- There exist past coalition events now classified as retired. Many of these(speaking specifically about Hour of Devastation, Race to Orazca, Battle of the Four Tribes, and The Dragon War) featured not only the best rewards in the game’s history but also some of the best gameplay. Can you explain why these are considered retired and if we will ever see them again and why or why not that is? Thanks.
Answer: Thank you for the interest. These events also have been seen differently in the past by the players. I think there were even threads like “Please, no more Hour of Devastation” at some point. Also The Dragon War has received a lot of criticism due to the size of the event (5 nodes). Also we have added new Coalition events from the newer set, and therefore have stopped using some of the older ones.
I’d like to address this. It is appreciated that the devs took the past complaints into account. However, enough time has passed and the topic needs revisiting. New players have joined the game (i hope), many older players have quit or become causal. The player base and their perspective can change and the events might be received differently now.
Regarding the new events replacing those old classics, I’d just respectfully say that these are just not exciting enough and don’t compare to the old events either in game play or rewards. The individual rewards of the new PvP events are lackluster. Unless you are in a top 10 coalition, the rewards are kinda insignificant. We only get one new PvP per new set unlike 1 PvP and 1 PvE that we used to get before. On top of that it feels like that one new event is only run 2 or 3 times before 3 months have already passed and the new set is due, with its own version of its new (but not really) 2 nodes PvP event, with choked leaderboard ties and unexciting rewards.
Getting back to the old classics, players did complain but those compliant threads also mentioned what we didn’t like about the events, a rework would have been more welcoming than completely discarding those events. When the players bring up an old event we aren’t necessarily asking it to be run exactly as it was, we are asking if those events can get a new life, in any shape or form. The response in the recent Q&A above seems a little bit dismissive of the request “you complianed before, so you don’t get to play with it anymore”
There are a few solutions to bring back those events without turning them into a slog. Solutions that are not new at all but have already been implemented for other old events.
1- Make them solo events. Not being a coalition event immediately takes an immense amount of pressure off of the players. No player is going to start a campaign requesting to ban a non coalition Hour of Devastation.
2- Break the events having 5 nodes into two parts with 2 to 3 nodes each. Oath of gatewatch used to be a single event.
3- Reduce the number of total charges. Breaking the dragon war event may take away some of its flavor but either solution should work.
4- The node structure of coalition PvE events from amonkhet and kaladesh sets was changed to the current format. The same rework can be applied to the other retired PvE events.
In short, please bring some of the high stakes events back from the past and make new ones as well. In terms of gameplay the current structure of PvP events is too casual as well, compared to the old ones. No PWs restrictions, no color restrictions, no locked nodes all of it resulting in leaderboards filled with rank 1 ties, all of them competing for a reward of 5 jewels and some runes (the boosters almost always end up as a few orbs)
