Player Level and Card Experience (2/25/19)

OmegaLolrus

Given that Matchmaking would be severely limited at the moment, is this something that could be resolved down the road? Could that "missing" XP be given to the players that have been affected by it in, say, four months down the road, after the rest of Matchmaking has been implemented and other options for leveling have started having an effect on peoples' levels?

I know in the short term, it still kind of sucks, but it would at least mean there'd be light at the end of the tunnel.

Avahad

Or maybe drop feed us 10-15k exp
per week until we get where we should be?

Laeuftbeidir

I'd instantly shut up if one of the two options above get announced

Tremayne

Well, they already have the following code implemented.

IF (no opponent in bracket) THEN (check next bracket above), so it is a short jump to change the code to what starfall propose... HOWEVER I would not recommend that you hold your breath.... see this bug https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/76892/firf-rewards-for-being-last-in-a-prize-group-investigating#latest
which was first reported at least a year ago.

James13

My own single data point:

I've never been interested in mastering cards.  I've never seen the point in going out of my way to do so.

I went to level 37 with my already mastered pool.  Was initially interested enough to raise my level to 38.

I'm still 38 and only making very small progress up with some scattered cards that naturally make their way into decks.  I'm still not intentionally using unmastered cards (or mastered cards).  Progress comes from scattered experimentation/fun builds.

I don't see a point yet in making an effort to level up and changing my natural playstyles and deckbuilding habits.  At this rate it would take me months to reach 39.

I sometimes play TotP with non- fully leveled walkers.  I've regularly beat level 60 walkers that get matched up against my level 12-40ish walkers since TotP seems to do that for whatever reason.  Because the player advantages over the AI are just that strong that I don't feel threatened enough to switch.  And I tend to win regardless.

Opponent matching tends to be a selection of a punching-bag.  Level matching doesn't seem to always work already.  I'm not convinced any profile experience based matching will change that in any way.

From my perspective the controversy is overblown at this point in time.  A lot is built on pure speculation.  I'd prefer to wait to see what actually happens with the system before saying anything.  It has sounded like initial levels may end up being a drop in a bucket of "player experience" totals.  No one knows yet, though.

Khyb

@ Brigby

Thank you for taking time to answer some of the questions put forth.  I appreciate hard numbers, even if the context is fuzzy.  It was a good point about the Booster Crafting.  That’s been a big boon to the game.  I’ve also appreciated that stability issues have finally gotten some attention and, while I’ve had errors in game, they have been lesser issues.

You seem to be honest so I want to give you some honesty as a response. Although I’m one of the people majorly affected, i’m not that mad.  I don’t want to zing you with an argument.  I am, however, extremely disheartened by the implementation and response.  Not disheartened in my actual life but disheartened with the game to the point of deleting it.  

I don’t think it will be lost on you that if one of the lines of reasoning for not honoring the original achievement system is that it was done to make the high mastery players happy, that doesn’t gel.  I would venture an educated guess that most of them are unhappy.  They’ve voiced it.  If the point was really making them happy then you would realize the response and offer some kind of change to induce your original intent.  If you had bothered to ask those players ahead of time to choose between two options of more diverse matchups and the high levels they already worked for we both know what the answer would have been.  If the set of players is really that small you should have little challenge surveying those current players and asking what they want done.

What is particularly disheartening is that nowhere in your answers has it indicated that you did what you thought was right or was honorable towards the game rules as existed before the change.  Can you say that you did the honorable thing?  What is becoming clear is that you made a change for the overall betterment of the game but realized your approach wouldn’t work, at least in the on set, without nerfing high end players.  Please correct me on this if I’m wrong.  Maybe the price has to be paid but I can’t help but say that price will likely include me leaving the game.  What other option are you giving me?  How can I possibly invest more in the game and trust it will be honored?  

Gabrosin

I don't think it should come as a shock to anyone that the sort of people who would play additional games to grind mastery on all of their cards, with no reward other than a number on their screen going up, would be upset about the implementation of a system which lets everyone else in the game have higher numbers than they could ever reach.

A lot of people in this thread assume it's about the rewards, or gaining some advantage through having the highest level.  Maybe it is for some, but I'd wager that for most of those affected, it's solely about wanting to achieve their maximum potential within the confines of the game and being frustrated and dejected by a system that's been set up to deny them that.

IM_CARLOS

@Brigby:

I appreciate the act of communicate to us. But the "answer(s)" got some major flaws.

1st: Whats the different between going high level at start of this feature and going high lvl. Later? If matchmaking is a point shouldn't it be the same issue?

2nd: if matchmaking is connected directly to player lvl. it's rather easy to avoid harder match-up like before this feature. Just use already mastered card and you get paired to lower lvl. AND have a great Pool. 

Staying at this state of implementation alter the matchmaking for a long time. Why should I lvl. up if I get harder matches. Staying at my lvl. seems to be the better option now.

3rd: At the moment there  is still no option to catch up. So a veterans with a lot of pre-mastered cards will be behind a player with a lot of mastered cards post-update. There will be an option sometimes, but not now.

Conclusion: This features is odd now. If matchmaking was the point to implement it that way maybe your matchmaking routine is not that great. 

wereotter

starfall said:

And even if we DO get as high as him, he's rubbish! We don't want to play against him, he's only mastered 1700 cards, and we've all mastered well over 2000!!!

This hardly seems a fair assessment of player skill or deckbuilding capability.  I've mastered fewer cards than the 1700 you're referencing, so what exactly are you implying about players such as myself or others who haven't mastered even that many?

Some of us simply didn't go out of our way to master cards we didn't want to play with, cards that we possibly had better alternatives to use, or cards we pulled after they were rotated out of standard. Being able to grind out story mode to simply get a higher number of cards listed as mastered is not a true way of being able to measure if the person is a skilled player or not.

If I'm to be honest, it seems you're having a freak out over a system that currently means nothing, and isn't even fully developed simply because you did that grind, and perceive that your value in the game isn't listed as high as you think it should be, when really player level is something that, at the moment, means nothing. At least if I'm going off all the comments and threads you've made about this topic....

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Brigby

Hi Everyone. I worry that within my recent post, which I fully admit is a wall of text, a critical portion may have been glanced over, so I just wanted to reiterate it below for due diligence:

"We've been reviewing all your comments and discussing what we can do to try and alleviate these concerns; specifically the concern of high color mastery veteran players being surpassed in level by players that mastered less cards pre-3.2 update. 
(In other words, how high of a level should veterans have been given during the initial implementation?)"

In other words, yes. We are aware of this issue and are still in discussions about how to address it.

Laeuftbeidir

Brigby said:

Hi Everyone. I worry that within my recent post, which I fully admit is a wall of text, a critical portion may have been glanced over, so I just wanted to reiterate it below for due diligence:

"We've been reviewing all your comments and discussing what we can do to try and alleviate these concerns; specifically the concern of high color mastery veteran players being surpassed in level by players that mastered less cards pre-3.2 update. 
(In other words, how high of a level should veterans have been given during the initial implementation?)"

In other words, yes. We are aware of this issue and are still in discussions about how to address it.

The four lines (on my small phone *) at the end are really important, thanks for rephrasing it! Sometimes, short clear statements help more than long explanations. I'm not good at it either!

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Brakkis

Brigby said:

Hi Everyone. I worry that within my recent post, which I fully admit is a wall of text, a critical portion may have been glanced over, so I just wanted to reiterate it below for due diligence:

"We've been reviewing all your comments and discussing what we can do to try and alleviate these concerns; specifically the concern of high color mastery veteran players being surpassed in level by players that mastered less cards pre-3.2 update. 
(In other words, how high of a level should veterans have been given during the initial implementation?)"

In other words, yes. We are aware of this issue and are still in discussions about how to address it.

starfall said:
This is not about how high a level veterans should have been given. Make me level 120, make me level 42, make me level 68, I don't care. But do not allow someone who has mastered fewer cards than me to surpass my level.

The only way to avoid the latter is to give every player the full amount of experience they would have gained from all of their mastered cards. No curve.

There are methods of alleviating the compounding issues that that would cause such as increasing the amount of experience required to gain levels the higher you go - it currently plateau's at 6500 per level - so that they don't jump up to level 100 or something. You can also expand the matchmaking level range by a slight margin to reduce the frequency of repeat opponents.

The initial burst of rewards we were given upon installing the patch and being put in to the level system can and should be curved as they were, though the extent of the curve will certainly be debated. Those are just some crystals, jewels, runes, and cards - all things that we can eventually earn through normal playing of the game.

It's the experience we can't earn.

EnochRoot

It seems like if you really want to scale levels to how much and how well a player plays, the correct metric would be how well and how frequently they can hit objectives in events and story mode. And there's already a scoring system for that. It just isn't all added up in one place. 

Why not just accrue your score from story, training grounds, and events, and use that for matchmaking purposes. Similarly to how your coalition score accrues, except for everything that has points associated with it.

Let players keep whatever rewards they have been given for their level as a 'sorry for the hassle', start everyone at a level of zero, and let them level up from those points. Now, everyone begins from a level field, no one's previous work is discounted, players who are more skilled and are more active will climb the ranks fastest. 

Gilesclone

In my opinion they missed the boat on this new ranking system completely. Collection size is a much better basis for matching than mastery.  It doesn’t matter how many cards you have played nearly as much as how many cards you HAVE.

Had they done that, they would have avoided this whole problem.

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Gilesclone

They can spread the numbers any way they like.

jtwood

James13 said:

My own single data point:

I've never been interested in mastering cards.  I've never seen the point in going out of my way to do so.

I went to level 37 with my already mastered pool.  Was initially interested enough to raise my level to 38.

I'm still 38 and only making very small progress up with some scattered cards that naturally make their way into decks.  I'm still not intentionally using unmastered cards (or mastered cards).  Progress comes from scattered experimentation/fun builds.

I don't see a point yet in making an effort to level up and changing my natural playstyles and deckbuilding habits.  At this rate it would take me months to reach 39.

I sometimes play TotP with non- fully leveled walkers.  I've regularly beat level 60 walkers that get matched up against my level 12-40ish walkers since TotP seems to do that for whatever reason.  Because the player advantages over the AI are just that strong that I don't feel threatened enough to switch.  And I tend to win regardless.

Opponent matching tends to be a selection of a punching-bag.  Level matching doesn't seem to always work already.  I'm not convinced any profile experience based matching will change that in any way.

From my perspective the controversy is overblown at this point in time.  A lot is built on pure speculation.  I'd prefer to wait to see what actually happens with the system before saying anything.  It has sounded like initial levels may end up being a drop in a bucket of "player experience" totals.  No one knows yet, though.

Thank you. Largely agree with this. 

IM_CARLOS

Right, but if nobody stand up nothing will be changed. And the people who stand up will stand by this game. They not only invest time there, they invest also here to improve the game. Just quit the game is much easier and I think the majority will quit before posting here.