how loud do we need to complain about drop rates

speakupaskanswer

Cwest79 wrote:

I have actually never felt more cheated and robbed by a company, product or game than I did 3 days ago.

I bought crystals multiple times for a total of 4 Green Card Big Boxes in my attempt to try and procure Seasons Past and Ulvenwald Hydra
the only cards I really really want and need for my Green Deck.

The drop rates are absolutely ridiculous, horrid, appalling and so disheartening.

I received 6 to8 mythics and maybe 12 to 15 Rares
I wish I kept an exact record but I was on my lunch break at work. I had just gotten my direct deposit it was after 2 am where I was and had less than an hour before the option of buying the Green Card Set was over with.

Now mind you I have been playing for quite some time now and have a healthy collection going.

I received 2 mythics I didn't have
The rest were all duplicates
I also received 2 Rares I didn't have
The rest were all Duplicates.
I was only going to get 2 big boxes because 36.99 for imaginary cards is a lot of money to me and as such bought the 1300 crystals.
Opened them to get 1 mythic and 1 rare I didn't have.
Feeling completely **** I then bought 500 more crystals for 14.99 and then the 100 more for 2.99
And another Big Boxes
No mythics I needed and 2 rares I didn't have
Feeling my chances of getting my desired Ulvenwald was fairly good as it was only green cards I was buying
I did it 1 more time
500 crystals for 14.99 and the 100 more for 2.99
Now I was at like what 73.00 dollars at that point which wasn't intended
Obviously
Because I would've bought the 3000 for 74.99 and would have gotten 500 more crystals for just about the same amount of money.
But I just couldn't quite justify spending that amount of real money on this game due to the fact that the drop rates suck and there doesn't seem to be a way for them to allow us better odds at getting the cards we don't have.
Yes it's so awesome getting 2 or 3 of the same friggin sub par mythics and rares that we already have.

So yeah I work 55-60 hours a week,
I'm a single father of 2 and I get by with a little spending money here and there.

To invest the amount that I just did (which I'm sure people have spent more, no one forced me too and nothing is guaranteed)
I have never felt more cheated and crapped on by a product and company than I did that night.
I never want to feel the way I did after that again and as such will be extremely extremely hesitant to spend any more of my hard earned money on this game.

I'm sorry, but complaining about drop rates is one thing but no one is forcing you to spend so much money on a digital game. That's your own decision.

Cwest79

speakupaskanswer wrote:

Cwest79 wrote:

I have actually never felt more cheated and robbed by a company, product or game than I did 3 days ago.

I bought crystals multiple times for a total of 4 Green Card Big Boxes in my attempt to try and procure Seasons Past and Ulvenwald Hydra
the only cards I really really want and need for my Green Deck.

The drop rates are absolutely ridiculous, horrid, appalling and so disheartening.

I received 6 to8 mythics and maybe 12 to 15 Rares
I wish I kept an exact record but I was on my lunch break at work. I had just gotten my direct deposit it was after 2 am where I was and had less than an hour before the option of buying the Green Card Set was over with.

Now mind you I have been playing for quite some time now and have a healthy collection going.

I received 2 mythics I didn't have
The rest were all duplicates
I also received 2 Rares I didn't have
The rest were all Duplicates.
I was only going to get 2 big boxes because 36.99 for imaginary cards is a lot of money to me and as such bought the 1300 crystals.
Opened them to get 1 mythic and 1 rare I didn't have.
Feeling completely **** I then bought 500 more crystals for 14.99 and then the 100 more for 2.99
And another Big Boxes
No mythics I needed and 2 rares I didn't have
Feeling my chances of getting my desired Ulvenwald was fairly good as it was only green cards I was buying
I did it 1 more time
500 crystals for 14.99 and the 100 more for 2.99
Now I was at like what 73.00 dollars at that point which wasn't intended
Obviously
Because I would've bought the 3000 for 74.99 and would have gotten 500 more crystals for just about the same amount of money.
But I just couldn't quite justify spending that amount of real money on this game due to the fact that the drop rates suck and there doesn't seem to be a way for them to allow us better odds at getting the cards we don't have.
Yes it's so awesome getting 2 or 3 of the same friggin sub par mythics and rares that we already have.

So yeah I work 55-60 hours a week,
I'm a single father of 2 and I get by with a little spending money here and there.

To invest the amount that I just did (which I'm sure people have spent more, no one forced me too and nothing is guaranteed)
I have never felt more cheated and crapped on by a product and company than I did that night.
I never want to feel the way I did after that again and as such will be extremely extremely hesitant to spend any more of my hard earned money on this game.

I'm sorry, but complaining about drop rates is one thing but no one is forcing you to spend so much money on a digital game. That's your own decision.

It is my choice fully.
To be competitive and have good cards you need to purchase or you will be grinding a very long time with events and 3 card bonus packs to obtain better cards to be better and enjoy the game.
They are selling their product to us in this format.
So for myself or anyone to spend money on a big box or 2 say for 40 bucks and you get maybe 1 mythic and a couple rares okay
But then to also be constantly getting duplicates starts to get a little disheartening.
In 1 box I have bought I received 3 of the same mythic which was a duplicate as well and 2 or 3 of a couple duplicate rares.
I understand it's going to happen
Especially after you amass more and more from a set.

I enjoy this game.
I have willingly purchased some packs and boxes to better my decks for a better experience in their game.

I do wish there was a way to have a slightly better chance at not getting duplicates constantly and in triplicate from a single fat pack or box after you have amassed a certain amount of cards from sets

I guess I stop buying anymore
and that will solve it.

huntly

Ok. I get the anger about duplicates now. I got a soi BB, to my supprise it actually came with a mythic, harness the storm. It was my third ever mythic and only one from soi. Out of about 8-10 BBs so far only two came with a mythic, the other was from a free pack. (Cwest79 should feel lucky for getting 6-8 mythics out of 4 BBs) But then I was lucky enough to be in a coalition that reached top 10 in the last 2 events and both times it gave me harness the storm again. 21 mythics in the set minus 4 exclusive = 5.8% chance to get it the first time 0.34% chance for second time in a row and 0.02% for the third. Yeah technically it's 5.8% each time but it also means a 94.2% that I would get a new one. Thats some crazy random number generating in my book. Further proof that this game isn't worth spending real money on.

Remember everyone, if a post gets 25 thumbs up it turns green and becomes a "hot topic". The original post in this thread has 13 so far so its over half way from getting more attention from the devs. If you approve what it says give it a like if you haven't already. We might be able to get this ball rolling!

Typhon

I've been playing magic since 1993, you want a real heart break, try playing the card game before online sales and card shops only sold baseball cards, you could not and just go "buy" a deck people theory crafted online, i spend countless paper route checks on boxes of cards and always ended up with garbage, i get that we cannot buy individual cards , but i have spent now about $120+ (give or take a buck) and I can say that it very much does feel like they need to tweek the drop rates on some of these cards

Typhon

James13 wrote:

Suggestion:

Card shop. Allow the purchase of individual cards for either crystals or cold hard cash. Crystal cost would be at a premium to make boxes still an attractive option.

A general marketplace to trade/sell your own cards might be an interesting idea, but probably WAY too ambitious for a mobile game like this. Not to mention it would unintentionally punish those of us like me who have cashed in duplicate cards for runes already.

Just a thought.

then the game would be a pay to win scenario, effectively killing the game and no one would play

tm00

Actually you had a 100% chance of finding a new mythic, then either 1/15 or 1/16 chance of finding it again (removing exclusives and startled awake, plus geier reach bandit if you received them while it wasn't in the pool) and then the same chance again so it was between 0.44%(0.0044) and 0.39% (0.0039) very low but more than one player out of 3000 would be in such a situation.


Might still indicate a weird way to calculate randomness.



Anyway I always got at least one new good rare and 1 bad new rare from my big box, and once I even got a mythic so I cannot really complain.

pacha

Since the beginning of SOI, I've openned 2 BB :

First one, I got 1 Sigarda, Heron’s Grace
Second one, I got 2 Harness the Storm

Then, I got a coalition Reward : Sigarda, Heron’s Grace

I was quite lucky to get those mythics (the BB were not full of commons!) but there is a duplication issue (for me). Chances to get such duplicates are between (0.44%*0.44%) = 0.1936% and (0.39%*0.39%)=0.1521%... Really disappointing...

Hopefully, I like these mythics, Harness the Storm fits quite well in a Saheeli deck!!!

Steeme

Cwest79 wrote:

speakupaskanswer wrote:

Cwest79 wrote:

I have actually never felt more cheated and robbed by a company, product or game than I did 3 days ago.

I bought crystals multiple times for a total of 4 Green Card Big Boxes in my attempt to try and procure Seasons Past and Ulvenwald Hydra
the only cards I really really want and need for my Green Deck.

The drop rates are absolutely ridiculous, horrid, appalling and so disheartening.

I received 6 to8 mythics and maybe 12 to 15 Rares
I wish I kept an exact record but I was on my lunch break at work. I had just gotten my direct deposit it was after 2 am where I was and had less than an hour before the option of buying the Green Card Set was over with.

Now mind you I have been playing for quite some time now and have a healthy collection going.

I received 2 mythics I didn't have
The rest were all duplicates
I also received 2 Rares I didn't have
The rest were all Duplicates.
I was only going to get 2 big boxes because 36.99 for imaginary cards is a lot of money to me and as such bought the 1300 crystals.
Opened them to get 1 mythic and 1 rare I didn't have.
Feeling completely **** I then bought 500 more crystals for 14.99 and then the 100 more for 2.99
And another Big Boxes
No mythics I needed and 2 rares I didn't have
Feeling my chances of getting my desired Ulvenwald was fairly good as it was only green cards I was buying
I did it 1 more time
500 crystals for 14.99 and the 100 more for 2.99
Now I was at like what 73.00 dollars at that point which wasn't intended
Obviously
Because I would've bought the 3000 for 74.99 and would have gotten 500 more crystals for just about the same amount of money.
But I just couldn't quite justify spending that amount of real money on this game due to the fact that the drop rates suck and there doesn't seem to be a way for them to allow us better odds at getting the cards we don't have.
Yes it's so awesome getting 2 or 3 of the same friggin sub par mythics and rares that we already have.

So yeah I work 55-60 hours a week,
I'm a single father of 2 and I get by with a little spending money here and there.

To invest the amount that I just did (which I'm sure people have spent more, no one forced me too and nothing is guaranteed)
I have never felt more cheated and crapped on by a product and company than I did that night.
I never want to feel the way I did after that again and as such will be extremely extremely hesitant to spend any more of my hard earned money on this game.

I'm sorry, but complaining about drop rates is one thing but no one is forcing you to spend so much money on a digital game. That's your own decision.

It is my choice fully.
To be competitive and have good cards you need to purchase or you will be grinding a very long time with events and 3 card bonus packs to obtain better cards to be better and enjoy the game.
They are selling their product to us in this format.
So for myself or anyone to spend money on a big box or 2 say for 40 bucks and you get maybe 1 mythic and a couple rares okay
But then to also be constantly getting duplicates starts to get a little disheartening.
In 1 box I have bought I received 3 of the same mythic which was a duplicate as well and 2 or 3 of a couple duplicate rares.
I understand it's going to happen
Especially after you amass more and more from a set.

I enjoy this game.
I have willingly purchased some packs and boxes to better my decks for a better experience in their game.

I do wish there was a way to have a slightly better chance at not getting duplicates constantly and in triplicate from a single fat pack or box after you have amassed a certain amount of cards from sets

I guess I stop buying anymore
and that will solve it.

I'm going to side with Cwest on this issue.

The problem is that this game is based on building a deck with 10 different cards. In order to be competitive (and have fun), you need to build synergy in the deck. In order to build synergy, you need to group certain cards together.

Now imagine you are fishing for a small subset of cards in order to build a deck for a certain planeswalker, or perhaps a number of utility cards to be used in any deck (like Mirrorpool). We're not talking "the most completely OP combination of cards", but just something synergistic that can yield a nice win rate at a nice pace (something everyone is looking for).

The way this game is set up, is that except for certain event rewards and store pre-purchase specials, all cards are obtained randomly. You open packs that were free, awarded as prizes, or purchased with hard earned money. If you have a full-time job and either manage a family or work obscene amounts of overtime then you simply don't have the time to be competitive in the events and win the prizes. That leaves purchasing packs as the only option.

There are big boxes and specials in the store at all times. If you look at the cards available, these packs/boxes are being marketed by listing all of the nice beautiful cards that you *might* obtain. We all understand that "rare" and "mythic" cards are difficult to obtain, but we're seeing a ridiculous amount of duplicates which I think inadvertently amplifies the rarity to a level that is borderline deceptive marketing (not insinuating that this is done on purpose). Couple this with the fact that the entire reason why some of us continue to buy the boxes is because we see that there are a high percentage of cards *that we still need* and yet all we end up with are a handful of duplicates and triplicates of *cards we don't need*.

To add more icing on the cake, I absolutely love (sarcasm) when I keep getting multiple copies of cards that I decided to buy outright from the store. Ironically, I bought them outright since I never thought I would draw them randomly in packs!

(By the way I still don't have Mirrorpool. It seems like everyone has that card, and the AI is absolutely terrible and playing it - at least there's a plus side to that).

tm00

pacha wrote:

Since the beginning of SOI, I've openned 2 BB :

First one, I got 1 Sigarda, Heron’s Grace
Second one, I got 2 Harness the Storm

Then, I got a coalition Reward : Sigarda, Heron’s Grace

I was quite lucky to get those mythics (the BB were not full of commons!) but there is a duplication issue (for me). Chances to get such duplicates are between (0.44%*0.44%) = 0.1936% and (0.39%*0.39%)=0.1521%... Really disappointing...

Hopefully, I like these mythics, Harness the Storm fits quite well in a Saheeli deck!!!

Chance of opening a mythic givin that you opened a mythic:100%
Chance a copy of a mythic you already had in the next two packs: 1/16 for the first one, 1/8 for the second one( there are two different mythics you already have).
So chances of opening a duplicate mythic out of 3 mythics is 1-((15/16)*(7/8))=17.96%

huntly

tm00 wrote:

Actually you had a 100% chance of finding a new mythic, then either 1/15 or 1/16 chance of finding it again (removing exclusives and startled awake, plus geier reach bandit if you received them while it wasn't in the pool) and then the same chance again so it was between 0.44%(0.0044) and 0.39% (0.0039) very low but more than one player out of 3000 would be in such a situation.


Might still indicate a weird way to calculate randomness.



Anyway I always got at least one new good rare and 1 bad new rare from my big box, and once I even got a mythic so I cannot really complain.

Ok. I didn't realize they had unmarked those two mythics in inventory and started adding them to the pool. I thought it was all at once when the next set came out. Yeah it was 100% for a new mythic the first time but when I was stating my chance for a new one I ment the secound and third which would be 93.3%(or better depending on when the excusive cards got added). Then the 0.44%(best dup odds) you mentioned for secound in a row(44 in 10,000) divided by 15(best chance for dup if cards not added to pool yet) becomes 0.029% for third in a row(29 in 100,000) so that would make less than 3 in 10,000 people who should be in my situation.

This math is what's to be expected from a random number generator. When you pile on the fact that your chance to even get a mythic at all from a big box is so small, the drive to spend any amount of money is faded to the point you realize it's not worth the amount they are asking(unless you make enough money that spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on intangible cards is nothing to you).

Devs, keep the dup rate, it's fine. It should be difficult to get a full collection. Thats just what keeps the decks fresh and the money flowing for future developments and expantions for the game. What we need is more bang for our buck. Higher drop rates for mythics from BBs(doesn't "need" to be guaranteed, maybe a luck meter we can fill) and something better for converting duplicates than runes. We can get enough runes from grinding QB. I mentioned in a previous post either getting crystasls for dup rare and mythic or basic booster for rare and block booster for mythic.

"David wrote:

Moore"]Drop rates are always being considered and discussed to find the perfect balance. This is a topic receiving lots of internal consideration at the moment.

Appreciate the feedback. Moving to feedback forum.

Thank you.

Thanks for letting us know we aren't just "beating a dead horse." I hope that things do change but not so much that it makes collecting too easy.

The reason I originally started the thread in general discussion is that it was ment as an observation of the prevelance of "drop rate frustration" and, the majority of people don't look further than that section when searching a forum. It did turn into more of a suggestion and feedback thread. Thank you for leaving it there as long as you did.

Thanks again for everything you and the team do. I really do enjoy the game.

Mangus 73

So my luck changed today or so I thought, from a fat pack, big box and my free dailys I've had seven rares!!!!!
Shame they were all doubles except 1 and I own less than 50% of the Sol rares
Wish I had just got a PW instead.
Who sets these drop rates anyway cause if that was generated ramdomley that's some crazy never gonna happen odds right there.

mouser

Some recent experiences:

Bought a big box of the Blue cards a few days ago before the offer expired. I received one rare (the guaranteed one) and 14 packs of common/uncommon cards. By far the worst box I've ever opened. Fortunately the rare was at least a card I didn't have, everything else was a duplicate. So I spent 600 crystals for one new card. My card inventory of blue before opening the box was 112 of 141 available blue cards. I would very much like to know if the special offers like colored boxes have the same rarity odds as the set packs? This is the first special box I've ever bought and now I'm feeling like I should never buy another.

Fortunate enough to finish top 5 in both this week and the prior Nodes of Power events two weeks ago to get a OGW Mythic reward. I received the exact same reward card this event as last event--Kozilek the Great Distortion. Assuming the odds are random that's a 1 in 12 chance, so not completely unreasonable but still terribly disappointing after grinding an event for two days to come away with nothing but a crystal reward.

mouser

One thought to consider when discussing "randomness" of card draws online vs. paper magic: The cards in paper magic packs are not random.

There are some random elements to what cards are available in each paper pack, but it's not truly random. For example:

- You will never get two copies of the same card in a pack (unless one is foil).
- If you buy a sufficiently large number of boxes the cards you receive will be relatively evenly distributed. This is an effect of the fact that Wizards prints cards in sheets with pre-determined frequencies. They print exactly as many copes of Diregraf Colossus as Inexorable Blob and as Silverfur Partisan. They print two copies of each Rare card for one copy of each Mythic card.

Wizards uses some randomizing elements when placing cards in packs so people can't figure out the pattern to predict which boxes/packs will have the premium cards. But again the cards are still distributed in equal total amounts. You will rarely get duplicate rares in a booster box. And the # of mythics in a paper booster box is relatively consistent--you don't see large deviations of results that would be possible using a RNG like online MTG PQ.

Ryudhyn

Solution:

Every 5 card pack is changed to 4 random cards and 1 card guaranteed to be not in your collection. This keeps the all-commons boxes if you have no cards from the set, but as you keep playing you get all the Commons and so each pack MUST give you an uncommon you don't have or higher.

This way, devs get their money because you have to buy a lot, but you can guarantee if there are only 10 cards you're missing from the set, a Big Box will have them for you.

Pqmtg-

Ryudhyn wrote:

Solution:

Every 5 card pack is changed to 4 random cards and 1 card guaranteed to be not in your collection. This keeps the all-commons boxes if you have no cards from the set, but as you keep playing you get all the Commons and so each pack MUST give you an uncommon you don't have or higher.

This way, devs get their money because you have to buy a lot, but you can guarantee if there are only 10 cards you're missing from the set, a Big Box will have them for you.

For some, your suggestion means a mythic in every pack.

chispito

For what it's worth, my two coworkers that play the game and I have all soured on this set. None of us has received much of anything so we've stopped buying cards in favor of Planeswalkers. At least when we buy PWs we know exactly what we will get. I'd much rather the drop rate were higher in boosters than everyone get a free mediocre rare card once a week (though the last one was almost Noyan Dar good).

I was pretty close to dropping some cash when gems were on sale, but stopped short since I'd essentially forgotten what it feels like to open a good booster.

shteev

41 upvotes. I have never seen the like of it. A lot of people feel strongly about this issue.

Barrelrolla

The fix is easy, allow us to convert our duplicates to specific cards we want just like Hearthstone

Netatron

I think the drop rates would be fine except that I get two of almost every mythic I get.

Nitymp

Barrelrolla wrote:

The fix is easy, allow us to convert our duplicates to specific cards we want just like Hearthstone

Except this will suck for people like me who already converted all my duplicates.

If i hadn't then yeah i agree this would be an incredible idea