OKTAGON Q&A Session - November 2020 *UPDATE 12/14/2020

Magic:PQ Support Team

Hi everyone,

My apologies for the delay this month. It was difficult to fit the Q&A in our schedule this time.
In order to make the process a little faster for everyone we decided to create some rules about the Q&A as follows:
1. Every month we will stick to answering only 5/6 questions, we will pick the most relevant ones.
2. We will allow only 1 question per player so we can attend to everyone's doubts.

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1. Can we please have the 'Exclusive' label removed from the FtV cards? In addition to general user experience grievances mentioned in the message board, I would also relay that I got new cards from packs today and couldn't remember which ones they were, because the 'Exclusive' label overrides the 'New' label. In general, these 'Exclusive' labels do more harm than good.

Answer: Thank you for your feedback. This has been requested before and we have actually planned to change this soon in one of the next releases. 

2. Rare Vanguard cards are the only cards available only in randomized packs costing jewels. Other packs costing jewels are either guaranteed non-dup or the same cards are available in other packs. This creates a frustrating experience for collecting rare vanguards. What can we expect to improve this experience?

Answer: Thank you for your interest. By the way, we are curious, is there a particular card that you are looking for? And to answer your question, besides the Vanguard Boosters, we do offer some of the Vanguard Cards in their Full Art version in the Planechasing Fblthp event, too. 

3. Do all events use the same AI? I feel like Greg in the Planechasing Fblthp event misses more 5+ gem matches than he does in other events.

Answer: Yes, there are some differences in the AI comparing the other events to the Planechasing Fblthp event. Fblthp tries to attend a wider range of players, and therefore the encounters have an easier AI in place.  

4. As someone who started playing Magic: The Gathering - Puzzle Quest in April, I would like the opportunity or ability to focus on certain legacy sets for booster crafting. I know that you have already been made aware of this interest and I want to add myself as someone else that is also interested. Thank you and have a nice day. 

Answer: Thank you for your interest. We do not have plans yet that we can share. But we will take your feedback into account and discuss this topic in the future.

5. In paper Magic, players can lose by getting running out of cards in their deck. That wind condition does not exist in MTGPQ due to the differences in game play. On that note, I would like to suggest a new win condition for MTGPQ using the Mill feature. "Mill 100: Opponent loses all of their life." (Neither Prevent Damage nor Hexproof should not be able to stop this) This can be an ability on creatures and/or supports, it would bring value to the cards that destroy the top of the opponent's library, and it would give us something similar to being able to deck an opponent in the paper game. 

Answer: In MPQ we usually try to avoid cards that can instantly win the game by themselves, even if they have a setup to work. This is due to the existence of PVE events, and due to the smaller size of the decks, which allows to set up combos faster (10 cards instead of the regular 60).

But, at the development of each new set, we’re aiming to make all mechanics more attractive and give players new gameplay possibilities.

Observation: We know that some of our answers in regards to questions about new features and questions and feedback related to your ideas seem repetitive. It has to do more with the fact that we often can't say much about upcoming features nor give an estimate on when these ideas could potentially come to the game.

Magic:PQ Support Team

Also, I know I'm late with the October answers, but I promise I will post this week as soon as possible!
Thank you for your patience 😊

QuiksilverHg

Hi Marcela,

Has the team received the community’s widely expressed feedback that we do not like objectives that require powering down our deck.  This has been felt even more acutely with the new thrice weekly events in which there are some of these objectives which are on all four nodes.

For example:
Summon 4 creatures with power / toughness x or less
Cast only cards with cost x or less
Have only commons / uncommons in your deck

(another complaint is an objective requiring you to kill opponents’ creatures when it is possible for them to win with a creature-less deck)


The biggest problem with the way these are implemented is that the deck will necessarily be less powerful with these restrictions.  It is such an impediment that many players will make decks without these restrictions and then our depowered deck has to go up against a full-powered deck.

This could be fixed by, excluding these objectives entirely, making them less restrictive, or locking the node so that decks can only be played that meet these restrictions.

There are plenty of objectives that require a little creativity without requiring playing mostly weaker cards, like:

Cast x cards of a certain type
Cast x spells which have the most recent mechanic (kicker, party, landforming etc.)

Thank-you for listening to this feedback.

TomB

@QuiksilverHg : Please submit the question/feedback to the link Marcela provided in the first post of the thread, or it won't be answered and I'd like to know what they have to say too...

Rasalghul

I’d rather read all the submitted questions here on the forum as I always wonder if some questions are left unanswered. 

Knowing that some questions are not answered is also an interesting information for the community.

jtwood

Rasalghul said:

I’d rather read all the submitted questions here on the forum as I always wonder if some questions are left unanswered. 

Knowing that some questions are not answered is also an interesting information for the community.

I think they answer a vast majority of the questions. I base that on the fact that 100% of my submissions have received a response.

Rasalghul

Having the questions in plain view let people upvote by liking which shows the community interest and anxieties !

Tremayne

@jtwood - they write a response to a lot of questions, though they do not always answer the question. 

Personally, I experienced getting a insultingly vague answer to my latest question, that I have lost most of my desire to use more time on this communication.

I was almost tempted to restate my question, but that would probably be in violation of some “rule”. Therefore, I chose to just accept I’m not welcomed in the Q&A.

Bubbles_CS

@Tremayne I am sorry to hear that you have found this much frustration in Q&A. I have also found that answers don’t necessarily address the specific question, although plenty have.

@Oktagon_Support would it be possible for you to ensure that we get answers that address our actual questions? For example, September’s Question 1 asked if the developers were aware of the frustration players met with changes to VIP, but the answer was a statement on the value that VIP delivers. There wasn’t an acknowledgement of a set of players meeting this frustration nor was there an explanation for why this is considered fair or that it was being reviewed for possible change. Thanks!

Magic:PQ Support Team

I will have the answers early next week!
I promise

Have a nice weekend

jtwood

Friendly request to please bump this thread when the Q&A answers are posted. Thanks!

Magic:PQ Support Team

*UPDATE

Bubbles_CS

@Oktagon_Support Thanks for these! I personally found that these answers address the questions directly.

I am disappointed that Oktagon chose not to address what I assume were many concerns raised about the Zendikar Expeditions event. Can you please provide some insight into why this topic in particular was not addressed?

The retroactive one-per-person limit is also disappointing, as I submitted many questions for this Q&A. Would you recommend submitting multiple questions in a single entry or having friends submit additional questions on others behalf?

Bubbles_CS

Bubbles_CS said:

@Oktagon_Support

I am disappointed that Oktagon chose not to address what I assume we@Oktagon_Support raised about the Zendikar Expeditions event. Can you please provide some insight into why this topic in particular was not addressed?

@Oktagon_Support any updates?

Bubbles_CS

Happy New Year! @Oktagon_Support will you be able to address my question?

Magic:PQ Support Team

Hi @Bubbles_CS

Sorry about the delay, seriously.

We came back to the office and it's been super busy, I'm still not having time to be here.

Unfortunately, the responsible teams and managers are the ones who decide what will they answer or what they can answer.

If a question was not addressed at the Q&A, it's probably for a reason which I'm don't have access to.

I apologize for not helping so much,

Marcela.

Bubbles_CS

Thanks, Marcela. I was hoping you would ask them, but it sounds that must not be possible.