March Super-Q&A Session - Question Submission (2/28/18)

Brigby

Hi Everyone,

Many of you might be wondering where the February Q&A session is. With how busy the development team has been following the release of Ixalan, we decided instead to take the February questions and merge them with March's questions, thus creating a Super-Q&A Session!

Corny name aside though, in order to make it easy to collate and compile all questions, please keep them clear and concise. (Brief explanations are fine, but please no novels)

We will be closing the submission thread next week on 3/5 at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm UTC. We will then compile the questions, and send it over to Oktagon the following day, for review and answering. Once they have done that, we will format it and prepare it for posting in the forum.

babar3355

I am sure you guys were a little disheartened to hear some of the recent feedback on the Race to Orazca event. The consensus for the vast majority of the community was that the clever overlay's that were implemented were ruined by the tedious, annoying and even counterproductive objectives. (e.g. Merfolk overlay where you can only cast 2 spells, Vampire overlay where you can only cast 2 creatures, win with 20 life or less, take 60 damage, kill 5 and end game in 10 turns).  Literally all of nodes had disconnects between the overlays and the objectives except maybe the red node.  However, we don't want to just complain.  I understand that this was your first event and we hope you will listen to our feedback. We want to hear about what ideas you guys have to both make winning with max points fun, but also provide a challenge to players of all levels.  (Also, the consensus is that the event was too time consuming with 5 nodes over 3 days and onerous objectives.)  Please make this event fun.  There are lots of great ideas in other threads on the forums.

Moving on...

Why have you guys decided to make so many supports self destruct?  These supports are typically translations of permanents in MTG paper.  They also degrade over time due to gem matches and/or support removal PQ.  Yet, most of the elites and many other supports lose a shield each turn or each proc.  This really weakens most of them to the level of unplayable.  Objectively, the only supports that need to lose shield are ones that are enablers of other cards like Omniscience and Swarm Intelligence.  

The power de-creep continued with Ixalan.  There are a few powerhouse cards, but for the most part the set is weaker than it's predecessors from a raw power perspective and a cost/power level.  I agree that power creep needs to be managed, but you also don't want wet noodle sets that see very little long term play.  Many people agree that SOI and KLD were overpowered.. but most think the creatures of AKH and HoR were about right.  Why have you continued to descale and where will we eventually end on a cost per power/toughness level?

I know these are some critical questions, so let me also say.  Thank you for publishing drop rates, creating booster crafting, communicating via Q&A, the great Across Ixalan event, enhancing the AIs difficulty, and many other welcome changes!  Kudos!

GrizzoMtGPQ

We're nervous about any card balancing you have planned for existing cards. Could you please share the list of cards that you think need attention? Would you be willing share the proposed changes so that we can provide feedback?

Would you be willing to include a language/text clean up to the numerous typos and inconsistent language on the XLN cards?

How exactly do I get to valuetown? I've been trying to get there and cannot find my way much less become mayor.

Matthew

Would it be possible to let us choose the set for our event rewards? Specifically, I mean the boosters we get and the rares we get on older events. I'm full-up on every set in Standard format, but would love more shots to fill in some key blanks I've still got in Ixalan. This would be great for newer players too. I imagine it would be fairly simple to make choosing the set for your rewards a prerequisite to entering events, or a condition for whenever you join one.

Mainloop25

What have you learned about game design so far after the mostly tepid reception by  the community to the new set and events? What mistakes can you acknowledge and learn from so that they are not repeated in the design of Rivals of Ixalan? 

bk1234

Thank you for Across Ixalan -- our bronze and silver players finally have a great daily event to help build their skills and collections

1.  Now that Ixalan has been released, will the AKH and HOU events be released in legacy format?
      1b. Will we have any more legacy coalition events besides Avacyn's Madness?

2. What cards from Ixalan are you having the most fun with?

3. Is this the whole set, or is there more coming like has been the practice with prior sets?

DBJones

Have you given any thought to making things better for new players? The increase in AI difficultly in particular makes starting this game harder. I started a bit over a year ago, and it took a couple weeks before I could win anywhere besides story mode, even Training Grounds. An AI difficultly scaled by tier would make things smoother.

Lunairetic

Would it be possible to hire someone to proof read all the cards in the game? There are far too many mistakes. It's just very unprofessional

Do you plan to add, on the cards, the number of shields each support has in the future? 

ElfNeedsFood

When can we start to see planeswalker customizing?  I think the first customization I’d like to see is something to give Hautli access to the green dinosaurs. Is this along the lines of what you were thinking about?

Also, thank you for the cheaper deck slots. Can you consider removing the level 60 requirement for the runes slot?  Is there anything else we can anticipate about the prefabricated slots?

andrewvanmarle

I saw that you plan on reducing battry usage of the game, will that include when the game is running in the background (not playing a match)
Are you aware/working on the loading time of the game too?

jtwood

Is it possible to get an official statement about what should happen when a card with an Enter the Battlefield effect enters into a slot that causes it to be diabled? I am particularly interested in Kinjalli’s Sunwing, which seems to allow quite a great many of ETB effects to trigger despite the card entering disabled. 

FeralSkald

1. When will booster crafting be available for the newest set?

2. Any word on event refresh/end time problem? (The refresh at 1am event end at 7am kind if issue) Lots of ideas on the board to correct that.

bk1234

FeralSkald said:

1. When will booster crafting be available for the newest set?

According to the original booster crafting announcement, new sets will be available one month after they are released. 

https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/69222/booster-crafting-details-updated-12-8-17

FindingHeart8

Before I say my questions, I want to join many of the other players on here in saying that Across Ixalan is a fun and fantastic event, thank you for creating that

1) Do you plan on expanding story mode in the near future?  I'm sure most story mode-loving players like myself would love to see any sort of expansion to that mode, it wouldn't have to be going all the way back to Shadows of Innistrad.

2) Is rebalancing old cards really necessary?  Legacy does exist for a reason, and with an improved AI (and generally weaker cards from the new set) games are already much more challenging than they used to be.  If cards must be rebalanced, does that mean we'll be facing easier AI bosses when future events like Ixalan's version of Avacyn's Madness/HoD are released? 

3) I'm going to second what was said above about battery usage.  I have multiple players who can only play a few rounds before their phone overheats and automatically closes the app.  This game is the only one they have issues with.

Thanks and I look forward to what you bring out next!!

wickedwitch74

There has been a fair amount of criticism levied at the Ixalan set. Specifically, the high mana cost of low power cards, the disconnect between power levels and card rarities, the underwhelming synergy between many of the tribal mechanics, the dislike of degrading, self-destructive supports, and the general bugginess of things like flip cards.

Many cards across all rarity levels (including the new masterpieces) have been deemed "Unplayable". 

The new Planeswalkers have also been dissected and (mostly) panned.

Do you have an analytics team that can determine how Ixalan cards are faring when it comes to deckbuilding and competitive play? 

After reviewing and considering this feedback, and provided these analytics do indeed paint Ixalan unfavorably, will you be adjusting the set in any way?

How will it impact your design and implementation of "Rivals of Ixalan". 

wickedwitch74

Many players have requested micro-transactions, rather than a large expenditure ($40) on bigger bundles.

I have seen a few more "Rare" bundles, which I see as a good thing, especially now that Rares are no longer doled out as event prizes.

Will Oktagon continue to push micro-transactions in the future? 

Brigby

bken1234 said:

@FeralSkald said:

1. When will booster crafting be available for the newest set?

According to the original booster crafting announcement, new sets will be available one month after they are released. 
https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/69222/booster-crafting-details-updated-12-8-17

That's correct; specifically 31 days from the card set's release

UweTellkampf

Can we have an event format that allows us to play against our coalition mates? We don’t need any rewards for it, just give us an opportunity to target specific players in the coalition. It would be so much fun. 

oibaf2000

1.  Current cascades in the game are insane, any chance this will be addressed?  We are seeing 30+ mana gains by AI, yes it nice when we get them but I think it's detracting form the main intent of the game.

2.  Can we get a fix for EVENT End time PROBLEM? see thread for full details https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/70171/event-end-time-problem/p1?new=1  but in a nutshell:

          Issue:  6-7 hours windows between last charge and end of event isn't acceptable.
          Proposals to fix: 

                 1. Last charge should be 12 hours. No one should ever have to choose between sleep or finishing an event. 
                 2. Remove charges by time.  Give us MAX charges per SERVER day period.  (you may need to do something different for server wide events, ie boss events, we understand this)  This allows us as the player to chose how to play the game that day and really make convenient for everyone WORLDWIDE.  But more importantly it allows us to go to bed at "normal time" .

      PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE COMMENT ON THESE QUESTIONS!  It will help with our GAME LIFE vs REAL LIFE BALANCE  

THESE ISSUES REALLY NEED TO BE ADDRESS.  THANK YOU!!!

[MOD NOTE] Edited to remove bold comments not intended for formatting (Rule 15) 

Gunmix25

Thank you for Across Ixalan, a very entertaining event; could use a stitch more challenge but good

Will prior cards have cost adjustments made in order to bring them into the meta you have planned for the long run? If not how will you address the vast meta variation of ixalan vs the predecessors going forward?

Huatli was designed against earlier statements about PW balance and longevity.  Will he be included in the future PW balancing move? He is too parasitic to too few cards. 

When is the estimated month for Rivals release?

When is the estimated month for Dominaria's release?

I loved the immortal supports in your event.  Clever concept in my opinion and would like to see more of this. My question is will you hopefully be tying in new/fresher objectives that are synergistic to these supports in the near future? I do hope so,  it would be awesome!

Thank you for enduring our nitpicky ways. I know you guys have a full plate and I imagine it's heart breaking as a Dev to see a lot of your work being judged so harshly.  Know that despite that, there are many great things you've done so far that have improved the game or experience. I believe you guys will take this first release as a growing pains of sorts as you find your style and add your personal touch to this great game

Again thanks Oktagon. 

khurram

Hi oktagon,

Do you plan to come through in future, and provide answers to the Q&A threads in time to be posted on schedule?

None of us asks for "30 pages long" super posts. Just what is due, at time, in time.

Thanks.