Terror In The Shadows need to rewards

bk1234

Mburn7 said:

bken1234 said:

Mburn7 said:

Possible compromise:  keep the rewards the same but let us use the correct acronym for the event on the forums.

I miss talking about **** here

If you remember correctly, that was stopped because a female player asked for it to be changed and the community agreed to respect her wishes. Way to stay classy MBurn. 

Actually I never knew that (or if I did it has been long forgotten).  I just thought it was a generic forum flag.

I mean no disrespect, just some off-color humor.

You call it humor, female players call it objectification. 

Persil

bken1234 - I understand your point about new players, it's extremely valuable that you think about their experience.

Our point is a bit different though. We don't want to take away Rune rewards and cause trouble to new players. We ask to give the experienced players an alternative way of spending Runes. It doesn't have to, and it shouldn't be, game breaking - just a way.

Many excellent suggestions have been made by various Players. To name a few: alternative art cards, boosters, many more (unlimited?) deck slots, levelling up the player, etc. In each case, the numbers can be set high enough so it doesn't brake the game.

This would be beneficial for everyone, both players and D3/Oktagon. Players would stop feel discouraged and punished for playing, so less would leave, and in general they would play more (there are events with top reward being Runes - I never dare to get them, stopping on the earlier reward instead) - and this would be good for the D3/Oktagon, too.

The most successful games are those which are accessible to new players and which keep the experienced ones at the same time.

bk1234

Persil said:

bken1234 - I understand your point about new players, it's extremely valuable that you think about their experience.

Our point is a bit different though. We don't want to take away Rune rewards and cause trouble to new players. We ask to give the experienced players an alternative way of spending Runes. It doesn't have to, and it shouldn't be, game breaking - just a way.

Many excellent suggestions have been made by various Players. To name a few: alternative art cards, boosters, many more (unlimited?) deck slots, levelling up the player, etc. In each case, the numbers can be set high enough so it doesn't brake the game.

This would be beneficial for everyone, both players and D3/Oktagon. Players would stop feel discouraged and punished for playing, so less would leave, and in general they would play more (there are events with top reward being Runes - I never dare to get them, stopping on the earlier reward instead) - and this would be good for the D3/Oktagon, too.

The most successful games are those which are accessible to new players and which keep the experienced ones at the same time.

I understand that point completely, however it is a separate discussion, thus according to forum rules I have started a new thread so those thoughts can be organized away from the “Runes Are Not A Reward” / “We Don’t Need Legacy Packs” / “Terrors is not worth our time” crowd. You can find that discussion here: https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/85242/how-would-you-like-to-spend-your-runes

Wolfteeth

Let’s be honest, it’s even a measly amount of Runes if we are even going to go there.  Also new players need gold way more than they need runes, we all know this.  I am not sure why we are vehemently defending imaginary currency when it wouldn’t hurt the company at all to make the rewards appealing to old and new players.  

Also “play other events that have better rewards”.  There aren’t any!!! There are a couple during the week and that’s it.  This game needs more content and if we can’t get that, make the rewards better so it retains replay ability, it’s not that hard

OmniTron

bken1234 said:

versemage said:

Perhaps some clarification is in order: runes are a sorry excuse for an event reward. Especially when they're consistently handed out as bonuses for lesser accomplishments, ie. completing objectives, duplicate cards, even losing a match for crying out loud. Now I don't mind if runes are interspersed with more meaningful rewards, but just runes and obsolete boosters are a waste of event time that I could be playing for something useful. Either that or make runes useful for more purchases, you know, since it is a form of currency and all.

Again, this is your perspective, but to a new player who doesn’t have a legacy collection, those packs are priceless. To a returning player who took several years off and now has a ton of PW to level, those runes are necessary. This game doesn’t revolve around those of us who have been playing for 4-6 years. It depends of those who continue to enter it fresh, yet it has legacy content and needs to offer them a chance to earn that content as rewards. 

Like I said, maybe these events aren’t for you if your motivation for playing events is rewards. If your motivation for playing events is fun and you don’t care about rewards as a long time player, by all means. Personally — I got my fill of them a long time ago. I don’t find them fun anymore and I don’t find the rewards useful. I skip them and use that time to do meaningful things in my real life, so that the players who need the better rewards can earn them. (You know the thing that happens when you turn off the game and put the phone down). 

I do think it's a pity that games are designed to attract and hook new players at the cost of making an effort for the loyal player community...

bk1234

OmniTron said:

bken1234 said:

versemage said:

Perhaps some clarification is in order: runes are a sorry excuse for an event reward. Especially when they're consistently handed out as bonuses for lesser accomplishments, ie. completing objectives, duplicate cards, even losing a match for crying out loud. Now I don't mind if runes are interspersed with more meaningful rewards, but just runes and obsolete boosters are a waste of event time that I could be playing for something useful. Either that or make runes useful for more purchases, you know, since it is a form of currency and all.

Again, this is your perspective, but to a new player who doesn’t have a legacy collection, those packs are priceless. To a returning player who took several years off and now has a ton of PW to level, those runes are necessary. This game doesn’t revolve around those of us who have been playing for 4-6 years. It depends of those who continue to enter it fresh, yet it has legacy content and needs to offer them a chance to earn that content as rewards. 

Like I said, maybe these events aren’t for you if your motivation for playing events is rewards. If your motivation for playing events is fun and you don’t care about rewards as a long time player, by all means. Personally — I got my fill of them a long time ago. I don’t find them fun anymore and I don’t find the rewards useful. I skip them and use that time to do meaningful things in my real life, so that the players who need the better rewards can earn them. (You know the thing that happens when you turn off the game and put the phone down). 

I do think it's a pity that games are designed to attract and hook new players at the cost of making an effort for the loyal player community...

I disagree with this. I have been playing this game for 5 1/2 years. This week I built and thoroughly played 4 entirely new decks. This game is always fun and new to me -- I've never felt like my fun is at the cost of new players. The constantly new content just makes all the other almost 5000 cards I have more fun. 

Persil

OmniTron said:

I do think it's a pity that games are designed to attract and hook new players at the cost of making an effort for the loyal player community...

Agree. I feel the same.

Tremayne

@bken1234 - another great response from you. Since your perspective have previously been extremely helpful, I’m reaching out to you with a question about testing new decks.

Background - I often experience issues with testing new decks for use in PVP events, because so many PVP events have event support/rules which makes it difficult to test outside of a specific PVP event. It seems impossible to test the deck unless I forfeit the top prizes from the outset.

I rarely use TG since many players use combo decks to quickly finish TG for the 10 crystals. Thus, it is not suitable for alpha and beta testing of decks.

For this reason, creating new decks are mainly done in PVE events, even though that means they won’t get tested against player created decks.

So this leaves this question: where do you play and test your new decks?

ambrosio191

Tremayne said:

@bken1234 - another great response from you. Since your perspective have previously been extremely helpful, I’m reaching out to you with a question about testing new decks.

Background - I often experience issues with testing new decks for use in PVP events, because so many PVP events have event support/rules which makes it difficult to test outside of a specific PVP event. It seems impossible to test the deck unless I forfeit the top prizes from the outset.

I rarely use TG since many players use combo decks to quickly finish TG for the 10 crystals. Thus, it is not suitable for alpha and beta testing of decks.

For this reason, creating new decks are mainly done in PVE events, even though that means they won’t get tested against player created decks.

So this leaves this question: where do you play and test your new decks?

I find that the permanent supports in events rarely do anything that appreciably affects the outcome of any given fight (assuming no buggy interactions).  That means I can ignore them and just build towards objectives.  My decks for coalition events are always slightly modified decks of what I play in TG, ZE and such.  I find a PW I like, build something that suites it, test in the various events running throughout the week, and adjust when I've played with it enough to know what isnt working for me.  Then, during coalition events I look at the objectives and decide which PW I want to play, and modify an existing deck to meet objectives. That way I'm always playing a deck that I've play tested repeatedly, with just a minor adjustment for objectives. 

I would argue TG with combo decks is a great place to test.  Combo decks are the worst case scenario.  If you cant handle them, then something is wrong with your deck.  You have to decide if you are okay with losing to a combo deck, or finding a way to beat them.  Avoiding playing against them isnt really testing your deck.

If you are just building for fun, then it doesnt matter if you lose.  Your only goal is to play a with a fun interaction, and if it doesnt happen you quit and try again.  This can often lead to a deck is fun to play, and pretty competitive if you make adjustments as you play.

Tremayne

@ambrosio191 - I tend to also ignore the event supports, but some events are getting boring to play. In order to getting stuck in a rot, I thought Bken could give some perspective.

Your method for testing is better than mine, but I feel that I manage quite well, by throwing a deck together over the template 3/4/3 (or 3/3/4) which suits the match objectives. Typically, the creatures are non-mastered, while the supports and spells are the usual suspects depending upon the PW colour(s).

Regarding the combo deck in TG - you are correct that you need to design a deck to handle combo decks.

The problem with TG depends upon in what stage of testing my deck is in. As I see it is when I’m alpha testing, I just need to see if the deck idea works. Basically, does the cards work as expected. At this stage combo decks are a nuisance to getting matches done quickly.

Once the basic idea is confirmed, I go into beta testing and work additional layers into the idea. Here I test if the balance is correct in order to make the deck work. Again a combo deck could be annoying because I’m still trying to get the correct cards into the deck.

Finally, there is the tweaking stage where the combo deck is actually wanted to pressure test the decks design. At this stage I verify that the cards included are better than any possible alternative which I have in the deck.

ambrosio191

Tremayne said:

@ambrosio191 - I tend to also ignore the event supports, but some events are getting boring to play. In order to getting stuck in a rot, I thought Bken could give some perspective.

Your method for testing is better than mine, but I feel that I manage quite well, by throwing a deck together over the template 3/4/3 (or 3/3/4) which suits the match objectives. Typically, the creatures are non-mastered, while the supports and spells are the usual suspects depending upon the PW colour(s).

Regarding the combo deck in TG - you are correct that you need to design a deck to handle combo decks.

The problem with TG depends upon in what stage of testing my deck is in. As I see it is when I’m alpha testing, I just need to see if the deck idea works. Basically, does the cards work as expected. At this stage combo decks are a nuisance to getting matches done quickly.

Once the basic idea is confirmed, I go into beta testing and work additional layers into the idea. Here I test if the balance is correct in order to make the deck work. Again a combo deck could be annoying because I’m still trying to get the correct cards into the deck.

Finally, there is the tweaking stage where the combo deck is actually wanted to pressure test the decks design. At this stage I verify that the cards included are better than any possible alternative which I have in the deck.

Honestly the only way to make events not boring is to stop caring about winning.  That removes so many restrictions from deck building.  You arent forced into a rigid deck type for each event because you dont have to absolutely win each fight.  You dont have to waste deck slots on support and creature removal if you dont care what Greg plays.  Sometimes he will drop a couple Gaea's Revenge and you cant win, but that doesnt matter.  Just quit out and start again.  This is largely how I approach events now.  Dont worry about what you will face, accept that you will lose and there is nothing you can do about it, and just have fun.

Tremayne

@ambrosio191 - After some considerations, I think that you are right about releasing the constraints will make the game more fun. And for many events I can do as I please, but the coalition events (I would like to stay in my current coalition) that is not possible if we are going to succeed in becoming a regular top10 finisher.

However, that does not answer my original question where do other successfully test their deck design. So anyone, if you have an suggestion feel free to chime in.

Idea for a testing area in MTGPQ. In the testing area, you could setup our match environment, so from a drop down menu (or similar) you could select a node from ant PVP event setup and when you enter the match you would play with the permanent support (if any) and the objectives from said node.

In this testing area the prizes and XP received should be the same as in TG, e.g. 450/500/550 and 10 crystals)