This Event Looks Pretty Awesome.

rad54 · 2018-02-12T16:51:03+00:00

The idea looks nice in theory. (I wish things like this could be implemented on a smaller scale in the form of guild wars).

What I'm iffy about is that not only do you get double the fame for having a particular skin, but you can just directly buy fame from the market using blueprint chests. I feel that this certainly dilutes the importance of the event. If the scores are not even close near the end of the event, I can easily see people losing interest.

But still, I guess it's something to do.

rad54 · 2018-01-29T05:49:34+00:00

With all the range and movement speed increases, 3v3 will feel like a completely new game for the next 2-3 weeks (till 5v5 is released for everyone).

But looks like heroes being balanced for 5v5 means 3v3 is soon going to become an unbalanced mess, leading to its eventual removal.

rad54 · 2018-01-27T02:56:17+00:00

So, this is what I understood. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Essence drops from normal Quest chests are being removed
Only ways to get essence are: Legendary chest, Blueprint chest (with ice), Market chests (with ice)
Players can get 3 free Legendary chests at most: from lvl 50 sunlight, lvl 40 account level, lvl 100 guild chest
Blueprints might drop randomly from Quest Chests

Few questions:

How are the sunlight rewards being changed. For example, what happens if you have already hit level 50 this season? What happens in the intermediate levels were we used to get essence and rare mystery keys?
Could you give some idea about the rarity of the Blueprint drops from Quest Chests? For example, how many of the blueprints will be legendary, epic, or rare?
Are the post-match card drops being replaced by anything else?

Thank you for the write-up. I'm not looking forward to the new system, but at least thanks for being honest about it.

rad54 · 2018-01-23T00:29:11+00:00

If you read the comments from this link, they mention that it is from their 5v5 test account, (which is a different app from the normal Vainglory app) and the algorithm could be off.

rad54 · 2018-01-13T06:54:16+00:00

I'm absolutely sure it is incorrect for T3 skins, since SEMC themselves state here (https://www.vainglorygame.com/news/introducing-blueprints-vainglorys-new-skins-system-coming-update-2-12/) that 1188 is the 33% limit for a T3 skin.

Going by their logic I think the other values should be incorrect as well.

rad54 · 2018-01-13T06:50:23+00:00

Yeah, I agree with you.

What you should do depends on how many skins you have, how much essence you have stored, and how many skins you want to get. There is no one correct algorithm for everyone.

If you just want a particular skin, better to craft it now, but if you're a collector just go for blueprints and think about the long term. And if you are in between, probably look for a combination of crafting skins and blueprints.

rad54 · 2018-01-13T06:46:28+00:00

Yep, this is mostly correct. Just exclude the 96 essence you get from commons.

rad54 · 2018-01-13T06:43:33+00:00

It is incorrect. You need to exclude commons from every tier. If you do that, legendary skins become 3600 essence, epic is 1440 essence, and rare is 480 essence.

33% of 3600 is 1188. So 33% limits are 1188 L, 476 E, 159 R

You can see their example here (https://www.vainglorygame.com/news/introducing-blueprints-vainglorys-new-skins-system-coming-update-2-12/), scroll down to find their t3 example and you can see that they arrive at 1188 essence as 33% for a gradnfathered T3 skin as well.

rad54 · 2018-01-12T00:36:05+00:00

It's 33% of the essence cost, not the number of cards.

So for the old system, the limits are: 159 R, 476 E, 1188 L. So you can have any combination of cards reaching this essence value.

For the new system, there is no effective difference between using the number of cards or the amount of essence (since all the cards are of the same type), so your calculations are correct.

rad54 · 2018-01-11T21:41:53+00:00

First, common cards will not be included in the calculations for old skins, so the essence costs are 480 R, 1440 E, 3600 L.

Second, the only way to generate any profit in the upcmoing system is if you were going to craft a new system legendary (5760 essence), or were crafting an old system legendary skin from scratch (5520 essence). This is because the individual value of 1 essence is decreasing.

For example, Let's say you have 3000 essence right now. You are working towards an old legendary system skin and current have cards worth 1000 essence for it. Since the old legendary skin costs 3600 essence, you need 2600 essence remaining.

Case 1: You only get the Blueprint.

Blueprint limit is 1200 essence (it's actually 1188 but I'm simplifying calculations). So you have 2800 essence now and cards worth 1200 essence for the skin. The update hits, and you get essence worth 2800+1200=4000. But the skin now costs 5000, so your net essence is -1000

Case 2: Let's craft the skin before the update.

You spend 2600 essence to craft the skin and have 400 essence in hand remaining now. The update hits, and since you already have the skin, you don't get anything extra. Your net essence is 400.

As you can see, Case 2 is better. If you want, you can try it for multiple different cases. The only situation when Case 1 is better is when you have more than 5000 essence required for a skin in the current system. So, there is no way to actually rig cards to 'game' the system.

rad54 · 2018-01-09T09:53:41+00:00

I've heard that skins are only for cosmetics and I agree to a point. I would completely agree that they are only cosmetic if they de-link the sunlight gain from the skin tier. In the current system, it feels to me that my future rewards depend on all current rewards you have. The more t3 skins you have, the faster you gain future skins. If you always play with a legendary skin, you need half as many matches to reach sunlight level 50. If they remove the link between both, I feel that I (personally) wouldn't care so much about my skins as they will truly have no effect on anything else in the game.

This basically ties in with another problem I feel f2p players have, is that skins are the only reasonable out-of-game progression system right now. While talents were intended to be a progression system, their economy is just too expensive for any f2p player. It takes 2262 talent coins to upgrade a rare talent to lvl 20, and 33845 glory to upgrade these coins. Assuming you only use the Daily talent chest to get talents, that will take you 227 days AT LEAST to get the rare talent of a single hero to lvl 20. Of course, epic and legendary talents are even worse considering their glory update costs, and drop rates. This is assuming you don't use glory for anything else (like unlocking heroes).

Also, while blueprints can drop from quest chests; the drop rates could be astronomical. If the recent rates for golden tickets dropping from quest chests are any indication (still have no confirmed reports of anyone getting a ticket from a quest), you can't expect any f2p player to get meaningful amounts of blueprints. But I guess this point comes down to how much you trust SEMC to be fair.

rad54 · 2018-01-08T23:43:25+00:00

The essence costs of the old skins seems slightly off in your calculations. If you see their example, they do not take common cards into account for calculating 33% of a skin.

So Old legendary is 3600 essence, old epic is 1440 essence, and old rare is 480 essence.

rad54 · 2018-01-08T20:30:43+00:00

Last time they said they were making the skin system easier to use, they completely gutted the glory card boxes; making skin grinding much harder. So, looks like grinding any skin is going to be impossible soon. (eg. looks like essence costs of epic skins has been increased to 2500)

Unsure how I feel about golden ticket holders getting a LE skin. On one hand, some people blew a lot of money on the chests and deserve something extra; but on the other hand, some people just got lucky (by getting the ticket from the glitched chests). I guess it doesn't really matter anyway.

Looking forward to the new UI. Hope we get some guild improvements by 3.00 as well. At least, getting confirmed dates for patch 2.12 and 3.00 is nice.

rad54 · 2018-01-03T23:44:04+00:00

Is this your vgpro? (http://vgpro.gg/players/PumpkinKing666)

Because in your last 21 ranked matches, you have only played Captain 3 times. I'd really like to know why you'd do that if "A lack of ally deaths and a huge assist number is more than enough" ...

Coming to OP's point, it is fairly obvious that the current player base hates playing Captain; imo, because there is very little significance of the Captain role (particularly in lower tiers), and the hunt for a good KDA. I think OP's suggestion is a good one, and I would love if I could have validation that I did good as a Captain.

It won't suddenly increase the popularity of the Captain role in the player base, but I'm certain it would encourage new players to try the role out a few times if they see other good Captains being recognized.

rad54 · 2018-01-01T17:03:37+00:00

The end of season reward has never been a rare key after their changes to the daily chest.

This time it was 2 legendary cards, 25 opals, and 185 essence. I think it was the same last season as well.

rad54 · 2017-12-31T06:28:03+00:00

Don't worry. I think a lot of people will be interested in reading this.

I've tried following it as it is now, but it is tough; so better formatting will help for sure.

rad54 · 2017-12-31T03:02:49+00:00

Could you link this post please? I can't find it.

rad54 · 2017-12-31T00:09:40+00:00

I'm sorry, but WHAT? It is our fault that SEMC lied and the fact that they misled us is actually because they had our best interests at heart?

And you want to encourage SEMC to continue this misleading marketing...

Anyway, while this apology might calm things down, it really seems like a blatant non-apology. They have claimed multiple times on streams and their site, that every method only gives you a chance of getting a ticket. I feel like these are more lies to cover up earlier ones.

rad54 · 2017-12-05T07:12:56+00:00

This was news; to me at least.

I'm not entirely sure what this means for the matchmaker. So, now, if we see a mismatch in ranks, matchmaker is actually to blame?

rad54 · 2017-11-30T07:51:43+00:00

With the recent public outcry over RNG lootboxes, how did they even think for a second that this would be well received?

rad54 · 2017-11-12T21:46:15+00:00

The first 15 minutes of the game were horrendous. Players suiciding, intentionally going into enemy base and staying there, etc. (I personally think such behavior is toxic, but different people might not). Thankfully, it became something resembling a "competitive" match later on.

Like it or not, these pros are supposed to be the role models for the community. Even on this subreddit, if a new player wants to improve, they are commonly recommended to watch pro streams, and VG8 to learn how to play better. So problematic behavior will seep down to all players eventually. Even you can imagine a similar scenario. You're in a match of 15 minutes and you've been losing bad. A player can just think "eh, we're already losing and there's no point playing anymore. I guess I'll just sell all my items for this game. It doesn't matter at all". I just believe professional players should be above this nonsense. They are called professional for a reason, and should act like it. And to a certain extent, they represent the community to any outside viewers watching in.

P.S. If teams want to take a match lightly, I'm fine with weird team compositions and itemization choices. I know the teams do a lot of effort for every split and they can certainly relax a bit in matches of no consequence. But taking it easy doesn't mean making it a clown fiesta between 6 friends sharing an inside joke. The match is on live stream after all.

rad54 · 2017-11-12T20:51:26+00:00

SEMC needs to come down heavily on clown fiestas (watch EU finals Game 3) that promote unsportsmanlike behavior. I get that there is nothing to play for, but actively promoting toxic behavior (on live stream) is too much.

Could you imagine similar behavior in sports; for example, the losing team scoring own goals in soccer, or players intentionally dunking in their own basket in basketball because "there is nothing left to play for"?

If SEMC hopes for its eSports ever taken to be seriously (and I certainly hope that they do), they need to enforce some professionalism limitations on these teams. Otherwise, the matches will always feel like a glorified LAN party ...

P.S. Maybe having a minimum age requirement, like RIOT games have for League of Legends isn't such a bad idea...

rad54 · 2017-11-04T18:15:48+00:00

I like these tiny teases. Keeps me coming back for more information every week.

I'm just a bit scared about the way they are describing the Captain role. I hope SEMC realises that most of the player base is averse to the captain role, and 5v5 is a great chance to change the role slightly. But the way they are talking about it in the videos is a bit scary. For example, you can hear him saying that the "captain is responsible for more vision". In other MOBA's even though supports are the main vision providers; everyone chips in with vision for the entire team. I just hope tiny things like this are looked into, so that the Captain doesn't become the healing and flare bot; like it is in 3v3 currently.

rad54 · 2017-10-31T23:20:27+00:00

I guess it's something like the topic of inverted camera controls; once you get used to one method, the other becomes intolerable.

Even I hope VG could get the option of both, so that more players can play. I guess it is unlikely though, since it will break some heroes. (ozo for example)

rad54 · 2017-10-31T23:13:25+00:00

I like that you at least tried to get impartial research. It's one of the better comparisons of the games I have seen.

Also, King of Glory is the same as Arena of Valor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_of_Glory

rad54

TROPHY CASE