Seems to me the kingdom bonuses (the universal ones you get for having a kingdom at level 10) have made PvP way more lopsided. Before, I generally stayed away from anyone who was more than double my level because of their higher mana masteries leading to way more random mana surges and the likelihood they had significantly better troops, but now I pretty much refuse to fight anyone above 400 until I’m already at Champion level because they’re probably going to have way more health, armor, and attack just for having more kingdoms at max level on top of the mana mastery issue.
I’m still not at level 250, yet I routinely draw random opponents at 500+, and I’ve even run across the infamous Mr. Sammy a couple times. I’m not sure if there’s a good solution to this, but it just seems ridiculous that the game thinks I’m somehow in the same league as the first person to hit level 1000, who has way more mana mastery, stats, and legendary troops than I do (I still don’t have even ONE Webspinner, which is probably still the most broken troop in the game).
Maybe a system where the player can choose how broad a spectrum he wants to pull from would be nice? You could make it similar to the new difficulty levels, except make it specific to PvP. Thoughts?
I realize that, but drawing a new opponent takes significant time when you don’t have a good internet connection. I mean, it’s not the biggest problem with the game by far, but it just seems silly and annoying, and easily fixed.
I used to think about this as you do, and stayed away from anyone more than 100 levels above me. Then I discovered that the player’s level was not nearly as important as I thought it was. When I was at your level, I was routinely beating players hundreds of levels higher, and yes, even Mr. Sammy (may his name be blessed). If you get into trouble, there’s always the retreat button.
A problem with the retreat button is that backing down from someone that high means throwing away a lot of gold spent on the ‘entry fee’ to vs them. You just have to know your limits and work with them. But higher level players are beatable, I was chewing on the defenders for people four times my level back in the day … the AI is predictable and stupid, use it.
Yeah, the AI is predictable and stupid, but in my experience also very lucky (heck, even my defense teams do better when I rely on luck rather than a “smart” play style). What worries me about the high level people is that between lots of extra surges and way higher stats, I’ll have to have more luck than I can count on to win. And that gets to be no fun after a while, because I have terrible luck most of the time. lol
To those saying level doesn’t matter, that is in practicality untrue post 107. Here is why. Pre-107 newer players could focus in on one kingdom and very quickly be rubbing elbows with the veteran crowd. The bonuses they received were nearly identical to the bonuses the veteran received (maybe a level or two off due to a missing legendary). This made the kind of fights the current mid-veterans look back on possible (I did them too!).
Sure, level itself doesn’t actually give you much of anything, but it is a rough indicator of when someone started playing (for now). In general if someone is over 300 they probably were playing quite a bit before 107. As a result they most likely have a lot (if not all) global bonuses the new players simply can not match. You can’t just focus in on your best kingdom and be careful to only fight there like you previously were able to. Also, you can’t just rely on really good strategy as the extra stats on the cards make the battles longer and thus the chance for a “lucky run” much more likely on the computers side. Thanks to those very high stats what counts as a game breaking lucky run for the opponent is much lower than what counts as one for you so you are fighting that bias as well.
I understand that many people have this “back in the day” remembrance of taking down the giants, but please understand these global kingdom bonuses are dramatically different in functionality than when you were coming up through the ranks. Simply repeating you can do it because I did isn’t factual or realistic any longer.
Some of us play on Warlord I because when the matchmaker puts us against people our own level it is still relatively easy to win. Most of the time the matchmaker does this. Every now and then though it seems to get stuck and just feeds you 300+ after 300+ (I believe my current record is 7 in a row 275+ and I was 155 at the time). Constantly shifting your difficulty is tedious and annoying since it can’t be done from the fight intro screen. It also doesn’t really guarantee much as the global bonuses are still very daunting. Skipping can be annoying as it seems to get stuck in trends a lot. Matchmaking is a section of the game that could really use some love, beyond just putting the matchmakers job back on the players. Something I would love to see in 109 personally.
Very thoroughly and lucidly put @Razlath… personally I do think you’d be better off playing on Normal… the rewards aren’t much less, and you eliminate those occasional ‘lucky’ breaks where the AI gets two attacks in a row from ‘random’ skull drops… If you’re playing a player much higher level with lots of kingdom bonuses, you can’t survive that ‘lucky’ break as the enemy will have 15+ Attack power and you have <30 HP… why take the (small) risk?
@xSidarothx: Primarily mana surges. Particularly when fighting anyone level 500+, it seems like the mana surges come really often, so even without lucky cascades or 4/5 matches, they power up too quickly and overwhelm just about any team I can put together.
@Jainus: The problem with playing on Normal is I end up getting bored. Before I switched up to hard, I won so often that the lack of risk made it boring. The problem is there’s no happy medium–play without any real possibility of losing, if you put together a decent team, or play with some chance of losing to anyone, but a huge risk of losing to high-level players.
Yeah, at first I followed my usual pre-107 tactic of “attack everything!!!” No retreats, no get another, just smack everyone the computer fed to me like some crazed gem matching barbarian. It worked really well, and I had a lot of interesting fights.
After 107 I was doing the same thing, but I started to notice equal level fights were boring, slightly above me fights mildly interesting and then this sharp break point (at the point it was close to 250 for me) where suddenly enemy teams would destroy me with no effort. This was on Hard (as I turned the combo break off as soon as it was an option). It happened often enough I couldn’t attribute it to the combo break however, and especially since often it wasn’t even some long cascade. Just a simple drop of 3 skulls, too many skull matches on the board, a missed move, or some other minor thing that added up too quickly.
So I figured, heck, if I am going to lose anyway to the higher levels, I want the lower level battles to be more fun. I experimented with Warlord I and Warlord II. Warlord I was where I settled because it left my win percentage comfortable (about 95%), but made the fights more interesting. However the higher level opponents are just as bad (maybe a little bit quicker about it) so now I just use the try another function. It works, but it is tedious. I still get my adventure on when doing defends though. Once again it is no holds barred, all who enter the ring are accepted, no retreat slugfests. It works, but I understand the pain of those clicking through their 4th 300+ opponent just trying to find a decent match and I also remember the days when I didn’t have to.
another way to help with the surges - at least in getting them, is join a guild with a lot of bonuses… its like 50+ the guild bonus level. thats why sometimes level has nothing to do with the surges.
It worked really well, and I had a lot of interesting fights.
thats why sometimes level has nothing to do with the surges.