3.3 Release Notes *Updated (4/3/19)

IM_CARLOS

Did I get it wrong but I understand 18 sec. beginning with gem match.
Short enough for any deck but simple boring creature smash.

I think such a timer is the worst choice for every player.

Why not nerf or even ban problematic cards. Infinite loops are not such a problem, that "the fix" should break the whole game.

If this goes life there will be an exodus of player. 

souki12

For me, part of the puzzle in this Puzzle Quest game is building decks that allow you to win as fast as you can, ideally not giving your opponent a chance to play at all. The way to achieve it means creating loops. Setting a timer for any loop or just a sequence of cards being played does seem as a very lazy solution to a problem that does not happen as often as the radical solution suggests.

I will wait how it plays out. If any of my decks that I use in the events gets broken because of the timer, I will reconsider how much time I will spent with the game.

OmegaLolrus

Not to kill Brigby's thunder, but the gallery's up on the website:

https://d3go.com/magic-puzzle-quest-ravnica-allegiance-set-gallery/

OmegaLolrus

Momir and Kraj!!!!!111111oneoneoneoneoneeleveneleven

Well, I'm ready. Bring on the patch.

BATMAN1

Why are we even talking about loops? Even playing at an upper level I only see them in TOTP and it usually only Kiora. Unless it’s some awful Omni, Startled awake, Dark ritual, whirl and something loop. I mean are they really that big of an issue. I feel like the AI only gets one off every 15th try. 

BigSwifty

So, will plays like March of the Multitudes + Path of discovery, which take a lot of time animating but are simple and far from infinite loops, shut down someones turn now? I'm confused how this works and will wait to give it a chance, but my Trostani+March+Chord is one of my favorite decks and is far from a broken combo, but definitiely takes longer than 18 seconds to animate, especially if you add in Path of Discovery. I'm very unhappy if basic deck plays like this are going to be ruined.

BigSwifty

Update to previous post. Having now read more about how the timer will apparently work, I am 100% against it. Full stop.

boopers

Ok, I can’t read all these posts so this might be redundant. 

A timer is a terrible idea, because of animations and how long some cards take to resolve. Some cards take more than 10 seconds to resolve with no other triggers from supports or creature abilities. So, you can have a fully charged hand, and only be able to cast 1-2 cards depending on triggers. That’s insane... it breaks so many cards, let alone many very basic combos (forget loops). 

I do not think the intent of this is to make it so that we also have to take into account “cast duration” as part of deck strategy. That would over complicate the already complicated task of deckbuilding. 

If the intent is to stop loops, then just limit number of cards that can be cast in a turn. Let’s say no more than 6 cards. That way if a player has a full hand set up, all cards will cast. If you only have a fully charged bsz, then it and 5 more cards could be cast. It is manageable and achieves the desired result of killing loops (which I really don’t want to happen, but I also don’t want the game to be unplayable by a clear over reaction to looping). 

Id also be perfectly ok if the rule was that you can only play cards that were in your hand at the start of the turn... I wouldn’t love it but it would be a consistent mechanic that I can work with. A timer is insanely variable, and unmanageable. 

Brigby

Hi Everyone,

There's a LOT of comments here, and it might take some time, but I'm going to try and get back to as many of you as I can. I'll be answering them in waves as I go through the thread, so don't worry if I haven't gotten to your question yet. It'll likely be coming in a following wave of responses. Thanks!

Volrak said:

GrizzoMtGPQ said:

Because our anger kept you up. Honied comments would not have done that.

Brigby can speak for himself, but in his place, I'd be far more inclined to put more time into answering a large volume of comments that were respectful, than an equal volume which were vitriolic.

Thank you, @Volrak. I echo that sentiment

Thuran said:

Brigby

You mentioned that its too late to stop the patch going live, but...

Are you seriously willing to tell us that its impossible to implement a day 1 hotfix which adds in a single digit to change the number in the timer from 18 to 180???

Would be a decent solution that hits loops, but ignores almost all normal turns. 

I'm personally unaware as to whether that can be adjusted via a hot fix, but I'll be sure to ask the team about it. Thanks for the suggestion!

Tilwin90 said:

-lots of feedback-

Silence / Justifications
First and foremost, I want to apologize if some of my recent comments give off the air of defensiveness or justification. I try to communicate as much information as possible when I can, and in these recent cases I merely wanted to convey the plausible/possible challenges that the team might or does face when accomplishing certain tasks; get in front of any questions, in a sense.

If that has come off as dismissive or disparaging though, then I certainly apologize, as that was not my intention at all.

As for the feedback about the Loop Prevention system, I certainly appreciate the insight you (as well as many others in this thread) have provided. The team is already in discussion about this, and I will be sure to provide more information once I have an update on it.

Thank you for your constructive and civil response. Your perspective was very informative. Much appreciated!

Machine

@Brigby:

Can you please check this?

Nivix, Aerie of the Firemind: 0 Blue -> +2 Blue

Nivix already has +5 on Blue. I'm guessing this is supposed to be 0 Black to +2 Black?

Brigby

Machine said:

Brigby:

Can you please check this?

Nivix, Aerie of the Firemind: 0 Blue -> +2 Blue

Nivix already has +5 on Blue. I'm guessing this is supposed to be 0 Black to +2 Black?

Woops! Silly me. I saw B and immediately thought Blue, even though Blue is denoted by U. 

Nice catch! I'll correct that right now

wereotter

Brigby said:

Machine said:

Brigby:

Can you please check this?

Nivix, Aerie of the Firemind: 0 Blue -> +2 Blue

Nivix already has +5 on Blue. I'm guessing this is supposed to be 0 Black to +2 Black?

Woops! Silly me. I saw B and immediately thought Blue, even though Blue is denoted by U. 

Nice catch! I'll correct that right now

You're fine I still see B and think blue because graphic designer.... blue = B (thanks RGB) and black = K (thanks CMYK)  Don't know why Magic insists on being different :P

Laeuftbeidir

Octal has spoken.

Brigby said:

Machine said:

Brigby:

Can you please check this?

Nivix, Aerie of the Firemind: 0 Blue -> +2 Blue

Nivix already has +5 on Blue. I'm guessing this is supposed to be 0 Black to +2 Black?

Woops! Silly me. I saw B and immediately thought Blue, even though Blue is denoted by U. 

Nice catch! I'll correct that right now

You might want to fix the Raid/Riot mistake as well it's easy to spot since you highlighted it

octal9

Brigby said:

There's a LOT of comments here, and it might take some time, but I'm going to try and get back to as many of you as I can. 

You've been thrust into a tough spot, and I don't envy you. Thank you for your efforts in keeping the inbound channel open. Hopefully the outbound one will open a bit more after this.

Brigby

Laeuftbeidir said:

Octal has spoken. 
You might want to fix the Raid/Riot mistake as well it's easy to spot since you highlighted it

Done! Thanks for the heads up

Wafflesauce

@Brigby @Oktagon_Daiane
From the most recent Q&A Thread:

Brigby said:

What are the biggest priorities for the game right now?
There's a lot still in development that should be ready and working as we expect soon. Although it takes a lot of work due to the system's own limitations, we want to keep building new modes and tools for players to enjoy. Our focus at the moment is to build a strong and engaging experience for players through their progression in the game with better first contact, newer and cheaper vault content, and some much-needed fixes for loop exploits.

How is your team planning on addressing problem card(s), such as those that freeze the match or create infinite loops?
We will be implementing a new system that prevents looping. It is fully operational, and it will be up and running in the next major update. Problematic cards are treated on a case-by-case basis, most of the time with specific fixes and many hours of testing.

Maybe you'll reserve this for a full article for Oktagon explaining this situation, but eventually I feel like we deserve an explanation to this question:

What does Oktagon consider an Exploit?

Is using normal game mechanics together, with cards working as intended and a high degree of synergy an exploit?
Or is it using cards that you know are developmentally broken, like Divine Visitation/Murder Investigation, and what Sphinx's Decree used to be, to purposefully lock out the match?

If I'm playing Vivien Reed with Verdant Sun's Avatar, a transformed Sanctum of the Sun, Beast Whisperer and other green staples, and am able to cast 30+ creatures in a turn, is that considered an exploit?

What about Kiora with Murmuring Mystic, Path of Discovery, and plenty of spells? Again, a scenario where cards are working as intended, but create large epic turns.

I can understand possibly considering Sunbird's Invocation and Blue Sun's Zenith an exploit, but it is still using cards as they were intended.

Or did you just use a word that was too strong that has a lot of weight within the gaming community?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Secondly,

What are these problematic cards that you are referencing, and their fixes?

The only cards that I can recall being changed recently are those who caused the game to crash.
Actually let me go look at the patch notes right now...

• 3.2 - No card changes
• 3.2 Hot fix - No functional changes
• 3.1 - 3 Mediocre green Zendikar cards tweaked
• 3.0 - No functional card changes, only bug fixes
• 2.9 - 5 uncommons had their mana costs changed, only 2 standard legal, none of significant quality
• 2.8.1 -  No functional changes
• 2.8 - The large Cycling Nerf, and Land support buff. 95 cards specifically spelled out as adjusted, as well as all cycling 1 turning to cycling 2.
• 2.7.1 - No functional changes
• 2.7 - The 6 cards Dominaria cards we got before release tweaked.

So, we had to go back all the way to July of last year for any significant changes to any cards.

I would very much like to hear why the reasoning why this new system was implemented instead of implementing any changes to the problematic cards in the past 9 months?

Like I said in my essay on page 4, combo decks function on very small margins. Specifically margins of free mana and cheap draw. Incremental tweaks, such as dropping a card's power level by 20% at a time would have kept things in check. If you felt it was still too powerful, then decrease it another 20%, until a suitable balance is found.

I'm willing to be patient in receiving answers to these questions, maybe 2-3 weeks even, but I need them answered to be able to put trust back into this company before I put any more money in.

Stormcrow

Wafflesauce said:

The only cards that I can recall being changed recently are those who caused the game to crash.
Actually let me go look at the patch notes right now...

I just want to note that Oktagon has already demonstrated a poor habit of changing the functionality of cards and labeling it a "bug fix". The obvious "bug fix" that foreshadowed all this nonsense with the timer was when they decided to make it so copies of spells couldn't be cast the same turn they were created, back in the 3.1 patch - because apparently "looping" with copied spells was a sufficiently severe problem that it was worth making Thousand-Year Storm totally worthless and changing how a bunch of other cards worked. But if you ask me their misguided approach to changing the way cards work in fundamental, unwritten ways and labeling it "bug fixes" goes back at least as far as 2.9.

Dologan

This is really sad... At first I was really looking forward to the new release, now I'm mostly just afraid of it... I really can't imagine developers wish this is how people react to it.

[Deleted User]

Matthew said:

jimpark said:

Matthew said:

Brakkis said:

Brigby said:

Hi Everyone. Thanks for providing all of this in-depth perspective and feedback of the loop system. I'll be sure to pass that along to the team for review.

While I can't guarantee that any changes can be made prior to the 3.3 update going live, as I believe the build has already been submitted to 1st party vendors, I will definitely talk to them about revisiting the system and seeing where things can be adjusted.

This right here is why things like this should be brought up before the patch is submitted and it's too late to make any kind of changes. This was a solution to a relatively minor problem in the overall scheme of the game and it was extremely poorly thought out. There are far superior methods of fixing this, again - minor, problem that don't outright tank an entire playstyle.

One thing I forgot to mention in my own earlier post is mentioned here by Brakkis. The overall impact of this problem, however annoying it is, is minimal at the absolute worst. Personally I can't even remember the last time I've been caught by Greg in a loop of any sort. That illustrates that they either don't occur with any serious degree of frequency, or that when they do occur, I can simply hit the "quit" button to end them, or most likely both of these things. This decision makes it look like you guys heard a vocal minority complaining about something and decided to implement a nuclear option to address it. Terrible decision, and I really, really, really hope it is reversed.

i just want to add at lesser card collections / newer players get stuck in overpowered loops more frequently. Veterans, on the other hand, we have strong enough collections to counteract these loop decks by speed bashing the AI, usually through a loop. Therefore, i do believe it is a problem but the way they addressed it was terrible.

I don't understand why this happened, other than:

1) there is no strategist at this company or dev team

2) nobody seems to really play MTGPQ at this company or the dev team (or at least not enough)

3) they don't consider the possible consequences with each change

4) things feel rushed to meet deadlines so they have terrible scheduling to ensure a quality update/product

I have been in Platinum for about two years now, so it’s safe to say that I’m pretty out of touch with the state of things at the lower tiers. You are right to call me out for that. Thanks for making me realize it! The last thing I want is for newer players to have bad experiences and just stop playing because of them.

However, this has also given me a thought that I think is worth considering. If the dev team is dead set on going this route AND what you say is true (that loops are a much bigger problem for players at lower levels) then why not ONLY apply this timer to those levels? Bronze could have a pretty short timer (18 seconds anyone?) and it could be longer for Silver, longer still for Gold, and just completely done away with for Platinum.

This way, newer players with limited collections could get a softer introduction to the game and then gradually be weaned off of the training wheels as they progress. It would also allow Platinum to stay hyper competitive, which is how it freaking SHOULD be at the top tier of competition.

I really like your idea, the only problem i forsee is with the those new players that make it to platinium without much thought with very weak collections or players that farm lower lvls and want to maximize on lower tiers. Two very different problems that have to addressed appropriately i believe. 

Sorry, i am a problem finder. But my philosophy is only by discovering a problem can it be addressed and improved. 

hawkyh1

I'm going to play djinn + avaricious dragon so that I can
knock 10secs off gregs timer when he matches those
triple blue two shield djinn token gems.

HH