1 rarity guaranteed for packs?

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loroku
loroku Posts: 1,014 Chairperson of the Boards
edited March 2016 in MtGPQ Suggestions & Feedback
It might help some of the sore feels to implement something to guarantee at least one card of a minimum rarity in packs.

One way you could implement it is to keep a record of each card gained (which you already have so you can display them) and if you get to the last 5-pack and the total cards for the entire pack including the last 5-pack doesn't contain at least one card of the guaranteed rarity, you re-roll the last 5-pack until it does.

For example, you could guarantee a mythic for a Big Box, rare for a Fat Pack, and uncommon for a 5-pack. In this case, if someone opened a Big Box and after 13 5-packs still had no mythics and the last 5-pack also didn't contain a mythic, the last 5-pack would be re-rolled until it contained at least 1 mythic.

If you don't like that scale, that's fine, make it whatever. But opening a Big Box and getting 0 rares and 0 mythics - both a statistical possibility and something that has been claimed to have happened on this forum - seems like a 95% chance of churn to me. And 100% if they actually paid for it.

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  • Unknown
    Unknown
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    A little bit hard to code up a "if then..." thing.

    Easier to simply grant an extra card.
  • loroku
    loroku Posts: 1,014 Chairperson of the Boards
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    pandabear wrote:
    Easier to simply grant an extra card.
    I seriously doubt that would happen. icon_e_smile.gif ("If/then"s aren't that hard...)
  • Unknown
    Unknown
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    Was a bit of a joke lol, but it -is- possibly more prone to errors than simply giving an extra card.

    How cool would it be though if bought fat packs gave you 1 extra rare, and bought big boxes gave you 1 rare and 1 mythic bonus?

    I think that would incentivize a lot more people to buy them.
  • Enoc99
    Enoc99 Posts: 141
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    I suggest the following:
    With every booster Pack (the 5 card ones) there should be a "Bronze Pack" It contains one uncommon and two commons.

    With every fatpack there should be a "Silver Pack". It contains one rare and two uncomons.

    With every big box there should be a "Gold Pack". It contains one mythic and two rares.


    This way, no matter which one you open, you are most likely happy in the end. Plus, it will give those (like myself) who are looking mostly for mythics at this point in time a reason to buy the big box, as it guarantees at least one mythic (plus a good chance for one more in the other 14 packs).

    I currently am at the point where I have 7 of the mythics, all but four of the rares, all but one uncommon, and all the commons. I have little incentive to buy the big box, as I estimate that my probability is likely to get approximately 1 mythic on average, two if I'm lucky. As such, I'm currently playing with what I have and waiting for more cards of varying rarities to be released before I spend my money. If I was likely to get two mythics (one guaranteed, and likely 1 more from packs), then I would have more incentive to spend my money there.

    There will be whales that just buy big boxes until they have all the cards, but I think you will have more of the masses buying fat packs and big boxes if there are better incentives to doing so. And the way this game works, having the masses buying more may help financially without digging too much into the income from whales.
  • Irving
    Irving Posts: 95
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    Enoc99 wrote:
    There will be whales that just buy big boxes until they have all the cards, but I think you will have more of the masses buying fat packs and big boxes if there are better incentives to doing so. And the way this game works, having the masses buying more may help financially without digging too much into the income from whales.

    Only the devs know how many such whales there are, but I suspect you're right. I'm one who certainly would have spent for at least another Big Box if there was a reasonable chance of getting one of the cards I'm missing. In real MTG the model works because 1) your duplicates aren't useless and 2) you can buy/sell/trade cards. Imagine trying to assemble a set from opening packs only!

    And I have no idea if drop rates truly did change, but it sure feels like it. I have 3 rares and zero mythics total from my last 3 Fat Packs, and if I remember correctly, pre 1.3.1 I never got a Fat Pack with fewer than two rares/mythics. I'm well aware of fallible memories and confirmation bias, so I'm hesitating to conclude anything definitively, but if there's no communication one way or the other about the issue it'll certainly affect how much I spend when the 1.4 update with new cards comes out.
  • majincob
    majincob Posts: 732 Critical Contributor
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    Irving wrote:
    Enoc99 wrote:
    There will be whales that just buy big boxes until they have all the cards, but I think you will have more of the masses buying fat packs and big boxes if there are better incentives to doing so. And the way this game works, having the masses buying more may help financially without digging too much into the income from whales.

    Only the devs know how many such whales there are, but I suspect you're right. I'm one who certainly would have spent for at least another Big Box if there was a reasonable chance of getting one of the cards I'm missing. In real MTG the model works because 1) your duplicates aren't useless and 2) you can buy/sell/trade cards. Imagine trying to assemble a set from opening packs only!

    And I have no idea if drop rates truly did change, but it sure feels like it. I have 3 rares and zero mythics total from my last 3 Fat Packs, and if I remember correctly, pre 1.3.1 I never got a Fat Pack with fewer than two rares/mythics. I'm well aware of fallible memories and confirmation bias, so I'm hesitating to conclude anything definitively, but if there's no communication one way or the other about the issue it'll certainly affect how much I spend when the 1.4 update with new cards comes out.

    I fully agree with everything in this post. There should be less variance in the packs so people feel a minimum amount of surety of what they are getting.
  • CloudTactics
    CloudTactics Posts: 22 Just Dropped In
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    I just bought my first big box after saving up crystals for 2 months. 0 mythics and 0 rares. Yes, Big Box for 600 crystals. All commons and uncommons.

    Wow D3. You guys suck. This pretty much convinces me never to spend a single dollar with your game. $20-30 "Fail" Box...
  • SweetMagicmoon
    SweetMagicmoon Posts: 1 Just Dropped In
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    I don't understand why the online booster pack is set up so differently from the physical MTG card packs you can buy. They all have 1 rare/mythic rare, 2 uncommon, 10 common, 1 land and 1 promo/token/foil. Why don't the online booster packs at least have 1 rare or uncommon guaranteed? I get entire packs of commons frequently and it's frustrating when I am spending all the gold to try and get some new cards

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