Do you like Terrors in the Shadows event?

Morphis

As simple as that.
Do you like it overall?

Reply to the topic can be made to explain your choice.

Some defining aspects of the event on which you can expand the reply are:
- the enrage mechanic
- the fact it has objectives
- the objectives they chose to include
- the colors forced/limited to 3

When voting do not take in account, if possible, elements that are not peculiar of the event.
Things like "the game freezes" or "I los half the match against op decks like kiora and Koth" should not be taken in account.

Let's vote.

shteev

On balance, I'd have to say no. I provided some feedback already here:

viewtopic.php?f=36&t=49464

The bugs are one issue, the lockups are a big problem, but there's also the fact that the counters for the objectives stop working, and that behaviour on some of the cards we're playing is buggy (e.g. werewolves).

But conceptually, I don't the objectives are a good fit with the Event. Kudos for trying something new... it didn't work all that well, so now it's time to try something new again.

On the plus side, I liked the fact that you were limited with which planeswalkers you could use (and also, like the other event, that you had to use a number of different planeswalkers).

Morphis

Also I forgot to mention(will edit now) that you should factor only things related to this event specifically.
Things like "the game freezes" are not and should not be considered toward the reply.
My bad.

Pqmtg-

Love the event.

It brought something new to do in this game. Rotating the colours of the plane walkers in play was a good move, and prevents things from getting stale.


I would prefer if objectives also changed slightly every event as well, so people are forced to think about deck building. Some of the decks I've come across in the event clearly show a lack of deck building skills, and that should change as the events go on and people brush up that side of mtg skill.


As shteev points out, the game is currently very buggy, which makes the ability to choose your opponent almost necessary. Hopefully that is fixed soon, because the ability to choose opponents is a pretty bad idea.


Some objectives were either badly thought out or clearly favours the veteran players. For example, black has little access to madness cards, and the clear advantage for the black event is for people who have sarkan(and thus red) . I hope the team balances issues of this nature in future.

Big fan of enrage mechanic. Mtg games rarely swing back and forth, and enrage cuts down the time spent just waiting to be handed another turn to swing at the opponent's face till he dies.

shteev

Pqmtg- wrote:

As shteev points out, the game is currently very buggy, which makes the ability to choose your opponent almost necessary. Hopefully that is fixed soon, because the ability to choose opponents is a pretty bad idea.

Ooh, I forgot to mention that. I really like the earlier events where you had a fixed opponent, and you could find out who it was, and then go and change your deck to help you fight them.

I thought that was a much better system than the current system of re-pickng an opponent at random until you got a low-powered planeswalker controlled by an opponent with a low rank, so as to give you an easy (and bug-free) match.

jimilinho_

It was ok,

The good thing about it was I couldn't play the first day but still had no problem getting all the progression rewards.

Still not convinced by enrage mode whilst trying to hit all the objectives and some are frustrating (for example I have 22 of the 36 white cards from the new set but only 1 of those has delirium)

On a separate note could do with a pve at some point soon instead.

Pqmtg-

jimilinho_ wrote:

It was ok,

The good thing about it was I couldn't play the first day but still had no problem getting all the progression rewards.

Still not convinced by enrage mode whilst trying to hit all the objectives and some are frustrating (for example I have 22 of the 36 white cards from the new set but only 1 of those has delirium)

On a separate note could do with a pve at some point soon instead.

I use a dual land delirium support to boost my chances of delirium. Like I pointed out earlier, not all colours are equally easy to satisfy the objectives, which is a shame.

Mangus 73

I play until I collect the rare at the end then thats it. I work and can't always make the node timings so no point in trying to get a top placement.

EDHdad

I like these events way more than the previous PvP mode. I like that I can play a fixed number of games and win a predetermined prize, and that all my past grinding puts me in a higher level, which gets me a better prize.

I like that I can choose the opposing planeswalker and avoid weak matchups.

I like that Enraged makes the games end quickly, whether you're playing aggro, control or midrange.

I kind of liked the bonus points for the objectives. Most only required a minor tweak using common cards. For example, there's a 3 mana spell which summons 2 spirits which I jammed into my Gideon II Allies deck. No real synergy with the deck, but no real problem throwing it in either.

But I also liked the fact that the bonus points weren't really required. With no objectives met, you could get 150 points with 30 wins. With the middle objective, you could get 150 points with 22 wins. With all objectives met, you could get 150 points with 19 wins.

It was kind of funny that the top player in my bracket apparently had spell mastery and was apparently grinding away getting ribbons, but their planeswalkers were mostly low-level walkers with like 30 life.

alextfish

I really like having extra objectives in theory.

The way those objectives lined up in the first colour-deal ( ) was pretty silly. Go find some Vampires and Horrors in green! This time ( ) is much better. (And getting a Kiora-free experience is somewhat refreshing.)

And it's really annoying that once you've achieved an objective once, then in all subsequent matches the in-game objective tracking doesn't tell you your progress towards the objective this time.

I like having predetermined rewards and clearly stated goals, and I like this as a way of distributing limited-time-exclusive cards.

Buret0

I had three game freezing battles in a single session last night. More losses to a buggy game freeze than to actual opponents. No idea how the top players have a 100% win rate with 8 points per match with this bug being so prevalent.

Buret0

There also needs to be a higher progression. The top 250 players in my bracket all have 250+ points, the top players had double top progression last night with 9 matches still to play.

Of course I mean an additional prize, not merely higher targets.

tm00

Only annoying thing is that since you probably have to waste 2-3 slots on subpar cards you can't use them to master other subpar cards.

Upstartes

I have enjoyed the event a lot. Things I like:

* I like the objectives that give ribbons. It shakes up the leaderboards a little bit.
* I like objectives that make you alter you deck in ways you might not otherwise do. Variety and challenge in deck-building is good.
* Enraged has been fun. I wouldn't want all events to use this mechanic, but I like the idea of different environment mechanics that alter the game play. Switch these up in subsequent events.
* I like that there are rewards both for progression and PvP competition.

I don't know that there is anything I don't like about these events. There are all kinds of bugs driving me crazy currently, but that's not event-related.

madwren

It's a mixed bag for me. I like the way the progression/competition system is set up, and I like the time-delayed nature of the matches.

However, I dislike that there are so few cards with the required secondary objective keywords, and that creativity is necessarily stifled because of them. If you have 2 madness cards, well, there you go, and enraged deliberately works against that aspect of it.

The topping for me is that these cards, which we're forced to use, don't work properly. You have madness cards filling off clues popping (Welcome to the Fold), you have creature theft resulting in repeat CIP effects and the game not understanding which player's cards they should work on, you have werewolves transforming every turn and costing people games by transforming at inopportune (and erroneous) times. That's frustrating. We're trying to play by their rules, and to be hamstrung at every turn by bugs and inconsistency s terribly frustrating.

James13

I'm not sure I like the events, honestly. Seems to be geared toward further rewarding the already powerful, generally. Maybe that's the point, but feels like it just generally supports this idea that "this game isn't for you, filthy casual". I even went through the trouble this time of making sure I completed every match possible. Got a 100% win rate, even hit the extra black objective most times. My ranking reward was a basic booster that you get for free every 8 hours. I've been considering uninstalling, but I think I'll keep it and just never try hard again.

span_argoman

James13 wrote:

I'm not sure I like the events, honestly. Seems to be geared toward further rewarding the already powerful, generally. Maybe that's the point, but feels like it just generally supports this idea that "this game isn't for you, filthy casual". I even went through the trouble this time of making sure I completed every match possible. Got a 100% win rate, even hit the extra black objective most times. My ranking reward was a basic booster that you get for free every 8 hours. I've been considering uninstalling, but I think I'll keep it and just never try hard again.

If you're getting a 100% win rate, have you considering going up a tier to get better rewards overall? Not only do the competitive rewards improve, the progression rewards improve too.

malafein

I really like that there are objectives that promote you to try new deck builds. I also like that the objectives are optional, so you can still progress even if you don't have the cards required for certain ones. If I remember correctly, the objectives were the same this time around as last time though, and I'd like to see some variation on that.

I didn't realize you could keep randomizing the opponent until you get one you like.. wish I'd known that, as I managed to place 8th time around even with some losses and lockups.

I like the rotation of limited colors, although that can prevent newer players from being able to join in. Maybe they could add one colorless slot, so that everyone can always have at least one planeswalker. The bonus objectives would need to be kinda generic for that one I'd imagine.

I like that there are both progression rewards and ranking rewards. That allows more casual players to benefit, while still letting those willing to grind out for the top ranks something for their time.

I like that it limits the number of battles you can do before playing again. That helps level it out a bit for people that don't want to spend 24 hours grinding for a few cards.

So, I think the rewards system on this is pretty well balanced.

I like the enrage feature, which keeps the matches going quickly.

Good fun. I hope they continue these and providing more like them.

Buret0

Also, with no shards to choose from, there needs to be less of a penalty for starting late. I've played progression only for every one of these events because by the time I can start I have missed two to four possible plays. It is nice that you can let them build up, but starting late means you just have to miss out on those plays. Yes, you might miss some again, but it is far easier to wake up a bit early before work to play the accumulated nodes from the previous night than to delay the start of work to make the first plays. It isn't like you can wake up early and play the nodes before the event commences.

So, with no shards to choose from, there needs to be a bit of flexibility in start times. Maybe accumulate an extra one or two nodes based on how late you started, but don't start the timer for the refresh until you get down below the normal maximum.

Still not optimum play because the timers will have some lag and you might be half a refresh behind the optimum players, but it isn't nearly as punishing as missing out on nodes because of a late start. Optimal play, of course, being to start immediately, play once on each node to start all of the timers, to ensure that the nodes are never maxed out (thus stopping the timer), and to play all of the final nodes before the event ends.

Kthanid

Some rules or specifics should be added to balance this kind of event based on building a deck focused on some spec such as casting at least 2 spirits, vampires, werewolves etc. types to validate the quest.
The deck you build, based on this, will be far more weaker, and thus picking an opponent with an optimized deck, you'll definitely lose your encounter, no matter what. 3 times in a row I picked this kind of opponent based on the randomness.

If people (like me) still met this kind of opponent they'll just do the same by rebuilding the most powerful decks, and this will lead other people doing the same by being frustrated after having keep losing against this kind of overpowered decks... This'll just kill the event itself, making another node style one with only 3 choices of color...

Either you get luck on picking an opponent playing the rules as intended, either you got an optimized one and you get assured to lose your round. Maybe spec as having at least 2 spirits / zombies and 2 madness etc. based cards during the deck building would balance this kind of problem?

Barrelrolla

Kthanid wrote:

Some rules or specifics should be added to balance this kind of event based on building a deck focused on some spec such as casting at least 2 spirits, vampires, werewolves etc. types to validate the quest.
The deck you build, based on this, will be far more weaker, and thus picking an opponent with an optimized deck, you'll definitely lose your encounter, no matter what. 3 times in a row I picked this kind of opponent based on the randomness.

If people (like me) still met this kind of opponent they'll just do the same by rebuilding the most powerful decks, and this will lead other people doing the same by being frustrated after having keep losing against this kind of overpowered decks... This'll just kill the event itself, making another node style one with only 3 choices of color...

Either you get luck on picking an opponent playing the rules as intended, either you got an optimized one and you get assured to lose your round. Maybe spec as having at least 2 spirits / zombies and 2 madness etc. based cards during the deck building would balance this kind of problem?

I think you should balance between a strong deck and a deck that meets the criteria.
Try build around spirits for example, but include some buff spells and some removal, so you could still be competitive even if you face a deck that's just strong and not built around optional objectives.
It is hard, but it definitely is fun, because it pushes you out of your comfort zone and makes you think of new kinds of strategies.