I have some ideas that i think would make pvp a lot more enjoyable and competitive.
My idea is to add some preset AI options for the player to give to his defensive team as well as each troop in that team so they perform the way the group was intended originally.
Group AI would give the team a designed mana strategy to get mana to the right people at the right times. Certain conditions could be preset in the AI that will cause your team to make changes as needed. For example, Certain status effects on a troop could trigger your group to change mana choice and start feeding someone who can cleanse.
Group AI should have conditional settings that will change the way your group plays in different situations depending on the way you set up the AI.
Troops need their own AI as well to give them commands to cast spells, certain cards do extra damage vrs certain troops, currently they are almost worthless in defense pvp because there is no AI for them to hit the right target, instead they tend to hit randomly and do not make use of the bonus damage. These cards get no attention in pvp defense but could be huge if you could have them target particular type of enemys first.
Other cards need to hold their spells till a certain condition is met, if im running a full purple team and my top guy is purple only i need to hold his spell to get mana pushed down the line to other team mates.
Being able to preset the AI for your group to follow depending on certain conditions would make battles feel more like playing a player instead of playing a computer that constantly makes poor decisions for your opponent. It would also open up many options for players to create unique groups and bring a lot of diversity to the game.
Setting up a indepth AI system like this would take pvp to the next level of compitition and i would like to see the rivalries get more attention and become a bigger factor in pvp, here are some ideas to consider to make rivalries more interesting and add some depth and solid compitition between rivals.
Rivalries need to have the ability to grow into long term compitition between two players, becoming epic battles that get more intense as the rivalry grows. Let rivalries continue to grow until one player shows dominance over another player by meeting victory conditions.
After a certain amount of battles with no one declared the winner the level of the rivalry should increase, when a rivalry level goes up the rewards, rank ratings and victory conditions should be adjusted to make each level more intense and each match more important. Each player should recieve a fresh start each time they make it to the next level.
This would prepare players to take place in epic battles agianst a foe that they have become familiar with, strategies would be constantly changing as each player finds new tactics that are affective agianst each other. As the level of the rivalry increases the importance of each match would increase and leave less room for error.
These changes would take pvp to a whole new level, giving defenses some AI would make them more personalized and open up a ton of options to use troops that can not be used atm, the defenses you face would be unique and more competitive with the players strategy in place.
Rivalries need to be more personalized and long term to make them more interesting. Fighting back and forth with another player for a week can get very interesting, trying to find strategies that he cant beat and finding ways to beat the strategies he creates is what makes a rivalry a rivalry, the longer the rivalry stays alive and each player holds on to make it to the next level the more intense and interesting things will get and those rivalrys are the ones you will remember.