I just don’t understand where’s your frustration came from. I mean, when MMDB meta raised you complain about it. Now people put a single troop on their defense so they will face more variety of teams you also complain.
I doubt that this statistic is true. I mean, I put a team with 8.5k+ score on my defense deck and last 14 PvP battle I fought was very variety, lots of diversity.
Hero - FG - Kerberos - GS
Goblin deck
Gorgotha - Valk - Mab - Death
Wraith - Courage - BD - Famine
EK - Valk - Bat - Mercy
Siren - Shadow Dragon - KoS 2x
EK 2x - Valk 2x
Manti - Manti - DB - BD
Psion - GS - Kerberos - FG
EK - Lion Prince - Manti - Amira
Gorgotha - Venoxia - Lady Anariel - Webspinner
Knight Coronet - Valor - Paladin - Morthani’s Will
Goblin Deck
I think what you claims on your post that you’re facing 80% 1 troop defense was just biased. I also found some 1 troop defense deck but mostly they show in my 1 or 2 trophy battle which I mostly don’t bother. Even if you’re getting one troop defense when invading in PvP, what’s the problem with it? It’s like free resources and it’s quick! [quote=“htismaqe, post:42, topic:16551”]
The one-troop defense teams are boringly easy to beat.
[/quote]
I very rarely get offered single troop defences to invade; shame, I’d see it as easy money and be happy
The reason people are doing it is because of broken meta monotony, and trying to create fun PvP again.
It shouldn’t work but it does.
I used to get at least 90% of PvP matches against one of:
mmdbbd
ek valk mab
bd courage x2
something else with manticore and ek
It was boring as hell and matches were slow and not fun. Too much negativity and stalling, until a broken dragon cast wiped you out.
Now I have one toadstool on defence. I see huge variety in my PvP matches. I get less gold per match but get more gold overall as matches are quicker and I don’t give up after five consecutive mmdbbd matches.
Do I feel bad for such a daft exploit? No. It made my favourite game fun again.
Best fix:
fix the damned meta balance issues and broken troops. People shouldn’t have to do such an artificial exploit to get fun PvP.
Add events etc to stimulate variety in defence teams each week
I’m doing the single-troop defense to avoid endless Bone Dragon spam. I had a high-power defense team and saw Courage, Manticore, and Bone Dragon every battle.
Like Jainus said, we shouldn’t have to use exploits. Just fix Bone Dragon already and the whole discussion is moot.
Yeah personally i’m super glad the 1 troop defense team works. At least until things can become more balanced out.
Which btw I consider the teams i’m seeing while having a 1 troop defense, balanced. Some easy wins, some tougher. Pretty much the way it was supposed to be.
For anyone using it we have free choice on what teams we want to fight, instead of the annoying 3 meta teams.
While I agree that balancing troops should happen, I don’t know that it will fix the problem. Perhaps in s perfect world, and combined with the event system like you suggest, it will help. The problem that I see here is that as new troops are coming out all the time, all it takes is one or two specific troops with the right combination of spell and traits to start a “new meta” (e.g. manticore). Constant vigilance of troop balance is sadly unrealistic - that is, if we ever want any other new features.
What I think ultimately needs to shift is the carrot vs stick issue. For a very long time, ive put up Adana-themed defense teams not because they work well, but because I like robots, I know that others will appreciate the break in the monotony, and I don’t particularly care about the defense results. Many others do care, though, and that’s what drives the latest meta - what people think works the best.
But if you change what drives the team building for defense, perhaps you can change the “meta” behavior. That was what I was trying to get at with my above ideas - if the reason your defense team is there is different, or the results of various teams is different, perhaps we can encourage a wider variety. If the reason behind building your defense team remains the same, the behavior that goes into building it remains the same, whether the troops are balanced or not. And let’s face it, there will always be imbalances no matter how much time the devs spend on it.
Facing always the same troops can be solved if devs modify the algorithm that finds the teams that you can invade. It should take the troops that you previously fought (in the day or in the week) into account.
I am also against the nerf system. I used Bone Dragon and he can misfired (ie not create a 4-turn and so create many skulls for the enemy) even if I always target troops with at least 20 Armor, maybe it happens 5% to 10%. If you nerf him he will become useless… and another meta will appear.
So in the end, you remove some fun to some players to not solve this problem.
A simple comparison of maths before its release would show that EK does way more damage than anything else for his mana cost. And true damage. And is worth at least two Molochs for the same mana cost, and has way better traits. It’s not hard or unrealistic to notice that.
Other issues are reported or complained about on the forum very quickly. Yes there’s lots of noise and bleating, but as forums go this one is fairly balanced and articulate, and an excellent early-warning system to the devs.
I do agree that more novel ways of creating variety would be good. Perhaps the event system will help. But not if players can get this week’s Forest Of Thorns event prize for setting a defence team of [insert FoT troop here] / Courage / Courage / Bone Dragon.
End-game troops have at least 40 Armour. BD was a great idea, fantastically done and very cool. But it just doesn’t work in the end-game any more. BD casting on me cannot misfire.
I’m getting deja vue from the ‘invisible threat’ topic. Sorry if this over as harsh, but let me get this straight:
You deliberately set your defence team to one troop so that you encounter weaker defence teams, and now you are unhappy that you are encountering weaker defence teams with one troop?
Soooo maybe don’t set your defence team to one troop? I’m not trying to be rude but surely it’s that simple?
My defence team is rated at 8.5k. I really don’t feel like I’m only getting the Manticore/Bone Dragon teams. I’ve just looked through my battle log (and then played a few games) to see if my experience matches @ZooKeeper. I’ve picked the 3 trophy option for all of these battles, and I am not consciously avoiding the manticore/BD team as I don’t find it that hard to beat with Gorgotha/Giant Spider/Kraken/Kerberos.
So, here are my most recent 14 battles:
Spider Swarm / Black Beast / Goblin Shaman / Giant Spider
Manticore / Manticore / Giant Spider / Bone Dragon
Draakulis / Emperor K / Valkyrie / Kraken
Humility / Lady A / Webspinner / Plague
Emperor K / Lion Prince / Manticore / Amira
Wraith / Courage / Bone Dragon / Famine
Gorgotha / Valkyrie / Emperor K / Death
Emperor K / Valkyrie / Queen Mab / Mercy
Manticore / Famine / Famine / Famine
Manticore / Manticore / Deep Borer / Bone Dragon
Wraith / Courage / Bone Dragon / Famine
Wraith / Courage / Bone Dragon / Famine
Emperor K / Valkyrie / Justice / Queen Mab
Manticore / Manticore / Deep Borer / Bone Dragon
Whilst the meta defence is clearly still alive with Manticore appearing at least once in 5 battles, and Bone Dragon appearing in 6 battles, they only appeared together 3 times and there are still 7 battles where neither appeared. And the only time I fought the same battle twice in a row, it wasn’t the manticore / BD team but actually the intrim defence team de jour which is wraith, courage, BD and famine. And this is just with me picking the 3 trophy option - if I was trying to avoid Manticore or Bone Dragon I would have had two other choices of teams to invade. And for what it’s worth I am undefeated so far this week.
IMO the meta isn’t as prevalent as some people make it out to be.
Here’s an interesting question. Is the problem limited to those in the top guilds? Because they are never going to see their guildmates as options?
I’m in Aes Sedai (#35 or so) and I regularly get highend teams for my PvP, but I see a similar pattern as @Dddd. Yes there’s a lot of Bone Dragon but it isn’t sufficiently prevalent to make it bother me. And yes I always take the 3 trophy team unless nr 2 is both rival and revenge and even then it has to have 8000+ team rating to be worthwhile to me.
I never go beyond 2000 rating (tier 1 and a bit of margin for the rest of the week), so the “problem” might also be limited to those that continue PvPing beyond 2000.
I just skimmed thru the tread but couldn’t the devs mandate that four troops need to be used in the defense team? Personally those matches don’t bug me because they’re always a 1 or 2 trophy match and it’s easy money if the 3 trophy match is a DoubleMant team.
One thing that does bug me a bit about the defense ranking system is that it really doesn’t take synergies into consideration. I often want to put up a unique or goofy D team to make things interesting/fun but the power ranking on a fully ascended/traited silly team is on par with a power team. I know it shouldn’t bother me but god-darn it does!
So you wouldn’t consider fielding the same four common level 1 troops without any traits as “cheating the system”, even if the effect is about the same? If you really want to prevent players from fielding pushover defense teams, you have to introduce something that makes winning on defense a lot more beneficial than losing on defense. Which may just lead to a different kind of unhappiness, players don’t want their ass getting handed to them by multiple copies of the same best team, they seem to prefer encountering a variety of team setups that are reasonably easy to beat.
I remember last year us being told about the Apple Store Approval Process getting shutdown for a week over the holiday. So I figure we either get a preview this week, or we know the next chance will be January.
The devs didn’t make it that way intentionally, and don’t believe it exists. Why it happens isn’t clear, and between what I can glean from the error messages we see, and the code they’ve posted or talked about, it’s likely that their code is too abstract to easily understand why it produces certain outcomes.
I really don’t think taking defense composition out of the hands of the players is a good idea, or an approach they’ll ever pursue. First, there are plenty of other modes where the enemy teams are determined by the developer – player-chosen defense teams are the defining element of PvP. And not only would it decrease player agency, as others have already argued, it would decrease player identity, at least in terms visible to other players. Already, there’s the complaint that player avatars are pointless because there are so few opportunities for other players to see them. A player’s defense team is one of their only opportunities to show what they’ve collected, show off their skill, or creativity, or sense of humor (or just whose gameplay videos they watch on YouTube).
If people are only playing PvP because of specific rewards, and not because they want to fight other players’ teams, then perhaps the developers should provide alternate game modes for those rewards. But gutting what little element of PvP there is in the PvP mode doesn’t make any sense.
