Training Grounds Beef

wickedwitch74

I'm ok with the idea of the "Training Grounds".  I appreciate the move to a lower stress, less grindy environment, and I enjoy the 15 gem perk as the final reward. 

Training Grounds, and Quick Battle before it, is the place to test new decks before throwing them into an event.

There are quibbles I have with the design, and I will follow this post up with those, but I have one BIG beef.

As I build these standard decks, and try to test them out, why am I being thrown into battles against "Legacy" decks playing all of Legacy's greatest hits.

It is incredibly frustrating trying out my new thopter/cycling/energy/embalm deck, only to get flattened by The Pig, or skewered by a buggy Olivia. 

Implementing a Training Ground that allows players to:

A. Choose Legacy vs. Standard
B. Perform Matchmaking in a fair and accurate manner

Should be at, or near the top of Development's list.

You have asked us to accept these changes by imposing Standard and "Training Grounds". Fine... I enjoy the challenge and the breath of fresh air, but this was a seriously missed development effort causing the community much frustration.

wickedwitch74

List of things to improve Training Grounds:

1. Add a Standard vs. Legacy Toggle
1A. Fix buggy matchmaking.
2. Training Grounds should always be available. There is no excuse for the event to not be available.
3. Add a toggle to play against your own decks.
4. Allow players looking for a grindy experience to get just that. Have rewards that go beyond the requisite four matches, even if there are diminishing returns.

wereotter

A "standard mode" would absolutely be nice, but I think even without that, you could test out standard decks if Training Grounds didn't have a saved deck slot.

I've noticed since the implementation the variety of decks and planeswalkers faced has diminished dramatically when compared to Quick Battle, largely because you're just fighting the same Olivia, Battle Piggy, Boomship, pile of infinite zombies decks over and over as that's what that person used to beat the four fights for progression before moving on.

We players can alleviate this to a degree by changing our saved deck after completing our matches (this is something I try to do when I do progression. I'll set my deck to something random from my list just so its different if you get paired off against me), but ultimately there really no reason to have a saved deck for this arena, and that should just be eliminated making it possible again to be faced off against any planeswalker.

Firinmahlazer

My beef with TG is I ALWAYS get put up against a level 60 PW with my level 52. 

Brigby

wickedwitch74 said:

List of things to improve Training Grounds:

1. Add a Standard vs. Legacy Toggle
1A. Fix buggy matchmaking.
2. Training Grounds should always be available. There is no excuse for the event to not be available.
3. Add a toggle to play against your own decks.
4. Allow players looking for a grindy experience to get just that. Have rewards that go beyond the requisite four matches, even if there are diminishing returns.

@wickedwitch74

I just wanted to jump in real quick and clarify that since Training Grounds does not fall under the category of being a PvP event specifically from either Kaladesh, Aether Revolt or Amonkhet, there is no deck restriction for it.

When it comes to your questions listed above...

1) I think that would be a good idea for helping test decks. I'll relay that idea to the developers.
1a) The development team's current focus is working on the system to address duplicates, however evaluating Matchmaking is definitely something on their to-do list.
2) Training Grounds should already be available at all times. 
3) That's definitely an interesting idea. I'm not sure what it would take to implement that, but I'll relay it to the developers as well.
4) You actually can play as much as you want, even after completing max progression, with a lower amount of Mana Runes awarded after each won game.

Laeuftbeidir

1a) great news! Does that mean a solution for the remaining bugs is found, or is this a second team? (no sarcasm, I'm actually curious)
2) "should"
4) story mode is also playable. But without rewards, there is no point to do so.. And 100 runes are no reward.

Eglyntine

At least you get 250 for story mode Heroic. And you only have to worry about the Hangarback heh.

Gormhaus

Tg needs to award 250 runes per win after 4th win.

speakupaskanswer

Why do we need to claim TG every time? That's very annoying.

wickedwitch74

Brigby said:

wickedwitch74 said:

List of things to improve Training Grounds:

1. Add a Standard vs. Legacy Toggle
1A. Fix buggy matchmaking.
2. Training Grounds should always be available. There is no excuse for the event to not be available.
3. Add a toggle to play against your own decks.
4. Allow players looking for a grindy experience to get just that. Have rewards that go beyond the requisite four matches, even if there are diminishing returns.

@wickedwitch74

I just wanted to jump in real quick and clarify that since Training Grounds does not fall under the category of being a PvP event specifically from either Kaladesh, Aether Revolt or Amonkhet, there is no deck restriction for it.

When it comes to your questions listed above...

1) I think that would be a good idea for helping test decks. I'll relay that idea to the developers.
1a) The development team's current focus is working on the system to address duplicates, however evaluating Matchmaking is definitely something on their to-do list.
2) Training Grounds should already be available at all times. 
3) That's definitely an interesting idea. I'm not sure what it would take to implement that, but I'll relay it to the developers as well.
4) You actually can play as much as you want, even after completing max progression, with a lower amount of Mana Runes awarded after each won game.

Thank you for the response, Brigby. I would like to follow up..

1. Please do away with "health potions". They are an annoyance to seasoned players and a real drag to new players, who may only have one or two planeswalkers. It's a tax on the poor.

2. I understand adding Training Grounds as an "event" per se, but we shouldn't receive emails when the event is over and a new day rotates. It's unnecessary and we don't win anything.

In response to this:

I just wanted to jump in real quick and clarify that since Training Grounds does not fall under the category of being a PvP event specifically from either Kaladesh, Aether Revolt or Amonkhet, there is no deck restriction for it.

The Training Grounds Event says in the Event Rules, and I quote: "This is an excellent place to test your decks."

I strongly disagree with this statement. It's a terrible place to test my standard decks, since most games pit me against non-standard opponents.

My first three experiences yesterday were a perfect example... Game one: my pitiful embalm deck was wiped out by a Tyrant of Valakut. Tyrant, indeed. Game two: Shrine, Shrine, Olivia. My drakes didn't stand a chance. Game three: to h3ll with it, I played a nasty legacy Ob Nixilis deck, only to pitted against some poor bloke's standard deck running sacred cats.

While I understand that the event should be format neutral, there needs to be some way for players to test their standard decks in a meaningful way.

wereotter

wickedwitch74 said:

The Training Grounds Event says in the Event Rules, and I quote: "This is an excellent place to test your decks."

I strongly disagree with this statement. It's a terrible place to test my standard decks, since most games pit me against non-standard opponents.

My first three experiences yesterday were a perfect example... Game one: my pitiful embalm deck was wiped out by a Tyrant of Valakut. Tyrant, indeed. Game two: Shrine, Shrine, Olivia. My drakes didn't stand a chance. Game three: to h3ll with it, I played a nasty legacy Ob Nixilis deck, only to pitted against some poor bloke's standard deck running sacred cats.

While I understand that the event should be format neutral, there needs to be some way for players to test their standard decks in a meaningful way.

I agree with the sentiment and would take that a step further that it's not even a great place to test legacy decks either because you only face the same 3-4 decks. I played several matches last night and here's the line-up of my opponent's:

I got, in this order: Koth, Liliana2, Koth, Koth, Koth, Kiora, Koth, Nahiri, Koth, Koth. So Training Grounds is more accurately a "great place to test your deck against Koth"

Serioisly, take away the event deck slot. Also on a tangent note, the excessive numbers of him in that event might hint that he's over powered and might need a rebalancing. 

[Deleted User]

wereotter said:
... So Training Grounds is more accurately a "great place to test your deck against Koth"

I laughed so hard because it's too true. 

Dsagent

Firinmahlazer said:

My beef with TG is I ALWAYS get put up against a level 60 PW with my level 52. 

I believe the range is around 10 levels. Stay at 45 if you want to avoid lvl 60.

exosect

I agree with everything stated above, these changes would be great. But no, training grounds is not "always" available, there is a several hour gap with no TG near the end of every week

wickedwitch74

I'm casting "Dark Petition" on this post.

This is still a big issue for me, and it's gotten to the point that I don't even use Training Grounds as a place to test my standard decks... at all.

Now, I just play my legacy, creatureless Ob Nixilis/Lost Legacy deck... ad nauseum. If I don't, I'll just get run over by a Koth deck playing the "greatest hits from yesteryear".

I challenge the notion that "This is an excellent place to test your decks." as the event rules state.

The game is in a pretty good place, compared to where it was just a month ago. That said, there is room for improvement, and I think this is an important one as developers open up events with different deckbuilding requirements.

Please make this a development priority. Allow us to customize the Training Grounds experience we want to play.

Options should/could be:

-Standard vs. Legacy [Absolutely Necessary]
-Block Constructed
-Pauper (Please, Please, Please)
-Tribal
-Play Against Your Own Decks

This would allow so much richness and variety to this one event, and allow players to tailor their experience. Based on what I've seen, it probably wouldn't even take too much development effort.

Allow players to grind away on each of these settings with the same rewards that currently exist. Players could gain a lot more runes to level up their walkers, and have more things to do during event downtime.

As it stands, I just "Lost Legacy" my way to the 15 gems. I'm sure most people do the same. Sad face.

Nathanyel

@wickedwitch74 I hope you're not referring to the bright red "HEAL" button! As a casual, F2P player, that button has allowed me to go one more round and earn a few more rewards more times than I can remember!

@wereotter I have Koth...and while I do like getting 11 red mana for a three-gem match (and hey...he's not even Lv60 yet!), I too must sadly agree he's overpowered.

khurram

wereotter said:

Serioisly, take away the event deck slot. Also on a tangent note, the excessive numbers of him in that event might hint that he's over powered and might need a rebalancing. 

Take away the event deck slot? Wth.
You realise event decks are one of the best things to have happened in a while. It has also fixed matchmaking among other things. 

Just because some people don't want to face koth?

wereotter

khurram said:

wereotter said:

Serioisly, take away the event deck slot. Also on a tangent note, the excessive numbers of him in that event might hint that he's over powered and might need a rebalancing. 

Take away the event deck slot? Wth.
You realise event decks are one of the best things to have happened in a while. It has also fixed matchmaking among other things. 

Just because some people don't want to face koth?

Event decks in general are great. Event deck slots for training grounds are the cause of the problem that changed it from random opponent, and and strategy to, from my recent tracking, 75% matches against Koth. It's not entirely not wanting to face him as much as wanting to face something else too. 

majincob

wereotter said:

khurram said:

wereotter said:

Serioisly, take away the event deck slot. Also on a tangent note, the excessive numbers of him in that event might hint that he's over powered and might need a rebalancing. 

Take away the event deck slot? Wth.
You realise event decks are one of the best things to have happened in a while. It has also fixed matchmaking among other things. 

Just because some people don't want to face koth?

Event decks in general are great. Event deck slots for training grounds are the cause of the problem that changed it from random opponent, and and strategy to, from my recent tracking, 75% matches against Koth. It's not entirely not wanting to face him as much as wanting to face something else too. 

It's no different from QB (which is what TG is, just with less prizes). You only faced PW people were playing in QB. They might switch their deck around when they weren't playing but it's always been a sea of Koth and Nahiri.

Steeme

It's been stated before but:

1. Remove healing potions, as they are no longer necessary.  All matches should start with PW at full health.  (Some might not like this if they use it for the "win with 10 or less HP" objectives).

2. Standard vs. Legacy is a must have for Training Grounds.  Let them implement this first before asking for anything further.

Nathanyel

@Steeme I would agree w/removing healing potions and having PW start at full health, but ONLY for TG, where the primary intent was to let people test decks and level-up PW's. For all other places (story/events), keep healing potions and damage on PW's carrying over—it helps w/low-HP challenges and has a nice flavour, too.