PVP Change Notes July 24th 2024

Official News
23

Stellarix and Wand would have been exactly the same problem in old PVP, except you could explicitly avoid setting Wand of Stellarix as your defense team, thus not widely revealing the team strategy and slowing/delaying the inevitable onset of the Wand of Elementalist overlords. – And again, I like to compare the snaking meta from Mario Kart DS because (1) snaking was always technically possible since Mario Kart 64, but (2) it didn’t become public knowledge until online play made it widely observable at large.

It’s always better to “fail faster” than fail slower.

2 Likes
24

One of the things with Guild Wars is that you had to set all your defensive teams in advance and that you maximized your scoring by setting 24 unique troops as part of those defenses. You still saw a healthy amount of the top troops, but you didn’t see certain things every single battle because there was a healthy chance that (thing-you-really-don’t-like-here) was set for a different day’s defenses.

On the flip side, you didn’t get to choose who you fought in Guild Wars. The interface plopped a team down in front of you and that was that.

I wholeheartedly approve of this change because the Wand of Stars is just an aggravation on defense. I actually lost a battle last week 4v1 when all that remained on the other side was an enemy Hero with a Wand because the thing looped several hundred times in a row without dropping the turn with my troops gradually getting worn down by destroyed/exploded skulls and the occasional skyfall match. (If you ask why I didn’t simply retreat it’s because I had the battle won as soon as the turn flipped back to me; it just never did.)

This is a step in the right direction, but it’s still a band-aid on a gunshot wound. More will need to be done to properly “fix” this mode.

4 Likes
25

This. I have mentioned many times before that this seems to only be a consistent problem with the AI Wand. I’m lucky if mine gets me one extra turn (same for Stella)…they miss way too often on offense. It seems to be less of an inherent issue with weapon/troop and more of an issue with the AI’s “luck”.

2 Likes
26

While I still think WoS need to drop mass bless / mass curse from its spell for sake of balance, a temp block from pvp defense team does make the need of nerf far less urgent.

My idea of WoS spell nerf, if anyone is interested:
Select a mana gem. If it’s blue, brown, green or red, convert that gem and 3 - 5 other gems of that color into elemental stars. If it’s purple or yellow, convert that gem and 4 - 6 other gems of that color into umbral stars.
Raise the mana cost of spell to 24.

This change of spell gives better control to player.

27

Am I the only one who is fine with WoS and Stellarix just as they are, even in PvP? To me the problem isn’t going against them, but against the same teams over and over again. Other team combinations aren’t better or worse, if they appear equally as much.

What lead me to abandon PvP by now mostly was the Pathfinder nerf a while ago and the immense buffs on “low level player teams”, which have been buffed even more now.

Continuing this trend would only lead to me leaving the game and looking for something else, even though I technically could play other modes instead. But there’s only so many modes I can avoid until all of them are “fixed” …

Oh the irony. Last week I had 9000+ trophies despite working full time, because I love the game. This week I think about leaving the game for good because of all the changes lately.

11 Likes
28

Yes maybe?

If PVP defense teams are set by what people actually use on attack, and Wand of Stellarix is the go-to attack team (especially against other Wand of Stellarix teams), then that is precisely the “intended” result.

29

Did this already take effect? I am still seeing Stella and Wand in PVP battles. Even lost my first Citadel fight because Ibwas looped by Stella

30

40% stat to defenders means every defending team under CPU control with a cosmic dragon now wipes attacking team 40% harder.

Just remember that pathfinder troops got nerfed from creating 3 gems for each (type) per activation to prevent looping and balance the battles meanwhile the All mana cosmic dragons mainly stellarix are nuking the field, spawns stars, makes connections 90% of the time for an extra turn and full mana just to loop again for those it missed the first time. Balance? You don’t even know the meaning of the word.

2 Likes
31

Probably not; you just might be one of the very rares who voices it out loud.
I, for example, have no problems facing all those woo! overpowered instant death enemies any day of the week. They’re not that scary. (And, as an unnecessary reminder, I don’t generally use Wand of Strars or Stella or Elementalist for PvP; although, I will, for example, fight precisely 5 games with Elementalist this week for gold marks in respective restriction region.)

But concerning the news in general…
Replacing the two rascals old-arena-style? - Barely matters to me. Fine, I’ll get 99% overall win rate instead of 96%. Big deal. Only downside - if I happen to luck into some weaker bracket where there might be a chance to finish the week in Top 3, all my hypothetical already slim advantage of actually knowing how to win a game will be eliminated…by making the enemies pushowers for every barely average Dick, Joe and Larry…yay! Thank you immensely!

Increased stat bonuses for not defeating citadels? I don’t really care as long as you limit it to attack teams but don’t you dare to apply it for defenders as well!
Or, at the very least, if you decide bonuses apply to defenders - rewards for attackers without stat bonuses should be increased (that definitely includes gold marks, when they’re available, and VP).

6 Likes
32

Disclaimer: I’m level 1800+, been playing the game for over 4 years, and while I’ve put a lot of money into the game, I’m not a whale. My level and troops have been earned more that purchased.

Second disclaimer: This is my opinion and I’m perfectly fin with no one agreeing with me.

I don’t agree with this at all. I’m more than aware of the times Wand and Stell have looped me to death. That’s just the game. Taking them out of a team because they are too hard for some players to beat just isn’t right. There are ways to beat Want and Stell and there are also ways to avoid playing them. Just because the team is there, doesn’t mean you have to play them. Pick another team. Use a diamond and get new options. I don’t think this is fair to anyone to replace troops because some players consider them too hard to beat. When I was first starting out, EVERY troop was too hard to beat. I just kept at it.

Another thing some players don’t seem to realize is the house has the advantage. Always. In gambling, the house (casino) is going to win more than the players do. In a game, it’s still house advantage. The house team is going to win more times than not. I can’t count the times I’ve sworn at the computer when one troop starts looping and never stops. then I use that same troop and can get it to loop once. House advantage. Deal with it. It is what it is.

There are so many real issues the devs need to be looking at rather than Wand and Stell being too strong for some people. There’s the problem of only one alliance in reality. Alliance membership should have been limited, but that’s just my opinion. I foolishly believe the devs when they said it didn’t matter what alliance you joined. After a week, a quit the alliance I was in and joined the one that owned all the kingdoms. I’m still playing catch up from that. Anyway, that’s a real problem that needs to be addressed.

Then there is is integer limit. I’m not going to go into it here because it’s a programming thing, but that really needs to be fixed if the devs want to have players stay in the game.

The point is there are a LOT of really serious problems that need to be fixed and Wand and Stell looking too much shouldn’t even be on the list. There are just so many ways this could be fixed, including just saying “we’re working on it.”

You don’t have to agree with my opinion. It’s just mine. When I was starting and couldn’t beat teams (it took me forever to get to level 12 in explore and even longer to get through the trials and that was when you could choose your own team) and I never once thought of crying to the devs to make things easier for me. To be honest, when I first started out, I didn’t know about the forums, but the point it I wouldn’t have asked the devs to make things easier for me. I got help from team mates, got better teams, got better troops, and finally got through them. And I still have problems on explore level 12 at times.

This is a game and itt should be challenging and fun. it if can’t be challenging, it should at least be fun. If it can’t be fun, then why are you wasting your time playing it?

These are my thoughts. Now I’m going to crawl back under my rock and mind my own business.

13 Likes
33

Challenge is when your actions take effect on the outcome. Being looped to death giving up just a single turn is not a challenge. You have to work on wording.

There were NO exceptionally strong troops when I started this game. There were over-leveled enemies, there were irritating enemies. Stella + Wand is different. It’s a disaster you can’t avoid if you going to endspiel this game. But if watching gems looping on you for a minute until you die and start another fight risking it taking the same way is fun for you - noone blames you. It’s we who don’t want to be a watcher, but rather player.

8 Likes
34

Stellarix isn’t even an issue as it’s easy to counter. Wand + Elementalist is the issue, and they’re in every aspect of PvP. I guess taking Wand out of the equation of the Kingdom/Troop specific regions helps, but I would also like those restrictions to also apply to the Hero. This will encourage using different classes/teams and also remove the frustration of an entire match being ruined by snap freeze + being immobilized by one 4+ match from the AI.

2 Likes
35

The question that comes to mind is:

When troops in PvP can be replaced. Why didn’t the same happen to pathfinder troops? Instead of nerfing them to the ground after people invested money and time to get them, they could have been replaced with the first 2 non-looping pathfinder troops easily …

7 Likes
36

The simplest answer is that they didn’t think of it. Or they didn’t want to have to keep hard coding a running list of exceptions with every new journey. Either way, I’m sure it wasn’t malicious.

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Which requires people actually using these counter-teams in similar large numbers as the Wand of Stellarix teams themselves. THEN you’d start seeing a healthy mix of opponent teams to fight against. Otherwise, the prevelance of this single team in PVP defenses is … “working as intended” and legitimately so.

This sounds like the more likely explanation to me. Generally speaking, carving out very specific exceptions is a bad thing, so the more you have to do it, the worse your overall system is.

38

could just make a black list after all the troops are only a 4 number code. just add one to the list every 5 weeks as its added to the game

39

separate from my above comment, stella and WoS are still in pvp and not being replaced.

2 Likes
40

It is tomorrow now and this is really disappointing - still no replacement.

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6 Likes
41

double joy :sweat_smile:

42

Still not untrue as you never said “at reset” :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Time will tell…