A Timeless Voyage - Feedback

FindingHeart8

So how do you feel about this new event?  What do you believe are its strengths and weaknesses?

My personal opinion:

Strengths: I LOVE the slow recharge and only 2 nodes.  I want to play this game, but I don't want a mandatory requirement of playing all weekend to remain competitive.  We all have lives and obligations outside of mtgpq too.  With this layout, I can enjoy each match and not feel rushed to race through each match, just to keep up.

Weaknesses: the extra turn support just doesn't make it fun, in my opinion.  When it's against me, any well-built deck will have the time and means to almost guarantee their combos are out before I have a chance to win, giving them a high chance of winning *regardless* of what I have ready.  Even if I kill their creatures/supports, they forever have 2 turns to my 1 to make up for any lost ground.  Unless you can guarantee multiple swaps a turn, you just can't keep up.

Same is true when the extra turn node favors you, now it's almost too easy.  I feel bad for the players that have to face my decks with the 2-turn support against them, which means, it's too heavy of a determining variable in the event to promote balanced matches.

Just my 2 cents on the matter.  How do you feel about this event?

Stormcrow

Yep, I agree: the extra match every turn is way too strong. (An effective preview of how bonkers the new Teferi looks to be, though.) Hexproof is already something players can (and generally have to) play around, so the other node's ability is a lot less impressive. Needs some kind of a balancing factor: reduced mana/loyalty gains, or creatures are disabled every other turn, or something.

The support that would at some point in the game fill everything in both players' hands with full mana and max out their loyalty was a surprisingly entertaining thing to have to play around, though. Especially given Greg's usual propensity to never save up enough loyalty to get to an ultimate ability, having it be all-but-guaranteed that Greg would dump his entire hand and ultimate at least once a match was a fun, interesting challenge.

And it seemed to have the usual problem with overcrowded brackets being unforgiving and rewards falling off dramatically for anything less than perfect. All these brackets where the difference in rewards is exactly one (1) pink jewel might as well all be the same bracket and it makes the whole concept of different tiers of rewards feel pointless when in practice, you either get 1st place rewards or you get 1000 runes and negligible jewels, with basically no in-between.

jtwood

I loved the challenge of “Strong Greg” on the bottom node. Anything that makes this game harder gets a +1 from me. 

Why wasn’t the new recharge system used on this event after all the great feedback?

Rewards are still depressing for these new events. 

Tremayne

I would really have liked if D3/Octagon had informed us (in-game) before they ran the event, that they intentionally made this event tougher on the second node. 

You might say that was obvious from the description, however I didn’t foresee the insane cascade I ran into on the second day. I literally experienced Greg getting 3-5x more mana than me during a match (in one match I got 10 mana in many first two turns and Greg got 60+ mana in his first two turns).

The top node was to easy, if you discount the fact that you had to stall to meet objectives (nearly lost a few matches on that, cascade galore).
The button node was a coin tosh, if your deck didn’t win on turn 3-4 (so cascade and the right starting hand was almost a requirement).

So I think the event narrow the deck building to fast combo deck and while that is fun once in a while, I agree with @critman that MTGPQ is dangerously close to being a one trick pony.

Tremayne

Suggestion! D3/Octagon please make some new story chapters, where you explored this insane difficulty level, like in the existing “Heroic encounters”. 

Perhaps, you could add in-game merit badges to show who has been able to master the extra tough levels.

FindingHeart8

Tremayne said:

Suggestion! D3/Octagon please make some new story chapters, where you explored this insane difficulty level, like in the existing “Heroic encounters”. 

Perhaps, you could add in-game merit badges to show who has been able to master the extra tough levels.

Heck yeah! I've been wanting them to add to story mode for years!

soultwist

Tremayne said:

I would really have liked if D3/Octagon had informed us (in-game) before they ran the event, that they intentionally made this event tougher on the second node. 

So they have us a pretty through preview out of event, probably the fastest most complete write-up we have gotten ahead of an event.  There is 24 hours to join ahead of time and check out the rules/supports.  Your looking for a message in the inbox titled "Warning:  the bottom node is going to suck!"?

Bubbles_CS

While I don’t disagree that the full mana and loyalty thing makes some want to win before that happens, others are going to prep fo use it as a fun new way to win, crafting a fun hand for turn six.

soultwist

Not bad, 2 big issues I think:

1.  The 23.5 hour recharged was previewed and expected in this event but it wasn't applied.

2.  While the top node support is is obviously very powerful, the bottom node support basically sucks.  The hex-proof is nice, but can't block seems like a punishment?  Any time you use the creature exile you loos an attach round, in a normal situation that fine but you cant take a round off in this match.

Maybe add haste to the bottom support?  Lifelink would be a step to far probably but maybe some type of life gain?

Also a problem for 5 sets from now but I don't see how this is playable in legacy.

madwren

I agree, I think it's silly to create an event where they break the 1:1 match:swap ratio that's fundamental to the game. It makes the top node an absolute joke, and the bottom node arbitrarily difficult. 

It seems designed as a RNG-based tiebreaker node to simply screw some people over. Not only did they give Greg additional swaps, but they tied it to objectives that aren't conducive to the "hurry up and win" nature of the node.

I finished perfect, so it isn't sour grapes. I just feel it's pretty poor design. If you want to make something hard, then unleash Mano, don't just give Greg twice as many swaps and call it a day. That seems lazy.

Firstofhisname419

Not sure if this was just a bug or not (Oktagon should be embarrassed by how buggy this weekend was!), but:

What constitutes a "match" for gems on the top node?  I'd have a big cascade with a bunch of green gems using gem converters (and Nissa, Worldwaker's first ability), and the goal tracker would show the same number of gems I had before.  

soultwist

Matched with your finger touching the color.

Tremayne

soultwist said:

Tremayne said:

I would really have liked if D3/Octagon had informed us (in-game) before they ran the event, that they intentionally made this event tougher on the second node. 

So they have us a pretty through preview out of event, probably the fastest most complete write-up we have gotten ahead of an event.  There is 24 hours to join ahead of time and check out the rules/supports.  Your looking for a message in the inbox titled "Warning:  the bottom node is going to suck!"?

Sorry, I don’t understand your message but yes I would like to get a heads up when they try something new.

It is like when they suddenly chose to improve Greg. Everyone got really mad and complained that the event was insanely difficult. Which resulted in Fred (I think that was the dev. Name for him) getting pulled. (A mistake in my opinion)

However, I am certain that if the players were made aware of these kinds of changes, explicitly stated ingame, the feedback would be more balanced and a better result would be achievable.

jtwood

Firstofhisname419 said:

Not sure if this was just a bug or not:

What constitutes a "match" for gems on the top node?

This jumped out at me, too. You had to actually swap the gems to get credit. If they showed up after a cascade, the matches didn't count. That was weird and unexpected in not a good way.

Opperstamper

madwren said:

I agree, I think it's silly to create an event where they break the 1:1 match:swap ratio that's fundamental to the game. It makes the top node an absolute joke, and the bottom node arbitrarily difficult. 

It just feel it's pretty poor design. If you want to make something hard, then unleash Mano, don't just give Greg twice as many swaps and call it a day. That seems lazy.

I agree with these points. Top node was way too easy, beyond enjoyment. I love a challenge and Smart Greg, or Manu, seems like a good solution to me. A better opponent carries further than harder circumstances.

Also this event will end up in legacy eventually. I'm already curious to see how that turns out. 

soultwist

Opperstamper said:

madwren said:

I agree, I think it's silly to create an event where they break the 1:1 match:swap ratio that's fundamental to the game. It makes the top node an absolute joke, and the bottom node arbitrarily difficult. 

It just feel it's pretty poor design. If you want to make something hard, then unleash Mano, don't just give Greg twice as many swaps and call it a day. That seems lazy.

I agree with these points. Top node was way too easy, beyond enjoyment. I love a challenge and Smart Greg, or Manu, seems like a good solution to me. A better opponent carries further than harder circumstances.

Also this event will end up in legacy eventually. I'm already curious to see how that turns out. 

I still think that the best way to solve this is make the other support better.

Top node:  Most powerful permanent support in the game?
Bottom node:  Borderline harmful 

boopers

The bottom node matches were some of the best fun I've had playing any event in recent memory.  I had to be on my game from deckbuilding, to thinking through each swap, and what card I was dumping mana into.  I think I had 3-4 early really challenging matches where I almost lost but pulled out a win, then 3 matches where I tweaked my deck a bit to get it more balanced. 

Yeah, I agree that just giving Greg extra turns seems less ideal than "simply" giving him better decision making capability (let's be honest, that is not easy)... and reminiscent of what Hibernum did to try and make things more challenging by giving us Enraged events.  And I'll be honest, I really really like to play Emergency Ordinances because it is enraged.  But even then, owning all the cards means it's not even a real challenge since I can end the game so fast.

So, they tried giving Greg an advantage from round 1, and I think it did the trick- right?

However, I have to believe that newer players got slaughtered on that node.  It's a mechanic that really requires you to have the best and fastest cards to have a chance.

But let's be clear an honest here... we have SEVERAL events where missing one objective drops you multiple prize levels.  I applaud the acknowledgement by Oktagon that this is a problem without a great solution... at least they tried something. 

They have shown a history of "trying" something significant in small doses to see if it works, then implementing in a bigger way the next release.  Perhaps this event is going to tell them something important about how to balance events so that there aren't 150 perfects per bracket, while still making events with fewer matches.

Side note:  I'd like to see them give Greg the extra swap on BOTH nodes, but clean up the other permasupport to give us own own clear advantage in a different way to compensate. 

Maybe give all of our cards flash and haste to give us a reaction/speed advantage to balance Greg's mana /casting advantage.

jtwood

boopers said:

<snip>

Eloquent and very well stated. Agree to the very last period.

boopers

jtwood said:

boopers said:

<snip>

Eloquent and very well stated. Agree to the very last period.

Woops... looks like I was editing whil you posted... better verify that statement now.  lol

jtwood

boopers said:

jtwood said:

boopers said:

<snip>

Eloquent and very well stated. Agree to the very last period.

Woops... looks like I was editing whil you posted... better verify that statement now.  lol

haha still good

Opperstamper

soultwist said:

I still think that the best way to solve this is make the other support better.

I was going to ask what kind of support would balance it.

boopers said:

Maybe give all of our cards flash and haste to give us a reaction/speed advantage to balance Greg's mana /casting advantage.

But this is a very elegant solution. If we have Manu able to handle Flash, it will also balance out the top node; giving us a challenge in the whole event.

I would want to add that this is the 3rd event in a row that uses the same template. I'm one of the players that liked the Elderspark. Not because it's the best event in the game, but it's variety - something different that asks us to "solve the puzzle" in a different way.

boopers said:

They have shown a history of "trying" something significant in small doses to see if it works, then implementing in a bigger way the next release.

Yes! This is invaluable! Both ways I presume, for data and for players.