Revolt Against the Consulate unwinnable ribbon

THEMAGICkMAN

Hibernum_JC wrote:

We will look at the stats and re-evaluate the balancing for this speed objective specifically. I understand that it is most likely overtuned and while it is possible it is very difficult to achieve.

As for my other comment, I think I should rephrase it to make it a bit clearer.

Events like this are made to be fun for all levels of players, from beginners to end-game players who have a high understanding of the game. As such, the encounters vary in difficulty.

We purposefully balanced this event so the first encounters are easier than they were before so they are more accessible, while the last encounters are harder than before so that the end-game players also are challenged and do not steamroll the entire event. The difficulty being higher contributes to that and makes you rethink your decks and how you approach combat. Unlike PvP where you are always on equal ground in terms of mana gains, hp and abilities, in PvE we can design encounters that have a very different challenge to them.

If I can say one thing a bit more personally, it's this. The usual philosophy I have when designing and balancing events is usually to try and make them harder than what I usually think. The logic behind that is that there obviously are better players than me, who find card combinations we haven't thought of and who are extremely good at exploiting certain aspects of the game. This is 100% to be expected, and I want some of these encounters to be challenging for even our strongest players. Beating everything easily is really the opposite of fun.

I hope this clears things up, but I will seriously look into the speed objective. Like I said, I achieved it, but it was pretty hard, and I most likely went at it a bit too harsh this time around. The beauty of the game is that we are able to fix our mistakes in the upcoming times this event will run.

I like the idea a lot, definitely good in theory. You should look at the PM I sent you, the ideas in that would definitely solve these problems 100%. I do hope you reply to that.


The idea of this event is great! But in practice it needs a bit of tuning, keep at it!

madwren

Hibernum_JC wrote:

I hope this clears things up, but I will seriously look into the speed objective. Like I said, I achieved it, but it was pretty hard, and I most likely went at it a bit too harsh this time around. The beauty of the game is that we are able to fix our mistakes in the upcoming times this event will run.

JC, have you guys ever considered having tiered objectives that better match the tiers participating?

Platinum receives high reward for completing difficult objectives. Platinum players have the best collections in the game.
Gold receives lesser rewards for completing the same difficult objectives. They have very solid collections.
Silver and bronze receives even lesser rewards for completing these same difficult objectives, even though they have much weaker collections, and to actually beat these objectives requires arguably more skill than a platinum player beating them.

I understand that you want people to tier up in order to win better rewards. That makes sense. However, why not have objectives that are appropriately challenging for each tier? For example, for 3.1, for platinum it might be rounds. For gold <5. For silver, if they can win in 8 or less. For bronze, 10 or less. Then, the rewards would match their ability to complete the challenge.

Magog

Thanks for the reply and the info on your thought process, although I'm still curious to know if your deck included Aether Heart.

While you're looking at the speeds, I'd like to say that I don't think the first encounters have been made easier, in fact I think they're the opposite. E.g. 1.1 requires you to both energise 5 gems and complete it in 3 rounds, which makes it very luck dependent more than anything else. Comparing all the 1.X nodes, I'm getting way less ribbons than in any other previous PvE events I've played.

James13

I suspect that there's some confusion about objective philosophy.

I think the game is heading n the direction where a perfect match score isn't a "given". This is fine. It makes sense when you don't assume full ribbons is the default state. Look to other events where the two extra objectives are self-contradictory. Some have been lulled by event repetitions leading to highly tuned decks to become used to perfect performances in everything.

Given the length of coalition PvE events, not getting a flawless performance isn't a big deal.

The new event was a surprise to some because many first passes are blind so you couldn't exactly prepare for an opponent except in the vague sense the objectives suggested. I've got strategies for each of these now and don't think any of them are unfair now.

I think 3.1s 4 rounds or less is achievable also without the heart, but it again requires a large amount of things to just go exactly right at the start of the match. Some of which like initial starting hand are out of your control entirely. It is a bit over-tuned to expect 100 damage average every turn from even the initial round. But I'm treating it as an ignorable objective at this point; a challenge I'm declining though I think I could hit it maybe 1/10 to 1/20 attempts when things align correctly.

wereotter

Hibernum_JC wrote:

We purposefully balanced this event so the first encounters are easier than they were before so they are more accessible, while the last encounters are harder than before so that the end-game players also are challenged and do not steamroll the entire event.

What part of win in three rounds while also energizing 5 gems from the 1.1 node is easy for new players?

Monkeynutts

Basically he doesn't want to admit it, but they never played it with actual decks people may use. They used super decks with all these amazing cards and probably pulled it off once!
Beating Tezzeret is stupid as well. So many interactions that you cannot beat him unless you're lucky.

If you gonna come on here JC and tell me you tested it extensively they i call malarkey. Your QA test team should ashamed of letting this come out.

When I worked for Valve we never let Left4Dead come out with thia many glaring errors and bugs.

James13

Monkeynutts wrote:

Beating Tezzeret is stupid as well. So many interactions that you cannot beat him unless you're lucky.

I strongly disagree. There are multiple viable strategies. The Event discussion thread covered a number of them, and I also have my own.

Hibernum_JC

wereotter wrote:

Hibernum_JC wrote:

We purposefully balanced this event so the first encounters are easier than they were before so they are more accessible, while the last encounters are harder than before so that the end-game players also are challenged and do not steamroll the entire event.

What part of win in three rounds while also energizing 5 gems from the 1.1 node is easy for new players?

The fight itself is much easier than what we previously had.

The goal is to have secondary objectives to be things you want to try to achieve, but are not required to progress.

bk1234

Hibernum_JC wrote:

If I can say one thing a bit more personally, it's this. The usual philosophy I have when designing and balancing events is usually to try and make them harder than what I usually think. The logic behind that is that there obviously are better players than me, who find card combinations we haven't thought of and who are extremely good at exploiting certain aspects of the game. This is 100% to be expected, and I want some of these encounters to be challenging for even our strongest players. Beating everything easily is really the opposite of fun.

It's nice that your perceived philosophy goes into this, but have you ever considered talking to people who actually play the game -- at all levels??

I spend a lot of time talking to players at every level from 'just started a week ago' to 'downloaded the first week it came out'-- and one thing is clear -- no one is loving this event (usually you have at least a few -- can't find anyone who wants to do this again next week -- in fact I know of at least 3 top 15 players who are quitting the game over it and several more other players)

We, as a community, have been asking over and over and over and over for more communication -- what we get are graphics, features and events that are almost always contrary to what we say is fun, engaging and interesting -- but it's nice to know that YOUR opinion matters when making these things.

I played another game, much like this one for 3 years -- it folded several months ago -- because they just couldn't get a handle on cheaters -- but they did communication right. They did focus groups, they posted dev ideas on their forums and on Facebook. It wasn't a huge game, but the community valued it and stuck with it through a lot of issues because the developers valued us.

Your community doesn't value you -- we value each other and Brigby -- but not Hibernum -- more and more the engagement and desire to invest time or money into this game is slipping.

I have asked probably 5+ times on several different threads to see a video and decklist of you completing 3.1 in 4 or less turns. Not because I don't believe it's not possible, but because this is educational and interesting. You haven't even once replied to this request -- even to say no -- but it was cool to gloat that it's doable, and it's cool to gloat that you designed the whole thing based on what YOU think is best -- without any feedback from actual players.

Whatever.

THEMAGICkMAN

bken1234 wrote:

Hibernum_JC wrote:

If I can say one thing a bit more personally, it's this. The usual philosophy I have when designing and balancing events is usually to try and make them harder than what I usually think. The logic behind that is that there obviously are better players than me, who find card combinations we haven't thought of and who are extremely good at exploiting certain aspects of the game. This is 100% to be expected, and I want some of these encounters to be challenging for even our strongest players. Beating everything easily is really the opposite of fun.

It's nice that your perceived philosophy goes into this, but have you ever considered talking to people who actually play the game -- at all levels??

I spend a lot of time talking to players at every level from 'just started a week ago' to 'downloaded the first week it came out'-- and one thing is clear -- no one is loving this event (usually you have at least a few -- can't find anyone who wants to do this again next week -- in fact I know of at least 3 top 15 players who are quitting the game over it and several more other players)

We, as a community, have been asking over and over and over and over for more communication -- what we get are graphics, features and events that are almost always contrary to what we say is fun, engaging and interesting -- but it's nice to know that YOUR opinion matters when making these things.

I played another game, much like this one for 3 years -- it folded several months ago -- because they just couldn't get a handle on cheaters -- but they did communication right. They did focus groups, they posted dev ideas on their forums and on Facebook. It wasn't a huge game, but the community valued it and stuck with it through a lot of issues because the developers valued us.

Your community doesn't value you -- we value each other and Brigby -- but not Hibernum -- more and more the engagement and desire to invest time or money into this game is slipping.

I have asked probably 5+ times on several different threads to see a video and decklist of you completing 3.1 in 4 or less turns. Not because I don't believe it's not possible, but because this is educational and interesting. You haven't even once replied to this request -- even to say no -- but it was cool to gloat that it's doable, and it's cool to gloat that you designed the whole thing based on what YOU think is best -- without any feedback from actual players.

Whatever.

Again -- to solve ALL of these problems easily, respond to my PM @Hibernum_JC.
Thank you Bken for this post. You got it all spot on. More communication would be great.

madwren

A lot of people seem to think JC was gloating--I've seen it referenced many times. Bken's is the latest post, but this isn't picking on her, it's addressed to everyone.

I didn't read his post that way at all. He gave a clear response to things that had been previously said, and immediately recognized it might be too difficult, and later followed up with an admittance it might be overtuned, and that he'd be looking at it. That's great.

Do I have many complaints about the game? Yes.
Do I agree that the event isn't a direction I like the game to take? Yes, I've said exactly that.
Do I agree more communication is necessary throughout the forums? Yes.

But using emotionally-charged words like "defensive" and "gloating" doesn't contribute anything positive to the process. Maybe it's because I work in customer service--I'm a librarian--and put up with a lot of unwarranted anger on a daily (if not hourly) basis; however, just because someone is upset about a perceived slight doesn't mean that they're right in hurling accusations my way. It just detracts from whatever they're trying to express. If they keep it up, then I absolutely will walk away and tell them I will not help them.

When Brigby first showed up, it wasn't all smiles and rainbows. People jumped on him for everything. I'm glad the community finally calmed down and gave him a chance, but if every time the devs come in here they meet with hostile attacks for every explanation they give, then I don't blame them for writing us off as not worth the tinykitty effort. You don't have to agree. I sure don't, and I've said as much. But it certainly doesn't need to escalate to the point it has.

bk1234

madwren wrote:

A lot of people seem to think JC was gloating--I've seen it referenced many times. Bken's is the latest post, but this isn't picking on her, it's addressed to everyone.

I didn't read his post that way at all. He gave a clear response to things that had been previously said, and immediately recognized it might be too difficult, and later followed up with an admittance it might be overtuned, and that he'd be looking at it. That's great.

Do I have many complaints about the game? Yes.
Do I agree that the event isn't a direction I like the game to take? Yes, I've said exactly that.
Do I agree more communication is necessary throughout the forums? Yes.

But using emotionally-charged words like "defensive" and "gloating" doesn't contribute anything positive to the process. Maybe it's because I work in customer service--I'm a librarian--and put up with a lot of unwarranted anger on a daily (if not hourly) basis; however, just because someone is upset about a perceived slight doesn't mean that they're right in hurling accusations my way. It just detracts from whatever they're trying to express. If they keep it up, then I absolutely will walk away and tell them I will not help them.

When Brigby first showed up, it wasn't all smiles and rainbows. People jumped on him for everything. I'm glad the community finally calmed down and gave him a chance, but if every time the devs come in here they meet with hostile attacks for every explanation they give, then I don't blame them for writing us off as not worth the tinykitty effort. You don't have to agree. I sure don't, and I've said as much. But it certainly doesn't need to escalate to the point it has.

I respect you, madwren, probably more than most people in this game, but I'm going to have to disagree.

Coming onto this thread and saying "It's doable, I did it" and not adding any tips or hints or encouragement is gloating.

I appreciate Brigby because he tries to participate in actual discussions -- he brings himself down to the player level -- but he earned that respect in other ways -- like answering PMs and really caring about a lot of the problems we have here.

I think both of JC's replies were pretentious and disconnecting and we deserve better.

Similarly when there is a dev thread, Will only answers people who pat him on the back. He doesn't ever reply to concerns or complaints.

If the devs really wanted to connect with the community, they would.

It's obvious they don't.

hawkyh1

my guess is that players are unhappy with jc's response.
I'm also guessing that jc wanted to say that the node was
tested(probably true), but that all the testers used gonti
heart. those testers that did not use this card found out
very quickly that any unique combination amongst the
possibilities was not worth their time. problem is jc did
not want to confirm/deny whether this is true or not.

HH

AngelForge

Hibernum_JC wrote:

...

We purposefully balanced this event so the first encounters are easier than they were before so they are more accessible, while the last encounters are harder than before so that the end-game players also are challenged and do not steamroll the entire event. The difficulty being higher contributes to that and makes you rethink your decks and how you approach combat. Unlike PvP where you are always on equal ground in terms of mana gains, hp and abilities, in PvE we can design encounters that have a very different challenge to them.

...

But this leads to players who are new (or quite new) to the game and get stuck in the node. They can't get any progression on that node anymore because the challenge just stomps them.

So, I would like to see an option that you can decide on progressing on the wheel.

Another idea would be to reset you to the first space of the wheel if you lose on any challenge (If you lose the second or third challenge of a wheel you start at the first again)

That makes no difference for the strong players but would help the new and weak players a lot to also participate in these events.

Regards!

Monkeynutts

Have a pass button that skips the node opponent to the next.
Have it consume one of the games so there is a penalty.

losdamianos

Monkeynutts wrote:

Have a pass button that skips the node opponent to the next.
Have it consume one of the games so there is a penalty.

or simply even if you loose lets say 3.3 your next battle will be 3.1 this way everyone will be facing the same enemy regardles if they won or not

Monkeynutts

The problem is 3.3 is 50 ribbons. 3.1 is 15 I think. Some people may want to persevere and have another go.
Also your trying to kill the boss and get ribbons x450 to get thr last reward.

A PASS button gives the player an option to quit or persevere.

buscemi

Hey, I see you've changed the speed objectives!

Please remember, tho, that this is still true:

Irgy wrote:

The problem with this is not that it isn't winnable. The problem is that it shouldn't be winnable.

If there's combos which are capable of achieving this objective, especially if reliably, then it's simply a very poor reflection on card balance. It's something to be ashamed of not something to rub in everyone's faces with this objective.

Monkeynutts

3.1 is still stupid.

7 rounds...

she gains 50 life with 9 loyalty...

TibbyGenn

FWIW I did manage to kill her on turn 6 once first time round. Not close at all this time round though. You need a lot of luck and the right cards to do this.

I can tell my average clock will speed up if I crack and use Mirrorpool.

I do appreciate the better balance this time round, except Tezz can still go nuts and beat you quickly, even if you have an "optimised" deck.

You get one poor draw and bam your dead. I do wish there were mulligans (+/- penalty) or scrying.