City in the freakin' cliffs

[Yaarr]

Test your maps before you release this buggy unplayable "Biiib".
And if you do test the maps already, do it right..

50 mobs gettin' stuck at one place, Djins just spawn and just fly across the map hitting whatever they like.

Spiders seems to spawn randomly as well ..

Not playable map at all.

[zingfharn]

Agreed that there appears to be a "natural gas trap" where the mobs choke up. I think they're supposed to try and path up over the stairs to the east, but can't work out how.

However, if they are supposed to do this, DU is going to be even tighter.

[KurtKnispel]

It is playable, yeah glitches and stucking enemies but I didn´t saw Djinns flying all over so far ( at least not on this map ;P ). Spiders have their spawnpoints, just look at the map.
And pssst, don´t tell Trendy about what point exactly the enemies stuck all the time, it´s an enrage for free ;)

@zinghfarn: thought so first too, but they know how to walk upstairs, just figured it out.

[fitty]

In terms of DLC we've had to pay for, this is pretty shaky. Good ideas, interesting map, but there's a lot of issues.

With the challenge, you see mana, loot, eggs sitting on top of buildings, floating in the air, it's more frustrating then fun.

The Cliffs suffers from the same AA problems, loot on roofs, pathing problems. Did someone really play/finish this map? I find it hard to believe it was tested at all.

If it was tested, fire the people who tested it, they're awful at their job. No one likes paying $1.49 to beta test stuff for you. Normally the DLC has been pretty solid, but a bugged challenge and iffy map don't scream value. It looks rushed, it doesn't look tested.

What I don't understand is, someone at Trendy clearly just doesn't care about the work they do. If you created this map, you should have played it, spotted the obvious flaws, made sure they were fixed. You let Trendy go sell it when it was half-***/sloppy/bugged. If I created this map I'd be embarrassed at the state it was in when it was sold. You can sell the DLC whenever you want, why was it rushed? There wasn't time to properly test it? How could you not spot the monsters pooling up at the spawn point?

There's no excuse. Trendy has given some great DLC so they get a pass from me on this one. But I'm hoping they seriously change how they produce/test DLCs before selling them. I'm not sure how you could grade this one any higher then a D+/C-. Honestly I don't think Trendy actually plays the game. They read the forum, make changes, then read to forum to see what's wrong.


Test your maps before you release this buggy unplayable "Biiib".
And if you do test the maps already, do it right..

50 mobs gettin' stuck at one place, Djins just spawn and just fly across the map hitting whatever they like.

Spiders seems to spawn randomly as well ..

Not playable map at all.

[nikodareus]

In terms of DLC we've had to pay for, this is pretty shaky. Good ideas, interesting map, but there's a lot of issues.

With the challenge, you see mana, loot, eggs sitting on top of buildings, floating in the air, it's more frustrating then fun.

The Cliffs suffers from the same AA problems, loot on roofs, pathing problems. Did someone really play/finish this map? I find it hard to believe it was tested at all.

If it was tested, fire the people who tested it, they're awful at their job. No one likes paying $1.49 to beta test stuff for you. Normally the DLC has been pretty solid, but a bugged challenge and iffy map don't scream value. It looks rushed, it doesn't look tested.

What I don't understand is, someone at Trendy clearly just doesn't care about the work they do. If you created this map, you should have played it, spotted the obvious flaws, made sure they were fixed. You let Trendy go sell it when it was half-***/sloppy/bugged. If I created this map I'd be embarrassed at the state it was in when it was sold. You can sell the DLC whenever you want, why was it rushed? There wasn't time to properly test it? How could you not spot the monsters pooling up at the spawn point?

There's no excuse. Trendy has given some great DLC so they get a pass from me on this one. But I'm hoping they seriously change how they produce/test DLCs before selling them. I'm not sure how you could grade this one any higher then a D+/C-. Honestly I don't think Trendy actually plays the game. They read the forum, make changes, then read to forum to see what's wrong.

Some people just whine too easily instead of appropriately reporting bugs and waiting for them to get fixed. This is part of the process. They can't release everything perfectly every time, even if they COULD afford (Or want) a huge beta team..

To be honest, I'm surprised Trendy is actually here listening to their players and making changes for them daily when they have to deal with short-tempered ego-tistic whiners all day telling them how much they suck. Most developers throw a game at you, sometimes with much better beta testing and fewer bugs, and that is all you get. Bugs? Deal with it. Glitches? Deal with it.. To not even be an MMO trendy has -great- support and does a great job with their patching process, even if I dont agree with alot of their patches. They actually listen to their players instead of treating them like the crap their players treat them like.

On that note, be nicer to your developers and don't jump straight to ranting *****-mode every time something doesn't go the way you like. Try the steps in between first. Noone is perfect.

[ManaCorporation]

They aren't complaining about issues. They're complaining that the very simple fact that on virtually EVERYONE'S FIRST RUN on the new map, they found obvious bugs/glitches/etc. That in itself is a problem. Why did these issues not come up with the beta team?

[nikodareus]

They aren't complaining about issues. They're complaining that the very simple fact that on virtually EVERYONE'S FIRST RUN on the new map, they found obvious bugs/glitches/etc. That in itself is a problem. Why did these issues not come up with the beta team?
Because the beta team is <1% of the playerbase size? The same reason 'obvious' bugs/issues make it into every game? Obvious to a huge group isn't the same as obvious to a tiny one.

[nsih197]

They aren't complaining about issues. They're complaining that the very simple fact that on virtually EVERYONE'S FIRST RUN on the new map, they found obvious bugs/glitches/etc. That in itself is a problem. Why did these issues not come up with the beta team?
I kinda have to agree there, though people seem a bit rude about it

[GizmoArtifice]

Trendy has been doing this for a while. This happens pretty well with every single map they release. There is always something wrong. There is always some glitch. While I might be grateful for the fact they do seem to try and listen to the player base, I've long since stopped paying for their DLC largely for this reason, among other things.

Hope they get it fixed for you guys soon, though! Sucks to pay for something you can't really use. =(

[T@F]

tbh i don't think this map was beta tested.
if it was,then maybe it's time to get better beta testers,as these prob was spotted within the first 30 mins of gameplay.
mobs getting stuck happened for me in the first wave,when trying to unlock the skin.

[nikodareus]

tbh i don't think this map was beta tested.
if it was,then maybe it's time to get better beta testers,as these prob was spotted within the first 30 mins of gameplay.
mobs getting stuck happened for me in the first wave,when trying to unlock the skin.
Just because it was spotted for you in the first 30 minutes didnt mean it would be for others. Seeing as how it doesnt happen every time, your average beta team could easily miss such things. Unless you can afford WoW-sized beta teams (Which still suck, by the way..)

The mobs still haven't gotten stuck for me in any wave on any difficulty. Every once in a while they clog for a few seconds but they eventually break free. I can't help but wonder if FPS is an issue here.. (Choppy mobs making too many cluster together at once)

[Rageamok]

played it last night, had to join someone elses game cause I can't buy it atm :( we were getting lots of mobs stuck (with anything from 3-6 players active), particularly around the very top/high spawn (map and height) and the low/mid spawn (mid map, is quite low scale wise) also umm, one of the guys that joined and I got "stuck" in some rocks or harps or something and ended up "jumping/floating" (like you do when you're falling off a person?) around the map, we couldn't get down and we were just laughing so hard, but that sort of is a bug too =\

[PFC-ROB]

I have done the campaign, survival and pure strat on this map on insane and Nightmare difficulty. I have not had any problems with this, the stuck mobs actually help in this map. This reduces the amount of ogres hitting my defenses at once. It is doable people!


Its not the beta testers' fault, they probably had a different setup than yours, therefore in their more efficient setup or tower placement, this type of bug did not happen. Your tower placement might be causing the stuck mobs or are not hitting the mobs as they get stuck (Which in my opinion is better, free gas trap)

[nikodareus]

I have done the campaign, survival and pure strat on this map on insane and Nightmare difficulty. I have not had any problems with this, the stuck mobs actually help in this map. This reduces the amount of ogres hitting my defenses at once. It is doable people!


Its not the beta testers' fault, they probably had a different setup than yours, therefore in their more efficient setup or tower placement, this type of bug did not happen. Your tower placement might be causing the stuck mobs or are not hitting the mobs as they get stuck (Which in my opinion is better, free gas trap)

Or their setups took care of the mobs before they get to the clog point. :P Which is actually what you said, a different setup. I've actually been building beyond the clog point myself now.

And you can actually see WHY it clogs.. There are 2 paths they can take at that split. and some mobs try to go towards the bridge, but can't find their way up for some reason so they decide to go the other way instead. When too many do it at once, it clogs for a few seconds. But I've not yet seen them get permanently stuck like other people apparently have.

On that note, it's been much more efficient to kill them before the split anyways now. It lowers the number of mobs coming towards the southern crystal all at once drastically from where those mobs were supposed to join with others and there are far too many due to the half that are supposed to be going to the bridge going the other route instead. I thought it was a little wierd that there were so many more monsters coming up ramp east of the southern crystal than any other major choke-point. When this gets fixed, players are suddenly going to have to defend that bridge and we'll see a ton of threads about that instead.. "I didn't have to before, why should I now?"

Followed a few hours later by the upcoming patch notes:

[fake patch notes]
* Blocked eastern bridge so monsters no longer go that way.
* Reduced number of monsters coming from southern spawn point.
[/fake patch notes]

[draemn]

My first run through I found it completely playable with minor glitches... I kinda like the traffic jam of mobs, makes it easier to manage.

[Finaldeath]

Or their setups took care of the mobs before they get to the clog point. :P Which is actually what you said, a different setup. I've actually been building beyond the clog point myself now.

Different setup or not, if we build right on top of the crystal and they still clog up before they get anywhere near our defenses then something is wrong. (ie getting clogged at bridge area or at their spawn doors)

Every single map has issues with mobs getting stuck in their spawn doors. Before continuing to make more maps they seriously need to change how mobs spawn or something to stop this from happening. They need to make them not all spawn at the same exact time, let them walk through each other while in the no kill zones as well as making all spawn doors bigger. Fixing this spawn door clog issue will speed up everything and cause way less headaches.

Another fix for this could simply be to not have them pile out of one door at a time and spawn them evenly the whole match. Like on alch labs for example, the map starts with them coming out of all doors normally and works perfectly with no clogs, then the north doors slow down to a trickle while the south doors have mobs flowing out of them so fast they back up and once those are done the exact same thing happens to the north doors. Another incredibly simple way to fix this would be instead of having mobs come out of little closets, have a portal open where the doors are at and spawn them there outside the spawn door so there is no door frame for them to jam up on.

[nikodareus]

Different setup or not, if we build right on top of the crystal and they still clog up before they get anywhere near our defenses then something is wrong. (ie getting clogged at bridge area or at their spawn doors)
I agree. But at the same time, building 'right on top of the crystal' isnt always the best solution either. Until it gets fixed, you can build to kill them before they get to the clog point, no? It's not like they aren't going to fix it, I was just suggesting a way around it for now.

Even when they do fix it, players would be better off trying to improve their strategies too.

[T@F]

Just because it was spotted for you in the first 30 minutes didnt mean it would be for others. Seeing as how it doesnt happen every time, your average beta team could easily miss such things. Unless you can afford WoW-sized beta teams (Which still suck, by the way..)

The mobs still haven't gotten stuck for me in any wave on any difficulty. Every once in a while they clog for a few seconds but they eventually break free. I can't help but wonder if FPS is an issue here.. (Choppy mobs making too many cluster together at once)

Looking at all these replys i'm not the only one who spotted it.
Also i have a beefy rig,so fps is not an issue.

Yes it seems common,yes they do get stuck(even in the spawn points sometimes),yes it could have been spotted before release.
I'm not complaining about it,i'm agreeing that the map has most def not been tested properly.

[Ahui_87]

Looking at all these replys i'm not the only one who spotted it.Of course not. But still - like nikodareus said - there are people who haven't had the named problems with this map. I never have mana floating in the air, I haven't seen any mob stuck until now. The only problem I came through so far: last wyvern needs around one minute to spawn after all the other mobs are gone (I think this is a problem with my setup / kill speed - but still annoying). And - like others mentioned - the approach angle of the wyverns is a little bit too abrupt I think, sometimes you have to step back more than a quarter of the map to hit a wyvern (yes, there are the towers, but that's annoying).

I agree with you - they should have discovered these problems. But it's very hard to discover bugs you never face. I'm sure there are many people like me or nikodareus who haven't faced the named problems yet - but there is no reason why they should post that. We don't know if the reports represent 1% or 80% of the mass. So, it's just not possible to say how good or bad the beta testers worked. (I don't want to protect them - I think they were a bit lazy, but the reports in the forum aren't representative at all to judge them.)

[Malibu Stacey]

Some people just whine too easily instead of appropriately reporting bugs and waiting for them to get fixed. This is part of the process. They can't release everything perfectly every time, even if they COULD afford (Or want) a huge beta team..

To be honest, I'm surprised Trendy is actually here listening to their players and making changes for them daily when they have to deal with short-tempered ego-tistic whiners all day telling them how much they suck. Most developers throw a game at you, sometimes with much better beta testing and fewer bugs, and that is all you get. Bugs? Deal with it. Glitches? Deal with it.. To not even be an MMO trendy has -great- support and does a great job with their patching process, even if I dont agree with alot of their patches. They actually listen to their players instead of treating them like the crap their players treat them like.

On that note, be nicer to your developers and don't jump straight to ranting *****-mode every time something doesn't go the way you like. Try the steps in between first. Noone is perfect.

Wow you must be a shill. You're surprised people aren't happy with paying for broken, unplayable releases from a development team who repeatedly make the same mistakes with every single DLC & patch they've released this year?

When did expecting something to work properly when you paid for it become a bad thing?

FYI I'm a professional application software developer & if we released software with as many issues as Trendy does our customers, regulation bodies & governments would sue us out of business so fast our heads would spin.

I guess it's fine for 'indie' games developers to keep releasing buggy, untested, 'nickel & dime' DLC because "it's just vidja gamez" right? Wrong. People gave them a free pass for a few months after the game came out because they were finding their feet but after 4 months of the same old issues being ignored or half-assed fixed while more DLC is churned out with yet more issues, people have had enough.

Ironically looking at the Upcoming Patch Notes (http://forums.trendyent.com/showthread.php?14848-Upcoming-Patch-Notes) you find these little gems:

* Fixed City In the Cliffs mob group-stuck area
* Fixed City In the Cliffs floating Mana Tokens
* City in the Cliffs now gives 25% more build time, each chest has 30% more Mana, and there are 25% less Wyverns in the Campaign/Survival mission

Which suggest everything people have raised in this thread is perfectly valid.

Paying to beta test people's software is great isn't it? Oh wait...

[nikodareus]

Wow you must be a shill. You're surprised people aren't happy with paying for broken, unplayable releases from a development team who repeatedly make the same mistakes with every single DLC & patch they've released this year?
Who ever said I was surprised? All I said was people handle the situation wrong. I'm not happy about it most of the time, but I just tend to report the bug, seeing as how I understand what it's like to have people yelling at you over a bug you missed for legitimate reasons.


When did expecting something to work properly when you paid for it become a bad thing?
When people started yelling about it first instead of politely asking to have the situation resolved.


FYI I'm a professional application software developer & if we released software with as many issues as Trendy does our customers, regulation bodies & governments would sue us out of business so fast our heads would spin.
That's nice. How does this compare with the entertainment / leisure industry? Going to sue a video game company because your virtual character's had to go kill a group of monsters that weren't attacking them? Maybe you'll sue them over floating mana crystals or squire tower damage being reduced by 37.5%.. Get real. If you're going to compare business practices, at least compare them with the same business.


I guess it's fine for 'indie' games developers to keep releasing buggy, untested, 'nickel & dime' DLC because "it's just vidja gamez" right? Wrong. People gave them a free pass for a few months after the game came out because they were finding their feet but after 4 months of the same old issues being ignored or half-assed fixed while more DLC is churned out with yet more issues, people have had enough.
Where was this 'free pass'? I'm sure the developers would like to know where they were for this. Seeing as how it's been the same ranting and raving for the past 4 months. It's not like this just suddenly started happening.. And it has nothing to do with them being an 'indie' game developer. -Any- game developer releases things with bugs and fixes them up with player response. Even WoW, Rift, Squeenix games, etc have had some doozies get through that they didn't know existed until they had beta teams bigger than DD's entire playerbase.. Now if they were releasing bugged content and not fixing it when it gets reported, it'd be a different story, but even then. There are steps in the process that come before "OMG OMG OMG YOU GUYS ARE A TERRIBLE COMPANY!!!" Each new DLC presents it's own new potential bugs and problems. It is -always- going to happen with every game. Don't like it? Don't play games.


Ironically looking at the Upcoming Patch Notes (http://forums.trendyent.com/showthread.php?14848-Upcoming-Patch-Notes) you find these little gems:

* Fixed City In the Cliffs mob group-stuck area
* Fixed City In the Cliffs floating Mana Tokens
* City in the Cliffs now gives 25% more build time, each chest has 30% more Mana, and there are 25% less Wyverns in the Campaign/Survival mission

Which suggest everything people have raised in this thread is perfectly valid.
There is nothing Ironic about it. And noone ever said that what they were pointing out was invalid. Only the manner in which they reported it. I even described what was causing the potential clog-up for people. I never said that there weren't issues with it, merely that they aren't specific to everyone and could easily be missed by a smaller beta team. As someone else already pointed out too, you have -no way- of knowing how much of the playerbase is represented with these bugs.. People who aren't experiencing the problems don't generally come to the forums to go "Oh, well everything is working fine here! Keep up the good work!" For all you know, these issues could only be coming up for 1% of the playerbase And I doubt they have 1 beta tester for every 100 players. Going straight to 'THE BETA TEAM SUUUUCCKKKSSSS!!!!' just because of a bug is ridiculous. And seeing as how it's what people do for every little bug now, it's just plain getting old and I'm sure the development team doesn't appreciate it any more than anyone else would when they make a mistake and all they get is people screaming in their face about how much they suck.


Paying to beta test people's software is great isn't it? Oh wait...
I haven't seen any content from them that I would consider anywhere close to 'beta' after it's released. o.O If you honestly feel that everything they release isn't past the beta phase, find a new game to play. I highly disagree as I know how horrid things actually are in a beta product. A few bugs left to be cleaned up isn't "beta" anymore.

[Kandar]

Changes i'd like to see for this zone.

5 to 10 more DU for this zone. 125 is just a bit too tight with that many bird paths. A reduced number of birds doesn't cure the problem. without it, we may be forced to go back to using Gas traps to slow the zone down. Also late waves we will be having issues with genies HP increase. Towers wont be able to burn them down without a stun lock.

-A loot quality bump to at least on par with moraggo wouldn't hurt either. I'm not sure why but the loot in this zone is just bad. NOT worth the trouble at the moment. Moraggo is easier and has better loot. or so it seems.

Change the bird flight paths so that they don't come in so steep. Players cannot attack birds till they're at the crystal unless they're standing a mile away. They simply cannot aim that high up in the air. That isn't fun nor is it good design.