Long-Time Veterans - Player Level Adjustment (4/22/19)

arNero

A few things I can chime in about this:

1) If player level system is made to so-called encourage players to master their cards to gain Exp to level up and get once-per-level reward, doesn't this random arbitrary level setting run counter to that?

2) Frankly, with so many flaws currently present in the player leveling system (Lost Exps, super-grindiness, and now this), I again propose we just disable this player level system for a while until a better system is found.

3) There's one suggestion I read here which I agree with (in part because I have suggested something similar before): Next time, have player level, or should I say, player level Exp gain be based simply on mastered cards; as in, award Exp to progress in Player levels only based on fully mastered cards, and do not let partially mastered cards contribute at all to player level. I believe this will help simplify coding by simply looking at how many common, uncommon etc have been mastered and then give Exp and thus level based on that, instead of trying to count every single card Exp and then you give up and give us arbitrary numbers like this. (this is also another reason why I hate the number of cards currently in the game, btw....)

Gilesclone

This continuing emphasis on mastery is just stupid.  Card mastery is a very poor substitute for collection size in matching players.

Laeuftbeidir

Gilesclone said:

This continuing emphasis on mastery is just stupid.  Card mastery is a very poor substitute for collection size in matching players.

True
. To repeat myself -  take the card xp out of the equation.

Outersider

The silence since the new update is a true indication that players don't matter any longer.

//Removed Inappropriate Content -Brigby

Matthew

Wow, what a friggin' dumpster fire. The dev team have got their [[nouns]] [[verbed]] so far up their [[nouns]] that I'm beginning to wonder how they got hired in the first place. In going through these several pages, I've also had a thought: it seems to me that Oktagon are incapable of digesting information thrown at them in text format. I wonder if graphing this and giving them a pretty picture might make it as easy as possible for them to understand the real problem. Anybody here capable of putting together something like that? A graph that compares their own [[pejorative adjective]] implementations to a straight 1-to-1 conversion/crediting of experience for total cards mastered (the simple solution everyone seems to be advocating)?

Tilwin90

A spreadsheet with the conclusion and perhaps a chart or two would suffice, but then again that's probably more work than what was spent into this whole leveling system. It honestly sounds like a school project more than anything else... 

I deal with poor developers in my line of work though so I can't say I haven't seen worse. Then again, their data team is a complete and utter disaster... Yet something that doesn't surprise me either. Finding competent and passionate data specialists is quite expensive nowadays. 

majincob

Been a while since I posted. Had to come here and say I'm highly confused by Octogon's handling of this.

It seems like a no-brainer to set XP to card mastery until they add the content where you get XP from events. 

I've not been that active recently so haven't been mastering. In fact the last time I mastered was when they introduced platinum. Now I'm somehow level 80? If there are no competitive advantages or increased rewards,  you can just bump me back down thnx. I'd rather face players with comparable standard collections since I stopped doing the heavy grinding when Ixalan came out. 

My pet speculation is that the reason has to do with how they are structuring seasonal play. They want players clumped up with their all time score at the beginning of the season so that the XP from events don't have to dwarf XP from cards previously mastered. Plus the plateau of level cost would make each season provide the same number range of player levels. 

This may be nonsense, but I'm grasping for reason since I'm eternally hopeful, if not optimistic, about the future of this game. 

VanyelAshkevron

I'm so aggravated right now at the new Vetern Player update!!  They are basically wiping clear any advancement made since the January 3.2 release.  I currently have 110 MORE mastered cards than a fellow coalition member.  He is level 100, and I am level 90 under the new system.  Since the current system only looks at what you were 3 months ago I am at a severe disadvantage, and will never catch up!

I've attached a screenshot of my profile vs. his profile.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qjsa531c6nlztew/2019-04-23%2009.33.53-1.jpg?dl=0

ElfNeedsFood

So I got skyrocketed from one arbitrary level to another.  We all know card mastery has to die, so we will see what it all means when it really means something...  This whole rage machine we have going leading up to something we have no real understanding of makes me think of something from a Dr. Seuss book and the Sneetches with stars upon thars...

Aeroplane

ElfNeedsFood said:

So I got skyrocketed from one arbitrary level to another.  We all know card mastery has to die, so we will see what it all means when it really means something...  This whole rage machine we have going leading up to something we have no real understanding of makes me think of something from a Dr. Seuss book and the Sneetches with stars upon thars...

I agree. I thought mastering cards was to get to platinum in the first place. Sure , these 2 updates are a start in some plan for their company , but it has real no bearing on the game itself unless you're a stickler for minor details. Whatever rewards you get are a bonus and yes its quirky whatever they delivered , but its no end of the world over some spilt milk.

Dropspot

This game should be case study on how to make wrong decision. It's hard to understand how can you always make the wrong thing all the time.

Theros

Reaching platinum  should be enough for match making. Using player levels and/number of cards mastered  is flawed:
Many vets including me stopped mastering cards as soon as platinum level was achieved. Mastering  cards only mattered to get platinum rewards.
Many vets only play the most optimum decks, so they'll have fewer cards mastered. Therefore it's not unconceivable to have 2 years+ vets below level 80 after this update.
The net result is more likely a system that doesn't match vets with equal skills together due to difference in levels.

The game is grindy as hell, I'm pretty sure some will not bother mastering cards at all.
As someone mentioned above, it's virtually imposible to catch up. Unless high levels stop playing I guess

sjechua

Here’s a fairly straightforward request to the devs @Brigby
Could you please ask them to update the XP table on the wiki, thanks!

fiirst

Theros said:

Reaching platinum  should be enough for match making. Using player levels and/number of cards mastered  is flawed:
Many vets including me stopped mastering cards as soon as platinum level was achieved. Mastering  cards only mattered to get platinum rewards.
Many vets only play the most optimum decks, so they'll have fewer cards mastered. Therefore it's not unconceivable to have 2 years+ vets below level 80 after this update.
The net result is more likely a system that doesn't match vets with equal skills together due to difference in levels.

The game is grindy as hell, I'm pretty sure some will not bother mastering cards at all.
As someone mentioned above, it's virtually imposible to catch up. Unless high levels stop playing I guess

please count me into wont mastering group. imo, mastering all cards is extremely grindy and i wont do it.
I glad that dev. return latent XPs at pre 3.2. unfortunately, there are some rain after rainbow and it is supreme nonsense that dev steal another part of our XP at post 3.2.

Tbh, I dont care about my level. but I cant ignore the impact to several Devote Players post 3.2, one example per ss below.



5k pts and 12k pts are on the same level!

It is unacceptable at all.

I believe dev are able to return latent XP between 3.2 and VLA (Vet Level Adjustment).

Please return all XP from our grind whatever it take. Coz we did not get it for free and we deserved those XP.

Froggy

Where are my rewards for levels 46-90????????

Larz70

@fiirst, you actually picked the profile of the player who was the reason why the veterans have been pushed up to 80 and above.  As far as I know (based on profile players for top 10 coalitions), he or she, grinded mastery so much since Player levels dropped three months ago that he/she surpassed everyone and is probably the only one at level 80 while the rest of us are wallowing in the 40's.  Actually, it's an amazing feat that has me impressed, and without it, Oktagon would not have any reason to bump as all up to his level. 

I do agree though that it's unfair.  When he was at 80 and we were at 40, he deserved the level 80 because he worked hard for it.  However, it's unfair to lot of veterans who started out higher than him who got surpassed because they didn't have as much cards as him to master (since they were already mastered!).  Now, Oktagon fixed it so that those veterans will be the same or higher level than him based on cards mastered.  But it's still unfair because while he got the rewards for leveling from 40-80, we got nothing for it (although to be fair, I don't mind not getting any rewards since I didn't grind the mastery anyway except for the little bit more of XP that I needed to get to 46 and its rewards that was wiped by Oktagon in the process of pushing me up to 80, grrrrrr!).

Now, based on your screenshot, it's clear that there are a group of players (which includes me as well) who have a lot of cards to grind in the next few months and get to 120, same as that player on your screenshot who went from 40 to 80 by mastering more than 1000 cards.  I don't think I will do that, but if someone does and we still don't have other means of gaining player levels except for card mastery, would Oktagon bump us up again to 120?  You can see that this is starting to get silly.....

Abracadavers

First, let me say that this topic has bothered me enough to have created a forum account just to add my 2 cents.

I am in the situation where after the levels were introduced, I started putting a large effort into gaining XP.  Then I was bumped up to 80.  Unlike a lot of others who have commented here, I don't really care that much about any potentially "missed" rewards for the trip to 80.  What I do care about is putting a large effort into grinding XP since levels were introduced, only to have it not matter at all.  If I didn't even play at all during that time, I still would have been bumped up to level 80.  But not only has my effort been wasted, but now I also have far less "low-hanging fruit" (so to speak) for cards to master, and hence it will be much more difficult to level from here on.  Where if I had not played at all I would have been in a much better situation than I am now with many more easy to master cards.

Now admitted, my "large effort" may not have been as much as some other people have put in, but it was a large effort for me.  The entire situation has me wondering if it is even worth playing at all any more since they can pull this kind of thing at any time and invalidate all of your effort.

Despite my apparent bitterness towards this situation, I don't really hold any animosity towards the developers of this game.  I think they have received a lot of good feedback on this topic and have proven that they are capable of taking the feedback and acting upon it, even if the results are not what we expect or desire.  All I am asking for at this point is consideration of the time and effort that the players had put in between when player levels were introduced and when the level adjustment happened.