Plainswalker leveling has ruined your chance for balance

hoihoi8
hoihoi8 Posts: 15
You've already gone to far down the road of Plainswalker leveling, but unfortunately I think you've designed yourself into a corner.

It's going to be impossible to balance the game for users of all levels. Card mechanics like converge will never be balanced because you can only balance them for a certain plainswalker level.

Any attempts to balance game flow and tempo is basically ruined. At early levels cards come out one at a time due to low mana with matches. At max levels, cards come out much quicker and together due to higher mana from matches.

Effectiveness of mechanics like Rally vary greatly between level 1 plainswalkers and level 60.

Basically, I think you've greatly harmed the game and ruined any chance of balance by adding in plainswalker leveling. Unfortunately it's too late to reverse that decision.

P.S. Still playing the game because I love the core gameplay

Comments

  • shteev
    shteev Posts: 2,031 Chairperson of the Boards
    I'm not sure that this is a big problem, is it? At level 1, you can't do many of the story missions, and you only get 1 ribbon when playing on the ladder... there's not much you can do, in fact.

    Additionally, I think it's pretty good design that some cards which you rely on at early levels become worse as you progress (like Converge cards), whereas some cards you dismiss at early levels become much better (like.. um... Demonic Pact, perhaps?).

    So long as no cards are broken when played by the higher levels of planeswalkers I think we'll be ok.
  • hoihoi8
    hoihoi8 Posts: 15
    Or they could have done away with the pointless leveling system, and made the cards balanced to all players.

    In CCG's cards get better when you grow you collection and have more combinations. No need for a leveling system to do that for you.
  • Meto5000
    Meto5000 Posts: 583
    hoihoi8 wrote:
    I've played daily since launch and only have one level 50 planeswalker. The rest are around level 20-35. Is it ok that when I'm playing my four sub level 50 guys, that the game is not balanced?

    Or they could have done away with the pointless leveling system, then the balance is based on your card collection.

    The game should be balanced for max level Planeswalkers. They've clearly stated that their intention is to make Planeswalkers better as they level so why should they waste time balancing the game at lower levels? Prior to 1.4 there were a handful of reasons to keep your PWs lower than max, but those reasons have by and large disappeared. Runes have never been easier to gather so there's no excuse for anybody to not have at least a few different max level PWs. If you've been playing since launch and only have a single PW at level 50 it seems like you're not playing much at all. I'm pretty sure that you can level a PW to 50 just from having collected 5 months worth of daily rewards.

    This thread is confirmation that people will complain about literally anything.

    Edit: Furthermore, deck quality is exponentially more important than level anyways. The leveling bonuses are significant, but having the right deck strategy is what wins you games 99% of the time.
  • hoihoi8
    hoihoi8 Posts: 15
    Meto5000 wrote:
    hoihoi8 wrote:
    I've played daily since launch and only have one level 50 planeswalker. The rest are around level 20-35. Is it ok that when I'm playing my four sub level 50 guys, that the game is not balanced?

    Or they could have done away with the pointless leveling system, then the balance is based on your card collection.

    The game should be balanced for max level Planeswalkers. They've clearly stated that their intention is to make Planeswalkers better as they level so why should they waste time balancing the game at lower levels? Prior to 1.4 there were a handful of reasons to keep your PWs lower than max, but those reasons have by and large disappeared. Runes have never been easier to gather so there's no excuse for anybody to not have at least a few different max level PWs. If you've been playing since launch and only have a single PW at level 50 it seems like you're not playing much at all. I'm pretty sure that you can level a PW to 50 just from having collected 5 months worth of daily rewards.

    This thread is confirmation that people will complain about literally anything.

    Edit: Furthermore, deck quality is exponentially more important than level anyways. The leveling bonuses are significant, but having the right deck strategy is what wins you games 99% of the time.

    I play 1-2 games per day and collect all the daily rewards.

    In mobile games you have a very small window to retain players. Only 10-17% of players get to day 30 in a game like MtgPQ (I know from working at a large mobile game company that makes similar products). By balancing the game for level 50, you have shown up to 90% of your users an unbalanced game. Sounds like a great way to increase your player base icon_rolleyes.gif
  • shteev
    shteev Posts: 2,031 Chairperson of the Boards
    hoihoi8 wrote:
    Or they could have done away with the pointless leveling system, and made the cards balanced to all players.

    In CCG's cards get better when you grow you collection and have more combinations. No need for a leveling system to do that for you.

    Isn't it nice, tho, that later updates might allow your existing planeswalkers to level higher, adding a little variety to gameplay?

    Nice in theory, anyway. The recent upgrade of max level from 50 to 60 was completely overshadowed by the rebalancing of many planeswalker's abilities. This was a complete waste of a raise of max level.
  • EDHdad
    EDHdad Posts: 609 Critical Contributor
    To be honest, I disagree with the entire premise of this thread.

    A level 60 planeswalker will do battle with other level 60 planeswalkers. A level 20 planeswalker will do battle with another level 20-ish planeswalker. The planeswalkers need to be balanced against other planeswalkers of the same level, but the cards themselves don't need to be rebalanced for different levels of planeswalkers.

    Deck design is the player's responsibility. If you find it difficult to cast a particular spell because you can't produce mana fast enough, then maybe leave that card out of your deck until you're leveled up enough. Or, put some ramp in your deck so you can get faster mana.

    In every color at any level, any player can build a perfectly serviceable deck using nothing but commons and uncommons, and never exceeding 10 or 11 mana casting cost.
  • Irving
    Irving Posts: 95
    Hoihoi8 might have a point, but all of us are the invested players with L.60 planeswalkers - not the audience for the critique. It makes sense logically to pay attention to the new user's experience with an eye toward retention, so that it's fun for them and they stick around to level to 60 and spend money. I don't think any of us can say how well the game is currently doing at that, because so much has changed since we were at that point.