How loud indeed, devs?

Plastic

Now that David HiFi is gone, what's the official word?

Steeme

Plastic wrote:

Now that David HiFi is gone, what's the official word?

Agreed. They should definitely speak up. I know they don't like to reveal things until they've been approved and solidified but at the same time you can't leave the player base in the dark while the game has a clearly broken mechanic that has financial consequences. Real human beings are investing money into this game and, aside from the few lucky strikes, they're getting a miserable return on their investment. This is glaringly obvious from the referenced thread and is not healthy for the game and its future.

Irgy

I have to say, the drop rate in this game is awful, and that's a genuine, easily measurable fact. What exactly qualifies as "awful" is subjective of course but even then you could compare to any other game.

I just wish that simple, measurable fact wasn't mixed up with a bunch of tinfoil hat rubbish about duplicates and the RNG during games.

I really don't like the proposed solutions so far either. They've mitigated one side of the problem already by being reasonably generous overall with events (which, let's remember, are free to enter and didn't replace anything). But it's made the other side of the problem worse, because the more other ways there are to get cards the more depressing opening packs becomes. Similarly the guaranteed rare means more rares for people, sure, but it just serves to mask how awful the base level random rate is.

The real solution is trivially simple. Go into the code and increase the value of some constants. Make it harder to get packs in the first place to compensate if you want, but just make sure that getting a big-box-of-nothing is actually a rare and unusual event not something you set yourself up to expect.

Either that or get rid of the concept of a drop rate entirely. Make packs like MtG packs - much less frequently given out (to compensate), bigger, and containing a fixed distribution of commons, uncommons, and always a rare.

Corn_Noodles

Irgy wrote:

Make it harder to get packs in the first place to compensate if you want, but just make sure that getting a big-box-of-nothing is actually a rare and unusual event not something you set yourself up to expect.

You risk losing players by doing this. People like to open things, whether they get something new or not. If you make things harder to get, even if you guarantee a better reward for doing it, you risk people losing interest. That's probably why they moved to 8 hour free packs. They understand people want to unwrap something even if the chance to get something good is abysmally low.

Irgy

Corn Noodles wrote:

Irgy wrote:

Make it harder to get packs in the first place to compensate if you want, but just make sure that getting a big-box-of-nothing is actually a rare and unusual event not something you set yourself up to expect.

You risk losing players by doing this. People like to open things, whether they get something new or not. If you make things harder to get, even if you guarantee a better reward for doing it, you risk people losing interest. That's probably why they moved to 8 hour free packs. They understand people want to unwrap something even if the chance to get something good is abysmally low.

Opening things is really exciting sure, up until you've done it and got nothing, and then it's disappointing, and I feel like the disappointment is what remains afterwards. Of course we mentally compensate for it, the worse the drop rate the more excited you get when you finally do get something.

Anyway I think the pure fact that people complain a lot about the drop rate and not at all about the frequency with which packs are given out says a lot, when you consider that changing one is technically equivalent to changing another. It just feels on the whole that they're fairly generous with packs, except when you remember that packs are in fact almost worthless most of the time.

I actually think the drop rate on the 8-hour free packs is ok. I never expect to get anything, and I usually don't, but sometimes I do and that's awesome because it was free. What's disappointing is when you work really hard in an event, and then between all the progression and ranking and coalition packs you get stone-cold nothing. Or you save up (or purchase) crystals for the big 600 crystal box and get nothing but the guaranteed rare (which can still be bad or a duplicate).

I think in a lot of ways the real problem is a relative one. They want to make money selling packs, or motivate participation by selling packs for crystals, and yet packs themselves are a very poor source of cards compared to events. It seems like rather than fix it they've shifted the focus to selling exclusive cards instead. Of course I don't have the numbers to know where their income is actually coming from this is all speculation.

blacklotus

I know there's a clamour for OP cards like Olivia and Ulrich to be back for purchase with cash.

I am rather surprised D3 doesn't do it. I mean these 2 cards are probably confirmed sale now to those that don't have them, with every player being able to experience how good they are after a month of playing against them, as compared when they just came out.

octal9

Irgy wrote:

Or you save up (or purchase) crystals for the big 600 crystal box and get nothing but the guaranteed rare (which can still be bad or a duplicate).

Even worse is when every single card, even the guaranteed rare is a duplicate.

Even worse still is when this happens for three straight big boxes.

I've stopped buying big boxes at this point. I only buy the theme packs now, but there's no theme pack in the vault for me to indulge on.

Plastic

octal9 wrote:

Irgy wrote:

Or you save up (or purchase) crystals for the big 600 crystal box and get nothing but the guaranteed rare (which can still be bad or a duplicate).

Even worse is when every single card, even the guaranteed rare is a duplicate.

Even worse still is when this happens for three straight big boxes.

I've stopped buying big boxes at this point. I only buy the theme packs now, but there's no theme pack in the vault for me to indulge on.

Wait till this becomes the new trend and then the devs will change how RNG works on theme packs.

blacklotus

octal9 wrote:

Irgy wrote:

Or you save up (or purchase) crystals for the big 600 crystal box and get nothing but the guaranteed rare (which can still be bad or a duplicate).

Even worse is when every single card, even the guaranteed rare is a duplicate.

Even worse still is when this happens for three straight big boxes.

I've stopped buying big boxes at this point. I only buy the theme packs now, but there's no theme pack in the vault for me to indulge on.

I myself is saving my crystals for when Color specific packs are back. hopefully with those costing 1050 crystals each with a guaranteed mythic (but no guarantee it won't be a dupe)

ZW2007-

Plastic wrote:

octal9 wrote:

Irgy wrote:

Or you save up (or purchase) crystals for the big 600 crystal box and get nothing but the guaranteed rare (which can still be bad or a duplicate).

Even worse is when every single card, even the guaranteed rare is a duplicate.

Even worse still is when this happens for three straight big boxes.

I've stopped buying big boxes at this point. I only buy the theme packs now, but there's no theme pack in the vault for me to indulge on.

Wait till this becomes the new trend and then the devs will change how RNG works on theme packs.

In my experience, the RNG is also terrible on theme packs. Take the last one for example, Creatures of Light (which included murderous angels and vengeful spirits but I digress) had only 32 cards in it, 9 of them were mythics. I bought 5 of these because I would really like Avacyn and Rattlechains and was missing three other mythics. I didn't get a single mythic which I suppose is just bad luck but I do have 9 Niblis of Frost to show for it. Thing is, if more than 25% of the set is mythics and I got none, how many other players out there also got none and felt totally **** because they didn't know drop rates were as atrocious as they are? I knew what I was getting into because I've been playing for a while but a little transparency on drop rates would go a long way. Lottery tickets have the odds printed on the back of them and if you win, there's nothing wrong with getting duplicate dollars.

Ohboy

ZW2007- wrote:

Plastic wrote:

octal9 wrote:

Irgy wrote:

Or you save up (or purchase) crystals for the big 600 crystal box and get nothing but the guaranteed rare (which can still be bad or a duplicate).

Even worse is when every single card, even the guaranteed rare is a duplicate.

Even worse still is when this happens for three straight big boxes.

I've stopped buying big boxes at this point. I only buy the theme packs now, but there's no theme pack in the vault for me to indulge on.

Wait till this becomes the new trend and then the devs will change how RNG works on theme packs.

In my experience, the RNG is also terrible on theme packs. Take the last one for example, Creatures of Light (which included murderous angels and vengeful spirits but I digress) had only 32 cards in it, 9 of them were mythics. I bought 5 of these because I would really like Avacyn and Rattlechains and was missing three other mythics. I didn't get a single mythic which I suppose is just bad luck but I do have 9 Niblis of Frost to show for it. Thing is, if more than 25% of the set is mythics and I got none, how many other players out there also got none and felt totally **** because they didn't know drop rates were as atrocious as they are? I knew what I was getting into because I've been playing for a while but a little transparency on drop rates would go a long way. Lottery tickets have the odds printed on the back of them and if you win, there's nothing wrong with getting duplicate dollars.

You're doing the math wrong.

If mythics occurred once for every common, and a set was made up of only 1 common and 1 mythic, you would still get 100 Commons for every mythic you get. Probability is not based on the contents of the looting pool.

Hope that helps.

ZW2007-

Ohboy wrote:

You're doing the math wrong.

If mythics occurred once for every common, and a set was made up of only 1 common and 1 mythic, you would still get 100 Commons for every mythic you get. Probability is not based on the contents of the looting pool.

Hope that helps.

I'm aware of how the math works, that's why I said transparency on the drop rates would be wonderful. Currently we know this: it sucks. Is it a 1% chance for a mythic? .5% chance? .01% chance? It's natural to think "wow 9 out of 32 cards are mythics, I'm going to buy lots of packs" if you don't think about it too hard. I already said I knew what I was getting into but did you ever consider there's a ten year old out there that has no idea what probability and statistics means? I already think they money grub enough with the 'rotating vault to reduce clutter and make it easier for new players' spiel. They could at least be up front about expected value of a pack of cards.

octal9

ZW2007- wrote:

In my experience, the RNG is also terrible on theme packs.

My experience has been the opposite - save for the eldrazi packs, I have received 1-3 mythics out of every theme pack I've purchased. I skipped the creatures of light one because I had all but one of them - due to getting them in the pack prior to it.

ZW2007-

octal9 wrote:

ZW2007- wrote:

In my experience, the RNG is also terrible on theme packs.

My experience has been the opposite - save for the eldrazi packs, I have received 1-3 mythics out of every theme pack I've purchased. I skipped the creatures of light one because I had all but one of them - due to getting them in the pack prior to it.

Yea, I also bought a bunch of the pack prior because of those same mythics plus the one good rare vampire that I still never got. Ironically the only mythic I got from any theme packs was from the Eldrazi set. Can't complain there though because after many packs that one mythic was Drowner of Hope.