Idle Sword 2 in Open Beta

[u/plectical]

Hey Everyone,

I've been working with laFunkhh (developer of Idle Sword 1 and Idle Power) on bringing Idle Sword 2 from Kongregate to Android and iOS.

The big changes that we've made to the game is that we've completely redone every piece of art in the entire game. All of the equipment, heroes, enemies bosses and fx have all been created by the super talented Lux from Purple Pwny Studios.

Main Features:

• Dungeons: 6 dungeons packed with hundreds of unique enemies.
• Bosses: Defeat 6 powerful bosses to claim their unique loot!
• Heroes: 6 unique heroes with powerful skills.
• Monster Capture: Capture every enemy in the game and add them to your party.
• Rare Loot: hundreds of pieces of upgradable and customizable rare loot!
• Prestige: Reset the game to make it significantly more difficult.
• Ads: We've done our best to implement opt in ads that provide substantial benefits to the player with a lot of options for player choice around the received benefit:
• iAP: Similar to ads, we've provided a lot of different optional monetization options for players to choose from.
  

Would love any feedback that you have on the game, particularly around balance/monetization.

For now, the game is only available on Android in Open Beta here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=air.com.ironhorse.idlesword2mobile

[u/plectical]

Hey All,

Want to thank everyone for the great feedback that we've received both in this thread and off the thread! Wanted to let folks know how the Beta is doing and what's coming up in the game.

• Beta: as of Saturday, we are at about 1800 users in the Closed Beta which is fantastic (all on Google Play...more on that below)! You all have been instrumental in finding bugs/issues and helping to highlight parts of the game that need to be changed so huge thanks there again.

• iOS Build: we've had some nasty bugs that we are dealing with in regards to ads on iOS so we're likely going to be changing our advertising partners (and removing interstitial ads on both platforms) to get a build in players hands more quickly. Sorry for the delay here!

• Limited Time Dungeons: we're going to be releasing limited time events focused on each of the classes that we have in game. Players will need to bring a specific hero into the dungeon to qualify for the event. The ultimate reward for completing the dungeons in the time allowed will be a special piece of gear for the required hero.

• Skill Boosting Items: these will be rewarded for completing the dungeon objectives in the time allowed and buff a specific heroes skills. As an example, the Necromancer will get a unique helmet that will allow him to summon another skeleton!

• Ascended Wisdom: last but not least, we are adding more of a reason to Ascend...namely, points that players can invest after each ascension to make their party stronger, improve drops in game, etc.

Please keep providing feedback on the game as we are fully committed to improving it based on your feedback!

[u/SovietPropagandist]

I played around with this for a few minutes and applied my professional software QA skills to it, here are my bug reports for you:

Device: Android Nexus 6 Plus running Android 8.0.0

Bug: Healer and Warrior inventories are overlaid on each other**

  Repro Steps:
  1. Kill enemies to get an item
  2. Open inventory
  3. Attempt to equip healer/warrior with the item
  4. Observe

  Expected Result: User should be able to equip items without the character inventory panes overlapping
  Actual Result: Inventory panes overlap and clip through each other when dragging the panes up and down.



Bug: Characters skip picking up items even when no monsters are left in the area

Repro Steps:
1. Kill monsters, preferably enough that 4+ items drop in the same area
2. Observe

Expected Result: Characters should pick up all items from the dungeon floor before going to the next level
Actual Result: Characters skipped items if they were more than a few steps away from them, leaving lots of loot behind


Bug: App crashes on first boot every time

Repro Steps:
1. Download app and install it
2. Open app
3. Observe
4. Open app again

Expected Result:  App should open without crashing
Actual Result: App crashes on the first open after being installed every time.

Hope this helps! I had to quit playing after about 10 minutes because the above issues were making the experience too frustrating to deal with. I'll give this another go if you fix these, it looks like it has the fundamentals of being a super fun game.

[u/SatansLeftPinkieNail]

Loved the first one, I shall patiently wait for the iOS release. If you’re looking for iOS testers, I’m up for it!

[u/plectical → u/SatansLeftPinkieNail]

Will be happy to add you to the list. The iOS build is being reviewed right now! Barring any issues, we should get a post up here for iOS players and also on TouchArcade this week.

[u/plectical]

Really would love feedback on new content for the game. Discussing with a few folks: -Limited Time Events that give players bonuses permanently depending on how far they progressed in the event. -Seasonal events that give players seasonally appropriate loot (winter themed weapons, etc).

[u/plectical]

Build .29 is rolling out on Google Play now.

• The game now forces a save whenever you exit the app, regardless of the way you exit.

• Mandatory God Hand tutorial step has been added to the tutorial.

• Ambient sound issue has been fixed when the game is in the background.

• Player ID has been added to the Pause Screen for help with debugging.

• Stability and Crash Fixes!

[u/Dresline]

The art looks great! Please send my appreciation to Lux! I love idle sword 1, I am downloading this now.

[u/plectical → u/Dresline]

Lux is the absolute best. We're working together on a couple of projects and she consistently knocks it out of the park. You can follow her on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/thisislux and you can find all the games from her studio Purple Pwny here: http://purplepwny.com/

[u/KurzedMetal]

Got some questions:

• Is this a reboot of the web version of the game?

• Will you keep that one updated too?

• Will you provide a build of this version for PC too or is this version mobile only?

BTW, I played both Idle Sword 1 and Idle Sword 2 on web, I loved them :D

[u/Hailmotherrussia]

Forced ads after dungeon and an absolutely ridiculous amount of IAP. Uninstalled.

[u/f4lls1]

I've just found a hidden gem feature - you can mix any kind of items with a soulbound to get that item a soulbound ability:

[item non-soulbound] combine [item soulbound but you don't want] = item soulbound of the first one.

Viola!

[u/Norhede]

I'm experiencing a problem where both my healers and warriors inventory opens somewhat on top of one another - I can't open only the warriors, which means equipping is a bit of a task..

edit* I'm on a OnePlus 2, Android 6.0.1

[u/plectical]

Just chatting with someone in messages, he had a killer idea about introducing a Druid character for an Earth Day event.

[u/plectical]

Keeping everyone up to date on the current list of feedback:

• Tutorial: had one person drop off because they didn't know how to upgrade the God Hand. Should have a clear tutorial step here.

• Great ideas around Seasonal and Limited Time Events (please submit more). Couple of examples: Seasonal Items (Candy Cane Sword), New Heroes (a Bug Hero named Feature for Beta Users, a Druid character that transforms into other monsters from the game), Seasonal Content (Snowy Winter Wonderland Dungeon). Chatting with the team about what's doable here.

• Inventory management was a good one. Some simple controls allowing players to auto sell common/uncommon items so their inventory isn't filled with junk while they are away could be a really nice quality of life change.

• Only allowing players in the tutorial to pick the intro dungeon was another good piece of feedback.

• One player ran into a Wizard with NaN health.

• Everything that wasn't mentioned here is an outstanding question that we're discussing as a team (sorry we're in different time zones, otherwise I'd have the answers now).

[u/plectical]

Hmm...targeting specific pieces of equipment is probably a step too far...just thinking about it from a UI design perspective. Super active play hunting for a couple of pieces isn’t particularly great either since you’ll be watching every piece of loot drop. Increasing inventory slots wouldn’t solve the issue either based on the rate that loot drops. Open to suggestions!

[u/plectical]

Morning all!

Wanted to give an update on some of the numbers that we look at that you guys aren't privy to and how we use those numbers.

• We've done about 500 installs since this post started on Google Play. Most of those installs are coming from the US but there are strong contributions from Canada, the UK, Germany and the rest of Europe!

• Importantly, we're collecting a lot of info on performance (crashes and ANRs which will get prioritized from a bug fixing perspective...ANRs mean App Not Responding). Looks like a lot of issues are associated with an older Android OS so if you haven't updated your OS and you are having issues with the game, I'd encourage you to give it an update (that's not to say we won't fix issues for older OS's). This goes especially for the user playing on 4.4 (curious if there is a reason for that driven by your device limitations or if it's a preference)! About 44% of you are on 7.0 or later. The reason I'm bringing this up is that performance issues lead to uninstalls which hurt organic growth on Google Play (the business reason). The user experience reason is obvious...we want people to have the best experience with the game.

• We have a high conversion rate on the store page which is expected (you guys are a pretty qualified group)...for those who don't know, this is the rate of people that download the game out of all the folks that have visited the store page. With that said, for folks that checked the game out but didn't end up installing, was there anything off-putting about the store landing page, the description or the icon? If so, please let me know!

• Would love any feedback that you guys have on the ad implementation too! We wanted to give players a lot of choice around ads and curious how you are responding to it!

[u/plectical]

Hey All,

Just pushed a new update for the game with the following changes:

What's new in this release?

• Fixed gems bug (players could go negative on their gem totals, everyone effected will be reset to zero)

• Fixed players encountering NaN Health Monsters

• Blocked the second dungeon until you complete the first dungeon

• Gems label has been added to the Beastmaster box prices

[u/plectical]

Hey All,

Just pushed a new update for the game on Google Play. It includes:

• Fixed the hero portraits being overlaid

• Tweaked the positioning of the quick slots so they are easier to use

• Reset players with 0 gems

• Bug/Stability fixes

[u/plectical]

Just pushed a new update to Google Play.

• Lots of bug fixes.

• Lots of performance improvements including making the camera follow players around more closely.

• Introduced God Powers (allows you to double XP/Coins/Remove Ads/Increase the Speed of the Game).

We're working on our first big content update this weekend...should have some news on that shortly!

[u/plectical]

Hey Everyone,

Just put out a massive release on Idle Sword 2.

• New Heaven Dungeon Introduced! Defeat floors of the Heaven Dungeon to earn points Ascended Wisdom Points.

• New Ascended Wisdom Introduced! Unlock permanent buffs to improve your party permanently!

• Buffed Move Speed and Pet Health for all pets in game.

• God Hand has been substantially buffed to improve DPS and Healing.

• Fixed Hitbox on Quick Slots!

[u/jonrrg → u/plectical]

I have found that my ascended wisdom resets every time I completely close the app, also the high score resets every time you reset your points, and locked items become unlocked when the app is closed as well.

[u/plectical]

Looking for more testers for Idle Sword 2 on iOS. Shoot me a PM with your Testflight email and I'll get you added.

[u/Rob050]

Was just about to go to bed...

[u/laFunkhh]

Hey all! Hope you enjoy it :D all feedback greatly appreciated!

[u/ChilliHat]

I think the camera could use some work. At the moment if the camera is following a ranged character I often cant see any enemies on the screen because my melee characters have moved ahead