New event style

DBJones

Events in this game are getting rather monotonous for me. There's several reasons, but one of the big ones is that every event is based on the same idea, win as many battles as possible, plus extra objectives for extra points. That's fine to have, but I'd really love to see more variety. PvP events seem much easier to create so those are my first suggestion. I'd like to see events where your score is based on something different, for instance the number of supports you have on the field when you win. Make it a one node (possibly color restricted) event with three charges, and your best score of the three runs is your score for the leaderboard. There's tons of interesting new ideas for events based around these small tweaks.

What do you guys think? @Brigby, could you ask the team if this would be reasonable to implement?

Brigby

Basing a player's score on something other than winning battles and completing objectives is certainly an interesting spin on it. I think difficulty in implementation would really depend on what kind of scoring system it would be replaced with though, so what were you thinking of?

boopers

If the Devs can effectively "weight" the power of cards across the collection, a good way to create a dynamic way for players to control their score in a match would be to provide a "power ranking" of a deck build.  So a player winning a match using a deck with power ranking of 95 might get less points than a player using a deck with ranking of 65.  It would certainly put an interesting spin on deck building, and we'd see fewer mythic heavy decks if players can be rewarded for using less powerful cards.

Mburn7

boopers said:

If the Devs can effectively "weight" the power of cards across the collection, a good way to create a dynamic way for players to control their score in a match would be to provide a "power ranking" of a deck build.  So a player winning a match using a deck with power ranking of 95 might get less points than a player using a deck with ranking of 65.  It would certainly put an interesting spin on deck building, and we'd see fewer mythic heavy decks if players can be rewarded for using less powerful cards.

So what you're saying is you'd like a pauper format (since that's basically what this would become).

I'm in!

DBJones

A pauper format would be really interesting too! For my idea, the easiest to implement form would be challenges similar to the side objectives. Say, cast as many creatures as possible. You fight three times, and whichever time you cast the most creatures (and won), that is your score for the event. You still have to win at least one to score, but losing once or twice doesn't count against you, you just lose chances to get a high score. Losing even one battle screwing up your score makes experimenting risky, and that's one thing I'd like to change, because it's fun to experiment.

Mburn7

DBJones said:

For my idea, the easiest to implement form would be challenges similar to the side objectives. Say, cast as many creatures as possible. You fight three times, and whichever time you cast the most creatures (and won), that is your score for the event. You still have to win at least one to score, but losing once or twice doesn't count against you, you just lose chances to get a high score. Losing even one battle screwing up your score makes experimenting risky, and that's one thing I'd like to change, because it's fun to experiment.

@Brigby I think this answers your question.  Also, this sounds like it would be a really fun event!

Its an interesting idea to have a "high score" type event.  Maybe have an opponent who has a Second Sun like ability (that deal increasing amounts of damage over time) and unlimited health, the challenge is to deal as much damage as possible before you die.  Or like DB said, where it just tracks your high score from a match you won for some other objective.

babar3355

The problem with this, is it would end up being a battle of attrition to see how high you could get your score before the app crashed on you.  If you don't believe me check out some of the screenshots SummonGhost or @UweTellkampf have.  I promise you it wont be fun to have to cast 1000 supports for a top prize before your phone crashes.

I liked the OP because I desperately think they need some additional content, but I am skeptical of anything that requires "cast as many X as possible".

Mburn7

babar3355 said:

The problem with this, is it would end up being a battle of attrition to see how high you could get your score before the app crashed on you.  If you don't believe me check out some of the screenshots SummonGhost or @UweTellkampf have.  I promise you it wont be fun to have to cast 1000 supports for a top prize before your phone crashes.

I liked the OP because I desperately think they need some additional content, but I am skeptical of anything that requires "cast as many X as possible".

Thats why I suggested an opponent who will (eventually) insta-kill you.  Less of a chance of your phone crashing if the fight ends in 20 turns or something.  But I see your point, I didn't think of that.  I caved and upgraded my phone a few months ago, haven't had crashes since.  Forgot what that was like all the time

babar3355

Well, especially with Karn in standard and anyone in legacy, there are infinite loops in the game.  Having 20,000 stacks of some creatures isn't particularly difficult, just time consuming and brutal on even the best of phones.

DumasAG

I think it'd be cool if we could "applaud" the opponent after a battle to give them an extra point or something. Or if you get enough applauds in the tournament, you get an additional prize. That way we could reward cool, interesting deck design.

IM_CARLOS

Sorry but before we talk about penalty for good cards/good decks, we should talk about real pvp, so not only player against greg. Mtg made this happen for paper magic nearly a decade ago and paper mtg is way more complex than mtgpq.

Okay that could not help on pve events, but they are rare today and wil be rarer if real pvp would be implemented. 

If you insert real pvp with elo like mtg you could skip platinum etc. ranking as sideeffect too. 

Mburn7

IM_CARLOS said:

Sorry but before we talk about penalty for good cards/good decks, we should talk about real pvp, so not only player against greg. Mtg made this happen for paper magic nearly a decade ago and paper mtg is way more complex than mtgpq.

Okay that could not help on pve events, but they are rare today and wil be rarer if real pvp would be implemented. 

If you insert real pvp with elo like mtg you could skip platinum etc. ranking as sideeffect too. 

Real PvP would be absolutely nuts.  Most people can't get through regular matches without a crash, something like that would never work.  Also, how often do you start a match and then put it away for a while so you can do something else?  I do it all the time.  Real PvP would make that impossible too.  You can't compare this to paper magic, as it is much simpler to have PvP in real life than online (I don't know how you could possibly equate the two).

Also, why would adding more types of events make PvE events rarer? 

ZW2007-

I can't imagine real PvP ever coming. It would require constant contact with the servers while the fake PvP only talks to the server before and after each fight. On top of that, I think a lot of people like the fake PvP because you can just close your phone mid-match and pick it back up later. I often end up having to use my phone as an actual phone while I'm playing and that would always be an issue in real PvP.

On topic, while reading another thread I thought of this idea for a game mode: actual puzzles. Similar to the heroic pw encounters where the AI has a board state and always has the same cards in their opening hand but in this case you also have a set hand and the gem board always starts and progresses identically. Eventually you would be able to learn your way through the puzzle to achieve whatever you need to but it would take trial and error. Sort of like the puzzle matches in the old Magic Duels apps.

Example:
Objective is to win on this turn. Opponent only has 5 life but has a large Majestic Myriarch that was granted first strike.
You have creatures in play but the Myriarch would eat them all blocking. Somehow there is a way for you to overcome this obstacle but you need to figure out how based on supports you already have in play, activate gems of creatures, or cards already in hand. You might even have a card draw spell and need to find a match-5 to cast that spell in order to draw the answer you need.

IM_CARLOS

Real pvp was true for Mtg almost a decade ago. Why not in mtgpq? Mtg is way more complex than pq. And u get an timer for your turn. So if you hibernate than your turn ends. Works perfectly on xbox with wireless lan and later with ios/android even on 3G, so why not here? 

But hey, it's a wish and I think it's possible. 

boopers

ZW2007- said:

I can't imagine real PvP ever coming. It would require constant contact with the servers while the fake PvP only talks to the server before and after each fight. On top of that, I think a lot of people like the fake PvP because you can just close your phone mid-match and pick it back up later. I often end up having to use my phone as an actual phone while I'm playing and that would always be an issue in real PvP.

On topic, while reading another thread I thought of this idea for a game mode: actual puzzles. Similar to the heroic pw encounters where the AI has a board state and always has the same cards in their opening hand but in this case you also have a set hand and the gem board always starts and progresses identically. Eventually you would be able to learn your way through the puzzle to achieve whatever you need to but it would take trial and error. Sort of like the puzzle matches in the old Magic Duels apps.

Example:
Objective is to win on this turn. Opponent only has 5 life but has a large Majestic Myriarch that was granted first strike.
You have creatures in play but the Myriarch would eat them all blocking. Somehow there is a way for you to overcome this obstacle but you need to figure out how based on supports you already have in play, activate gems of creatures, or cards already in hand. You might even have a card draw spell and need to find a match-5 to cast that spell in order to draw the answer you need.

This feature was actually prominent in the original PQ.  It was RPG style, and you could craft or upgrade equipment and stats by solving set puzzles correctly, or by meeting certain objectives while swapping gems (like create 5 match 5's).  It would be an interesting feature to have in this game as well, perhaps each card could have a puzzle to solve that would grant you that card.  It could cost a reasonable amount of gems for each attempt at solving the puzzle, and difficulty of the puzzle could equate to rarity type.  Not everything in the game needs to be a deck match!

boopers

Also, making true PVP a timed match would resolve some issues.  Not the issue of lag to the servers, but losing a match that you walked away from would deter players from starting matches when they could not dedicate the time to finish it.

Mburn7

IM_CARLOS said:

Real pvp was true for Mtg almost a decade ago. Why not in mtgpq? Mtg is way more complex than pq.

This is the second time you've said this.  Can you please explain in what way this is true?  PvP in paper means you need 2 people to be together with some cards.  It is the simplest thing in the world.

An app having PvP requires tons of complex coding and server setup, not to mention issues with timing and crashes.  I don't see how it is possible to equate the 2.  Can you elaborate?

DBJones

I would love some puzzles like in the original Puzzle Quest! Also, when it comes to the problems with the particular event ideas I mentioned, that's mostly because that's what I think would be simplest to implement, not the best event. Most of my real ideas are more complex, but if the example I gave would be unreasonable to code, so would my real ideas.

boopers

hmmm... variation of the idea to ovecome a problem with it.  The issue with fixed puzzles is that before you know it, youtube is filled with answers that everyone can just copy.  What if each rarity type had 50 puzzles, and a random one was assigned each time.  This way, players wouldn't be able to stack up too much experiential knowledge, and make getting the best cards a real accomplishment,  Also, it would be harder to gather and post answers to puzzles, and harder to identify which one you were working on.  Not fool proof, but would make people work a lot harder to cheat on the interwebs.  The cost for an attempt would need to be real low though, Like 5 crystals.  It would be a nice way to give us a chance to obtain MP cards too... which would of course be the hardest puzzles.