Predictable Game Play is Killing My Patience

Wolfteeth

This gets brought up over and over again and I don’t understand why the devs never address it.  

The games look like this- 

Your screwed- Your hand has zero creatures, 3 of the same card for like the first 5 turns and even with cards or abilities that have you draw cards, you’re still not getting creatures/multiple duplicates.  Your opponent is getting average mana draws but is 4 steps ahead of you with controlling the board- wining these games is slim to none.

Your obliterated- your turn starts out with a great hand and on the board is an extra turn gem configuration, sometimes 2 in a row.  Then your opponent goes and it’s a 2 minute long mana cascade and they are able to cast everything in their hand and level up to their 2nd or third planeswalker ability in 1-2 turns and then you’re deader than a door nail before you can blink

You just obliterated your opponent- same scenario as above but you get all the manacascading and win, which yeah it’s great and all, but also not fun to play.

Mana Hungry- Closing in on your opponent’s demise, the colors you need are no longer available and every time your opponent takes a turn, they start cascading and all your supports are magically destroyed when the new jewels drop down and they slaughter you in 2 turns....


Is there a way to just make the fights fair???? I don’t even care if my opponent goes first.  The new Greg is honestly terrible and I can usually predict the outcome of the game within 3 turns and I’m usually correct. It’s getting OLD.  Isn’t the point of the player rankings is so you fight other players that are seasoned enough to create great decks? It’s odd to me that the wild card factor of what Greg does is more of what determines a win, it would be like playing paper magic and having someone walk over and throw and extra 8 lands on your opponent’s mana before your their second turn.  If there is a way to make things more even keeled it would be so much more fun to play.

ambrosio191

A great deck in the hands of the player is often terrible in Gregs hand. There are mechanics Greg cant use, abilities he doesnt know he is supposed to use, and just in general strategies he cant know.  If we were to design decks that even Greg can use, all of sudden Greg is cheating and needs to be nerfed.  People dont want even/fair, that would mean you lose ~50% of the time.  We have 80-100% win rates right now, with only some dropped objectives differentiating those at the top, and we still complain that Greg is cheating every other post.

There is only so much you can do with a match 3 game.  At some point you are going to know the strategies to win consistently.  The only way to change that is to literally make the AI cheat, and that's not something anyone wants.

Mburn7

ambrosio191 said:

People dont want even/fair, that would mean you lose ~50% of the time.  We have 80-100% win rates right now, with only some dropped objectives differentiating those at the top, and we still complain that Greg is cheating every other post.

I've been saying this for years.  People playing this game expect to win every single match, or almost any.
The issue with an RNG based game (which this is, despite the amount of strategy involved) is that no matter how perfect your playing is you can still lose to bad luck.
A smarter Greg would mean that we lose more to strategy, which would be nice.  But you would also still lose to bad luck just as frequently if not more.  And nobody wants to lose that often, regardless of the reason.

So basically, we either get to win a lot in an un-fun way because of bad AI programming or we lose a lot in a sometimes-fun way with better AI programming, with luck randomly winning or losing matches either way.

madwren

ambrosio191 said:

A great deck in the hands of the player is often terrible in Gregs hand. There are mechanics Greg cant use, abilities he doesnt know he is supposed to use, and just in general strategies he cant know.  If we were to design decks that even Greg can use, all of sudden Greg is cheating and needs to be nerfed.  People dont want even/fair, that would mean you lose ~50% of the time.  We have 80-100% win rates right now, with only some dropped objectives differentiating those at the top, and we still complain that Greg is cheating every other post. 

Well said.  Even when Greg's decision making gets nerfed into oblivion, he still inspires rant posts about how unfair everything is. 

I've said this before, but the main problem with MTGPQ as a game is that  the skill-to-luck ratio is vastly different than what people expect it to be--particularly if someone has a paper Magic background.  

At its core, MTG is a skill-based game, while unfortunately MTGPQ is a luck-based game--not only in actual gameplay mechanics, but in card and resource acquisition as well. 

ambrosio191

madwren said:

ambrosio191 said:

A great deck in the hands of the player is often terrible in Gregs hand. There are mechanics Greg cant use, abilities he doesnt know he is supposed to use, and just in general strategies he cant know.  If we were to design decks that even Greg can use, all of sudden Greg is cheating and needs to be nerfed.  People dont want even/fair, that would mean you lose ~50% of the time.  We have 80-100% win rates right now, with only some dropped objectives differentiating those at the top, and we still complain that Greg is cheating every other post. 

Well said.  Even when Greg's decision making gets nerfed into oblivion, he still inspires rant posts about how unfair everything is. 

I've said this before, but the main problem with MTGPQ as a game is that  the skill-to-luck ratio is vastly different than what people expect it to be--particularly if someone has a paper Magic background.  

At its core, MTG is a skill-based game, while unfortunately MTGPQ is a luck-based game--not only in actual gameplay mechanics, but in card and resource acquisition as well. 

I have a mouse pad that was given to me years ago when I played paper that says:

Magic, a test of your skill against your opponents luck

I always think of it when I read about people's troubles with the AI. Even in paper there is this perception that what I do is skill and what my opponent does is luck.

madwren

ambrosio191 said:

madwren said:

ambrosio191 said:

A great deck in the hands of the player is often terrible in Gregs hand. There are mechanics Greg cant use, abilities he doesnt know he is supposed to use, and just in general strategies he cant know.  If we were to design decks that even Greg can use, all of sudden Greg is cheating and needs to be nerfed.  People dont want even/fair, that would mean you lose ~50% of the time.  We have 80-100% win rates right now, with only some dropped objectives differentiating those at the top, and we still complain that Greg is cheating every other post. 

Well said.  Even when Greg's decision making gets nerfed into oblivion, he still inspires rant posts about how unfair everything is. 

I've said this before, but the main problem with MTGPQ as a game is that  the skill-to-luck ratio is vastly different than what people expect it to be--particularly if someone has a paper Magic background.  

At its core, MTG is a skill-based game, while unfortunately MTGPQ is a luck-based game--not only in actual gameplay mechanics, but in card and resource acquisition as well. 

I have a mouse pad that was given to me years ago when I played paper that says:

Magic, a test of your skill against your opponents luck

I always think of it when I read about people's troubles with the AI. Even in paper there is this perception that what I do is skill and what my opponent does is luck.

I think that's true of basically any game.

Match-3, however, certainly exacerbates it. 

Tezzeret

I know a certain player that Builds his decks EXCLUSIVELY for greg to pilot. He knows who he is!!!!