Maxed Decks (objectives and formats)

MTG_Mage
MTG_Mage Posts: 224 Tile Toppler
in MtGPQ General Discussion
Nearly 1.5 years since release and being a regular player since the beginning my decks are getting maxed. I have all planeswalkers and their optimal decks with my collection each run about 4 to 6 mythics and the rest rares or top end essential uncommons/commons. There is pretty much no room for improvement unless I replace a card with an OP mythic. My Sorin and Nahiri decks are so tight they basically never lose unless I get a bad draw combined with the opponent getting multiple cascades.

There has been talk of block formats, but hard restrictions to cards may be too much a barrier for some or get people really annoyed.

I mentioned multiple objectives - 3 points for a win and 4 one point objectives. This would add some diversity to the game, but may not be enough to break up 'optimal' decks to objective driven decks.

So how about incorporating deck restrictions into objectives. Make events where it would have the normal many low point objective layout AND a large point (like 5) objective if your deck meets certain criteria. You can have events where instead of summoning X creature types you meet the objective just by them being in your deck. Or if you have 6+ of cards from block X. The point weight has to be worth adjusting your deck over, otherwise its not worth the risk and people will continue to use their most super efficient kill decks all the time...and once you find a 'perfected' deck then then the game can get stale.

Regardless, there needs to be incentive for me not to play my 'guaranteed to win Sorin deck' for every somewhat difficult event/boss. So instead of restricting cards I can use, offer more reward for NOT using them. Devs, please get creative and aggressive with objectives.
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Comments

  • morgue427
    morgue427 Posts: 783 Critical Contributor
    but how many could compete? i konw i couldnt in most colors honestly. granted  using your brain vs the ai running the other deck makes a big difference, but still not sure how we could handle more like cast 5 vehicles and you know that would be one of them.
  • Steeme
    Steeme Posts: 784 Critical Contributor

    I think we will already see a difference coming soon with event deck submissions.

    Many times I would love to build a deck with new cards or to maximize objectives but the cold hard fact that you can still get matched up against the most deliberate optimized grief decks makes us err on the side of caution.  With everyone on a level playing field I think we will be able to loosen up a bit and shift more focus onto actual event-specific deckbuilding.

    In terms of restrictions, perhaps they need to be scaled a bit.  For Platinum, we go all out with restrictions (ie. your deck must contain 4 vehicles, no exceptions).  For Gold, it can be 3 vehicles, lower tiers 2 or 1 vehicle, etc.

  • Ohboy
    Ohboy Posts: 1,766 Chairperson of the Boards
    If the deck restriction is 4 vehicles minimum, everyone will be playing similar decks. 
  • MTG_Mage
    MTG_Mage Posts: 224 Tile Toppler
    morgue427 said:
    but still not sure how we could handle more like cast 5 vehicles and you know that would be one of them.
    http://forums.d3go.com/discussion/63409/more-supercharged
    hopefully Aetherised and Race will accompany any events with energised and vehicle objectives (see link) as Brigby said he is going pass that idea along to the devs.
    Hopefully in the future events will have some help if strongly aligned with a mechanic/block and not just make all events enraged. This is my point of having many and more extensive objectives.
  • EDHdad
    EDHdad Posts: 609 Critical Contributor
    I'd prefer if the objectives weren't binary.  Instead of "cast 5 vehicles, get 5 ribbons, cast 4 vehicles, get 0 ribbons", I'd like it if you got 4 ribbons for 4 vehicles, 3 ribbons for 3, etc.  Same with "win in 7 turns".  Maybe get 5 ribbons for a 7-turn win, 4 for an 8-turn win, etc.

    This way, there are fewer ties (which I think is the point of the objectives), but also fewer feel-bads for near misses (which is one of the reasons people dislike the objectives).
  • morgue427
    morgue427 Posts: 783 Critical Contributor
    yeah it is discouraging to just miss it because you needed that extra spell to survive etc. But win in five rounds on ob or use less then 2 spells on blue? that is just crazy at least let the colors play to their strengths then find out who is best not chosen by some arbitrary notion that we can bug the walkers to work against themselves
  • EDHdad
    EDHdad Posts: 609 Critical Contributor
    In general, I really wish that 100% of any secondary objective is something you'd actually want to do.  "Lose 6 creatures" or "Win with less than 10 life" are tedious and annoying.
  • Ohboy
    Ohboy Posts: 1,766 Chairperson of the Boards
    Winning the game as fast and safely as possible is the main objective. There is no secondary objective that would be something you would want to do if what you want to do is win the game. 

    That's the whole point of secondary objectives. Risk something to gain a small advantage. What you're asking for is a way to gain an advantage without risking anything, which wouldn't be an advantage at all because everyone would do it for free. 
  • ElfNeedsFood
    ElfNeedsFood Posts: 944 Critical Contributor
    What if the AI just actually started making smart decisions?  Even some really basic things like knowing not to use Uncaged Fury if a creature can't attack this turn or using Avacyn's Judgement on a creature only if you actually kill it or knowing if you have less than 6 life, use it for direct damage instead of creatures could go a long way towards making even these "unbeatable" decks lose more against comparable decks.

    Another option is to do more of a "live" tournament where the overall win rate is 50% by definition instead of the 95%ish numbers we see quite typically in people's QB scores...  The AI doesn't make mistakes if it's not actually playing...
  • Ohboy
    Ohboy Posts: 1,766 Chairperson of the Boards
    This has been addressed before. 

    Better Ai is a moving target. Eventually people find a way around it. 

    And real pvp is not planned. Then again, they also said a year ago that there were no plans to use duplicates, so maybe there's hope. 
  • EDHdad
    EDHdad Posts: 609 Critical Contributor
    Winning the game fast and winning the game safely are two different objectives.
  • Ohboy
    Ohboy Posts: 1,766 Chairperson of the Boards
    Yes, if you ignore safety for speed. 

    But in a game without secondaries(any game really), winning as fast as safely possible is part of winning safely because it cuts the Variance. 
  • ElfNeedsFood
    ElfNeedsFood Posts: 944 Critical Contributor
    While people might maneuver around better AI, having it not do clearly dumb things will force people to raise their own game.
  • Ohboy
    Ohboy Posts: 1,766 Chairperson of the Boards
    Oh it did a lot of dumb things before. 

    This is already pretty tame.

    Also, when they last improved the Ai, people complained. Even perceived unconfirmed upgrades to the AI got a couple of whiny posts. 
  • AngelForge
    AngelForge Posts: 325 Mover and Shaker
    Ohboy said:
    Oh it did a lot of dumb things before. 

    This is already pretty tame.

    Also, when they last improved the Ai, people complained. Even perceived unconfirmed upgrades to the AI got a couple of whiny posts. 
    Not surprising, because the only chance that the casual players have against some really nasty decks is the AI being dump. With this whole progression reward thing in events every loss is quite punishing. 

    We all would feel quite disappointed when, all of a sudden, we lose more games than usual.

    So, before you improve the AI you would have to make sure, that the decks are kind of equal in strength.
  • Ohboy
    Ohboy Posts: 1,766 Chairperson of the Boards
    We're just conditioned to think we're Gods.

    Losing about half your games is what one expects when AI is smart as a human and decks are similar in strength. 

    If we're complaining about losing a game here and there now, can you imagine what happens when people lose half their games? 
  • losdamianos
    losdamianos Posts: 429 Mover and Shaker
    You would run quickly out of HP potions and QB would be much more interesting.
    It would come down to whales vs players with good mythics
  • Steeme
    Steeme Posts: 784 Critical Contributor
    Ohboy said:
    We're just conditioned to think we're Gods.

    Losing about half your games is what one expects when AI is smart as a human and decks are similar in strength. 

    If we're complaining about losing a game here and there now, can you imagine what happens when people lose half their games? 


    The only reason winning matters is because of the milestones they have set up, which are balanced based on the current expected win rate of players.

    If they improve the AI and win rates plummet, you have to lower the milestones for basic progression.

    In the end you get the same result, except players lost more.  Challenge seekers get their fix, casuals drop like flies.  Less players, less revenue, but better game.  Is that what we need here?

  • Ohboy
    Ohboy Posts: 1,766 Chairperson of the Boards
    Like I said, conditioned to think we're Gods. 

    Why is progression guaranteed? This is a big part of what throws people off trials, that you need a max score to make max progression. 

    Why can't the pot at the end of the rainbow be your reward for doing exceptionally well enough to make progression in an event? Why must we be entitled to it? 

  • speakupaskanswer
    speakupaskanswer Posts: 306 Mover and Shaker
    Because the game is designed in a way that only getting more (more runes, more crystals, more jewels, more cards) is rewarding. This fits to our culture but you can't expect people to play that game the same amount when they lose most of the time. That would only work if you had more possibilities and more variety. But playing the same decks against the same decks again and again is frustrating enough but at least you can get some rewards. Most people think the game is a slog already, so how would making it less rewarding change that?

    Making the AI better would be nice because you want to feel that it is a real challenge. But that only works with the right reward.

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