Open letter to the devs regarding coalition rewards

aesith

An "open letter" basically saying how you want mythics wrapped up in the guise of "coalition competition" will work wonders I'm sure.

READ : You want more coalition competition? BE IN ONE. Grow your current coalition with ACTIVE players who do more than just hit max personal rewards. You can't be competitive when 3 people score squat. View scores in the 8-10 ranked coalitions. Do you hit that? Do other members of your coalition even come close?

As the Deadapult poster child, I can give you scores to compare to. Dont know about the guy spending hours a day leading a coalition though. It's a bit of work I guess.

Enough of this topic.

THEMAGICkMAN

I just joined a top 10 coalition from a top 100 coalition and let me tell you it's very different and alot harder. In my top 100 coalition I could miss a weeks worth of events no problem, as long as I had a few points. In a top 10, that's nearly impossible. You have to play each event and get every game in, you can't miss events and you have to try to mitigate freezes. And you have yo test new decks and go for extra rewards. Let me tell you, those people who get 2 mythics a week deserve it. And I am living proof it's not impossible to become one of those 200 people. To add to that I've only been playing for 6 weeks. So if yore willing to grind and work for the rewards then you deserve it. The slack chat is the single best way to join a top 10 coal. So it is difficult to break into the top 10, but look at the coalition in number 1 for the emrakul event right now. Are they in the top 10? And yet they're placing 1st pretty convincingly.

RadicalTed

Ohboy wrote:

I don't want to join a top 10 coalition. I want more coalitions to be able to be competitive for the leader board. And with each round of mythic rewards, the chances of that ever happening is dropping.

That happens all the time. Seems like every other event there is a new name in the top 10 pushing for it as either they outplay another group or as a few people kinda burn out. The mythic rewards do not push anyone out of your range as a competitive player.

HunMike

Simply had to write down my thoughts, TLDR is fine

There is a gap between the elite and the casual. By definition that means that it segregates the players. Noone stated anywhere that it's due to some evil masterplan of the top players. It naturally occured due to the massive effort they put in compared to a casual. It's respectable, but sadly, will rip the game apart. Right now this gap is accessible but it won't stay that way. That will be the point when the game will be beyond repair. I've seen the exact same happen to a great game. The top players had all the cards, they (we) were able to put together optimal decks for even the most fckd up tournament restrictions. As for the rest, they got screwed big time. This phenomenon led the game from a stable 1000+ player base with ~100 onlines any given time (that's a lot for a small market like Hungary in an online tcg) dropped first around 200, then slowly to the point where it wasn't sustainible anymore, it was like a gorup activity with 20-50 active players a day on the whole server. Due to the smaller player base the process went much faster as here.

The point most of you are missing that Ohboy pointed out a future problem, gave a possible solution for debate and all you do as reply is "Right now it's fine as it is, anyway, we worked hard to be here, we deserve it." Yup, avoiding a known problem is a viable problem solving method by the book, but just as long as the case doesn't have critical impact.

I offered another possible solution by slowing down the input of new cards to give a chance for those who are willing to play but don't have this much free time. Suspecting that a certain in-game time/effort is required to get out a certain amount of decent cards to the collection. This wouldn't put the elite in worse position and still should give a chance to those who are seeing this as a game and not as a race. Noone bothered to answer, you were too busy protecting your spoils of war. No offense, i wrote down as i saw it, not the universal truth.

Stating that any newbie who really wants it can close up is very cynical. Borderline sadistic. "Yea, put a massive amount of time and money and you can hit to the bottom of the elite". Again, this is kinda true, but to the current situation only. On addition, let me give a simple example: when in a marathon if you fell behind or just started later, it isn't enough to be as fast as the leading runners, you have to be faster. This is the point where you go against your own argument: you're proud that you put in maximum effort, that's why you're on top. It's understandable, really, but how the hell should a player be able to top that with less experience and less resources at his hand? The only real way to get there is when someone in the top got enough and quits, but why should we expect that in a situation that is satisfactory to him?

Stormbringer0

HunMike wrote:

Simply had to write down my thoughts, TLDR is fine

There is a gap between the elite and the casual. By definition that means that it segregates the players. Noone stated anywhere that it's due to some evil masterplan of the top players. It naturally occured due to the massive effort they put in compared to a casual. It's respectable, but sadly, will rip the game apart. Right now this gap is accessible but it won't stay that way. That will be the point when the game will be beyond repair. I've seen the exact same happen to a great game. The top players had all the cards, they (we) were able to put together optimal decks for even the most fckd up tournament restrictions. As for the rest, they got screwed big time. This phenomenon led the game from a stable 1000+ player base with ~100 onlines any given time (that's a lot for a small market like Hungary in an online tcg) dropped first around 200, then slowly to the point where it wasn't sustainible anymore, it was like a gorup activity with 20-50 active players a day on the whole server. Due to the smaller player base the process went much faster as here.

The point most of you are missing that Ohboy pointed out a future problem, gave a possible solution for debate and all you do as reply is "Right now it's fine as it is, anyway, we worked hard to be here, we deserve it." Yup, avoiding a known problem is a viable problem solving method by the book, but just as long as the case doesn't have critical impact.

I offered another possible solution by slowing down the input of new cards to give a chance for those who are willing to play but don't have this much free time. Suspecting that a certain in-game time/effort is required to get out a certain amount of decent cards to the collection. This wouldn't put the elite in worse position and still should give a chance to those who are seeing this as a game and not as a race. Noone bothered to answer, you were too busy protecting your spoils of war. No offense, i wrote down as i saw it, not the universal truth.

Stating that any newbie who really wants it can close up is very cynical. Borderline sadistic. "Yea, put a massive amount of time and money and you can hit to the bottom of the elite". Again, this is kinda true, but to the current situation only. On addition, let me give a simple example: when in a marathon if you fell behind or just started later, it isn't enough to be as fast as the leading runners, you have to be faster. This is the point where you go against your own argument: you're proud that you put in maximum effort, that's why you're on top. It's understandable, really, but how the hell should a player be able to top that with less experience and less resources at his hand? The only real way to get there is when someone in the top got enough and quits, but why should we expect that in a situation that is satisfactory to him?

Give this man a medal!

Ohboy

HunMike wrote:

Simply had to write down my thoughts, TLDR is fine

There is a gap between the elite and the casual. By definition that means that it segregates the players. Noone stated anywhere that it's due to some evil masterplan of the top players. It naturally occured due to the massive effort they put in compared to a casual. It's respectable, but sadly, will rip the game apart. Right now this gap is accessible but it won't stay that way. That will be the point when the game will be beyond repair. I've seen the exact same happen to a great game. The top players had all the cards, they (we) were able to put together optimal decks for even the most fckd up tournament restrictions. As for the rest, they got screwed big time. This phenomenon led the game from a stable 1000+ player base with ~100 onlines any given time (that's a lot for a small market like Hungary in an online tcg) dropped first around 200, then slowly to the point where it wasn't sustainible anymore, it was like a gorup activity with 20-50 active players a day on the whole server. Due to the smaller player base the process went much faster as here.

The point most of you are missing that Ohboy pointed out a future problem, gave a possible solution for debate and all you do as reply is "Right now it's fine as it is, anyway, we worked hard to be here, we deserve it." Yup, avoiding a known problem is a viable problem solving method by the book, but just as long as the case doesn't have critical impact.

I offered another possible solution by slowing down the input of new cards to give a chance for those who are willing to play but don't have this much free time. Suspecting that a certain in-game time/effort is required to get out a certain amount of decent cards to the collection. This wouldn't put the elite in worse position and still should give a chance to those who are seeing this as a game and not as a race. Noone bothered to answer, you were too busy protecting your spoils of war. No offense, i wrote down as i saw it, not the universal truth.

Stating that any newbie who really wants it can close up is very cynical. Borderline sadistic. "Yea, put a massive amount of time and money and you can hit to the bottom of the elite". Again, this is kinda true, but to the current situation only. On addition, let me give a simple example: when in a marathon if you fell behind or just started later, it isn't enough to be as fast as the leading runners, you have to be faster. This is the point where you go against your own argument: you're proud that you put in maximum effort, that's why you're on top. It's understandable, really, but how the hell should a player be able to top that with less experience and less resources at his hand? The only real way to get there is when someone in the top got enough and quits, but why should we expect that in a situation that is satisfactory to him?

Thanks. I think you did a much better job of articulating the problem I forsee than I did.

Alve

I do see your problem, I agree that a problem exists, but I think your rage is misdirected. Your problems are: abysmal drop rates and no option to acquire specific cards. I waited two months for an uncommon - Demolish, a vital support removal. And I'm not a free-to-play player. This is what keeps new players like me and people from outside of top 10 like you (I assume) from building their dream decks. If the devs give us more options to earn cards outside of grinding qb or racing events to be first in those huge platinum ties, I'll gladly give up on coalition rewards. Your idea will hurt us all, the whole community - there will be less good cards overall, new players will have absolutely no way to catch up with veterans. And people who play for free will have no way to catch up to premium players. So maybe solve existing problems before coming up with new ones?

Let's think of ways to give new / casual players more without taking away from the top, huh? Maybe more ways to get cards, cheaper crystals, bigger pws selection in the vault, some serious discount on crystals/boosters for new players, better drop rates, better organized tier system so that good players don't end up in bronze tier just because they rarely change their decks and new players don't get stuck in hyper-competitive platinum simply because they grind mastery for no good reason. Oh, and fixing existing bugs would be nice too, before we start redesigning coalition system.

Btw, let's stop pretending that only t10 get good rewards. Top 100 get guaranteed rares, which, especially in the current expansion, can give a bigger and better haul. Creating a functional top 100 coalition takes as little as two days if you spend some time on it and come up with a good plan. Of course, then you have to keep it running. And no, having close friends playing does not even come close, unless you have 20 close friends playing, paying money for the game (I'm not sure I have 20 close friends in total) and none of them has a life. So please, stop trying to ridicule our efforts and arguing that we somehow take things away from all those groups of friends coming together after work to play mobile games.

Top 10 coalitions are difficult to manage. Managing them requires lot of time and effort, it means that you'll need to let go of people who don't score enough. Being in one means that you basically end up apologizing for every node you miss, it dominates your life on event days and requires some serious scheduling/waking up at night. With the current pressure, groups that used to be top start doing worse due to player burnout, new ones pop up every now and then and players rotate in and out all the time. Top 10 is not a constant pool of players who get mythics and never let go of their privileged position. It's not a closed circle of privileged ****, chosen by an algorithm according to the list of Most Hated People in MtGPQ. Top 100 also need some good management, recruitment and motivation to keep everyone engaged in the long run. It's only fair that players are rewarded according to the effort and time spent playing and it's a nice feeling when they get decent rewards for that. It's not about any advantage, it's about the warm, fuzzy feeling when you get a new card for your collection. Even if you'll never use it - we don't use most of those mythics, we just want to HAVE them.

Giving everyone a booster pack for all this work + grinding for hours each event is ridiculous with current drop rates. I feel personally offended when a casual player proposes that. Unless you're planning to give big boxes to top 10, but I don't think that solves your problem of a gap between top players and the rest.

This is a freemium game. You can treat it like glorified Candy Crush, play qb and story mode when you're commuting to work in the morning, without worrying about the leaderboard. Or you can spend a significant amount of time and money to play competitively, which probably isn't very smart, but some of us still like it. It's your choice. But don't blame others for consequences of your own choices.

FYI the guy who has all the mythics from EM already is not a typical top 10 player. He grinds qb a lot, probably spends some money on boosters and most likely was quite lucky when opening his packs. If someone plays very competitively for a few weeks, yes, they will get those 6 mythics. They will still have less good cards than someone who buys every special offer card. And they are likely to miss out on some crucial rares that a top 100 player would have. It's not a completely broken system, it's this whole game that's badly balanced.

PS: Top players quit ALL THE TIME. Really. Nobody with a life can afford to soend his whole free time swapping gems. You'd lose your job, get a divorce and have your kids taken away. Not everyone can afford to spend that much time on a mobile game in the long run and no mythic can change that. It's just a game, people. Our reward is a bunch of pixels, not a ticket to better life.

EDHdad

The top players had all the cards, they (we) were able to put together optimal decks for even the most fckd up tournament restrictions. As for the rest, they got screwed big time. This phenomenon led the game from a stable 1000+ player base with ~100 onlines any given time (that's a lot for a small market like Hungary in an online tcg) dropped first around 200, then slowly to the point where it wasn't sustainible anymore, it was like a gorup activity with 20-50 active players a day on the whole server. Due to the smaller player base the process went much faster as here.

The solution, in my mind is to enable more people to acquire more cards. Let people buy specific cards they want with cash / crystals / runes. Award Mythics to more than just the top 10 teams, or the top 5 players. Let people buy complete sets of Origins, BFZ, Oath or any other expansion. For less than the price of a kidney transplant.

The problem I have with these threads is that the proposed solution is some variation on "don't give good stuff to highly competitive players", rather than "also give good stuff to other players".

PajdaCZ

HunMike wrote:

Simply had to write down my thoughts, TLDR is fine

I offered another possible solution by slowing down the input of new cards to give a chance for those who are willing to play but don't have this much free time. Suspecting that a certain in-game time/effort is required to get out a certain amount of decent cards to the collection. This wouldn't put the elite in worse position and still should give a chance to those who are seeing this as a game and not as a race. Noone bothered to answer, you were too busy protecting your spoils of war. No offense, i wrote down as i saw it, not the universal truth.

I don't see what's behind the scene, but slowing down the rate of inserting new cards/sets is also a marketing problem and reaches way beyond D3 up to the Wizards themselves, when WotC release new set/cards, everyone would be expecting the set to appear also in MTGPQ, and if it won't appear, because they are "slowing down," it will lead to more disappointment.

HunMike

On the contrary, the casual players will be given the time they need to build up their collection.

Also, the thing is with Wizard products you can pick specifically what you need on the secondary market (at a higher price, but overall way more cost-efficiently), there's no such option here yet.

qwweetrtr

yunnnn wrote:

You realize boosters contain mythics right? Giving players boosters instead of the guaranteed mythic is basically the same thing. And this helps me even more because I'm missing a bunch of SOI cards. So... thanks?

Not quite. They can contain Mythics. It's possible for a Mythic to be in a pack. But you could open 10 packs and not get one Mythic. Heck, not even a rare but at least a rare is more common then a Mythic. I agree with the guy that made this post. Packs would be a lot better. Like 5 packs for ranks 1-5 and 2 or 3 packs for ranks 6-25 or something like that.

Shiser

LeafHyren wrote:

The 200 are playing a very different game than that of the casual player. The loop merely helps us beat each other. Platinum is much more difficult.

I think that's exactly the problem-- individual competition has the tiers to separate the serious players from the more casual ones.

Coalitions need the same thing; base it on the total average rank of all the players' relevant color mastery or something.

Players in a more casual coalition-- e.g. with new players and people who can only play weekends --shouldn't be in the same competition tier as a coalition all competing to win individual rewards in platinum.

Ithilglin

I play since september, I am still in silver so I am far from the top but here is my point of view of relatively new and casual player.

I think ohboy has a point. But I understand the reaction of top coalition players when he write they win free mythics. That gives the impression they receive mythics out of nowhere just for being in the top ten ( it is actually what I understood at the first reading).

But they don't. They earns their mythics by their play. That confusion may explain their reactions.

However, ohboy do have a point. I agree with players who says that mythics cards can't replace playing skills and time spend. But with the same skills and the same time spend, having more mythics really make a difference. So the positive loop is real imo even if top coalition certainly deserves that.

That's why the idea of taking those rewards from top ten is a bad idea. It is always a bad idea to just take something from someone because someone else have less. If there were a limited number of mythics, yes, it should probably be necessary to share that limited number. But hopefully devs can give as many cards as they want.

So I tend to agree that the solution should be to offer non top coalition players a way to earn more mythics. And it should be a hard play solution. If not, it would be fair neither for top people who earned their cards by the time spend to play neither for players who spend money for a ridiculous low mythics dropping rate.

So, I tend to agree with the proposition of creating tiers for coalition (which could be based on the average scores of previous events).
Another solution could be to increase rewards in QB. Reaching the top 10 in QB is also highly competitive. Still, only the number one wins a mythic. Increasing the rewards in QB could be a solution for non top coalition players to win mythics.