Fire Deckathalon Now Live!

[JaredSpellFrost]

@Sparck, will anything be done to address the ultimate grind that is the Deckathalon? Players are spending copious amounts of time farming this event due to the unhealthy environment KingsIsle has created. Ratbeard himself has said in the past "we do not want players grinding endlessly in the Tower." but that is exactly what has happened here. Then again, Ratbeard also thinks that farming Spellements aren't as grindy, so his definition of "farming" may be slightly off*. Regardless, he still does not want Players spending too much time in the Tower, something I think we can all agree on.

So, will anything be done to ensure that in the next Deckathalon Players are not pouring their lives into the event? I found that you still are forced to spend detrimental amounts of time in the Tower to just go for the pet, but there are people out there sacrificing their entire week to get on the leaderboard! The Deckathalon clearly consumes too much of our time whether you are going for the Pet, decks, or leaderboard so what will be done to fix it?

(*That was quite the understatement!)

[Caspeen]

@Sparck, will anything be done to address the ultimate grind that is the Deckathalon? Players are spending copious amounts of time farming this event due to the unhealthy environment KingsIsle has created. Ratbeard himself has said in the past "we do not want players grinding endlessly in the Tower." but that is exactly what has happened here. Then again, Ratbeard also thinks that farming Spellements aren't as grindy, so his definition of "farming" may be slightly off*. Regardless, he still does not want Players spending too much time in the Tower, something I think we can all agree on.

I'm not sure I'm all in the "unhealthy environment" argument here. Is the Dungeon grindy? HECK yea - for those trying to make the leaderboard it's a ton of hours to invest. BUT...if you don't like it, don't do it. The beauty of these events is that they are in no way tied to the story and are not required to advance your wizard. I honestly feel that most of the folks going for the leaderboard are adults and if adults are binging on a game to the point where they are risking their health...well, I'm not sure what KI can do about that.

The reality is that the Deckathalon as it is today is WAY more healthy than when it came out. The first one was a nightmare as only the top 25 (?) people got a pet and there were no limits at all on how many credits you could get. I don't know ALL the details but I do believe that the leaders for that event were playing 15+ hours a day repeating the same fight over and over and over again - holy cow, I cannot even imagine.

Since then, however, they've put a cap on credits - only 3! In addition, they took away the health reset between stages, making it harder to go none stop top to bottom. And of course, they've made the pet far more attainable by setting it at a point value that most people could do without turning themselves into Deckathalon bots. So I do believe they've TRIED to make it less of a grind and, in some respects they have.

But then Will Cast pets showed up.

In general I think these pet talents are not worth developing and while I never had any interest in them when they came out, at least they added an interesting dimension to pets. Or so I thought. And then Frozen Kraken Trained showed up and I, like many, looked at it and thought - meh. However, some very savvy folks saw immediately how OP it would be in the Deckathalon and the era of Will Cast pets was on. And THAT, more than anything, is why we are where we are today with 2 hour runs that go from 1.1 to 10.1 on ONE credit. I've always said that I think it was a mistake to allow pets into the Deckathalon - it's a DECKathalon, not a PET&DECKathalon - but when they came up with the Will Cast system I don't think KI took into consideration the implications it would have on this event because pets are now as important, if not more, than the deck you have. And even if they did, I have no idea how they dreamed up Frozen Kraken, a spell so over the top in comparison to all the other Will Casts that it is absurd. Especially so when you consider that how much the word BALANCE is bandied about these days - Frozen Kraken is anything BUT balanced!

Anyway, thanks to Frozen Kraken (and Vampire, and maybe Link), the Deckathalon feels...broken. And not because of the grind - as much as I dislike it, it certainly isn't the only example of mindless repetition in the game. But that it takes a PET to succeed - not your deck, or how you construct your deck, or the TC that you hoard in preparation - but a PET - that seems wrong.

There have been some really great ideas on how this event could be improved - like creating a Practice mode for runes and setting a strategy but where no points are earned, to holding all 7 Deckathalons at the SAME TIME to even out the leaderboard (stole this from @overtaker9), to, well, getting rid of the leaderboard all together - hopefully KI is listening.

Except that based on the Dungeon recall thing I'm not sure they are. Bummer.

Casp

[overtaker9]

There have been some really great ideas on how this event could be improved - like creating a Practice mode for runes and setting a strategy but where no points are earned, to holding all 7 Deckathalons at the SAME TIME to even out the leaderboard (stole this from @overtaker9), to, well, getting rid of the leaderboard all together - hopefully KI is listening.Casp

Yeah, I was just spitballing as Casp and I were chatting about it, but to elaborate a bit on this - We were orignally talking about the grind for the Deckath-Elite badge. Pets aside, and rune grinding aside, I think the leaderboard in and of itself is pretty fair right now. But it could be made a little more accessible by running multiple events at once.

One week out of each month, we run one deckathalon event for one school, and you'll see a lot of the same names on that leaderboard every event. 10 Winners every month.

But what if we had all 7 deckathalon events, during that one week? In this scenario, you now have 70 leaderboard winners a month. This evens out the odds and allows more people to access this goal. You also have a better way to grind for the deck / runes you really want.

At the beginning of the event, you'd choose which school you wanted to work towards that event. Your account would be locked into that school - So if you chose Ice Deckathalon on one wizard, all of your wizards are locked into Ice for that event. But you could proceed to choose Ice month after month to work consistently towards the Ice Deck. Or, you can switch it up each month but not be locked into the current order that the events go in.

In my mind, at the beginning of the event, you'd also choose your "mode" - Leaderboard mode, or runes mode. This would be locked in account-wide as well. If you choose Leaderboard mode, you're locked into the current 3 credits per day, and you can contend for Leaderboard the same way you do now. The way you play the event does not change.

However, if you choose rune mode, you'd be disqualified for Leaderboard, but your credit limit could go up. To 5, or maybe even 7, a day. Still limited, to prevent people driving themselves to exhaustion, but much less pressure, and a chance to obtain runes.

I personally love using the Ice Deck 10 on my fire in PvE. It's a great extra edge to my stats that can allow for unique builds without sacrificing other certain stats. I also really enjoy collecting the Hands of Fate wands for decorating purposes - I don't care much for leaderboard. I would have loved the chance to opt out of the rewards that come with leaderboard, and just farm for my runes for my purposes.

To summarize: The two complaints I hear often are that it's so much harder now to farm for runes, and that the leaderboard feels too inaccessible due to the same people grinding the event every month. Running all 7 events each month thins out each leaderboard, and allows more people to aim for this goal. Running two "modes" to the event allows people who simply want to grind runes for PvE purposes, or collection purposes, more easily, without removing a limit entirely (which has shown itself to be unsafe in the past.)

The issue of pets in Deckathalon is another matter entirely, in my opinion, that I don't have too many thoughts on myself. But as far as giving people with different motives for Deckathalon, different options, I think this could work very well. What do you guys think?

[sparkyflamefire]

It depends on what you mean by 'grindy' v what you want out of the event. I agree that if you want a top 10 finish, you're going to have to eat, breathe and sleep Deckathalon for a week. But other than that, its not so bad.

Want the pet? Just run stage 1 through 3.1 every credit, every day. Takes me about 7 minutes per run using a level 6 deck with 8 to 10 cards in the deck. Depends on whether the school has a good low pip aoe for the level 2 fights. And you have to use every credit every day. No saving up credits to use them all on the weekend or you'll miss out on the points for using TC.

I used to do longer runs, and found that I was leaving half my credits unused because I just didn't have the time to use every credit on every wizard every day. Run every wizard every day - 6 wiz x 3 credit per wiz x 7 battles per credit = 126 battles for collecting runes. In the recent fire deckathalon I was accumulating over 100 ice runes per day. On the other hand, if your runs are stage 1 through 5.1, that's 10 battles per credit, but the runs can take over half an hour each. Basically, I could do 3 quick runs (1-3.1, 7 battles each, or 21 total) in less time than it took to do one longer run (1-5.1, 10 battles).

Of course, if you're after strengthening runes, you'll have to farm the upper levels. But if all you're after are basic runes for crafting decks, more battles mean more runes.

In the recent death deckathalon, I started out doing 1-3.1, with half my wizards squeezing in a 1-5.1 every day. The last two days I increased the number of 1-5.1 runs to 1 or 2 per day for every wiz. All 6 of my wizards got the pet and made the top 100 (honoree badge) without too much grinding.

I have a main wizard, who tries to go as high as he can in the tower. He used to reliably finish in the top 20, lately he's slipped to the top 30 as more players put in more grinding. Never did finish in the top 10. Just 1 or 2 fails at a stage and that wasn't possible. The other 5 wizards just do the low level quick farming.

[richardDkht]

answered this thread but got "moderated". Who knows.

[Caspeen]

Yeah, I was just spitballing as Casp and I were chatting about it, but to elaborate a bit on this - We were orignally talking about the grind for the Deckath-Elite badge. Pets aside, and rune grinding aside, I think the leaderboard in and of itself is pretty fair right now. But it could be made a little more accessible by running multiple events at once.

One week out of each month, we run one deckathalon event for one school, and you'll see a lot of the same names on that leaderboard every event. 10 Winners every month.

But what if we had all 7 deckathalon events, during that one week? In this scenario, you now have 70 leaderboard winners a month. This evens out the odds and allows more people to access this goal. You also have a better way to grind for the deck / runes you really want.

At the beginning of the event, you'd choose which school you wanted to work towards that event. Your account would be locked into that school - So if you chose Ice Deckathalon on one wizard, all of your wizards are locked into Ice for that event. But you could proceed to choose Ice month after month to work consistently towards the Ice Deck. Or, you can switch it up each month but not be locked into the current order that the events go in.

In my mind, at the beginning of the event, you'd also choose your "mode" - Leaderboard mode, or runes mode. This would be locked in account-wide as well. If you choose Leaderboard mode, you're locked into the current 3 credits per day, and you can contend for Leaderboard the same way you do now. The way you play the event does not change.

However, if you choose rune mode, you'd be disqualified for Leaderboard, but your credit limit could go up. To 5, or maybe even 7, a day. Still limited, to prevent people driving themselves to exhaustion, but much less pressure, and a chance to obtain runes.

I personally love using the Ice Deck 10 on my fire in PvE. It's a great extra edge to my stats that can allow for unique builds without sacrificing other certain stats. I also really enjoy collecting the Hands of Fate wands for decorating purposes - I don't care much for leaderboard. I would have loved the chance to opt out of the rewards that come with leaderboard, and just farm for my runes for my purposes.

To summarize: The two complaints I hear often are that it's so much harder now to farm for runes, and that the leaderboard feels too inaccessible due to the same people grinding the event every month. Running all 7 events each month thins out each leaderboard, and allows more people to aim for this goal. Running two "modes" to the event allows people who simply want to grind runes for PvE purposes, or collection purposes, more easily, without removing a limit entirely (which has shown itself to be unsafe in the past.)

The issue of pets in Deckathalon is another matter entirely, in my opinion, that I don't have too many thoughts on myself. But as far as giving people with different motives for Deckathalon, different options, I think this could work very well. What do you guys think?

LOVE this idea on many levels but the best part of this is that it would make the leader board more accessible to a TON more players. Seeing the same names show up over and over is a significant barrier to participation for many who simply go just far enough to get the pet and then quit because, why bother?

I'm not quite sure how I feel about locking players in to whatever school they pick for the rest of the event - imagine someone who wanted X runes to craft a deck and reaches their goal with a few days left - what then? Also, having two modes would be awesome, but I feel like instead of having a practice mode and leaderboard mode, simply give players practice credits (3? 4? 5?) AND leaderboard credits (1? 2? 3?).

Of course, fixing the Dungeon Recall should be their priority, but once that has been addressed I think KI could look into making the Dekathalon more fun for everyone. Adding an portal to the Deckathalon in the hallway in the Library for that corresponding school (had no clue their was one for each school until @overtaker9 pointed this out!) and holding all 7 Deckathalons at the same time would be awesome.

Casp

[sparkyflamefire]

(*That was quite the understatement!)

Spellements to make it less grindy??? In other words, less grinding, more spending crowns to buy packs hoping to get spellements. Because I've been farming Loremaster all month getting the Horseman on all my wizards, and a few other spells, too. And not a single spellement did I see. Not like Christmas when we got Reindeer Night and Krampus spellements.

I have picked up a few spellements in my travels. And for the most part, the 'improvements' are so incremental they are not worth grinding for unless its to get a spell you don't already have. But, except for spells like Daybreaker, Nightbringer and Reindeer Knight which you can't get any other way, you can't craft a spell with spellements, only upgrade existing spells. Except that once you upgrade it, you can't can't buff it with charms anymore. You're better off using Tough to pre-enchant a spell than upgrading it to its max level.

[Robobot1747]

Spellements to make it less grindy??? In other words, less grinding, more spending crowns to buy packs hoping to get spellements. Because I've been farming Loremaster all month getting the Horseman on all my wizards, and a few other spells, too. And not a single spellement did I see. Not like Christmas when we got Reindeer Night and Krampus spellements.

I have picked up a few spellements in my travels. And for the most part, the 'improvements' are so incremental they are not worth grinding for unless its to get a spell you don't already have. But, except for spells like Daybreaker, Nightbringer and Reindeer Knight which you can't get any other way, you can't craft a spell with spellements, only upgrade existing spells. Except that once you upgrade it, you can't can't buff it with charms anymore. You're better off using Tough to pre-enchant a spell than upgrading it to its max level.

I see you don't understand how spellements work. First of all, the intent is that ultimately the Loremaster will drop spellements that you can use to both unlock and upgrade the spell, similarly to how Daybreaker and Nightbringer are obtained. And second, you lose the ability to pre-enchant the spell once spellements are released for it, regardless of whether or not you've upgraded it.

[sparkyflamefire]

I see you don't understand how spellements work. First of all, the intent is that ultimately the Loremaster will drop spellements that you can use to both unlock and upgrade the spell, similarly to how Daybreaker and Nightbringer are obtained. And second, you lose the ability to pre-enchant the spell once spellements are released for it, regardless of whether or not you've upgraded it.

I understand exactly how spellements work.

First of all, the Loremaster isn't dropping any Spellements. None at all. And how is having her drop spellments any different from her dropping TC so that you can craft the spell? Other than needing 35 spellements instead of just10 TC, that is.

And, other than a very few spells like Daybreaker, Nightbringer and Reindeer Knight that you can't get any other way (Except by spending crowns to buy packs, that is), EVERY spellement I have gotten for a spell I don't already have says that I have to have the spell before I can use the spellements to upgrade it.

Second, You prove my point for me. I don't do PVP myself, but those who do complain about not being able to preenchant anymore. The 'upgrades' that the spellements provide are so incremental (i.e., small) people would rather be able to pre-enchant with tough than get the 'upgrade.' Which they would either have to grind for or spend crowns opening packs.

Because that's what this is all about. Pay to win. Moneygrab. All the hype about being able to improve spells. And what you get is an extra 5 points pf damage. Or, for reindeer knight, a choice between more damage up front and less over time, or less up front and more over time.



I have 65 fire cat spellements, but...