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Back after 10 months to......

AuthorMessage
Explorer
Mar 29, 2010
84
I decided to come back and try Wiz101 again after they implemented by suggestion for the dispel shields (yay!!!) and the turn-based tournaments. I've been playing for not quite two weeks and here's what I'm seeing:

1.Turn-based pvp eliminates A LOT of the pvp problems. Period. Make it happen in ranked.

2. Crit/block at level 120. I don't know what is going on in pvp, but I am being crit on ALL THE TIME with hardly ever blocking. And I don't mean often, I mean almost EVERY. TIME. This with player stats hovering in low 400 range. Myself? my rate is about what my stats say, although I had one match where I crit three times in a row. I challenge KI to look, if they can, and see what I'm talking about. Is there another exploit going on here? Several people have commented that crit is overperforming in general, but in pvp it's absolutely out of control.

3. Spot assignment. This continues to be a fiasco for me. I had been keeping track over a couple THOUSAND matches of my rate for going first and it was staying in the low 30%. Dworgyn even said he would look but then never replied, which means he doesn't have an explanation. This 'bad luck' has continued during my time back. I have played 52 matches including tournaments. My rate for going first is 14 out of 52, or 27%. I went first all four times in my tournament today (which I still won :P).

This game should be standardized so that as your sample size gets larger, all players approach a rate of going first 50%. I don't know why KI insists that a bell curve chart is the best result for tracking player start position. Do they really think it's 'good' if over a sample size of thousands of matches people are still stuck going first only 30-something percent of the time????? When they have a 50% chance (supposedly) to go first????? I may be on the dramatic side of 'random,' but it's still happening.

4. Dispel spamming. It's still a thing, but I have hopes that it will be fully fixed soon.

5. The 118 school spells are yet another strike against pvp, especially with the first/second set up.

Overall, is pvp healthy? Nope. It's not playable, and the number of people in qeue shows it. Please KI, listen to us, we want to save our game.

Survivor
Mar 28, 2013
33
I support everything you said, Mr Flint.

It seems like some people get "stuck" in their same old bad luck patterns, and others continue with their lucky streaks.

Setting seems to be a lot more pervasive now too, as there are so few in the queues at times. I think it would help to cloak all players gear stats when they are anywhere in the arena.

Defender
Nov 24, 2012
124
MrFlin t on Sep 19, 2017 wrote:
I decided to come back and try Wiz101 again after they implemented by suggestion for the dispel shields (yay!!!) and the turn-based tournaments. I've been playing for not quite two weeks and here's what I'm seeing:

1.Turn-based pvp eliminates A LOT of the pvp problems. Period. Make it happen in ranked.

2. Crit/block at level 120. I don't know what is going on in pvp, but I am being crit on ALL THE TIME with hardly ever blocking. And I don't mean often, I mean almost EVERY. TIME. This with player stats hovering in low 400 range. Myself? my rate is about what my stats say, although I had one match where I crit three times in a row. I challenge KI to look, if they can, and see what I'm talking about. Is there another exploit going on here? Several people have commented that crit is overperforming in general, but in pvp it's absolutely out of control.

3. Spot assignment. This continues to be a fiasco for me. I had been keeping track over a couple THOUSAND matches of my rate for going first and it was staying in the low 30%. Dworgyn even said he would look but then never replied, which means he doesn't have an explanation. This 'bad luck' has continued during my time back. I have played 52 matches including tournaments. My rate for going first is 14 out of 52, or 27%. I went first all four times in my tournament today (which I still won :P).

This game should be standardized so that as your sample size gets larger, all players approach a rate of going first 50%. I don't know why KI insists that a bell curve chart is the best result for tracking player start position. Do they really think it's 'good' if over a sample size of thousands of matches people are still stuck going first only 30-something percent of the time????? When they have a 50% chance (supposedly) to go first????? I may be on the dramatic side of 'random,' but it's still happening.

4. Dispel spamming. It's still a thing, but I have hopes that it will be fully fixed soon.

5. The 118 school spells are yet another strike against pvp, especially with the first/second set up.

Overall, is pvp healthy? Nope. It's not playable, and the number of people in qeue shows it. Please KI, listen to us, we want to save our game.
I too support everything you mentioned.

1) The turn-based system does solve a lot of problems. Of course, it is not perfect and perhaps it never will be—but it is a lot better than the original turn system.

2) I appreciate that critical hits no longer deal 2X the damage in PvP. This is why I no longer carry critical and critical block in PvP; I no longer find them essential.

3) Most of this problem will be fixed once the turn-based system is implemented in rank PvP. I don't know how long it is going to take KingsIsle to implement the new turn system into rank PvP, however.

4) I've never had major issues with being dispelled in 1v1 matches—it is, however, a problem in tournaments, especially in quick matches. In team matches, however, that's a completely different story. That is why I don't do rank team PvP. Because I am a Life wizard, I often get spammed with dispels in practice matches; Storm faces the same problem.

5) I hate these spells; these spells should not be in PvP whatsoever. It's ridiculous how much damage one can do with just four pips and a shadow pip. I don't know what KingsIsle was thinking by allowing these spells in PvP. These spells must be made NO PvP.

A+ Student
Mar 02, 2010
1643
MrFlin t on Sep 19, 2017 wrote:
I decided to come back and try Wiz101 again after they implemented by suggestion for the dispel shields (yay!!!) and the turn-based tournaments. I've been playing for not quite two weeks and here's what I'm seeing:

1.Turn-based pvp eliminates A LOT of the pvp problems. Period. Make it happen in ranked.

2. Crit/block at level 120. I don't know what is going on in pvp, but I am being crit on ALL THE TIME with hardly ever blocking. And I don't mean often, I mean almost EVERY. TIME. This with player stats hovering in low 400 range. Myself? my rate is about what my stats say, although I had one match where I crit three times in a row. I challenge KI to look, if they can, and see what I'm talking about. Is there another exploit going on here? Several people have commented that crit is overperforming in general, but in pvp it's absolutely out of control.

3. Spot assignment. This continues to be a fiasco for me. I had been keeping track over a couple THOUSAND matches of my rate for going first and it was staying in the low 30%. Dworgyn even said he would look but then never replied, which means he doesn't have an explanation. This 'bad luck' has continued during my time back. I have played 52 matches including tournaments. My rate for going first is 14 out of 52, or 27%. I went first all four times in my tournament today (which I still won :P).

This game should be standardized so that as your sample size gets larger, all players approach a rate of going first 50%. I don't know why KI insists that a bell curve chart is the best result for tracking player start position. Do they really think it's 'good' if over a sample size of thousands of matches people are still stuck going first only 30-something percent of the time????? When they have a 50% chance (supposedly) to go first????? I may be on the dramatic side of 'random,' but it's still happening.

4. Dispel spamming. It's still a thing, but I have hopes that it will be fully fixed soon.

5. The 118 school spells are yet another strike against pvp, especially with the first/second set up.

Overall, is pvp healthy? Nope. It's not playable, and the number of people in qeue shows it. Please KI, listen to us, we want to save our game.
I'll reply with my opinion on recent experience:

1) The turn based method still has some flaws that should be fixed before the mechanic gets adopted in the ranked arena. For example, Medusa only stuns for 1 turn instead of 2 like it should.

Other flaws about it are innate flaws that probably can't be fixed due to the nature of the turn system, such as the uselessness of DoT's once the mechanic goes to live realm (Triage/Shift), the inability to use auras at all against Balance wizards (Supernova at no risk guarantees this), Mana Burn being the most overpowered spell in the game due to its disruptive ability (it should be nerfed to remove 2 pips), and this may not be as obvious because it's in a time limited tournament setting, but beating Jades is much more difficult when the Jade can immediately react to every single move you make if you're going first. Some others are minor annoyances such as not knowing what pip count your opponent will be at next turn (pips should be pre-determined a turn ahead and should be displayed as an incoming pip, including Shadow pips).

This also may be a personal one, but I find turn based matches rather boring.

2) I do agree that block should be higher, but one reason why you might be seeing a lot more criticals than block rating is because of the gear people are using. Not sure if you've noticed, but many people are using Purrzian boots (high critical, no block), Mirage damage wands (again no block), and the Darkmoor amulets (no block). People's only source of block rating is from their rings and decks, and you end up with 1%.

4) Agreed, the main reason dispels are being spammed is because cloaking a dispel causes it to bypass any dispel shields and not put up a dispel shield once cast. Hopefully KI fixes this soon.

5) Agreed. With the current system, it's annoying how Shadow pips aren't predetermined. Your opponent is a threat at even 2 pips because you don't know if they'll get a Shadow pip next turn and use their 4 pip spell.

Survivor
Dec 20, 2008
20
Getting rid of shadow spells at 100-120 would solve a lot of the issues with nobody wanting to do pvp in that level range. Just think of all the strategies,(not including jade or juju), that would come back. Rank 10 and 8 spells would be healthy again and so would using mastery amulets and not just having to create a pure ward pet or pure damage and critical. Its amazing how stale max level pvp is, literally no change in strategy in almost 2 years now.

Defender
Nov 24, 2012
124
I thought of another term system—I'm not sure if someone else has thought of the same idea; I haven't put much thought into it, so I'm sure there are some flaws. In fact, I'm sure there are, for I don't think we'll ever have a flawless turn system. I do hear people say that the turn-based system is boring do it being slow passed—although I believe the 30 second timer in turn system has been reduced to 20 seconds— and because it isn't as exhilarating as the old turn system.

Below is the turn system I have thought of:

Match starts

Round 1: Player A goes first

Round 1: Player B goes second

(Both players go in the same round)

*End of round 1*

*Round 2 initiates*

Round 2: Player B goes first

Round 2: Player A goes second

(Both players go in the same round)

*End of round 2*

In round 3, Player A now goes first and player B goes second and so on.

Defender
Nov 24, 2012
124
On second thought, the turn system I've thought of is really bad, lol. It only took a little bit of thinking to realize that.

Explorer
Mar 29, 2010
84
An update on my experience:

My rate for going first continues to decline. In my original post, I accidently mention winning a tournament after going first all four times when I meant to say I had gone SECOND all four times. My rate for going first is now sub 25%.

Diego is a disaster. Three times while going second I have ended a match with more pips and more health yet am considered to lose?? In my turn-based tournament today, on the last turn my opponent was able to get their last turn, making them go first AND have the last move, and yet I still ended up ahead. Guess who won? Not me.

Crit is also for sure broken. I would say about 75% of the attacks on me are crits. My crit rate is not that high, but it is way way above the 35% it says I have.

Shadow pips should not be granted on the first turn. Especially with these new 118 level spells, it's beyond stupid.

Shadow pip rate is also nuts. Again KI will claim it's just random, but opponents are averaging twice the shadow pips I am.

Defender
Nov 24, 2012
124
MrFlin t on Sep 26, 2017 wrote:
An update on my experience:

My rate for going first continues to decline. In my original post, I accidently mention winning a tournament after going first all four times when I meant to say I had gone SECOND all four times. My rate for going first is now sub 25%.

Diego is a disaster. Three times while going second I have ended a match with more pips and more health yet am considered to lose?? In my turn-based tournament today, on the last turn my opponent was able to get their last turn, making them go first AND have the last move, and yet I still ended up ahead. Guess who won? Not me.

Crit is also for sure broken. I would say about 75% of the attacks on me are crits. My crit rate is not that high, but it is way way above the 35% it says I have.

Shadow pips should not be granted on the first turn. Especially with these new 118 level spells, it's beyond stupid.

Shadow pip rate is also nuts. Again KI will claim it's just random, but opponents are averaging twice the shadow pips I am.
Why are you so worried about getting landed on? Critical hits only add +30% more to hits as opposed to 100%. That would be +300 more damage to a 1,000 damage spell. Again, as opposed to +1,000 damage.

Explorer
Mar 29, 2010
84
Angel of Solitude on Sep 27, 2017 wrote:
Why are you so worried about getting landed on? Critical hits only add +30% more to hits as opposed to 100%. That would be +300 more damage to a 1,000 damage spell. Again, as opposed to +1,000 damage.
The larger the hit, the more 30% matters, and a lot of attacks are more than 1k. The larger issue is the programming; when a game is not behaving the way laws of probability say it should, there's a problem. Remember how we were all noting things like getting baby pips with 100% power pip chance, or fizzing on things with 100% or more accuracy? Finally they fixed that after stating "working as intended."

If the game mechanics don't work as described, people leave. When the rng gods decide that some people will consistently have better results over a long long long time and very large sample size while paying the same or even more for the opportunity to play, they leave. Too much room for error is being given to 'rng' and not enough to actual math.

Yesterday I played 17 matches and went first twice. At what point does a person begin to wonder? One thousand matches? I'm past that. Two thousand matches? Way beyond that.

Mastermind
Aug 01, 2009
306
I'm with you. I went first a total of 6 times out of 40. Also matched with a warlord, my very first ranked match in 5 years. Pvp is messed up all together. I don't even find it fun anymore. Not to mention the Lore spammers, and death wizards not getting their full enchantment from trained spells like Epic.. They have a hard enough time in Pvp, then to get deduction on their enchantment. I know people say that "dancing" doesn't have anything to do with the other person going first, but it seems a lot of them like to dance- while I'm stuck going 2nd. I don't understand why in ranked matched they are matching privates with warlords making the private go 2nd. Pvp is only meant for certain schools which is just not right.

Explorer
May 20, 2012
81
Please make all pvp turn-based. It would not fix all problems but it would help greatly.