Greetings Descendants,
Thank you for joining our first Dev Q&A on August 10th. There were a lot of great questions and concerns raised, but with the volume of participants, not every person had an opportunity to be heard. Therefore, we are reposting and clarifying the discussion points from the Q&A below. We appreciate your participation and patience, and will be working to improve our upcoming Q&A’s based on your feedback.
Furnace Event
On Aug 17th, we will be removing the resources gained from the Furnace event from all those who significantly benefited from the exploit. This will include removing any troops that were trained through resources erroneously gained during the time window when the Furnace was not working properly. Accounts that have resources removed will have the items that they burned, returned. Legitimately earned or purchased resources will not be affected.
However, we understand that putting accounts into the negative would be detrimental to some, and therefore have decided that we will only be removing resources to a minimum of 0. There will be no accounts going into negative balances.
What exactly will be affected?
Food, Wood, Silver, Iron, Gold, 24 hours speed ups, and War coins. T6 troops that were trained as a direct result of using any of those resources gained in the event. Anything not explicitly listed will not be affected.
How are we determining what to adjust?
RSS will be calculated by how many chests were obtained. The amount of resources used to purchase the troops will be deduced from the total gained as to not overcharge a player.
Why can’t you award a super comp pack to players who did not abuse the Furnace?
There are many factors that go into a decision to rectify an issue like this. Supplying such a significant increase of resources and items to everyone in the game would have devastating and long lasting effects on the economy of the game resulting in a worse environment for players.
Why did you wait 3 weeks to address the Furnace issues?
This issue had a ripple effect on the player base as a whole, disrupting the balance of the game. Rectifying that balance and providing a fair resolution hasn’t been the easiest while we are still a bit new to this game. A rollback at that time was not a viable option due to the high potential to create greater calamity.
Why are you punishing players who did nothing wrong?
We are not punishing players. We are removing excessively gained resources while restoring any consumed items. The rules of the event were stated in the briefing and have not changed from previous furnace events. While there was an issue that allowed a few players to enormously benefit, it is not fair gameplay and we must correct it. While some may disagree with this course of action, it is imperative that we look at the effects on the entire player base and not individuals.
What is KIXEYE doing to more quickly respond to bugs and live ops issues?
Our response time to live op issues hasn’t been where it needs to be. We know this and we know that you know this. We are addressing these gaps.
We have a dedicated LiveOps strike force to make sure that issues are minimized and addressed quickly. We also implemented a schedule to ensure there will always be 24×7 coverage with prompt responses.
Why are there more bugs now?
The number of bugs and live ops issues over the past month are due to us underestimating the complexity, processes and tools required to support in-game events. One of the first things we realized is that as a much smaller production team compared to Netmarble, we have to prioritize new tool development and automation to increase stability and reduce issues.
This is why our current priority is to get services back to acceptable levels for our players, through investment in better tools and processes. We have been making great progress internally, and expect we’ll be able to restart some events sooner than we had originally anticipated.
What’s the plan on fixing events?
The first step to fixing bugs in existing events is to build better tools that we can use to more efficiently test and launch events. The current event system is a very manual process with many points of failure, so we need to create the tools to address these vulnerabilities. This is why we are temporarily pausing certain events for August, to prioritize the immediate creation and testing of these tools, so we can more quickly restore the previous schedule. We’ve made good progress in these new tools, and expect that we may be able to restore certain events such as Invasion, sooner than expected.
Will there be a beta game introduced for some players to test new events and further updates? Will there be a PC version?
Our goal is to eventually set up a beta server! However, there are critical items we’re working on that take priority such as increased live ops support, improved tooling, and better response times. A PC version is not off the table but we need to look at improving the immediate before looking too far into the future.
When will the event rewards be updated?
We have been! The event center rewards have been significantly increased in the last couple of months, and the non-PVP events have also been increased by 2 or 3 times. That said, we are still looking at the competitive rewards, however there was some balancing for coins in Dark Moon, True World, and Blood Moon.
KIXEYE Ownership
We understand this has been an unexpectedly bumpy ride for all of you. Most of you have been playing this game for many years and while we strive to gain the knowledge you have acquired, we are not masters yet! We hear everything you are saying! Your struggles, what frustrates you, where we went wrong, and what we can do to improve going forward. While some of these changes have been immediate, most will take time as we incorporate them into our future plans.
We want to always do right by you and the game you love. We ask for your patience and understanding during this time while we work to meet the expectations of our players as well as ourselves. We know we can do this. We are determined to prove that to you as well.
- The Rise of Firstborn Team
