2.0 First Impressions

shteev

ElfNeedsFood said:

The Event Deck slots are "good enough" and I probably don't need to actually purchase any extra deck slots, at least not in the same yearning I had when I had to have three PW's stuck on vehicles for two days out of every week... 

Wouldn't it be nice, tho, if the slots persisted from event to event? So you set up your decks for RatC, and then when next weeks RatC happens, they decks are still there for you to play?

ElfNeedsFood

shteev said:

ElfNeedsFood said:

The Event Deck slots are "good enough" and I probably don't need to actually purchase any extra deck slots, at least not in the same yearning I had when I had to have three PW's stuck on vehicles for two days out of every week... 

Wouldn't it be nice, tho, if the slots persisted from event to event? So you set up your decks for RatC, and then when next weeks RatC happens, they decks are still there for you to play?

Yes, persistent event decks would help.  More events that changed every week (at least optional objectives) would be better, however.  I'd be happy to rethink my decks specifically to new objectives...

Beutimus

The new UI/grid system is nice. The deck slot cost feels pretty steep to me.

shteev

Can the loyalty powers which you currently do have enough loyalty to activate black out, please?

Laeuftbeidir

I can finally scroll smoothly to my planeswalkers, from arlinn to tezzeret in less than five minutes! Love it!

What I don't like, are things like :
Every time I play a creature with defender the first time in a match, the game explains me what it does. I get it, dammit :-D same for the X notifications when changing a deck on a node

madwren

Like
-new pw grid and navigation, both changes were a long time coming

-seems faster

-deck slots for the pws I have that need deck slots

-Baral change

-crisper look overall, some subtle changes but nice ones

Don't like
-not being able to toggle off the beginner/expert/master decks so I never have to look at them. Had to resort to naming my decks with numbers to get them to appear at the top of the list. I shouldn't have to filter every time.

-The new loyalty ability screen. It's severely blinding. Please make the background black again.
-the theme decks in general seem pretty underwhelming, because they encourage you to collect in a game where the acquisition cards is actively discouraged. Thanks for reminding me multiple times I lack Dynavolt Tower, though. =p

-recurring tutorial comments.

morgue427

no sensing purchasing any extra slots either especially if it is going to be the same challenges ad infinitum until a new block comes out, perhaps after i have got everything i want but still got 8 pws to buy

Brigby

Hi Everyone. Thanks for all the feedback! I'll be sure to continue passing them along to the developers for review. 

speakupaskanswer

After all the revamp of the UI, I don't understand why there is still no direct button to get to the inbox. That would be nice.

DumasAG

Essentially unplayable. Bugs out nearly every time I attempt to go anywhere on new UI. mostly crashes when trying to go to events. Managed to get one game in on Breaking Points, finished match, game crashed. Haven't even been able to see if the points were awarded. 

Wasn't this update continuously delayed? How do you then roll it out and have it be so bugged? Error screen looks good though.

Mainloop25

shteev said:

Ohboy said:

Razrbck89 said:

 I'm still struggling to level up my planeswalkers and they've only made it even harder for those of us who didn't play a ton when you could earn millions of runes easily. I don't understand why they hate new players so much. Mana runes only had one use for the longest time so I just don't understand continuing to nerf them into the ground.  

For this you can thank the people here for complaining about having too much runes. 

And they say devs don't listen. 

No, actually, I think I'll blame the devs for listening to two different sets of feedback, with opposing opinions, and picking the wrong one.

I think the real reason is that they never found a good way to get rid of QB cheaters.

Delnai

madwren said:

Like
-new pw grid and navigation, both changes were a long time coming

-seems faster

-deck slots for the pws I have that need deck slots

-Baral change

-crisper look overall, some subtle changes but nice ones

Don't like
-not being able to toggle off the beginner/expert/master decks so I never have to look at them. Had to resort to naming my decks with numbers to get them to appear at the top of the list. I shouldn't have to filter every time.

-The new loyalty ability screen. It's severely blinding. Please make the background black again.
-the theme decks in general seem pretty underwhelming, because they encourage you to collect in a game where the acquisition cards is actively discouraged. Thanks for reminding me multiple times I lack Dynavolt Tower, though. =p

-recurring tutorial comments.

I completely agree on every point. I assume the last one is a bug, which they will hopefully (not that I'm holding my breath) fix before long. 

Kyokudai

I'll give my newer player perspective!

UI - Like it and it works faster and better than the old one

Gameplay fixes - Seems faster and energy + fabricate doesn't seem to bog down the system as much except when an energy is consumed.  The game still seems to have to think a lot about that.

QB to Training grounds :

+  I like that there are goals I can achieve and that I can get some significant runes without a lot of work and without having to use a lvl 60 walker.  It was a little annoying to have to use a 60 to get gains which meant my lower level walkers were relegated to story mode competition and certain nodes. 

+  It also gives me a bit more rapid and reliable source of crystals which I was a bit concerned about since my story mode is getting more and more complete.  With QB I would often be in a good position to earn some crystals only to find myself knocked down to runes tier from not giving the game my 100% attention.  After 3 days I can almost afford a pack of something, where in QB after 3 days I got a basic and some runes.

+  Now I don't feel like I have to choose event or QB, I can do both relatively easily

-  Now I don't know what to do to get runes when I've finished this and I don't want to do the event like OGW 1 & 2.  I've heard that I should do the expert challenges?  I think that's what they are called where you fight the better planeswalkers?

Baral Change:  don't care too much.  At bronze / silver I saw 1-2 baral decks, and neither was able to run away, though they tried.  I just have kill spells in most decks and was lucky enough to have them available.

Deck Slots: My collection isn't big enough to have anything other than 1 deck that runs the ideal version of what I have available.  And since it's hard for me to get even rares much less mythics, I don't see this changing near term.

Beginner / expert / master decks:  I had thought that you had to level these decks somehow.  e.g. you earn ribbons based on doing stuff with the deck that it's supposed to do, and that when you reach a level you would earn a card out of it until you earned all the pieces.  Since that isn't the case I found that I just don't care about them as they have 0 impact on me playing anything in the game.  It doesn't feel like a target to me.  As a beginner it doesn't help me at all, and neither does the "Beginner" deck.

Tutorials:  Oh please let me turn them off.  I learn what I need by clicking the keyword on the card.  The non-keyword abilities that are symbols on the card, let me click the symbol to learn the mechanic behind it.

I think that covers it all.  Mostly happy about some of the changes, and ambivalent toward the others for the most part.

Mainloop25

My thoughts so far:

UI:
The grid view for Planeswalker screen is a big step up from the chore that it was before, and even the carousel in the selection before a match is much improved. I'm not a fan of all the bright colors, only because they clash with the rest of the graphics they lay on top of. Lots of distracting elements when you are simply trying to read objectives. Overall cleaner, but more distracting in ways. Bring back black! But even though the visuals suffer, the improvement in functionality is more important. Grade: B

Gameplay:
As always, there are bugs. Right now there are server latency issues. By now I'm used to it but I'll have to dock some points, especially since they are happening during an event with an important prize. There are lots of picture swaps or non-loading pictures in cards during a match, which is annoying because you can get tricked into thinking you are playing one card and not another. Fabricate animations are greatly sped up, as are some other things, but Sorin's and Jace2's abilities don't look to have changed. Clues are now colorless, which as far as I can tell is a de facto Sram buff and not much else? Overall things feel a little faster paced, which is nice. So far, just minor gripes but overall very good. Grade: B+

Events:
By far the most controversial change is the elimination of Quick Battle. Both the removal and the reasons behind it make little sense to me. There are things I like about its replacement, Training Grounds. I like that progression is easy to hit, and the lack of pressure is nice(but why have the W/L ratio at all if it resets after every round?). The distinct lack of rewards and competition that Quick Battle had makes this feel like a hollow replacement. This game should move toward more player interactivity, not less. It's less effort to get rewards, sure, but those rares that I would get via Quick Battle really helped to get a lot of key cards for my decks. I'm afraid that this makes it a lot harder for newer players to build their collection. For every good improvement they make to this game they screw something else up. Grade: D

Overall:
I love having deck slots and the planeswalker selection is greatly improved. Maybe my favorite improvement is the ability to create a specific deck for an event on the fly, right before going into the battle. Quick battle removal is sad, and yet another step in the wrong direction. As happy as I am about a lot of things in the update, that one leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Grade: C+

ElfNeedsFood

The gap between rounds on Training Grounds is disappointing. There was 0 lag between QB rounds. 

Azerack

Okay, The Bad:
I think the most annoying thing was noticed while I played the Training Grounds.
So we have a nice grid selection for PW's when we go to that page. WHY do we have to skim through all of them from first to last when we select a deck??

Feels like a joke. "Hey, we fixed that scroll left and right for your Planeswalkers.. Except, psyche! You get it back when you have to select a PW for your battle!"

How about put the grid selection in for that, too, please? All of the "Got it!" replies regarding the Event deck are lagging enough, already. And btw, can we have an option to turn that notice off, too, if we want?

The Good:
The Grid system is nice for the selection, there
I DO like the update to the fabricate buff, much quicker!
It feels a little cleaner when I play and yes, having the battle reqs up front before/while selecting your PW is much needed.
Once we get the "Proper" NoP, I'll see how the event deck thing goes, but hopefully that works.

The "Meh":
Also, funny that you listened (at least temporarily/mostly) regarding the Mythical card pack for 200 jewels. Unfortunately that's a TON of Mythicals you put in that pack and unless you're allowing support to again recoup our loss if we get a duplicate I hope you put in a check, already, to prevent it because you're going to get the same arguments as with the Elite pack, if not.

Overall, some nice touches. I would say at least a B for this one.