To developers - my thoughts on PVP

Hunter Island PvP
1

As a hardcore gamer with 20+ years of gaming experience, here are my opinions on PVP.

I found myself playing HI’s PVP less and less, due to 2 main reasons.

(1) Too luck dependent

I had battled a player. The first time he won me by far with 7 Arks left. The second time I won him by far with 5 Arks left. How come such a big difference?

(i) Bonus actions

No explanations required. I am glad that it is going to be capped at one. But even so, it will still be the major factor dictating who is going to win. Getting a bonus action is unpredictable. Powerful Arks like Destructor getting a Bonus Action can be game-breaking. If PVP is meant to be strategic, “unpredictable” and “game-breaking” should not meet each other, but it does happen a lot in current PVP.

(ii) Risky heal

I am glad that not many Arks have this skill. This skill is one of the most luck-dependent skill in the game. I have encountered multiple instances where a Mossgolem successfully healed itself and Shadowstalker for many times. Healing an Ark to full health is like having an extra Ark. If I am lucky and can cast Risky Heal successfully for multiple times, my chance of winning is significantly increased.

(iii) Shadowstalker

In Master League most people have Shadowstalker. Its daydream + dreamhunt combo is like Skull Wraith’s Roulette, but better. 50% of one shot opponent’s Ark, and 50% chance of itself or its ally losing a turn. I had battles where my knockbacked Shadowstalker, on its own, killed the remaining 5 opponent’s Arks just by using this combo (with some BAs of course).

Some people may argue that it all depends on your strategies and Arks. Yes, but only when the players’ skill difference is large. In the Master League, players are almost equally good. Their skill difference is very subtle. And hence sadly the battle outcomes are more dictated by luck. When I win a battle, I want to know that it is because my team is better, not because I am luckier.

“May the better player win, not the luckier player”.

(2) Lack of variety

I had more fun when I was in the Rookie and Veteran Leagues, where players use a wide variety of Arks. There were a lot of innovations. I first saw the Orcow + Skull Wraith combo in there, I am glad that this combo has finally gained some recognition now.

In the Master League, it is so dull. People mostly use the same Arks. The so-called different teams are just positioning the same Arks differently. The pool of PVP viable Arks is too small and some Arks are too obvious to be better than the others.

I would like to see more Arks to become PVP viable. It is possible. Stars do not matter, otherwise we won’t see so many Chopperbug and Gremknight in PVP. The key is the moveset. If more effort can be spent on designing the moveset, I am sure you can make more Arks PVP viable.

If you are too busy to read the entire post, here is the key message:

“The heavy dependence on luck and lack of variety, along with glitches and a few overpowered Arks, have made PVP less and less enjoyable”.

This post is meant to be a constructive feedback for the developer.

PVP is a a new, nice feature added to HI which was not in Dragon Island Blue. I appreciate that the developers have implemented a number of balancing measures, such as no duplicates, keeping level at 75 etc. Otherwise we may see people using 15 * Frillzeons.

The thing that impresses me the most is not the game itself but the developers. They do listen to the players. Not many developers do this these days.

Keep up the good work!

Thought this post is intended for the developers, other forum members are welcome to comment.

2

In general, I agree that PvP should not be too luck-based. I do think, though, that there should be some luck involved. It’s only natural for there to be some luck involved. I agree that luck is too much of a factor at the moment, and I do think capping bonus actions at 1 will solve this problem for the most part. 

With that being said, there’s always room to balance and tweak monsters as time goes on and that’s typically something that happens frequently in a game like this. 

We should contribute to the re-balancing topic to suggest ideas for this going forward. 

3

First snow - I agree with everything you said. Some luck should be involved but right now at the master level when too experienced players meet, both with almost the same arks, it is all about luck. Risky heal and bonus actions being the biggest culprit. I avoid using daydream and dream hunt because it is unpredictable. But I do use it when I am being beaten badly and sometimes luck out into a win.

4

I also agree with this and I also agree that as more time goes on this will be continually improved upon. Introducing more viable monsters, more diverse teams, rebalancing monsters etc.

However I think there could be another (albeit possibly time consuming) fix that I would love to see. How about they add more than one type of PvP game mode?

For instance they could have the regular PvP as is, they could have one very similar but with NO BA’s at all (hardcore mode), and perhaps several others limiting stars/ number of arks etc. Each of these game modes could have their own ranking system (say you’re master in regular but a rookie in hardcore). I believe this could be extremely helpful to diversifying PvP. 

P.S I also dislike the luck at the moment but that is the value of having S ranks over non S ranks. I too think the BA cap will help this greatly.

5

I agree. Luck is…meh. But the BA cap will solve it, so no worries there. Besides, personal life flips are better than risky heal.

…as far as lack of diversity goes…yeah, it’s bad that everyone’s using the same teams…but hey, people will always copy what works. That’s what started the charca craze. Then the Shadowstalker teams were made, and they were much better…so people stuck to that…

…/sigh. I guess I’ll just make more counters. Too lazy though

6

More modes! Make a super hardcore mode where if your ark gets killed in PvP… you actually lose it forever xD

*que evil laugh*

7

I agree that I find PvP to be very luck oriented, in cases where there are nearly the same ark combinations in both the players. I.e. Master league and the like.

As some have said already, capping the bonus actions to 1 will take away a very important factor towards winning with luck.

But I disagree with the risky heal. Its risky, they could heal and lose their ark. Of couse they could have streaks also. I think that it would be probable to make risky heal a 50/50 because even if the ark dies he still heals another ark. In essence you may not lose an ark at all, because even if the ark dies from risky heal, you’ve healed another ark to full health. If streaks occur, you basically gain an ark each time a risky heal succeeds. Another option would be to make it so that if risky heal fails, the ark dies and it doesn’t heal.

@Hududle …That scares me. You scare me! ._.

8

<3

9

I agree, although almost everything is luck based

10

The more I battle in pvp the more I hate multiple bonus actions. Even when I got a lot of them it takes the enjoyment out of win. Pvp should be more about strategy and less about luck. If I want purely luck based battles, I would get a deck of cards and play war. I can’t wait for the update that will fix the bonus actions and curtail the stego/charc jerks.

11

My thoughts on pvp:

Luck really is TOO much of a factor

So let’s take out bonus actions all together (for single player it’s fine) as stated, a single bonus action from a destructor can be game breaking. Cutting down to 1 bonus action is better, but if your opponent keeps getting those single bonus actions… It’s now down to luck again…

Risky heal is fine and all but when the opponent is able to heal arks 7 times before the ark goes down… It really screws the match. So my thoughts are to change how risky heal works in pvp, if you pull off a successful risky heal then the next time you use that move the chance of sacrificing that ark changes to 80%, and if somehow another risky heal works the chance bumps up to 100%

As for stunning, I think that stunning arks are fine, if you strategically place them in your line up and pull off awesome combos, that’s good, as long as they aren’t along the lines of char/stego combos, where you are stunned for the entire match, that’s why stego is getting nerfed.

As for scramble… I really hate scramble, and not because I lose after it’s used, I can normally pull a win off even after it’s used, but if you work on putting together line up and want to see how it works out, it really REALLY sucks getting scrambled match after match, taking forever to finally see if your line up works the way it was intended.

Now I doubt most of these changes will be made, so I think TWO pvp rooms are needed, one called the “Skill Room” and one called the “Risky Room” in the skill room it’s all down to how good the line up is (the above changes are made), and for the risky room, everything is like it is now (stego still getting nerfed and 1 bonus action allowed)

12

Bonus actions really hurt the game. I just fought a match where I thought I was going to beat a stego/charco team, only to loose because the charcolynx got five bonus actions. This is definitely taking luck way too far!

13

Yup or Stego gets 2 Ba’s every turn. When you think you might have a chance to turn this around.

But BA is capped into just 1 after the next update anyway so it’s all good.

14

I am about to give up on pvp until the update. I just fought a stego that got 2 bonus actions it’s first turn to stun all three of my arks. He came back on the next turn to get three bonus actions. Right now pvp is a joke. About a third of my battles, my opponent disconnects almost immediately. Please fix the problems as fast as possible. Right now egg timers are dominating pvp.

15

I agree with Ken. If the opponent keeps getting the single bonus actions, it is all down to luck again.

From my experience, for this type of games, usually the rank either contributes to higher critical attack chance or better stats (e.g. Pokemon, Guardian Cross etc). The bonus action idea is quite innovative, but as some have mentioned above, it can be sometimes too game breaking.

Maybe too hard to change it in HI now, let’s keep our fingers crossed for the next game.

16

Im sick of winning to he told im lost
Im sick of bonus action going off 5 times and taking out half my team
Im about ready to just pack this game in.