Development Thread - (12/15/16)

Hibernum_Will

Hi everybody!

Welcome to the second installment of the Magic: The Gathering - Puzzle Quest Development Thread! Each month, we endeavor to put out a short post giving you an idea of where the game is heading - and to address some questions from the community.

We’ve been busy with the Kaladesh release and the game’s one-year anniversary, so we haven’t had too much time to chat on the forums - but rest assured that we’ve been following the discussion. The feedback that you provide is incredibly useful! We’re lucky to have such a great community.

Without further adieu, let’s answer some questions:

What’s changed since the last Developer’s Thread?

Lots! One of the big changes that you may notice is that we've reworked Events. We've rebalanced a lot of optional objectives in Events to make them more competitive. In addition, Events that have nodes now begin with nodes only partially charged. Nodes start charging automatically, so you can get to the top of a leaderboard - even if you start an Event late. Balancing Events is an ongoing process - we’ll be monitoring the new Events and will make updates in the future if they’re needed. We have already got some great feedback on the new Events - keep it coming! We’ve also crafted a ton of new Events, including a few unannounced ones. Keep an eye out for the Inventors’ Fair at the end of the month. This three day PvP Event is sure to be one of the biggest competitions yet. Top players in Silver, Gold and Platinum will have a chance to win the exclusive Mythic Dynavolt Tower! Since the last Developer’s Thread, we’ve greatly reduced the downtime when releasing a new update for the game, updated the UI and prepared a couple surprises for the Holidays. We’re certainly excited for what’s up next! (Oh, and of course the Kaladesh Card Set is now out!)

So - what is up next for Magic: The Gathering - Puzzle Quest?

In the short-term, we’re preparing an update to fix some of the bugs that slipped through in the 1.9 update. The next update should also finish our major visual overhaul. In the medium-term, we want to start running multiple Events at the same time. We’re currently in the process of upgrading and testing our servers so that we can run several concurrent Events - ensuring you always have a new challenge to tackle!

Speaking of the visual overhaul, Energized gems can sometimes make the gem board hard to read.

We’ve gotten this feedback from a number of players. We’re still in the process of adjusting the visual layout of the game - and feedback from the community definitely helps shape the final result!

In Events, the first player to reach a score wins a tie on the leaderboard. Will this change?

In the long-term, yes. Events should reward you for playing smart and building the optimal decks - regardless of when you play the Event. However, in the short-term we want to use optional objectives to avoid ties by introducing granularity in the Event scores. (As mentioned above, Event balancing is an ongoing task. We’ll keep an eye on the leaderboards for the rebalanced Events and make changes in future if necessary.)

What happened with Thalia, Heretic Cathar?

We had initially scheduled the Emrakul's Corruption Event to run a few additional times in November; however, the Event wasn't meeting our internal standards. We had hoped that the optional objectives would encourage interesting deck building; however, we found that they were encouraging long and slow matches. As a result, we ultimately removed several Emrakul's Corruption Events from the schedule - including one Event that included the Rare card Thalia, Heretic Cathar. We decided it was best to release this card with the other exclusive Eldritch Moon cards, rather than hold it back for a future Event. We try our best not to needlessly set aside cards; however, due to the dynamic nature of game development, sometimes these things happen. Thalia, Heretic Cathar is no longer exclusive and can now be obtained from booster packs.

Let’s talk about “the Coalition exploit.”

A big thanks to everyone who brought this to our attention. We’re currently working on a system to ensure that Coalitions can’t gain an unfair advantage by cycling members during an Event. From what we can tell, very few (if any) Coalitions are intentionally using this exploit at the moment; however, we want to make sure it doesn’t become a problem in the future. The optimal strategy should also be the fun one. This exploit will be closed in next week’s update. After the update goes live, you will only be able to contribute to your Coalition’s score if you’ve joined your Coalition before the Event has begun.

Thanks again for all the great feedback! As always, there are a lot of questions that we haven’t had time to tackle - so be sure to look for upcoming Development Threads. In the meantime, thank you for playing Magic: The Gathering - Puzzle Quest and Happy Holidays!