PVE and New Players

bk1234

So I took a chance and tried Avacyn with my alt account (which is probably better than most new players because it was my original account).

I am unable to play past the first 2 tiers -- I will likely not even make progression.

Can someone tell me how this is engaging to new players?

madwren

It wouldn't even let mine join, since my pws are too low.

Edit: I'm an idiot, it's because my alt isn't in a coalition.

Mainloop25

Ehh. I couldn't get that far in the Oath of the Gatewatch PVE, back when I first started. It was a bummer that I didn't get the prize, but it just made me want to let level up so that I could get further next time.

Ohboy

Remember ogw pve where tons of people had difficulty completing for the prize?

It was a lauded as a great success because it brought the community closer together, discussing strategies and helping our the new players.

There's even a thread a while back requesting for it to come back.

No one complained about not getting the prizes, because they didn't take free stuff for granted then. That event was the start of the now continual shower of rewards and crystals.

New players didn't feel disengaged. It was quite the opposite. A friend of mine was ecstatic when he finally beat it on the last week the event ran. He was new, and the challenge made him play the kittens out of the game.

I don't know why people take progressive for granted like it's their due. Play better/more and you'll get there really soon. It's not a 3 year training to get there. It's literally just days/weeks.

norjee

Ohboy wrote:

Remember ogw pve where tons of people had difficulty completing for the prize?

It was a lauded as a great success because it brought the community closer together, discussing strategies and helping our the new players.

There's even a thread a while back requesting for it to come back.

No one complained about not getting the prizes, because they didn't take free stuff for granted then. That event was the start of the now continual shower of rewards and crystals.

New players didn't feel disengaged. It was quite the opposite. A friend of mine was ecstatic when he finally beat it on the last week the event ran. He was new, and the challenge made him play the kittens out of the game.

I don't know why people take progressive for granted like it's their due. Play better/more and you'll get there really soon. It's not a 3 year training to get there. It's literally just days/weeks.

It was a success because everyone COULD play, sure, if you were new with bad cards, you depended more on luck than anything else, but atleast you could play, and definitely succeed on the first chapter, and try again and again, and even if you failed you weren't punished for failing, you could just try again and again, with the current event setup failure means you're out. Plus during this event you felt some real progression opponents got progressively harder and you were allowed to improve/adjust your deck based on the encounter (as you were allowed to fail you could get an understanding of what you were facing). I never beat the last boss, didn't bother me at all. But with the current events (and qb) newbies literally have no chance at all, you don't even progress at all, you just hit a huge brick wall that says "no further, this part of the game REQUIRES a full set of leveled PWs"

Ampmp11

New players shouldn't be able to finish this entire event. If they were able to then where is the challenge and what's the point of progressing? What would be the point for veterans playing? Hell the vets already constantly complain about perfect score ties, could you imagine how many more ties there would be in this event if your new alt account could finish this event. Oh my god the nightmare.

When I did have access to my alt account I could get up to persistent nightmare with a solid g1 deck that was about level 40. That was with a very limited rare collection. Maybe had 2 or 3 rares in it.

All new players really need is to start off with a single rare like most other freemium games do. That way they can get set going into a direction. If they don't like their rare they can uninstall and re-download for another chance at a different rare.

Really it's harder for vets with alt accounts to enjoy being "new" at this game because you're so used to winning all the time that when you lose you think, well if I just had some decent cards or if my pws were fully leveled this would've been a breeze. Well guess what that is the whole experience for new people; to go buy packs to get cards, level their pws and enjoy the perks.

I do think as a new player though it's very hard to get packs let alone a big box.

madwren

What made the original PVE event so fun was that it allowed people to keep trying and trying and trying. There were still a number of people that couldn't beat the final bosses (in both Part 1 and Part 2), but at least they were able to try, not be arbitrarily locked out. It was like story mode.

People with stronger collections and better deckbuilding skills were able to beat them, and usually do it faster.

I'd like to see events like that mixed in again. There's room for both node-based events and "story mode" type events.

Ohboy

madwren wrote:

What made the original PVE event so fun was that it allowed people to keep trying and trying and trying. There were still a number of people that couldn't beat the final bosses (in both Part 1 and Part 2), but at least they were able to try, not be arbitrarily locked out. It was like story mode.

People with stronger collections and better deckbuilding skills were able to beat them, and usually do it faster.

I'd like to see events like that mixed in again. There's room for both node-based events and "story mode" type events.

I do agree that it's not great that you can only attempt once every 4 hours.

But that's the nature of events when we assign scores and give rewards based on scores.

Perhaps a pve event with no placing?

Not sure if people would appreciate it. I think at least a few people would complain.

blacklotus

Ohboy wrote:

madwren wrote:

What made the original PVE event so fun was that it allowed people to keep trying and trying and trying. There were still a number of people that couldn't beat the final bosses (in both Part 1 and Part 2), but at least they were able to try, not be arbitrarily locked out. It was like story mode.

People with stronger collections and better deckbuilding skills were able to beat them, and usually do it faster.

I'd like to see events like that mixed in again. There's room for both node-based events and "story mode" type events.

I do agree that it's not great that you can only attempt once every 4 hours.

But that's the nature of events when we assign scores and give rewards based on scores.

Perhaps a pve event with no placing?

Not sure if people would appreciate it. I think at least a few people would complain.

I would appreciate the more relaxed non-competitive story mode style as an event like the previous first strike ogw event.

the coalition and competitive nature of current events have made too many enemies and angry folks out of many players, which in my opinion is a sad state this game is heading towards.

Foznertep

For most people, losing a ranking score means missing out on a couple of hundred runes. Nothing anybody would cry tears over.
So please, for all of us below the top 500: bring back real PvE events for us to enjoy.

Steeme

blacklotus wrote:

I would appreciate the more relaxed non-competitive story mode style as an event like the previous first strike ogw event.

the coalition and competitive nature of current events have made too many enemies and angry folks out of many players, which in my opinion is a sad state this game is heading towards.

I agree 100%.

With the price of mythics artificially set at 30 USD, all the kids are fighting each other over the spoils, at the expense of their own enjoyment of the game.

They should rotate between competitive and casual.

Perhaps for the PVE events, they should give a chance to earn a Mythic based on performance. Then it will allow newer players to participate while giving the veteran players a challenge (ie. winning all matches with no losses = highest chance of obtaining Mythic).

bk1234

Ohboy wrote:

Remember ogw pve where tons of people had difficulty completing for the prize?

It was a lauded as a great success because it brought the community closer together, discussing strategies and helping our the new players.

There's even a thread a while back requesting for it to come back.

No one complained about not getting the prizes, because they didn't take free stuff for granted then. That event was the start of the now continual shower of rewards and crystals.

New players didn't feel disengaged. It was quite the opposite. A friend of mine was ecstatic when he finally beat it on the last week the event ran. He was new, and the challenge made him play the kittens out of the game.

I don't know why people take progressive for granted like it's their due. Play better/more and you'll get there really soon. It's not a 3 year training to get there. It's literally just days/weeks.

There are some valid points here -- having played that event, I found it quite a bit easier than Avacyn and am fairly certain I would have gone farther with my three level 40 PW and decent card base.

Perhaps the problem isn't PVE, it's Avacyn which is poorly balanced.

Another difference was I could go back and play levels within my level of play. This was good because I was still able to receive rewards regularly -- albeit lower rewards -- which is how it should be.

I also liked this because I could play for different bonus objectives.

Avacyn locks you on levels you can't beat-- as a coalition-only event, it should -- because no one would ever take on PN if it didn't.

Perhaps the option is to give the choice between playing it individually or with your coalition. If you chose individually, the levels you play can be repeated.

alextfish

FWIW, I've been able to beat the fourth set of Avacyn nodes with my level 40 Sorin, and the third set with my level 20 Arlinn. But I've got a big collection with lots of rares and a fair amount of mythics.

It would be nice if losing a game to a PvE opponent didn't use up one of your nodes. That might be a nice in-between to allow people to try out different strategies and PWs against the harder enemies, but still let the top coalitions compete for ribbons against each other.

KoneIV

Why not the creation of casual challenges to play when there are no events

bk1234

KoneIV wrote:

Why not the creation of casual challenges to play when there are no events

I have always thought that PVE events should be retired into Story Mode.

madwren

bken1234 wrote:

KoneIV wrote:

Why not the creation of casual challenges to play when there are no events

I have always thought that PVE events should be retired into Story Mode.

Agreed, I think that's a fantastic idea. Story Mode would be an even more effective set of training levels, then.

Oaklanbash

Avacyn would never end in a tie.... The 7 round win condition Prince fight is too iffy most of the time.

alextfish

Oaklanbash wrote:

Avacyn would never end in a tie.... The 7 round win condition Prince fight is too iffy most of the time.

Mmm, good point - the "Win in 7 rounds" conditions are so crazily luck-dependent that it's impossible to do them consistently.

babar3355

I think the problem is not necessarily Avacyn, but the lack of other content. We need events like Avacyn (although I think it has some balancing issues) to create fun challenging experiences for veteran players. I really got to try out some interesting decks that are not suited to PvP because they take have more of a mid-late game approach. I don't really need to pump a creature to 100 attack power to beat an 82 HP Chandra. It's also fun to have coalition focused events.

However, this leaves the newer players with really nothing to do for the weekend except grind QB or story mode. I really think they can and should expand the playable content with sufficient rewards to keep more casual players engaged.