PVP Change Notes July 24th 2024

[Lufia]

@Tresk

What I want to know is how is someone far along enough in the game to be getting Stellarix on enemy teams has nothing to use to web or silence it… or devour / instant kill it?

Stella was never the problem, they could have let him stay. The main problem was the combination of Wand + other good troops + advantages of the AI.

If you didn’t have a good starting board and could kill wand within the first two player turns, you’d loose that match in most cases. Because the 100% AI-extraturn of Wand and the continuous perfect matches that drop in from outside of the board for the AI would fill whatever troops the AI had (Stella inlcluded) instantly.

Another example how ridiculous the AI is: I had killed Stella and the two other troops already. All that was left was Wand with 4 health. My last attack didn’t give me an extraturn to finish it. So the AI cast Wand and from then on I could watch for 2+ minutes how the AI killed my still full health team with extraturns and dropping skullmatches.

And such occurrences are quite regular, not only in PVP but also in other gamemodes. I lost more fights in this abysmal new PVP mode than in the last 10 years of the old PVP (Guild wars every single time included). And that is a really strong demotivation to keep going.

[Stratelier]

@Tresk

Not being able to set specific defenses makes the entire idea of the pvp mode sillier than it already was.

Looking back on the PVP rework, I’m now actually wishing “Revenge” battles pitted you against the player’s attack team that actually defeated your defense team.

@Sylwani

Ps. Playing purple blood frenzy and i can tell you what the next complaint is.

“Diamantina is too strong!”

But at least Diamantina doesn’t boast 55% spell reduction, nor create new matches on the board during spellcast.

[Sylwani]

I didnt have a problem with stellarix as i stated. Im actually more annoyed with the skulls everywhere now messing up my wand

[Hi_Bob]

I guess players enjoy guaranteed wins. I just went to PvP and found I slipped from 2nd to 11th in my Ladder, with 12K pts.

[Maisie]

@Sylwani

Im actually more annoyed with the skulls everywhere now messing up my wand

Y’know, a good player would be able to counter that

[Sylwani]

I do counter it. Entangle from elementalist and skull shield montolith

Im just saying its annoying and it will be the next complaint thread here imo. Im not saying it needs to change

[McDoubleDad]

Maybe not since in addition to the counters you mentioned there’s simply changing the storm any number of ways first or second turn.

[Kafka]

@Tresk

It’s best to remember new players are NOT facing Stella / Tak / Wand /Zuul etc etc in pvp.

I’d like to chime in here. It’s possible to be over level 1,000 and facing these Troops while still a new player without much of a Troop collection because Levelling up doesn’t take nearly as much time as collecting the rarer Troops.

Gotta remember that a lot of work has been done on the new player experience as well so they can get into the meat of the game without doing 10 years of catch up to participate. But there’s still a lot of Mythics and Legendaries so while you can collect quite a few in that time, you may not find the ones you want to build a team known to counter another specific team really well.

There’s also a bit of power creep happening with the Stellarix/Wand of Stars/Elementalist combos, it’s just not fun to be one shotted on your opponent’s first turn.

It is fun to explode the Gems all over when you’re making the moves as an attacker, but watching the board and your Troops blow up in your face as the attacker over and over is really boring and frustrating.

I totally understand what people are saying about learning better strategies and putting in the time and effort to learn how to build counters and collect Troops and upgrade them - you’ll always see me saying that if a player in any game has the skills and has put in the time and effort to do something that makes them much better at players who haven’t put in as much time or effort, then that is earned and deserved.

What’s different in this case is, while PVP is obviously a competitive mode where skill and time invested should have a big pay off, getting one shot on your opponents first turn 70% of the time is a really bad gaming experience. Disclaimer I pulled 70% out of the air, it’s not whatever the real stat is - but for most players it’s a high percentage.

The people most affected by this don’t come to the forum to talk about it - they uninstall.
There’s been another thread lately talking about player numbers and the health of the game.
I did say in there we’re not concerned about the numbers, but that’s because we do track these things and address them and right now a big thing is one of our 2-3 most core game modes, PVP, ruining the fun for so many players.

Ultimately, this is a game everyone wants to play, not a series of animations with a defeat screen at the end people come to watch.

And yes, this statement can absolutely apply to other areas of the game where you’ve all given feedback as well, multiple things can be true at the same time (ie. Journey, dragon eggs), but right now the biggest one is the excessive one shotting of the attacker by the defender in PVP as it’s affecting the most players in the most severe way in the most core game mode out of the list of things we have feedback about currently. We’re also in the middle of a PVP update so it’s the perfect time to look into it without going completely left field of what the programmers and designers are already looking at.

Re: Journey and Dragon Eggs, because I brought them up, we are still pushing your feedback about this, and as soon as we’re through 8.0 my plan is to lean more into Dragon Eggs and pushing that harder. The reason I’m choosing Dragon Eggs as my next priority for feedback pushing is because we have the Guild Wars rework coming up and Dragon Eggs seems simpler to me to address than Journey given Dragon Eggs are a gacha and Journey is a WHOLE event.

[Sylwani]

But what about players like me, forgive me for being an elitist here, but i routinely was having a 90% win rate on blood frenzy vs stellarix. I didnt make up that number. This was before the change. And this is every week.

I won my bracket every week because people dont want to bother with blood frenzy for fear of getting 1 shotted. Im willing to bet those people didnt use spell shield monolith either which stops the 1 shot and gives you another chance.

Now im going to have to do more work than i was already doing to win…for the same rewards. Not because the players in my bracket got better. But because the game was changed for them.

See how thats frustrating to those of us that did put the work in to learn the counters?

[Sylwani]

Btw. Someone in my guild just reported that in their bracket someone that wasnt playing blood frenzy had gotten 25,000 vp since the change and has unseated them from first place.

This “fix” punishes players that put in the work to learn the counters

[Kafka]

I do understand exactly what you’re saying and that sucks, I 100% agree. But we really can’t have attacking players getting one shot so frequently by the defender. It churns players out of the game.

I really respect what you’ve accomplished, because reading up further in the thread you were originally criticising the current PVP meta but you’ve worked hard to find ways to counter it and do really well in PVP and I think that’s an incredible turn around and I know that isn’t easy.

If it were just about the rewards, I think it would be a more difficult conversation. But because this is about the gameplay experience for most players something had to be done.

You’re still going to top your ladder, look at your lead on the other players. If you find you’re putting in even more effort than before and feel like you’re getting defeated on the leaderboards by players who have put in far less effort than you, we should definitely have that conversation.

And again, seriously kudos for what you’ve been accomplishing given the difficulty you had at the start of the current meta.

[Aragorn1]

I have been there against Wand. I have also lost an entire team to a lone Leprechaun on two occasions.

[TheIdleOne]

@Kafka

There’s also a bit of power creep happening with the Stellarix/Wand of Stars/Elementalist combos, it’s just not fun to be one shotted on your opponent’s first turn.

@Kafka

What’s different in this case is, while PVP is obviously a competitive mode where skill and time invested should have a big pay off, getting one shot on your opponents first turn 70% of the time is a really bad gaming experience. Disclaimer I pulled 70% out of the air, it’s not whatever the real stat is - but for most players it’s a high percentage.

For as much concern about being one shotted on your opponent’s first turn, we never saw any sort of discussion from anyone on the dev team about guild wars and two empowered troops into doomed books defense teams. Those were more “not fun” than any of these wand/stell matches.

[Hayabusa]

Let’s face it. PvP just isn’t worth the time anymore. Now that I reached level 1700, I have to double or triple the amount of matches of my competition and mostly still miss top 3 despite doing blood frenzy whenever possible. Just because they have a lower level and therefore get more VP.

This time I can use better. By doing explore, chatting in guild chat, eating or watching TV while the game is still on.

Oh, I loved PvP back in the days. I loved it even more right after the new update, even though the new graphics made 30% of my guild quit the game and move on.

Now even thinking about it makes me sick. Currently I still do a few battles every day to get a few gold marks. But it also took me two days to collect the PvP bonus, because I just didn’t want to play that extra hour …

[Raistlin]

That scenario is exactly why we made Guild Wars optional in our guild. It’s not worth the frustration.

[Kafka]

@TheIdleOne

For as much concern about being one shotted on your opponent’s first turn, we never saw any sort of discussion from anyone on the dev team about guild wars and two empowered troops into doomed books defense teams. Those were more “not fun” than any of these wand/stell matches.

I hear ya!

Guild Wars is by far the most competitive game mode, so while there may be a case for reviewing those balances at some point, it affected highly competitive endgamers in the most competitive game mode in the game at a rate of 5 battles per day.

It is not the same as the issues with balancing we’re looking into in PVP which is a core game mode that can be played limitlessly by every player in the game.

That’s why this one has taken on more attention and urgency.

[Raistlin]

@Kafka

the issues with balancing we’re looking into in PVP which is a core game mode that can be played limitlessly by every player in the game

Make sure your “balancing” only affects PVP and NOT every other mode in the game.

[BranaHawk]

I have never understood why the VP rewarded is based on player level and not team score.

One of my opponent options is 30 levels below me. Has a team score of 17,691 to my 16,460, and is worth 48 VP.
The second is 29 levels below me. Has a team score of 17,096 to my 16,460, and is worth 49 VP.
Finally, option 3 is 204 levels higher than I. Has the lowest team score of 14,766 to my 16,460 and is worth 65 VP.

So the weakest of the teams is worth more?

[Dust_Angel]

Well, congratulations - now even a supposedly hardest color-limitation bloodfrenzy regions are turned into something where anybody (no skill, no knowledge, no nothing) can win most of the time without real trouble; well, double and triple Takshakas (which was always more serious enemy than Stellarix, by the way) might still provide some danger…

(As a tangent, why do you keep punishing me so excessively?
First you punish me for being a high level player.
Second, with your latest change, you punish me for actually knowing how to play and being prepared to play.
And third, now, with your latest change, you punish me for not using brainless Elementalist Wand and Stella team - having Diamantina instead of Stella in bloodfrenzy actually makes things worse for my best no Elementalist-no-Wand-no-Stella-no-Takshaka setups. No difference for non-bloodfrenzy, though.)

And, of course, all the complainers simply ignore the fact that there is entire six location outer ring where one does not face any Stellarix teams like - ever, almost. Yeah, those are not the places where one cold brainlessly plop-plop-plop with their own zero-effort-braindead Stella team and actually put in some work, so - not worth playing.

If caring devs actually cared enough to actually follow their own rules and remove lazy-and-???-player friend Elementalist from there…(I have always said and will say that outer ring Elementalist hurts players more than it helps them)…and do something about other lazy-and-???-player friend Wand of Stars…

Anyhow, Kafka, shake the hand and give a tap on the shoulder to those bright minds who decided to smash casual PvP - if you still had it, you wouldn’t be hearing nearly as many complaints and wouldn’t be forced do the “balancing” (which, with your record, is basic slaughter and butchery most of the time).
Just let those who can’t or simply won’t play normal PvP normally flock to casual.
Make sure that no casual-VP counts towards any leaderboad (if they want that luxury, then do proper play and not get handed everything on a silver platter with fanfares blasting) cap enemy stats to…I don’t know…3 (plucking out of thin air) points per attribute for good measure and they’re good to go.
1,000,000,000,000 game win streaks - check.
Never lose - check.
Class experience - check.
Pet gnomes - check.
Pure joy.

Besides, you know what would’ve been simpler way to nudge people away from THAT meta?
24% off the final VP for having Wand on your team.
Another 24% off the final VP for having Stella on your team.
Another 24% off final VP for having Elementalist on your team.
Another 24% off final VP for any Takshaka on your team…

So, you can still use them to your heart’s content but, with most offensive teams, getting 4VP instead of 100VP, one might see quite rapid migration to something else.

And, yes, it wouldn’t affect me at all - I don’t use either of the mentioned above for playing PvP because I am that good and don’t want to feel like some jackdonkey using them.

[AMT]

@Dust_Angel

shake the hand and give a tap on the shoulder to those bright minds who decided to smash casual PvP - if you still had it, you wouldn’t be hearing nearly as many complaints

This is not receiving enough attention based on the sporadic mod updates