Alright, Here are 3 potentially Awesome ideas that can change the direction of the Game!

Feature Requests and Game feedback
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Okay, this is a thread to see if people can ‘upvote’ a set of ideas that Can and Will drastically change the course of the game (for the better).
(Note this is a ‘longer’ read and best looked over by those with the time and inclination to do so, who really want to see something “More” in Gems, fulfilling it’s potential)

Short and Long post versions, short with the ‘ideas’, long version with the ideas and some technicalities addressed along with venting etc (please read what is appropriate for your mindset, thank you)

SHORT VERSION -

1 - Customizable cards (‘secondary heroes’ or just basic ‘forged’ from scratch cards) for the premise of putting in your own ‘traits’ into troops, so as to counter the repetitive pvp aspect of the game always forcing you to select a mish-mash of troops just for their one or two necessary traits (like impervious).

2 - Kingdom ‘pvp’ that actually involves attacking each kingdom individually, with a more structured form of pvp whereby each kingdom has to have at least 2 (with your hero) or 3 (without hero) units from that said kingdom.
Each ‘kingdom’ territory being attacked has it’s own ‘buffs/debuffs’ to troops based on theme, i.e. Krakens that are ‘water’ based will get a massive debuff in hot, arid areas like the Lion Desert Kingdom and Blighted Lands, making them ‘unviable’ to use in such areas. All units would have a base ‘bonus/neutral/debuff’ aspect to each territory and they would be easily shown off the same system the ‘identify traitstone’ feature currently used to show which kingdoms have the ‘bonus’ traitstones in the explore mode.

This practically eliminates the current problem of the same 5 over-powered cards dominating pvp as well as providing a much more fun’ realistic’ strategic aspect to the game, as it would have the same ‘world map’ used as a weekly pvp mode (much like guild wards now) and would give completionists, theme-oriented players as well as veterans something new and exciting to ‘work towards’, as well as making things much more fair than the current pvp.

3 - Cool down timers to ensure abilities (spells) are not ‘spam’ cast in the same continous ‘match-4’ turns over and over (i.e. Kraken getting to cast devour repeatedly in the same ‘turn’).

This is BASIC Puzzle Quest mechanics in all 3 prior games (and other puzzle games like ‘Puzzle Chronicles’ etc) but somehow got missed in this.
Also note people argue, “well it’s too late for that it was designed as not having them”. Premise here is that not having timers was appropriate in the earlier stages of the game when units like ‘Krakens’, Mabs etc didn’t exist, when the ‘average’ skill was doing ‘4 damage’.

Now, with ‘insta-kill’ spells, not having timers is completely unacceptable, as it’s become the ‘norm’ to play for 10-15 minutes constantly building up your guys, then all the sudden to be wiped out in one ‘turn’ (through repeated match 4s) by AI spamming kraken devours etc.

The game is not what it was and therefore needs to be ‘changed’ with cool-down timers.

Please see this Puzzle Quest 2 video before commenting on this idea (!!)

Let’s Play Blind - Puzzle Quest 2 part 111 HD Finale

LONG VERSION -

It goes without saying the last ‘update’ was a dragging through the mud generally speaking, and the lame repetitive same-units over and over in pvp are pushing the last straw of reasonableness in the game. (Making reasonable people want to leave).

Here are 3 ideas that can totally change the ‘random’ nature of the game the way it is now (some sort of frankenstein ‘cash-grab’ without any real direction) and make it into something that will get players excited to long into…

Without further ado… -

  1. Add “Heroes” to the game -
  • I have no idea if it’s been mentioned before (probably has), but I’m reiterating it here and now for a proper clarification and discussion of ‘why’ this would be a great idea, and how to go about implementing it.

‘Why’ -

Heroes, simply put, allow you to ‘custom-make’ the type(s) of card(s) you -like to play-, to counter specific other cards (cough kraken cough etc) that have an unreasonable strangle-hold on the game as it is now.

Clarification - since I’m sure countless people will be saying, “But I WiNZ AlrAyDEEEE NouZZZ!!!111” and not quite get it, note the stress in ‘like to play’

Part of what’s driven off (and will continue to drive off) many players from a game like this with infinite potential, is that of late most have been noting how you’re getting ‘forced’ to play into a certain set of cards, units and general strategies… Why? because it’s all in an attempt to counter those few lame ‘op’ (overpowered) cards (such as kraken etc).

This ‘Hero’ idea isn’t just ‘about winning’ (or trying to win, more correctly put), it’s about being able to play the ‘style’ of game you want, without having to be pigeon-holed into the few cards that have a certain counter, like ‘impervious’ for kraken.

Here’s the details - Using myself as an example, I love to play strong, beefy, gladiatorial ‘Valorious’ types of cards/units/heroes/characters in any type of game I play. In this game, that was provided for by units such as ‘Anointed One’, Jarl Firemantle, etc It went great, till units like Mab, Kraken , etc came out.

As we now, cards like anointed etc have become all but useless. In order for me to have a ‘chance’ at getting a reasonable ‘win rate’, I now have the old “If you can’t beat them, Join them” scenario, if i want to actually win once in a while, I too have to play with Mab, Kraken, etc.

This is not acceptable, as pairing up an Ice Queen, with a squid, with some whacky troll, is simply not my idea of a ‘Strong, Masculine Valorious’ team.

It just isn’t, before we all get uptight about political correctness, understand there are ‘themes’ involved here. Sometimes I want to play a ‘Mechanically inclined group of robots and dwarves.’… Or a dark sinister "Sorceror and Magick’ team.

Etc… the idea is you want to play a certain ‘theme’ and style, NOT just have the same ‘5 cards’ in your build, Kraken with some troll with some whatever random mess that just happens to be the ‘leetest unit’ at the time.

At this point the premise should be clear, you either play ‘how’ you want in the style you want, and still enjoy the game, OR, currently, have a chance at ‘winning’, but be forced to pick the few units the game provides. Giving you no ‘theme’ or role-playing (for lack of a better term) aspect whatsoever.

There are two types of gamers, those who want the ‘end result’ of ‘just winning’.
And those that play for the ‘journey’, which includes feeling the ‘theme’ and trying new things out etc.

Obviously, the first types are currently ‘satisfied’ with the game, since their gaming ritual simply involves in getting the newest ‘best’ card, then proceeding to imitate said other similar types of gamers who then beat each other over the head with the same basic cards over and over.

The other second type, who enjoy the ‘journey’, most have long since left and few who are still here are severely strained in their enjoyment of the game (obviously my current position).

Technical Details - This ‘Hero’ card is NOT the main ‘guy’ you are, as it is now. (although if it was more ‘feasible’ to implement your main guy could be made the focus of this idea). The idea here is you basically get to build ‘custom cards’, starting from the ground up, around how -you- want the card to be.
This means things like ‘race’, ‘type’, and the associated special skills/traits etc.

This allows you to build a ‘theme’ based team, that makes people who like to explore new ways and themes in the game feel satisfied, but still give you a reasonable chance at winning somewhat.
So for me, I love golems and units that ‘build’ up their power, like Anointed one. Using the Anointed one as an example, I would basically build a card like that, but change up one of his traits to include ‘impervious’. So now, as if by ‘magic’!.. He all the sudden becomes viable in pvp again.

Wow amazing.

Continuing the example, I would love to have an all golem (or golem+plus main Hero) type team. So I would custom build various golems who would have ‘impervious’, plus the various cool things I’d want them to have.
Again I can now face pvp again without having to constantly be destroyed by krakens.

There is simply no reason -not- to have this feature in the game. It basically allows certain ‘personality’ types the chance to play the types of units they want, without being forced into the ‘drawbacks’ that the units in the game force on you if you want to play those types of units as they are already in the game. (being stuck with their current-build traits etc).

The fact that whatever you ‘customize’ is already limited to what all the other units are limited to means no, you can’t ‘overpower’ any other card out there.

Only last (expected) reflexive response to this idea would be ‘but elite cards give devs money’. It’s cheesy to have to point this out, but it goes without saying ‘crafting’ Heroes would take a bunch of time and resources (akin to the ‘Forge’) which would, if anything, give the devs A TON OF MONEY as now people actually have something they WANT to give money for, as compared to now which is just trash random chests ‘hoping’ to get those same 5 units to ‘beat’ everyone else with.

(If a personal note has to be said, I will never put a cent of money into this game again after the recent Krakens and UI update. Put in customizable Heroes however, and watch the money flow… (lol…))

2nd Idea -

A mind-blowing awesome idea, which is in fact rather ironic (see the end of this part for that…).

Basically, - Proper PvP Where you ‘Fight’ to Take Over Each Individual Kingdom on the World Map (as opposed to just the random ‘set teams’ people are using now)

Explanation - The way pvp is Now, is a horrendous mess of just fighting the same basic units over and over, since they are the most ‘leet’ and everyone wants to win etc. (This has already driven off a huge chunk of players, it is a noted problem as the devs themselves tried to set up a system of ‘better rewards’ the more varied your teams are in defense).

Now imagine this - You log in, and your ‘weekly Guild Wars’ pvp has started.
You open up your ‘Guild Wars’ tab, and what do you see? the World Map, but this time each kingdom has a ‘Unbattled’ icon on it.
Your ‘mission’ now, for the weekly Guild Wars pvp, is to systematically ‘take over’ each and every individual kingdom.

So why is this such a great idea? because that’s the start of it… the way it ‘works’ is this -

Each kingdom now has it’s – Own Units – tied into that kingdoms defense.

So - That means No More Krakens in the parched desert sun of the Lion Kingdom, no ‘Knight Khorvashes’ in the dark sinister Undead Kingdom, etc… (!!!)

The idea is each kingdom has a ‘unique defense’ team set to it, worked out something like Your Hero (actual named Hero), 2 of the - Kingdom’s Own - units, plus ‘one extra’ you are free to decide on.

Forcing at least 2 units (or maybe 3 if you don’t want to use your own ‘Hero’), means you’re always going to face a basically different team in each kingdom. So basically people will actually have FUN playing this game again cause now each ‘kingdom’ you fight you -Know- it’ll be a cool team that’s somewhat based off the actual units in that kingdom, NOT just trash krakens over and over.

It goes without saying another layer would be to ‘add’/subtract bonuses and stats from units based on their current kingdom battle. Meaning this, if you take an ice/water dwelling creature (like mab, kraken etc) and ‘use’ them to fight in a dry/desert/fire themed kingdom, you’re going to get such a debuff to your stats it’ll make using that creature not worthwhile.
So you’re not only “facing” different teams based on the kingdom, but you’re also being forced to USE different teams in extreme situations, making the game that much more fun cause now you’re actually using different teams, you know, not just mab/kraken over and over (lol…)

So if I’m going to take over Blighted Lands (fire scenario), or Lion Kingdom (heat/desert scenario), then if I bring a kraken it’ll have lowered stats, -and- a lowered blue mana (etc) collection rate, making kraken an unwise choice in that scenario.
What to do? WOW, could it be?? You know, actually use one of the other 200 units in the game, one that wouldn’t face such a massive debuff and still provide fun and enjoyment.

This also ties into the ‘weekly’ event, whereas now it’s a lame ‘hope to get more gems’ treatment, doing things to collect points to get ‘rewards’.
With this new “World Map” take-over scenario, the ‘event’ will actually be COOL, as in that one kingdom (i.e. ‘forest week of maugrim’) and it’s creature types, will get massive bonuses that will make taking over that kingdom really really hard (and therefore fun).

It would be the ‘final’ kingdom people would want to face, and they would do so after sharing strategies and tips and tricks in chat and the forums.
(spelled out - meaning greater player retention as people worked together to ‘beat’ the game, instead of people venting their frustrations at pvp and then being fanboied out of the game etc, as it currently stands now)

Properly done, there is absolutely -No- downside to this whatsoever, as it basically simply ‘opens up’ the game to the way it was meant to be played.
The ‘ironic’ note mentioned earlier, was that what do you think the dev intended to begin with?
He had that idea to begin with for sure but the development cycle probably didn’t have time to implement it as intended, and they started with a more basic format.

Put another way, if you ever play Puzzle Quest 1 you’ll see exactly what this idea is about, as that whole game is you with your ‘Hero Team’ attacking the teams relevant to the kingdom.

The fact it’s a ‘World Map’ gives completionist types something to strive for, knocking off a couple of kingdoms each day and feeling good about it. Take a bit of time to form a team against that kingdom, try it out, rinse/repeat as necessary.

People would be ‘ranked’ on how many kingdoms they beat, how many attempts they had to make, etc.

The purpose of this thread was to see not only the interest in this idea, but also to see the ‘nay-sayers’. I’m very excited to see how anyone could possibly think this a ‘bad’ idea, especially considering it’s almost already easy to implement considering that’s partly what the ‘flag’ idea is for (each ‘flag’ (“kingdom”) is set with it’s own team.

This just makes it more ‘tangible’ by having a concrete ‘World PvP Map’ players can use to set both ‘defense’ and ‘attack’ teams with.

Please let me know what you guys think!!

3rd ‘idea’.

I put the ‘idea’ in quotes because, it isn’t something ‘new’ or whacked out.

It’s something that was done in ALL the Puzzle Quest games by the main dev of this game (three of them).

That is, A LIMIT TO THE NUMBER OF CASTS PER SINGLE TURN.

Put another way, using the 3 prior Puzzle Quests as the example, every spell ‘cast’ has a cool-down timer.

– Please view this Video showing how any/all ‘normal’ match-3 games work, also consider these were all made by the same dev of this game and were massive best-sellers (meaning the ‘mechanics’ of the combat made sense, if it would have been ‘frustrating’ they wouldn’t have sold so well).

Let's Play Blind - Puzzle Quest 2 part 111 HD Finale - YouTube

Let’s Play Blind - Puzzle Quest 2 part 111 HD Finale

(what you need to look for is both at how the gems ‘light up’, signifying you have ‘enough mana to cast’, but -also- the slow but sure ‘charging’ of the cool-down timer from left-to-right, represented graphically by the ‘light vs shadow’ hiding or revealing the spell.

So if I cast simple/basic spell ’ do 4 damage ', you would assign the minimum cool-down of 1 turn.
If you got something ridiculous like Krakens " EyE KeELLZZZz uuuUUURRRR TeeeeMMMM " devour, it might have a 3-4 turn timer (because it’s a much more powerful ‘spell’ than simply doing 4 damage).
OR, it might just be limited to ‘once-a-turn’, more on that later.

In practice (and why this is important) -

Okay so you’re doing your match, as we all know there are ridiculous situations where you might be playing for 15+ minutes, building up your guys (like anointed ones raising his stats etc), then all the sudden BAM!!!

AI gets 4s OVER AND OVER… and BAM one by one all your guys die INSTANT-LEEEEEEEE

as Kraken drowns them ALL WITHIN ONE TURN.

The premise is that when you start ‘matching 4s’, you keep in ‘one turn’, but you’re getting the mana.
Hence you get these ridiculous matches where you play for minutes on end, building up your guys, and in one ‘fell-swoop’, units like kraken get to use their massive magic ability OVER AND OVER.

because there is no ‘cool-down’ timer.

Whether you have it ‘geared to the power of the spell’ (as in minimum 1 turn or up to 3-4 turns) cool-down, OR, a minimum ‘one turn’ simply to prevent ridiculous repeat ‘spam’ casts by the same unit (leading to total wipes in 10 seconds after you played for 15 minutes), the idea is the same –

– By Limiting Casting to Once a Turn you Effectively make this game Playable Again. (!!!)

Can’t be stated enough, this was defacto STANDARD in all three prior Puzzle Quest games (lol funny part is I’m currently replaying through Puzzle Quest 2 and it struck me how much more ‘fun’ it is than GoW, yet I didn’t think of correlating the cool-down timers as part of it… at least not to put in GoW forums…)

I believe I owe thanks to ‘Rabash’ in chat for mentioning it (reminded me of how the game should be done, lol…)

Anyways guys give a heads-up to what you think of the ideas!!

These 3 ideas implemented all have the power to totally change the direction of the game.

If it has to be said there are only two main ways to ‘design’ as game (yes, there are tons of ‘studies’ that prove this you can look up, but as a long time gamer it’s become obvious over the years…)

You either -

1 - cater to the ‘new’ crowd, usually typified in ‘mobile’ markets, gaining profit by that ‘quick fix’ method where new players with ‘rose-tinted glasses’ on want to do anything to ‘get a better chance’ at winning in the game. (This is done by creating a ‘friction’ element whereby anything they try to do is slowed down/made less fun/takes too long etc, driving them to ‘purchase’ to shorten the ‘get their fix’ aspect)
This method almost always comes at the cost of ‘long-term players’, who, you know, expect things like game design, ‘fun’, fairness, and long term viability in the game they like to play.
Recent updates have shown this all too clearly in this game.

2 - cater to ‘long term players’, by providing ‘value’ for their gaming time. Stuff isn’t a ‘grind’ (“friction”), but instead, so much -fun- that even though things take ‘longer’, people still like to play and do so willingly.
Strangely, this leads to the effect whereby people put in money to the game not because they ‘Need’ to, but because they – Want to --.

Stuff like, "hey Man I’m so Excited to build that New Hero Card I want!! Yeah I don’t mind paying 10 bucks to get it underway with that one trait I want to stop that @$#%@!$#^$^&%&$% Kraken’s Insta-Death scheist!!!1111

Woo-Hoo I’m so happy after that I want to try taking over the kingdoms see if I can do it with an average win rate of 4 tries instead of 6, I want to beef up my ogre kingdom I like ogres want to craft some traits for them think I’ll buy some diamonds for crafting … "

etc etc

The game was designed around the ‘friction’ route, when they decided to put such unbalanced spells like devour etc (knowing full well so few cards have a chance against it). The theory is that leads the ‘whale’ buyers to purchasing gems to get kraken ‘faster’.
This in turn alienates those that actually ‘want’ to play the game for the game, not just to ‘win’.

The 3 aforementioned ideas would put the game back onto the ‘long term’ “actually playing for fun” second road, instead of the cash-grab 1st road.

You, as the players, can decide which way it goes…

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Ok since your OP was quite long enough i will keep this brief ok? Ok.

  1. No thank you.
  2. No thank you.
  3. No thank you.

Have a lovely evening.
Vangor

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Using this post as an example, as noted in the opening post, I want to hear - why - those 3 ideas wouldn’t be great ideas to change the path of the game.

Let’s try to keep this thread concise and not spam it with mindless ‘no’s’.

(Remember tons of people have left recently, let’s not try to push away the last few remaining ‘hopefuls’…)

Thanks for letting me use your post as an example, no personal attacks were intended or implied in my post

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Keep the thread concise? After the longest OP in forum history… okay, let’s try.

Idea 1: feels really complex and unnecessary, plenty of ways to give us new options already, or to balance up and down troops to moderate metacrap and create variety. Your suggestion feels contrived and doesn’t fit, and would be a massive dev effort sink. No thanks

Idea 2: I like the idea of kingdoms bringing modifiers or new conditions to the game, like a desert area penalising blue troops and so on, yes. Have suggested similar before myself. I think it’s more likely to come via events or separate challenge game modes, and your version using the map for pvp would again be too complex to work.

Idea 3: has been suggested before. To mixed response. Cool down timers interesting. I think this would change the game too much at this stage. Loops are part of the game - rightly so where player skill and effort creates them, such as alchemist/hellcat loops. Removing these is a bad idea. Loops where the AI can spam spells at you are the problem - solution should be to adjust those troops so they aren’t creating overpowered combos.

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1 - this would be a mess. If people could customize cards, I doubt they would play obscure cards – they would give impervious to kraken. They would overpower the already overpowered cards.

There’s nothing stopping you from playing themes now. I have a crew of knights, one of dwarves, etc. And yes, I can win with them in PvP, too.

2 - You mention this as Guild Wars, but there’s no indication that you’d be playing against other people, just randomly selected cards from a kingdom. Isn’t that Explore?

I do like the idea of themed take overs, like, this week we invade one kingdom at a time, in GW you make a Silverglade team and a Sword’s Edge team instead of mono colors, maybe as a one-off event.

But then you mentioned possibly having advantages/disadvantages (e.g. kraken gets a decrease in the desert) which means this would be a headache to sort out, which contradicts your “easy to implement” idea. (Eg, should all blue Mana users take a hit in the desert? That would penalize Emperor Khorvash, but NOT Kraken … Would it be based on theme, and not colors? That requires someone deciding manually.)

3 - this could be interesting, but I think the Mana cost is supposed to serve as a cool down timer. The problem is loops making multiple casts viable.

Last thing: this thread would be more concise if you spent less time talking up your ideas and how no one could possibly disagree with them, and more time just explaining your thoughts and letting them stand for themselves.

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I really feel no need to enunciate the numerous reasons these are bad ideas… @Jainus had some good reasons but there are many more…

You mean how you have been spamming other threads with mindless ranting? One of which you were responding to people who have been gone for months at least by telling to check out this silly thread…

Tons of people are always leaving… That is human nature… Some i was sad to see go others… Not so much. Wonder which you would be… :thinking:

Sure no personal attacks except calling my post mindless… But whatever i could give a poo… Bye felicia

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Desperate times call for Desperate Measures…
(lol!..)

lol, that’s the most important thing…

Already being done in another match-3 game already (few weeks ago saw that ‘match-3’ competitor game, thought it was too convoluted and complicated, it had ‘heroes’ (with more or less customization options), and brushed it off.
Realizing how whack and obtuse this game has gotten even after giving it every chance I can, I’m starting to feel compelled to play that other game.
At least it gives you options regarding some kind of customization, ultimately opinions like ‘it’s too complex’ ‘too much dev work’ don’t matter, it’s the premise of if a possible (quite plausible feature) that can be put in the game ‘should’ be put in the game.
As it stands with pvp being basically unplayable (unless you like using the same ‘counter-team’ over and over for hours) then we need to look at how we can change things.

Really? just finished reading a thread mentioning how contrived and whack the pvp was/is in this game, and nothings changed but the addition of Kraken which makes it even more nonsense.
Basically I’m not seeing those ‘options’, and neither is any other sane player.

It’s basically no different than what the devs do constantly (making new cards by ‘assembly line’ production) by doling out ‘new kingdoms’ every once in a while, but difference is we get the power to craft our own cards to be able to somewhat counter the lame op cards in the game.

“Time Sink” is what players feel when they pvp and only come out frustrated and annoyed, it’s a question of ‘time sink’ for the devs to then in turn create retention in their game.
Nothing in this world -isn’t- a time sink it’s a question of what are you trying to achieve.

Overall you are mentioning ‘opinions’ (which are fine), the only valid consideration is the time required to put something like that in the game, that’s an obvious ‘given’ but the benefits far outweigh the costs. It’s all about if you want the game to be for new players or to retain older players, but that’s been addressed already.

That’s by far the most important aspect of the thread post, but trick is to realize it only comes across as ‘cool’ if it’s tied into the whole map ‘pvp’ as a whole. Separating them as ‘separate events’ or ‘challenge’ game modes is cheap and lame, exactly like how events work now – who cares? Nobody does.
Until pvp is tied into having to use each and every kingdom nobody’s going to take it seriously.

I know I’m going to sound inflammatory as heck , but have you played any other games (designed of late) other than this one?
They already have a map lol for crying out loud all they would have to do on the ‘back-end’ (simplifying of course) is arguably link the ‘flag teams’ as people have them now to the graphical representations on the world map, including the buffs/debuffs specific to each card.
Sorry to sound inflammatory but I don’t know how people constantly cop-out for the devs when things aren’t that hard to implement.

I didn’t say it would be ‘easy’, but far from impossible. I think at this state of the game something like that would be fantastic to get players into the game, but then again I’m thinking of all the other games I played in the past so maybe I have higher standards.

Quoting about cool-down timers - " I think this would change the game too much at this stage."

The devs crossed (and ‘burned’ ) that bridge when they implemented ‘insta-kill’ abillities.

The game as it was ‘designed’ did -Not- include such ridiculous ‘op’ nonsense. Saying “it’s too late we can’t do xyz” doesn’t make sense when the game has become - so different - of late.

There was nothing wrong with ‘repeating’ abilities, when those abilities were reasonable like ‘do 5 damage’, like you know, how 95% of the cards have.
But then they brought out khorvashes, krakens and mabs which means if you ‘double up’ your ability you can pretty much wipe a whole team out. (In One ‘Turn’)

Sorry for having to stress that in a reply towards you, it’s meant for the general viewership who can understand this aspect better.

" Loops are part of the game. " - Exact issue as stated, loops were designed when the game was ‘reasonable’, it isn’t anymore.

Okay, well strangely enough looks like you basically agree with me on the third point (in the original post), but question is, if they won’t take out the ridiculous insta-kill abilities, then cool-down timers are a fantastic way to ‘solve’ that without inherintly changing any troops as they now are.

You made me realize people need to see the actual ‘normal’ puzzle quest games in action I will try to link a video in the opening post, it’s a more ‘sane’ way to play as compared to the nonsense as it is now.

Thanks for the input spread the word

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Please take personal matters to PM.

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I don’t want to quash creativity & free thinking, as it’s certainly the basis of most progress in the world. You’re clearly passionate about this and that’s fantastic! There may even be shreds of useful implementation buried in there but I’m unsure because like 90% of the people who start reading your novel, I started skipping whole sections trying to just get the gist of it without having to take the time to read it all.

If you want serious attention to this you can’t mash 3 completely unrelated complex ideas together into a single thread and then try to discuss all 3 simultaneously AND get anything useful out of the discussion.

Itslike1bigrunonsentencethatsomeonewasspewingoutinasinglebreathasfastastheycouldspeakitthatnoonecouldcomprehendenoughofittobeabletoformulateaproperresponsetoit.

1 topic at a time and don’t start the next one until the previous one runs its course.

My personal thoughts on what I’ve been able to comprehend is that although the ideas sound cool, implementing any of them would likely make the game unplayable by just as many or more people than you’re claiming have left the game because GoW is “on the wrong path”. In my opinion, GoW would cease being the game I signed up for and would be a whole nother game entirely. GoW is certainly not perfect by any stretch, can be frustrating even, but 1.5 years into this and I’m still here with no current intention of going anywhere.

And if the path GoW is on is the “money grab” path, then it’s failing at that pretty miserably from my point of view. I haven’t spent any money on it in months and don’t feel pressured to do so in order for it to be more fun.

I can’t help but feel you’re trying to force the proverbial square peg into the round hole… Besides, I want the devs to spend time fixing things that are broken, not redeveloping the game from scratch.

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I was afraid of the inevitable “but the cards would be too powerful!!!11”, I’m confused at how people could say that when the traits/abilites/spells etc are all from the same ‘pool’, there’s nothing there that the player could do that isn’t ‘in play’ already.

I do understand however, and I should edit my post to point this out, that the trick would be the design of the customization itself.
It would be pretty simple and how the devs are doing it now, you simply ensure abilities are selected from the ‘pool’ with obvious ‘trade-offs’.
Meaning each ability/affect etc all have some sort of ‘power’ level, and if you select an ability from said ‘high’ power level you couldn’t select more. It was a bit of a ‘given’ in the topic but forgive me I should be including it in the original post.

There is simply no way to make a ‘more’ leet card than what they have already, bottom line. (there is no way to make the game any more ‘offense’ based, customizing cards would mainly work to allow for the ‘countering’ and theme-based aspect, which is the most sorely needed thing in the game at this point.)

I do agree though of all the suggestions this would be the toughest to implement and least likely that the devs would want to introduce.

Yeah, gonna have to respectfully disagree on that with you there, as the many ‘I’m Sick of pvp!!’ threads that there are, I think most realize pvp is a sham at this point.
(put another way, I’m sure those teams of ‘dwarves’, knights, etc includes the 2 killer leet dwarves, knights include khorvash, etc… )
Actually I’d be interested in hearing which dwarf team you’d be using against the troll/kraken etc.

Yeah you reminded me I made a mental note to myself to add, at the end, ‘the Guild Wars’ title isn’t necessary as having to be defined for guilds, but basically insert whatever term you want to signify a ‘pvp mode’ where you try to take over the world and it’s kingdoms.
Whether it’s literally fighting ‘guilds’ or using ‘random pvp’ people is kinda a moot point, the idea is the kingdoms lock in the types of units more or less, so you’re not stuck figthing the same pvp units over and over etc.

lol no see, this is what the post is about… why in the world would --Not being able to ‘LEETZOR’ destroy with kraken all the sudden be a ‘headache’?.. lol it’ll only be a ‘headache’ to those so accustomed to simply ‘lol kraken i winZ lol’ all the time.

Any sane player would be like, 'Cool! I have to actually consider what unit I use in the territory that kinda makes sense! Neat I have to figure out a new team hey this is fun!.. ’

I do get that logistically it might be complicated if a person needed to see the ‘buffs/debuffs’ quickly at any given time, but guess what? that’s already done in the traitstone system where you click on the traitstone you need, and it shows you a list of kingdoms that have said traitstone (as an ‘increased chance’ in explore mode) or whatever it is.

Basically Units would work the same way, when you go to take over a kingdom you can click on the 3 or 5 ‘lists’ of kingdoms based on ‘high advantage, advantage, neutral, disadvantage, strong disadvantage’. Like you would a ‘search’ variable.

You then get those said units listed and bam there you go you’re off to the races figuring out a cool team etc to play.

Remember folks this isn’t about making it ‘super easy’, it’s about adding that ‘extra layer’ to make a gentle learning curve to drive you into the game daily to ‘figure out’ that cool new team you want to make etc…

People forget it’s the -fun- challenge that brings people back into a game, not ‘annoyances’ like current pvp that drives people off…

lol ‘easy to implement’ is meant as in ‘it’s actually doable no excuses’, not literally saying ‘it’s only 2 days work for the devs’.

This is critical, exactly like you’re getting it’s -Theme- based, stuff that one would think ‘makes sense’. So yeah no it wouldn’t be off colours, but the troops and their respective ‘kingdoms’ of course.

Anything worth doing would require that, lol… and yeah for sure don’t we want the devs paying attention to their game? and making it cool for us? lol

Yeah as mentioned to Jainus, the ‘infinite loop’ idea -Was- great, when skills and abilities were reasonable, but now they’re ridiculous (mainly insta-kills) so the game has to be changed as appropriate.

Always remember (I think it was mentioned?) that -all- the original Puzzle Quest games (indeed any other ‘rpg’ type match game) have cool-down timers.
People need to understand Gems is the ‘odd-man-out’ , Not the ‘normal’ way of doing things.
The premise of ‘big skills’ taking longer to cast vs ‘small skills’ is pretty self-evident, and of course the mana costs were meant to deal with that, but as we can all see over time the introduction of ‘new leet units’ have turns such mechanics into a fiasco where you can fill up a bar in one or two mana repeat-“turns” (from match-4s) so that can’t be considered a valid method any longer.

As always my posts drag on but they’re meant for everyone in general of course, thanks for taking the time to reply with your ideas

Yeah I thought in some parts I could work on that, I have to fight the battle of ‘assuming’ my experience (in playing certain games / scenarios) is self-evident since people can’t really see that, I need to work on linking the videos so people can see for themselves.

There’s nothing stated in these suggestions that haven’t already been implemented to some extent in the prior Puzzle Quest games, I think that’s the craziest part of all, none of these ideas are new-fangled notions pulled out from the sky, they’re stuff already done in the devs prior games and I’m almost certain that’s what he had in mind when he started but then it got geared more to ‘p2w’ instead of the original ‘rpg’ aspect.

(I mean heck, ‘heroes’?.. why not just add a proper ‘trait’ system to the Hero you already have, instead of selecting from 3 per class, simply make a ‘full’ list available and build your ‘own’ class. That alone is half the idea of ‘Heroes’ done already.)

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That’s just it, then you probably don’t frequent chat or steam much as countless players have left recently. Both because of the UI ‘update’ and the fact that pvp keeps getting worse and worse.

This point is important because yes, I have personally seen, in chat, person after person leaving for said aforementioned reasons, if you’re the ‘exception’ to that then you’re just that, one of the few exceptions.
That is -not- meant to sound ‘attack-y’ but just laying it out how it is, these changes are designed to bring the ‘fun’ back into the game and based on most unhappy with it basically agree the frustration comes mainly from a few units being forced on people in pvp, and that these changes address that, it’s still plausible that they are ‘good’ ideas.

I’m basically trying to tactfully say just because you ‘still’ like the game, doesn’t mean the majority do. (the constant onslaught of ‘negative’ steam reviews from the last update is something you can attest to as ‘proof’, if my anectodal experiences in chat with other players and multiple forum threads don’t count etc)

That’s important - because it hits at the heart of the matter. I strongly feel besides losing ‘long-time’ players (or at least upsetting them to the point of not wanting to spend more money), they are making the game so that even -new- players wouldn’t want to spend money.
The ideas listed are strongly geared towards giving people -viable- reasons to spend money on, contrary to random chests for the same 5 op units.

I’m not sure why you’d think that. The steam trailer itself shows it along the lines so that you can’t -Help- but think you’re ‘supposed’ to go one-by-one taking over the kingdoms…

Oh wait that’s exactly how pve is now, so its’ a strange idea that it should be the same in pvp?

Hmm, dare say the idea has more validity than you would think… you’d be the odd-man-out if you thought it ‘weird’ that a game about using kingdoms to take over kingdoms, that has taking over kingdoms as it’s core pve system, is somehow ‘unlike itself’ if it decides to fully refine itself to, yep, using kingdoms to take over kingdoms in pvp…

I know I sound harsh, but yeah let’s be realisitic lol…
(I’m sure you could take random new players, put them in a room, assign random ‘new idea’ and ‘old way’ versions of gems, and 9 times out of 10 the ‘new way’ would be more plausible to them if they were then given the ‘old’ gems back, as it is now. They would think the ‘consistency’ of taking over kingdoms, kingdom by kingdom, would make far more sense.)

Don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to theorize that…

Probably depends if you’re a Virgo or not I find it exhilarating to read sentences like that, lol…

Yes I considered ‘splitting’ up the ideas into 3 threads but thought the benefit of cohesiveness in packaging them all in ‘one’ outweighed the problems of constantly having to ‘defer’ people to the other threads.

I just try my best all I can do lol

Huge thanks for taking the time to read (whatever you could) and post, spread the word!

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Right, you said you wanted other opinions, but that means you have to be willing to actually listen to and consider other points of view. From your response, it doesn’t seem like you are.

This comes off mockingly, which is a rude way to start with someone who posted in good faith.

Not true. Kraken’s middle trait is Huge. If someone replaced that with Impervious, that’s a huge jump.

I’m sick of the repetition seen in PvP. I never said that I wasn’t. I refuse to use any of the griefer teams on defense in PvP or GW.

Stonehammer / lady Ironbeard / apothecary / highforge. Try to keep apothecary converting green so troll can’t spam.

It’s very clear what I’m referring to if you finish the sentence in that quote: that it would be a headache for the developers to sit and sift through the cards to decide. I don’t use kraken on offense or defense, so it’s no skin off my nose. Stop putting words in my mouth, please.

Again, this is very dismissive; people can disagree with you and still be sane.

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This Viridian show is getting old already. You posted ideas. Let others respond. Stop posting essays criticising anyone that disagrees with earlier essays.

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I will say this one more time before I start handing out suspensions: take the personal drama to PM, immediately.

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I think I tried to stress ‘useful constructive opinions’.

Yes, I’m quite aware the ‘what but you have opinions too!!1’ etc is incoming, but that’s just it.

I tried to stress it will have to go over again see what I can do to make it more clear (have to insert videos).

Guys, the developer of this game has made – 3 other massively ‘hit’ games that actually rely more or less on these mechanics talked about --.

Nothing i’m saying is ‘an opinion’ it’s basing stuff of other successful games that were ‘time tested’ in the past.

Especially for number 3 (sorry I have to stress that, lol).

I don’t mean to be annoying but when people say, “Nah I dont like that”, or “don’t think that would work” etc.
That’s all moot, anyone can say anything, it goes without saying tons of people don’t like it don’t think it’s workable etc.

I’m just trying to say ‘include why’. If you do so no problem, each point will be addressed specifically.

I’m not trying to attack people but it’s so much better to go with the premise that these are ‘time-tested’ mechanics, not just ‘ideas’, and treat them as such, instead of acting like they’re my ‘random’ opinions pulled out of a hat.

This game has so much potential until the game has some sort of ‘strategic’ structure to it’s pvp it just comes across as a chaotic pvp experience, and tons of people attest to that.

I’m always greatful for any input no offense is ever meant so let’s keep these ideas floating!

I felt as though I addressed that in the opening post, if I didn’t do so clearly I have to go add the technicalities, like many people have mentioned, it’s a freakin big opening post… the more I have to add the more likely people will complain and not read at all.

You guys have me in a rock and a hard place, believe it or not I could sit down with the dev and make some kind of workable ‘demo’ of this and by all means I could almost ‘guarantee’ it would be a hit with any new or returning player.

It’s a question of putting the ideas across without taking forever to explain them (the forest compared to the trees).
I’m sorry about trying to find a mid-point in all this, I’m doing the best I can…
In fact you can see some are not happy about not having enough details, while other say it was a run-on sentence and they didn’t bother to read half of it.

Lol I’m like a dev here trying to cover all the bases at once, but it can’t be done, just let’s try to be positive even though yes, I can come across scathing sometimes but remember I (try?..) to do it in ways that deal with the general premise at any given time, never attacking a person directly.

In fact even with the above example I phrased it ‘the inevitable’ (since I knew it was coming it wouldn’t have to do with a specific person it was inevitable because I didn’t ‘flesh out’ the custimization system).

Please forgive me again I’ll try to be less emotion-sounding in my replies.

I don’t know the details regarding that, what his middle trait is etc. Is impervious a middle trait?
Don’t know the answer to that either.

However, the point can be made that if kraken can have both ‘devour’ and impervious, and that’s somehow a problem (is it? why when you can make a team of krakens with the same traits?), then even if it was then the devs would have to do a better job assigning the ‘value’ of traits, that’s all.
It doesn’t ‘devalue’ the general idea it simply means the traits need tweaking to pool them in a more fair manner.

Okay so I know lady is ‘leet’, and assuming highforge or stonehammer is the other ‘leet’ guy, so again that’s the premise and the ‘problem’, always being ‘forced’ to use the certain ‘leet’ units the game has for you, instead of being able to selectively ‘theme’ a team how you want.
Your still using the same ‘team’ over and over even if it provides a variation from the other ‘main team’ you’re always using.
Yes you would be correct if you want to retort, ‘well wait a second wouldn’t you be doing that with the kingdoms anyways?’… actually you’d be correct about that, but difference is there’s what? 20+ kingdoms? 30?..
Right now it’s the same 4-5 pvp teams over and over, all with annoying abilities.

Basically kingdom pvp would still be more fun, though I appreciate the input on the dwarves (I did that myself but got sick of them etc) I dont think there’s one thing on earth that repetition doesn’t ruin, lol…

I’m sorry I didn’t get that from your post, I was assuming it was the devs ‘job’ to do their work, didn’t think they were supposed to be on vacation the whole time, lol…

: P…

(good-natured rib don’t get mad, lol…)

The last 3 extremely popular ‘Puzzle Quest’ games would disagree with you, if anyone of them were designed like this (being a ‘once-paid’ bought type game) they would have never made it past the first one.

It’s a theme I’m returning to constantly in these posts, hoping people don’t think i’m attacking anybody - these ideas were ‘already done’ (more or less) in prior hit games.

This game is going down the tubes why not ‘save’ it with the greatness of the games once done before.

That’s why I say things like ‘sane players etc’ I’m lumping in the majority who agreed those bought and played those games were designed ‘great’, in comparison to what’s happening here.
I’m sorry if that comes off stand-offish, don’t mean it to,

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It’s unfortunate my ‘responses’ come off as criticising.

I ask people play the demos of the Puzzle Quest series.

I still have yet to include videos, that is my fault.

I don’t feel that my consistent referals to games that have these mechanics as ‘bad’ though, as I feel there’s too much “I think it’s not a good idea” instead of actually visualizing and even checking out said other games.

Everyone’s going to take things the ‘wrong’ way about opinions, I might feel people don’t give them a chance, others might feel I’m being too harsh.
In the end it doesn’t matter as long as the points keep rolling.

As long as no-one is systematically rude or obnoxious then this is all for the better.

Remember it’s late and there’s only a few of us here, in time many people will jump on and give their insights (and yes opinions).

I think it’s strange too that one of the newest ‘match-3’ games actually tries to ‘differentiate’ itself by actually providing heroes and cities, something Gems could do quite well, but people are so quick to attack the idea as if it’ll ‘never work’.

I don’t know maybe I’m coming across the wrong way I’m just trying to say ‘visualize’ first, then consider.
In the end I really don’t see how such ideas can be ‘bad’… it’s all a matter of working out the kinks, which is what the constructive criticism is about.

Note though that ‘idea 3’, the cool-down timers, is absolutely essential at this point.

Do I have to say it? lol, yes, it’s ‘insane’ to think the game could go on without something like that put in.
Was that rude? Perhaps, let it be said another way, heed this out -

the 3 prior puzzle quest games would Not have been ‘viable’ in their gaming mechanics had they not put in ‘cool-down’ timers.

The balance of the games would have been broken, nobody would have played it (few), and they would not have been massive best-sellers.

That’s what I try to state by ‘sanity’, as in there’s a way to make games ‘work’ if you expect them to sell and not be seen as trash nonsense.

I need to link the videos give me a sec,

as always thanks for the input and no I’m not being smug saying that, I realize forums have a lot to do with ‘activity’ and any post counts and I’m thankful for them
(as long as it’s not harassment, lol)

– I also want to note that 'Direction (path?) of the game is heading ’ thread went on forever, and it was a massive battle between people who thought pvp has become turd and a few ‘excusing it’ as good enough.

I’m trying to say that even if I sound harsh, at least these provide viable alternatives to that ‘path’ (in a bad sense) that was mentioned in that thread.

Even this thread at its ‘worse’ is still better than negative talk about pvp (that goes on forever) with little/no solutions.

What I’m afraid of is that the few remaining players in the game are the ones ‘happy’ with just mindlessly winning, and you kinda see that in the forums (Please obviously no offense to anybody).

I noticed it also with the people that posted many posted about the UI update, they’re not here anymore.

People need to remember these ideas are the type that would ‘bring back’ those types of players.

The few remaining that think the game is generally okay will obviously not be so excited for these ideas, but the premise is people will eventually speak out ‘for’ them and maybe give the devs ideas on how to progress the game.
On a different ‘path’ as was mentioned in that other thread, much of what I though myself before I saw it.

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I find this a very strange and narrow-minded world view. In fact it is early here, or are you only looking for opinions from your own timezone?

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sigh… lol, ‘strange and narrow-minded worldview’…

My assumption, sorry if incorrect, was that the majority of Gems players are westerners, and yes it’s like 3am here which means all the surrounding timezones are midnight or later.

Yes, very few are on and again, I’m sorry if my assumption that mostly westerners play this was incorrect. I also included in my view that the ‘other side’ of the world was probably very ‘early’ (which again I could’ve been wrong about), meaning people are either asleep here or having breakfast there, neither of which promotes lurking around in forums ready to say something (lol)

Sorry again if I implied the other half of the world is any ‘less’ than the western side, I’m an immigrant here so trust me when I say I’m not ‘american’ at all (I’m canadian by the way, lol…)

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I am now convinced you’re either a Washington lobbyist, a used car salesman or a religious sychophant. You’ve gone from passionate to fanatical in your quest to play ‘lead developer’ and remake this game in your own image. Clearly you know best - better than the entire dev team, better than every person who pokes holes in your perfectly thought out reimplementation plan, better than the 10s of thousands of people who play this game daily without complaining and who enjoy it as it is. Those 10s of thousands of players who don’t voice their opinions on chat or steam. The fact that you don’t seem to comprehend that although your opinion matters, it certainly doesn’t matter more than everyone else’s.

Every one of your responses clearly illustrates that you refuse to accept there is any merit in what anyone else says if it’s in opposition to your idea of what GoW should be.

This thread isn’t a discussion. It’s your personal shooting gallery. This is you pompously stating your view and then systematically trying to justify & explain why any opposing view is wrong or invalid or why your idea is the best course for this game.

I fear you’re in for a heap of hurt feelings & disappointment in this thread as you’ve done nothing but alienate every person to respond to you.

You’re trying WAY to hard to sell people on this. You keep trying to bring mechanics into this game from others. Did you ever stop to think that there’s a reason people play this one and NOT those??

If you’re so enamored with these other games and their mechanics are superior to GoW, my best advice is to go play them and stop trying to turn this one into one of them.

Good luck on your ill-fated crusade. Hold the fort until the droves of dissatisfied players can get here to reinforce you. They’ll be here soon…very soon…I’m sure they’re almost here…

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When reading through your post @vanyel I was like:

yes
yes, exactly.
yes
yes
another yes
yes yes

raw

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