty and time to clear was skyrocketed and rewards never changed.
made thousands by re-releasing pre-existing content, can't fix shadow lairs
Lol I thought it was confirmed that this game has 0 devs right now so I don't think we'll see a fix. To be honest I'm pretty sure this is just a side job to the GM's right now where they just keep the servers up occasionally re-run an event/promo and they just keep the money. If this game has had 0 devs for nearly a year now, it's likely we won't see another one and this game will stay in it's current state until the plug is pulled. While I would love for shadow lairs to be nerfed, it's just super unlikely it'll ever happen. I wish they thought it through though since the last developer left and there's likely no one to change it now only for it sit in this position until the end of time
yeah, even if they can't change it back I still want a reason. Someone, somewhere, must have thought it was a good idea.
Theory though, Ray sabotaged the late game by changing this right before he left, knowing full well that nobody could change it back. Pretty big brain if you ask me.
Why cant we all pitch in, any buy the rights to SK? and make it an open source game?
like does anyone have any ideas on what to do whenever they do pull the plug?
Anybody willing to create something similar if not rebrand the IP?
That's not even a terrible idea. I have been thinking SK would make a good open source game. Like don't get me wrong. It's extremely idealistic and hard to implement, but I like the idea of it. Obviously there are some questions and some problems, but right now I feel like not being pessimistic.
Logisticaly I'm honestly unsure if we could gather together enough to aquire the rights, and if I'm going to pool money I need a way to be sure that 1) that money will be used to aquire the rights and source code as well as 2) that the source code will be released into public domain or wtfpl. But if there is a way I think I'd be in.
I've wanted to recommend this game to friends, but when it's all so obtuse to progress through the game it's really hard to tell someone else that it's great and worth their time. And it never really gets better. I think radiant fire crystals are dropping better than they did three years ago but that's the only real improvement I've noticed.
And I have never seen a thread where a developer has actually answered any questions.
Ok I'm gonna stop because I'm becoming pessimistic and also drifting off my topic.
you'll never take the game off their hands so long as there are whales paying them to do nothing but rerun promos. Hey Gh please revert the game to before the vault update. You ruined the shadow lairs. Why. Please give me a reason. It wasn't announced. It's the biggest thing you've done to the game since you acquired it.
As a whale that pays them to "do nothing" I'm actually quite enjoying this show you're putting on and that I think warrants not reverting the fine progress they've made towards increasing shadow lair playability.
Me and my thousands of instagram followers all think the change makes for a nice new challenge. It could have been done better but overall it improved our gameplay experience, and without it there seems little reason to play more or acquire stronger gear.