Pre-Release (v1.3.1) Notes (2/12/16)

LakeStone

Hi Everyone –

The team is currently working on a patch update (v1.3.1) that will be going into submission shortly. This patch update will most importantly address the random crashing players may have been experiencing during battles. A couple of additional updates are being made to the game to help the overall player experience, including free booster packs in the Vault available every 8 hours, and increased Mana Runes reward from winning Encounters.

The complete Pre-Release Notes can be seen below. We do not have a date set for when this will go live but we expect sometime next week. If the date is delayed, we will be sure to let everyone know.

In addition, we plan to provide a nice gift right after the release of 1.3.1 to those players that experienced a reset of their rank in the Quick Battle leaderboards.

Thank you for playing Magic: The Gathering – Puzzle Quest.

Pre-Release Notes

Patch Notes 1.3.1!

- Random crash in all game areas is now fixed.
- All new daily free booster packs.
- Increased Mana Runes reward from winning encounters in all game modes.
- Miscellaneous bug fixes and improvements...

Gameplay

Free Booster Pack

Players can now claim booster packs for free in the Vault. Come back every 8 hours and claim it.

Balancing / Change Log

- Winning a Quick Battle rewards more Runes, 300 Runes per win.
- The number of Ribbons won in a Quick Battle is dependent on the player’s PW level now.

1-9 = 1 ribbon
10-19 = 1 ribbon
20-29 = 2 ribbons
30-39 = 3 ribbons
40-49 = 4 ribbons
50+ = 5 ribbons

- New rewards for replaying an Encounter

All chapters: Runes per loss = 50
Origins - Chapter One - Part 1: Runes per win = 100
Origins - Chapter One - Part 2: Runes per win = 125
Origins - Chapter Two - Part 1: Runes per win = 150
Origins - Chapter Two - Part 2: Runes per win = 175
Origins - Chapter Three - Part 1: Runes per win = 200
Origins - Chapter Three - Part 2: Runes per win = 220
All Heroic Encounters: Runes per win = 250
The second Objectives for Encounters give 250 Runes (rather than 8 Crystals).
The Potion limit is reduced to 3. Regen timer remains the same: 30 minutes.

Bug Fixes/Improvements

- A random crash which happened in all game areas is now fixed.
- The prices of all offers are displayed in USD. Players have been charged at the right price as displayed in the confirmation prompt. The right prices / currency are now displayed.
- The Story Mode Chapters display as locked instead of unlocked when disabling the data connection during the Tutorial. The Chapters are now unlocked properly.
- Images for Custom Pack & Starter Pack are not displayed properly in the Activity Hub. They are now well displayed.
- Some players were not able to switch the color of the Event in Quick Battle. The bug is now fixed.
- Optimize the claim rewards at the end of an Event so players will not experience latency anymore.

TKC

LakeStone wrote:

In addition, we plan to provide a nice gift right after the release of 1.3.1 to those players that experienced a reset of their rank in the Quick Battle leaderboards.

So basically everyone, unless you mean just those who submitted a ticket.

LakeStone wrote:

- The number of Ribbons won in a Quick Battle is dependent on the player’s PW level now.
1-9 = 1 ribbon
10-19 = 1 ribbon
20-29 = 2 ribbons
30-39 = 3 ribbons
40-49 = 4 ribbons
50+ = 5 ribbons

I totally understand why you did this, but it makes the environment even more new player unfriendly than it already is.

It was already the case that a better card list meant a better ranking (which is fine, but a big advantage to established players). However making Quick Battle leader boards only really winnable by people who've been able to grind up high level planeswalkers will just create a self-perpetuating cycle of a smaller number of 'elite' people winning the big prizes over and over again.

LakeStone wrote:

The second Objectives for Encounters give 250 Runes (rather than 8 Crystals).

Right, time to get out of Quick Battle and sort out Story mode, ASAP!

The_Leftist

5 ribbons for level 50+???

Can we get a conformation that walkers will be able to level past 50 soon or that we will be getting new walkers that have a level cap higher than 50?????????

Morphis

Good stuff coming Tnx.

The change to ribbon gain is quite simple and could work(for sure ppl will not use lvl 8 pwalkers... MAYBE lvl 40 ones. Still much better than now.

Free booster packs are, of course, welcome

All fixes hope work and will not somehow create other bugs.

Also I hope you found the time to fix some of the card bugs listed in the proper section.

Tnx and keep up the good work!

Unknown

I applaud the change to ribbon allocation in an attempt to make levelling planeswalkers more attractive... However... I think there is a better way to do it.

A high level planeswalkers, by nature, will get much longer winstreaks. Make ribbon reward based on a winstreak multiplier. You can cap it at 5 per win, so it won't matter if a player gets a 100 game winstreak. Since you are fixing the random crash bug, it should work.

At least this way, low level pw newbies can still string together winstreaks with smart play and have a shot at higher rank in the quick battle system.

Morphis

Manthro wrote:

I applaud the change to ribbon allocation in an attempt to make levelling planeswalkers more attractive... However... I think there is a better way to do it.

A high level planeswalkers, by nature, will get much longer winstreaks. Make ribbon reward based on a winstreak multiplier. You can cap it at 5 per win, so it won't matter if a player gets a 100 game winstreak. Since you are fixing the random crash bug, it should work.

At least this way, low level pw newbies can still string together winstreaks with smart play and have a shot at higher rank in the quick battle system.

No it does not work the way you think. Low lvl pwalker have equal if not better win streak than high level ones cause the game matches you with similar level pwalkers.

So high lvl pwalker usually have at least a decent collection/decks
Low lvl pwalkers have on average worse collection cause there are new players there too(there is no new player at high lvl cause it costs time).

All this means that low lvl with good collection have an easier time in fighting and also have shorter fights.
The only alternative solution is to make matchmaking based not on pwalker lvl but something else(current rank position could be good).

That way since lvl does not matter anymore there would be little to no reason keeping you from leveling.

Unknown

I love it.
You benefit from leveling but you are not forced to do so. 3 potions mean you have to switch PWs more often.
Only thing I don't love about it is the switch in 2nd objectives rewards but there is still time to get them all

Unknown

I didn't ask for this!

Please fix planeswalker ability cost if you're going to do that, or have planeswalkers gain more pw mana when they get higher levels.

That more than anything else is making me not want to level up.

loroku

Thank you so much for letting us know!

I agree that these are welcome changes, especially the ribbon change that makes leveling your PW much more attractive for PvP. Not sure if that's the best system yet, but it's definitely a step in the right direction.

TKC wrote:

LakeStone wrote:

The second Objectives for Encounters give 250 Runes (rather than 8 Crystals).

Right, time to get out of Quick Battle and sort out Story mode, ASAP!

I also agree that the change to the story rewards means we should try to knock out as many 2nd level story rewards as possible this weekend, since 8 crystals >>>>>>>> thousands of runes, at least at this point in the game's life. (Which also makes the PvP rewards really weird, since I'd much rather have 30 crystals than 1500 runes.)

TKC wrote:

However making Quick Battle leader boards only really winnable by people who've been able to grind up high level planeswalkers will just create a self-perpetuating cycle of a smaller number of 'elite' people winning the big prizes over and over again.

Yup, this is exactly how MPQ works. Once you get ahead, you STAY ahead. Actually I'd say the majority of PvP games work that way. (Not saying I like it, just saying this is extremely common.)

Manthro wrote:

A high level planeswalkers, by nature, will get much longer winstreaks. Make ribbon reward based on a winstreak multiplier.

I also disagree that this would work, as low level PWs will get wins - and thus winstreaks - much quicker and higher. Also, until they seriously get rid of all the random crashing, I REALLY don't want anything based on winstreak.

loroku

LakeStone wrote:

Free Booster Pack

Players can now claim booster packs for free in the Vault. Come back every 8 hours and claim it.

This is the only change that confuses me. While certainly welcome, I don't really understand what this is accomplishing. They already have daily rewards (to keep daily log ins high). What is the purpose here?

Unknown

loroku wrote:

LakeStone wrote:

Free Booster Pack

Players can now claim booster packs for free in the Vault. Come back every 8 hours and claim it.

This is the only change that confuses me. While certainly welcome, I don't really understand what this is accomplishing. They already have daily rewards (to keep daily log ins high). What is the purpose here?

We have a reason to use our runes for leveling Planeswalkers now. Anyone that was opening these packs with their runes won't have an opportunity to open them *and* level their Planeswalkers. It was also kind of brutal for brand new players that had to choose between improving their decks or leveling a Planeswalkers. I don't think it will impact people who have been playing for a month, but it's a big quality of life improvement for new players.

Big thanks to the devs for giving the Ribbon system another try. I think it's going to work much better. I feel like I'll be getting everyone to at least 20 now and can switch between them for Quick Battles without penalizing myself.

Fewer crashes is also worth a happy dance, especially with a decrease in the number of healing potions. It feels like I use half of them just for app crashes.

Keep it up!

Unknown

If you want to go that way, that's fine. But you seriously need to rebalance the PW abilities and costs if you're going this route. Some get objectively worse (Gideon) as they level up, while Jace gets better and better. The gap that was already there gets vastly widened by this because players invested in PW(s) that get worse as they level up are faced with a dilemma, while players invested in ones like Jace get rewarded both ways.

It seems like a forced way to get players to level up PW because the game isn't balanced with incentives to do so in the first place.

Additionally this is a huge barrier for new players, but if you're cool with that it's all good. Can't say I would recommend the game to a friend the way it's going though.

Unknown

My profile appears to be deleted after the most recent update. When I start the app it takes me to the title page, asking me to create a new character name. Please please tell me that I'll be able to recover my profile with the patch.

Thanks,
Matt

The_Leftist

Bagopickles wrote:

My profile appears to be deleted after the most recent update. When I start the app it takes me to the title page, asking me to create a new character name. Please please tell me that I'll be able to recover my profile with the patch.

Thanks,
Matt

I've had this happen, but it was fixed after restarting the App.

Others have had it happen, and restarting didn't help. However, after uninstalling and then reinstalling, they had their profile back.

I've also recommended to everyone on the FB community to either screenshot or write down your UID (found at the bottom of your settings tab) in case something like this happens in the future and all attempts to recover it fail. Customer support would need your UID to assist you in recovering your account

EDUSAN

hafersvideo wrote:

Additionally this is a huge barrier for new players, but if you're cool with that it's all good. Can't say I would recommend the game to a friend the way it's going though.

i've never felt that the game had a huge barrier for new players. Without spending money, just doing the whole story mode with 1 planeswalker i got it to level 50, and was able to buy some packs along the way from dailys booster and crystal reward and crystal encounter reward.

every new player should start by doing the whole story mode before starting ladder mode (maybe playing a couple games to get a guaranteed reward)

i think the game does a great job at giving players tons of rewards. Nowadays we get a daily reward just by logging in (and not rewards like hearthstone in which you NEED to do something that can take 3 or more matches to get), we get a reward every 3 days in ladder, we get 3 rewards per encounter in story mode, and now we will get 1 free pack every 8 hours...

Hibernum_JC

Hey folks,

I'll explain the reasoning behind the ribbon change. We found that players would be at an advantage if they stayed at low levels instead of leveling their Planeswalkers - they have an actual chance of fighting opponents at higher levels, giving them better rewards, *and* fights went on much quicker at low levels than at high levels.

With this change, while your fights do go on for longer at higher levels, you are actually rewarded appropriately for playing a high level Planeswalker, so hopefully this makes Quick Battle experience better for players who are already at high levels and encourages people who have been purposefully leaving their Planeswalkers at low levels to level them up.

Runes were also not rewarded enough (both in Quick Battle and Story Mode) so to make sure you can level your Planeswalkers we've increased Rune gains across the board. This should help everyone get better Planeswalkers!

As for the free booster packs, I'll clarify the patch notes a little: instead of paying Runes for buying the 3-card Booster Packs, you are now granted a free one every 8 hours. Note that you can no longer buy those packs with Runes at all. We are making this change so that players can focus on leveling their Planeswalkers (to work with the new Ribbon system) as well as making sure players are rewarded on a constant basis.

Let me know if you guys have any further questions!

Unknown

Hibernum_JC wrote:

Hey folks,

I'll explain the reasoning behind the ribbon change. We found that players would be at an advantage if they stayed at low levels instead of leveling their Planeswalkers - they have an actual chance of fighting opponents at higher levels, giving them better rewards, *and* fights went on much quicker at low levels than at high levels.

With this change, while your fights do go on for longer at higher levels, you are actually rewarded appropriately for playing a high level Planeswalker, so hopefully this makes Quick Battle experience better for players who are already at high levels and encourages people who have been purposefully leaving their Planeswalkers at low levels to level them up.

Runes were also not rewarded enough (both in Quick Battle and Story Mode) so to make sure you can level your Planeswalkers we've increased Rune gains across the board. This should help everyone get better Planeswalkers!

As for the free booster packs, I'll clarify the patch notes a little: instead of paying Runes for buying the 3-card Booster Packs, you are now granted a free one every 8 hours. Note that you can no longer buy those packs with Runes at all. We are making this change so that players can focus on leveling their Planeswalkers (to work with the new Ribbon system) as well as making sure players are rewarded on a constant basis.

Let me know if you guys have any further questions!

Without the ability to pull cards with Runes are there any plans for a Rune sink for players that don't have any interest in leveling every Planeswalker? Perhaps new Planeswalkers or requiring Runes to grind up duplicates.

Unknown

So we will get less crystals in the future and that will be the only currency to purchase new cards....

Instead we will get more and more runes with no other usage but levels.

Would be bad for someone who doesn't have a lot of good cards yet.

Unknown

EDUSAN - I agree with everything you said, with the exception of these changes to remove some crystal rewards from story mode. I was talking about getting into the QB mode for newbies.

Story Mode doesn't last too long. And now even if new players add up the runes and quickly level a PW or two, it would seem that they are likely to have less good stuff due to less crystals and not being able to buy lots of 3 packs with runes. Maybe the free packs will offset that a little. Or they can just grind even more with a low level PW. Either way this only compounds the bigger problem which is that the QB system is already too much of a grind. It's a joke. I've finished first once, top 6 twice, and top 26 once. It's way too much of a time grind. I'd love to see some real data on how much time players are spending to finish in the top 25 of each bracket.

Can you really imagine telling someone about this game and saying "after playing through most of the story mode you should go on to the quick battle mode. If you play for 5 (6, 8, 10?) hours a day per event you can finish in the top 25/10/5 and get a rare and some free pack" with a straight face?

I've played games where there's a disclaimer in the game to limit playing time to an hour a day. And people laugh. In the case of this game it's so far beyond that it's absurd.

I can say I have backed off a little from my initial position. I don't think I can deny that something needs to be done. However, it still doesn't seem right for a few reasons. One thing, that's starting to becoming galling to me really, is right in the explanation. Now we'll all have the chance to make our planeswalkers better? Not unless you let us go backwards with PW levels, or balance the costs or abilities, or let us choose which level of each ability we want. As it is right now, some PW get worse if you level them up.

Another thing is whether the ribbon reward curve is right. Does it take players with a level 40 PW twice as long, on average, to win matches as it does for players with level 20 PW, on average, to win? Is the gap 5x between level 50 and 10?

I'd be shocked if that was the case. But if I assume it is, I'm still bothered by this not doing anything to address the crazy amount of time it takes to place high in QB for everyone.

Hibernum_JC

ecoKady wrote:

Hibernum_JC wrote:

Hey folks,

I'll explain the reasoning behind the ribbon change. We found that players would be at an advantage if they stayed at low levels instead of leveling their Planeswalkers - they have an actual chance of fighting opponents at higher levels, giving them better rewards, *and* fights went on much quicker at low levels than at high levels.

With this change, while your fights do go on for longer at higher levels, you are actually rewarded appropriately for playing a high level Planeswalker, so hopefully this makes Quick Battle experience better for players who are already at high levels and encourages people who have been purposefully leaving their Planeswalkers at low levels to level them up.

Runes were also not rewarded enough (both in Quick Battle and Story Mode) so to make sure you can level your Planeswalkers we've increased Rune gains across the board. This should help everyone get better Planeswalkers!

As for the free booster packs, I'll clarify the patch notes a little: instead of paying Runes for buying the 3-card Booster Packs, you are now granted a free one every 8 hours. Note that you can no longer buy those packs with Runes at all. We are making this change so that players can focus on leveling their Planeswalkers (to work with the new Ribbon system) as well as making sure players are rewarded on a constant basis.

Let me know if you guys have any further questions!

Without the ability to pull cards with Runes are there any plans for a Rune sink for players that don't have any interest in leveling every Planeswalker? Perhaps new Planeswalkers or requiring Runes to grind up duplicates.

We have other Rune sinks coming. I can't announce anything specific, but there will be places to spend your Runes.

Also I would highly, *highly* recommend players level each Planeswalker. The increased mana gains alone are incredibly worth it.

VladG0015

LakeStone wrote:

1-9 = 1 ribbon
10-19 = 1 ribbon
20-29 = 2 ribbons
30-39 = 3 ribbons
40-49 = 4 ribbons
50+ = 5 ribbons

I like it!

If you're into quick QB and play with low lvl PW you get fast rewards but with the price of lower # of ribbons.
Or you can risk a longer game and get bigger reward.

Perfect