OKTAGON Q&A Session - April 2020 (05/01/20 UPDATE)

Magic:PQ Support Team

UPDATE 05/01/20*

1. Is it safe to assume that COVID-related delays in the paper release of Ikoria will also result in delays of that set's release in MTGPQ?
Answer: We have released the Pre-Release Notes and Card Gallery for Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths already, and we are very excited to announce that the 4.2 - Ikoria Release for Magic: Puzzle Quest will actually be a couple of days before the release in paper.

2. Feedback with respect to the 5 ORI Planeswalkers, I think all of them need to be rebalanced to increase power level. I can't remember the last time I felt remotely interested in using one over any of the new Planeswalkers. The only one I even see in the wild at all at this point is Liliana, because her discard ability has stayed fairly competitive. All 5 of them feel like very slow mana producers.
Answer: Thank you for your feedback. We are discussing a potential rework for the onboarding part of the game and this might include rebalancing some of the initial Planeswalkers. But no concrete plans so far.

3. Will there ever be another Origins set? Another rotation proof set that could be used to keep outdated Planeswalkers relevant with a few key cards for dead mechanics in standard. It could also somehow be used to bring their Mana bonuses up to a more usable level.
Answer: Probably ORI will remain as the only “evergreen” set. However, we have plans to add a new card pool to it, along with the potential rework mentioned in the previous answer.

4. When are improved Coalition Search features coming?

• One suggestion was to add ""last coalition event rank"" to the coalition search result or random coalition search result, and FILTER OUT any coalitions who did not rank/did not join.   This one feature would massively improve the newer player experience when trying to find active coalitions.  I see many mostly dead coalitions with recent joiners on them who have also lost interest, and I have to speculate that retention rate among new MtGPQ players is suffering from this lack of active engagement with coalition mates.

Answer: Thank you for the suggestion. We will discuss this topic.

5. What is the plan for retiring the earlier sets from the game? We can’t keep adding sets forever, without letting some go.
Answer: No plans so far for this. This will have a bigger impact, especially related to older Planeswalkers which use cards from earlier sets. Players who collect cards might not like the idea of letting some sets go. Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this.

6. Would you consider implementing seasons for coalitions?
Answer: Yes, we would consider that. There are however no plans for now, nor the near future. We probably would like to hear first from you and the player community about the expectations, how a feature like this could look like.

7. Most coalition events have 3000-player groupings with tiers that reward 1-5, 6-25, 26-50 etc. The reward tiers have become a bit of a joke: The massive number of players results in a scenario where players either have to be 100% perfect or they end up ranking well into the hundreds. Are there any plans to address this dissonance and adjust rewards tiers to better represent the actual distribution of results? Just to be clear, there are many players who lose a single point and simply quit playing the event because the drop off in individual ranking rewards is so significant.
Answer: Thank you for this question. We are aware of this and we will review the rewards and reward structure of the Coalition events in the near future. This is definitely on our radar.

8. When you have PVP event with objectives requiring deck limitations (I.e. common, uncommon, rare only), is it possible to:

• actually enforce the limitations so that we don’t have to compete with decks that ignore such requirements?
• find matches with only decks from the same node (in all events)?

Answer: Thank you for your suggestion and feedback. In regards to the objectives, we are not limiting Decks at the moment and leave the decision which Cards are used in a Deck to the player. But we will take your feedback into account and we might consider a rule for an objective-limited Deck Building.

9. Are you looking to (and how to) solve the inconvenient event ending time issues that affect quality of lives of players from different parts of the world? There have been many suggestions so far (i.e. add extra hours after the last recharge, give all charges upfront, etc.).

Answer: The upcoming event The Colossal Tussle has a new approach to offer a different solution to this concern. Some of its charges are given in advance, and there is a unique recharge that grants all the remaining event charges.

10. Why are some Vanguards repeating in fblthp's vault but not others - why has the Tamiyo Vanguard or Karn Vanguard not shown up again yet.
Answer: We are indeed repeating some Cards and the schedule for future editions of the Planechasing event will contain former scheduled Cards.

11. Is there a reason the legacy crafting is all lumped together? I would like to attempt to attain certain cards however, the chance for receiving those card is drastically reduced by the amount of cards not in my collection from older sets.
Answer: Due to the constant expansion of the Legacy content, the game does prioritize the Standard rotation in Booster Crafting. This way players have access to Cards they can use in the most recent events together with the latest Planeswalkers.

12. Oktagon community engagement on these boards seems to come in chunks of high-frequency communication followed by extended lulls in response time. Regardless of the exact cause for this fluctuation, is it possible to surface availability to the community to better set engagement expectations?
Answer: The engagement with the community on the Forum has improved a lot and we are permanently trying to improve that even more.

We have our Q&A sessions again, we're updating the Bug Status List regularly so you can follow up on reported bugs, and technical issues and the responsible team receives a weekly report on what's happening at the Forum, so that not only the Community Manager, but all interested parties have access to feedbacks and concerns from Magic: Puzzle Quest players.

In addition to our Community Manager, we have our Forum moderator Bianca (bken1234) who always helps to track what happens at the Forum to make sure we don't miss anything. Shout out to Bianca!

Please leave your feedback on what you would like to see here and what is missing so that we can improve even more!

13. Is it true that the game seeds events with decks from prior runs of the event? If so, is that done in order to ensure matches can be assigned as soon as the event starts?
Answer: This does not happen, the game does not seed events with decks from prior runs of the event.

Observation: Please note that we will not publish and we will not answer questions that contain personal information, like e-mail addresses, coalition names or coalition member names. Thank you for understanding!

Hi everyone,

How are you?

Here's another Q&A SESSION.

The April edition is officially open!  

The form will be available until April 17th, so send your questions and doubts HERE.

Thank you for all the support,

Marcela.

jtwood

Oh lord, I bugged you with a lot of questions last month. Sorry... and thanks for answering them

JopeX37

5. What is the plan for retiring the earlier sets from the game? We can’t keep adding sets forever, without letting some go.
Answer: No plans so far for this. This will have a bigger impact, especially related to older Planeswalkers which use cards from earlier sets. Players who collect cards might not like the idea of letting some sets go. Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this.

No no no no no.  I do not want to see cards retired ever. Part of the fun in this game is being able to go back and find new combos with old formerly useless cards. A much better idea would be to just restrict certain sets for certain events.

NickBKK

9. Are you looking to (and how to) solve the inconvenient event ending time issues that affect quality of lives of players from different parts of the world? There have been many suggestions so far (i.e. add extra hours after the last recharge, give all charges upfront, etc.).

Answer: The upcoming event The Colossal Tussle has a new approach to offer a different solution to this concern. Some of its charges are given in advance, and there is a unique recharge that grants all the remaining event charges.

Thank you for answering my question and starting to explore new solutions on this issue. I hope other existing events will also be improved. 

The latest Seize the Day event (that just ended yesterday) had the final recharge at 1am and ended at 7am on Monday in my time zone. It was super inconvenient. (B4T2 was almost as bad also.)

Heartstone

Oktagon_Support said:.

9. Are you looking to (and how to) solve the inconvenient event ending time issues that affect quality of lives of players from different parts of the world? There have been many suggestions so far (i.e. add extra hours after the last recharge, give all charges upfront, etc.).

Answer: The upcoming event The Colossal Tussle has a new approach to offer a different solution to this concern. Some of its charges are given in advance, and there is a unique recharge that grants all the remaining event charges.

The Colossal tussle seems to be a good solution to our end-time problems. Thank you already for that. 
My next question, if this proves to be the solution we prayed for is: will you apply the same system to all new and existing events?

jtwood

Oktagon_Support said:

UPDATE 05/01/20*

1. Is it safe to assume that COVID-related delays in the paper release of Ikoria will also result in delays of that set's release in MTGPQ?
Answer: We have released the Pre-Release Notes and Card Gallery for Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths already, and we are very excited to announce that the 4.2 - Ikoria Release for Magic: Puzzle Quest will actually be a couple of days before the release in paper.

I want to applaud this, because I wholly expected we would be waiting another month. Kind of cool to be getting to play Ikoria in MTGPQ before the paper players. Thanks, Oktagon!

Avahad

jtwood said:

Oktagon_Support said:

UPDATE 05/01/20*

1. Is it safe to assume that COVID-related delays in the paper release of Ikoria will also result in delays of that set's release in MTGPQ?
Answer: We have released the Pre-Release Notes and Card Gallery for Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths already, and we are very excited to announce that the 4.2 - Ikoria Release for Magic: Puzzle Quest will actually be a couple of days before the release in paper.

I want to applaud this, because I wholly expected we would be waiting another month. Kind of cool to be getting to play Ikoria in MTGPQ before the paper players. Thanks, Oktagon!

And maybe if they market it correctly they could target the paper playing community (many of whom are probably not able to get together for game’s) to get some new players into this game. 

Zzyzzx

jtwood said:

Oktagon_Support said:

UPDATE 05/01/20*

1. Is it safe to assume that COVID-related delays in the paper release of Ikoria will also result in delays of that set's release in MTGPQ?
Answer: We have released the Pre-Release Notes and Card Gallery for Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths already, and we are very excited to announce that the 4.2 - Ikoria Release for Magic: Puzzle Quest will actually be a couple of days before the release in paper.

I want to applaud this, because I wholly expected we would be waiting another month. Kind of cool to be getting to play Ikoria in MTGPQ before the paper players. Thanks, Oktagon!

Programmers are much more productive at home without the distraction of the office.