Remove lending LVL120 PVP decks

[macabi]

The latest patch which interduces the PvP collection mode is a commendable effort by the developers to address this issue.

However, I am afraid it is not going far enough to resolve the issue.

I predict most players will continue to play "Unlimited" PvP and  ignore the "Collection" PvP mode.

My suggestion is to change "Ranked PvP" to collection mode only and increase its Gold reward greatly in order to attract more players to that mode.

Higher gold reward will also be useful for grinding PvP cards.

 

[Linvega]

12 hours ago, Geradon said:

Dont know how people feel about this, but for me this changes absolutely nothing. If I play PVP, i play ranked exclusively. (Also I dont think people will use the option to play the Collection-Mode when there is a Free120-Mode or only use it very rarely, which leads to high Q times.)

If you would switch that change, so people can play anything in unranked, but actually need to use their own deck in ranked, that'd be perfect.

I mean unranked is meant for testing stuff, playing for fun etc. Ranked is - as the name says - a ranked mode with leaderboard etc. where you can expect people to put in a little work,  right? Also doenst farming cards & upgrades add longlivety to the game? 

I remember that games where you got everything instantly never had much of a replayability-factor for me.

Would love to know how other people feel about this.

 

I'd invert this. In Ranked, it should be skill that decides where you end up on the leaderboard. Not capacity for grinding. And the reality is that if you fight with a non-optimized deck vs an optimized, you WILL run into situations where you lose against fairly simple unit spams because you don't own a specific key card for that matchup, or it simply isn't upgraded high enough.

Also, talking for myself and my friend group of 4 people who play RTS together from time to time, we play games longer if they're balanced and fun. Grinding purely serves as a barrier to entry. It's much more satisfying to notice how you actually get better at the game and thus win more, as opposed to winning more because you have plainly better cards.

Tbh I have a hard time even understanding the sentiment of wanting grinding for PVP. I can understand liking grinding in PVE, because there you're playing against a (rather dumb) AI and thus balancing makes no sense - if it was balanced, you'd win everytime. But in PVP, adding grinding just means that you're forced to play uninteresting non-games.

I remember back when BF was still an EA game and I started out with lvl ~60, reasonably decent shadow/frost deck on low ladder. Roughly a third of my games, I'd play against a clearly terrible lvl 30 or so deck and completely stomp the opponent, even though I wasn't much better in terms of micro etc. . Another third of the time, I'd play against a lvl 100+ netdeck (often pure fire) and get completely stomped myself and again, not because I necessarily played worse. Actually interesting games, against OPs with similar deck lvls that are similarly optimized, seemed like the minority of matches. Only after I got lvl 100+ myself, reached a higher rank and had all the important cards, games were decided by skill. I don't mind getting stomped if the OP is actually clearly better. But if I had as little time back then as I have now, I don't think I'd have persevered until then.

 

Edited January 1, 2021 by Linvega

[Eirias]

18 hours ago, Dallarian said:

I disagree.

My normal PvP deck differs by one card with free deck available, making it already perfect for PvP - my change is actually a "nerf" of deck.

Ultakool's main point was that the free pvp decks are completely known by your opponent. If you have a fire nature deck, for example, I can build t3 right next to you because I know that you don't have scorched earth.

 

If I'm not sure if you're using the free decks as-is, I should be concerned about that card.

[ndclub]

2 hours ago, Eirias said:

Ultakool's main point was that the free pvp decks are completely known by your opponent. If you have a fire nature deck, for example, I can build t3 right next to you because I know that you don't have scorched earth.

 

If I'm not sure if you're using the free decks as-is, I should be concerned about that card.

It currently lets you swap out cards in the free decks though which I think is leading to a lot of the issues people are complaining about. You not only get cards and levels, but also have customizability on top of that. That makes it feel like you "own" the cards from the free deck which makes acquiring those cards feel worse.

If the free decks were locked in and unchangeable that would be a slight fix to this issue. You could also make it to where you can't play the same free deck each week and force a bit of rotation to make it feel less "owned" but still remove the barrier to entry. 

I think free PVP decks are one of the best additions to the game and I have been loving nearly always having someone to play. However, I think with tweaks we can tackle a lot of the issues people are having with them in this thread. 

[Torban]

5 hours ago, Linvega said:

I'd invert this. In Ranked, it should be skill that decides where you end up on the leaderboard. Not capacity for grinding. And the reality is that if you fight with a non-optimized deck vs an optimized, you WILL run into situations where you lose against fairly simple unit spams because you don't own a specific key card for that matchup, or it simply isn't upgraded high enough.

Also, talking for myself and my friend group of 4 people who play RTS together from time to time, we play games longer if they're balanced and fun. Grinding purely serves as a barrier to entry. It's much more satisfying to notice how you actually get better at the game and thus win more, as opposed to winning more because you have plainly better cards.

Tbh I have a hard time even understanding the sentiment of wanting grinding for PVP. I can understand liking grinding in PVE, because there you're playing against a (rather dumb) AI and thus balancing makes no sense - if it was balanced, you'd win everytime. But in PVP, adding grinding just means that you're forced to play uninteresting non-games.

I remember back when BF was still an EA game and I started out with lvl ~60, reasonably decent shadow/frost deck on low ladder. Roughly a third of my games, I'd play against a clearly terrible lvl 30 or so deck and completely stomp the opponent, even though I wasn't much better in terms of micro etc. . Another third of the time, I'd play against a lvl 100+ netdeck (often pure fire) and get completely stomped myself and again, not because I necessarily played worse. Actually interesting games, against OPs with similar deck lvls that are similarly optimized, seemed like the minority of matches. Only after I got lvl 100+ myself, reached a higher rank and had all the important cards, games were decided by skill. I don't mind getting stomped if the OP is actually clearly better. But if I had as little time back then as I have now, I don't think I'd have persevered until then.

 

Can really feel you there. Matches against opponents with different deck levels is almost pointless. I had to work a lot harder than any of my opponents ever had to when climbing with a low deck level. Spam grinding pve just to be able to play pvp was always a poor decision and I hope they don't ever take this suggestion of removing the free decks from ranked seriously. Most people who want that just want to get wins they don't deserve from being more grinded than their opponents even if they won't admit it. Pvp needs to be on the most even ground possible for anyone to actually play it and that means putting people on an even footing.

Edited January 1, 2021 by Torban

[macabi]

Long time ago I suggested adding deck level range to the setup of PvP games.

For example, the game will allow deck level from 1 to 20, or 20 to 60 and so on.

This feature will insure that players with similar deck levels play together.

The downside is that it requires more PvP players so there is enough games to accommodate everyone.

Therefore, I believe that much higher gold reward should be given in PvP games.

Right now it's easier to grind gold in PvE.

I enjoy PvP much more than PvE yet I feel I am forced to play Random PvE because of the greater gold reward.

[nofearek9]

free pvp deck can be up to level2 card like the tome pvp we had in the past,will help new players get the idea and if they want to play pvp they can create a deck.

Edited January 1, 2021 by nofearek9

[macabi]

I don't think the developers can nerf or take away the Unlimited decks now.

Some players will get upset.

We need to find a way to encourage players to play Collection decks instead of Unlimited.

That can be done via more boosters/BFP/Gold rewards for playing with collection cards.

Edited January 1, 2021 by macabi

[Zyna]

22 minutes ago, macabi said:

I don't think the developers can nerf or take away the Unlimited decks now.

Some players will get upset.

We need to find a way to encourage players to play Collection decks instead of Unlimited.

That can be done via more boosters/BFP/Gold rewards for playing with collection cards.

We are not going to remove the free PvP decks and we are also going to keep them at level 120. We also are not looking to encourage the collection mode over the unlimited mode. The collection mode was added as a secondary option for players who enjoyed playing with messy decks in the early stages of the game against other beginners. Forcing players to use the collection mode in ranked play will eventually result in beginners facing veterans with fully upgraded decks, which they have earned after months of grinding. Do you think it's fair that the player with the low level deck loses, even if they might actually be better at the game than the player who just happened to start playing earlier? I will be moving this to rejected, as the original suggestion was to "Remove lending of free PvP decks". If you have any other suggestions, such as introducing a fee for the free PvP decks, feel free to make a suggestion.

Best regards, Zyna.