Loriens

Hello MrXLink,
First of all thanks for making this thread. I'm really convinced that a remarkable part of the PvP community would benefit from higher gold incomes and it can clearly enhance the overall game environment. Sorry for the upcoming wall of text, but I really need to talk about this topic!
 
Current PvP Values 
I would like to start with some basics about the current reward system and potential problems. So let's get into the current formulas to check current rewards (They should be accurate as I double checked my calculations with gold incomes in some of my own games).  
 
1. Winning player
During the interval [0;2] the gold reward is at flat 250. 
During the interval [2;20] the amount of gold f(t) get's calculated as a function of time (t=minutes) -> f(t) = 250+((t-2)/18 * 1100) 
After 20 minutes the gold cap of 1350 got reached and it won't get higher regardless of gametime. I assume this is done to prevent abuse of 2 people agreeing on completely afk'ing in the game. 
 
2. Losing Player
During the interval [0;2] the gold reward is a flat 100.
During the interval [2;20] the amount of gold f(t) get's calculated as a function of time (t=minutes) again -> f(t) = 100+((t-2)/18*400)
After 20 minutes the gold cap of flat 500 got reached. 
 
What does this exactly mean? I'll show some rounded GPM values at 5 relevant game spots throughout the game for some clarity. 2, 5, 10 and 20, 30 minutes marks will be used here.
time -> Winning player (Losing player) [50% wr player]
2min -> 125 GPM (50 GPM) [88GPM]
5min -> 87 GPM (33 GPM) [60GPM]
10min -> 74 GPM (28 GPM) [51 GPM]
20min -> 68 GPM (25 GPM) [47 GPM]
30min -> 45 GPM (17 GPM) [31 GPM]
Comparison: I'll take your rPvE 9 value from one of your previous posts for that (145GPM). This implies that our average rPvE player aproximatly needs 29 minutes on average to win one map. Given that I think the average game time is faster, but there is no 100% winrate for all of these players that may be a quite accurate value. The average player in PvP has a 50% winrate in a normally distributed PvP environment. I'm pretty sure it isn't given (players with avg. skill should sit at sub 50% winrates), but I hope some gold changes may motivate more players to step into action again to fix that matchmaking problem. Anyways, these numbers lead to some problems I see with the current system and make me think that just raw stat increases won't be the solution to the issue. 
 
The big problems I see right now
-> GPM constantly decreases with increased game time. 
-> Winning PvP (highly skilled) is getting compared to average rPvE times (moderately skilled)
-> Losing income is really low, which is very counterintuitive for new players
 
The constant decrease of GPM over time is a problem for balancing. If you straight up increase GPM values on by putting in a multiplicator onto the formula you end up promoting the easiest way of abusing the game which is straight AFK'ing & wintrading. An AFK player will always be finished off after 2-4 minutes. If GPM are at their peak during this time this is a problem for potenial buffs to gold rewards. The question about rewarding 30min games over 20min games is another discussion (maybe you could check the percentage of 30min PvP games, if that is possible for you). From my perspective I would set a soft cap for these last 10 minutes rather than stopping at 20min. If equally skilled players face off against each other in certain matchups games tend to last much longer than average PvP games once the players reach higher tech stages. 
Another problem I see with most arguments is that the PvP Winner gets compared to the average rPvE player. I would consider myself pretty experienced in rPvE, but not top tier. I still get to finish 4 rPvE 9's in an hour. This puts me at a GPM of 280, which is completely out of the range of what I would achieve with my current 92% PvP winrate even in the proposed improved system. This is something that really should be put into consideration when talking about these calculations. 
 
Matchmaking issues
So let's talk a little about this problem beforehand. Right now GPM are vastly decreased by high que times and a very high participation of Top 10/20 players in ranked games resulting in que times. I really hope that after the upcoming reset and potential improvements to the PvP environment it may be possible to overcome some of these issues. With more motivated PvP players there would be a higher gold outcome for everyone as it minimizes the loss through que times. When talking about values it should always be considered, that the gold loss during waiting times has a clear implication onto the true outcome. That said I don't want to include this inconsistent variable too much into my arguments.  
 
Abuse of strong gold incomes 
Let's talk about it as you emphasized potential abuse as an issue. I don't think it is possible to abuse the system in a way, where it ruins game experience for serious players. If a change manages to make PvP interesting enough to attract abusers it will attract more serious players aswell, which has a much greater positive impact onto the PvP scene. There are 2 ways of abusing a high gold outcome for PvP:
 
1. Que up and stay AFK
2. Try to delay the game as much as possible
 
For the first case, this may be a delay of 2 minutes. Finishing off an AFK is an easy task, should be done in less than 2 minutes and grants some valuable gold. I don't think anyone will be too sad about a free win. Since there is a report system nowadays you could also just threaten to ban people that are doing such things. The second case I mentioned is doable aswell. People that try to delay by turteling or running away will run out of gas pretty quickly. Mass towers allow early free wells that result in a fast T3 finish while running away without ressource generation will also be a death sentence, since ressource generation just works through immobile buildings, that can get targeted directly.  
Sure there may be different ways to abuse the system to get gold with a friend, but that doesn't ruin the game experience for anyone as you won't participate in these matches. Even with an increased gold income for PvP it will never get close to certain abuse strategies. You could also team up with a friend in dwarfen riddle expert to let him solo the map. You can make some food during this time and get a 500 (?) GPM value for that. Soultree is also an option to boost gold incomes into different levels in case you are a solo player. Unless PvP rewards for losing players start being competive to 
 
What are my goals?
Before I start talking about real numbers, I want to talk about long term goals. Overall I want to see an attractive game with enjoyable gameplay for the majority of players in all gamemodes. I think the PvP community right now is quite small, but this wasn't always the case. During early 2013 times we had a very strong community and a strong PvP environment. 
 
1. Better new player experience (increased rewards for losing players that tried their best)
2. The possibility for veterans to grind without spamming PvE 
 
I'm convinced, that the amount of people that would try out PvP within a much more begginerfriendly environment gets a little underestimated in general. A more consistent income would increase the ability to get decks and cards, that you see in your first games, where you surely end up getting crushed. But with a quicker removal of competitive discrepance through ressources you can start learning the game much faster and enjoy its beauty when the real PvP gameplay starts. Under equal conditions it is much easier to identify mistakes and improve. At that point the wins start to come in which brings in more motivation to go on.  
 
So the next thing I'm talking about is also about the veterans, that used to play PvP during 2013. I think the majority of people in the PvP community do want to achieve their first playable PvP deck within one month of active gameplay. To get the big picture that means 170.000-260.000 gold depending on the faction you want to play. Sure you somewhat can start playing seriously with some cards being on U2, but I made the estimation, this value may probably the difference, that my final modell doesn't catch due to the loss of gold through que times. With a GPM of 125 this would range from 22-35 hours. Looks bearable for the cheaper decks, but keep in mind only the best players do have winrates above 80% over many games and I used the winner values here. Average values of 125 for winning and 35 for losing imply a 80GPM for 50% winrate players. Back to 35-54 hours of raw gameplay for the first deck again. But without a competive deck the winrate will most likely be lower than 50% at the start even as a veteran. A state where grinding for a deck still isn't worth it.
 
Sparring grounds
Not much I can add here. The potential for abuse is very high, but no rewards at all aren't satisfying especially for people who are afraid of ranked and the ones who want to get practice beforehand. Setting up a low percentage based on ranked income seems like a good solution for me. 
 
 
What changes I would like to see
The gold value I would like to see for a reasonable grind would be the possibility for people to get an upgraded PvP deck in about one month of gameplay. If we say Mr. XYZ plays 1 hour on average each day, this means we "ideally" do have 30 hours of gameplay. A full deck roughly costs 200.000 gold on average. In order to achieve that, we would need 111 GPM. An average player shouldn't earn less than that if PvP should end up in a reasonable state in terms of gold gains. 
The second value that I use to adjust my final proposal is the rPvE average value of 145 GPM. If an average PvP player ends up earning more than that, PvP might get vulnerable to that. So I would like to see an average GPM between 111 and 145. This would push PvP into a position where it still gets outshined by rPvE and especially cPvE, but may be able to bring some satisfaction to the people, that simply don't enjoy playing PvE. 
So let's try to get to the final formula. AFK players shouldn't be rewarded here, so flat loss income for the first 2 minutes should stay the same, while the flat bonus for the winning party could get increased by a little bit. It's less vulnerable to abuse and brings more excitement to very dominant games and decreases potential frustration upon facing an afk player. 
I decided to keep the income between 20 and 30 minutes for now in my modell. It could see a slight change in the future, but for now it should affect the lowest percentage of games.
My model also brings rewards for the losing player, that ended up putting a long fight. Unless the enemy manipulates the game aswell no abuser will last long in these games and I really think PvP needs to be much more beginnerfriendly than it is right now. 
 
Final formula and comparison to initial values and other game modes 
Winning player:
[0;2] -> f(t) = 300
[2;20] -> f(t) = 300+((t-2)/18*3200)
[20;30] -> f(t) = 3500
 
Losing player: 
[0;2] -> f(t) = 100
[2;20] -> f(t) = 100 + ((t-2)/18*1700)
[20;30] -> f(t) = 1800
 
Gold income comparison by using the marks of 2, 5, 10, 20 and 30 minutes
time -> Winning player (losing player) [50% wr player]
2min -> 150 GPM (50GPM) [100 GPM]
5min -> 167 GPM (77GPM) [122 GPM]
10min -> 172 GPM (86 GPM) [129 GPM]
20min -> 175 GPM (90 GPM) [133 GPM]
30min -> 117 GPM (60 GPM) [88,5 GPM]
 
These GPM values are what I would look for. It would be possible to farm upgrades for an entire deck within a month and a decent PvP player still gains below avg rPvE values while high lvl PvP player are still out of contention with PvE speedrunners.  
 
TL DR;
-> Increased scaling for losing players by 240% 
-> Increased flat winner bonus for winning games during the first 2 minutes (150% -> 200%)
-> Decreased gold over time multiplicator for winners (175% -> 88%)
-> GPM for an average PvP player will roughly stay 15% lower than the average rPvE player
-> GPM for a high ranked PvP player will roughly stay 70% lower than a top rPvE player
 
Thanks alot for reading and I really hope, that the PvP community can come back strong again! If there is anything you want to talk about, I'll be around for discussion 
Best regards,
RadicalX

When you clone a deck you cannot really tell which cards you miss. You have to ask again for the other deck to search manually for missing cards.
A short notification (via chatbox) which cards are missing would be cool!

Guns or lyr solo 22:59.5

I am same opinion like you. We need to adjust the rankings according to the changes that may will applied. It also makes sence to have a separate list with the old all time timings until the changes were applied. The bug of Halis was just the example - like i stated this also counting for other bugs.
But still bugs that give you free energy or you can spawn units for free or kill sth. that should not be killed with this ability is for me a bigger problem than do have an slightly overpowered amii-monument, nightguard that can take t2 units ...you still need the tactic to come to this point to use this cards/tactics and you are still not allowed to waste energy and you still have to be very effective the whole time because you are limited in energy vs. time.
 
Update speedruns:
blight solo 34.12.4
drawen riddle solo 15.37.9

This is the one point I don't understand. In which world does PvP have higher rewards than PvE on paper? While the PvP high ranked community seems to be always begging for gold people from the PvE faction are laughing about me with millions of gold. 
 
A high elo speedrun PvE team could farm about 100.000 gold in an hour. 
A high elo PvP player can get up to 6000 gold.
An average PvP player will sit on about 3000-4000 in an hour (searching times not even included into the calculation). Might be even less since the skill level isn't normally distributed due to the high activity of the top10/20.
 
I somewhat got in touch with a big amount of former/new PvP players and discussed their problems with the gamemode and alot of them are simply not playing because they hope to see an improved PvP reward system. I will make a video quite soon to break down the problem a little more specifically with a possible solution about the current problem of PvP for new players and former veterans without an upgraded deck. 

We have updated the game with player count filter options as suggested by @Loriens

Playing as 3 player in 4 player maps is really different way and expirience.. Im completely sure you know this.
That's very unpolite and unreasonable to write something like this, especially in public. You tried to insult Halis, but this better describes your own feelings.
I also watched Halis's streams, and played with him last 2-3 weeks, so I can also ensure you that he has become much better.
It's more than normally to become better after some practice. For example IronTits couldnt do Soultree in less than 10 minutes, and now he managed to beat my old record there.
P.S.
About the bug with energy - I hope it will be fixed by dev team.

Playing as 3 player in 4 player maps is really different way and expirience.. Im completely sure you know this.
That's very unpolite and unreasonable to write something like this, especially in public. You tried to insult Halis, but this better describes your own feelings.
I also watched Halis's streams, and played with him last 2-3 weeks, so I can also ensure you that he has become much better.
It's more than normally to become better after some practice. For example IronTits couldnt do Soultree in less than 10 minutes, and now he managed to beat my old record there.
P.S.
About the bug with energy - I hope it will be fixed by dev team.

I watched replay of Titan, also took a part in these runs, so I want to assure you that new record for Titans was done without anything you cannot determine in game.

So this will be my first real post in quite a while, so I do wonder if anyone remembers me.
Anyways, I always remember everyone trying to come up with ideas on how to properly mix Fire and Frost as a dual faction, but with no real resolution or agreements. I just recently realized last week that I could actually play the limited beta of BF and I have been playing religiously since then. I then remembered about the dilemna that concerned this debate for years, and decided that I might give it more thought. And give it more thought I did! I'm very confident in my idea mostly because it just sounds fun to me.
There has never been a "spell slinging" strategy in this game yet compared to many other TCG games, and when I realized this, inspiration hit me like a brick. What if we made Frost and Fire a spells matter faction? So my logic begins from here, everyone who has thought of the idea of making this Fire/Frost faction has always battled with the fact that offense and defense do not combine very well in a way that doesn't make it a little more on the broken side, so I said, what does the heat and cold create? Storms and even tornados if the conditions are right. So from there, I came up with a theme. So I combined the storm idea with spells, and obviously enough, their main mechanic could be "Spellstorm".
Before I go through what Spellstorm is, I also thought about the lore of this Fire/Frost faction. I deemed them the "Apostles of the Storm". They just want to see the world churn (in a storm). They attack as fast as lightning and can ride the oncoming winds to victory. This faction could easily set up for another part of the campaign where you have to save the world again again from these guys. 
So what is this new mechanic called Spellstorm. Well, my idea is that it activates whenever you cast a spell (be it a normal or arcane), to add buffs or create additional effects. Here's an example card I came up with (Keep in mind these are first drafts, so numbers might be a little scewed to powerful or weak):

So here, Spellstorm would read in the sense, "Whenever you play a spell, Storm Raptor gains 15% damage for 10 seconds; this effect and stack up to three times". That means if you were to play a Homesoil or Eruption with this guy on the field, he would basically gain 67.5 damage not including homesoil, and if you add other spells, it will buff up to three times which makes its attack a wopping 652.5 for a couple seconds, which is pretty decent.
Spellstorm needn't only apply stat buffs, it could even do other things like this guys:
--> He should probably be a rare yeah?
So his Spellstorm would read, "Whenever you play a spell, this unit gains an Ice Shield that absorbs up to 120 damage for 10 seconds; this effect can stack up to 3 times". I would compare him to a mini Avatar of Frost, only now you have access to cards like ravage and disenchant (ooh scary). I don't think there is much more to say about this guy. But how do we play so many spells when the more important ones have large costs and cooldowns. Well I've thought about that too, and here are some neat enablers:

Refresh reads, "Reduces the cooldown of all other spells in your deck by 20 seconds. Additionally, all spells you play for the next 10 seconds require 15% less of the usual power cost". Now that's a spell enabler if I ever saw one. Here would be a great way to be able to spam more spells to get those Spellstorm procs off. Though what if you just want to play a spell for cheap?

Invigorate reads, "Invigorates targeted friendly unit with a newfound strength: it gains swift speed for 20 seconds and takes 15% less damage for 10 seconds". Something cheap and simple. Can be useful as a way to let a unit get past some obstacles, or just let's you get in a very cheap Spellstorm proc. Though I don't want to think of a Construct with swift .
So we've gone past some of the basic synergies for the faction, but what do the big spells do? Where's the "wow" factor? I've even thought of some cool cards for that too, so let's start of with an interesting shrine that could be:

Storm the World reads, ""Activate (costs 50 power) to cause all of your spells played in the next 10 seconds to immediately refund 50% of their power cost and then they are immediately reusable ". I'll let you guys think about that one. So many possibilities. >:D
Now we go on the Magnum Opus of the Apostles of the Storm, the big spell to end all other spells:

So let's go through what the ability does, shall we? "Casts a massive spell storm that deals 150 damage per second to enemy units and buildings in a 30m radius, up to 600 in total, for 10 seconds. If another spell is played within this radius, the duration is extended by 5 seconds, and the damage dealt is increased by 50, up to 200 in total. This can only be extended a total of 10 times. Additionally, enemy units can only move at walk speed inside the radius". Here is what will be able to kill everything, especially when there are more players . I'm sure the spectacle will be more than worth the cost.
 
So that's what my idea for the Fire/Frost faction would be. You can definately point out whats overwhelmingly op, but I'd like to think I made things decently fair. What do you guys think about the name "Apostles of the Storm"? What about the Spellstorm mechanic? I do eagerly await your thoughts on the faction, have a good day!
 
Edit: Before we go on, there is still a lot of things to consider about Spellstorm. I was thinking of it being a spellspam deck, but perhaps it can be left to only 1 instance of the proc at a time, but with more powerful buffs added, then casting another spell after the first would just refresh the timer on the proc. Which sounds better? Also, should it also count buildings played? (Ice Barrier?)
Edit 2: it just occurred to me that it might be possible for Spellstorm to count your opponents' spells too. How would that sound?
Edit 3: I think I might need to clarify, but this thread is more to showcase what might be possible with this mechanic and cards that can synergize with it. The specific cards don't matter too much.

Playing as 3 player in 4 player maps is really different way and expirience.. Im completely sure you know this.
That's very unpolite and unreasonable to write something like this, especially in public. You tried to insult Halis, but this better describes your own feelings.
I also watched Halis's streams, and played with him last 2-3 weeks, so I can also ensure you that he has become much better.
It's more than normally to become better after some practice. For example IronTits couldnt do Soultree in less than 10 minutes, and now he managed to beat my old record there.
P.S.
About the bug with energy - I hope it will be fixed by dev team.

Greetings, fellow beta testers and the Skylords Reborn team! I came across a few issues when using the 'Lost Wanderer' unit, so I decided to submit a bug report concerning them.
 
NAME: Lost Wanderer Unit / Ownership Classification Bug
SEVERITY: 3
LOCATION: Lost Wanderer unit (in-game)
PREVALENCE: Constant
DESCRIPTION: A Lost Wanderer entity, summoned by a player, does not seem to count as a friendly ground unit – even if it is your own Lost Wanderer. You can control the unit without any issues, but having it next to a treasure chest will make the chest irretrievable, as if an enemy unit was standing next to it. You can pick up treasure chests once any Lost Wanderers are out of range. Furthermore, Lost Wanderers do not receive healing when standing next to owned or allied Power Wells and Monuments.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: Unrelated to the unit / ownership classification issue, but Lost Wanderers also seem to have very poor and possibly bugged unit / order / pathing AI. Lost Wanderers tend to remain idle when given attack-move orders when friendly units are nearby. It seems as if they want to hang back a bit and apply barriers to friendly units, but they often remain idle even after friendly units move out of range, almost as if they dropped any move or attack move orders.

Updated times for Empire (with 3 Player) and Guns of Lyr (with 2-Player) and added times for Battlegrounds

@MephistoRoss@Kubik For the Blight you can see, that there is actually a case of a disconnected player. I guess, almost every speedrunner will agree with Mepistos opinion. Already the free monument from the disconnected player is a huge advantage.
@Kubik I do not know, if I should count the Solo in 2-Player Battlegrounds time, since I used a bug. (I am not sure if it is a bug. Could be also intended from the old devs.) I know in almost every map speedrunner are using bugs like taking energy wells through walls (The Darwen Riddle) or triggering an later state of the game before finishing the current mission (Guns of Lyr) and even using the decomposer to transfering energy form one player to another player is already a bug, but used in almost every multiplayer speedrun. (The description of the decomposer explicitly says "decompose an own unit"). But for some reason, some players blamed me for bug abusing, when I used the bug (if it is actually a bug), so I want to know it. Is it now ok, to use bugs to archive better times or is it against rule "13. Game client and bug abuse"?

Something like this.
There is a lot of place there for this.

This simple change can attract a lot of players in PvE competitions (and in game eventually)
Also set as default 2players for 2p maps and 4players for 4p maps.

For 4 player maps I think '4 players' should be 'all', so if you are faster with 3 players it is also included in this list (so you have the full list).
For 2 player maps the same.

A disconnected player should still count as a player imo. So if 4 people start a map and two players disconnect, it should still be counted as 4 players (else it could be easy to cheat by letting others disconnect just before the end).

Empire 18.34.0 3player
 
 
 
 

Something like this.
There is a lot of place there for this.

This simple change can attract a lot of players in PvE competitions (and in game eventually)
Also set as default 2players for 2p maps and 4players for 4p maps.

There are times, where I had to write "Does not appear in the 10 pages of the rankings" or "possible better times of MONTH are not included". I went until the end of the 10 pages and could not find a single game with the matching amout of players. I think, it would be a nice feature for the speedrunners.

Something like this.
There is a lot of place there for this.

This simple change can attract a lot of players in PvE competitions (and in game eventually)
Also set as default 2players for 2p maps and 4players for 4p maps.

Something like this.
There is a lot of place there for this.

This simple change can attract a lot of players in PvE competitions (and in game eventually)
Also set as default 2players for 2p maps and 4players for 4p maps.

Hi all, 
i reworked some of my old maps. All maps that didnt have a minimap now have one. And Stumpfland 8 i added some decoration.
 
I also release a brand new map.  It took me about 50 hours to do it. Thx to everybody who helped.

 
"dragonhunt"
The Dragongod Doombringer went crazy and sends out his kind over the lands.
You fight your way to the dragongod and slay it. 
Its a 2 Player Pve map.
 
If u like the maps pls give a like here.
 
All 11 maps are availeble here in one rar file or ingame.
If u have the old version of the maps consider delete them manualy first, then download the new ones.
The new ones i only upload the pak file, the old also had a folder and a .map file.
 
Kind regards
 
 

I have to agree, without Phasetower and Mortar there will be hopefully more Nature and Frost T1s in the tournament which is better to watch and not really hurt the balance too much. Also Cursed Well is a card that is not that bad, but no one really want to watch battles with it.

Titans 16.06.7 with Ducarev

All-time record for Ocean improved : 15.40.0