Let's scale back a bit

Tezzeret

I was thinking about the horrendously  FAST release  schedule wizards has with sets. As former  paper player, it's why I stopped playing standard. It took thousands of dollars to stay ahead..  Then I was thinking  how oktagon is basically at the mercy  of that schedule. Trying to transform the cards and mechanics to work for PQ...

I'm not a coder or a software expert, but I can't image the time crunch is even possible... then by the time you get inevitable bugs  and problems worked out... Opps... a new set dropped, better get coding again..

What I'm getting at and what I want to know from the community, is would you rather have MTGPQ match wizards release schedule...

OR

Would you rather see things slow down a bit. Have some actual time for some quality of life fixes to be addressed first instead of just pumping  out set after set.

To name a few
-new events
-standard/legacy filter
-planeswalker filter
-something to do with runes (resource  converter)
-rotating modern Training grounds 
-better pvp and chat system
-bug resolution
-mulligan system

Abracadavers

This is a common misconception that people who are not familiar with software development tend to make.  They believe that by putting less development time into one thing that they can instead get something else done.  This isn't necessarily the case.  I don't know what the internal logistics are like at Octagon, but it is entirely possible that if they were to put less time into developing sets, that they might get no further ahead on anything else, or might even make things worse.

Just for an example, let's say that they have 2 full time coders doing new set development.  If they were to scale that back to 1 full time coder, it doesn't mean that the other coder could just pick up and work on bug fixes.  They each have their area of expertise and the other coder might be lousy at bug fixes but great at developing new sets.  You don't really know that until you move them over to bug fixes and give them plenty of time to get up to speed with the new unfamiliar codebase.  And if they suck at it, well that is just time lost.

The best way in my experience to put more manpower into features is to hire new people.  But this requires the company be in a good place financially to do that.  And be able to have the time to bring new people up to speed.  This doesn't tend to happen very often.

Of course it might be the case that the stars are aligned and it is entirely possible to just shift development priorities from new sets to new features and bug fixes.  And if that is the case then great.  But my point is that it isn't always that easy.

Anyway...  even if they were able to do that, I don't think it would be a good idea.  New cards are the things that keep people playing.  Things get dull if we don't see new stuff regularly.  You can see this by how excited many people get over a new set, or start chomping at the bit when a set is late.  Delaying or skipping sets would have people up in arms (at best), or see a rapid drop in player numbers (at worst).  In my opinion.

Tezzeret

Thanks! Yeah.. I have no idea of the ins and outs.. I appreciate your insight. I guess new sets keep the money coming  in. Which when it comes down to it, is all that really matters.

  I just know they said they didn't have time to make any new events because they were working on PVP. I'd rather have more events/features and quality fixes rather than a new set asap, is i guess what I'm getting at. 

Abracadavers

Oh, I agree completely.  But PVP is a feature.  And it was highly requested.  I can't fault them for working on it. 

I guess what I was getting at is we can really only tell them what we want (which you did perfectly), not how (or if) to make it happen.  We have to leave that to them.

bk1234

I would just really like to see a new balanced coalition PVE event, instead of these cookie cutter PVP events every release. 

I would wait for that. 

Machine

I'm in favor of slowing the pace a bit down. I already mentioned this in an earlier post (waaaaaay back). I often have the feeling that there is not much time to enjoy the new set to the fullest because it takes time to gather some of the good cards and events centered around the mechanics of the new set run maybe two or three times before yet another set hits the game. This is just from a F2P perspective... accumulating cards is slowwww...

Tremayne

@bk1234 - what does cookie cutter event mean? Such phrases are difficult to understand for 2nd or 3rd language speaking persons.

Do you mean the events are to similar in structure?

bk1234

Tremayne said:

@bk1234 - what does cookie cutter event mean? Such phrases are difficult to understand for 2nd or 3rd language speaking persons.

Do you mean the events are to similar in structure?

Yes, exactly — and thank you for asking. Every release it seems we are getting a 2 node PvP event with a special support on each node. 

Tremayne

@bk1234 - then I totally agree with you.

I remember a thread 2-3 years back where we (us on the forum) came up with a huge amount of suggestions for themes usable with events. I believe the general opinion was less is more, but with the advent of node supports, it seems that Oktagon is leaning to more (and more) is better. 

Tezzeret

Sometimes I fell like they think " if less is more... just imagine how much MORE more will be!"

bk1234

Tezzeret said:

Sometimes I fell like they think " if less is more... just imagine how much MORE more will be!"

Shhh they’ll hear you and give us 3 node PvP and not PVE.