1.7.1 First Impressions

speakupaskanswer

The Eldritch Moon cards seem okay to good so far. Meld is fun when it works.

I forgot how annoying it is that you can't get the new cards directly, just like with OGW. On the other hand, I know how annoyed I'll be in 1-2 months because we'll have most of the ELM cards already.

I had five SOI boosters left and bought one SOI big box with crystals. I got four ELM rares (and one SOI rare) and 12 ELM uncommons. I wish I had gotten a mythic or at least one of the new colorless cards, but that will happen eventually.

The speed improvement is really, really noticeable and definitely one of the best improvements I have seen yet.

So, first impression: good job!

Coconut99

So I got in and used some of my saved crystals to buy a SoI/EMN BB (my usual post-release first act)...

34 Commons
34 Uncommons
6 Rares (including 1 SoI rare I already had and 2 of the same new EMN rare, so 4 new Rares)
1 Mythic (Tree of Perdition, from EMN)

Overall, not even close to my worst BB. I managed 1 set of Meld cards (Midnight Scavengers/Graf Rats), and no partial sets (those are the only Meld cards I got). Out of the 75 cards in the BB, I got 21 unique EMN cards (and 4 dupes...so 25/75 cards were EMN, for a 1-in-3 draw rate).

I also think I only managed 1 card that spawns Eldrazi Horrors (Foul Emissary), and of course, it's Green, where I already don't need help with summoning Eldrazi's thanks to From Beyond. Oh well.

What are the thoughts on Tree of Perdition? Decent Mythic, or another one that's going to collect dust and never see the light of day?

Foznertep

Spawning Eldrazi Horrors might give nice combinations for Kiora with Thing in the Ice, I guess.

shteev

Here are my impressions from my first game.

1) Display bug from triggering multiple clues not fixed.
2) Display bug from multiple gems falling not fixed.
3) Cascades much harder to keep track of now with increased speed.
4) Game crashed completely when put into background to use another app ('Unfortunately, Magic the Gathering Puzzle Quest has stopped').

randomRolle

New look for gems is worse on eyes.

Returning big that blocks rearranging cards in hand.

Bunch of new crashes, with many old ones still not fixed.

Wish they had any sort of QA team.

alextfish

The gem matching/falling is far too fast. You can't see or follow what's happening.
OK, I can understand that you want to speed up long cascades. It's a silly feeling to move away from the phone to read an email, then looking back and the cascade is still going on.

*But* now you've optimised the whole game for the relatively unusual long-cascade case.

What would have made much more sense would be to keep the original match and gem drop speed, for the first 1-2 matches of a cascade, and then speed up after that.

shteev

alextfish wrote:

*But* now you've optimised the whole game for the relatively unusual long-cascade case.

I do find this odd. When I heard there were further speed enhancements in this update, I assumed they'd be talking about further improvements to token generation speed... the current animation is a little strange, and puts the first 2 tokens into play as cards and the rest as quick reinforcements, so Devil's Playground is still pretty slow to cast, and Not Forgotten hasn't been improved at all.

Instead the token animations haven't been changed, and the cascades have been speeded up? Was there a call amougst the player base for that? I didn't notice it. Was it on Reddit perhaps which I don't visit? Has anyone seen the player base calling out for this change anywhere?

Is the faster cascade animation a statement of intent by the dev team that cascades are in fact going to get get longer than they currently are?

EDHdad

Overall, I like the faster gem matching. But I wouldn't mind an option to turn it on and off.

Hibernum_JC

shteev wrote:

alextfish wrote:

*But* now you've optimised the whole game for the relatively unusual long-cascade case.

I do find this odd. When I heard there were further speed enhancements in this update, I assumed they'd be talking about further improvements to token generation speed... the current animation is a little strange, and puts the first 2 tokens into play as cards and the rest as quick reinforcements, so Devil's Playground is still pretty slow to cast, and Not Forgotten hasn't been improved at all.

Instead the token animations haven't been changed, and the cascades have been speeded up? Was there a call amougst the player base for that? I didn't notice it. Was it on Reddit perhaps which I don't visit? Has anyone seen the player base calling out for this change anywhere?

Is the faster cascade animation a statement of intent by the dev team that cascades are in fact going to get get longer than they currently are?

We wanted to make sure that token animations were a bit faster, and so we skip anything over 2 tokens (as you've mentioned, over 2 tokens and we skip the card animation). This was a design decision that was made because we wanted to keep the clarity of summoning tokens (and making sure they're readable a bit) while significantly speeding up the 4+ tokens summon speeds.

As for the gem falling having been sped up, this was done as a general pass to speed up the game as a whole. There is currently an issue with the dropping animation not being as smooth as it should be that will be fixed in a future update. But I can guarantee you that speeding up the gem drop animation was not done because cascades and the like will get longer in the future, at all.

Ohboy

EDHdad wrote:

Overall, I like the faster gem matching. But I wouldn't mind an option to turn it on and off.

Yup. I want it on for qb and off for events.

Steeme

Ohboy wrote:

EDHdad wrote:

Overall, I like the faster gem matching. But I wouldn't mind an option to turn it on and off.

Yup. I want it on for qb and off for events.

This is an excellent idea.

shteev

Hibernum_JC wrote:

We wanted to make sure that token animations were a bit faster, and so we skip anything over 2 tokens (as you've mentioned, over 2 tokens and we skip the card animation). This was a design decision that was made because we wanted to keep the clarity of summoning tokens (and making sure they're readable a bit) while significantly speeding up the 4+ tokens summon speeds.

Well it's your decision, but I honestly think it makes summoning tokens *more* confusing. Why not have only 1 Token show up as a card, and then the rest reinforce? It particularly makes no sense when I'm cast a second set of tokens, and BOTH displayed cards are now reinforcing an existing stack of tokens.

wink

EDHdad wrote:

Overall, I like the faster gem matching. But I wouldn't mind an option to turn it on and off.

This. And option to turn it on and off would be great. Experienced players will get the speed benefits, and newbies like me will be able to follow the action.

Morphis

Hibernum_JC wrote:

shteev wrote:

alextfish wrote:

*But* now you've optimised the whole game for the relatively unusual long-cascade case.

I do find this odd. When I heard there were further speed enhancements in this update, I assumed they'd be talking about further improvements to token generation speed... the current animation is a little strange, and puts the first 2 tokens into play as cards and the rest as quick reinforcements, so Devil's Playground is still pretty slow to cast, and Not Forgotten hasn't been improved at all.

Instead the token animations haven't been changed, and the cascades have been speeded up? Was there a call amougst the player base for that? I didn't notice it. Was it on Reddit perhaps which I don't visit? Has anyone seen the player base calling out for this change anywhere?

Is the faster cascade animation a statement of intent by the dev team that cascades are in fact going to get get longer than they currently are?

We wanted to make sure that token animations were a bit faster, and so we skip anything over 2 tokens (as you've mentioned, over 2 tokens and we skip the card animation). This was a design decision that was made because we wanted to keep the clarity of summoning tokens (and making sure they're readable a bit) while significantly speeding up the 4+ tokens summon speeds.

As for the gem falling having been sped up, this was done as a general pass to speed up the game as a whole. There is currently an issue with the dropping animation not being as smooth as it should be that will be fixed in a future update. But I can guarantee you that speeding up the gem drop animation was not done because cascades and the like will get longer in the future, at all.

As of now the whole game sped up a lot and that's a good thing.
Any plans to speed up at least a little bit the remaining slow animations?
Id love to play my Sorin without taking ages https://youtu.be/pYBwcB0W9U8

glggwp

i find the cascade is even more pronounced than before...

Foznertep

Great Aurora still takes forever, especially when a lot of Clues are on the board.

speakupaskanswer

I don't see the problem in the accelerated gems drop. It makes the games faster and I have never thought I missed something.

blacklotus

speakupaskanswer wrote:

I don't see the problem in the accelerated gems drop. It makes the games faster and I have never thought I missed something.

I agree. I monitor only the spell casting and end board states to make my next move. I never bother with the animated cascading gem matches, either mine or the AI.

if mtgPQ show only the 2 end board states after swipe moves are made, I won't mind one bit.

Ohboy

blacklotus wrote:

speakupaskanswer wrote:

I don't see the problem in the accelerated gems drop. It makes the games faster and I have never thought I missed something.

I agree. I monitor only the spell casting and end board states to make my next move. I never bother with the animated cascading gem matches, either mine or the AI.

if mtgPQ show only the 2 end board states after swipe moves are made, I won't mind one bit.

It's kinda nice to know if you the card the AI is filling up is a behold the the beyond or a desolation twin.

blacklotus

Ohboy wrote:

blacklotus wrote:

speakupaskanswer wrote:

I don't see the problem in the accelerated gems drop. It makes the games faster and I have never thought I missed something.

I agree. I monitor only the spell casting and end board states to make my next move. I never bother with the animated cascading gem matches, either mine or the AI.

if mtgPQ show only the 2 end board states after swipe moves are made, I won't mind one bit.

It's kinda nice to know if you the card the AI is filling up is a behold the the beyond or a desolation twin.

good pt. I stopped my practice of monitoring after the harness n SP crazy cascades in almost every deck I meet.