Can we re-examine challenge mode?
Posted: 23 Nov 2009, 03:46Hello everyone, this is my first post on these boards. I want to preface this post by saying that I really enjoy playing the client, and I appreciate all of the hard work that goes into it. I have had many hours of enjoyment since I discovered it. The other hand of course is that I have also had hours of frustration and they have all come from one aspect. Challenge mode. I think that if you are doing all this hard work for yourself, and then letting anyone else who wants to play it play it then by all means leave it. If you want people to play the client and enjoy your hard work you should probably re-examine it.
The first hurdle it puts in the way of fun is the fact that its existence is not clear. I ,like most people obviously, didn't actually research what it is and does until I went to cast Bloodbraid Elf. Then it still didn't make any sense because I did not know anything about challenge mode. I couldn't even cast Tezzeret, but had no idea why because it did not even have the pop-up letting me know it was locked.
Once I started researching for a while I learned that there is a list of cards that are in the game and in the deckbuilder, but do not work in the game until they are unlocked. That gave me the idea to try to start unlocking. I have now done a ton of research and I still don't actually know how challenge mode works. I know how to start it, but there is a lot I do not understand. Can you unlock out of order? It doesn't look like it, but I can not tell. So I started at the beginning, after hours of frustrating game play, and deck building, I finally finished the first gauntlet. After beating the slivers nothing happened. It just went back to the gauntlet start screen. Okay, so I went and played a deck that had mystic enforcer, and when I played it I found out that it was NOT unlocked.
I stopped playing then and haven't gone back to the game once since then. What is the point? I jumped through all the hoops and I still can not play with the first in a long line of cards I have to unlock before I can get to the cards I want to play with.
Why is Challenge mode not optional? Why can you not choose to try challenge mode if you want the extra challenge, but skip it if that is not something you want to deal with? Why can't the switcher let you choose the challenge mode where it locks the challenge prizes and gives you the mode option? If you just want to be able to play a few quick games in your personal gauntlet then you can load normal mode and have your own fun. That way each type of player can be happy instead of just the code-creator and the players who like that type of experience.
So let's say that you don't want to/ can't program that. Why not just make it normal, with challenge mode a set of challenges you can play if you like that kind of thing (where just winning would be its own reward)? That way people could still talk strategy and brag about beating certain challenges without frustrating people who don't have fun playing that type of game.
Quick note for reference: Jatill, who for all I have seen is the front programer for challenge mode if not everything, is recently on record saying this
"Re: Challenge Mode
All the details about the rules and unlock cards are on the wiki.
I am never going to unlock the 1 card per challenge. If you don't want to play the challenges, just pretend those cards were never coded."
Lets say that you just don't feel like making the change, for time reasons, or just you think it makes it better to stop your players from having fun unless it is on your terms. In that case why not change which cards are locked from being tournament staples to being cards that are more fun/casual? Things like Gauntlet of Might, Opposition, Coat of Arms, and that sort of thing. This way you aren't forcing people who want to play Tezzeret to spend hours and hours losing to the gauntlet to finally get far enough to unlock it. Those type of cards make sense to lock for a causal fun mode, not tournament staples. Even simply reordering the challenges to make more popular cards unlock earlier. Also it would help if Challenge Mode actually work.
Besides, you cant just say "if you don't want to play the challenges pretend those cards were never coded." We would all be aware because people who have unlocked them would talk about them and that would be confusing to people who haven't unlocked, or don't know about them.
You can't pretend they were never coded; the cards show up right in deck builder. New players of the game like me figure out how to download, update, and play the game. Then we go to make a standard deck and can't use BLOODBRAID ELF! You go to make a vintage deck, and can't use TEZZERET. That is just laughable. You can see it, you can put it in your deck, and you can lose when it does nothing.
I am interested to learn more about what other players think about the current state of challenge mode. I also am interested to learn if Jatill or other programers really wont just evaluate Challenge Mode to see if it could be made better. That would make all of their hours of hard work go into an end result people love instead of one they give up on because it is just too much work to get a good experience.
Although I want comments I went ahead and added a poll for people who like that option. I went did not put my personal inflection on the text. We can get into what you would like to see happen if you think its not good enough in your reply, but I wanted to show the community some hard data democracy style.
Thanks for reading all that....
Tattooed Oni
The first hurdle it puts in the way of fun is the fact that its existence is not clear. I ,like most people obviously, didn't actually research what it is and does until I went to cast Bloodbraid Elf. Then it still didn't make any sense because I did not know anything about challenge mode. I couldn't even cast Tezzeret, but had no idea why because it did not even have the pop-up letting me know it was locked.
Once I started researching for a while I learned that there is a list of cards that are in the game and in the deckbuilder, but do not work in the game until they are unlocked. That gave me the idea to try to start unlocking. I have now done a ton of research and I still don't actually know how challenge mode works. I know how to start it, but there is a lot I do not understand. Can you unlock out of order? It doesn't look like it, but I can not tell. So I started at the beginning, after hours of frustrating game play, and deck building, I finally finished the first gauntlet. After beating the slivers nothing happened. It just went back to the gauntlet start screen. Okay, so I went and played a deck that had mystic enforcer, and when I played it I found out that it was NOT unlocked.
I stopped playing then and haven't gone back to the game once since then. What is the point? I jumped through all the hoops and I still can not play with the first in a long line of cards I have to unlock before I can get to the cards I want to play with.
Why is Challenge mode not optional? Why can you not choose to try challenge mode if you want the extra challenge, but skip it if that is not something you want to deal with? Why can't the switcher let you choose the challenge mode where it locks the challenge prizes and gives you the mode option? If you just want to be able to play a few quick games in your personal gauntlet then you can load normal mode and have your own fun. That way each type of player can be happy instead of just the code-creator and the players who like that type of experience.
So let's say that you don't want to/ can't program that. Why not just make it normal, with challenge mode a set of challenges you can play if you like that kind of thing (where just winning would be its own reward)? That way people could still talk strategy and brag about beating certain challenges without frustrating people who don't have fun playing that type of game.
Quick note for reference: Jatill, who for all I have seen is the front programer for challenge mode if not everything, is recently on record saying this
"Re: Challenge Mode
All the details about the rules and unlock cards are on the wiki.
I am never going to unlock the 1 card per challenge. If you don't want to play the challenges, just pretend those cards were never coded."
Lets say that you just don't feel like making the change, for time reasons, or just you think it makes it better to stop your players from having fun unless it is on your terms. In that case why not change which cards are locked from being tournament staples to being cards that are more fun/casual? Things like Gauntlet of Might, Opposition, Coat of Arms, and that sort of thing. This way you aren't forcing people who want to play Tezzeret to spend hours and hours losing to the gauntlet to finally get far enough to unlock it. Those type of cards make sense to lock for a causal fun mode, not tournament staples. Even simply reordering the challenges to make more popular cards unlock earlier. Also it would help if Challenge Mode actually work.
Besides, you cant just say "if you don't want to play the challenges pretend those cards were never coded." We would all be aware because people who have unlocked them would talk about them and that would be confusing to people who haven't unlocked, or don't know about them.
You can't pretend they were never coded; the cards show up right in deck builder. New players of the game like me figure out how to download, update, and play the game. Then we go to make a standard deck and can't use BLOODBRAID ELF! You go to make a vintage deck, and can't use TEZZERET. That is just laughable. You can see it, you can put it in your deck, and you can lose when it does nothing.
I am interested to learn more about what other players think about the current state of challenge mode. I also am interested to learn if Jatill or other programers really wont just evaluate Challenge Mode to see if it could be made better. That would make all of their hours of hard work go into an end result people love instead of one they give up on because it is just too much work to get a good experience.
Although I want comments I went ahead and added a poll for people who like that option. I went did not put my personal inflection on the text. We can get into what you would like to see happen if you think its not good enough in your reply, but I wanted to show the community some hard data democracy style.
Thanks for reading all that....
Tattooed Oni
