Ask a Pizza - July 2021 Edition
Hey Pizzas!
We’re back with another edition of “Ask A Pizza” where we answer top questions from our community Discord channel!
If you’d like to be a part of the next one, be sure and sign up for the Pizza Club Games Discord: https://discord.com/invite/UUph6ar
Thanks once again to our entire Discord community that contributed questions and upvoted their favorites!
We’re hard at work on the next update and will have some more preview content coming up next week. For now, here is a WIP shot of a big update coming to the Roster screen!
Who is the LEAST used guildie? We all have our theories, but there can be only ones? – Kinson#5578
PizzaDan: It was Guest. But now Guest got some new moves, I’m sure that will change.
When is the next world going to be released? -Synless#9696
PizzaDan: We will be trying to provide as much stuff for elder players as we can while continuing to build up to a full game launch. So you can expect a new world in the coming months. But also LOTS of other cool stuff too.
On the topic of player retention, at what point is a player most likely to stop playing? –Psycho Romeo#3692
PizzaJohn: That is a topic we have been hard at work trying to improve for the last few updates. It is the nature of mobile games that it is hard to grab players and a lot of people try the game and quickly find it is not for them. A lot of people checking out the game make that decision after fighting Orc Boss and that is where we see the biggest drop off. Back in April only 32.56% of players who tried the game would keep playing after Orc Boss but as of writing this we are up to 49.67% of players who started in the last week sticking around after beating up the big mean green machine.
Are there plans to add clan wars? -Synless#9696
PizzaDan: Yes! We have lots of plans to make Alliances better and alliance wars will happen at some point in the future.
Can you describe the process that birthed the PvP battle system? Being quite departed from the Clone Tower prototype, were there any failed iterations on the way?? –Psycho Romeo#3692
Are there any plans to provide some mechanic for selling/upgrading lower level crafting materials for which we have an excessive surplus? –Kinson#5578
What are the giant flower pot looking things in the upper corners of the alliance raid map? –Psycho Romeo#3692
Can we have ingame PMs? At least within an alliance. It would help a lot to be noticed by a specific member? -Unkraut#9379
PizzaDan: Potentially, but I think we might need to improve the current chat system a bit first.
Will the guildies be able to increase their power to compete with the new epic guildies or they will be forgotten as we only use teams of only epic guildies, and the normal will be reserved to only early players or walls to get the epic guildies? -Lucariomon#6393
PizzaBenjamin: Epic Guildies will be limited to one per squad, in order to ensure that this doesn’t happen. We never want non-Epics to feel useless.
Do we get a playground for unlimited fun PVP fights against other alliance members or friends to be able to test defenses, other guildies or upcoming changes? 3 raids a day are not sufficient to do so? -Unkraut#9379
PizzaShawn: We are considering bumping up the daily free fights in a future release, but practice/scrimmage matches aren’t currently on the road map. If we see that PVP Arena becomes the main way people play the game we could certainly adjust the road map later on for something like this though.
Is there a plan to implement high end content for maxed out players. I don’t think of a new world – a cakewalk for these players giving them something to do for some days. It should include new long term development content e.g.: – some kind of complex guild master skill tree allowing to help in combats passive and actively, during development etc. etc. which can be build up individually. – some alternative skills for guildies e.g linked to the skin – some kind of small tree of abilities for each guildie to be switchable between combats – some kind of artifacts which can be switched between guildies – similar stuff Important: the content should not be grindable or buyable easily – challenges, almost impossible questlines (e.g. kill the warden without opening a cage), drops in DD at very high levels for example could be more fun. Could be also part of events? -Unkraut#9379
PizzaDan: Some interesting ideas! I’ll speak to the more general question though. There will certainly be new progression systems added geared towards elder players in addition to more worlds (and gear levels). We have some ideas but nothing set in stone just yet.
Will the epic guildies be in 1 recruit pool or in their own individual recruit scroll? – Synless#9696
PizzaShawn: Our current strategy with Epic Guildies is that they cannot be directly purchased. When there are sets of characters required for an Epic guildie we will likely continue to offer bundles for those characters. As for the Epic Guildies themselves, yes they will continue to be in an exclusive lane for the foreseeable future. The mechanics of how you earn them may change for some of the future releases but you’ll only ever be making progress towards a specific Epic guildie scroll/shards. There are currently no plans to combine them into a pool as the requirements for them are pretty unique.
Any plans to redesign mob models? Make them more unique to RB? Polishing up the guildies and making them look great! But the mobs need attention as well? – NazarickT#2848
PizzaShawn: Yes! We have been doing passes at many of the bosses; which will continue over the next couple releases. After we get through all of those we’d also like to go back and update some of the older mobs next.
When might we see the next epic guild member emerge? -Trogburn#4676
PizzaShawn: Our next release! We’re putting the finishing touches on them and will start dropping previews next week.
Will there be other tiers of guild members past epic at some point? Legendary? Mystic? Etc? -Trogburn#4676
PizzaBenjamin: Possibly, however we’re fully invested in creating really interesting Epic Guildies and there are many more of them to come.
Are there plans for any replayable content that doesn’t require energy/tickets/tokens, to allow players to interact with the game in some non-progress focused manner as much as they want? -Trogburn#4676
PizzaDan: Typically, we don’t want players to spend hours of time playing content that they have already mastered. This leads to burning out and something that we as players appreciate in other games that allow us to “finish” our daily goals. We want players to play Raid Boss for months/years to come and experience all the cool stuff we have planned. However, modes like practice modes (PvP Arena or PvE raids) and certain modes like Daily Dungeon that do offer more replayability is something we may add later. Ideally though, we want to build up enough game modes and daily content (through smaller events that are running often) there is plenty for a player to do each day that feels a bit more varied. I do understand that it can feel disappointing when Raid Boss daily sessions are short and you feel like you want to play more. We will be adding more and more to the game to address this so that each day feels like a satisfying experience (think more competitive and alliance modes).
Finding anything particularly inspiring in E3? -Psycho Romeo#3692
PizzaShawn: I haven’t watched all the press conferences yet but have been pretty meh at most of the stuff I’ve seen so far. I get the feeling that companies weren’t putting as much emphasis and effort into E3 than in previous years. I’m hoping there are some big wows that we’ll start to see more of as we get closer to the holiday season.
PizzaJohn: There were a ton which caught my attention and I’m excited how they shape up closer to release. In particular Metroid Dread was a fabulous surprise especially as it is set to come out in only a few more months. Some others I’m pumped for are Age of Empires 4, Metal Slug: Tactics, and Orcs Must Die! 3.
PizzaJermaine: as of 6/18 nothing has knocked me out of the park. There’s some cool games I want to try out, but nothing that left a mark.
PizzaBenjamin: Pretty miffed that they called the Starfield trailer a “gameplay trailer.” Regardless, I’m all about that space game life.
PizzaRach: Where is my Animal Crossing update…..
Are there any plans to add attributes to our heros and enemies?fire droplet zap cloud_tornado deciduous_tree full_moon new_moon pizza? -NazarickT#2848
PizzaShawn: Early on the team made the decision not to use the “color wheel”/elements or rock-paper-scissor type systems. The driving concept behind that was not getting into a structure that basically forced you to only use certain characters in their one optimal role. That’s not to say we won’t consider doing more in the future to improve character synergies or bonuses but the hope would be any such systems would still keep the philosophy of letting players build the teams they want and explore team comps without a clear “you must use these 5 characters together” design.
How many guildies are we going to get to play with!!! I like new and exciting toys! Will there be more than 1 epic guildie per role…could we possibly see enough epic guildies to run epic Bosses !?! -NazarickT#2848
PizzaBenjamin: Many, many more Guildies are on the way. We’ll be transitioning into getting them out on a better cadence soon!.
Any plans to move alliance achievements to its own chat? -Synless#9696
PizzaDan: We do want to improve the chat experience and this feedback has been mentioned. I don’t know exactly how we will address this issue but may provide better options for highlighting those achievements without flooding the chat.
Any plans for alliance vs alliance battles? -Synless#9696
PizzaBenjamin: Definitely. This has been mentioned a few times in Discord (maybe ping Trog or Kuratha to track it down). We’ve got some really cool plans for more Alliance content.
The most used PvP guildies seem to be in rough alignment with the most used Furnace Mech guildies. Can we expect these metrics to be influencing upcoming balance patches? -Psycho Romeo#3692
PizzaJermaine: The goal here is to make sure every Guildie has a place in the game, and it’s something that we’ll be working towards achieving over a long period of time.
Which Pizza would be most likely to cause a raid wipe? -Kinson#5578
PizzaShawn: Since the last Ask A Pizza a few of us have gotten into FFXIV but we still haven’t run a raid yet. As the newest player there I suspect it could be me :(. In WOW raids, I’m blaming a DPS member who got out of position..
PizzaJohn: As the resident FFXIV Red Mage main I love to do backflips to help eke out that tiny bit of extra DPS and look cool while doing it…sadly I never remember to look behind me beforehand and on more than one occasion have gone straight backwards off of a cliff. Does dead at the bottom of a cliff count as out of position?
PizzaDivo: Well since I actually did cause a 70 person raid wipe at 3am in the morning, I would say me.
PizzaBenjamin: I’m going to have to go with Charles or Todd. In fact, I’m not entirely sure either of them know what video games are…? 😉
Do you plan to individualize resistivity more detailed? Eg poison resistivity for Sailor Goon and or Squad with Sailor Goon? Or the other way around that some guildies have less resistivity vs different effects? -Unkraut#9379
PizzaJermaine: As we release new Guildies and update old ones, you’ll begin to see a variety in resistance through Guildie kits / abilities that modify resistances. From a base stat level you won’t see any variation.
Would it meet your development strategy to implement guild dungeons. Developed by each player including bosses and minions available improvements etc. as new content. The difficulty should be adjustable by the player, but only releaseable if the player can beat it him or herself. The dungeons get runnable for all players after the release. Some kind of unique awards and achievements can be earned within some time. E.G a week or a month Optionally also as an alliance dungeon and or boss -Unkraut#9379
PizzaDan: I like the idea! We don’t currently have this planned on the Road Map but I could see something like this added in the longer term.
Do you plan to develop more events? Especially alliance events and community events? -Unkraut#9379
PizzaShawn: Yes, it’s been a little too long for both. We have some plans coming later this summer. We’ve got a bunch of new event types we’re excited to roll out over the next couple releases as well!
How much data does the game collect on us? – Synless#9696
PizzaDan: In terms of personal data, basically nothing. In terms of analytics, we track pretty much all the game behavior that you might think of: battles, characters, etc. and [Pizza] John uses all that to make cool charts!
Who on the PCG team comes up with the funniest ideas? And what are some examples? -Trogburn#4676
PizzaDivo: Lisa has come up with some of the most hilarious plot points to add to the story. Seriously, she has great comedic timing. (And I’m not just saying this cus she’s my boss!)
PizzaShawn: Yeah I’d have to agree with Lisa as a key driver of our character/story/lore of the game. I also think Ben is pretty funny too and set the tone for our Community and Social content.
PizzaBenjamin: Dan’s always funny. (Supreme Leader, please accept this completely honest compliment and continue to employ your humble servant.)
Any awesome events coming up for July 4 (Independence Day for US)? -Trogburn#4676
Any plans for a Canada Day/Independence Day week long event?? -Synless#9696
PizzaShawn: Sorry we didn’t have anything ready for this, I’m getting ramped up on the Event tech and we should definitely have things for some of the bigger holidays later this year! We also have a couple cool giveaways coming up in the next couple weeks, and something at the end of this blog!
Can we get some awesome Gedran skins like: Gedrake / Sophisticated Gedran? -Trogburn#4676
PizzaShawn: That one is pretty high on our list for future skins. If we did that specific one we’d likely tie it into some sort of Community Event or campaign.
Are there any plans for special game modes like: – Speed run (starts a linked playthrough with you back at level 1, trying to get to certain milestones as fast as possible) – Tweaked replays for achievements (allows you to tweak difficulty settings for boss fights or other content, like selecting to speed up coal miner spawning, or to add an extra hydra cone to his attack) -Trogburn#4676
PizzaBenjamin: We’ll for sure keep injecting fun mini-modes like Coin Challenges, Red Item Challenges, and so on. We’ve got a ton on the plate for campaigns, so it may be some time, but we for sure want to keep the game fresh with rotating event content (the most likely place right now where we’ll inject modes like this).
Any plans or ideas to extend campaign? Outside of w10 and hard modes…maybe special difficulties like extreme? Add more dungeons between bosses? -NazarickT#2848
PizzaBenjamin: Current plans are to continue the existing campaign (Normal and Hard) through World 10 and now to continue the Magicae/Physicus campaigns through their own World 10s. We’ll also continue adding mini-campaigns to unlock Epic Guildies and event campaigns to launch with non-Epic Guildies. Past that, we’ll definitely start working on more campaign content, however obviously what’s been mentioned here is a HUGE amount of work and will take us some time.
In the last AAP, it was asked about alternate Advancment Systems was wondering what kind of ideas would be possible? Skill tree anyone! -NazarickT#2848
PizzaBenjamin: Definitely something we could explore after a bit. Right now the main way for players to change up their Guildies via stats is to use Powerstone Boards and Powerstones. That system is still brand new and has more to come: higher tiers with more substats and a “Forge” where players can reroll stats.
Who on the PCG team comes up with the most out of the box / inspired ideas? And what are some examples? -Trogburn#4676
PizzaShawn: We have a lot of awesome and creative people on the team so there are great contributions throughout the whole team. Rachael has done some amazing work for us on the UI updates and overhauls and she’s constantly adding a bunch of cool UI elements. In fact we’re going to be giving away an awesome profile icon she made next week!
PizzaBenjamin: Lisa’s always coming up with the most unique ideas, even if they’re not something we can easily fit into the game. Divo constantly keeps us on our toes because she’s fearless about giving critique. Jermaine always keeps us on the ground with solid design that we can accomplish with our small team.
Are there any plans for timed challenges? -Trogburn#4676
PizzaJermaine: We will be implementing a bit more timed content as we round out our list of features and move into content creation mode. Ideally there’s always some limited time event or challenge that’s going to be active at any point in time.
When can we expect to see an update for the amount of aspect ratios being supported? -ShootBigBucks#8269
PizzaDan: We would like to look at this issue when we launch on iOS which is in the coming months.
Knowing that this game is preparing for it’s global launch, is there any not so far in future plan content for end game players? -GoberBebek#0369
PizzaDan: Yes, we have carefully made the Road Map so that we try to balance support for new/mid players, support for game launch, and content for elder players. While we can’t dedicate full time to elder game content yet, we won’t leave you hanging!
How many epic guildies will you introduce into the game before you go back to making regular guildies? -Synless#9696
PizzaBenjamin: The current plan is to have four Epic Guildies before we move back to a cadence between non-Epics and Epics.
Will the API be available to the public? -ShootBigBucks#8269
PizzaDan: We would LOVE to have third-party sites and tools be available for Raid Boss players so when the community grows a bit more and needs support from us, we would like to help by providing access to as much as possible.
Has any of the pizzas changed their view on pineapple on pizza…or thought of pen pineapple apple pen on pizza -NazarickT#2848
PizzaShawn: I don’t know what I was doing when Pen Pineapple Apple Pen dropped but I viewed it for the first time after reading this question, so thanks for that! I am still in the sometimes camp but I don’t think I’d be a fan of BOTH pineapple and apple on pizza I don’t think sweet apples work on pizza. Fruit on pizza is best when there is a nice sweet and savory combination going on and two sweets would overpower it.
PizzaDivo: Thanks, now that song will be stuck in my head forever. PPAP!
PizzaBenjamin: Never.
Since the game is over a year old, any chance we will see a walk through time gallery showcasing how the game has evolved and the different looks of it? -ShootBigBucks#8269
PizzaShawn: Unfortunately the team was so busy making the game with a 4 person crew in the early days there aren’t a ton of assets from back then to do 1:1 comparisons for. Some of the initial screenshots were featured in this older blog article: https://pizzaclubgames.com/2021/04/05/raid-boss-one-year-anniversary/ We can look to revisit something like this as a future blog feature though.
How is your strategy to get not ptw but earn enough money? -Unkraut#9379
PizzaShawn: One important philosophy that the team has had with monetization strategy is to not create content or gate anything that is ONLY available to paying players. A large part of this is making offers that can be purchased with Gems (which there are ample sources to earn in the game for active players) or make sure there are alternative ways for players to earn items outside of direct money purchases. We do offer a number of packages that let you get through content quicker or level your Guild Members quicker if you pay. In this way you are paying for convenience or time savings instead of direct power which we feel is an important distinction for staying out of full “pay to win”. In terms of how we hope to make enough money without being P2W it will also come down to creating deep content and improving our Events system to give players reasons to come back and play. Finally, we do want to keep trying to find that balance of compelling offers for players that do like to spend in the game and also providing lots of fair and free content to players that don’t. It is a difficult thing to balance and we appreciate the feedback from the community for when we’re getting it right and when we’re not!
Do you get plenty of sleep and water? -NazarickT#2848
PizzaShawn: Not nearly enough of either, I really need to take more in-game advice from the Treasure Chests, there is some great stuff there.
PizzaDivo: No. Though I do waay better on 9-10 hours of sleep. Coffee is water, right?
PizzaBenjamin: Definitely not enough water. Sleep is fine, though.
What lessons from your previous game development experience have you taken into Pizza Club Games? -Psycho Romeo#3692
PizzaJermaine: Mainly to not get too attached. Getting too attached to ideas, processes or solutions causes you to get emotional and clouds your judgement, and if you want to perform at a high evel, you need to see clearly. In short, just be cool.
PizzaBenjamin: Maintain a consistent vision. This can either come from one developer or a cabal of them. Raid Boss was created in such a short time and with such a small team because we knew what we wanted to build from a very early stage and have maintained that vision since then. So much dev time is lost (which costs lots of money) when pillars of the design change and cause things to be remade over and over again.
Next would be to prototype features as quickly as possible. Get them down on paper, get everyone on board based on the paper design (this step should have lots of back and forth since it’s way cheaper to change things on paper than in code), then get it made in prototype in a way that’s playable.
Finally, communication is key. Always ask questions with the goal of understanding fully what another dev is trying to communicate to you. Never make assumptions that you know what they’re talking about because it usually creates confusion (or worse, lost work or delays).
This is a 2 parter. World Chat As we know, World Chat is well, for chatting or conversations as you will. It can quickly become a race to fill the screen with advertisements and become the latest poster. Often times we see a handful of ads from the same alliances, even in a single day. Now currently, the chat has never went longer than 2 days of messages (mostly due to ads). Alliance Chat To piggyback on World Chat, we can resolve this by limiting ads to 1x a day per Alliance – that way it won’t be abused as members often carry the burden to fit their quota of spam. This way, players can continue to carry out their day to day conversations peacefully. There is no reason to see multiple ads from the same alliance without even scrolling up – and can still obtain information from scrolling up. This will help transition the game into global launch. We would like to see a separate channel just for advertising and looking for an alliance with the details laid forth above to set this in works. If you would like to even spice things up, there could be presets for specific information such as: Current Raid, Spots Available, Level Required, and a note from the recruiter (i.e. Discord required, guides available etc). What will we see in the future as the game progresses to mitigate this pile of mess that will occur without preemptive action? Don’t get me started on those asking for bf/gf that will eventually come- ShootBigBucks#8269
PizzaDan: We agree that chat could use some quality of life improvements. We may restrict alliance ads or create a separate channel entirely for this (and allow reporting for misuse of general channel). We have a few other issues we would also like to resolve with chat so you can expect some improvements in the future.
If you could only eat 1 meal for the rest of your life, what would it be? -Kuratha#9014
PizzaDivo: I just woke up, so the only answer is Coffee. It’s a meal.
PizzaJermaine: Probably something that gives me all of the nutrients I need (like an MRE or meal replacement shake)
PizzaBenjamin: Grilled chicken super burritos with everything on them. Smothered in green sauce.
PizzaShawn: I mean are we really going to sit here and not say Pizza? (My answer is a tie between cheesesteaks and chicken pad thai).
What non-native language would you most like to learn? -Kuratha#9014
PizzaDivo: Japanese, so much. Or Korean. I really love shows from both of those regions and would love to be able to watch them without having to have subtitles.
PizzaBenjamin: Something coding related so I can better talk to the AIs that will eventually dictate my every move.
Dog, cat, or other animal person? -Kuratha#9014
PizzaShawn: For the first 20+ years of my life I would have been hardcore dog person, but over the last 10+ years I’ve lived with cats and they’ve grown on me. They are definitely lower maintenance which is nice when you’re busy working a lot. We will consider a dog again when our kids get a little older though!
PizzaDivo: Cats! Though I have had both. Pets are wonderful, but cats suit me the best.
PizzaJermaine: I have a pet Chevy Camaro that I cruise with, does that count?
PizzaJohn: Fish! I have a 29 gallon fish tank with Neon Tetras, Cory Cats, and a stunning German Blue Ram that I’ve gotten countless hours of joy from. If I had to get another type of pet and it couldn’t be more fish I think it would be a lizard, lizards are way underrated as pets and there are tons of super cool ones out there.
PizzaBenjamin: Animals in general. We have a cat, but I grew up on a farm with dogs, cats, chickens, ducks, pigeons, goats, horses, pigs, rabbits.
What’s your favorite game in the following: -RTS -FPS -PSP -DS -Gameboy (if applicable) -A-RPG -MMORPG -All-time favorite? -Kuratha#9014
PizzaJohn: Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance will forever have a place in my heart. It is a sci-fi RTS with unique factions, simultaneous battles on the ground, sea, and air, and an impressive scale that I think has yet to be surpassed by anything else within the genre.
PizzaJermaine: Favorite MMO is a toss up between Black Desert and Warhammer Online, Warhammer I was in a hardcore PVP Guild where we would get a group of 12, and wreck multiple warbands in open world PVP. Black Desert I like because the combat feels great and the class designs are beautiful.
PizzaBenjamin: A list:
MMO: Eve Online (o7)
RTS: Age of Empires II
FPS: Halo: Reach
PSP: Warriors Lair (RIP)
DS: Bravely Default
Gameboy: Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening DX (gotta get that color)
ARPG: Marvel Heroes (RIP)
All-time Favorite: FF VIII
PizzaShawn: I’m glad you put PSP on here, it was an underrated system. I worked on a couple PSP titles so I’m going to put them on here Brooktown High (it had its flaws but was a Western take on the Japanese Dating Sim) and Rock Band Unplugged (was a launch title with the PSP Go).
What pet peeve makes you tic the most? -Kuratha#9014
PizzaBenjamin: Getting advice when I didn’t ask for it.
PizzaDivo: Giving Ben unasked for advice that he will inevitably ignore.
What’s a favorite quote of yours? -Kuratha#9014
PizzaJohn: An unusual one that I wish I took to heart earlier in my life from an extremely talented board game designer by the name of Reiner Knizia: “When playing a game, the goal is to win, but it is the goal that is important, not the winning.”
PizzaJermaine: In a Thai accent: “Yeah, you strong, you fight normal man, you do fine. You train with me, I teach you how to beat fighter… You never lose.” – Master Chan
PizzaBenjamin: “The noblest of all dogs is the hot-dog; it feeds the hand that bites it.” – Laurence J. Peter
Tell us something we would never guess about you? -Kuratha#9014
PizzaBenjamin: I’ve recently gotten very into gardening and am trying to keep a lot of plants alive.
When can we expect Pizza the Hutt to join the game? I’d say as a guildie, but he isn’t too mobile, so probably just as a boss! -Kinson#5578
PizzaBenjamin: Haha, yeah would probably have to be a boss… You never know with Raid Boss!
FIRST EVER RAID BOSS CODE REDEMPTION!!!
We added the ability to Redeem Codes in settings last update. Follow the steps below to collect a gift for reading the blog!
- Tap your profile image in the top left side of the home screen
- Tap the gear icon for Settings
- Tap the Redeem Code button in the bottom left of the Settings screen
- Tap the area that says Type Redeem Code Here
- Enter the code TESTING123
- Tap the green CLAIM button
- 100 Campaign Energy
- 100 Raid Energy
- 100 Powerstone Campaign Energy
- 20,000 Training XP
- 30,000 Coins
*Limit 1 redemption per account
*Limited to 5,000 total redemptions
Thanks again to all of you for taking part in this round of “Ask A Pizza” and as always for playing Raid Boss! We have some really great stuff coming in the next few releases!
Thanks on behalf of the whole Raid Boss team!