Hi Sirrian!
I’m sorry if this has been answered, but does mana drain affect the mana efficiency score? Example: I use Famine and the other team ends with no mana. Does the mana collected prior to the drain still count toward multiplier?
Another question: When Elspeth uses her spell, damage is shown. Is this calculated as part of the score?
Thanks in advance!
You are picking the words out of my mouth today, my giant primate! 
Also @Vangor I want to add that it is the Devs that decides how much knowledge the players gonna get, not only in GW mode but in every aspect of the game. If players have difficulty to accept this, its not the Devs fault, but the players themselves.
Eika out…
What have the devs actually given us, formula-wise, before?
The community has figured out, through the hard work of mass data collection the top 3 of my list, and has figured out some elements of the last 2. They gave us the tribute chance formula, but are there any others I’m missing?
I think they would have been better off to define the components of the new GW formula but give no clue as to how the formula works and let the players figure it out themselves if they want to.
Not sure this was a question to me. My main message was that, we cannot expect to know everything about the new formula. That a little will be figure out and a little will be said by the devs, yes, that is realistic.
Not a question to you specifically, but I’ve been thinking about this for the last couple days and your comment just triggered the thought. I’m honestly curious if people can remember any other formulas that were revealed or not over the last couple years.
Meh sigh lol
Mr. Strange would occasionally got specific, but he wasn’t part of the core team at ∞+2. That was also some time ago.
That’s a good point. Mr. Strange might actually have been the source of the console mana mastery formula, but I remember people comparing and contrasting the two versions with different data points to determine how the formulas were different.
Not a good comparison in my opinion. There’s only one item in that list that really matters for game play purposes, and that’s the mana surge chance. Quite conveniently, it’s part of your hero breakdown, you can look it up any time you want.
They gave information to play the game well for those who are inclined to do so. To provide one example, there’s a mana cost on cards and a mana orb during fights indicating how much mana you still need to collect. Strictly speaking, you would require this information as little as the guild wars scoring information, just fire off a spell whenever it is ready, feel free to figure out what works best for you. And yet I’m quite convinced there are players among us who use the mana information to great effect, as a major part of their strategy.
Not me! I just push pretty colored dots around! But good point friend! Thank you for sharing!
Have a great day!
The mana surge percentage is conveniently displayed, but the formula that converts mana mastery points into percentage is not conveniently displayed.
My point was more that there are a lot of formulas behind the scenes in this game, but the devs don’t make a habit of posting them publicly.
Things like the gem creator algorithm might be a better fit by your definition, and they certainly haven’t published that one either. Or the refill rate of different mana colours (i.e., is there a permanent bone storm?).
By the “This is a match-3 game logic”, it makes sense to me that they wouldn’t reveal the system. It’s meant to be a “have fun and let the RNG wash over you” experience. In part, this drives to the heart of the game b/c it seems like people are constantly fighting against the RNG rather than accepting it as part of the fun. It’s a match-3 game. There’s supposed to be randomness.
I think the difference between casual and hardcore is that the hardcore will experiment to find what works best for them. It’s absolutely fine that you have to experiment and figure out what works best for you.
And, again, what game gives out all of these formulas? I’ve played many hardcore games, and most of them do not tell you the underlying magic. They’re pretty much always reverse-engineered.
Very good points, but I think the fundamental difference is the gating and the rewards. For traitstones or PvP, players could play as much as they wanted, assemble a meaningful data set, and extrapolate the values from that. With GW, you have a very low limit of attempts to try to collect that data. Also, experimentation can lead to poor results which will reduce your rewards, while with something like PvP you could compensate by just playing a few more matches to recover the lost score. I wouldn’t mind doing the research myself (I’d actually enjoy it) if we had a training area to test, but unfortunately that’s not available so no point worrying about it I guess.
So the direction of the debates over GW has changed from
“We do not want to lose points for loosing an unlucky battle, regardless of loosing fair and square.”
into
“It’s fine if we loose points for an unknown reason.”
I’m getting lost in what players want from this game…
On my behalf:
If the system works, I’ll enjoy it, but definitely not the over 2000 points random moments as we had so far. Obviously, the system didn’t work there. I hope they’ll adjust the numbers sooner or later.
Hi friend! I absolutely agree with this 100%! Thanks and have an excellent afternoon!
And that is a good point, too. For hardcore players or really competitive guilds, I really do understand the frustration of going from a system where the final score was quite predictable to one where there are factors (outside of winning and losing) that are outside your control. While you couldn’t be assured that you would be successful, you could at least come up with a strategy to have a chance to achieve a maximum score. The new system is designed to frustrate that process (while expanding the range of possible strategies that will result in a good score), and the fact that it is restricted to GW means that you can’t even experiment in any kind of safe environment.
At the same time, these random factors are largely going to average out over multiple battles and across players and guilds. Guilds that experiment collectively and share their results are going to benefit, in the same way that they benefited from experimenting with good teams for invade and defend.
Most of them.
… And if they don’t, they always give you tools to measure. We don’t have it here. No training dummies, no testing area, nothing. If the game doesn’t give away the formula - it always gives you means to practice.
Plus, the comparison is wrong. Most of games without formula are not competitive. If there is something like formula missing… You do not aim for points but goal. In all of those games - you have a goal. Kill / Kill Fast / Heal / Run through / Save someone / Escort someone / Reach XY points.
We are in a position where we have no bloody idea what should we do. Because killing is obviously not the goal. It’s a necessity, but goal is killing them fast, but not too fast, while not dying, while gaining mana, and you cannot go for 4/5 gem matches because it counts as turns… And the biggest problem is that the criteria are contradictory to each other. So you can’t go for all at the same time.
No, the position we are in is clearly different here.
But the developers themselves did reveal the Mana surge chance formula a number of times. Once in a nice diagram outlining the changes. Sirrian himself posted the Mana surge formula once. And during a detailed discussion of console vs PC.
This is just off the cuff from what I recall. Give me a minute and I’ll find it.
EDIT:
EDIT 2:
Don’t worry about it, I believe you.
Well, that’s one example where the devs were extremely clear about a formula. I only remembered the console vs. PC comparison discussion and thought that the formula had been derived. I think console was still using the old one at that point, which was why console players were getting higher mana surge percentages than equivalent PC/Mobile players.