Terror in the Shadows – Feedback

Ohboy

shteev wrote:

Right let's just stop here and dwell on this one for a while, because there's a lot to take in. You accept the fact that playing at a high level exacts some kind of punishment on the player. And do you applaud the dev team for making that decision, when clearly they could have made the game fun at a high level? Are you a high level player? Do you have to pay the price of being at the top, like we do? Or, are you a low level player? And you just like to see others suffer? What I'm asking is, are you a sadist or a masochist? Because so far all you've done is just disagree with other people... you haven't made your own position clear.

I'm regularly place high in platinum if that matters, and it's perfectly acceptable to me to have even harder things to hit to get a high rank.

Too many ties.

I think people lose focus on the objectives. It's not "edit your uber deck so you can barely reach objectives". It's "build a new deck that will most effectively get the new objectives".

I have lots of fun making new decks with each new event that give out what you call sadistic objectives, and if making us cast 100 eldrazzi is going to ensure that I don't end up rank 20 with a perfect score, I happily applaud it.

The game shifts from the goal being "win the game" to "maintain control for x period". The latter is actually harder to achieve, so I'm not sure why people don't see it as more of a challenge. The problem is you guys are still playing checkers when the devs have moved the format to chess, and you're complaining the games are slower and longer.

The game should reward good deck building. Terror in the shadows came out and was amazing. Top players dropped objectives left and right because they couldn't figure out how to build decks. They should not be high ranked if they can't build decks, so that's great to see. But now it's been repeated too many times. People have figured it out. The deck building aspect is gone again.

Would you guys also complain if the theme of next event is pauper? I suspect so.

I for one am very looking forward to seeing what challenges to deck building the devs give us with the new expansion/event.

madwren

Ohboy wrote:

shteev wrote:

Would you guys also complain if the theme of next event is pauper? I suspect so.

Why would you suspect that? I haven't seen anyone state that all they want to do is play full-mythic decks and not have to actually try.

There are ways to challenge deckbuilders without resorting to busywork. It is not challenging, however, to have lengthy, specific objectives that only a limited subset of the collection can actually fulfill. The more restrictive the requirements, the less creativity is stimulated. Take the X werewolves objective, for example. Sure, there's something of a skill test because half of them are virtually unplayable and shouldn't be in competitive decks. However, it means that the majority of decks are similar. It creates an environment of clones.

Conversely, the Avacyn event demonstrated how you could have meaningful objectives that created a challenge without resorting to tedium (which, unfortunately, was not true of the event itself). Imagine some of those objectives imported into a PvP event, or take the template and broaden it further. "Cast 8 Oath of the Gatewatch cards", or "Cast more than 8 spells" is much more stimulating than "cast 8 werewolves and 8 eldrazi." The former two foment creativity because there are myriad cards that can be used to fulfill the obejctives, resulting in a lot of disparate decks and ideas. By comparison, the latter two stifle it, forcing everyone into a very narrow box.

I would applaud a pauper theme or a block theme. Likewise, I would applaud a matchmaking system that doesn't pit what are essentially block decks against full-powered NoP decks that aren't even entered in the event, resulting in grave disparities in competition level between one match/player and the next.

If you want chess, you want diversity, strategy, and challenge. Not tedium.

Pacone

Btw we are discussing how boring and dragging secondary objectives are, when they are not so hard to complete, just find a balance between objective cards and win cards, so you are not sitting on a hand full of filled powercards waiting for objective cards to show up. Enrage will finish games very quickly once it kicks in, so it diesn't take very long to finish, even with suboptimal objective cards...

shteev

As a deckbuilding exercise, let's consider the many varied and creative decks we can build for the green werewolf/transform node in ****!

1) Kiora+Sage
2) Spend actual money on Arlinn Kord
3) Something rubbish which will lose games

Ohboy

shteev wrote:

As a deckbuilding exercise, let's consider the many varied and creative decks we can build for the green werewolf/transform node in ****!

1) Kiora+Sage
2) Spend actual money on Arlinn Kord
3) Something rubbish which will lose games

Garruk + seasons past + renewal + assorted werewolves is pretty strong too. Easily complete objectives + option to add in hydra or revenge to close games if his tokens don't already do it for him.

Wolfman wasn't even on your radar for a wolf objective node?

shteev

Ohboy wrote:

Garruk + seasons past + renewal + assorted werewolves is pretty strong too. Easily complete objectives + option to add in hydra or revenge to close games if his tokens don't already do it for him.

That's a nice selection of mythics. The poor bastard I just beat was having to play with Lambholt Pacifist. I wonder if he had lots of fun building his decks? He's certainly not going to win any more mythics in this event like we are.

Morphis

Ohboy wrote:

shteev wrote:

As a deckbuilding exercise, let's consider the many varied and creative decks we can build for the green werewolf/transform node in ****!

1) Kiora+Sage
2) Spend actual money on Arlinn Kord
3) Something rubbish which will lose games

Garruk + seasons past + renewal + assorted werewolves is pretty strong too. Easily complete objectives + option to add in hydra or revenge to close games if his tokens don't already do it for him.

Wolfman wasn't even on your radar for a wolf objective node?

Garruck is actually one of the worst choices for event.
Running one removal nowadays is asking to be OBLITERATED by any early cascade.
If you have Great Aurora too maybe it's viable.

I made my point on this event long ago but will expand it based on current state of the game:
Objectives are not fun, not intriguing and do not require that much deckbuilding or not anyways in a "good" way.

Stalling the game as objective? Ok fine.
If the devs wanted us to stall the game they could have made the event like NoP with some way to force the game towards stall like "in first 4 rounds your creature will damage you instead of opponent".
That would have been interesting.
Would be slow but one could build a control deck in many different ways to achieve it. Would have still given enough freedom to the player.

For current objectives you are stuck with little to no choice about cards to include. The pool of objective cards for each color is too limited.
Also most of those cards suck big time in usefulness.

Saheeli objectives gave much more freedom to the player while still requiring proper deckbuilding.(excluding of course issues of the central node).

Ohboy

shteev wrote:

Ohboy wrote:

Garruk + seasons past + renewal + assorted werewolves is pretty strong too. Easily complete objectives + option to add in hydra or revenge to close games if his tokens don't already do it for him.

That's a nice selection of mythics. The poor bastard I just beat was having to play with Lambholt Pacifist. I wonder if he had lots of fun building his decks? He's certainly not going to win any more mythics in this event like we are.

Err... I use pacifist myself.

blacklotus

Morphis wrote:

Ohboy wrote:

shteev wrote:

As a deckbuilding exercise, let's consider the many varied and creative decks we can build for the green werewolf/transform node in ****!

1) Kiora+Sage
2) Spend actual money on Arlinn Kord
3) Something rubbish which will lose games

Garruk + seasons past + renewal + assorted werewolves is pretty strong too. Easily complete objectives + option to add in hydra or revenge to close games if his tokens don't already do it for him.

Wolfman wasn't even on your radar for a wolf objective node?

Garruck is actually one of the worst choices for event.
Running one removal nowadays is asking to be OBLITERATED by any early cascade.
If you have Great Aurora too maybe it's viable.

I made my point on this event long ago but will expand it based on current state of the game:
Objectives are not fun, not intriguing and do not require that much deckbuilding or not anyways in a "good" way.

Stalling the game as objective? Ok fine.
If the devs wanted us to stall the game they could have made the event like NoP with some way to force the game towards stall like "in first 4 rounds your creature will damage you instead of opponent".
That would have been interesting.
Would be slow but one could build a control deck in many different ways to achieve it. Would have still given enough freedom to the player.

For current objectives you are stuck with little to no choice about cards to include. The pool of objective cards for each color is too limited.
Also most of those cards suck big time in usefulness.

Saheeli objectives gave much more freedom to the player while still requiring proper deckbuilding.(excluding of course issues of the central node).

I disagree. I play Garruk with zero mass removal spell. the only creature removal spell I have is 12mana Scour. I did quite well with him, dropping 1 pt so far because I met illegal Killwind's insane cascade Koth with Olivia summons.

And I run a single creature pacifist werewolf deck with From Beyond and Call the Wild.

why I choose pacifist over sage? because pacifist is cheaper, won't Attack unless she has a fat buddy hence good for stalling, and cuter artwork.

shteev

Ohboy wrote:

shteev wrote:

Ohboy wrote:

Garruk + seasons past + renewal + assorted werewolves is pretty strong too. Easily complete objectives + option to add in hydra or revenge to close games if his tokens don't already do it for him.

That's a nice selection of mythics. The poor bastard I just beat was having to play with Lambholt Pacifist. I wonder if he had lots of fun building his decks? He's certainly not going to win any more mythics in this event like we are.

Err... I use pacifist myself.

Wow, you run Pacifist over Sage?

Morphis

blacklotus wrote:

Morphis wrote:

Ohboy wrote:

shteev wrote:

As a deckbuilding exercise, let's consider the many varied and creative decks we can build for the green werewolf/transform node in ****!

1) Kiora+Sage
2) Spend actual money on Arlinn Kord
3) Something rubbish which will lose games

Garruk + seasons past + renewal + assorted werewolves is pretty strong too. Easily complete objectives + option to add in hydra or revenge to close games if his tokens don't already do it for him.

Wolfman wasn't even on your radar for a wolf objective node?

Garruck is actually one of the worst choices for event.
Running one removal nowadays is asking to be OBLITERATED by any early cascade.
If you have Great Aurora too maybe it's viable.

I made my point on this event long ago but will expand it based on current state of the game:
Objectives are not fun, not intriguing and do not require that much deckbuilding or not anyways in a "good" way.

Stalling the game as objective? Ok fine.
If the devs wanted us to stall the game they could have made the event like NoP with some way to force the game towards stall like "in first 4 rounds your creature will damage you instead of opponent".
That would have been interesting.
Would be slow but one could build a control deck in many different ways to achieve it. Would have still given enough freedom to the player.

For current objectives you are stuck with little to no choice about cards to include. The pool of objective cards for each color is too limited.
Also most of those cards suck big time in usefulness.

Saheeli objectives gave much more freedom to the player while still requiring proper deckbuilding.(excluding of course issues of the central node).

I disagree. I play Garruk with zero mass removal spell. the only creature removal spell I have is 12mana Scour. I did quite well with him, dropping 1 pt so far because I met illegal Killwind's insane cascade Koth with Olivia summons.

And I run a single creature pacifist werewolf deck with From Beyond and Call the Wild.

why I choose pacifist over sage? because pacifist is cheaper, won't Attack unless she has a fat buddy hence good for stalling, and cuter artwork.

So you have to stall while waiting for your only(I presume) werewolf with one single removal spell and no mass removal spell, with from beyond as another way to stall(easily overcome by flyer, rampant nowadays).

You got no problem until now...
Ever thought of playing lottery? Just saying...

blacklotus

Morphis wrote:

So you have to stall while waiting for your only(I presume) werewolf with one single removal spell and no mass removal spell, with from beyond as another way to stall(easily overcome by flyer, rampant nowadays).

You got no problem until now...
Ever thought of playing lottery? Just saying...

just lost my Garruk match vs event illegal Koth.

Koth gets a cascade and summon Olivia on his first turn. All I have are aim high and 2 Call the Wild. lol

He proceeded to summon another Olivia and a Devil Wolf in the next 2 turns.

I could almost come back, killing all 3 of his fatties with a combo of Aim high, titanic growth + wolves. but enraged mode is on and it has its fevered vision out. I have zero support removal to handle.

still, it means my simple Garruk deck can hold its own against the best red Koth decks.

I would have included Great Aurora. I just need to pull it from a pack first.

I am already playing a lottery called mtgPQ: pit your event hand-tied decks vs event illegal fully optimised decks.

shteev

shteev wrote:

The poor bastard I just beat was having to play with Lambholt Pacifist. I wonder if he had lots of fun building his decks? He's certainly not going to win any more mythics in this event like we are.

I say 'we'... I just got one of those Service_Game_StartEventEncounter bugs, and it wiped the games in one of my nodes, so I'm out of the running.

Inb4 'I've never seen that bug and therfore it isn't a problem'
Inb4 'You only lose all your games if you click cancel, so it's your own fault'

blacklotus

shteev wrote:

shteev wrote:

The poor bastard I just beat was having to play with Lambholt Pacifist. I wonder if he had lots of fun building his decks? He's certainly not going to win any more mythics in this event like we are.

I say 'we'... I just got one of those Service_Game_StartEventEncounter bugs, and it wiped the games in one of my nodes, so I'm out of the running.

Inb4 'I've never seen that bug and therfore it isn't a problem'
Inb4 'You only lose all your games if you click cancel, so it's your own fault'

I encountered that error before. **** way to lose because one didn't even get a chance to play.

Feagul

blacklotus wrote:

Morphis wrote:

So you have to stall while waiting for your only(I presume) werewolf with one single removal spell and no mass removal spell, with from beyond as another way to stall(easily overcome by flyer, rampant nowadays).

You got no problem until now...
Ever thought of playing lottery? Just saying...

just lost my Garruk match vs event illegal Koth.

Koth gets a cascade and summon Olivia on his first turn. All I have are aim high and 2 Call the Wild. lol

He proceeded to summon another Olivia and a Devil Wolf in the next 2 turns.

I could almost come back, killing all 3 of his fatties with a combo of Aim high, titanic growth + wolves. but enraged mode is on and it has its fevered vision out. I have zero support removal to handle.

still, it means my simple Garruk deck can hold its own against the best red Koth decks.

I would have included Great Aurora. I just need to pull it from a pack first.

I am already playing a lottery called mtgPQ: pit your event hand-tied decks vs event illegal fully optimised decks.

I know your pain. After barely beating the exact same fully optimized Kiora three straight games this morning, it gave me the same player's Koth. Knowing ridiculous things would happen, I loaded my Saheeli down with as much removal as I could. 3 Olivias and 2 Akoums were too much for my removal suite, though I did manage to kill 4/5 before my hands were firmly grasping my ankles. I really wish I had the AI's luck when it comes to Koth's first ability. I also wish they would flip his first two abilities or increase the cost of his first ability.

blacklotus

Feagul wrote:

blacklotus wrote:

Morphis wrote:

So you have to stall while waiting for your only(I presume) werewolf with one single removal spell and no mass removal spell, with from beyond as another way to stall(easily overcome by flyer, rampant nowadays).

You got no problem until now...
Ever thought of playing lottery? Just saying...

just lost my Garruk match vs event illegal Koth.

Koth gets a cascade and summon Olivia on his first turn. All I have are aim high and 2 Call the Wild. lol

He proceeded to summon another Olivia and a Devil Wolf in the next 2 turns.

I could almost come back, killing all 3 of his fatties with a combo of Aim high, titanic growth + wolves. but enraged mode is on and it has its fevered vision out. I have zero support removal to handle.

still, it means my simple Garruk deck can hold its own against the best red Koth decks.

I would have included Great Aurora. I just need to pull it from a pack first.

I am already playing a lottery called mtgPQ: pit your event hand-tied decks vs event illegal fully optimised decks.

I know your pain. After barely beating the exact same fully optimized Kiora three straight games this morning, it gave me the same player's Koth. Knowing ridiculous things would happen, I loaded my Saheeli down with as much removal as I could. 3 Olivias and 2 Akoums were too much for my removal suite, though I did manage to kill 4/5 before my hands were firmly grasping my ankles. I really wish I had the AI's luck when it comes to Koth's first ability. I also wish they would flip his first two abilities or increase the cost of his first ability.

Koth was buffed because his initial iteration was not competitive vs even Chandra.

But I think 6 loyalty for 12 non-red gem destruction is overly generous. Just like Kiora's 6 loyalty for transferring 6 mana from u to her.
D3 can keep it as a first ability, and even the destroy 12 gems part. just increase the cost to 9 loyalty like Kiora for her 1st.

as it is, at 6 loyalty, a lucky cascade means he will be destroying and cascading for the rest of game.

Feagul

blacklotus wrote:

Koth was buffed because his initial iteration was not competitive vs even Chandra.

But I think 6 loyalty for 12 non-red gem destruction is overly generous. Just like Kiora's 6 loyalty for transferring 6 mana from u to her.
D3 can keep it as a first ability, and even the destroy 12 gems part. just increase the cost to 9 loyalty like Kiora for her 1st.

as it is, at 6 loyalty, a lucky cascade means he will be destroying and cascading for the rest of game.

I'm aware, hence the suggestion to swap the first two abilities or increase the cost of the first ability.

Dayv

Moderator note:

I've removed several posts here with users being uncivil to each other. Please follow the forum rules. Avoid insults and rudeness toward your fellow forum members. If someone insults you, do not respond in kind.

Thank you.