Easy/Hard mode for bosses

[MEgix]

I decided to make multiple posts about my ideas:
Easy/Hard mode for bosses:
I don’t have any problems to beat the bosses with my pretty big collection.
This comes from me talking to a couple of new players saying that they:

• start the game;
• solve the puzzles;
• “oh look there’s this cool AI opponent right in the home page, because it’s an AI it will be possible for a new player like me to beat it”;
• new player gets crushed by the boss;

As far as I know bosses are tested to be easy enough to be beaten by one of the base decks eventually (in pratice some bosses are easier then others). My guess is that a new player doesn’t have the patience to try to beat the boss multiple times with different decks.
That’s why I think it’s important to have a stupidly easy mode for new players to beat.
From a tecnhical point of view I don’t really know if this is easy to realize. If I have to make an feasible solution making the second phase of “2-phase bosses” only avaiable in hard mode might be a possibility.
As far as prizes go I understand that it can be tricky to decide.
For example the easy mode should still have a core set orb as a reward, while the hard mode might have a common key/last expansion orb/gaunlet ticket as a reward.
Let me know what you think

[eoqoalh]

Show them (new players) the Dance of Memes, it’s usually enough to get the orb (but it’s not as fun as building a counter deck). Anyway, an easy mode to just get the orb seems fine (could unlock after some attempts); I do agree that new players have a pretty hard time with bosses, but I don’t know if newcomers are a part of the “boss mode” intended targets.

[MEgix]

one of the problems imo is that the bosses are prominently showed in the homepage and there’s no clear indication that it isn’t intented for newer players if that’s the case.
I don’t know if they already are, but if making an easy mode is not feasible another possible solution might be to “lock” the bosses behind an “experience-wall”, with the bosses avaiable only to players that reached a certain level in a faction.

[ThanatosNoa]

Hello again @MEgix!

So this is something we already covered in our Dev Talk

The post-mortem and the recording should be coming out soon™

We’d love to do something like different modes for bosses but it isn’t something we’ll be prioritizing due to resource allocation it would require (we’d need to pull engineers from doing higher priority tasks like working on the next expansion).

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I do want to drill down on the second half of what you mentioned (“easy mode” for new players). As you mentioned:

As far as I know bosses are tested to be easy enough to be beaten by one of the base decks

We test all bosses with basic decks (using the Lyonar starter deck as a “litmus test”) and gear the bosses to be beaten with stuff like only basics/commons (that’s right, no rares, no epics or legendaries).

With that in mind, these bosses are often released as the Easy Mode. While we don’t expect Day1 players to jump in and get their free orb, it is possible that those who catch on quick (due to past experience in card or strategy games) to still snatch a victory.

Note: Not all bosses were created equal, a few like Shinkage Zendo are significantly harder

It’s actually more likely that we’ll make Hard-mode bosses to challenge upper echelon players than trivialize the current set we have now.

Fun fact: Bosses are already one of the best time investments for all players (~10-20 minutes for 100g compared to your other Daily quests which can take ~30-60 minutes for less gold) so we have to respect that

[MEgix]

Yeah I missed the last dev talk and I wasn’t able to find a vod or a video, I’ll wait that recording…

While we don’t expect Day1 players to jump in and get their free orb

This is my main concern tbh, the boss section really attracts the attention of the players in the homepage and there’s nothing that says:
“Hey if this is your first day you shouldn’t do this”, and I think this can lead to useless frustation for a new player (unless thay’re level-locked I genuinly don’t remember)

[phoenixtoasches]

I wasn’t playing at the moment so I don’t know what shinkage Zendo was like, but I humbly beseech of you to allow me the opportunity to strike down the Judas, the imposter that would bring shame upon the holy and almighty Grandmaster Zendo!

[ThanatosNoa]

This is my main concern tbh…

Understood. I’ll rally that feedback up to the dev team, I haven’t gone through the FTUE (First Time User Experience) in a while now but perhaps we can hide this until they’ve completed the extended tutorial (having the player complete all tasks including a ranked match).

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@phoenixtoasches - I can happily tell you that Shinkage Zendo is already on our schedule and he’ll be making a visit soon

[phoenixtoasches]

Good, he will know pain before the day’s end, he will know mercy and forgiveness, he will weep for his sins and repent for the glory of Grandmaster Zendo!

[MEgix]

yeah I should probably said this stuff earlier