Brainstorming Little Tweaks to BoFT that Could Go a Long Way

bk1234

We have a lot of threads about things that are wrong with BoFT, and in some are suggestions on how the event could be better, but we don't have a thread dedicated to solutions -- how can this event be better for us?

1. Don't start with 2/3 charges -- for a 5 node PvE event 2/4 or even 2/5 would be a great relief to people who have real lives. 

2. Please don't run it during the week, we have jobs, hobbies, kid's hobbies, family, school, etc -- the average player cannot put this much time into an event during the week. 

3. Scale back the first three nodes -- newer players should be able to get through them -- even top players had some problems with some of those levels. 

4. Change the loyalty on 5.2 to 21. 

5. Either adjust progression to 500 or make the reward at 1000 The Immortal Sun -- so anyone who puts that much work into the event can earn it. 

This is really the most engaging event we have ever had in this game, with some small tweaks it could really be amazing for all levels -- what other ideas do we have to make it better??

Kinesia

On 5.2 change it to "Win in > 10 turns"
On 5.3 Make some sign for what ability he has active, I could _see_ when my creatures couldn't attack, similar crosses on spells in hand would help a lot of my head scratching.

Kinesia

For Bronze move the Rivals booster pack to the first pack reward instead of Origins, not the last, this is the only event they can get it in, the rest of the rewards are just a bonus. (This is one of the very nice things about Across Ixalan, it's frontloaded which makes it worth it for everyone.)

Mburn7

bken1234 said:

4. Change the loyalty on 4.2 to 21. 

I think thats going a little too far.  15 should be as high as it goes.  We've got to keep some challenge to it.

Kinesia said:

On 5.3 Make some sign for what ability he has active, I could _see_ when my creatures couldn't attack, similar crosses on spells in hand would help a lot of my head scratching.

technically it has that (since they get the "cannot cast" symbol, but since that's only at full charge I agree its an issue

bken1234 said:

5. Either adjust progression to 500 or make the reward at 1000 The Immortal Sun -- so anyone who puts that much work into the event can earn it. 

I think progression should be higher than 500, but I absolutely agree that the exclusive card should be for full progression.  We've had this before (the Oaths are the most memorable examples, I think a couple other cards as well) and it was amazing.  Lets bring it back.


Other suggestions:

Fix the bugs: 

I know for a fact the dino boss destroys lands even though it says non-land, and the regenerate you're dinos gets is completely useless (since it wears off before triggering). 

Tishana's ability does not work if she targets the same creature twice (or at least the buff does not trigger)

Vona's text is an obvious issue, although I don't think the second one should be "Sorin's Fight" either.

I know there are other things I can't think of right now.

Objectives:

PLEASE GET RID OF THE WIN WITH X OR LESS LIFE.   Thank you.

I'm also not a fan of the speed objectives either, although those are less offensive.

The rest of the nodes aren't bad.  I wish Admiral Beckett Brass only needed 4 pirates (like most other summon objectives) since the stalling is annoying.

General:

I like this event a lot.  I'm a little surprised that the 4th node is in many ways harder than the final node, that should probably be tweaked a bit (as should the difficulty on the Dino Boss, as Bken said).

Azor is way too easy, even with the restricting objectives.  He just runs a stall deck.  Now, that is extremely lore-accurate, but its pretty boring nonetheless.

I LOVE the merfolk boss (Kumena?  names are hard).  The ability is a ton of fun.  More things like this please.

Overall, this is a fantastic event.  Nice job Oktagon!!

Mainloop25

4.2 is Vona... Do you mean Azor's Gateway? 5.2?

bk1234

Mainloop25 said:

4.2 is Vona... Do you mean Azor's Gateway? 5.2?

Yes, edited, thank you. 

bk1234

Kinesia said:

For Bronze move the Rivals booster pack to the first pack reward instead of Origins, not the last, this is the only event they can get it in, the rest of the rewards are just a bonus. (This is one of the very nice things about Across Ixalan, it's frontloaded which makes it worth it for everyone.)

This would be a great quality of life improvement for newer players. 

Brakkis

Admiral Beckett Brass (1.3) - Change the "Summon 6 or more Pirates" objective to "Summon 4 or more Pirates"

Mavrin Fein (4.1) - While it's possible to prevent it, the "Kill 3 or less creatures" objective needs to be increased or changed. Mavrin can flood the field and wipe it in a single turn, failing the objective while you personally never killed anything.

Azor's Gateway (5.2) - First, increase the loyalty cost of the second ability. Second, when the AI has the City's Blessing (which it can achieve on Turn 2 mind you), reduce that damage. An instant kill loyalty ability is absurd. Even 100 damage is survivable by most Planeswalkers and can be dealt with if played right.

Many of the loyalty abilities need to be increased in cost, some more than others. They're far too easily acquirable and spammed out.

Timestream Navigator (1.1) and Blood Sun (2.1) are way too brutal for being such low end nodes. They must be a nightmare for lower tier players.

Aside from that, I feel most of the other matches were reasonably well done.

Edit - Oh ya, Progression. Cap that at 750. Should probably reduce the boss health too.

Kinesia

Get rid of boss health completely. Timer only, adjusted to end 12 hours after the last refresh.

bk1234

These are great -- it's amazing how little things can go a long way -- we've seen it before with RatC so keep the ideas coming!

Indymon

My two cents:

I love this event. A couple nodes have kicked my butt and I’m far from perfect on this, but it’s fun. And that’s the point. 

I totally agree that that starting with 2/3 charges is awful.  There should be at least two recharges before people start losing charges. So the difference between starting and max charges should be at least two. But starting charges should be no less than two—it’s no fun to start event and have a limited amount of play time up front. 

I agree that these more more intense events should be saved for the weekends, but we that doesn’t mean there should be no events during the week. There should always be an event running (other than AI, TG, and TotP). Just save the more grindy ones like this one for the weekends. 

I wouldnt nerf anything. As stated before, I’ve gotten my butt kicked a couple times. I won’t complete progression rewards. But I am happy with that. Make it challenging. Give me something to work towards. 

khurram

This is a fun event. Please don't scale back. That will make it boring. Do it for lower tiers but, it's just fine for platinum as it is. The loyalty abilities are great and finally relevant to the decks and tribes the bosses are using, love them. Some people have disliked that there are too many effects going on, but the effects are interesting makes you pay attention instead of just mindless swapping. Although the animations could be sped up. Every time a creature dies on any side while playing against elanda ,  there seem to be 4 to 5 animations happening. That got old pretty fast 

Agreed about the maximun node limit, it should start with 2/5 charges. And preferably on the weekend. As it is now I have to play one round of charges just before I go to work and one round during work just to keep them from overflowing. I don't think it's very good to make your players choose between the game and their jobs and real life.

Kinesia said:

On 5.2 change it to "Win in > 10 turns"
On 5.3 Make some sign for what ability he has active, I could _see_ when my creatures couldn't attack, similar crosses on spells in hand would help a lot of my head scratching.

Changing 5.2 to win in more than 10 turns will just give it more time to acquire city's blessing and one shot you. What's the thought here.

Progression target should be decreased. Especially for lower tiers.

Laeuftbeidir

I agree with most points. If you want to run it during the week, please add more possible charges to take into account that since people here might want to work and sleep.

Don't change 5.2 IMO - I like though challenges

Kinesia

@khurram It's not a speed test, it's actually a control test. (Well, it can go either way) but I beat it in 46 turns and it was lots of fun trying to stop it getting city's blessing.
It seems like that's the real "aim", racing it to death works, but it's really trying to get you to control City's blessing in the first place.

ILikePancakes

I tapped out at 501. Too much of a slog, especially because of work and sleep. 

Skiglass6

Laeuftbeidir said:

I agree with most points. If you want to run it during the week, please add more possible charges to take into account that since people here might want to work and sleep.

Don't change 5.2 IMO - I like though challenges

Just for clarification here, you mean increasing max node hold, not increased battles. Right?

I like 5.2 as well. But I have not seen city’s blessing on turn 2. That might change my mind. 

Skiglass6

I would like to counter the idea of not having win with <x life remaining. Although I understand it can draw the battle out, I really like it in this situation. There is only one in this event and it is very much a risk vs reward type of objective. It is only 2 ribbons per fight and I think you could fight it 3 maybe 4 times (I can’t remember). This is only 6-8 pts out of over 1000. So if you don’t want to be bothered by the objective skip it.  I enjoyed the challenge. 

James13

The main change I want to echo is the 3 charge cap is very awkward.  I capped briefly and I was actively keeping up with it throughout.

Raise the node charge cap for sure.  Starting at 2/3 with 5 nodes is just mean.  

I made max progression with basically a full round to spare.  It's a little disappointing since I know I can't get Immortal Sun regardless, but whatever.  I do think named exclusive mythics to top coalitions is a big design mistake.  Named exclusives should be only personal ranking rewards (even though I don't like them there either) simply so everyone does have the potential of reaching them.

Thanks.

Gunmix25

Maybe on the 3rd fight of every node, if you won with all objectives met, it adds a match for that node? It'd be a good way to challenge players to meet the objectives on a tough node and be rewarded with an additional chance to earn more points. But only for  nodes 1.3, 2.3, 3.3, 4.3, 5.3. 

Mburn7

Gunmix25 said:

Maybe on the 3rd fight of every node, if you won with all objectives met, it adds a match for that node? It'd be a good way to challenge players to meet the objectives on a tough node and be rewarded with an additional chance to earn more points. But only for  nodes 1.3, 2.3, 3.3, 4.3, 5.3. 

Interesting idea.  Not sure if that would work practically (it would end up with yet another "rich getting richer" situation), but I like the concept.  

madwren

Brakkis said:

Mavrin Fein (4.1) - While it's possible to prevent it, the "Kill 3 or less creatures" objective needs to be increased or changed. Mavrin can flood the field and wipe it in a single turn, failing the objective while you personally never killed anything.

This one is particularly irritating to me, especially since the name of the objective is "Pacifist". If I didn't kill anything, then I fulfilled the objective. Him killing his own creatures and having it count against me is sloppy coding that should have been fixed when Hibernum was around.

I think what's particularly egregious is that there isn't a work around. You can stop him from killing some of his creatures by using bounce, but you can't bounce tokens, which he spams, meaning you're completely at the mercy of RNG.

So that's my suggestion--fix the coding, finally, after having to deal with this in so many events.