Kudos to the devs. I like Rising Tensions. It was fun, good objectives, and I think it has potential to be quite entertaining and rewarding. But–and you know there’s always a but–I have a pair of complaints/suggestions/criticisms.0
I dislike the one charge on each node, even with the 1-hour refresh. This is essentially the event equivalent of the change from “3 free cards every 3 hours!” to “1 card every hour!” One thing I absolutely love about TOTP and AX is that I can play them all the way through during the windows of leisure time my busy life allows, whether it be in the morning before I have to get my young children up, or during my lunch break at work, or right before bed. Yes, you can play RT through perfectly in one sitting–which I just did–but I don’t see the virtue in forcing people to log in an hour later if they drop an objective. You’re getting in the way of my playing your game.
This is the perfect time to stop being stingy on deck slots. I mean, the devs know that. They aren’t dumb. I just can’t fathom why we’re still stuck with 3 slots, and they’re introducing events that have rotating nodes/planeswalkers/objectives as if they want us to rebuild multiple decks every day. Guess what–you’re getting in the way of my playing your game again. Quality of life upgrade, please. I mean, I know I’ll eventually settle on a few decks for a few pw that can work for multiple nodes on multiple days–that’s what I usually wind up doing–but it would encourage so much more experimentation, and so much more downtime play, and so much more deckbuilding, if I didn’t have to rip apart my decks to do so.
I think the 1 hour recharge time is just enough that we don’t complete the objectives on the second node and play all four through, but it doesn’t nail you too hard if you need to replay a node to get to the full 60 points (also a higher target).
Good objectives, fun idea, GRREAT rewards (though we get less purples, that’s to be expected for getting a freebie mythic every day… like what?!)
My main concerns were already summed by @madwren
The reason why I liked Across Ixalan was that I did not have to bother with objectives or do TOO MUCH deckbuilding. I mean, first time around is fun, and there are days when I totally enjoy the deckbuilding part, but other days I just want to go through it as a daily event.
Now my personal playstyle (smoke break = MTGPQ) likes the 1h recharges and doesn’t mind the one charge, but I know it would affect other people.
If I were to make a quick recommendation myself, it would be to open all nodes. The order itself got quite dull after a while even in Across Ixalan.
But I am glad we have something else replacing Ixalan and I’m sure it will be a fun event.
Great job on this!
I played 4 games in node 1 and got 60 ribbons to complete the rewards.
Then I played 1 game in node 2, and after that, node 2 was empty of charges?
That doesn’t seem right.
EDIT
and again, node 3, empty of charges after playing a single game, and it recharges in 1h30m, not the 1hr that other people have noticed in this thread?
Node 1 most likely charged up like it normally does. I didn’t start playing the event for a few hours, when I played my first game there were 2 charges left, and then when I played the third game I only had to wait half an hour for an additional charge in that node.
I agree 100% on the recharge. With Across Ixalan, I would play out all my charges in the morning during my train ride into work, now with this event, that’s not possible, and makes the event harder than it needs to be for someone who plays it in one sitting like me. It’s no longer possible to have a buffer to lose a match and still get my value from the event.
Also my own take on the event, I had thought and hoped that the nodes were the colors of the guild rather than being the colors of every guild other than the one we had on the banner (Boros was absent this round). I used to really enjoy the white and green Across Ixalan days because I knew those were days I wouldn’t face Bolas every single round (seriously guys, you use this planeswalker as a crutch way too often )
I mean, with 1 hour recharges you can still lose a match or 5 and still be ok. But I get that that means logging in later in the day, which isn’t always easy.
Oddly enough, when I joined the event I had 3 charges on the first node, but only 1 each on the others as I unlocked them. Not sure what caused it, but it’s something to look out for too.
Living in California, that would mean trying to play during work hours. While commenting on forums is easy to do between tasks, playing out matches isn’t so easy, and my after work hours tend to be busier so I don’t get to play as much then until after the event has already ended.
I get that this is more a me problem, but it is an issue I many preferred the other way around even if they weren’t on a more limited schedule. People like being able to play at a time that works for them, especially when it comes to events that you paid to play.
I played the event at noon GMT. Four charges available on node one, 60 points. End of story. I did not even bother to look what the second node is about. That’s very alike Across Ixalan to me, I never played any match in fourth node… I’ll just wait and see whether people adapt their decks in a better fashion, cause for now it’s the easiest event ever created for this game.
Right, I suppose the “workaround” to playtime problems is that you can join the event, then just play it the next day and beat the first node into submission until you get your reward. I mean, it’s something if you’re under a time crunch, but the Across Ixalan model was really much better.
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