# Journey now unplayable at higher levels
**URL:** https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/journey-now-unplayable-at-higher-levels/82905
**Category:** Feature Requests and Game feedback
**Created:** [January 14, 2024, 11:46pm UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/journey-now-unplayable-at-higher-levels/82905 "2024-01-14T23:46:23Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@JHM](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/JHM)
#### Post date: [January 15, 2024, 6:07am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/journey-now-unplayable-at-higher-levels/82905/24 "2024-01-15T06:07:44Z")
> [@Kafka](#):
>
> Catching up on all the feedback still but just wanted to pop in
Thank you for continuing to communicate. As annoyed as many of us are, this is appreciated.
> [@Kafka](#):
>
> the idea is that maybe you can still loop your turn 3-5 times in a row
Except no reasonable player wants to use a troop that MIGHT loop a few times in a row, if the alternative is for it to not get matches and for the enemy team to fill their mana and wipe you out instead. Against low level enemies in normal battles, you might take a chance on a troop like this, knowing that if it fails the enemy won’t be able to beat you. But, if the enemy is a higher level than you, you won’t risk it, knowing you could lose the battle immediately. And you definitely won’t risk it in journey battles, where it can cripple your score, even if you do manage to win the battle.
The troop just becomes too dangerous to use at all. Far better to ignore it and pick another troop that you’d actually want to use. As others are already suggesting, you might as well put the pathfinder up front as a meat shield and let it die, then summon something useful.
> [@Kafka](#):
>
> you won’t be able to loop it 25 times
That’s not really how looping works, in my experience. Either it loops or it doesn’t. If it loops, you can cast it hundreds of times unless you get unlucky. If it doesn’t loop, you can only cast it once or twice. If it can reliably loop 3-5 times, it can probably loop 25 times.
> [@Kafka](#):
>
> Small changes can have a big effect in the game
So why such a big change to the pathfinders? And why is the change being made to the level of enemies, rather than the scoring system? If the penalty system was decreased by 2 points instead, it would be a small difference but would add up to a much easier time playing the event.
> [@Kafka](#):
>
> let’s all play it
NO. I appreciate that you want us to beta test the changes and see how badly it affects the troops, but I currently have no interest in playing this journey event with a deadweight troop, that may be more of a hazard, any more than necessary. I won’t be spending the usual hundreds of gems on this event and won’t be putting the usual hours of my time into playing it.
Consider this the feedback. They need to do a better job of understanding how the events work and how to keep them worth playing, because the current changes aren’t good enough. I’ll play something else instead.
Like I said elsewhere, I understand that the pathfinders need balancing, but with such balancing comes a need to make journey events worthwhile, and without a fairly reliable looping troop to use, they aren’t currently worth the effort knowing that you’ll get punished heavily for taking extra turns or losing troops. The scoring seems balancing for a team that stands a high chance to gain extra turns and take little damage. Without that, players will score a measly fraction of what they would have, even against slightly lower level enemies.
---
### Author:  [@Nvidia100](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/Nvidia100)
#### Post date: [January 15, 2024, 6:32am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/journey-now-unplayable-at-higher-levels/82905/25 "2024-01-15T06:32:45Z")
I think the devs do not understand that the only shot you have at winning the harder battles is to loop them to death. Looping 3 or 4 times then giving up turn will likely result in lots of losses. These harder battles already take up too much time. The only thing that was good about journey events is you get books as part of the reward. After getting the books I would suggest folks stop. The rest of thd rewards are not worth the effort. If getting the books is too much of an issue just ignore the event entirely. We do get a book or 2 from pvp now so the Journey event is really no big deal. It really was no big deal before since you need lots of books and there are very few ways to get them.
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### Author:  [@Kafka](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/Kafka)
#### Post date: [January 15, 2024, 6:56am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/journey-now-unplayable-at-higher-levels/82905/26 "2024-01-15T06:56:35Z")
> [@TbIKBA](#):
>
> We were officially recognized as testers…
So manual and automated testing was done.
But we will always keep an eye on the live data when we have 10s of thousands of humans playing with the changes. You can’t replicate that.
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### Author:  [@TheIdleOne](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/TheIdleOne)
#### Post date: [January 15, 2024, 7:14am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/journey-now-unplayable-at-higher-levels/82905/27 "2024-01-15T07:14:27Z")
Wow.
I knew the nerf was going to be bad, but unless you’re specifically using 4 beasts, Adelwing is 100% useless.
This is … quite special.
Edit: even with 4 beasts, this thing still feels useless.
---
### Author:  [@Fourdottwoone](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/Fourdottwoone)
#### Post date: [January 15, 2024, 7:22am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/journey-now-unplayable-at-higher-levels/82905/28 "2024-01-15T07:22:37Z")
> [@Kafka](#):
>
> This is just one Journey event, let’s all play it, see how this affects guilds, because it is a guild event, not an individual one. We’ll be watching the data, we’ll be reading the feedback and I’ll circle back round with the team towards the end of the event and after it’s over to discuss how things went.
Seriously? You expect US to spend a huge amount of time and gems on YOUR broken mess? While you sit back another week and “read the feedback” as thoroughly as the one you already got a week ago, and keep doing NOTHING?
> [@Kafka](#):
>
> For the Pathfinder Troops, while the changes are predicted to restrict looping ability, the idea is that maybe you can still loop your turn 3-5 times in a row, you won’t be able to loop it 25 times. So the idea is to still allow the Pathfinder to loop, just not so much that if you find a Pathfinder on an opponent’s team you’re not just sitting in the battle watching your team get beat up with the opponent looping its turns.
>
> Small changes can have a big effect in the game, so I know it doesn’t seem like the 2 level difference will make much difference right now, but let’s just give it a shot and see how it goes.
This ignores EVERY item on the feedback list on why it can’t work out at higher levels. And it demonstrates an utter lack of understanding on how Journey mechanics work. This wasn’t even playtested once, right? This got dumped out of the door by whoever cooked it up, feedback be damned.
> [@Kafka](#):
>
> As I’ve mentioned last week, we monitor all changes to ensure it’s going how it was predicted to go, if it’s not right, we’ll tweak again for the next Journey Event.
And there is going to be a full refund for all gems wasted on shop tiers this week? Plus a significant extra on top, as apology for time wasted not reaching rewards this week? Oh, wait, we are beta testers, we should pay for the chance of participating in this unique frustrating game experience, right?
---
### Author:  [@Kafka](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/Kafka)
#### Post date: [January 15, 2024, 7:32am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/journey-now-unplayable-at-higher-levels/82905/29 "2024-01-15T07:32:09Z")
> [@Journey now unplayable at higher levels](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/journey-now-unplayable-at-higher-levels/82905/26):
>
> So manual and automated testing was done. But we will always keep an eye on the live data when we have 10s of thousands of humans playing with the changes. You can’t replicate that.
---
### Author:  [@Fourdottwoone](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/Fourdottwoone)
#### Post date: [January 15, 2024, 7:35am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/journey-now-unplayable-at-higher-levels/82905/30 "2024-01-15T07:35:40Z")
> [@Kafka](#):
>
> So manual and automated testing was done.
Thanks for explicitely confirming that this mess only received manual and automated testing, without actually doing any playtesting to check the effect on difficulty and score.
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### Author:  [@Kafka](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/Kafka)
#### Post date: [January 15, 2024, 7:36am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/journey-now-unplayable-at-higher-levels/82905/31 "2024-01-15T07:36:25Z")
I think you’re asking for players to play test? as manual testing is playtesting.
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### Author:  [@Cairnso](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/Cairnso)
#### Post date: [January 15, 2024, 7:38am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/journey-now-unplayable-at-higher-levels/82905/32 "2024-01-15T07:38:47Z")
You are just testing to see if it _works_
Nobody is arguing that it doesn’t work. But your testers haven’t played 7 days of the event with enemy troops going to over level 700 have they? And would they have found that **fun**? Because I don’t. It was passable with the fun troops, now its just not worth it.
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### Author:  [@Kafka](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/Kafka)
#### Post date: [January 15, 2024, 7:41am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/journey-now-unplayable-at-higher-levels/82905/33 "2024-01-15T07:41:03Z")
It was tested for bugs, balance and fun.
I know it’s not fun to for anyone who wants it the way it was before the rebalance though.
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### Author:  [@TheIdleOne](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/TheIdleOne)
#### Post date: [January 15, 2024, 7:46am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/journey-now-unplayable-at-higher-levels/82905/34 "2024-01-15T07:46:08Z")
> [@Kafka](#):
>
> It was tested for bugs, balance and fun.
?
it was tested for balance and fun?
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### Author:  [@Fourdottwoone](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/Fourdottwoone)
#### Post date: [January 15, 2024, 7:46am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/journey-now-unplayable-at-higher-levels/82905/35 "2024-01-15T07:46:38Z")
> [@Kafka](#):
>
> I think you’re asking for players to play test? as manual testing is playtesting.
Manual testing commonly refers to the implementation, not the design. If this really got PLAYTESTED, how much total score did the playtesters get on average when playing 76 sigils (shop tiers 1 - 7 plus all daily sigils)? And how much is this below the maximum score that could so far easily be attained?
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### Author:  [@Kafka](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/Kafka)
#### Post date: [January 15, 2024, 7:47am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/journey-now-unplayable-at-higher-levels/82905/36 "2024-01-15T07:47:35Z")
I’ll see what info I can get about this tomorrow when we’re back in business hours.
I haven’t bothered min-maxing this team, I will when things start getting tough but if anyone wants a team suggestion (I’m by no means the best team builder though), I’m having no problems with looping this team with Adelwing in 3rd position:
[7370,7199,7471,6118,3049,2,2,1,3,2,3,3,14016]
Stone viper starts the looping on Adelwing, if Adelwing looses the loop, Kerberos has a 40% chance of devouring/can cleanup until Stone Viper has the loop started again (usually in one or 2 turns).
I also haven’t maxxed out all the troops on this team either, so it would probably go slightly better with whatever I’m missing off the levels/traits.
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### Author:  [@Dwuemka](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/Dwuemka)
#### Post date: [January 15, 2024, 7:49am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/journey-now-unplayable-at-higher-levels/82905/37 "2024-01-15T07:49:49Z")
> [@Cairnso](#):
>
> Nobody is arguing that it doesn’t work. But your testers haven’t played 7 days of the event with enemy troops going to over level 700 have they? And would they have found that **fun**? Because I don’t. It was passable with the fun troops, now its just not worth it.
It’s been 45 minutes since reset, have YOU played through 7 days’ worth of battles in this reworked Journey to be 200% sure that it’s no longer fun in any remote way?
I’m venting, and ranting, and complaining on these forums a lot, possibly more than I should. But it’s always based on personal experience with what I’m complaining about & the experience of my guild members. This is just pure speculation (for the time being).
I, for one, am very glad that these troops will no longer be the bane of PvP. I’m not sure if the nerf had to be this extreme - it feels to me that either mana generation reduction OR mana cost increase would be sufficient, this feels like an overkill. But, I’ll play my battles and see before I complain.
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### Author:  [@Lucien](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/Lucien)
#### Post date: [January 15, 2024, 7:52am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/journey-now-unplayable-at-higher-levels/82905/38 "2024-01-15T07:52:58Z")
lets all say it together, gems of war is an open beta the “beta testers” are in fact alpha or RC (release candidate) testers
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### Author:  [@Schaafy](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/Schaafy)
#### Post date: [January 15, 2024, 7:54am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/journey-now-unplayable-at-higher-levels/82905/39 "2024-01-15T07:54:19Z")
We have personal experience of how un-fun this game mode at the higher levels WITH a troop that made the battles easy. Now we do not have that troop, so those fights will be longer and more likely to be lost, AND we will have to play MORE fights at those levels to make up for the lost score from taking too long and losing troops. So yes, we already do know how this will play out. The first half the week will be slightly annoying, but very doable, but at some point the fun is going to completely disappear and we will still have 40+ battles left to do in order to meet the minimum required score per guild member.
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### Author:  [@Cairnso](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/Cairnso)
#### Post date: [January 15, 2024, 7:58am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/journey-now-unplayable-at-higher-levels/82905/40 "2024-01-15T07:58:00Z")
> [@Dwuemka](#):
>
> It’s been 45 minutes since reset, have YOU played through 7 days’ worth of battles in this reworked Journey to be 200% sure that it’s no longer fun in any remote way?
lol. Journey used to be a tier zero event to complete. It was meh at best. Then they made it a tier 5 event and it was the worst event out of all of them. Now its tier 7 and you think I should give it a chance? For what? What would I get out of it? How has the event itself been improved in any substantial way?
How on earth is limiting players choices supposed to be a positive?
You couldn’t beat teams in pvp because you are bad at pvp, that’s not going to change. There will always be teams that you won’t like and you’ll be back again asking for nerfs.
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### Author:  [@Ash3nShad3](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/Ash3nShad3)
#### Post date: [January 15, 2024, 7:59am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/journey-now-unplayable-at-higher-levels/82905/41 "2024-01-15T07:59:53Z")
> [@Kafka](#):
>
> For the Pathfinder Troops, while the changes are predicted to restrict looping ability, the idea is that maybe you can still loop your turn 3-5 times in a row, you won’t be able to loop it 25 times. So the idea is to still allow the Pathfinder to loop, just not so much that if you find a Pathfinder on an opponent’s team you’re not just sitting in the battle watching your team get beat up with the opponent looping its turns.
FYI I think you have accomplished your goal…from my testing the troops still loop a little but they now do stop sometimes and that does give the player a chance to also do something whereas before you never got a chance at all.
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### Author:  [@Fourdottwoone](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/Fourdottwoone)
#### Post date: [January 15, 2024, 8:02am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/journey-now-unplayable-at-higher-levels/82905/42 "2024-01-15T08:02:01Z")
> [@Kafka](#):
>
> I haven’t bothered min-maxing this team, I will when things start getting tough but if anyone wants a team suggestion (I’m by no means the best team builder though), I’m having no problems with looping this team with Adelwing in 3rd position:
>
> [7370,7199,7471,6118,3049,2,2,1,3,2,3,3,14016]
>
> Stone viper starts the looping on Adelwing, if Adelwing looses the loop, Kerberos has a 40% chance of devouring/can cleanup until Stone Viper has the loop started again (usually in one or 2 turns).
Kafka, look, I know you are trying to be helpful, but this team only works very early on. When playing those 76 sigils we face teams way past level 500. They will contain troops immune to devour, which means slowly tickling them to death. And we only have 10 turns to do it, then we get docked a huge part of the score. This wouldn’t even work out without immunity to devour, because the spell only has a 40% chance to work and needs to be filled up each time, easily going past 10 turns.
Please understand the huge amount of frustration this change is causing. It significantly increases Journey difficulty, yanks the event rewards out of reach and is being handled the worst way possible, by shrugging it off.
---
### Author:  [@Dwuemka](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/Dwuemka)
#### Post date: [January 15, 2024, 8:02am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/journey-now-unplayable-at-higher-levels/82905/43 "2024-01-15T08:02:48Z")
> [@Cairnso](#):
>
> lol. Journey used to be a tier zero event to complete. It was meh at best. Then they made it a tier 5 event and it was the worst event out of all of them. Now its tier 7 and you think I should give it a chance? For what? What would I get out of it? How has the event itself been improved in any substantial way?
Where did you get that info from? I find T0 EXTREMELY suspicious, because at T0 you don’t have the journey captain at mythic rarity (unless you blue-orb it, and not all players can afford it, so for most, it would be either more event tiers than T0, OR spending an orb they’ve been saving for Zuul/EK/Ctharr. EDIT: wrong, T0 is impossible, no event captain troop in T0! You get guaranteed event captain in T2). Maybe back when there were 12 rewards, but definitely NOT in the current 16 rewards format. Garybot said T3 for old Journey with 12 rewards and T5 for new Journey with 16 rewards. So, which is it, T0 or T5?
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