Battle system Poll

[smartalekrj]

I'm just curious about what people think on it... and where they are at with the new way of fighting.

[Morgana Le Fey]

the new battle system has its flaws but the old battle system takes advantage of the newer players alot more try out going through mp3 again and take on some of the older mp3's they will destroy you and you will end up with 40 wins and over 100 losses at mp3 with max xp

everyone needs losses for honor gains if you are balanced then it will be difficult to gain the honor nessecary to reach mp5 from mp4 granted you recieve less exp from fights but at mp4 and mp5 you know how to work your heat better so that makes up for some of the xp loss

i find the new system a bit more challenging

is it that you arent able to upgrade enough is that why you made this? i am having a hard time aswell but if you try hard enough i have been told and found that you can achieve anything

i am also probably the only one who will vote for the new system but that is because of the impact changing it will be as well as i like it

[smartalekrj]

i can upgrade easy enough. I just made this to see if i compare with others, or if i am doing something wrong lol

[Morgana Le Fey]

ohh ok sorry if i offended you didnt read your character name lol sorry about that

well i hope everyone thinks about how it was before they vote and how hard honor was to come by

[SoulTear]

I wanted to give the new system a chance before commenting on it but enough time has passed now. I think the new system ultimatly didn't help making the game anymore playable then it was before and just shifted the balance toward losses as Eldrad said would happen in an eariler post. Spam attacks are just as common and annoying as ever, at least at MP5. I think the best thing would be to do away with the honor system entirely which now just serves the purpose of forcing people to lose on purpose or at the very least eliminate the Xp bonus for wins over 200 honor while keeping the 2x Xp bonus for balance. That would at least incourage people to be balanced over just acumulating a huge number of loses.

[Metal Bunny]

The main reason I like it is because my humongous amount of losses are giving me a bigger reward than the balance bonus , but this just counts for me, I mean, I must be without a doubt the player with the largest losses to wins ratio.

So... It's nice for me, but I don't really know how others feel about it

[smartalekrj]

metal bunny... you praise the fact that you aren't balanced?!?!? The object was uspposed to be so people would be more balanced and not have soo many wins, and for that the new way served its purpose.... too well i'm afraid.

[BigC]

Hmm, correct me if i'm wrong here bunny.... but doesn't having the most losses make u the biggest loser in the game?

Wouldn't brag about that too much if i was u

[Eldrad]

What's the goal of the second question? I've got too many wins cause there's nothing good about wins (and by wins I mean victories)... but I've got 300 more losses than wins (I'll try to get that up to 500+ after the heads contest). How would you want me to answer the 2nd question?

[Morgana Le Fey]

wow and here i thought my 100 more losses than wins were alot but bunny omg how many losses to wins do you have

and i wish i could still be in mp4 man did i make a bad descision

[Yoric]

metal bunny... you praise the fact that you aren't balanced?!?!? The object was uspposed to be so people would be more balanced and not have soo many wins, and for that the new way served its purpose.... too well i'm afraid.

My private hypothesis has been that this system was created for the older mp5s, and that it completely ignored the situation of the lower level players. You say that the object of the update was to make profiles more balanced--> I've struggled to balance my profile since my introduction to the game, and I've almost always had more losses than wins. In the days before the update I was maintaining my w-l record. Now, I have twice as many losses as I have wins.

As has been noted in other threads, if balance is the goal, this system is mathematically doomed to fail.

[SoulTear]

What's the goal of the second question? I've got too many wins cause there's nothing good about wins (and by wins I mean victories)... but I've got 300 more losses than wins (I'll try to get that up to 500+ after the heads contest). How would you want me to answer the 2nd question?

Indeed that is why I put Too Many Wins rather then Too Many Loses even though I have more loses then wins. Not that it has done me any good the players at MP5 now have so many more loses then wins that you would need at least 500 more loses then wins to get any honor all thanks to the new system. The question was ambigious though but I interperated it subjectivly (do you have too many loses or wins then you want to have) rather then objectivly (do you have more loses then wins or wins then loses). The answer you give will depend on how you read the quest since only loses are good to have unless your MP3 and need 100 wins (100 wins right now is ideal any more is useless). Right now the Heads contest with its need for victories is keeping things somewhat in check but after its over everyone at MP5 and probably MP4 too is going to try and get wins for xp and loses for honor avoiding victories which incriment your wins counter at all costs. The only way to stop this would be to give a greater Xp bonus for balance or eliminate/decrease the Xp bonus for high honor attacks.

Yoric while its natural to want to win as much as possible with the current system those losses will help you a lot espcially when you get to MP5 while wins are not good for anything now expect the MP3 to MP4 advancement and maybe showing off. The fact is that under the current system balance is not only not possible (or at least very difficult) its not desirable since as long as you have a lot more loses then some other player you can get a better Xp bonus then a balanced player ever could and you still get wins for your ceatures from just win attacks (not victories).

[Yoric]

Yoric while its natural to want to win as much as possible with the current system those losses will help you a lot espcially when you get to MP5 while wins are not good for anything now expect the MP3 to MP4 advancement and maybe showing off.

I am playing the game under the ongoing impression that balance is something to strive for, given that that is the entire unique selling point of this game. Note I said "balance" and not "a massive ratio of wins to losses." Therefore, maintaining a balanced profile is one of my goals. I believe that at some point the system will be updated so that balance is again more important than logging losses until one has 5k honor (I've been right around there for several days now--entirely unintentionally).

The fact is that under the current system balance is not only not possible (or at least very difficult) its not desirable since as long as you have a lot more loses then some other player you can get a better Xp bonus then a balanced player ever could and you still get wins for your ceatures from just win attacks (not victories).

I'm well aware of the added xp bonus, and have been enjoying its effects on my creatures. Yet I cannot help but be concerned about how balance will be returned to MagicDuel, and how that return will affect my situation.

[phrog]

Let's get rid of wins and losses altogether. Just pass out foam bats and the last person standing scores a victory.

[Glaistig]

Well, I disagree with (or am confused by) most of the people here. My thoughts in chronological order:

Morgana (post 2)- erm, well in the first place the new system was not implemented for mp3, so it's not like the new system has made it better for the "newer players."

Also, that's the natural order of the game. You have to first train your creatures on people with low vit and the weak before you can begin squaring off with your equals or more experienced players. Throughout the time you're playing, you'll have older and more experienced players who sometimes will attack you (even the best in mp5 have rivals), and the challenge is the beat them. I don't really see how it took (takes) advantage of new players.

I like the new system just as you do but I can't comprehend the reason you posted why.

Aqune and those who agreed with him/her (post 5)- Do you really get as many spam attacks as you used to? Maybe it's because I've mostly been running around and not staying at Willow's that often, but it's not like I get wins shoved onto me with low vit. or one-creature rituals even when I am there for a long period. Or not that often at least, and only by people I consider (no offense meant) dimwits, and for the following reason.

If the player reaction to the increased losses incurred by the new system wasn't to get more losses so as not to lose honor when attacking others, the balance reward system would work. I'm sure some players would be able to maintain their balance and they could attack each other for honor, which would mean the reward for having 200 honor wouldn't be bad. Take me for instance- once I started getting more losses than necessary (relative to balance, of course) I've mostly been trying to get wins, which pretty much the most fun part in magicduel. Sure, I still have more losses than wins (Won: 1242 | Lost: 1481), but it's been relatively stable. And while I may have -270 honor at the time I am typing this, if I could find other players who reacted like me, that would not be the case.

I think you should be complaining about the players, not the system.

MB (post 6)-... well, you can just read what I typed above. You're a loser (no offense- you can interpret that literally). Getting the bonus from keeping a balance should be much more rewarding that whatever you gain from your loss count as compared to other players because of the fun and satisfaction from getting victories from others! If you find getting losses and contributing to the problem more fun, well, I hope you become the minority.

Eldrad (post 9) and those who agreed with him/her- I would interpret that in terms of balance, since obviously the game still obviously interprets "too many wins/losses" according to that with the honor system. Plus in my opinion, the game's interpretation is logical, and it is the players like you who try to get as many losses as possible which makes the system work horribly.

Yoric (post 11)- I'm pretty strong in my conviction about this one. Even before mp5, people spammed me with weak rituals to gain losses. I went to mp5 hoping to get crushed and regain balance which was very difficult before. Instead, the same thing happened and my balance worsened; I ended up ignoring it. This continued until the new system was implemented.

Were you in mp3 when the new system was implemented? Maybe that's why; in mp3 it's always pretty hard to get many more wins than losses. By mp4 before the implementation of the new system, people began realizing that getting tons of losses could have its advantages (which I consider cheap and small as you can judge by my previous responses) and would give wins to people like you.

And while you may be right about your last statement if players continue getting more losses on purpose and ignoring the balance concept created in the game, I disagree with you if they don't, as you probably can figure out by my previous replies.

~~~

Well, that about sums it up for me- it's true that games are supposed to cater to players instead of players to games, but I would rather both the game system and playerbase be intelligent. I'd quit otherwise. I didn't mean to bash anyone but I get pretty frustrated. Feel free to refute me and I hope I'll recognize if someone has a valid point and feel justifiedly abashed, or otherwise stop being one of (literally) loser crowd so I can actually get honor from somebody.

I like the challenge of the new system and getting victories.

EDIT: I suppose I should also give my opinion about phrog's idea, which sounds ideally violent at first.

phrog (post 14)- That would be bad if the system actually works out (like I hope it does! I don't want to have to conform to another new system), because then people would begin bashing without restraint.. That'd be scary for me.

[Sacosphilz]

@Glaistig:

I sympathize with you but I don't agree with you on some points. I don't blame the players for doing what the game allows them to do, or at least I don't see a point in it. The players cannot be fixed. The game rules can. If you aren't happy with how things work out, opt for the change to the game rules.

With the current system, the best course of action that I see (and probably many other players as well) would be to first accumulate as many losses as possible, driven by these motivation:

- Having more honor points doesn't hurt. In fact, you need a lot of honor points to purchase certain items in the MD shop.

- When you're a big loser, you can afford to hit more targets without worrying about honor, while people with more balanced profile have a hard time deciding to hit you and lose big chunks of honor points.

On the other hand, striving for bonus from fight balance is perceived as impractical at best, if not downright impossible, so why even try?

I agree that losing a lot is easy and cheap, but if it's a legit way to gain advantage in the game, I don't blame the players for doing it. I would do the same.

That said, I'm not saying that I like the current system. It's never good for the health of any game when the best course of action is also the easiest one.

The issues I see with the current win/loss system are:

1. It doesn't solve spam attacks for losses like it's supposed to. The only difference is that it no longer hurts the individual 'winners' as much as it used to, which might be a good thing, but that may be the reason for players to be even less considerate for others when they spam attack.

2. It destroys overall fight balance. It doesn't matter even if every single player plays the way Glaistig wants them to. When a loss count comes automatically with every fight but a win count doesn't, simple logic dictates that the overall balance will eventually be lost.

3. By destroying the balance, it contradicts the game's message to the players and frustrate them. Many old MP4-5 players might welcome the change to the win/loss system over the old one, but what would the new MP4 players think? How would they feel when the game keeps telling them to maintain fight balance while it is obviously impossible? I think it's withing the realm of possibility that this contradiction is enough to drive new players away from the game. Either one has to go. I'm not assuming that the fight balance must stay, but I don't like the other option either. See point #4:

4. It encourages the 'cheap' loss farming for advantage. Many players would hesitate to do it at first, because it is against what ideals they know about the game and/or the prospect for fight balance is still attainable for them, but when enough players start resorting to spamming attacks for losses, the game loses a lot of its charm. I'm worried that if this continues for long, this game will regress into something boring and uninteresting.

[Glaistig]

I think all of your points make sense. Just a while ago STF was saying that the challenge of maintaining a balance worse for inactive players who idle, too.

Some changes could make the system better, especially concerning how the players are still reaping losses. But I think at the same time the system is not nearly as bad as some make it out to be, even considering the fact that no matter what there will always be more total losses than wins. You can say it contradicts the game concept of balance, but those who manage to keep a balance can still play a fun game while the losers (again, literally) can play their own way and sacrifice the fun.

Also, my impression has been that the situation is better than previously, at least. While before empty wins were at a constant and steady rate being fed to the recipients of weak rituals for the purpose of farming losses, I actually don't experience that anymore. Maybe it's because of the head contest. In any case, the same problem existed before the new system and the severity has decreased, although it doesn't look like it is gone.. I still say that a lot of the blame should be put on players who purposely continue doing the same thing.

[Morgana Le Fey]

BATTLE SYSTEM HAS BEEN CHANGED NOW EVERYONE HAS NO HONOR AND HAS A BALANCE WIN LOSS RECORD HAVE A NICE DAY AND THANK MUR/KING MANU

THOUGH I DID LIKE MY 5000+ HONOR AS THE STORYLINE GAVE ME OVER 5000 BUT WELL IT HAPPENS

[smartalekrj]

This topic is done as the battle system has changed to a better one(so i hope)