Other Quick Play and the Complete Removal of the Mode

[Shenbet]

Quick Play was a game mode that served the purpose of two things.

First off, to me it was meant for having fun. If you didn't wanna progress the story (or couldn't and had to grind that one character you couldn't get XP for) then you could just hop into Quick Play and get a random team to fight, for fresh XP and low energy costs. It was fun to play, and there wasn't any kind of stress attached to it. It also gave you a chance to test out new fighters you just got if you haven't played a character before (Like Eliza after obtaining her for me recently, for example).

If you go into say a daily event, or a prize fight, there are negatives that you didn't face in quick play. If you go to a daily event there's always that fixed enemy type usually, like a valentine or something with two random party members or something. You fight them and that's great but that means you're just progressing through that event, and eventually you start fighting parties with fixed fighter scores, a bit like story mode.

It bugs me I can't keep fighting lower leveled opponents for fresh not repeat XP relative to what fighters I picked, because super low leveled bronze characters I like and want to level are really difficult to do nowadays.

Second, I've been talking about it already but I feel like gaining XP has been made more difficult, sure I can redo story mode again on basic so I can get lower scores so I'm not fighting level 2000 Cerebella with an Eliza that's ranked 150 something. If I go to Prize Fight I have to spend 4 energy, so I get 2 fights, then I have to wait or use theonite. But there's a problem there, if I'm stuck in a level in story mode I can't get theonite without paying for it. But what if I don't necessarily have money? I'm forced to wait when all I wanna do is play the game. I have no trouble paying because I love Skullgirls so much but I feel like I should be able to play whenever I feel like.

There are also times like recently where the prize fight events were over, so if I do the daily even instead and clear them I have nothing left to play for XP because the prize fights are gone and by the time I'm done with the daily the levels are probably too high, resulting in me just playing as the same higher ranked characters over and over. If I'm at the level cap with my bronze ones then I can't keep doing that, because then they run out of energy and if all my high leveled characters are out of energy I'm just forced to quit until everyone's energy is recharged.

I feel like Quick Play was a great mode and should be added back into the game but still keep the new modes. I'm perfectly fine with Prize Fight and the dailies as they are now, don't get me wrong, they're good modes on their own, but they certainly can't serve the purpose Quick Play did. All modes can coexist just fine in my mind, and I'd be fine with all 3 using the blue meter, it just makes me feel like the actual "quick" part of playing the game is gone without it, disregarding the reasons I have listed.

I wrote this really late at night so please quote certain parts that sound weird and I'll fix them when I get back on.

 

[Osterus]

Also agree with placing Quick Fight back into the game.

Perhaps with 3 energy and uses the same energy as Prize Event Mode.

 

[fatfursatan]

Also agree with placing Quick Fight back into the game.

Perhaps with 3 energy and uses the same energy as Prize Event Mode.

This would be a fantastic solution for grinding low-level characters.

 

[moisterrific]

I think they should bring back Quick Play as well, but with some changes and give players more choices for difficulty.

Instead of the automatic difficulty ramp up we see in Prize Fights, QP could have an option for us to choose how hard or easy the enemy team will be. And it should cost 2 blue energy points (just like the energy cost of the old QP).

This way will give players a good way for levelling and to practice and get better at both new and old fighters. Training mode's dummy targets are pretty pointless in my opinion.

 

[Lolleroni]

I didn't play before Quick Play, but I can confirm that leveling up bronze is such a chore. The best way is to carry 2 bronze with one strong character in PF, but because organizing your team takes so long, I spend so much time in menus that I get fed up and just play with my higher level characters instead. For this reason, I put hardly any effort in bronze PF and focus on silver and gold. The UI is really not helping here when you have 100+ bronze, which everyone will have because of the nature of the gacha odds. God forbid you want to reassign skills for each of your bronze characters to maximize your chance of winning (should you have to use them), because you'll be doing that every 2 fights.

If I don't level my bronze, I won't be able to easily get skill points, so it hurts my progression. But PF is currently the best way to progress- it even says so as a loading screen tip. If I want to level bronze, however, it hurts my PF multiplier. Losing your multiplier always feels bad, and I think, "I wanted to level my character with the most efficient XP available and got punished for it." Couple that with getting literally nothing off a loss, and you're heavily punished for taking risks. With PF, the fights only get harder and harder, which means that you have to lose often. I have no problem hitting top 10% of gold, but I wish I didn't have to put myself at a major disadvantage in PF just because I want to level up.

As gamers, we're no strangers to grinding, but this kind of grinding isn't enjoyable. When I want to progress, I want to do it in a way that is at least a little fun. Fighting against teams with 3x your FS who will steamroll you because all they have to do is tank your weak damage and activate BB3 is not fun. PF looks like it is designed to test your ability at the fighting game with your best characters. However, it's the only way to burn blue energy. In practice, using any fighters other than your top 3 puts you at a disadvantage, but you don't want to let blue energy just sit there, either. I feel damned if I do and damned if I don't.

In conclusion, it's too cumbersome for me to keep swapping out the lowest level bronze guys I have in PF. I just try to level them in the daily dungeon, the only other alternative for decent XP. I'd rather handicap myself in the daily dungeon, where at least I am not as heavily punished for losing.

Is this the way SG Mobile gameplay was designed to play out? I don't know. It's easier and more fun to improve at the fighting aspect of this game than to manage your teams, where there currently is no mechanic to save teams or anything. The fact of the matter is that I spend more time on the Team screen than playing in matches. I don't like that.

 

[Liam]

Thanks for the feedback everyone, there's some really good discussion here.

The return of Quick Match is on our list and will be making a return sometime in the future.
When it does arrive, I'm looking forward to reading everyone's thoughts on it!

 

[Liam]

Organizing your team takes so long, I spend so much time in menus that I get fed up and just play with my higher level characters instead. For this reason, I put hardly any effort in bronze PF and focus on silver and gold. The UI is really not helping here when you have 100+ bronze, which everyone will have because of the nature of the gacha odds. God forbid you want to reassign skills for each of your bronze characters to maximize your chance of winning (should you have to use them), because you'll be doing that every 2 fights.

This is good information, and I'd like to hear more.

If you have the time, I'd appreciate it if you could respond to these questions:

- Which menu(s) do you find is eating the most of your time when you're organizing a team?
- Are there any solutions that come to mind when it comes to putting together teams that would help speed this up for you?

Anyone else who has found this to be an issue is welcome to respond with their thoughts too.

 

[TeitoWolf]

Anyone else who has found this to be an issue is welcome to respond with their thoughts too.

I'll quickly chime in here. I find this to be a frustrating, if minor, issue. The menu simply take awhile to scroll through (the pre-fight screen, where you assign members) and occasionally, the dragging motion that needs to be made can just drag a fighter instead of scroll through the list.

Personally, I would like to set-up a small number of preset teams. Just allows me to have teams set-up already that have been made with a purpose. Though I think a better solution would just be a more thorough filter; being able to filter by character, have multiple sorts (being able to search with type and tier at the same time) or maybe even just have the option to turn off the images to compact space (most experienced players know the characters by name anyways).

 

[Cellsai]

Presets and expanded filter options would basically be the perfect solutions. Most of the time in Prize Fights, I cycle through the exact same teams in the same order anyway. Forcing me to manually select them again after every 2 matches is really annoying sometimes.

 

[fatfursatan]

This is good information, and I'd like to hear more.

If you have the time, I'd appreciate it if you could respond to these questions:

- Which menu(s) do you find is eating the most of your time when you're organizing a team?
- Are there any solutions that come to mind when it comes to putting together teams that would help speed this up for you?

Anyone else who has found this to be an issue is welcome to respond with their thoughts too.

The menu that eats the most of my team is the skill equipment menu. The biggest noticeable problems:

• Why can't I drag skills from the right menu to the skill palette on the left? I can drag them from the skill palette TO the right menu.
• Why is there a confirmation window for equipping skills already equipped to another fighter? They're ALREADY grayed out AND decked out in that character's color. The confirmation window is redundant
• The confirmation window has to jovially BOUNCE UP, wasting time, my thumb hovering above the ACCEPT input. This is unnecessary

Solutions:

• Make skills always draggable
• Get rid of the confirmation window when equipping skills from other characters
• Make gameplay confirmation windows instantly pop up

2nd contender is the skill tree.

• Why can't I see the coin and gold cost for skills behind key walls?

Solution:

• The only part of a skill node window that should change when behind a keywall? The confirm button should be replaced with a grayed-out button with a key on it or something. Less space, less confusion, just as much information.

 

[Poringsmasher]

As someone who wasn't lucky enough to get in the beta I'm feeling the pain of a lack of this "Quick Play" to help grind out my roster.

I've only got a few stages left in the final advanced mode and obviously my top characters are used in that and prize fights so everyone else lags behind, not even counting new additions I might get. Yeah, I've already cleared out the daily in all 3 difficulties too...clearly I enjoy playing.

For the other inquiries, I spend far too much time with skills in general. Swapping them between different versions of the same character for maximum effect and also selling all the junk skills that can quickly accumulate especially from the daily missions. Maybe a "sell all bronze" option? At least as long as it targets unequiped skills.

Unrelated but a small aside, another quest I can't complete requires gold only with 2 spaces and I only have 1 currently. The battle is more than doable with just my 1 gold but that isn't an option, I have to have 2 bodies filling the spaces and would be nice if I could choose to leave the 2nd space blank.

 

[BambooEarpick]

@Liam

Preset teams or favorite characters are a good start.
It would also be nice to favorite specials as well so I don't accidentally sell them. It'll also be easy to tell which ability I shifted from one character to another.

So, the ability to 'favorite' characters and moves (which would also mean I can't sell or fuse them).

Edit:
I came after Quick Play was a thing so I have no concrete input. I do wish that I could just play, sometimes. Not even for rewards. Just to mess around and have fun. Maybe try new combinations of moves and characters.
Right now players are rewarded only for winning (which is fine) but it creates situations where players are less likely to experiment with characters they are not familiar with.

It seems like one gripe people have with missing QP is that it's hard to earn EXP for their lower level characters and that risking a lop sided battle in story mode or whatever is a waste of energy. Perhaps whoever is responsible for exp balancing can look into characters getting a fraction of EXP on a loss so players don't feel like everything was a waste when they lose.

 

[Liam]

A lot of great responses!
Here comes a wall of text.

@Liam
Preset teams or favorite characters are a good start.

Personally, I would like to set-up a small number of preset teams.

Presets and expanded filter options would basically be the perfect solutions.

Presets and expanded filter options are on our list!
This should save a lot of time.

Why can't I drag skills from the right menu to the skill palette on the left? I can drag them from the skill palette TO the right menu.

This is something we've tried in the past, but had some issues with it being a horizontal drag in a vertical scrolling list.
It was one of the main usability issues folks had very early on, which is part of the reason we added the tap-based system.
That said, we're going to look into this again to see if it can be improved.

Why is there a confirmation window for equipping skills already equipped to another fighter? They're ALREADY grayed out AND decked out in that character's color. The confirmation window is redundant

The main purpose was to let people know which specific fighter had it equipped, but if users find this more annoying than helpful we can look into removing this or adjusting it.

The confirmation window has to jovially BOUNCE UP, wasting time, my thumb hovering above the ACCEPT input. This is unnecessary

We'll look into speeding this up.

Why can't I see the coin and gold cost for skills behind key walls?

The goal certainly isn't to hide information from the player, but more to help introduce folks into the key system without them feeling overwhelmed or confused.

We're going to look into some different solutions to this like the one you posted, stay tuned!

@Liam
It would also be nice to favorite specials as well so I don't accidentally sell them.

Locking characters and moves to prevent them from being sold is a feature we plan to include.

Thanks for the feedback everyone!

 

[Lolleroni]

This is good information, and I'd like to hear more.

If you have the time, I'd appreciate it if you could respond to these questions:

- Which menu(s) do you find is eating the most of your time when you're organizing a team?
- Are there any solutions that come to mind when it comes to putting together teams that would help speed this up for you?

Anyone else who has found this to be an issue is welcome to respond with their thoughts too.

Sorry in advance that this post is only tangentially related to OP's topic. This is a general UI review. Answering some of those questions is hard without an oversight of the UI decisions as a whole.

http://imgur.com/a/AHF9c

Problems:

1. Currently, creating teams is not fast. As a user, I want to be able to create a team from my characters as quickly and easily as possible. Optimally, I would like the team screen to respond just as quickly as the Character screen.
2. Some screens load very slowly for me. As a user, I want to navigate through the UI as fast as possible. I would like to spend most of my time playing instead of waiting for UI to load or filling out reports like this (lmao).
3. There are many small improvements that can be made to increase the user's QOL.

I know UI decisions aren't made lightly. I think the UI is beautiful, and fits the theme of SG very well. I would like it more if it was also more functional and responsive.

Once I press the "Fight" button, it's a relief for me. Loading the fight is FASTER than loading UI. The fighting part is also so much more fun. :^)

Device: Android 7.0 Nexus 6