[Feedback] Rambling about everything League-ish

I know people have said plenty of this in that "problems" thread or on the test forums, but here's my "first impressions" of the leagues.

Map thoughts:

Geomancy and Artifacts: Can't complain. I'm sure that fixed deck leagues will hold universal appeal. Some folks have nits to pick about Geomancy and I leave them to it.

Chess and Waterways: Finally! This whole time, the single-player campaign has been about "deckbuilding puzzle-solving challenges" while multiplayer has been . . . multiplayer. There's a "meta" in there for the non-casual demographics. Experienced players who do enjoy multiplayer, but don't care about puzzle-solving versus the hot and happenin' "meta," will love these more structured puzzles. Inexperienced ones . . . see below.

Scheduling and fee thoughts:

These are different demographics. With a few generalizations and blanket statements: All casual players (and everyone else, too) will love Artifacts. Some casual players will love Geomancy (those who don't go "UGH! TERRAIN!" just like many experienced ones). All experienced players will love Chess (defining "experienced" as those who have enough items to be competitive). Some experienced players will love Waterways (those who enjoy the deckbuilding challenge).

It seems to me that there are two issues in channeling these groups into money: charging fair fees; and then, once some players are turned away by the fees, NOT spreading the remainder so thin that an individual league is low on competitors.

This suggestion about a "Free Trial" option should help with boosting competitors regardless of the rest.

Now, pizza fees will turn people away faster than gold fees. Next, imagine you charge pizza for Waterways. A new player shows up, spends real-world money, and then plays without a single Fly or Teleport card. Uh . . . whoops? At first glance, pizza fees might best be kept on the broad-appeal leagues where fewer people can feel ripped off.

Except that this interacts with scheduling. What if the specialty challenges like Waterways were rarer? What if there were one day a week that everyone who wanted to pay pizza for Waterways could come together and play? People could plan, and if people can plan then they'll come together in larger numbers.

Sidenote: Seriously, a check is needed on Waterways. "Whoa, your active party doesn't have any Fly, Teleport, or Whirlwind! Are you sure you want to join?"

So, probably, the broadest-appeal maps (fixed decks) could use a mix of gold and pizza fees. Then the specialty maps could use a mix. But as fewer and fewer players get 1) interested in the gameplay and 2) interested in the fee, said leagues had better get scarcer.

Other thoughts for when fees start up:

"I just payed you 20 pizza and won NOTHING!" Okay, hopefully this recent change will address it. Personally, I was going to suggest a token Treasure item: everybody who pays for a league gets one item from a unique set of league-themed Treasures, selected with the typical rarity distribution. You can collect the whole set even if you never win, but you had to pay something to earn it.

 

If pizza is the entry fee into a league, then not winning should net you nothing. Otherwise, it'll lead to an abuse.

Don't agree, sorry. The whole reason why a league is a league is because you will be matched up against pros. To me, that's the whole point. Newbies should know better than to pay pizza, get royally trounced and then cry foul.

The league engine allows for different setups that the devs can play around with. Specialty maps is just one of many and the current incarnation is really more of a test than anything. I'm in favor of a mix between fixed decks and player built ones tho. And private invitation only leagues. Its human nature to tend to forsee what will happen but enlarging choice appeals to a broader audience than not, so I'm optimistic that leagues are going to be a feature of Card Hunter.

 

If newbies knew better, they probably wouldn't qualify as newbies anymore. (I say this having been a non-knowing newbie before.)

 

Sidenote: Seriously, a check is needed on Waterways. "Whoa, your active party doesn't have any Fly, Teleport, or Whirlwind! Are you sure you want to join?"

The best suggestion I've heard so far!
I myself went to waterways once without any of those (forgot to change my active party) but my opponent was a newbie who didn't know what waterways is about either so after we had passed for some rounds he just resigned.

 

Next question: WHY is it still impossible to get automatic quotes-within-quotes on these forums? I have to duplicate manually all this stuff.

For the record, I know and understand how important it is for zero accomplishment to equal zero reward. That's the same logic behind losing single-player maps. I'm just bringing the complaint back up because, well, players will bring it back up.

Interesting. As first glance, I thought you were about to pounce on me with all the venom of an enraged metaphor. But it looks like our only disagreement is over psychology. If it were called something OTHER THAN a "league," would you feel the same? Because I know there are both amateur and expert players here, so I'd expect to face both.

Stepping aside from what you call it, amateur players nonetheless expect Card Hunter's multiplayer to use a ranking system: physical-world competitions will often divide people up by skill, so wouldn't they EXPECT to go up against amateurs in a league? Yes, I know, the matter of paying fees also changes it.

But in any case, I had been talking about people being turned away. If new players do in fact avoid pizza leagues (expecting to be trounced), then I think the rest of my point is still meaningful for how the devs schedule things.

And I just plain love more content, so anything that expands the setup is fine by me. And getting real game rewards while they "test"? Also fine by me! Though I'm a little concerned about devaluation of pizza (or figures) by now.

And Lord Felaran: yeah, I've fought a couple people in that situation. Both a newcomer and an advanced player who accidentally entered with the wrong deck. I don't know how annoying the check would be to program, but sometimes players REALLY need a warning.

 

I'm one experienced (but low-ranked) player who does not love Anarchy; I'm just very, very bad at it for some reason. Looking through my league results, I've calculated my win rates (first 4 games) for each league:
Artifact Anarchy: 25%
Clash of Geomancy: 63%
Chess Madness: 75%
Wicked Waterways: 75% (exactly three wins all three times I've played it)

Also, I've never managed to place third in my pod; I've hit every other ranking 2 or 3 times each (I've played geomancy twice, every other league 3 times).

 

Did you track your results, or is there somewhere where you can look this data up?

 

In the league standings there are arrows to view results from previous leagues you've played.

 

That's a handy feature.

And perhaps I could rephrase, because I, too, do pretty poorly in Artifact Anarchy. I didn't have a better word for "would be attracted to the general concept because it's easy to jump in and play while still having the strategic complexity to appeal for more than a few seconds and lacking many repelling features discovered later on."

Maybe I could have replaced "love" with "play."

 

I don't pounce ever Having said that, english isn't my native language so I do apologise if typed words don't seem what they mean. =) We have differing world views which is why I find it interesting engaging your points.

I would feel the same even if the word 'league' were replaced by the word 'potato'. Its indeed a psychology issue. Assume 10 players pay 20 pizza each to enter a potato. Of the 10 players, 1 is a utter newbie and gets 0 win. The champ of the potato gets XXX prize. The remaining 8 veterans who got nothing knew what they were getting into, they knew the potato was tough. No complaints. What happens to the psychology of the utter newbie ? Whine ? Ask for refund ? What follows after the whine/refund ? More babysitting ? Shrugs...

This brings up a good point. There are no amateur leagues in the current system. Perhaps there should be one ? Then the whole bucket of 'how to determine an amateur online is an amateur irl' comes up. Do we want to go into that now ? hmm....

 

I dunno. I'm still distracted by potatoes.

 

My thoughts on the league:

Geomancy (14/16) = 87%
3-1 1st (2-way
4-0 1st
4-0 1st
3-1 2nd

Waterways 3/12) (25%)
0
2-2 1st (3-way)
1-3 4th

Chess (14/24) (58-87%)
4-0 1st (2-way)
3-0 1st
3-0 2nd
4-0 1st
0
0

Anarchy (10/12) (83%)
4-0 1st
3-1 2nd
3-1 2nd

If you ignore the two games of chess that I did poorly on (and thus didn't play all 4 games well or at all), I actually did pretty well on three out of four.
Wicked Waterways was pretty awful for me. I had no Wings of Faith and had to rely on a wizardy build which I don't like or play much.

Geomancy and Anarchy are a lot of fun and I found a way to consistently destroy the competition . I admit that I was majorly outplayed on Geomancy once or twice, but still it was a lot of fun. I know people say that it is "super-swingy", but having so much variety in the decks was more challenging, and it still doesn't take much to predict your opponent's moves.

In case you are wondering, the only notable things I got from chests were 3X Blackhammer/ Ztoli Idol (too late for Waterways) and 2X Wild Trickery, which is about to fuel a complaint.

For me, I guess I am an experienced player and I was able to get what I wanted- all the figures and enough pizza to get all the treasure hunts, which prompted me to get membership. I had a lot of fun (particularily on Anarchy), and I sincerely hope that I can continue to play leagues for fun in the future.

In particular, being able to have league matches count towards your chest ladder- fantastic! I dislike playing ranked much because of nasty opponents with control/whirlwind builds.

 

My final results for the Free League Week:
(wins/played : rank)
Artifact Anarchy:
0/4 : 5th, no prize
2/4 : 4th
1/4 : 5th

Chess Madness:
2/4 : 2nd
4/4 : 1st
3/4 : 4th
1/4 : 5th
2/4 : 2nd

Wicked Waterways:
3/8 : 1st
3/5 : 2nd
3/4 : 2nd

Clash of Geomancy:
3/4 : 2nd
2/6 : 1st

Prizes:
3 figures
262 pizza
11 epic, 5 magnificent, and 5 common chests
(just pulled my second Dangerous Club from a league prize chest)

 

My results from the free-week:

Chess Madness: 20/20 = 100%
1) 4-0 1st
2) 4-0 1st
3) 4-0 2nd
4) 4-0 1st
5) 4-0 1st

Wicked Waterways: 14/16= 87.5 %
1) 4-0 1st
2) 3-1 2nd
3) 3-1 1st
4) 4-0 2nd


Clash of Geomancy: 8/12 = 75%
1) 2-2 2nd
2) 3-1 1st (shared)
3) 3-1 2nd

Artifact Anarchy: 5/8 = 62.5 %
1) 2-2 1st (shared)
2) 3-1 1st

Total
9 times: 1st
5 times: 2nd

As a separate note, I have to say that with the new changes, the leagues are just awesome for farming for chests, specially Chess Madness, that has the quickest games. Today I decided to play Chess Madness for the 3 hours to see how many games I could play, and where I could arrive in the chest line (the other times I arrived pretty late to the league). And despite the fact that I started 10 minutes late, I was able to play 19 games. My record was 17-2, so I just had to play 3 more normal mp games to reach the epic. So it's very effective if you think in the time consumed and what do you get. Of course that for low elo players I imagine that playing normal mp would be more effective, as they usually will play against someone of the same elo, instead of the leagues where you can be paired with anyone.

 

Any plans to post statistics from the free leagues? Stuff like:

• How many of each figure given out.
• How much pizza given out.
  
• How many people played each league.
• How many times players lost their first 4 games in a league.

 

Artifact Anarchy - 13/16 = 81%
3/4: 1
4/4: 1 (3-way)
3/4: 1
3/4: 2

Chess Madness - 10/12 = 83%
4/4: 1
4/4: 2
2/4: 3
1/2: 5 (quit)
0/4: - (toy build)

Wicked Waterways - 7/8 = 87%
4/4: 1
3/4: 1 (2-way)
1/4: 3 (toy build)

Clash of Geomancy - 7/8 = 87%
4/4: 1 (2-way)
3/4: 1 (3-way - REALLY NOT PLANNED AT ALL )
1/1: 4 (2-way, quit)

=Places=
1: 8
2: 2
3: 2 (1 toy build)
4: 1 (1 quit)
5: 1 (1 quit)
-: 1 (1 toy build)

=Prizes=
4 figures
~500 pizza?
chests - 20 Epic, 4 Magnificent, 7 Normal


I was remarkably consistent with my win rate, when I was actually playing the league. I appreciated it when my pod was full of veterans, because I didn't have to hold back and be nice.

I didn't place first during only 3 of 11 entries in which I was actually playing. One of those was a perfect round (4/4) where I lost on tiebreaker.

 

I managed to get all the figures, but only barely. Is it in fact part of how leagues work that you can face people of any multiplayer ranking?

And I hope the new memberships and such bring in money. Adding in the chests (and thus the tantalizing item behind glass) is probably only going to help with getting more people.

 

:O :O :O
Well, after the free week is over, it won't be that easy any more I guess.