Regarding Magic Stone Heroes after recent Scorpion Queen "adjustment"

[teppi]

Dear Ucool and fans,

Today the hero scorpion queen enters the game and becomes obtainable through the (grand?) arena shop. At the same time, there seems to have been an unannounced change with one of her skills which makes it happen less frequently than before. If it was a bug, why was it "fixed" exactly today, the very day of release? There have been numerous threads and complaints about this hero ever since it came out in the magic stone. If it was unintended, why was action taken today, and not sooner, or at a later time?

Update: Betty has now confirmed that Scorpion Queen's 3rd skill has indeed been "adjusted". I think we can all agree that this change has reduced the power level of this hero dramatically.

Many other games with in-app purchases give characters special powers or extra stats when they are only available for real money. Once they become obtainable through another means in-game, they lose these powers and become like "normal" characters. The point is that this is made clear to the players and I do not see anywhere that this is an intended function in this game. This was definitely not made plain to players when they purchased Scorpion Queen. If this is what you intended to do or plan on doing in the future, you should let us know so that we can decide if we want to spend real money to gain a very significant short term advantage or even if we want to continue playing a game where you can gain an edge like this through paying.

I think your paying players also deserve an explanation of why the hero they bought has suddenly been "adjusted" in a way that dramatically reduces its usefulness.

Please feel free to express your opinion on this matter and I look forward to seeing a moderator's reply.

[Cyriel]

My opinion on this is widely known but for the record:

The way this was handled is beyond pathetic. The amount of screwups, the fact you utterly destroyed a previously viable hero and the fact that you're literally going to force the same fucking 10 heroes on us for all eternity is disgusting.

Let's recap shall we ?

- Ucool announces SQ available in Grand arena days before it actually applies.
- Ucool releases version .34 for IOS on september 30th. One day early, but whatever.
- Ucool has utterly and completely destroyed a previously viable hero that was going to put a fresh look on pvp and any form of competitive play.
- Ucool failed to announce this.
- Ucool failed to announce that SQ was moved to arena. Players who saved up GA coins figured "since she's gonna be there, let's spend GA coins on gear instead". These same people were advised by persons like me to save up GA tokens in order to take part in this wild new meta.
- Ucool then moves SQ to GA and causes major dissatisfaction amongst literally anyone hoping to get her. People that saved up GA tokens spent it on gear, people that didn't are now stuck with a shell of a hero.
- Ucool somehow manages to botch it up further by (and this part is so sad it makes me laugh hysterically) Only nerfing SQ for IOS. You read correct. The android version has an unnerfed version of SQ existing in the same game. (http://forum.ucool.com/showthread.ph...n-Different-SQ)
- Later that same day Ucool finally announces the "changes" they made.

The bottom line here is that she was great the way she was. Lots of people complained and people that didn't used that time to counter her (effectively. 3* and 5*) but let's not go into that right now.
Let's look at what a game company has done. How many ethical violations it caused and how many people either completely quit or lost interest due to the way this was handled ?
Let's look at everyone that did follow through on the promise of a new perspective in the competitive area of the game and got completely screwed over at the last second.
Let's look at the complete and utter lack of communication between playerbase and company. I'm NOT implying that you are incompetent, but you so completely screwed this up.

There's a serious tipping point here and it has been so way before the whole debacle started. You had two choices. Either release a hero as is and deal with it the way a sane company would, or listen to everyone urging you to destroy her and set the precident for a completely idiot driven gaming environment.

The next time a hero is even close to being somewhat capable of changing the meta, people will cry bloody murder and whine like children, and you will bend over backwards to cater to that small insignificant group of individuals. You effectively wrecked a bright future and i don't trust you won't make that same mistake again.

Now before the masses roll in here and start complaining a lot more about how she needed to be nerfed, let me make myself very clear about what these masses have done. All the proof everyone has provided and all the methods people listed in order to make an effective counter to any setup involving SQ have all been for naught. All the effort to guide people that were unable or not advanced enough in order to not make them stuck somewhere has been rejected and any form of logical debate or reasoning has been overshadowed by cries of injustice.

This is the first time in the history of this game that such an epic failure of a farce has been realized, and we owe it all to you, you whining stubborn incompetents.

[aabenroi]

If it was unintended, why was action taken today, and not sooner, or at a later time?

IMHO,

They knew it's broken... but too many people already spend their money to get this hero.
If they take this action sooner, people that already paid will ask for refund.

That's why they released it for public asap, so they can fix the hero without loosing too much.

[Redrum]

Cyriel, your very right on the points in how it all was handled. Numerous mistakes were made. Though SQ balancing was announced in my thread well in advance by betty in the thread I made which you frequented. So dunno how that's unannounced. Also, it was announced she would be put in GA well in advance. Now I can feel for you if you spent all your GA points. Though knowing it was announced she'd be in GA and she showed up in Arena. I would have made a post an waited for a response before doing anything hastey as it would tell me this is a mistake. And infact most of my lucky guildmates took full advantage of it by getting some SS of her there first..

But your "in the bubble" when it comes to SQ being perfectly fine the way she was. You talk about videos and points posted to which in your opinion were incorrect or bad examples. Yet I don't recall you ever posting matches with SQ where she was beaten or countered easily, and even if you did her dmg would be higher then the rest of the teams combined(There's no other hero in the game of that caliber at 3*). You can argue your point all you want, but I'd suggest you don't bc it won't change the facts, and all it will do is further show your biased opinion on her because you use her in your arena team easily holding your rank...

As to the other things brought up, MS heroes have always come into the game through shops. This isn't new..The benifit of having a MS hero is having that hero well in advance, and all the benifits that come with that luxary.

As to why they chose to wait for the public release to make the change. I would think it's obvious. Most of there time/resources has been tied up in the 2.0 release, making and testing(hopefully anyway) the new october heroes. So they knew it could be held off until the time of public release bc only a small % have MS heroes, but once public they can't very well let it go when everyone has her. I don't care how good/experienced a player you are, if you think you could complete crusades hardmode with SQ as she was facing her 15/15 then there's no point debating w/ you bc your delusional..

[chelski]

looks like someone is mad his favourite hero has become useless now remember he's the same guy who compares her to DG and same one who compares situation using TS against 5 p+1 tanks. he is just so obsessed with sq posts on all sq threads so retarded.

[glitteringlust]

Nope, ure just too young to know this game before.
no temples, 1x reward crusade.
i think facing sq at middle team lvl isnt a problem.
now we should play with boring month again.

[darkq]

The real problem with SQ was that she supposed to be tested before even being released back in July. Is that our fault? We pay to be the testers?

This "new untested hero each month" is ruining this game. I mean it's just stupid: "Waw, a new hero that has a great potential. I'll get him. Farm/buy gear."

Than: "Oh, let's nerf the hero to the point of usefulness!"

Releasing broken heroes, letting people gear them up, than nerfing them is just retarded.

[teppi]

Let's not get off topic, the main point I'm trying to make is that this matter has been handled in pretty much the worst way possible and makes all players paying and nonpaying feel like they cannot trust Ucool anymore at this point.

IMHO,

They knew it's broken... but too many people already spend their money to get this hero.
If they take this action sooner, people that already paid will ask for refund.

That's why they released it for public asap, so they can fix the hero without loosing too much.

If it was unacceptable before, why is it suddenly acceptable now? The hero they purchased has still been changed from what was available/advertised at the time of purchase.

MS heroes have always come into the game through shops. This isn't new..The benifit of having a MS hero is having that hero well in advance, and all the benifits that come with that luxary.

Exactly, one of the advantages not being that the hero would have special powers which would disappear once it is available through another means.

As to why they chose to wait for the public release to make the change. I would think it's obvious. Most of there time/resources has been tied up in the 2.0 release, making and testing(hopefully anyway) the new october heroes. So they knew it could be held off until the time of public release bc only a small % have MS heroes, but once public they can't very well let it go when everyone has her.

The real problem with SQ was that she supposed to be tested before even being released back in July. Is that our fault? We pay to be the testers?

This "new untested hero each month" is ruining this game. I mean it's just stupid: "Waw, a new hero that has a great potential. I'll get him. Farm/buy gear."

Than: "Oh, let's nerf the hero to the point of usefulness!"

Releasing broken heroes, letting people gear them up, than nerfing them is just retarded.

Exactly, the way they released this hero and then "fixed" it was gone about in a terrible way. Compensation should be expected by everyone who spent money to obtain the Scorpion Queen which is now not the same hero that you wanted to buy. An official statement should be expected by all players about whether or not this trend of "adjusting" magic stone heroes once they are to be released in shops will continue.

[bin]

Nerfing SQ is a promise and/or people's expectations, is it not what someone asked ucool do ? The main reason that guy asked ucool bring back SQ to GA shop is his selfish, he wanted other players hardly get SQ; everyone now happy with SQ nerfing, no-one have to care about wasting GA coins anymore. haha

When a friend back to game after a long time, I told him ucool has released an OP hero, anyone attack her will die, he said one word: 'sick'. Let forget her.

[iamawl]

SQ was only over powered against the current common arena set ups. This was great! It gave rise to new teams, attacking and defending, when SQ was involved. Finally some change outside of the standard 10 to 15 heroes you see.

SQ teams, with her as a tank or middle mage, could easily be beaten if people just experimented. I had one guy use Necromancer against my SQ defense team... I hadn't seen that hero in arena in forever! I was actually having fun in arena with all the new set ups, and now it's freaking boring again.

After the nerf, I can't find any viable set ups with SQ against any of the current common arena teams. We are back to where we use to be at.

It's so annoying that I spend resources, and money, on a Magic Stone hero only to have it nerfed into uselessness. I can understand they didn't intend for her to be at the tank position and they felt that was being exploited, especially for a 3* hero, but come up with a solution to fix that instead of making her not viable in any position.

[Kronic]

The way SQ was handled was just stupid. uCool released an untested powerful hero, the idiot masses complained, SQ gets nerfed, and its back to the old meta. SQ shifted the meta and made people use different team comps to win. Like someone said, Necro was being used again, I saw backline heroes that weren't being used much being played again and it made people use different tactics. The masses that complained were attacking SQ wrong and without any strategy. By releasing an OP hero and then nerfing it does 2 things for the community: First, the non-VIP and low-VIP will continue to complain about heroes and have everything nerfed to the ground. Second, any high-VIP or potential VIP players will now avoid spending money after seeing how SQ was handled. Yes, I had a 5* SQ and rarely anyone attacked me because of it. Yesterday, nearly every member in a rival top guild repeatedly attacked me. Guess what? I still won. I replaced SQ with another hero (non-magic stone) and still kept my spot.

With the meta shifting back to the old meta, people are going to complain again. NA was "nerfed" again from what I briefly read before writing this and people are going nuts complaining about it again. As Cyriel stated, uCool has lost trust with the players. Invest in a hero, it gets nerfed? If the problem was Crusade, there could’ve been other ways to deal with it and still make the hero viable.

I was looking forward to fighting against different teams again but now it’s just going to be the same heroes being rotated around. If this is how it’s going to be, I’m better off going back to D3 or some other game that’s tested beforehand and released.

[Pleadthefif]

The way SQ was handled was just stupid. uCool released an untested powerful hero, the idiot masses complained, SQ gets nerfed, and its back to the old meta. SQ shifted the meta and made people use different team comps to win. Like someone said, Necro was being used again, I saw backline heroes that weren't being used much being played again and it made people use different tactics. The masses that complained were attacking SQ wrong and without any strategy. By releasing an OP hero and then nerfing it does 2 things for the community: First, the non-VIP and low-VIP will continue to complain about heroes and have everything nerfed to the ground. Second, any high-VIP or potential VIP players will now avoid spending money after seeing how SQ was handled. Yes, I had a 5* SQ and rarely anyone attacked me because of it. Yesterday, nearly every member in a rival top guild repeatedly attacked me. Guess what? I still won. I replaced SQ with another hero (non-magic stone) and still kept my spot.

With the meta shifting back to the old meta, people are going to complain again. NA was "nerfed" again from what I briefly read before writing this and people are going nuts complaining about it again. As Cyriel stated, uCool has lost trust with the players. Invest in a hero, it gets nerfed? If the problem was Crusade, there could’ve been other ways to deal with it and still make the hero viable.

I was looking forward to fighting against different teams again but now it’s just going to be the same heroes being rotated around. If this is how it’s going to be, I’m better off going back to D3 or some other game that’s tested beforehand and released.

Well said, boring meta is boring.

[MeD]

As I stated in another thread. If I was a VIP 11+ who spent $500 worth of gems to get her, I'd ask for it back since the product I purchased is no longer the product I purchased. In terms of gears/resources, I'm not sure if you'll be able to get that back, because it was your choice to gear said hero.

However, at the very least, you can go back to Google Play or Apple and ask for a refund from this vendor since the product you purchased is not the same as you purchased.

In all honesty, your chances at getting a refund is very slim, but if you are really adamant that this process has been a complete farce, then get your money back.

[Redrum]

Now in most cases, something is added to any game that brings people out of there comfort zone yes "the idiot masses" scream and cry for a change. I've been playing HC for a while. Have seen many powerful heroes come in that time. Many whined over them. I've never agreed or posted for a change on them for obvious reasons. Except in this one case, also for obvious reasons.

Regardless of ucool's liability in releasing the hero as it was, waiting so long to fix it, and the way they executed it is irrelevant. It doesn't change the facts which are irrefutable. The hero was released broken and grossly overpowered. If you want to argue the point she wasn't, then your only showing your own biased opinions which scream in all your posts.

You claim that she made the game new and exciting. If one overpowered hero does all the bs you claim, then you should just quit bc that should be an indication and realisation right there. You say she made you think, broke up the meta, and was EASILY countered if only you used your brain..

Well in all this time I saw countless SS, and videos proving she was grossly OP and broken to support all our claims. I haven't seen ONE SS or video proving ANY of yours(Also don't try posting such proof now that she's nerfed, you had your chances, and provided nothing but words). If what you say is true where was the proof? It's not there because it doesn't exist. You can't dispute facts. And the fact is that the hero you claimed required sooo much thought, now forces you to think of how you defend your rank other then insert an win. How ironic..

[Kronic]

With SQ, people had to invest,for example, SH or Necro. I agree SQ needed a nerf, but not to the point that she's just useless now. With the nerf, the meta reverts back to pre-SQ. Yes, I prefer the meta to require some thinking instead of I'll just stack all the strongest heroes and win. I don't enjoy seeing the same 5-6 core heroes when there are alot of heroes with a buff to change the meta. I don't know what the meta was 4 months ago but if the meta is still the same 3 months down the road, people will get bored and if they haven't already, quit. SQ, as broken, strong, bugged, whatever you'd like to call it, changed the meta.