Poll: Hypothetical Regarding Purchasable Cards

Ithilglin

Well I would probably quit the game because I'm afraid it would affect the balance too much between players who want and can pay a lot and the others. I think the devs are aware of that and that's why the mana crystals prices are so high. I, and a lot of players don't want to have to pay to win (even if I make some purchases to support the game). And the game just need to keep that number.
Based on pure crystal purchase, a Big Box cost 25 € (don't know the price in dollars). 25 for no guaranted mythic, and if you have one it is random. You can't seriously ask to be able to choose your card for less than 5 times a big box price... At least. So bad idea.
I think the dropping rate in big box should just be greatly increased. This way it would be easier to obtain good cards but it would keep the random part which keep the balance.

morgue427

it seems to be pay to win or is becoming that way perhaps, but it is a company trying to make money i understand that. but i like the idea of tokens to keep the amount of mythics that can be gotten down to random chances more, that helps make it better for us free to players trying to compete, because yay you got the current uber card but you dont have the rest of the cards or the know how to make it work without the chercklist sombody posted, let darwin sort it out lol

Tilikum

Ithilglin wrote:

I think the dropping rate in big box should just be greatly increased. This way it would be easier to obtain good cards but it would keep the random part which keep the balance.

I agree with that. I think just tweaking drop rates and repeats within the same box would greatly boost the desire to purchase crystals. It's pretty much unanimous that buying crystals in hopes of getting a specific card is an absolute rip off. Specific cards for sale would probably give the game too much of a P2W vibe. (Not to say I wouldn't buy Thopter Spy Network for $17 after a night of binge drinking.)

Yunnnn had an articulate post about drop rates a week or 2 ago. I'll try and find it since I no typey as good as he do.

morgue427

is appalls me everytime i get copies of the same card in one pack, even baseball cards got that one sorted out ages ago, should be a no brainer using technolgy we have today. copies of the same card in different packs i can live with it is understandable especially when you have common uncommon etc. rarity

yunnnn

Tilikum wrote:

Yunnnn had an articulate post about drop rates a week or 2 ago. I'll try and find it since I no typey as good as he do.

"The disheartening wasteful feeling of a big box full of duplicates".

The general complaints about drop rates can be summed up as:
1. It feels bad to open a big box and get a single rare (a dupe of course).
2. Spending 20$-100$ for big boxes to get nothing new feels bad.
3. Getting dupes in the same booster pack is stupid and feels bad.
4. The relative low number of cards in the set vs the high number of mythics makes whaling feel bad. After a couple of boxes, everything is a dupe and you're only looking forward to the mythic, which may just never come.

TL;DR: Once you've opened a couple of boxes, opening more almost always feels bad. This should not be the case in a game that is trying to get you to buy as much as possible! There is no feeling of progress made when everything is a dupe. And when it costs a relatively high amount, it is incredibly discouraging.

There are many solutions to this, which people have already pointed out:
1. Remove dupes from the same booster pack. It will increase the morale of pack opening by miles. I've personally opened packs with 3 of the same cards in the same pack before. I've also opened big boxes with 3 of the same Mythic in the same big box. It was disgusting. I violently vomited over my screen, and needed emergency surgery.
2. There needs to be a better guarantee of high quality cards, especially when a big box costs 20$. The IAP in this game is way more expensive than other games, and the game operators need to realize this and compensate accordingly.
3. There is no progress made when everything opened is a dupe. Big Boxes need to give a special token, and 5 or 10 of these tokens can be traded in for any mythic or promo. The point here is to make it feel like the player is progressing. If someone sinks 200$ into the game and nothing happens... guess what? They are never going to iap again.
4. Have a hearthstone-esque guaranteed "pity" mythic after opening some packs. This is to balance out the randomness. D3, you don't want a player with simple bad luck to quit the game, as they will not contribute to your revenue stream anymore. You need to give them some incentive to keep opening packs, even if the luck does them wrong.

The game operators need to provide a rewarding IAP experience. Right now, the most satisfied players are the non-IAPers who are glad to get whatever they can for free. It doesn't matter if the server crashes or cards don't work, because they didn't put monetary investment in the game! If the experience of IAPing feels bad, why would anyone want to IAP?



Source: Updated from my older post at viewtopic.php?f=31&t=53854&p=589863#p589863:

MaxMagic420

I think everyone is making it overly complicated.
You shouldn't be able to buy mythics, but uncommons and commons, absolutely. I've opened soooo many BFZ big boxes. Still don't have grip of desolation. And now I can't even purchase packs in the vault anymore. Players should be able to purchase c/uc cards from the vault for runes or crystals. A common could cost 100 runes or 10 crystals, an uncommon 500 or 50 crystals. Or whatever. They'll keep the drop rates atrocious in the erroneous belief that doing so somehow encourages spending, but an uncommon card shouldn't be as difficult to obtain as a rare or mythic. I've been playing for a while. I was playing when BFZ hit. I've spent ungodly amounts of money I shouldn't have. Why do I still not have grip of desolation? And the fact that it's one of the best removals in the game and also colorless means you would expect to see it in most decks. Yet even though I QB a lot, I very rarely encounter grip. I see scour far more often. Hell, I see to the slaughter, unholy hunger, even declaration in stone several times daily. Humble the brute. Smite. swift reckoning. anguished unmaking. That leads me to believe it isn't just my luck. The card is almost literally a mythic uncommon. And that's just ridiculous, isn't it? I should be able to just buy the stupid card and be done with it.

Ohboy

MaxMagic420 wrote:

I think everyone is making it overly complicated.
You shouldn't be able to buy mythics, but uncommons and commons, absolutely. I've opened soooo many BFZ big boxes. Still don't have grip of desolation. And now I can't even purchase packs in the vault anymore. Players should be able to purchase c/uc cards from the vault for runes or crystals. A common could cost 100 runes or 10 crystals, an uncommon 500 or 50 crystals. Or whatever. They'll keep the drop rates atrocious in the erroneous belief that doing so somehow encourages spending, but an uncommon card shouldn't be as difficult to obtain as a rare or mythic. I've been playing for a while. I was playing when BFZ hit. I've spent ungodly amounts of money I shouldn't have. Why do I still not have grip of desolation? And the fact that it's one of the best removals in the game and also colorless means you would expect to see it in most decks. Yet even though I QB a lot, I very rarely encounter grip. I see scour far more often. Hell, I see to the slaughter, unholy hunger, even declaration in stone several times daily. Humble the brute. Smite. swift reckoning. anguished unmaking. That leads me to believe it isn't just my luck. The card is almost literally a mythic uncommon. And that's just ridiculous, isn't it? I should be able to just buy the stupid card and be done with it.

I must have opened 15 big boxes of bfz last month looking for grip of desolation. The game trolled me by giving it to me in the Halloween black pack.

Maveric78f

MaxMagic420 wrote:

And the fact that it's one of the best removals in the game and also colorless means you would expect to see it in most decks..

And the fact it's not colourless, but black? I encounter it a lot personally.

Maveric78f

As for myself, it's Demolish that I could never get.

MaxMagic420

Maveric78f wrote:

MaxMagic420 wrote:

And the fact that it's one of the best removals in the game and also colorless means you would expect to see it in most decks..

And the fact it's not colourless, but black? I encounter it a lot personally.

That's strange. Was it colorless at one time? I checked the BFZ card list in vault once and I could swear it was colorless. That's mainly why I started wanting it. And honestly, I could be mistaken of course, but I'm almost positive I've had matches against both kiora and koth where they cast grip. When I see it occasionally now since the speed update, it flashes too fast to see.
Regardless, it's vexing that I don't yet have it.

Plastic

MaxMagic420 wrote:

Maveric78f wrote:

MaxMagic420 wrote:

And the fact that it's one of the best removals in the game and also colorless means you would expect to see it in most decks..

And the fact it's not colourless, but black? I encounter it a lot personally.

That's strange. Was it colorless at one time? I checked the BFZ card list in vault once and I could swear it was colorless. That's mainly why I started wanting it. And honestly, I could be mistaken of course, but I'm almost positive I've had matches against both kiora and koth where they cast grip. When I see it occasionally now since the speed update, it flashes too fast to see.
Regardless, it's vexing that I don't yet have it.

You're thinking of Scour from Existence.

alextfish

As people said, Grip of Desolation is a black uncommon, not colourless, which is why you don't see it in decks.
It took me absolutely ages to open it as well - one of the very last BFZ uncommons I got - which was pretty frustrating.

More generally, it is important for people to remember that the entire game is designed around people not having most mythics. No matter how much you'd love to build a Hixus / Starfield deck, or a Harness / Devils / Crumble deck or whatever, it's not going to be an option even for most whales, and that's deliberate. If significant numbers had every mythic the game would be miserable to play. We're meant to just build whatever decks we can with the mythics and rares that we do open. (And of course the whales are meant to keep buying boosters in the hope of opening whatever mythic they're chasing, but that hope is in vain and that's deliberate. It's very unlikely that $200 or more will get you whatever specific mythic you want.)

The problem is that the game feels similar to Hearthstone or MtG which are games where you can buy / trade / craft to get any specific card. So players expect to be able to get Harness, or Drowner, or TSN, or whatever card they're missing. But MtGPQ is entirely designed around people not having most mythics, and any solution to this is going to have to handle that design decision.


One good approach as far as I'm concerned would be a limit on the composition of decks. Limit decks to contain no more than 2 mythics plus no more than 3 rares plus no more than 4 uncommons, and the game gets a lot more interesting. You have to make genuine tradeoffs rather than just relying on the power mythics you have in every deck. It's not a perfect solution by any means, but it'd help.

Maveric78f

Congratulation: you just invented pauper MtG:PQ.

MaxMagic420

Okay, just saw grip in QB. It is black. But I stand by my conviction that I have in the past seen that card in non black decks. I know scour, believe me. Well maybe I'm crazy. But just let me buy it!

MTG_Mage

Grip of desolation is the rarest uncommon and escaped me too for the longest time. It was definitely my most wanted card until I finally got it in the black pack I got with purchasing Lilly2. Grip and to the slaughter are the most important non mythic black cards to have (Olivia and BtB are best mythics).