Hello everyone, hope your day is going well. Recently, KI not only did a Feedback Friday and Twitter poll concerning First Turn Advantage, (For rest of article I will reference this as FTA), but also promoted someone's article when they released their thoughts on the manor. This sudden and surprising interest in FTA has sparked players to do the same. I feel, at this point, that it cannot be denied that FTA is a massive problem in PVP and needs to be fixed. I am not going to start listing reasons why it's an issue, that is not the intent of this article and there are many other articles you can read concerning that topic. What I am offering here is a solution to this problem, that I hope KI will seriously consider. Some main issues with FTA include, but are not limited to, being stunned from second, an enfeeble the turn your attacking, total dispel advantage, and easier game winning. To address these problems, I recall an article someone posted a while back suggesting second gets stun blocks / immunity. While a good idea, I feel it still does not do the problem justice. Enough rambling, I suppose I so just come out with it. There is NO way any these problems can be solved with one adjustment but I have thought about this quite a bit, and I will take a stab at solving the problem that has existed and remained unsolved for over three years. My idea is complicated but bear with me, alternating turns. How would this work? So let's say there is player A and player B. Player A begins the match at first. They cast their spell then player B cast his/hers. After this, player B now starts at first and player A is second. Player B casts, then A. Then Player A is now first and it continues. This does technically mean a each player gets two turns in a row repeatedly but it balances itself out if you really think about it. The Person going first can do something to hurt the player going second before their turn. If they cannot remove what "hurt" them that turn then they are still weakened for when they go first the following turn. And this solves the stun problem. Because if you get stunned from second, you are going first next so you can do whatever you planned to do that turn next. This also eliminates how Over Powered (OP) stun is in PVP. My solution solves several issues and is a fresh way of looking at things. It is not perfect, I do know that. But I want to hear from you guys so please post in the comments if you're in favor of this, wanna make changes to the plan, or have an entirely different idea. Thank you for reading and commenting.
The problem with this is that the "two turn in a row" thing, if it were predictable, would make it a killer OP situation for any experienced player. Round one, remove wards, round two hit hard, battle over.
However, it might spice up the game if each round there was some random way to determine who goes first. Each round, either player might go first, and no one would know who it is. Of course, that would offend all the people who dislike all things random in PVP...
Even though I'm not an avid PvPer I understand the way it works and I've watched quite a few matches. I also read a lot of the posts on these forums regarding the problems with PvP and if I'm not mistaken the two things that "break" PvP the most are Stun and Dispel. This might seem like a simplistic approach and I'm sure it's been suggested a thousand times before but why not just eliminate those two spells from PvP altogether? I realize it's part of a lot of people's strategies but from what I read it's also frustrating to the point that a host of folks have opted out of PvP completely. By taking these two "plays" totally out of the mix wouldn't it greatly reduce the inherent advantage gained by the people who would normally use them? It would bring PvP back to a more level playing field. You would still be able to stun or dispel but only if those effects were a bonus from an attack spell such as Winter Moon or Gnomes. Remove Stuns and Dispels, and I would also suggest Elucidate and Simplify, and first round advantages would be virtually eliminated.
Even though I'm not an avid PvPer I understand the way it works and I've watched quite a few matches. I also read a lot of the posts on these forums regarding the problems with PvP and if I'm not mistaken the two things that "break" PvP the most are Stun and Dispel. This might seem like a simplistic approach and I'm sure it's been suggested a thousand times before but why not just eliminate those two spells from PvP altogether? I realize it's part of a lot of people's strategies but from what I read it's also frustrating to the point that a host of folks have opted out of PvP completely. By taking these two "plays" totally out of the mix wouldn't it greatly reduce the inherent advantage gained by the people who would normally use them? It would bring PvP back to a more level playing field. You would still be able to stun or dispel but only if those effects were a bonus from an attack spell such as Winter Moon or Gnomes. Remove Stuns and Dispels, and I would also suggest Elucidate and Simplify, and first round advantages would be virtually eliminated.
Yay someone who actually realizes that Elude is a problem! Awesome.
Hello everyone, hope your day is going well. Recently, KI not only did a Feedback Friday and Twitter poll concerning First Turn Advantage, (For rest of article I will reference this as FTA), but also promoted someone's article when they released their thoughts on the manor. This sudden and surprising interest in FTA has sparked players to do the same. I feel, at this point, that it cannot be denied that FTA is a massive problem in PVP and needs to be fixed. I am not going to start listing reasons why it's an issue, that is not the intent of this article and there are many other articles you can read concerning that topic. What I am offering here is a solution to this problem, that I hope KI will seriously consider. Some main issues with FTA include, but are not limited to, being stunned from second, an enfeeble the turn your attacking, total dispel advantage, and easier game winning. To address these problems, I recall an article someone posted a while back suggesting second gets stun blocks / immunity. While a good idea, I feel it still does not do the problem justice. Enough rambling, I suppose I so just come out with it. There is NO way any these problems can be solved with one adjustment but I have thought about this quite a bit, and I will take a stab at solving the problem that has existed and remained unsolved for over three years. My idea is complicated but bear with me, alternating turns. How would this work? So let's say there is player A and player B. Player A begins the match at first. They cast their spell then player B cast his/hers. After this, player B now starts at first and player A is second. Player B casts, then A. Then Player A is now first and it continues. This does technically mean a each player gets two turns in a row repeatedly but it balances itself out if you really think about it. The Person going first can do something to hurt the player going second before their turn. If they cannot remove what "hurt" them that turn then they are still weakened for when they go first the following turn. And this solves the stun problem. Because if you get stunned from second, you are going first next so you can do whatever you planned to do that turn next. This also eliminates how Over Powered (OP) stun is in PVP. My solution solves several issues and is a fresh way of looking at things. It is not perfect, I do know that. But I want to hear from you guys so please post in the comments if you're in favor of this, wanna make changes to the plan, or have an entirely different idea. Thank you for reading and commenting.
Ryan Soul
This is excellent and by far the best solution to FTA(first turn advantage.) I've put a lot of thought into all the different ways to balance PvP for all schools and make the game simply more fair to everyone. This will not fix school advantages, but it will fix one of the biggest luck factors that have broken PvP for many years. The best solution would be live action combat like you'd see in World of Warcraft(or many other MMO's), but that's not going to happen for obvious reasons. Besides, this is a card game, so there has to be turns in the gameplay. BUT, this is also an MMO, and having set turns of who goes first or second does not work like it would with a regular card or board game. An attempt to compensate FTA was an extra starting pip for second turn. It was nice to see KI at least addressing the problem, but this would be a far better and much larger step to fixing FTA. If this were to be implemented, I do not doubt new issues will emerge. But would theyor it be anywhere close to as game breaking as the issues we have now?
The problem with this is that the "two turn in a row" thing, if it were predictable, would make it a killer OP situation for any experienced player. Round one, remove wards, round two hit hard, battle over.
However, it might spice up the game if each round there was some random way to determine who goes first. Each round, either player might go first, and no one would know who it is. Of course, that would offend all the people who dislike all things random in PVP...
'tis a puzzlement
I highly disagree with a random way to determine who gets first turn each round. We need something that's steady and allow us to properly plan without a random factor messing it up. Shadow PIPs are a great example here, before shadow enhanced spells we were able to plan accordingly to PIPs and have a way to predict the enemies' next move. Now? We could be preparing a certain combo depending on how many PIPs the enemy has and suddenly they get a shadow PIP and maybe even a lucky critical and the match is over, just like that. Hey, maybe we survived that shadow spell and the critical was blocked. To top it off, they have first turn so we can't exactly attempt to heal with all of the neutered heals or nearly pointless shields thanks to everyone having +30% natural pierce. They still have plenty of PIPs leftover so they throw a lower level spell with colossal and the match is over.(That's a balancing issue that I won't go into here.) Nevertheless, I for one do not want to see more random.
I love the idea of outlawing dispels and stuns as described by TusconWizard. And addressing elude and simplify is critical, imo. I do, however have a question that possibly there is an explanation for that i am missing. That being the percentage of times one draws first turn. If it is truly random, then by the law of averages, everyone should at some point be around 50/50 in terms of going first or second. My issue is that this doesn't hold up. I have been charting my last 80 matches as a reasonable sample size. In that time span, i have had to go second 52 times meaning, obviously, I have gotten first draw only 28 times. And this is only in the amount of times i have actually charted this. I felt like I was going second a lot, and is the reason I started charting my matches to begin with. It holds true in every circumstance. When i have rank or level over my opponent, or vice versa. Does anyone know why this is happening so unevenly? Any info appreciated.
Thank you for feedback! From what I can see a lot of people are suggesting a ban to things like dispel, elud's, and simplifies. I feel randomly banning all good spells is a bit over board for a problem that is associated with FTA but not a direct result of FTA. A more reasonable solution would be to up the pip count on dispels not ban them. As far as elud and simplify go, those spells are very difficult to find even for experienced pvp people like me. The main issue I see if Elud plus a dispel is not fair. People should not be able to dispel for 0 pips. I fully agree elud should be banned but I disagree that Simplify should as well. Simplify is really not that great of a spell, especially to ban. And if Dispel gets its pip count higher, Simplify will be even less powerful. So in all, I agree Elud needs to be banned but there are better solutions to Simplify and Dispel.
I love the idea of outlawing dispels and stuns as described by TusconWizard. And addressing elude and simplify is critical, imo. I do, however have a question that possibly there is an explanation for that i am missing. That being the percentage of times one draws first turn. If it is truly random, then by the law of averages, everyone should at some point be around 50/50 in terms of going first or second. My issue is that this doesn't hold up. I have been charting my last 80 matches as a reasonable sample size. In that time span, i have had to go second 52 times meaning, obviously, I have gotten first draw only 28 times. And this is only in the amount of times i have actually charted this. I felt like I was going second a lot, and is the reason I started charting my matches to begin with. It holds true in every circumstance. When i have rank or level over my opponent, or vice versa. Does anyone know why this is happening so unevenly? Any info appreciated.
Turn this around and look at it from the perspective of your opponent...let's assume that all 80 matches were against the same opponent... that means that he went first 52 times and second only 28 times. Obviously an advantage in his favor - but why? Because it's random! And the base chance is the same for every new match. Going first in the first match doesn't change the odds for what will happen in the second match. Theoretically, one could go thousands of matches and never go first but it wouldn't mean the system is flawed... only that you have incredibly bad luck. The law of averages will eventually hold true but it might take some time. Flip a coin 100 times and it's highly doubtful you'll get 50 heads and 50 tails. Honestly though, if you read the posts about FTA you'd swear that nobody EVER gets to go first and we know that can't be true.
Turn this around and look at it from the perspective of your opponent...let's assume that all 80 matches were against the same opponent... that means that he went first 52 times and second only 28 times. Obviously an advantage in his favor - but why? Because it's random! And the base chance is the same for every new match. Going first in the first match doesn't change the odds for what will happen in the second match. Theoretically, one could go thousands of matches and never go first but it wouldn't mean the system is flawed... only that you have incredibly bad luck. The law of averages will eventually hold true but it might take some time. Flip a coin 100 times and it's highly doubtful you'll get 50 heads and 50 tails. Honestly though, if you read the posts about FTA you'd swear that nobody EVER gets to go first and we know that can't be true.
I totally agree but using your numbers, having to go second 50/100 times in the current game is brutal. It does not matter that the chances are equal, but the situation FTA creates those 50 times is terrible. That's 50 matches, probably around 10-30 minutes of piece, of pure torture haha. To add, I didn't claim I never go first, I just hate when I'm second.
Another option... not a solution by any stretch but possibly a "semi-equalizer?"... would be to know in advance of the start of the match what the order is going to be. This would at least allow you to be somewhat prepared by giving the opportunity to set up a deck accordingly. It would also probably cause a mass exodus of people who just don't want to start second so whether it would work or not is questionable. There would almost have to be a penalty of some sort imposed if a person flees PvP prior to the start of the actual battle due to STD (Second Turn Disadvantage) although maybe being credited with a defeat might be penalty enough.
