[Official] Drafting your QG tier in RTTC

[vauux]

Re: [Official] Drafting your QG tier in RTTC

FFS I just lost 24 picks, maybe more! Why change this middle of an event. What an ahole move.

Same here, didn't notice it until I lost maybe 30+ picks.

[SmartForce]

Re: [Official] Drafting your QG tier in RTTC

First, thanks to NWGameDad and the rest of the CatDaddy crew for listening. It's really hard to have people tell you that your decisions are bad, and most developers refuse to even consider that kind of feedback. Kudos for being willing to ask yourselves if it made sense to have players who don't really benefit much from Star cards having a ton of games basically invalidated because of a game event that lowers their tier down.

Super great news, and pretty stand up move to address it and change your minds.

Lmao "we didn't make it bad enough by dropping it to 50, so we've decided to screw you even more".

Once again, good decision (RttC follows QG tier) is overshadowed by ridiculous and unnecessary decision.

I'm sorry, but there's no real reason to horde picks. I admit that it was quite fun to use up 200 of them all in a few games with training in between, and if everyone was just doing that in a way that wasn't exploiting the game and didn't cause server problems, they would likely not make a change.

That's not the case though. People have bragged on this very forum about how they drop down and play in UR++, using Star level supports, and get 100% win rates, while saving up their picks to use at their actual deck level. That is clearly exploitative behavior, especially if they do it during RC and it allows them to play quicker because they don't have to do any thinking. Just hit the hot streak and then tap as fast as possible, and swap to the 2nd device at the appropriate time to store the picks for later.

No need to store picks now. Thank you! Don't understand why people would still complain about the pick limit.

24 is quite generous. People will still be willing to adjust their deck down to a lower tier for 11 games and then back higher for 1 game to get 24 picks at their proper tier by playing 11 completely trivial games.

What does storing picks matter if you can draft in the RttC from your QG tier? I could see the point of playing at a lower level in QG/RC and moving up to draft, but I would also say that seems to be playing the system. If they wanted to they could take that away completely.

See above.

[eVizions]

Re: [Official] Drafting your QG tier in RTTC

What does storing picks matter if you can draft in the RttC from your QG tier? I could see the point of playing at a lower level in QG/RC and moving up to draft, but I would also say that seems to be playing the system. If they wanted to they could take that away completely.

I'm in the same tier in both QG and RttC. I just like to be able to play a bunch of games and then pick a bunch of cards. It takes away from the monotony of a very monotonous game. It was a nice feature to have. No need to take it away.

[Brandon K]

Re: [Official] Drafting your QG tier in RTTC

So just to clarify, this means that even though I'm only showing Leg++ in RTTC and the board shows Leg++ graphics on the back of the cards, I am really drafting at the QG Star tier?

Great decision if so, IMO.

And storing picks is unnecessary. Stop whining about nothing.

[eVizions]

Re: [Official] Drafting your QG tier in RTTC

First, thanks to NWGameDad and the rest of the CatDaddy crew for listening. It's really hard to have people tell you that your decisions are bad, and most developers refuse to even consider that kind of feedback. Kudos for being willing to ask yourselves if it made sense to have players who don't really benefit much from Star cards having a ton of games basically invalidated because of a game event that lowers their tier down.

Super great news, and pretty stand up move to address it and change your minds.




I'm sorry, but there's no real reason to horde picks. I admit that it was quite fun to use up 200 of them all in a few games with training in between, and if everyone was just doing that in a way that wasn't exploiting the game and didn't cause server problems, they would likely not make a change.

That's not the case though. People have bragged on this very forum about how they drop down and play in UR++, using Star level supports, and get 100% win rates, while saving up their picks to use at their actual deck level. That is clearly exploitative behavior, especially if they do it during RC and it allows them to play quicker because they don't have to do any thinking. Just hit the hot streak and then tap as fast as possible, and swap to the 2nd device at the appropriate time to store the picks for later.



24 is quite generous. People will still be willing to adjust their deck down to a lower tier for 11 games and then back higher for 1 game to get 24 picks at their proper tier by playing 11 completely trivial games.



See above.

And you think this is going to stop them??? Nope. It's an inconvenience to them, nothing more. It does, however, take away one of the things that I (and many other people) like to do, which is save up like 200 picks and run through them all.

You know what will stop them? When the picks you earn are only valid on the tier you earn them on.

[king Leonidis]

Re: [Official] Drafting your QG tier in RTTC

sucks that the picks where nerfed mid event. That's really stupid. So is it confirmed that you pull from your QG tier even if it is lower in RTTC? I am like 180 board clears into my Star tier and don't want to mess it up

[SmartForce]

Re: [Official] Drafting your QG tier in RTTC

And you think this is going to stop them??? Nope. It's an inconvenience to them, nothing more. It does, however, take away one of the things that I (and many other people) like to do, which is save up like 200 picks and run through them all.

You know what will stop them? When the picks you earn are only valid on the tier you earn them on.

I enjoyed using 200 picks in a splurge. It was fun. According to CatDaddy, it causes problems with the servers. While you are absolutely correct that the only sure way to stop someone from abusing the mechanics would be to make each draft pick specific to the tier it was rewarded for, that's a ridiculous amount of work and changes to ask them to make just so we can have fun splurging picks (and screwing up the servers in the process).

A good rule of thumb about exploitation is that if you hear about it without going out of your way to find it, then it is probably far more rampant than you realize. I would not be surprised if the next version of the app is designed in a way that is much more restrictive of the rewards given for the quick games because of the way people have abused this year.

I would not be at all surprised to learn that the network problems that frequently occur during the RC are in some part due to people dropping tiers and hoarding picks so they can play faster and win 100% of the time.

[brad_nicholson]

Re: [Official] Drafting your QG tier in RTTC

sucks that the picks where nerfed mid event. That's really stupid. So is it confirmed that you pull from your QG tier even if it is lower in RTTC? I am like 180 board clears into my Star tier and don't want to mess it up

hey, saw this asked a few times -- yes, when you participate in RTTC, you're pulling from your QG tier. Even though the game, visually, says differently that's what is happening.

for example, if you're rolling in Star in QG but have a Legendary ++ deck in RTTC, you're still pulling from Star.

[djeternal2]

Re: [Official] Drafting your QG tier in RTTC

hey, saw this asked a few times -- yes, when you participate in RTTC, you're pulling from your QG tier. Even though the game, visually, says differently that's what is happening.

for example, if you're rolling in Star in QG but have a Legendary ++ deck in RTTC, you're still pulling from Star.

Thank you for the clarification.

[king Leonidis]

Re: [Official] Drafting your QG tier in RTTC

hey, saw this asked a few times -- yes, when you participate in RTTC, you're pulling from your QG tier. Even though the game, visually, says differently that's what is happening.

for example, if you're rolling in Star in QG but have a Legendary ++ deck in RTTC, you're still pulling from Star.

Appreciate it

[aardhaart]

Re: [Official] Drafting your QG tier in RTTC

hey, saw this asked a few times -- yes, when you participate in RTTC, you're pulling from your QG tier. Even though the game, visually, says differently that's what is happening.

for example, if you're rolling in Star in QG but have a Legendary ++ deck in RTTC, you're still pulling from Star.

In that scenario if I pull a legendary from the RttC board, it will not mess up my Star reset counter, will it?

[eVizions]

Re: [Official] Drafting your QG tier in RTTC

I enjoyed using 200 picks in a splurge. It was fun. According to CatDaddy, it causes problems with the servers. While you are absolutely correct that the only sure way to stop someone from abusing the mechanics would be to make each draft pick specific to the tier it was rewarded for, that's a ridiculous amount of work and changes to ask them to make just so we can have fun splurging picks (and screwing up the servers in the process).

A good rule of thumb about exploitation is that if you hear about it without going out of your way to find it, then it is probably far more rampant than you realize. I would not be surprised if the next version of the app is designed in a way that is much more restrictive of the rewards given for the quick games because of the way people have abused this year.

I would not be at all surprised to learn that the network problems that frequently occur during the RC are in some part due to people dropping tiers and hoarding picks so they can play faster and win 100% of the time.

This has been part of the game since last year. They do nothing about it all this time, but now decide to lower the number of picks to address it. That's just lazy, I'm sorry. Also, if your infrastructure can't handle the load on it, you don't restrict your clients, you fix the infrastructure.

[SmartForce]

Re: [Official] Drafting your QG tier in RTTC

This has been part of the game since last year. They do nothing about it all this time, but now decide to lower the number of picks to address it. That's just lazy, I'm sorry. Also, if your infrastructure can't handle the load on it, you don't restrict your clients, you fix the infrastructure.

It probably is for the same reason Blizzard recently banned people for the Blood Shard exploit in Diablo 3. It was reported during the testing of the patch, and they knew about it. Once it blew up and lots of people knew about it, they had to take action.

Similarly, I suspect that they are taking action now because the practice has grown prevalent enough that it is a problem. I mean ... when people start openly bragging about how they do it to speed up their RC grinding ... the problem is probably pretty widespread.

As far as them "fixing" things go, have you ever done the programming work necessary to handle the sort of load they get during RC and RttC events, along with ensuring that the card draft process is secure and can't be hacked on the client end to reward inappropriately? The load during picks is almost certainly due to the server handling everything when it comes to that and leaving nothing to the client except for a draft request.

That's not a problem you can just throw hardware at.

[NWGameDad]

Re: [Official] Drafting your QG tier in RTTC

This has been part of the game since last year. They do nothing about it all this time, but now decide to lower the number of picks to address it. That's just lazy, I'm sorry. Also, if your infrastructure can't handle the load on it, you don't restrict your clients, you fix the infrastructure.

I have been saying for a long time that saving picks is not a supported feature. It was never a "feature" at all. We didn't want players who lost connection at a bad time to lose their picks from a game they won which is why it exists at all. Players turned it into a thing in order to take advantage of the matchmaking and reward system. At the extreme, botters took advantage of it to excessively gain cards. We've been working on dealing with it for a long time to plug the holes. With the change in RttC to allow you to draft equal to your QG tier, we see no reason to be saving picks. Hence, why we dropped it even further since it truly can function as to what we wanted it to do, an error handling catch for lost connections.


If we wanted you to save picks as part of the game mechanics then we would have put it in the UI. The game is not designed for you to store and spend picks when you want to. Picks should be used when you receive them.

[vauux]

Re: [Official] Drafting your QG tier in RTTC

Mobile videogames are literally designed to be frustrating instead of fun.
A great many mobile titles make use of mechanics that are put together with the intention of nurturing habitual behavior, frustrating a user, and then offering a slightly more enjoyable experience after money has been spent. This tactic has proven to be a more profitable model than actually offering entertainment, to the point where some companies take very careful steps to ensure that their games don't accidentally end up being fun.
That sounds like satire, I know, but it's actually true.
Let's suppose you had a game like Galaga, for instance. A mobile game version monetized with in-application microtransactions would probably give you the option to upgrade your ship and your weapons, purchase additional lives, and other such things. You'd be able to earn "soft" (or "grind") currency by killing enemy units, with small amounts of "hard" (or "premium") currency being awarded when you advanced in level or something.
Now, that sounds like it would be alright, doesn't it? Here's where the manipulative part comes in, though: In this hypothetical game, it's virtually impossible to make it beyond the third level without spending money, because there's a "recommended" item of some kind that can only be purchased with hard currency... and it's impossible to earn enough of it from within the game. This is called a "pay wall," and a great many mobile games take advantage of the concept, albeit to varying degrees.
There's only one small problem with the game concept I just outlined: It might actually be kind of fun to play. As I mentioned previously, it's a far better idea to frustrate a user, and then give them a marginally better experience after they've converted to a paying player. So, maybe what we'd do with our hypothetical title is have all of the enemies slowly become more and more difficult over the course of five levels or so. Then, when a user inevitably died, we'd show them some kind of pop-up message:
"The aliens are advancing!" it might say. "Spend 15 SPACE CREDITS to revive?"
You'd be given the option to spend 15 hard currency for a single life... or to buy a pack of lives for only 50! Either way, immediately after you made the purchase, the game would become easier and more satisfying. If there were random items dropped by destroyed enemies, you'd see slightly more of them. Your score would increase more quickly, and there would be more explosions (or in the case of a game like Candy Crush, more flashing lights and noises).
After the level was done, you'd get bumped back into the typical difficulty and the same frustrating experience... until you spent more money, of course.

Read this and feel enlightened.