Development Thread - (11/15/16)

huntly

NDZahmbie wrote:

no official response from the Dev Team to date.

Not entirely true. There was a minor response from David [Hi-Fi] Moore back at the beginning of September in the thread viewtopic.php?f=36&t=49913 when it got moved to suggestion and feedback. He wrote "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."

Considering this was before the op of the thread received enough thumbs up to become a hot topic and has since nearly tripled that requirement, I think it has earned another, perhaps more weighty, response.

Ohboy

NDZahmbie wrote:

(what are the odds of getting 4 Sigardas before just ONE of the 15 Mythics from SOI that still haven't dropped for me?! And this is just one example).

Making quite a few assumptions here :

1) you got all soi mythics from soi packs
2) the only soi repeat mythic you have is Sigarda
3) you didn't buy any soi mythics
4) all mythics were obtained after exclusive soi mythics entered the looting pool

Any deviation of the assumptions only increases the probability of this event happening.

My back of the envelope calculation put the odds of someone getting 4 Sigardas out of the first 13 of their soi mythics is somewhere at 0.12%, or about one in every thousand.

So in every qb bracket alone, 3 players have your impossibly bad luck.

babar3355

NDZahmbie wrote:

Corn Noodles wrote:

NDZahmbie wrote:

Development Team, this really needs a response from you.

That said, the popular opinion I very much agree with is that there is an egregious imbalance with the drop rate. Along with everyone else no longer willing to spend $. I'm seeking a middle ground. Getting the same card over and over again, even with rares and in the case of mythics (what are the odds of getting 4 Sigardas before just ONE of the 15 Mythics from SOI that still haven't dropped for me?! And this is just one example).

I am so sick of this argument. Go take a statistics class if you don't understand how probabilities work.

But everyone seems so surprised they get duplicate mythics/rares. So lets say you are guaranteed a mythic because your coalition got top 10. Your odds of a new mythic the first time are 15/15 =100%. The second time your odds are 14/15. Then, assuming you got a new one 13/15, 12/15...1/15. The probability that you get all the new mythics without a repeat in the first 15 sessions is 0.0003%. If you honestly, got nothing but Sigarda all 15 times, which I don't think is what you are saying, the odds would be 0.000000000000000228%.

Regardless, each individual time you get a mythic in this set the odds are 1/15 that you get any specific card. And the fact that you already have 3 of one does not change the probabilities in any way shape or form. In fact, if you already have 8 of the mythics, odds are you will get a duplicate.

Are you saying you actually don't want the odds to be random at all?

Ohboy

babar3355 wrote:

Are you saying you actually don't want the odds to be random at all?

Yes that's what he's saying.

Welcome to the "random is unfair" argument.

wink

I prefer to think of it as "random is unfun". The point of games is to be fun. Sometimes you can increase the fun by reducing the randomness. That may reduce the fairness as well, but if the point is fun, not fairness, the tradeoff may be worth it.

Of course, for D3 the point is profit. Focusing on fairness or funness may increase their profit--presumably their data will show that. I'm assuming they are optimizing for that, but I have no idea really.

ZW2007-

NDZahmbie wrote:

what are the odds of getting 4 Sigardas before just ONE of the 15 Mythics from SOI that still haven't dropped for me?! And this is just one example

I interpret this as OP is still missing 15 SOI mythics out of the 21 possible SOI mythics (or if you assume this is in reference to pre-EMN when there were still exclusives, OP would be missing 15 out of 16 (or 17, I forget if Season's Past was an exclusive) possible SOI mythics)

Post-EMN, OP has 6 unique mythics, 5 of which are not Sigarda (assuming the rest are non-dupes), and 4 Sigardas.
Total SOI mythics opened = 9
Pre-EMN, OP had 1 mythic, Sigarda 4 times. Total SOI mythics opened = 4

I'll let someone else do the math because the odds I got were so low I feel like I had to have done it wrong.

Post-EMN, out of 9 total mythics, what are the odds of 4 of them being Sigarda (and no just 3 dupes but very specifically 4 of the same card)?
Pre-EMN case 1, out of 4 mythics, what are the odds all 4 are Sigarda?
Pre-EMN case 2, out of 5 mythics, what are the odds of 4 being Sigarda?

cs7jrb

Regarding event timings and time zones, etc. I think you need to have an 8 hour buffer at the beginning and end of every event where no nodes are refreshed and in the period between these buffers, the max number of charges x refresh rate is no less than 8 hours.

Alongside each event, you could also run a long PVE event, or a PVP event that only has a set number of matches to be won (e.g a week) that allows people to complete at their leisure

Corn_Noodles

babar3355 wrote:

Are you saying you actually don't want the odds to be random at all?

I believe you have attributed a quote to me that was not me. Please check the original quote and attribute it to the proper person, please.

Kevinanth

Personally I think the drop rates are totally fine. Ya, I'd like more mythics too but if we all had all the cards then this game would be nothing but net decking and there'd be very little diversity.

For months Inran a zero rare zero mythic Gideon 1 deck with an 85% QB percentage and multiple flawless/near flawless events and had a ton of fun with it. Over time as I opened cards some got added (mana supports) but the core of the deck is still commons and uncommons.

Admittedly some of my decks are built around mythics. My jace2 deck runs Days Undoing (first mythic and from a free 8 hour booster) and thopter spy network. The deck is strong but I play it less often than some of my mythic free decks because it's less challenging/less fun.

I don't expect rares or mythics out of packs (most of my rare collection comes from finishing top 150 in QB) but when I do see that gem shake there's an exciting feeling. If every fat pack had a rare or a guaranteed non-dupe that sense of excitement would be diminished.

As for people saying they won't spend money on crystals for booster packs, well you shouldn't. They're easy enough to come by from just playing all the events. If you want to spend some cash/support the devs go for it (personally I'm in about $60-80 US). But be smart about it. Buy crystals to get planeswalkers if you don't want to grind for them or buy the occasional exclusive since you know you're getting a cool card. I bought Ulrich for my Arlinn deck and he's been super fun and on theme.

madwren

Kevinanth wrote:

I don't expect rares or mythics out of packs (most of my rare collection comes from finishing top 150 in QB) but when I do see that gem shake there's an exciting feeling. If every fat pack had a rare or a guaranteed non-dupe that sense of excitement would be diminished.

That sense of excitement is inversely proportional to the number of dupes you've received, though. Excitement comes from getting new toys to play with, not from opening your 6th Prairie Stream when you're still missing the vast majority of other mythics/rares.

SpaceDuck

madwren wrote:

Kevinanth wrote:

I don't expect rares or mythics out of packs (most of my rare collection comes from finishing top 150 in QB) but when I do see that gem shake there's an exciting feeling. If every fat pack had a rare or a guaranteed non-dupe that sense of excitement would be diminished.

That sense of excitement is inversely proportional to the number of dupes you've received, though. Excitement comes from getting new toys to play with, not from opening your 6th Prairie Stream when you're still missing the vast majority of other mythics/rares.

Agreed 100%. I've come to expect a dupe now not just from packs, but from event and QB rare rewards too. It definitely kills the hype.

I also think the overall drop rate is fine (maybe a little on the stingy side), but the duplicates are the real problem.

techparadox

SpaceDuck wrote:

Agreed 100%. I've come to expect a dupe now not just from packs, but from event and QB rare rewards too. It definitely kills the hype.

I also think the overall drop rate is fine (maybe a little on the stingy side), but the duplicates are the real problem.

I'll give you a good example of dupes being the buzz-kill, from a couple weeks back. First a little backstory on me: As a relatively new player to this version of the game (within the last two months), I'm still working on building my collection, and I've managed to amass a good majority of the commons and uncommons in the game - 485 out of 533, to be exact - through buying the occasional Big Box with my wins and collecting the bonus cards every eight hours.

With the addition of EMN to the SOI block, I've been focusing my efforts on that block (and praying for Mythics). I'd managed to get it to the point where I was only missing 40 of the available cards in the set, the majority of which were the Mythics and Rares, and a few key Rares were eluding me. I managed to rack up enough Crystals via events an QBs to buy a new box, so I went for the SOI block since it was where the Rares were that I was looking for, and it gives good bang for the buck with the extra free pack.

I broke open the box and watched in disgust as dupe after dupe after dupe scrolled by. 75 cards in the box, 75 dupes. No Mythics to be seen (I wasn't expecting them), but even the five Rares that appeared were dupes. Had I paid real money for those crystals, I would have been beyond livid. As it was I was simply appalled at the "randomness" of the game. Granted, I wasn't expecting anything but dupes out of the Commons and Uncommons, but I figured there would be at least ONE Rare in the box that I didn't have. You win some, you lose some, I guess. At least the box I opened after that one made up for it by finally coughing up a Tamiyo's Journal - but then the next freebie 3-card I cracked after that one handed me a dupe Journal. *cue sad trombone sound*

psuscott16

I think the randomness and dupes would be fine if there was a way to get a specific card you needed. That way, when you get a dupe you at least know its going towards the card you need. The dust system that Hearthstone has is perfect and would work great in this game.

I think that is what annoys people the most. In paper magic if you buy a whole box, you at least get cards to trade for the ones you need.

techparadox

psuscott16 wrote:

I think the randomness and dupes would be fine if there was a way to get a specific card you needed. That way, when you get a dupe you at least know its going towards the card you need. The dust system that Hearthstone has is perfect and would work great in this game.

I think that is what annoys people the most. In paper magic if you buy a whole box, you at least get cards to trade for the ones you need.

I've been saying something similar to this to my teammates for the last few weeks. If they gave us a shop where we could cash in Runes for specific cards, it'd be a godsend. Sure, they could make the Mythics cost an exorbitant amount to craft if they had to, but it'd give us something to work toward and a way to get the things we wanted other than "buy a box and pray" or "get into a top-ranked coalition, and then pray for the right card as the win bonus". Heck, I'd even be happy with a shop that only allowed crafting certain cards, with the cards on a rotation, so long as it was a specific card we could craft. There's too much RNG stuff in acquiring the cards now, as it is. We wouldn't need more of it added to the mix.

hawkyh1

my opinion is that instead of trading for specific cards people could
gather up the cards of a specific colour to trade for a chance at a
random better card. eg 16 red commons for a random red rare.
this will keep the balance of the game whilst giving players a goal
to work towards.
maybe also make it that colour mastery makes trading for elusive
cards easier.(master all the common reds and you deserve a better
red card to try out) you will then always have something to work
with if you really want to improve a specific colour deck/planeswalker.

HH

THEMAGICkMAN

How much do you test new cards and try to stamp out bugs? Have thought of having beta testers of the new cards?

Fiddler

What about keeping the whales happy? New card sets are fun, it when central concepts like runes and color mastery do not advance it is apparent that we have reached the end of our arc. Runes are only for PW levelling so pointless to have 3M of them hanged around. Color mastery stalled at what? 250 points? What use for a whale to have the over 1k per color? Disappointing.

rathedon

Lucapaco wrote:

I'd have a wish that's not related to Gameplay or the app directly.
I really miss DeckTester.
Maybe You guys can take over the good job that Admin of this site has done and make it live again?
Or maybe make in-game search engine similar to what DeckTester has.

Please

What happen to them?

BayTamago

Lucapaco wrote:

I'd have a wish that's not related to Gameplay or the app directly.
I really miss DeckTester.
Maybe You guys can take over the good job that Admin of this site has done and make it live again?
Or maybe make in-game search engine similar to what DeckTester has.

Please

Someone on reddit is working on building a new site. It's currently in beta and still collection some information and developing features, but they're hoping to have something decktester-like (most, if not all the card DB is already available) soon.

Lucapaco

BayTamago wrote:

Lucapaco wrote:

I'd have a wish that's not related to Gameplay or the app directly.
I really miss DeckTester.
Maybe You guys can take over the good job that Admin of this site has done and make it live again?
Or maybe make in-game search engine similar to what DeckTester has.

Please

Someone on reddit is working on building a new site. It's currently in beta and still collection some information and developing features, but they're hoping to have something decktester-like (most, if not all the card DB is already available) soon.

Someone answered me to use different site.
For now You can use MTGPQ. It's not the same but it works.