Do anyone else miss the 4 gem match mana surges?

I love what @Mithran has to contribute – it’s often quite insightful and thought out – so I’m ashamed to admit I too sometimes just blank out halfway through :S

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Liked for the honesty.

I, also, don’t miss the surging 4-matches.

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I agree with you in theory only. But in reality the complete haphazard way they go about making this change is quite lazy. 4 surge was NEVER a problem for 15 months in reality playing the actual game*. Then they introduced Justice and combined with not over-righting colors it became a major issue.

Why pick on exclusively just match 4. Why not just create more silly rules that if the shape is an L or U then no surge, or if touching the border edge, then no surge… that would also “help”. /s

*“In reality”: it probably caused issues with the financial bottom line, by allowing for faster play.

PS: @Mithran your posts are exceptional, I’m just annoyed at the SUPER lazy change, not your comments.

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Having been accustomed to the 4-surges since the game came out on console, I can say with all sincerity that I definitely miss them. It just feels so completely arbitrary to NOT have a chance for them. It’s been such an intrinsic part of our gameplay for the past couple years, this would be one of the rare occasions where I think they should have separate code bases.

My gut feeling is that most console players would feel the same way.

@einsteinle I’m not for separate versions, at all. But I fully understand your point.

The issue was for the entire life of the game 4 match would have the chance to surge, now its being singled out. I suppose cutting the chance out entirety does slow gameplay and this is directly tied into other recent gameplay changes. (reduced Gems in Guild Tasks, drastic reduction in LT rewards, etc.)

I don’t really miss them but I still firmly believe this was both a bad solution and the wrong solution.

In the game “bad things” happen if your defense team does not win frequently. Since the AI controls that team, trying to make a skillful or tricky team often means losing a lot. So players are incentivized to set up teams using a very small subset of teams the AI can stumble to a win on. If you don’t do this, you’re technically giving up prizes.

Mana surges from 4 matches probably represented maybe 3-5% of the total mana accumulated in those games. I don’t think a troop that needed 10-12 mana to loop becomes magically broken because it gets an extra mana maybe 30-40$ of the time. I think we can see evidence this is true because people are still complaining about the same teams doing the same things after the change. If it did something significant, we’d have seen some kind of change.

So intuitively and empirically I feel this fell under a category of bad-decision making that has jokes around it:

  • We have to do something.
  • This is something.
  • Therefore we have to do this.

I’ve been beating a different drum for changes that would probably solve this problem. There are only a few ways to get players to stop using non-interactive teams on defense:

  • Introduce troops with traits that trigger when the opponent takes extra turns and cause you to gain an overwhelming advantage if they loop several times.
  • Cap the number of free turns one can get per turn.
  • Introduce disproportionately large rewards for changing defense teams frequently and rotating your troops.
  • PvP: Remove the “penalty” for losing on defense in PvP by equalizing win/loss rewards and not penalizing a player’s win rate because the AI isn’t as clever.
  • GW: Encourage a diverse array of teams with an incentive and penalty structure:
    • Maybe get a bonus, win or lose, for using troops from the current event’s kingdom/creature type.
    • Perhaps the game should intentionally try to choose guild members with 4 different teams. To encourage this, the players who are selected should get a reward if and only if their team doesn’t “match” the rest of the selected players.
    • Use telemetry data to rank troops by “usage”. Maybe the top 5% meta troops should get a 10% penalty on defense, rotating monthly based on data.

I’m still shaky on GW suggestions, I haven’t played it enough to have a feel for what will and won’t work. But in terms of the game in general, mana accumulation’s a small problem. I feel the bigger problem is, “I have no reason to make defense teams that are fun for other players to challenge, and in fact I am penalized if I do so.”

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Let’s not start conspiracy theories. The change was made b/c we Mobile/PC players were extremely upset when it was introduced. Ultimately, a slower game benefits a smarter player more; being able to fill troops more easily actually reduces the skill involved, which benefits the dumb AI.

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Many good posts here. I adapted quite well to non 4 gem matches mana surges again, since PC/Mobile only had it for some weeks. I found both my Yasmine’s Chosen and Elemaugrim teams more interesting before, they went more smoothly and got more often filled up. Also matches was a little faster with 4 gem match mana surges, and more often than not human could use it to their advantages more often than CPU. Especially with chosen gem spawners and such. I hardly find any negativites with the 4 gem match mana surges.

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i miss it a little bit. but at least now i have a little bit more choices for invade. i don’t miss famine getting full right after i drain it though, twice in a row. i miss how fast the match ends.

Then why was almost every PC player complaining their W/L was actually lower? What are you saying about their intelligence if they can’t out smart a faster more ‘dangerous’ AI consistently? They need it to be slower to fill Mana to ensue their win rate?

Just saying there are a few old time console players that have been playing against AI with the surge for years with win rates above 95%+.

On an similar note I am dreading PC players getting console daily tasks. I can almost be certain they will get another Nerf in some fashion as well.

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SImple answers are often the best… :wink:

I also definately don’t miss the 4-gem match mana surges…

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I finally pulled off a 30 and 0 guild wars bracket one after weeks of losing 1, I think the ai has changed drastically in the last couple weeks and I do like it a lot more now, sure troops take longer to fill with no surges at 4, but I can handle it.

We should just drop it now so no more changes occur. I think this is the best ai so far.

I can live without the surges at 4.

I think it’s just the Surge-on-4 mechanic that has changed. Regardless, I agree that things are in a better place.

No, and I’m not sure why they keep scapegoating gold gain as directly affecting rewards in official posts, so I can see why people would think this. The entire reward structure of the game has multiple diminishing rewards points specifically to insulate against increases fluctuations in gold rewards from wrecking their economy.

I have to say no to this specifically. Looping is not the problem, and the most effective loops (the ones the AI uses, and the ones that people complain about) use the fewest amount of actions. Capping off actions or defensive traits that work off the enemy getting turns that would actually impact these teams effectively removes chaining spells as a strategy, which removes the entire identity of Gems of War. What you would be doing here is guiding people toward exploders and mass spawners, along with powerful, huge impact troops, and they don’t need any help.

I’ll agree that we need to hard incentivize variety. The event system attempts to do this with stat changes, but its the reward structure that needs to be addressed. But again, we need to also make sure that people are putting up stuff that they believe actually can be threatening and incentiveize that as well, or we will end up with a stale experience in the other direction.

Back to match 4 surges, I’ll also agree that it isn’t impacting the teams I’ve been using or seeing on defense a while lot. I will see some instances where I can’t keep chaining, but in at least some of those instances, mana is conveniently already set up on the board for me to take with an extra turn. I also get a few less “free wins” (eg., match 4 red set up for valk would fill her completely with a +2 red banner, and match 5s set up at the start are much rarer). I don’t generally use teams with a “start” condition of more than two mana matches (with one surge) because they usually feel unviably slow to gain control when facing off against troops that gain control with one non-surge. By itself, the change is a half-measure, which I don’t like, but it was immediately followed with a statement that the other issues are still being looked at.

The most important thing at this point is that we address the issues then keep things consistent going forward. If they changed match 4 surges again, it would be beyond frustrating, and it just sends the message that they really don’t know how they want exchanges in their game to play out. What I’m hoping is for a speedy resolution for all of the Unity related changes, one way or the other, even if it means keeping the ones I don’t specifically agree with. I’d perfer the game to be paced and able to be played a certain way, of course, but the longer it is not addressed, the more potential it has to be divisive.

(Sorry, tried to keep it short, but these are usually stream of consciousness and then I go back and prune them later)

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In my eyes it should just be that every match is chance based mana surges which as we all should know is based off our mana masteries %, its quite silly to have been removed really but none the less just deal with it I guess :confused: in answer Im not exactly bothered about the 4 match mana surge leaving.

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I don’t miss it at all in pvp but I do miss it in arena.

i come from pc/mobile so nope, i dont miss them at all
i was one of the ppl who never wanted the surges happen on 4matches to begin with

I’m relieved they removed it again, I feel the extra turn in 4 gem matches is enough reward. Surging and keeping the turn makes for feel bad moments when you’re on the receiving end. I’m not saying this is the only thing that needed fixing, but I’m really glad they did at least revert to not surging on 4 gem matches.

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I’m glad they removed it - it however hasn’t “fixed” the issues for the majority of teams it was effecting it just has slowed them down a bit. Justice league can still smash your team with out getting another turn but instead of turn 2 or 3 it’s now 4 or 5 however once they get rolling you’re still as screwed as you were with the 4 surges (same with the other meta teams, wisps, Kraken + troll etc)
Cheers

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Not in the slightest. Glad they’re gone!

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