Unpopular Opinion: Needs cycling a nerf?

babar3355

Change cycle costs & nerf new Perspectives

I know summonghost went triple-cycle and got a perfect score.  However, 6 more of us in my coalition went perfect using minimal cycling (ie Rishkarsex a few fatties, NP and 4-5 cycling cards) or just Ob with no cycling except the land.    Another handful were perfect except for freezes.  Cycling, even if not fully abused, has made this game pretty easy. 

I do love that D3 got taken for 47 top 5 prizes in platinum.  Oops   Maybe now we will see a nerf to cycling?

madwren

Ohboy said:

UweTellkampf said:

There were around 30 people with perfect scores in ToS in my bracket. For the first time, I have played two decks relying heavily on cycling, and one fool proof Ob Nixilis deck. I have not dropped one single point and did not have one match even being close to this happening.

There are three crucial cards that enable god mode in cycling, and many players already have them resulting in winning easily in a double manner: You can control your opponent due to endless draw and – since many are playing cycling decks and AI doesn't cycle – the opponents are easily to be controlled due to AI's inefficiency in playing cyclung decks. 

The new PW encourages cycling making it even more powerful. I have N3 on lvl 36 and won every single match against lvl60 without really caring for the cards the AI played, knowing that as soon as I drop the 3. ability - it's game over. 

I have the feeling that next to all the other fun-killing developments in the recent update, this one weighs in the most when it comes to the future of the game. Cycling as a method is not to disappear any time soon. Fun will though, if the winning stays this easy. I have just won 300 unobtanium with 0 effort except if the somewhat longer time to win counts. And if the app doesnt crash I will repeat this in any future events quite easily. As a matter of fact, I'm perfect in EO too as of now (3 games left). 

My vote is clear: Do something about this. Make cycling something really special:

a) New Perspectives and Drake Haven (15+ Mana will still see them being played)
b) Amount of mana needed for cycling a card (5-9 would make you think twice before you cycle)
c) The way how AI deals with cycling (Let it do it in any way codeable)

This perfectly explains why cycling is bad despite ai not knowing how to cycle. 

I had a couple of tough spots I had to scramble out of in the zombie node, and it would have been so much simpler and safer if I had decided to cycle like you. 

It's just not good decision making to decide not to cycle for these events if you care about the prizes, and that means eventually everyone plays cycle solitaire. The game needs to be much more interactive than that. 

Just adding my voice to the chorus--great posts, you two.

My biggest fear now is not that they'll nerf cycling, but that they'll decide we had too many perfects and return to a set of overly luck-based objectives in an attempt to limit the amount of prizes they give out--and thereby further punish players who either struggle to compete as it is, or lack the collection depth to adjust.

For the record, perfect score with two cyclers (N3, T2) and a half-cycler (Saheeli).

wickedwitch74

Change cycle costs & nerf new Perspectives

If D3 makes any use of metrics, they will see how prevalent cycling is in the meta-game, they will see the average score of players increasing (I scored over 250 points in this weekend's event, and came in somewhere around 300th place!), they will see the dearth of any real deck variety, and they will have to act.

That is, if they care about the health of this game, and I have to believe they do.

My guess is that programming the AI to cycle would prove way too difficult. It's not simple decision-making, and we've already seen the AI do some pretty hokey things with targeted spells.

This just perpetuates the problem. Roughly 50% of my games are against cycling decks and are automatic wins. Now it's just a mad dash to see if you can sabotage yourself with a "Sweltering Suns" in order to hit secondary rewards and keep pace with all of the perfect scores out there. 

The game is not in a healthy place right now because of cycling.

I freely admit that I abuse the mechanic in an effort to farm as much unobtainium as possible before something gets done.

Matthew

I am the neutral opinion

madwren said:

My biggest fear now is not that they'll nerf cycling, but that they'll decide we had too many perfects and return to a set of overly luck-based objectives in an attempt to limit the amount of prizes they give out--and thereby further punish players who either struggle to compete as it is, or lack the collection depth to adjust.

The irony here is that if this "punishment" you hypothesize comes to pass, it will be because we took advantage of loopholes that they were too obtuse/lazy/naive to deal with themselves.

I can't remember who proposed this theory originally, or I would credit them with it, but I really have to wonder if this wasn't some experiment based on the nightmare that was the pre-nerf Baral. The underlying functionality of the cards/mechanics involved are just too similar; in fact, they are for all practical purposes mirror images of each other. Too much coincidence there for my liking.

madwren

Matthew said:

madwren said:

My biggest fear now is not that they'll nerf cycling, but that they'll decide we had too many perfects and return to a set of overly luck-based objectives in an attempt to limit the amount of prizes they give out--and thereby further punish players who either struggle to compete as it is, or lack the collection depth to adjust.

The irony here is that if this "punishment" you hypothesize comes to pass, it will be because we took advantage of loopholes that they were too obtuse/lazy/naive to deal with themselves.

I can't remember who proposed this theory originally, or I would credit them with it, but I really have to wonder if this wasn't some experiment based on the nightmare that was the pre-nerf Baral. The underlying functionality of the cards/mechanics involved are just too similar; in fact, they are for all practical purposes mirror images of each other. Too much coincidence there for my liking.

That was my tinfoil hat theory, mate.

Laeuftbeidir

both 1 & 2

So...this discussion seems to have found to an end.


To conclude a bit..the result right now:

We have 25 votes for any combination of:
"This mechanic is OP, and harming the game" 

21 votes of players who see cycling as a problem, that will solve itself over time

9 neutral votes (I took over one of the neutral votes to OP, since @thuran definetely was on that side, but in a way that didn't fit the options in the poll)

and 5 votes absolutely in favor of the current state 

I think the numbers speak for themselves @Brigby. Did anybody finished ToS with perfect -1 ? I'd love to know how far the tie went..I am convinced that this will happen in every good-rewarding event until cycling rotates out. 

A total nerf might be to much, since it would hit newer players worse than the toxic elite (althought I'd prefer to just delete FotD, NP and DH)- but a little bit of balance tweeking would be good and healthy for the game. Either by tuning event objectives, by making cycling a bit more costly, or by using any of the suggestions in the discussion. Especially Drakes Haven...just add the added mana cost for each Drake, like in the paper version.

Matthew

I am the neutral opinion

@Laeuftbeidir

There were plenty of people who finished with -1 in platinum. I was one of them. The only reason I finished in that position is because of a very stupid mistake on my part that was 100% avoidable.

Furthermore, there were no perfect scores visible at the top of my ranking list, or -2 scores visible at the bottom of my list, which leads me to believe that there were a decent amount of players in that -1 category.

I'd love to see the number of players who finished within 2 to 4 points of perfect. I bet it's well into the triple digits.

Laeuftbeidir

both 1 & 2

what rank did you finish with @Matthew  ?

Copioso

I also ended with -1 in platinum (that'll teach me never to play a non-full-cycling deck again).
My final rank was 44th.

Laeuftbeidir

both 1 & 2

So a 43 tie for the first place. I think that says it all.

wickedwitch74

Change cycle costs & nerf new Perspectives

It may have been mentioned before, but another problem that Cycling creates is once again unbalancing the color pie in favor of blue.

The game is already pushed in blue's favor. Planeswalkers have far more life than in paper magic, allowing Blue more time to cope with threats and take over the board. Supports can't be targeted, making blue's use of them more powerful. The battlefield is more easily managed because your opponent can only have a maximum of three creatures. Blue has creatures with comparable power & toughness to other colors, unlike paper magic. This has traditionally been Green's purview, but in MtG:PQ, creatures have fairly standard 2/2, 4/4, 6/6 or 8/8 statistics regardless of color.

And now add to this Drake Haven and New Perspectives.

Thuran

I am the neutral opinion

Don't forget blue  also has great removal in this game, eliminating a traditional weakness of the colour

babar3355

Change cycle costs & nerf new Perspectives

Laeuftbeidir said:

So a 43 tie for the first place. I think that says it all.

I thought it was 47 for some reason.  Anyway, I actually expected it to be closer to 100.  The objectives were pretty easy and the fact that we are only playing against event decks is a huge deal.  Those liflinking ****-cats really weren't that intimidating.  I know that at least 4-5 members of my coalition lost top prizes due to crashes... I really wonder what D3's internal reaction to giving out 7000 more unobtanium than they intended just from the top prize in platinum.

Its funny that we speculate that D3 considers it a big deal as if the in game economy will be in ruins if 18 additional mythics or masterpeices are given out. 

shteev

both 1 & 2

I reinstalled for this current TOA.

I must say there is very, very little evidence of people getting bored of cycling. It's everywhere.

ElimGarak

No need to do anything: people will get bored of it

Getting bored is usually not happening over night. I do remember having at least 25 people tied for 1st place with full ribbons in every node of power way back before 1.10 update, I do not see anything wierd happening right now, except for, well ... you know ... ranting

Ohboy

both 1 & 2

ElimGarak said:

Getting bored is usually not happening over night. I do remember having at least 25 people tied for 1st place with full ribbons in every node of power way back before 1.10 update, I do not see anything wierd happening right now, except for, well ... you know ... ranting

Give it time... And the right incentives. 

The last event that gave significant prizes had a 40 way tie on platinum with perfect score I think. 

Would probably be more without the cycling bug causing a few people to drop a game or two. 

ElimGarak

No need to do anything: people will get bored of it

The real offender here is the devs failure to fully implement cycling. The AI can't use it, so it's not fully implemented. No need to NERF anything, just get the job done.

shteev

both 1 & 2

I wonder what the MTG pro tour would look like if WOTC took advice about card balance from people who barely knew how to play the game.

ElimGarak

No need to do anything: people will get bored of it

Look up the OGW-pro-tour ... Happens anyway, even if people do know how to play (and develop) the game for over 20 years

Irgy

both 1 & 2

ElimGarak said:

Look up the OGW-pro-tour ... Happens anyway, even if people do know how to play (and develop) the game for over 20 years

Poor balance on the pro-tour means one deck, after optimal tuning, is 5% better than any others. This game is never going to get close to that. We don't really have a clue how imbalanced this game might actually be if we all had all the cards and we played real people rather than the AI goldfish, but I think it's a long way from being as balanced as even the worst days of real MtG.