D3's Spring Report Card

babar3355

 A little under 4 months ago I started this poll http://forums.d3go.com/discussion/57380/d3-prioritization-thread/p1 as an honest attempt to help D3 understand some key issues with the game and to work with the community to resolve them in a prompt and logical manner. The poll disappeared during the forum transition.   Regardless, I posted the poll options below, with one additional oversight option.  With some recent changes and the incoming new patch, I decided I would grade D3 on how I perceive their progress and implementation.

Cheating - Often documented and recently confirmed by d3. ~ Grade: F ~ I know there was a concerted effort to eliminate cheating, but I am not convinced how successful it was.  Ultimately nerfing rewards and removing QB seems like a partial but awful answer to the problem.  I also know a lot of us had perfect scores in the Rx BP, but no idea if any of us were cheating.  Maybe devs. could shed more light if this has been fully resolved. Everyone's favorite (or should be) community member Octal9 revealed that the hack app is still alive and well with new versions coming out every patch.  Less visible cheating is still cheating.

Poor Drop Rates - And seemingly getting worse with Kaladesh. ~ Grade: F ~ Drop rates according to all data sets I have looked at imply no change to frequency of card hits.  However, the cost of packs increased sharply.  600 crystals used to get you 71 cards but now only get you 52.  Additionally, reward events were slashed badly, so chasing any card has become far more difficult (costly).

Unfair Ranking System in Events - Tie goes to the first to complete, advantaging certain time zones, cheaters, or players using low level PWs. ~ Grade: A ~ I am being generous here as I assume the patch notes are accurate.  But it sounds like they are finally initiating a fair ranking system that is exactly what most people on the forums have been suggesting for over a year.  Thanks for listening to us guys... you get an A even thought it took way longer than it should have!

Freezes, Lag, and Bugs - No ability to continue or reset a match after crash. ~ Grade: D- ~ I am not sure this is the right grade.  I have been one of the lucky ones who never really had issues with freezes through 2 different phones.  However, I know a lot of people were locked out completely in recent weeks and I have heard a lot of stories of fabricate freezes, gem hangs, etc.  Also, the bugs are pretty rampant both in game and in the system.  I think you should be happy with your D minus on this one. 

No Deck Slots - Forcing players to continually re-calibrate decks, often for concurrent events. ~ Grade: B ~ Another example where you listened to the community!  Thank you!  You get a B because you made them really expensive and very limiting.  Not sure why I can only have 2 deck slots per PW but another 3 are consumed by mostly awful pre-fabricated decks.  I still find myself tweaking decks a lot because I don't have the runes or crystals to unlock gobs of deck slots. Regardless. thanks for getting this done!

Content - Boring or redundant content with little focus on shaking up events to create more fun and challenging gameplay. ~ Grade: C ~ I might change this grade up or down based on how the next patch goes.  But currently I am conflicted.  I really like Trials of the Planeswalker (with modified rewards) and the Arena events (although your objectives often make me a sad panda... win in 5 and cast 5 vampires with Ob?  Really?).  However, we have been on a constant loops of RATC, EMO, FiRF, NoP, OotG, repeat for a LONG time.  You also get some credit here for standard... maybe I will bump the rating up after the patch. 

No PvP - Not even the ability to play against your own, or your coalition mates decks. ~ Grade: F ~ Still no true PvP or the ability to mirror match your own decks.  However, almost no one seemed to care about this in the poll (whose results have disappeared), so I guess it wasn't a priority.

Imbalanced Cards - Dominate cards such as Deploy, Olivia, Exert Influence, etc cause little variety in deck construction and hamper the enjoy ability of deck innovation. ~ Grade B ~ You get a B here for both adjusting some extremely broken cards like Baral and Ornithopter?!?!?!?! and more importantly for introducing a standard format. This was a much needed change, especially for more senior players who have been using many of the same cards in virtually every deck for over a year now (Shrine, Mirrorpool, Olivia, etc).  This will really add a lot of spice and cut down on the constant power creep.  Great job!

No Card Trading System - Impossible to get certain cards without getting lucky, or do anything meaningful with your 5th Mind's Dilation. ~ Grade: ? ~  I am going to withhold judgment on this until we actually see it implemented.  I know you guys have been working diligently to get it up and going, but this could either be an amazing addition or a total bomb.

Broken Matchmaking - Constant battles against the same 5-10 people who can create troll decks that give themselves advantages in competitions.  ~ Grade: A ~ As far as I can tell this has been fixed. So refreshing to see people other than Mercicide, Killwind, Gunbunny and Brian####.

All in all, a lot of progress has been made since January. I commend you guys for the efforts to focus on some of these important issues and resolve quite a few of them. 

However, with the most recent patch you guys alienated a lot of the community with a few key decisions. In an effort to make the game more "accessible" to newer players you:

Removed mythics from top place finishers and coalitions -  This was not a welcome change but was understandable by most.  However, reducing the prizes from one mythic to 1/20th of a mythic for coalitions, and removing them altogether for most PvP events was a total overextension. Many players have quit because there is nothing worth playing for or spending money on.  Many more of us have refused to spend money until more worthwhile prizes are returned. This has greatly diminished the competitiveness of the community and the team spirit of coalitions. 

Increased the cost of cards without increasing the drop rates - Documented above.  But I can not understand how this helps newer players.

Have continued to have abysmal communication with the community.  Shout out to Brigby for doing a great job under the circumstance, but good lord.  When Blizzard had an outcry over price changes to their products around the same time they rapidly responded and sought to soothe the community and compromise.  We got a week or two of silence followed by... well mostly more silence.  We figured you would have noticed that all top coalitions changed their name to disparage D3.  Instead, you guys seem to not care very much.  This is both the easiest thing in the world to improve and the single most important thing.  No one likes feeling like their voice isn't being heard.  No one likes feeling like no one cares.  All you have to do is consistently respond and give us valid and realistic updates in a timely manner.  This is your newest and most important priority!

Anyway, even if I didn't give you high grades on all areas, I do appreciate a willingness to listen and implement community driven changes.  I understand that 4 months feels like an eternity in our shoes and probably feels like just a few weeks in your shoes.  I am impressed so much has been done since January when this poll was first posted.  Kudos.

~ Overall Grade: ? ~ Withholding until the new patch arrives.

Sarahschmara

Very well written! A+

Phase

Solid. 100% agreed that a stream of communication with the developers should be the highest priority in the short to medium term behind of course game-breaking bugs (although, if an app crashes frequently, but no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?). 

@Brigby seems to be giving us the best we can but his interactions with us definitely give off the vibe of a guy who has to wait way too long for answers to the important questions we ask him day in and day out. Just having the devs pop in the forums once a week for an AMA or something would be a huge deal for us, where we wouldn't have to go through a medium to get a response from the guys who make this game great.

babar3355

I don't know if a lack of provocative response indicates that my ratings were in line with everyone's views or people got scared away by my wall of text.  Regardless, the only real challenge to one of my ratings was octal9 who believes that cheating is still an F with the apk hack maker still alive and well and promoting his newest product.  Thus, I am trusting the expert and downgrading them to an F for cheating despite a lower level of visibility.  Again, if @Brigby @Hiberrnum_lakestone or anyone else want to comment, I would love to hear how removal of cheating is progressing.

shteev

A solid assessment, I thought, Thanks for taking the time to write it.