Boring for beginners

[Kubik]

finally some things we can agree on

I speak about the PvP rewards with few players, but no one was able to tell me what exactly is wrong with them, because on paper PvP should give bit more than PvE for the winner which obviously is not the case, even if we ignore the insane waiting times for match.
Unfortunately Link did not have much time and on paper it looks better, so we end up with something like "does not mater now it is just test"  

Hawing quest categories (trees? ) is idea I like and proposed it at start, but Hawk want to "push people to try other game modes". My idea was not that strict I have in mind something like slider so you can be in middle. But with 7 quests and crashing servers this get somehow lost a bit I think. But lets wait what I will be able to do about that as Lead Developer after we solve the server crashes.

I still think PvP should be an option to play most of time, even with started decks as long as there will be other players with started decks, and it will be rewarding enough.

[MrAmumu]

I couldn't agree more with @RadicalX . Kubik's points about playing with tutorial decks/shit cards in PvP just doesn't make any sense. If I was at my prime, I'd be able to crush anyone with my main 120 deck vs a tutorial deck 99.9% of the time. 

This current version of BF is mostly suited for PvE oriented players, and it is terrible for PvP players. Many of my old BF friends aren't returning to what is essentially a PvE game that will have a hard reset soon...

Radical's idea to give players rewards from playing ranked games is fantastic. 

[nofearek9]

On 4/6/2019 at 11:28 AM, myraezel said:

i began Skylords Reborn 4 days ago....

what you expect ,to give you all cards and upgrades within a week? there are player here which are in game for more than a year.

its a test server so no need to worry in the release we will start all playing from day 1 ,with 0 bfps.so it will be fair for all.

totally new players will not play pvp unless they understand how the game works,by playing pve first as we did in the original release.

[Ultrakool]

Okay so I think there are several points being addressed/mentioned here

1: A lot of you are talking about the reset. I agree that there is a lot of players waiting for reset and as such right now is not an accurate representation of how the player base would be after reset. There are still things to be done before reset but I feel we should wait for that before implementing/testing any changes to be able to fully see the impact.

2:  Having a collection faster (Not in weeks/months).

There are 2 main groups here. One that want a solid progression line and the feeling of building their cards from scratch, trading to get better cards and the other who want most(all) of their cards they previously owned without a lot of effort. Now before there was the possibility of buying BFP/gold to close this gap, however now we have to make a conpromise between these 2 types. The basic cards should provide a solid foundation, and they do, we have added t1 cards for every color, and a very reasonable base for building decks of all colors, on top of 2 premade decks. So if you compare the F2P experience with skylords compared to the original BattleForge you can see that skylords is much more beginner friendly. I think the idea of a temporary full collection in the beginning may seem like a good idea, however there is the downside that new players may be intimidated by the sheer amount of cards that there are. Not to mention the very immense game mechanics present in this game that are even more important to understand for pvp rather than pve. Therefore it is unrealistic to think that even with a full collection they will stand any chance against a more seasoned player. The way I see it there is only one good solution for this, and that is a healthy influx of new players. That way every player can find newbies at their card collection/upgrades/game knowledge level to have a taste of pvp. Mind you, it will not be a full pvp experience but at least it will not lead to as much(any) frustration compared to being roflstomped by old(er) players.

3: Auction House:

These are free markets, so with the auction house it may seem like the price is high simply because there isn’t enough supply of cards in the market, with the current model people are inclined to sell boosters, which means the net supply of boosters is much less as less boosters will be “bought” from the auction house itself. The high prices just reflect on that. I agree with the suggestion to make more BFP rewards/rather than boosters available and to scale up the BFP price and reward price.However, there is 1 unimplemented feature which will help with this abit We plan to release different edition/booster types which should also help a lot with specific card supply.

All in all these are very important things to think about, but I think you guys are rather biased based on the nostalgia and for a new player, it will not be the same experience or mindset. It is nearly impossible to increase progression while still maintaining some form of progression as with the current rate many have already complained it was too fast( we received some requests to reset people’s collection already)

[myraezel]

maybe we should clarify what the people actually want. i am a pvp only player. only means i dont want to do pve if not necessary. The old BF i played as a competetive pvp game. that was my fun.

here i often read people are only interested in pve. though i can hardly imagine why, because as already said there are better pve games, due even one of our devs is a pve only guy, maybe we should do a poll about that topic. if it comes out most want pve, then this game is probably just not my place, and then i shouldnt complain anymore

But this thread got strong activity since i opened it, so i guess many are interested on this question.

[Dallarian]

I'd to add something from me.
It took me 11 days to complete a full PvE Pure Frost deck (atleast one type of card, without cards like AoF and Mountaineer), with Dreadnoughts and Ironclads, War Eagles, Frost Mages, Core Dredges and so on, so that I had full PvE experience.
It took me 5-9 weeks to complete my PvP Pure Frost deck, in this time I was learning a lot of about PvP mechanics and in my view I became a decent PvP player.

I was upgrading my decks all the time, at the moment I have all the frost cards, most of them 3/3, I stopped selling things on AH and gathering them so that I can create Nature and Shadow decks.
I am playing for less than 2,5 month.

My experience with BF wasn't big, I learnt something about cards during closed beta/ during the project, in old Battleforge I only played Bad Harvest while using funny cards, so everything now I know is thanks to other players (I love you Master!).
When I see a newbie in PvP ranked, I start explaining them basics during the game and after it, but mostly they don't answer or insult me, what doesn't really push me into more advising.

In my view balance between collecting/progress and having all the cards in the project is really good, I can have good and fun cards really quickly, but if I want to get better deck, I must spend in game enough time to learn the game. I get knowledge and cards in similar time.

@myraezel Did you come across Toggy's tournaments?
 

[Raxaaa]

The game is great! No big changes would have success in my mind. We need more players who enjoy the game the way it is. 

Players must understand how this non-profit project works.

Is it possible to do more publicity for not much money? What can we players do?

More precence on platforms?

 

The versality of this game are the cards. It never will work like e-sport with same chances from the beginning. 

Also it will not work to bye things and bash players with no money before hopping to the next game.

Many players nowadays wants to spend not much time and have some success every day. I also would^^

But this doesn´t work in other games either.

The time will come and you must learn about ressourcemanagment, timings, winning conditions...

And you must learn from defeats. No 100% balanced game is possible. Other games hide this with patches soon after the last patch.

With more players and a better chance for beginners against beginners pvp would be fine.

 

i also like PVE.

The Campagnes will get boring soon. That´s fact. The diffrent cards resolve the problem.

more extra achievment boosters would be fine.

(without so many twilight and towers would be great XD )

It would be great when community maps are createable again and non pc-freaks could learn to do it by good guides.

 

 

i think publicity and communityevents could help us for more players.

 

sry for my english

[Kubik]

"It would be great when community maps are createable again" you maybe miss it  but community maps works

PvP rewards do not seem balanced to PvE at all, but on paper they are higher, but I think that should be discussion for another topic.

I know many players waiting for release, and I think many of them are PvP first players, that is why I do not worry about the PvP matchmaking just yet, because I expect it to get better after release.

There is no point in getting more players right now, because we can not tell them when we will reset.

[myraezel]

2 minutes ago, Dallarian said:

Did you come across Toggy's tournaments?

if thats the rookie tournament, i read about it. wasnt able to join due lack of time, but in case it was a spot for noobs to get in, my complaints should be lesser ofc. 

that your good willing got answered that cheap is unlucky and stupid of these ppl. in case we got to play some time, i would appreciate any advice

To make 1 point clear: I appreciate to work for my desired pvp deck too. I enjoyed the path to it in the old days very much. Difference is, in the old days we all had something to begin with. we had cards we could offer and sell, to get what we want, part by part. But here its tedious and boring. Every day since i began is like this:

Log in

Check quest timer

Wait

Do the 3 quests

Sell Booster

Buy 1-2 Nox Troopers (for example)

realise that there is nothing more to do for the day

log out

 

and why is this? because i cant play in any fun way pvp. for often enough told reasons. the people who say skill > deck are sry stupid - no offense.

and why there are no noobs around? because the gap is far to huge. my solution would be, to give any new account after the first timer treshold kinda 10-15 boosters. yes, that much. because then they can play at the market. can actually do something ingame. again, its beta, you want to wipe it anyways, so what u want in my opinion is as much people interested as possible. because thats healthy for the game. am i wrong?

[Kubik]

"10-15 boosters" that would be way too much multiaccounters trying, even 2 boosters for free was 100s multiaccounters creating 10000s of accounts to get these boosters.

"what u want in my opinion is as much people interested as possible" the current amount of players is enough to trigger the bug that causes the servers to crash why would we want even more people to experience that bad state of the game?

[MrAmumu]

3 hours ago, nofearek9 said:

what you expect ,to give you all cards and upgrades within a week? there are player here which are in game for more than a year.

its a test server so no need to worry in the release we will start all playing from day 1 ,with 0 bfps.so it will be fair for all.

totally new players will not play pvp unless they understand how the game works,by playing pve first as we did in the original release.

In vanilla BF, many players paid some money in order to get an accelerated start, avoid PvE as much as possible, and jump into PvP asap. For the people that preferred a slow progression, farming type game, they never paid any money and that's fine. But now with this new BF project, it only satisfies the PvE oriented players, with no middle ground for the PvP players. 

@Ultrakool Your statement "Therefore it is unrealistic to think that even with a full collection they will stand any chance against a more seasoned player" , is true but at least the newbie's chances at winning are EQUAL. There is absolutely no point in the noob to even attempt doing a 1v1 against a pro with a 120deck because he will always be handicapped by his weaker deck, thus he won't be able to improve his PvP skills. Radical already explained that having upgraded and higher quality cards provide a massive edge to the player that cannot be ignored. 

Your solution was to get a larger influx of players into this community. That's certainly a great thing, however, look at what would happen long-term. All the newbies would start playing PvP at the beginning with their weaker decks. Assuming these gamers are competitive and have a desire to win, at least 1 person will start farming and realize that the higher level your deck, the higher chances you have at winning. That person will easily defeat all the other noobs, and then the losers will complain. Eventually, everyone will realize that in order to win, you'll have to invest weeks and weeks of repetitive farming, which they (probably) don't want to do. And then our problem comes back once again. 

An interesting solution I've thought of was to allow every new player to obtain their first lv120 deck (with their preferred cards) a lot faster than multiple weeks (say 1 week for eg), then, for every other card thereafter, they'd follow the regular progression system currently in place. So, their second deck would take weeks. Same for third. Also, integrate Radical's idea about giving rewards and putting quests for ranked pvp games. This idea meets everyone at the middle point, since the PvP players would still have to engage in some PvE at the beginning, and actively participate in the AH if they want to work on their second/third deck, while the PvE players can still enjoy a slow progression system with card collecting after their 1st deck, and also enjoy an active AH where everyone is engaged. Finally, the PvP players would be happy since they'd be able to use their favorite element/deck in ranked games without feeling frustrated that they are handicapped by upgrades. 

Let me know what you think about this idea @Ultrakool @Kubik @RadicalX

[MrAmumu]

There was a huge discussion about what we're talking about back in 2016 in a forum titled "My one issue with the BattleForge reborn project - A proposal". Sadly, you are already getting new players complaining about how boring, long and tedious the PvE is, and how much they want to start PvP'ing on equal grounds xD Exactly what IdleAltruism predicted.

There definitely needs to be a change in how much time it takes to get 1 lv120 deck...

Edited April 8, 2019 by MrAmumu

[Kubik]

I can only imagine players abusing it to get deck full of promos and other expensive cards as their firs lvl 120 deck.
And how would new players know what they want? That would encourage multiacounting once again to figure out what they want.

And for you reasoning "at least 1 person will start farming and realize that the higher level your deck, the higher chances you have at winning" that player would gain higher ELO and no longer play with newbies  so I do not see a problem with it.

I did not know about this project in 2016 so I did not read that topic.

[Satzgubble]

The whole discussion does not help. The game was already boring at the end of the EA, because EA did not care. Here we have the last (already boring!) Version and no question, it's fun to play all the maps once again. Maybe it's fun to play it a second time. But then it will be difficult. I also just log in for the quests and then go offline again.

So it was especially in the first days, when I did not have enough maps to play the advanced maps.

We need new features, otherwise in the long run - just like with EA - no new players will stay longer than necessary and advanced players from that time will not find new challenges in always the same maps and if the players here pretend that the content is already sufficient, then I hope that the relevant people do not see it that way, because then their work was practically free. ;-)

Edited April 8, 2019 by Satzgubble

[MrAmumu]

39 minutes ago, Kubik said:

I can only imagine players abusing it to get deck full of promos and other expensive cards as their firs lvl 120 deck.
And how would new players know what they want? That would encourage multiacounting once again to figure out what they want.

And for you reasoning "at least 1 person will start farming and realize that the higher level your deck, the higher chances you have at winning" that player would gain higher ELO and no longer play with newbies  so I do not see a problem with it.

I did not know about this project in 2016 so I did not read that topic.

For your first point, I am not suggesting to give out their first 120 deck for free! I'm only suggesting to greatly increase the player's BFP/gold gain for only their first deck within a time limit (like 1 week), and put a BFP cap to prevent them from only seeking UR cards. Exclude promos from being purchased during this time too. The fact is, it currently takes over 1 month to even get one 120 deck viable for PvP, which is absurd. Changes in the current system need to happen. Being forced to play over 1 month of repetitive/farming-based PvE before being able to play PvP on a fair level is ridiculous. You might as well classify skylords reborn as primarily a PvE type game. 

The following is a quote from IdleAltruism, a person that I consider to be a respected veteran at the game: 
"The game isn't balanced around un-upgraded cards. Major pvp strategies cannot be used without upgrade 3, and certain cards are horribly inefficient until they get particular powerful upgrades. They completely change the way the game is played. Battleforge pvp is about replying to your opponent's moves power efficiently, and playing without upgrades makes that impossible in a lot of scenarios. Similarly, a lack of charges can be game breaking, although not entirely necessary for every single card; it's still important for a healthy portion of them. That is not even mentioning a disparity in upgrades between players. Just at a fundamental level, unupgraded cards don't work in pvp. Playing someone who doesn't have upgrades is absurdly unfair. 

Similarly, in order to even play some decks competitively, you need specific cards. Pure shadow needs a bunch of rares and a couple ultra-rares just to be functional. And charges are extremely important for Pure Shadow, in particular, as it can be a very spam heavy deck. The number of boosters you'd need for this would be pretty high, and in the end that is also a large part chance, since we don't know how the auction house will pan out. The need for charges also increases dramatically in 2v2.
[...]

PvP needs balance. Period. End of story. Having it in an arbitrary limbo is downright stupid as a design concept. This is not a stagnant PvE map where the challenge is to simply beat the boss. It is a match between players, and the playing field needs to be fair. If everyone were playing mirror matches, maybe this could work. But they won't be, and some people will get screwed because of that."
 

[Kubik]

"It is a match between players, and the playing field needs to be fair" that again imply all cards fully upgraded for everyone? Because otherwise I do not see a point in that sentence.

I just can not imagine "fair" meaning anything else than both players having exactly same same options, otherwise someone can say one options was better than the other, and it was not fair.

[MrAmumu]

3 minutes ago, Kubik said:

"It is a match between players, and the playing field needs to be fair" that again imply all cards fully upgraded for everyone? Because otherwise I do not see a point in that sentence.

I just can not imagine "fair" meaning anything else than both players having exactly same same options, otherwise someone can say one options was better than the other, and it was not fair.

Yes exactly. In PvP, everyone should have fully upgraded cards in their main deck. Now, I am not saying to give this out instantly at the beginning, but to make it easier/faster than the current system of 1+ months 

Edited April 8, 2019 by MrAmumu

[Kubik]

Can not imagine players that like the collecting aspect of the game to take less than month to get all cards fully upgraded. And what to do with that oversupply of cards after the first month?

[fiki574]

I'll say this again - we won't adapt to someone's personal time limits. Seems like few players are frustrated for the sake of not being able to collect all cards in a week, while playing 30 minutes daily. That's not how it works.

Also, progression, boosters, card ratios, etc. will not be the same as in Open Stress Test once we hit Open Beta. You're jumping to conclussions too quickly. Once we reset accounts, the level playing field will once again stabilize, and injection of new players should help with PvP aspect.

Edited April 8, 2019 by fiki574

[MrAmumu]

9 minutes ago, Kubik said:

Can not imagine players that like the collecting aspect of the game to take less than month to get all cards fully upgraded. And what to do with that oversupply of cards after the first month?

I'm suggesting to only accelerate the speed at which a player gets their first 120 deck which is max 20 unique cards. For every other card after, the progression would be normal like it is right now. So, the people who like card collecting would gain their first few cards faster, then the rest (which is the majority) would be much slower. 

 

4 minutes ago, fiki574 said:

I'll say this again - we won't adapt to someone's personal time limits. Seems like few players are frustrated for the sake of not being able to collect all cards in a week, while playing 30 minutes daily. That's not how it works.

Also, progression, boosters, card ratios, etc. will not be the same as Open Stress Test once we hit Open Beta. You're jumping to conclussions to quickly. Once we reset accounts, the level playing field will once again stabilize, and injection of new players should help with PvP aspect.

I am not suggesting to allow players to get ALL cards within  a week, but rather, only enough to make just 1 competitive deck for themselves. If you do this, plus integrate PvP rewards/quests, then your game will appeal to everyone.

You talk about personal time limits, but 1+ months to make only a single 120 deck is a joke

Edited April 8, 2019 by MrAmumu

[Ultrakool]

Maybe to that aspect of a boost in the beginning we can do x matches boost of gold? In pve or pvp or both.

@Kubik

[fiki574]

25 minutes ago, MrAmumu said:

I'm suggesting to only accelerate the speed at which a player gets their first 120 deck which is max 20 unique cards. For every other card after, the progression would be normal like it is right now. So, the people who like card collecting would gain their first few cards faster, then the rest (which is the majority) would be much slower. 

 

I am not suggesting to allow players to get ALL cards within  a week, but rather, only enough to make just 1 competitive deck for themselves. If you do this, plus integrate PvP rewards/quests, then your game will appeal to everyone.

You talk about personal time limits, but 1+ months to make only a single 120 deck is a joke

Elaborate the thesis on how would you accelerate the gain of a single 120 lvl deck. Easier said than done.

Ultrakool mentioned, and we're planning on, having more booster editions for specific card collections.

So, if you're going for pure nature deck, you'll buy pure nature booster at a much lower price than the regular, all-in-one booster.

[Treim]

The disparity in wishes and needs within the community is long since known. 

The PvP and (small) competitive speedrun part of the community need a lot of expensive and rare cards for them to play the game the way they want. That stands in contrast to beginners and more casual PvE Players as well as the collectors and traders. 

The easiest solution to this imo is to balance the game around the majority but give the PvP and speedrun community ways to gather their necassary cards fast anyways without impacting the majority to much/ at all.

That should be possible by adding quests and (mainly) achievements that the majority can not achieve or they have to go out of their way to do so. 

I am not well versed enough in regards to PvP that i feel confident enough to make proposals on how those achievement could look like. For the speedrun community you could add stuff like beating standard maps with low deck levels or with limitations to the amount of rare and ultra rare cards in certain time frames. You can scale those up for later stages of the game to get achievement chains as well. This could also serve as a goal for newer players. 

The achievement angle has the advantage that you can use a system you already have (planned) and you can limit the income of cards and bfp by making them 1 time rewards only. 

You could also try to give out specific cards as rewards to get the luck factor out of the way for those player groups. Some cards are absolutely mandatory for PvP and speedruns so giving those out for quests that are designed for those groups makes sense imo. Examples would be Cultist Master, Furnace of Flesh, Batariel, Enlightenment, etc. Obviously the higher valued cards should be hid behind harder achievements.

 

P.s. I am well aware that this is an unpolished idea and the actual values and design would need further discussion within your team.

Edited April 8, 2019 by Treim

[MrAmumu]

2 minutes ago, fiki574 said:

Elaborate the thesis on how would you accelerate the gain of a single 120 lvl deck. Easier said than done.

Ultrakool mentioned, and we're planning on, having more booster editions for specific card collections.

So, if you're going for pure nature deck, you'll buy pure nature booster at a much lower price than the regular, all-in-one booster.

In essence, for the first 2 weeks (for example), the player gets increased gold/BFP per completed quest, map, achievement, match, etc., kind of like a boost. In this timeframe, give the player booster pack discounts too. Like this, the new player would have a much more enjoyable time since he would be able to make his first favourite deck early on. But, if he/she wants to make more decks, he/she would have to grind and progress like normal. 

Also, make it a lot easier to upgrade cards to u3 since this doesn't affect the card collecting aspect of the game whatsoever, but reduces the amount of repetition the player needs to do on specific PvE maps. 

8 minutes ago, Treim said:

The PvP and (small) competitive speedrun part of the community

 

I remember back in the EA days, most of the player base of BF consisted of PvP players, with very little people grinding PvE. In 2016, the dev team explained how there would be a massive time requirement in PvE in order to enter PvP , and that scared away most of the old BF players (which were PvP players)

[Kubik]

@MrAmumu imagine a player that create an account play a match, have something else to do and come back two weeks later to found out there was some bonus he/she missed. 
"first favourite deck early on" how could new player know what will be favorite deck if they may not even know how many colors cards cane have.

@Treim Yet this is mostly what is planned, but we have exactly same problem as you (PvP achievements)  but Hawk did not want us to focus on quests too much because we still have bugs to fix