Q&A w/ Oktagon - February Edition (2/28/19)

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Brigby
Brigby ADMINISTRATORS Posts: 7,757 Site Admin
in MtGPQ General Discussion
Hi Everyone,

Thank you for submitting your questions from both January and February. We want to thank the following 4 team members over at Oktagon for taking the time to review and answer the questions provided: Matheus Funfas, Alain Valchera, Pedro Rauiz Estigarribia Gestal, and Thorben Novais Silva Jensen!

Without further ado, here is the January + February Q&A Session w/ Oktagon!
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Can you remove the card art zoom during the game?
We have a feature in its initial phase of development that aims to allow players to disable the card art zoom during battle if they choose so, similarly to how we presented the Card Aid feature.

What are the biggest priorities for the game right now?
There's a lot still in development that should be ready and working as we expect soon. Although it takes a lot of work due to the system's own limitations, we want to keep building new modes and tools for players to enjoy. Our focus at the moment is to build a strong and engaging experience for players through their progression in the game with better first contact, newer and cheaper vault content, and some much-needed fixes for loop exploits.

How is your team planning on addressing problem card(s), such as those that freeze the match or create infinite loops?
We will be implementing a new system that prevents looping. It is fully operational, and it will be up and running in the next major update. Problematic cards are treated on a case-by-case basis, most of the time with specific fixes and many hours of testing.

Are there any plans to improve event times in the near future?
With the way the current system is structured, not much can be done regarding event times unfortunately. We expect to provide a much better experience regarding event duration once the Season system is ready.

Will there be any adjustments to Matchmaking in the future?
Matchmaking will change A LOT. There's no other way to put it. We know many players had their doubts about the recent changes, and given that we're trying to balance the game for a bunch of factors, that's understandable. It's hard, even for us to cover it all. Some thing are ready, and others haven't been fully analyzed yet, so they might not work within the system and need changing. Matchmaking isn't the case though. It won't use Color Mastery anymore. CM should be used in another aspect in the Season system and its event structure.

What are your upcoming plans for Duel Decks?
We have some nice plans regarding Duel Decks. Even though we had a lot to learn and fix in the event, it's a mode we really want to improve moving forward, especially regarding balance. The next Duel Decks is in the concept phase and should appear some time in the second half of the year between collections.

Will we see any balance changes for Planeswalkers that are currently considered weak?
Balancing Planeswalkers is one of our biggest desires right now. Starting with the War of the Spark card set, you'll be seeing the first aspects of how we intent to rework Planeswalkers into the game, both progressively and retroactively. That will be just a preview though! This is something that takes a lot of time and requires systems that aren't in place right now, so we'll take it how we can; one step at a time. First one thing, then tweaks to values and abilities, then another thing (we can't say more right now!)
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Thanks for checking out the combined January and February Edition of the Q&A w/ Oktagon. If you have questions you'd like to ask them for the March Edition, then please submit them HERE

Comments

  • Matthew
    Matthew Posts: 605 Critical Contributor
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    This is great and all, but it does absolutely nothing to address the current problem with the XP system. You guys are telling us "Hey, look at this new shiny thing!" but we don't give a flying **** about that. We want answers to our questions. It's **** insulting that we have received nothing but platitudes, completely empty promises of things to come, and a blatant cold shoulder. We are not idiots. Do not underestimate us.
  • Volrak
    Volrak Posts: 732 Critical Contributor
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    Matthew said:
    This is great and all, but it does absolutely nothing to address the current problem with the XP system. You guys are telling us "Hey, look at this new shiny thing!" but we don't give a flying tinykitty about that. We want answers to our questions. It's tinykitty insulting that we have received nothing but platitudes, completely empty promises of things to come, and a blatant cold shoulder. We are not idiots. Do not underestimate us.
    If you criticise someone when they do something, what naturally gets discouraged psychologically is the thing they did.  That's a problem when the reason for your criticism lies elsewhere, and when the thing they actually did (in this case a positive communication with some substance to it) is something we want more of.

    The fact that the community wants other problems to be solved does not change the fact that in general we want more communication like the above.
  • Matthew
    Matthew Posts: 605 Critical Contributor
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    I suppose that's fair to a certain extent. However, that does not change the fact that this reeks of diversionary tactics. They gave us half-hearted lip service answers to our concerns, and then when they had an opportunity to address and clarify things even further, they didn't even bother with the lip service. I don't feel like we should let them off the hook that easily.
  • Laeuftbeidir
    Laeuftbeidir Posts: 1,841 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Volrak said:
    Matthew said:
    This is great and all, but it does absolutely nothing to address the current problem with the XP system. You guys are telling us "Hey, look at this new shiny thing!" but we don't give a flying tinykitty about that. We want answers to our questions. It's tinykitty insulting that we have received nothing but platitudes, completely empty promises of things to come, and a blatant cold shoulder. We are not idiots. Do not underestimate us.
    If you criticise someone when they do something, what naturally gets discouraged psychologically is the thing they did.  That's a problem when the reason for your criticism lies elsewhere, and when the thing they actually did (in this case a positive communication with some substance to it) is something we want more of.

    The fact that the community wants other problems to be solved does not change the fact that in general we want more communication like the above.
    It's always hard to argue when volrak posts.. I agree, the QA was interesting to read and quite promising. The questions were well chosen and the level thingy is part of another topic - plus, it was indirectly stated in the matchmaking part that it requires more analysis and might need changes, this could very well aim at the level system. I see it as a promising sign.
  • Brigby
    Brigby ADMINISTRATORS Posts: 7,757 Site Admin
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    starfall said:
    I don't mind Oktagon letting us know their plans for the future, so long as they are committed to solving the problems they have now instead of moving on from them.
    I said this in one of my recent comments in the Player Level and Card Experience thread, but I figured it's worth mentioning here as well in response:

    Thank you all for providing your feedback and sentiment. We've been reviewing all your comments and discussing what we can do to try and alleviate these concerns; specifically the concern of high color mastery veteran players being surpassed in level by players that mastered less cards pre-3.2 update. 
    (In other words, how high of a level should veterans have been given during the initial implementation?)

    Aka, we're still having this discussion, and it has not been dismissed yet.
  • Tourmaline
    Tourmaline Posts: 25 Just Dropped In
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    Hopefully you guys can figure out a way to fix the looping issue without destroying spellcasting and end up permanently nerfing jaya and ral izzet in the process but based on the way you folks implemented the leveling system and your rationalizations for staying the course, im not holding my breath. 
  • madwren
    madwren Posts: 2,230 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Tourmaline said:
    Hopefully you guys can figure out a way to fix the looping issue without destroying spellcasting and end up permanently nerfing jaya and ral izzet in the process but based on the way you folks implemented the leveling system and your rationalizations for staying the course, im not holding my breath. 
    A lot of events/objectives will become a lot more tedious and frustrating if they cut us off from looping entirely. I can't imagine sitting through some of these PVE nodes without it.
  • Gilesclone
    Gilesclone Posts: 735 Critical Contributor
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    madwren said:
    Tourmaline said:
    Hopefully you guys can figure out a way to fix the looping issue without destroying spellcasting and end up permanently nerfing jaya and ral izzet in the process but based on the way you folks implemented the leveling system and your rationalizations for staying the course, im not holding my breath. 
    A lot of events/objectives will become a lot more tedious and frustrating if they cut us off from looping entirely. I can't imagine sitting through some of these PVE nodes without it.
    It didn’t stop them from nerfing cycling, even tho it was already Legacy.
  • Mburn7
    Mburn7 Posts: 3,427 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Gilesclone said:
    madwren said:
    Tourmaline said:
    Hopefully you guys can figure out a way to fix the looping issue without destroying spellcasting and end up permanently nerfing jaya and ral izzet in the process but based on the way you folks implemented the leveling system and your rationalizations for staying the course, im not holding my breath. 
    A lot of events/objectives will become a lot more tedious and frustrating if they cut us off from looping entirely. I can't imagine sitting through some of these PVE nodes without it.
    It didn’t stop them from nerfing cycling, even tho it was already Legacy.
    Actually, they nerfed it as it was moving to legacy.  It was the same update.

    And the thing people still don't seem to realize is that cycling absolutely needed to be nerfed, for the same reason cards like Baral or Season's Past did way back when.

    You should not be able to build a deck of 1 mythic/rare and 9 commons and have guaranteed turn 2 wins every single time against end-level bosses. 

    True there are some crazy decks out there in Legacy, but they are incredibly difficult to create and run properly.  Allowing someone who has been playing the game for a week to be able to beat someone who has been playing for 3 years is absurd.
  • Gilesclone
    Gilesclone Posts: 735 Critical Contributor
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    Likewise, you should not be able to throw Sunbird and Blue Sun’s Zenith in with 8 spells and beat any deck.
  • Gunmix25
    Gunmix25 Posts: 1,435 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited March 2019
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    Matthew said:
    I suppose that's fair to a certain extent. However, that does not change the fact that this reeks of diversionary tactics. They gave us half-hearted lip service answers to our concerns, and then when they had an opportunity to address and clarify things even further, they didn't even bother with the lip service. I don't feel like we should let them off the hook that easily.
    One of the biggest gripes I've seen repeatedly in here is the fact that they rarely, If ever, talk about new events. An issue we customarily go after @Brigby to garner anything.  Yet they did here. And not only did they mention a future event,  however far off, they also openly admitted to the fact that the last duel event was heavily imbalanced and are trying to address the next one. 
    Many veteran players have openly stated that Oktagon would likely struggle trying to integrate their code into the last developer's code... again Oktagon has taken an extra step in this feedback to let us know that this is no easy feat and they are still working towards,  not ignoring as many stated in the forums,  an end result.  

    While I get the whole new mastery thing is irritating. . it's a bit too fixated of a response to be fair in ignoring the rest of the news, however irrelevant to you personally.  I too hope they can fix it.  But I am grateful for the communication we're are getting now. 

    I'm very curious how this anti-loop thing is going to work. By what they describe vaguely it seems as if it'll prematurely end your turn after X loops. If so... aiyi.... the yelling and the screaming and murderizing
  • Tourmaline
    Tourmaline Posts: 25 Just Dropped In
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    Mburn7 said:
    Gilesclone said:
    madwren said:
    Tourmaline said:
    Hopefully you guys can figure out a way to fix the looping issue without destroying spellcasting and end up permanently nerfing jaya and ral izzet in the process but based on the way you folks implemented the leveling system and your rationalizations for staying the course, im not holding my breath. 
    A lot of events/objectives will become a lot more tedious and frustrating if they cut us off from looping entirely. I can't imagine sitting through some of these PVE nodes without it.
    It didn’t stop them from nerfing cycling, even tho it was already Legacy.
    Actually, they nerfed it as it was moving to legacy.  It was the same update.

    And the thing people still don't seem to realize is that cycling absolutely needed to be nerfed, for the same reason cards like Baral or Season's Past did way back when.

    You should not be able to build a deck of 1 mythic/rare and 9 commons and have guaranteed turn 2 wins every single time against end-level bosses. 

    True there are some crazy decks out there in Legacy, but they are incredibly difficult to create and run properly.  Allowing someone who has been playing the game for a week to be able to beat someone who has been playing for 3 years is absurd.
    I dont see how its qualitatively different than say divine intervention and march of multitudes, or sunbird and basically anything for instance. 

    A 48/48 with flying and vigilance is a 2.1-3 turn kill on any playable plainswalker in the game. 

    Perhaps the solution is to change the way the Ai plays the decks and leave play the same for players or seriously reconsider how the new streamlined animation system works so that it stops feeling like the playerbase is being penalized for balance issues that the dev team should be working out in testing.

    If this game were entirely free I would likely fully agree but people are making buying decisions with actual money based on play mechanics that end up nerfed, changed or obsolete in a month or two or worse weeks for some folks. 

    Thats pretty frustrating from a customer standpoint, imo
  • ZW2007-
    ZW2007- Posts: 812 Critical Contributor
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    This just in, I'm a **** soothsayer. Unfortunately this means that Chrisopher Lloyd is not long for this world.

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