Gems of War (new F2P Match 3 by Puzzle Quest creator)

Cortilian · Post by **Cortilian** » Wed Oct 26, 2016 3:04 am

Hehe. Sounds like my 1st Pvp match ever. I decided to try PvP because I heard the gold was good. This was before you got to pick your opponent. It stuck me with some 7500 rated team of all dragons. I was running something like goblin, alistar, rowanne and something else. I didn't touch pvp for weeks after that.

T · Post by T » Wed Oct 26, 2016 10:34 am

I noticed that my Sorcerer now does 17 damage to all enemies with the Creeping Death instead of 21. Seems they fixed some bug related to magic stats and they will revisit hero strength soon. Check your teams and see if any of your abilities now do less damage. That was a big hit to my team.

rshetts2 · Post by **rshetts2** » Wed Oct 26, 2016 3:23 pm

ColdSteel wrote:
Cortilian wrote:
ColdSteel wrote:
Cortilian wrote:May want to consider burning event keys this week. Queen Ysabelle is pretty dang fun even at low traiting.
I've actually been trying to get her with zero luck so far. How many keys did you have to burn?
Got her on the 1st key.

Then nada for the next 15 or so. Burnt a 50 chest gem pack and got the other one.
I finally got her but it cost me 500 gems.

As per usual, I burned 30 event keys and 500 gems and did not get her. In fact I got nothing new at all. The RNG in this game seems to hate me. Ive been playing for a very long time and still have not drawn mythic, nor have I had an event key pay off with a featured legendary troop.

ColdSteel · Post by **ColdSteel** » Wed Oct 26, 2016 4:03 pm

I pushed the purple guild task the rest of the way to level 40 today. Now we will all enjoy a 20% souls bonus instead of 15%. Yay!

rshetts2 wrote:The RNG in this game seems to hate me. Ive been playing for a very long time and still have not drawn mythic, nor have I had an event key pay off with a featured legendary troop.

I feel your pain. I played for 4 months and only had 1 legendary drop and I was feeling just as you do now. If you look back through this thread you can see my posts whining about it. Then I got a run of luck for some reason and picked up a lot of them. I actually think that the completely random design for the high-end troop drops is not a good one. What they should have done is add a numeric weight to a counter for your account and the longer you go without getting anything, the weighted percentages that you will get something will gradually rise.

The Meal · Post by **The Meal** » Wed Oct 26, 2016 5:06 pm

rshetts2 wrote:
ColdSteel wrote:
Cortilian wrote:
ColdSteel wrote:
Cortilian wrote:May want to consider burning event keys this week. Queen Ysabelle is pretty dang fun even at low traiting.
I've actually been trying to get her with zero luck so far. How many keys did you have to burn?
Got her on the 1st key.

Then nada for the next 15 or so. Burnt a 50 chest gem pack and got the other one.
I finally got her but it cost me 500 gems.
As per usual, I burned 30 event keys and 500 gems and did not get her.

26 event keys and 650 gems for the same outcome here. :/

rshetts2 · Post by **rshetts2** » Wed Oct 26, 2016 6:58 pm

ColdSteel wrote:I pushed the purple guild task the rest of the way to level 40 today. Now we will all enjoy a 20% souls bonus instead of 15%. Yay!

rshetts2 wrote:The RNG in this game seems to hate me. Ive been playing for a very long time and still have not drawn mythic, nor have I had an event key pay off with a featured legendary troop.
I feel your pain. I played for 4 months and only had 1 legendary drop and I was feeling just as you do now. If you look back through this thread you can see my posts whining about it. Then I got a run of luck for some reason and picked up a lot of them. I actually think that the completely random design for the high-end troop drops is not a good one. What they should have done is add a numeric weight to a counter for your account and the longer you go without getting anything, the weighted percentages that you will get something will gradually rise.

Its not all bad. I do have a kick ass PVP team that can handle everything but a really strong true damage team. But I have also leaned on that team for quite awhile and am hoping to put something new and different together. I would kill to get my hands on a Famine, that card just tears me up.

Cortilian · Post by **Cortilian** » Wed Oct 26, 2016 8:30 pm

Jus got my 3rd kingdom to 5 stars. The +6 magic bonus from this and +2 from purple guild task means my crimson bat starts at 17 true damage

. My Queen Ysa does 13 armor and attack each cast. Out of souls and traitstones again though.

Ralph-Wiggum · Post by **Ralph-Wiggum** » Thu Oct 27, 2016 9:30 am

Got Queen Ysabelle on my 10th out of 10 event keys this morning and promptly leveled her up to 19. I noticed, however, that there's a note stating that you can currently get back any souls and/or traitstones you used to level her. Did they nerf her overnight or something?

ColdSteel · Post by **ColdSteel** » Thu Oct 27, 2016 11:20 am

Ralph-Wiggum wrote:Got Queen Ysabelle on my 10th out of 10 event keys this morning and promptly leveled her up to 19. I noticed, however, that there's a note stating that you can currently get back any souls and/or traitstones you used to level her. Did they nerf her overnight or something?

Yeah, they changed the amount of mana she needs from 12 to 13. They also changed the Valkyrie so I'm now considering a refund for her.

Balance Changes
Trait: Necromancy
* Changed from 50% bonus Souls from battle to 25% (now that we're allowing Necromancy to raise the Soul Cap in battle, we had to reduce the effect)

Valkyrie
With the much-requested raising of soul cap via Necromancy, we've had to remove Necromancy from Valkyrie. Already one of the most versatile soul-generators in the game, having the ability to also raise the Soul Cap just made her WAY too powerful. We've shared Necromancy around with some extra troops however, and we're excited to see what soul-farming teams everyone can come up with.
* Changed Necromancy trait to Mana Shield

Troop Refunds
The following troops will be available for refund for the next week:
* Acolyte
* Marid
* Queen Ysabelle
* Sacrificial Priest
* Sacrifice
* Valkyrie
* Warlock

rshetts2 · Post by **rshetts2** » Thu Oct 27, 2016 12:21 pm

Wow that really devalues Valkyrie big time. Im not sure what the whole cap raising thing is all about but it seems like they just nerfed soul farming in a big way. Im guessing thats less about "balance" and more about their balance sheet. Making a much needed resource more difficult to acquire seems like a money move to me.

Raising the mana requirement on Isabella by one seems like a minor change. I doubt it will hurt her effectiveness enough to make people give up on her.

Zenn7 · Post by **Zenn7** » Thu Oct 27, 2016 12:33 pm

rshetts2 wrote:Wow that really devalues Valkyrie big time. Im not sure what the whole cap raising thing is all about but it seems like they just nerfed soul farming in a big way. Im guessing thats less about "balance" and more about their balance sheet. Making a much needed resource more difficult to acquire seems like a money move to me.

Raising the mana requirement on Isabella by one seems like a minor change. I doubt it will hurt her effectiveness enough to make people give up on her.

I'd played last night w/ Valk, noticed they now show on the PVP map your caps (w/o things like necromancy bonus). I had 30 some, but not the full 40 cap and ended up getting 68 souls total. Previously the max was 66 for me (using all same team/armor/etc). Hoping they raised the cap a heck of lot more than by 2 for this huge nerf. Also hoping they gave the Valk something good to make up for it. I really loved getting all those souls with her ability to make blue gems to feed my Emperor Korvash (sp?) Really helped make my team (Emp Kor, Carnex, Tyri, Valk) an awesome team. I don't have the huge win records some of you do, but I win the vast majority of the time and have for a long, long time.

ColdSteel · Post by **ColdSteel** » Thu Oct 27, 2016 5:34 pm

Zenn7 wrote:Also hoping they gave the Valk something good to make up for it.

They gave her immunity to mana burn. Useful against Mab teams I guess.

They also gave Banshee soul gathering. I imagine folks will use her a lot now. Acolyte too.

ColdSteel · Post by **ColdSteel** » Fri Oct 28, 2016 2:03 pm

So, the new Spooky Imp in the reward chest this week looks pretty powerful to me. And versatile too. I don't think there's another troop that can give all allies +2 magic. So it seems better than the Soothsayer in that regard. What I'm wondering is if I should spring the Loyalty to buy 5 more and ascend him to Mythic status or not. Any thoughts on that? I think the only stats that would affect are armor, health, attack, and maybe his spell damage.

rshetts2 · Post by **rshetts2** » Sat Oct 29, 2016 11:18 am

ColdSteel wrote:So, the new Spooky Imp in the reward chest this week looks pretty powerful to me. And versatile too. I don't think there's another troop that can give all allies +2 magic. So it seems better than the Soothsayer in that regard. What I'm wondering is if I should spring the Loyalty to buy 5 more and ascend him to Mythic status or not. Any thoughts on that? I think the only stats that would affect are armor, health, attack, and maybe his spell damage.

From my point of view the issue with him is that he requires purple mana and my hero is completely set up for purple as well. I can see pushing him if it's a card you would use but I doubt that I would use him much myself. Seems like there are plenty of other powerful purple users out there. Of course thats totally from my perspective but I wouldnt push him to mythic as youre really not gaining any bump to the main reason you would be using him.

ColdSteel · Post by **ColdSteel** » Sat Oct 29, 2016 2:18 pm

Yeah, Probably. I was thinking maybe a team with a Spooky, Queen Ysabelle, Dragon Soul and Gorgotha might be interesting to try though.

Tao · Post by **Tao** » Sun Oct 30, 2016 12:10 pm

Up until a day or two ago it seemed the average base gold reward for ranked PvP was 1200-ish gold. In the past few days it has dropped down to 600-700 gold per match. Even the match-ups against the far right opponent are barely hitting 1000. Were gold rewards reduced or did I pass some sort of ranking threshold or is it just pure RNG?

rshetts2 · Post by **rshetts2** » Sun Oct 30, 2016 12:39 pm

Tao wrote:Up until a day or two ago it seemed the average base gold reward for ranked PvP was 1200-ish gold. In the past few days it has dropped down to 600-700 gold per match. Even the match-ups against the far right opponent are barely hitting 1000. Were gold rewards reduced or did I pass some sort of ranking threshold or is it just pure RNG?

Ive noticed that as well. Im wondering if gold payout in PVP is tied to your level and diminishes as you gain higher levels. I have nothing to base that on but it does seem to correlate.

ColdSteel · Post by **ColdSteel** » Sun Oct 30, 2016 2:43 pm

I'm starting to really not like the big guild changes they made at all. It was fun for a while when it was all new, but now I think it's just introduced mind numbing grind. Every week it's now the same treadmill. Try to earn enough gold to get a decent number of guild tasks completed. Earn those 1500 seals. Earn those trophies and get that gold in PvP. All that while trying to have enough left over to level your kingdoms. For me at least, it's gotten old pretty quick. I think I liked it better the way it was before.

Also, I have been grinding arcane swamp stones for over 3 week now and I have not gotten a single one. And I mean I've been hitting that hard. Hundreds and hundreds of battles. I think they've messed with the game too much and nerfed too much for it to remain fun for me much longer. Reducing gold rewards for PvP is just the capper if true.

The Meal · Post by **The Meal** » Sun Oct 30, 2016 5:00 pm

It's a game of grinding. At least they added a new grind with the guild changes.

FWIW I spent three weeks grinding Arcane Blood Traitstones. Got 5 in 3 weeks. (Sorry.) This is my first time using Exploration to try to focus on a specific traitstone. There's not a lot of joy in that process.

But really it's a game of matching gems. If that gets old, then it's time to find something new to do on the throne. If you're still enjoying matching gems, then does it really matter what the outside-the-gem-matching goal is you're trying to accomplish?

rshetts2 · Post by **rshetts2** » Sun Oct 30, 2016 6:24 pm

The Meal wrote:It's a game of grinding. At least they added a new grind with the guild changes.

FWIW I spent three weeks grinding Arcane Blood Traitstones. Got 5 in 3 weeks. (Sorry.) This is my first time using Exploration to try to focus on a specific traitstone. There's not a lot of joy in that process.

But really it's a game of matching gems. If that gets old, then it's time to find something new to do on the throne. If you're still enjoying matching gems, then does it really matter what the outside-the-gem-matching goal is you're trying to accomplish?

The guild grind hasnt changed the basics of my game play much, after all its fed quite well by PVP and I was doing that anyway.
Still, while it hasnt taken the fun totally out of the game for me, some of the nerfs are quite frustrating. Especially vexing is the arcane stone drop nerf. It was difficult before but now it's ridiculous. It seems pointless to set up exploration for trait stone farming and then nerf the crap out of it. I actually put a hold on exploration after going a full week without getting a single trait stone of the type I was farming. While I agree the core of the game is the match 3 portion, team advancement and team building is, at least IMHO, also a major part of the game. Nerf that part too much and you frustrate your player base and people start losing interest.

ColdSteel · Post by **ColdSteel** » Sun Oct 30, 2016 9:32 pm

Part of my problem is that I don't really enjoy the PvP part of the game much but I just have to do it anyway. I mean I have a great team and rarely lose (longest win streak is 257) but it's not that much fun. I like the PvE stuff better but it's kind of been devalued. I like Explore but the nerfs there are just too much.

T · Post by T » Mon Oct 31, 2016 10:41 am

As far as the new troop, I agree with rshetts2, my team is built around my hero, which is a purple user. So, a no go for me. And on a related note, I use my glory for arcane stones. I don't want to endlessly grind for them. I primarily PvP right now, so it's not an issue getting glory and I don't mind waiting to get the arcane stones. They rotate frequently enough.

I agree with Meal. these games can be a grind. They need a pay wall to make money and I don't mind that, and I don't mind the grind. To me these puzzle RPGs are the perfect mobile games and I just find the best way to approach them is with patience, progress will be a bit slow, and I don't mind that. Gives me long term goals. With this approach, it doesn't feel like a grind to me.

And on the PvP gold issue. I'm still seeing 3-4000 per match, so no decrease for me. I usually play the third battle unless their team ranking is much higher than mine.

rshetts2 · Post by **rshetts2** » Mon Nov 07, 2016 8:40 pm

WTF did they do to this game? I played my PVP team and found that its nerfed in a major way. My Creeping Death damage went down from 19 to 16 and now its 11? My major damage blast from Rowanne is way smaller as well. Obviously they did something to magic and how it effect my skills but damn, they have ruined the team that I spent several months working on and even more months building up into a fine tuned machine. This is ridiculous and I am pissed big time.

T · Post by T » Tue Nov 08, 2016 11:57 am

rshetts2 wrote:WTF did they do to this game? I played my PVP team and found that its nerfed in a major way. My Creeping Death damage went down from 19 to 16 and now its 11? My major damage blast from Rowanne is way smaller as well. Obviously they did something to magic and how it effect my skills but damn, they have ruined the team that I spent several months working on and even more months building up into a fine tuned machine. This is ridiculous and I am pissed big time.

I mentioned this a week or two ago. My CD also went down, but not to 11, at least as of yesterday. The reason, I believe, was that there was a bug in magic calculation, or something like that, that they fixed. I don't think it's specific to just the CD, I think it might have been an issue with hero's magic and I believe they will take a look at heroes again soon and possibly buf them some other way.

rshetts2 · Post by **rshetts2** » Tue Nov 08, 2016 2:45 pm

T wrote:
rshetts2 wrote:WTF did they do to this game? I played my PVP team and found that its nerfed in a major way. My Creeping Death damage went down from 19 to 16 and now its 11? My major damage blast from Rowanne is way smaller as well. Obviously they did something to magic and how it effect my skills but damn, they have ruined the team that I spent several months working on and even more months building up into a fine tuned machine. This is ridiculous and I am pissed big time.
I mentioned this a week or two ago. My CD also went down, but not to 11, at least as of yesterday. The reason, I believe, was that there was a bug in magic calculation, or something like that, that they fixed. I don't think it's specific to just the CD, I think it might have been an issue with hero's magic and I believe they will take a look at heroes again soon and possibly buf them some other way.

I noticed a slight change when you first posted. My CD went from 19 down to 16. This is something different as it has now dropped to 11, eight full points from its original max. Rowanne's damage is a bit harder to calculate but blasts that would clear the entire enemy force previously now do about half the damage. Im fairly sure it involves how they are applying the magic power to various skills. Because my team was completely built around that dynamic, it has ruined my PVP team. I am not amused.

Edited to add: Apparently the change was a glitch of some kind because it appears that they have fixed whatever was going on sometime today. My Creeping Death is now back up to 16 pts of damage and Rowannes damage level is back to normal as well. Not that it really matters all that much but my won/loss record took a hit while the glitch was in effect. I think I tripled my total losses in one day.

T · Post by T » Wed Nov 09, 2016 11:34 am

That explains why my defense W-L ratio went way down for a bit. I guess the glitch occurred and then was resolved while I wasn't playing.

The Meal · Post by **The Meal** » Fri Nov 11, 2016 1:00 pm

The new region is pirate themed! Lots of fun so far.

Cortilian · Post by **Cortilian** » Fri Nov 11, 2016 6:04 pm

Save all your keys until next week. New cards related to that kingdom will drop.

ColdSteel · Post by **ColdSteel** » Mon Nov 14, 2016 9:44 am

I was able to get two Kraken troops from the event chests so that was nice. Unfortunately it looks like they need Arcane Venom stones for traits. I've already been trying to farm those continuously for the past month and have managed to get exactly one of them. It also appears to have a refund so I assume that means they have nerfed it already?

The Meal · Post by **The Meal** » Mon Nov 14, 2016 11:04 am

Any chance we can push to get 10,000 seals this week?

Kelan · Post by **Kelan** » Wed Nov 16, 2016 8:26 am

The Meal wrote:Any chance we can push to get 10,000 seals this week?

Yeah, it would be nice to hit it once a month, or every so many weeks, to turn in our seals. I have been above average lately, but will try to get a few more done this week.

The Meal · Post by **The Meal** » Wed Nov 16, 2016 9:01 am

I'll do my part!

Baroquen · Post by **Baroquen** » Sat Nov 19, 2016 1:58 pm

We're at 6600 or so. I'm guessing no shot with one day left?

Zenn7 · Post by **Zenn7** » Sat Nov 19, 2016 3:18 pm

Baroquen wrote:We're at 6600 or so. I'm guessing no shot with one day left?

I will get a good 500-600 more at least, but probably not much more. Won't get it all until later tomorrow most likely. I'm rank 10 pvp and intend to get to Rank 1.

But unless others were waiting for the weekend to really bust out, I'm guessing no.

ColdSteel · Post by **ColdSteel** » Sat Nov 19, 2016 4:20 pm

I've got my 1500 seals done for the week and we're about 3000 short. Doable, but only if a bunch of folks do work over the weekend.

ColdSteel · Post by **ColdSteel** » Sun Nov 20, 2016 5:58 pm

Well, we're over 9,000 seals now so there's a chance...

Spoiler:

ColdSteel · Post by **ColdSteel** » Sun Nov 20, 2016 8:21 pm

Over 9500..

The Meal · Post by **The Meal** » Sun Nov 20, 2016 10:18 pm

9824. Go go go!

The Meal · Post by **The Meal** » Sun Nov 20, 2016 10:41 pm

Made it. Just sold 7500 seals. Ascended 10 different troops.

Tao · Post by **Tao** » Sun Nov 20, 2016 11:06 pm

Made it to 1500. Burned through nearly 6000 seals and received no Mythic's (not surprising) and one Legendary which I already own. While I realize this isn't supposed to be a CCG the drop rates on interesting troops or the Trait stones to upgrade the interesting troops I do have are just way to minute to hold my interest. I need some sort of carrot in this type of game.