Duel Decks: Zendikar vs Eldrazi - Feedback

EDHdad

If you actually take the secondary objectives seriously, the difference in the available card pools is ridiculous. 

Playable Eldrazi "Pauper" cards over 11 mana include War Oracle, Reflector Mage, Graf Harvest, Gone Missing, Exclusion Mage, Deep Freeze, Danitha Capashen, Cast Out, Seal Away, Scour from Existence, Ravenous Chupacabra, On Serra's Wings, Consul's Lieutenant, Academy Journeymage, Urgoros the Empty One, The Eldest Reborn, Raider's Wake, Lashweed Lurker, In Bolas' Clutches, Grand Warlord Radha, Arvad the Cursed, Creeping Dread, Mockery of Nature, Silverclad Ferocidons, Iroas' Champion, Breaker of Armies, Lay Claim.

OTOH, it's hard to find Playables "Pauper" cards over 11 mana which aren't also available to Eldrazi.  Rhox Maulers?  Conclave Naturalists?  Dwynen's Elite?  Seed Guardian?

I'm not a member of a Mega coalition, but I don't think they're going to be kingmakers in this event.  If 20 members are all playing the same side, it's because one side is clearly better than the other. 

It isn't clear to me if there's any handicapping in this event.  Like, if 80% of the players are on one team, and 20% are on the other team, do the wins for the less popular team count 4 times as much?  If so, then the outcome might have a chance of being balanced.  If not, then people playing the event the 2nd time are likely to just join whatever team won the 1st time, and that team will always win every event going forward.

Kinesia

I actually like the pre-built decks EXCEPT for one huge huge problem... When one side gets a huge advantage the other can't get recover...

Like on the Eldrazi side, the scions + the support that gives invulnerable can save you from HUGE elementals! EXCEPT Nissa has an answer in the Mortality support that removes invulnerable and the Eldrazi can't get rid of _that_.

And when playing Nissa and they have huge Eldrazi out and your only hope is to build up big enough berserker elementals to kill them is just as horrible.

I am _happy_ that these situations can happen, but I HATE that there is no answer. You can often see you've lost turns before it actually happens, when there should always be a little bit of a chance of a lucky draw or cascade that could save you. But here there's not really anything that could save you...

FindingHeart8

There's a new update to this round of beta.  My game glitches all the time, cant even start a match half the time

IM_CARLOS

Same here. 

HarryMason

This round of beta ain't a round of beta. This is the real deal, finished product. Yup. All 4 games worth, so far . This thing went from a godsend to what's the point. No coalition event .Not even a pity terrors or emrakuls redundancy. I don't know that I've ever been as disappointed with this game as I am right now. 2 rounds of beta to turn one of the best events I've played into the absolute worst. Basura caliente

Mburn7

I can't believe that there is still the error where you can be paired against another player on the same side in the Duel Phase, which immediately crashes the game.

@Oktagon_Daiane this was reported after the FIRST beta run.  And the second.  How did this make it to full release without it being fixed?  Isn't the point of running a beta test to find out these issues BEFORE it makes it into the game?

Brakkis

So while I didn't mention the premade decks in my original post, I did mention it in the feedback for the first beta but since they went unchanged for the second, I glossed over them.

Yes, they suck; Eldrazi's more than Nissa's, but not by much. As others have stated, the Eldrazi deck has no way to make use of the void gems it creates other than hoping to hit an activate gem with the Spawn of Ulamog out to trigger scion creation, or to use his ult. There needs to be cards in the deck that can process. Or TED needs to gain loyalty from matching void gems. They are his thing after all. It's intended best method of defending (The Eldrazi Monument) is directly countered by Nissa's deck and there is no way to remove that support counter.

Nissa's deck features no creature with reach, defender, or vigilance and relies on activating berserk on elementals and hoping you've made them big enough to counter TED's larger creatures.

I've already touched on the garbage objectives, the over-reduced rewards, and the absolute garbage that is the refresh timer during the PvP phases.

I can attest that the whole 1100 tester feedback thing is hogwash. We had a dedicated discord chat with over 200 players from the top coalitions who had all gotten in on the beta who by and large agreed on all or at least most of this feedback. That is a significant enough portion of those 1100 testers to have resulted in some changes between beta 2 and the live release of the event.

There were no changes, at all. You didn't even bother fixing the matchmaking bug that freezes the game before a live release and takes away one of your oh so precious 5 and a half hour charges. This is lazy. Oktagon is **** lazy. D3 can try to cover for that laziness all it likes but we can all see it..

HelloKitty

What Bken said in her first post on this thread. Exactly. 

Sarahschmara

bken1234 said:

Sarahschmara said:

bken1234 said:

journeymage said:

Laeuftbeidir said:

All the pre AER pw decks are made by player submissions, but the contest was restricted by specific conditions (set, rarity). If you see only the set they're from, the decks are great - but that never has been the way they're used. Everything after aer looks like randomly generated 

Theyve been altered haven't they? I thought theyd been changed from the decks submitted.

Whch ones do you think are great?

Yes. They were altered and the winners were never announced. They contest was a stain on this community. 

Oh, they announced the winners but they never credited them otherwise despite promises to do so. Another fairly simple opportunity for D3Go to earn favor with the community just totally ignored.

To be fair — the contest was a Hibernum thing. (It’s a thin and confusing line.) However I don’t remmener ever seeing winners announced. Do you have a link? 

No I don’t have a link. Gosh, it was what? Two years ago? So that would’ve been the old forum. That stuff got wiped in the transition, didn’t it?

bk1234

Sarahschmara said:

bken1234 said:

Sarahschmara said:

bken1234 said:

journeymage said:

Laeuftbeidir said:

All the pre AER pw decks are made by player submissions, but the contest was restricted by specific conditions (set, rarity). If you see only the set they're from, the decks are great - but that never has been the way they're used. Everything after aer looks like randomly generated 

Theyve been altered haven't they? I thought theyd been changed from the decks submitted.

Whch ones do you think are great?

Yes. They were altered and the winners were never announced. They contest was a stain on this community. 

Oh, they announced the winners but they never credited them otherwise despite promises to do so. Another fairly simple opportunity for D3Go to earn favor with the community just totally ignored.

To be fair — the contest was a Hibernum thing. (It’s a thin and confusing line.) However I don’t remmener ever seeing winners announced. Do you have a link? 

No I don’t have a link. Gosh, it was what? Two years ago? So that would’ve been the old forum. That stuff got wiped in the transition, didn’t it?

No everything is still here -- I think Madwren is correct -- the Koth and Nissa contests had winners -- this one did not. Maybe @THEMAGICkMAN remembers -- he was very excited about this contest. 

EDIT: I found them -- no mention of winners -- but some great decks!  https://forums.d3go.com/categories/mtgpq-deck-strategy-planeswalker-discussion/p3

rafalele

Ok I got up from bed, and had 2 charges to play (I have already played/won my first three charges before going bed).

Won both and again I have to wait 5:20 to get another charge.

Exciting and thrilling event, isn't it?

And what is more fun, we have another woderful phase waiting for us in 8 hours, with 5:30 recharge timer.

No coalition event, why? With this refreshing timer it is not possible to stress the servers or players.

It has not been fixed the reported bug facing opponent of the same side, what gives you a wonderful crash and a lost charge (in beta 1 it was not a big deal as you had a new vharge in 10 minutes). Neither the SWW old known bug that without having made a singke mive you also get a lost charge.

If they have not taken into account the feedback from users and have not fixed the reported bugs, what were the 2 beta tests for?

Azerack

Mburn7 said:

I can't believe that there is still the error where you can be paired against another player on the same side in the Duel Phase, which immediately crashes the game.

@Oktagon_Daiane this was reported after the FIRST beta run.  And the second.  How did this make it to full release without it being fixed?  Isn't the point of running a beta test to find out these issues BEFORE it makes it into the game?

Someone I talk to brought up a good point.

They made it to full release because they didn't DO anything to the game from the first Beta to the last except change the objectives, rewards and price of cards. Those are easy things for them to do without a lot of effort.

Owing to the current set of bugs in the game, since M19 and 2.9, even, it would make sense that this event was just going to be put out there and the feedback we gave them would be used for later, not this run.

It sadly made a lot of sense to me (I reported both Blessing of Belzenlok and Helm of the Gods and they only managed to fix one, though it seemed like BOTH were having the same issue) and I'm sure others who see the pattern will see the same reasoning.

If they run another event, they might take our feedback and bug reports into consideration, but this whole event from "Beta" to "Live" was done and done with no expectations for any updates apart from what they wanted to do in the first place.

That's how... 

arNero

Well, the precon deck idea probably didn't lick well with some of us (and to some extent, I agree), but I personally find this mode serviceable. Just keep a look on what other people have to say to fix it the next time you have another Duel deck like this.

Oh, by the way, thanks for having both planeswalker available at lv 60 immediately without us needing to level them again; I was originally worried we had to buy those two first and level them up before we can use them.

Just can't help but snicker at having a "planeswalker" called The Eldrazi Desolation, though, that's kinda funny to me

ShaarkBiite

As always, a huge problem is a lack of communication. It actually makes some sense to have the beta with ten minute recharges, allowing the testers to break anything they want. As others have said, the purpose of a beta test is to find what's broken and fix it before it hits the public sphere. (Now, did they do this? It seems not.) 

Moving the second beta to such ridiculously long charges was frustrating. I felt like it didn't allow me to test anything; I just wanted to win what little I could and call it a day. I would love to see feedback that endorsed the new charge structure. There is just so little to do during phase 2 and 3 that it seems kind of pointless. (and someone please tell me the purpose of two phases that are exactly the same!)

The point I wanted to make is that if oktagon had just told the beta tested their plans, people would have been less upset with the changes between tests 1 and 2. Like, "hey all  please note that we are giving you crazy rewards because we want to thank you for participating in the beta test!" and "we've given you basically unlimited play so that you can test anything and everything you can think of. Please be aware that when the game goes live  that we'll be reducing charges to line up similarly with other events." (assuming they *meant* to give us basically unlimited charges...)

Did they fix nothing between runs 2 and 3? Maybe. I didn't have my cards default back to my first deck, which happened last time. Will we get full charges when it switches from phase 2 to phase 3? Time will tell! 

Asheara13

Phase 3 live, refresh timer still at 5.5 hours and no charges gained from starting the 3rd phase, effectively giving players 2-3 charges for the last phase assuming they completed their charges in the 2nd phase.

I'm sorry to say that the potential of this originally great idea from the 1st beta has been succesfully chewed up and spit out. With the amount of feedback we were able to provide in the first 2 betas it is almost insulting how this event took such a turn for the worst.

HelloKitty

Please add my voice to the many.While the concept of duel decks/picking sides is fun and interesting, the execution of the current version is poor.

The challenge phase decks are cumbersome and unimaginative. Please rework them.

The duel phase is tedious, waiting for charges. Now that I see that the remaining waiting time carries over into the final duel phase I'm not only bored but annoyed.

This is a game. It is supposed to be fun. There is nothing about this event that is fun or engaging.

rafalele

A very boring sunday afternoon in the MTGPQ universe, waiting to see improvements in this event that have not arrived.

Azerack

Even worse is when your only match after 5 hours is lost due to someone having Sphinx Decree in their deck and the ai playing it.  Almost feels like I was just trolled... 

rafalele

In the Zendikar side we have the Eldrazi permanent support, new bug for me as I have played the betas with Eldrazi.

I won my last charge in this event as the next one will be available while I am sleeping.

7 charges played in Zendikars side in the second and third phases all won. I think they are not enough.

Nothing else to do in the game, so see you tomorrow.

Szamsziel

Big question: what's the goal of secondary objectives in duel phase except rewarding for the first completion?