Verdict on the recent event structure

MaxMagic420

After having some time to settle in with it, how does everyone feel about the new event structure?
Personally, I'm glad they listened and started the event nodes partially charged, that was a very good decision. But the eight hour recharge combined with the shorter runtime on events is really changing the whole experience for a lot of players. The removal of a coalition aspect from most events baffles me, as that is the main motivation for a lot of players these days. Without that, and the limited timeframe you have available for each event, it's just getting "meh" for a lot of us. Plus, with the meta in its current state, at any given time you can lose a couple games regardless of circumstance, and be denied progression entirely. That never used to happen. You could lose six or seven matches and still at least get your progression rewards.
I'm not sure what they hoped to achieve by doing this. I'm pretty sure they didn't receive a flood of emails saying "give us less battles and shorter events!".
Mainly wanting everyone's take on the current situation, and does anybody else feel like the partially charged starting nodes was really the only change they should have made?

Aairlon

I appreciate that the developers are constantly improving and updating this game. However, the most recent Dovin only node concerns me.

While I think that the pay to play members should get certain bonuses for spending money on this game. I don't think the people that didn't purchase him should be penalized by not getting access to an entire node. This will effectively stop the non Dovin players from meeting the personal event progression.

If they had made an event for people that purchased Dovin (Similar to the Holiday node) I would have had no issue as they players are being rewarded for their purchase.

DaisukeK

I'm living in Asia and the way events are handled previously demanded me and other players from exotic time zone to stay awake until all the charges on nodes are consumed before going to bed like in 4 in morning, otherwise a charge or two would go wasted. Now with the new system I can go to sleep, wake up normally and play while nodes are still charging. Recent change of precharged nodes and 8 hours charge time took away that kind of time zone disadvantage and I am pleased for their decision on it.
But having said that I agree the new longer interval leaves us with little contents to play with, unless they provide us with something new, like additional story contents or crystal-grinding mode, or something.

rob443

I like the new system very much for a couple of reasons:

1) The 8 hr counter starting at -1 gives players much more flixibility while planning to clear their nodes in time

2) The increased amount of events with shorter running time come along with increased rewards per week

3) Making all but one or two them a week non-coalition events is a wise decision, otherwise organization for coalition leaders would have become an even more difficult job than it already is. at least that counts for the top coalitions which really depend on having 20 fully active members ready for each coalition event

speakupaskanswer

I like basically everything about the new event structure and think it's a big improvement. The only, big exception is the 8 hour recharge. I really don't like that and it seems over the top. There are events now but less opportunities to actually play them which is frustrating.

Oaklanbash

I would have no problem going back to 4 hour recharges as long as they didn't fill the nodes in the beginning. Although to be honest, I enjoy the 8 hour timers. Lot more time for going out with friends not worrying about stupid timers hehe.

AettThorn

I wouldn't mind the 8-hour recharge timer if quick battles were improved. As of right now, I basically just use quick battles to test out new decks and check for weaknesses. If there was something to do DURING the node recharge time, I don't think that people would have as much of a problem with them being longer.

wereotter

DaisukeK wrote:

I'm living in Asia and the way events are handled previously demanded me and other players from exotic time zone to stay awake until all the charges on nodes are consumed before going to bed like in 4 in morning, otherwise a charge or two would go wasted. Now with the new system I can go to sleep, wake up normally and play while nodes are still charging. Recent change of precharged nodes and 8 hours charge time took away that kind of time zone disadvantage and I am pleased for their decision on it.
But having said that I agree the new longer interval leaves us with little contents to play with, unless they provide us with something new, like additional story contents or crystal-grinding mode, or something.

But now it's like that for those of us living on the west coast of the United States. The last recharge is at 1am and the event ends at 7am local time, so you either have to stay up or wake up early to play it.

It's meant for me if I want to actually sleep and want full progression, I have had to have perfect runs on the events. It would be better to let them overlap a little, from my perspective. Start at 9am and end at noon, rather than have just the 22 hour run time.

KoneIV

I find the 8 hour timer a bit long but I thought the 4 hour timer was to short, but why are they the only options? I think a 5 or 6 hour timer would be a better balance of plenty of time for life to happen and plenty of content to challenge us with.
And why is there no story for innistrad and kaladesh? Are they to boring to provide us with an ongoing challenge for us to play in our own time?

Stormcrow

wereotter wrote:

It would be better to let them overlap a little, from my perspective. Start at 9am and end at noon, rather than have just the 22 hour run time.

Yes, this. I'm not a morning person; it is far more likely that I will give up on this game than it is that I will wake up stupid-early to get the last battle or two of these of events. All events should have a minimum 24-hour run time, and 26 or 28 would be better.

Plus, if they really want to be fair to players around the globe, they could simply vary the start times for events.

bk1234

MaxMagic420 wrote:

After having some time to settle in with it, how does everyone feel about the new event structure?
Personally, I'm glad they listened and started the event nodes partially charged, that was a very good decision. But the eight hour recharge combined with the shorter runtime on events is really changing the whole experience for a lot of players. The removal of a coalition aspect from most events baffles me, as that is the main motivation for a lot of players these days. Without that, and the limited timeframe you have available for each event, it's just getting "meh" for a lot of us. Plus, with the meta in its current state, at any given time you can lose a couple games regardless of circumstance, and be denied progression entirely. That never used to happen. You could lose six or seven matches and still at least get your progression rewards.
I'm not sure what they hoped to achieve by doing this. I'm pretty sure they didn't receive a flood of emails saying "give us less battles and shorter events!".
Mainly wanting everyone's take on the current situation, and does anybody else feel like the partially charged starting nodes was really the only change they should have made?

I agree with all of this.

I'd also like to add that when the only weekly coalition event is PVE, it limits the contribution newer players can make to a team. I'd like to see partially charged starts -- with 4-6 hour recharges. I think all should have 5 charges and start with 3. This gives anyone time, no matter what timezone they are in-- to get going.

Bigred5442

I think the biggest problem with the new format is not just that when an event starts, you rush in and do the 3-5 battles on all the nodes and then there is nothing for 8 hours, but that when that 8 hours is up, you only have 3 more battles. I think that shortening to 6 hours would be better, but then give us another 3-5 battles per node ( while still leaving plenty of room for nodes to accumulate). They can increase the number of ribbons required between progression rewords to still make it a challenge.

Also, I think it's a little too tight to make full progression. You can only lose one battle in the holiday showdown event and still make progression. I think it should be more like hit 70% of ribbons available for full progression, and let those that want to compete for top placement fight for the other 30%

madwren

wereotter wrote:

DaisukeK wrote:

I'm living in Asia and the way events are handled previously demanded me and other players from exotic time zone to stay awake until all the charges on nodes are consumed before going to bed like in 4 in morning, otherwise a charge or two would go wasted. Now with the new system I can go to sleep, wake up normally and play while nodes are still charging. Recent change of precharged nodes and 8 hours charge time took away that kind of time zone disadvantage and I am pleased for their decision on it.
But having said that I agree the new longer interval leaves us with little contents to play with, unless they provide us with something new, like additional story contents or crystal-grinding mode, or something.

But now it's like that for those of us living on the west coast of the United States. The last recharge is at 1am and the event ends at 7am local time, so you either have to stay up or wake up early to play it.

It's meant for me if I want to actually sleep and want full progression, I have had to have perfect runs on the events. It would be better to let them overlap a little, from my perspective. Start at 9am and end at noon, rather than have just the 22 hour run time.

I agree with this. I'm also a West Coaster, and that 7am end time is pretty annoying. I miss the 24-hour battles. That being said, I don't trust their servers to actually handle multiple events overlapping, and suspect they don't either.

losdamianos

Bigred5442 wrote:

I think the biggest problem with the new format is not just that when an event starts, you rush in and do the 3-5 battles on all the nodes and then there is nothing for 8 hours, but that when that 8 hours is up, you only have 3 more battles. I think that shortening to 6 hours would be better,

no it wouldnt, everyone is catching this false idea that somehow recharge times are strictly tied to number of games
you burned through your nodes and finding yourself without purpose in your life for the next 8 hours ? there is plenty of things to do in human life apart from this mobile game.

If your actual complain is the fact that there is now LESS games per event the simple solution would be to increase the number of games you start with , similar like they did with haloween event when we started with 8? or 10 games.. same amount of games per 24h but it gives some of us privilige of not having to be glue to their phones for periods longer than 8 hours (sleep/work/social life)

Bigred5442

I have plenty to do in my life ( wife, kids, work, dog, etc) but I still have time to play the game that exceeds the amount of matches given to me by a good amount. 15 matches at the outset gives me plenty to do over that 8 hours, but even if I waited overnight, I still only get an additional 6 matches.

We are not talking huge investments in time here. A match is typically 5 min unless you play long game control decks or get matched up against one of those decks, but that has been rare in my experience. It leaves me with nothing to do in the game except QB, but I don't particularly like QB.

Yes, they could just give us all the matches from the begining and we could play them when we felt like it, but I personally like it broken up over the course of the event somwhat. It also eliminates that felling of needing to be glued to your phone for 8 hours that you mentioned.

I think having more charges at each refresh at least would better. And that would probably aliviate feeling like a shorter refresh was needed.

Could I do something else in that time? Sure, but I want to play this game, and as it is now, there are large spans of time where there is nothing that I want to do in game.

Muche

madwren wrote:

I don't trust their servers to actually handle multiple events overlapping, and suspect they don't either.

You might be right; last time I checked, looking at reward tiers for an upcoming event showed me score of the active event.

Mainloop25

More events is good, but I do wish there were more coalition events. I think 6-hour recharge times would be a nice middle ground, because 8-hour recharges are way too long, even if I will lose a node due to west-coast start-stop times. Dovin requirement isn't something I want to see every time. If they require Chandra2 and Nissa 2 for this event in the future, it will just upset people in the future.