Why this change in the Progression Rewards?
span_argoman
Posts: 751 Critical Contributor
I noticed that the Progression Rewards for Emergency Ordinances is missing one tier, in particular it's the first tier of 5-card boosters. You now only get a 5-card booster at the end of Progression. The second reward of Runes has been increased by 250 Runes for anyone who cares. You choose to add back guaranteed Mythics for the top 3 - 10 coalitions in the weekend PvEs and flood the game with Mythics again, fine. You choose to cut the crystals in the Progression rewards for the weekend PvE, err ok fine? But the mid-tier of 5-card boosters in Progression Rewards has been removed and I hope for a good explanation from the developers because this hits newer players hard.
It should long be evident by now that the game isn't very friendly to new players. Having that 5-card booster in the middle of the Progression rewards gave newer players something to work towards even if they could not complete progression. Now with harder secondary objectives, which ensures that the average score for newer players will drop, why are the mid-Progression boosters get removed as well?
Revolt against the Consulate has 22,000+ players who have joined the event and it has been running for almost 47 hours over a weekend. Yet that is at least some 8,000 less than when the player count was first added to the game. This is despite the addition of referral cards to try to attract new players and the game having over a million downloads on Google Play Store (granted some may be the same players downloading onto their various devices).
So probably one needs to look at the problem of player retention, in particular new player retention. And making the game harder for new players to develop their arsenal is not exactly a smart way to keep them playing. Most games start off easier to hook people into the game and then get gradually harder, filtering out those who aren't committed or capable enough to progress. This game, due to:
Sure, the vocal ones in the forums here tend to be the veterans and they tend to whine only about stuff in-game pertaining to their own game experience. But nonetheless, great care should have been put to ensuring that the new player experience is fun. Yeah difficult objectives make it more challenging for Gold and Platinum players. But how are Silver and Bronze players even going to score to hit Progression? Back then, people complained that Progression ended too early and that they felt they were not being reward for the second day of an Event (hello what are ranking rewards for then?). Now newer players have trouble even hitting full progression when they are the ones who need the cards most.
Let's see, maximum score in a single day event is 105. If a player totally ignores secondary objectives, whether it is because their card pool does not allow them to or they do not wish to take the risk and end up with a loss, they can hit a maximum of 60 points. Couple that with a loss or two to a cheese / multi-mythic deck / cascade-o-plenty match and new players are being kicked way down.
The developers really need to look hard at the new player experience because all the referral rewards in the world will not help if the players do not get retained. It's like sowing seeds in a field but not watering them, or scattering them on rocky ground. You can sow 10,000 seeds and a very pitiful percentage will germinate. Please start to show in what you do that the playing experience for new players is being taken care of. Because while we freely admit that this game has great potential, unfulfilled potential is effectively as good as no potential. The game needs to move in a better direction than what we have been shown these past few months.
-*- Initially when the game only had the Origins card set, things were not out of balance between mana gain and impact on the battlefield. There was room to recover from insane AI cascades through strategic play and hopefully not too bad draws. Nowadays, one mega cascade can lead to Olivia, Ulrich, Deploy the Gatewatch, Decimator, Mirrorpool'd Gaea's Revenge or a bunch of these stuff altogether. This imbalance is why decks are now forced to play with creature removal cause you can no longer outplay strong creature presence from the AI; you have to get rid of those cards NOW. Planeswalker mana gains gradually creeping up has also made high cost cards much more palatable to play (and also as a side effect much easier to cascade out).
I love the feeling of a swirl of rainbows leading to my whole hand being casted. Likewise I generally find it pretty amusing when it happens for the AI (not so much worried because I already build my decks to factor in such situations) but I can imagine the frequency of it happening nowadays is not being all that well-received by most others as we can tell from outcries on the official forums and elsewhere. For clarity's sake, the issue isn't with cascades. The issue is with cascades now more frequently leading to situations which one cannot recover from, ie. situations which feel out of one's control and hence generally aren't perceived as fun in the context of games, due to power creep in cards and planeswalker mana gain.
It should long be evident by now that the game isn't very friendly to new players. Having that 5-card booster in the middle of the Progression rewards gave newer players something to work towards even if they could not complete progression. Now with harder secondary objectives, which ensures that the average score for newer players will drop, why are the mid-Progression boosters get removed as well?
Revolt against the Consulate has 22,000+ players who have joined the event and it has been running for almost 47 hours over a weekend. Yet that is at least some 8,000 less than when the player count was first added to the game. This is despite the addition of referral cards to try to attract new players and the game having over a million downloads on Google Play Store (granted some may be the same players downloading onto their various devices).
So probably one needs to look at the problem of player retention, in particular new player retention. And making the game harder for new players to develop their arsenal is not exactly a smart way to keep them playing. Most games start off easier to hook people into the game and then get gradually harder, filtering out those who aren't committed or capable enough to progress. This game, due to:
- Cards of each rarity being mostly much better than cards of the lower rarity, with new players generally only having access to uncommon and common cards;
- No proper separation of players with really good collections from newer players;
- The mastery system doesn't work because players can keep playing the same core of cards and never really move up in tier.
- It does not factor in the player's competitive performance (which is influenced by their deckbuilding skills, deck piloting skills and meta-reading skills among others).
- It does not factor in that there were players who intentionally mastered cards ended up out of their league versus players who tried their best to stay in as low a tier as possible while still reaping good rewards.
- QB being overwhelmingly dominated by top players when it is essentially the only renewable source of cards and crystals, leading to no real avenue for newer players to build up their collection if they can't perform well enough in events;
- Bronze and Silver tier having the same secondary objectives as the higher tiers in Events when the secondary objectives are now tailored to challenge Gold or Platinum players;
- Matches outcomes being affected more greatly by RNG in one form or another due to power creep (see more detailed explanation below -*-);
Sure, the vocal ones in the forums here tend to be the veterans and they tend to whine only about stuff in-game pertaining to their own game experience. But nonetheless, great care should have been put to ensuring that the new player experience is fun. Yeah difficult objectives make it more challenging for Gold and Platinum players. But how are Silver and Bronze players even going to score to hit Progression? Back then, people complained that Progression ended too early and that they felt they were not being reward for the second day of an Event (hello what are ranking rewards for then?). Now newer players have trouble even hitting full progression when they are the ones who need the cards most.
Let's see, maximum score in a single day event is 105. If a player totally ignores secondary objectives, whether it is because their card pool does not allow them to or they do not wish to take the risk and end up with a loss, they can hit a maximum of 60 points. Couple that with a loss or two to a cheese / multi-mythic deck / cascade-o-plenty match and new players are being kicked way down.
The developers really need to look hard at the new player experience because all the referral rewards in the world will not help if the players do not get retained. It's like sowing seeds in a field but not watering them, or scattering them on rocky ground. You can sow 10,000 seeds and a very pitiful percentage will germinate. Please start to show in what you do that the playing experience for new players is being taken care of. Because while we freely admit that this game has great potential, unfulfilled potential is effectively as good as no potential. The game needs to move in a better direction than what we have been shown these past few months.
-*- Initially when the game only had the Origins card set, things were not out of balance between mana gain and impact on the battlefield. There was room to recover from insane AI cascades through strategic play and hopefully not too bad draws. Nowadays, one mega cascade can lead to Olivia, Ulrich, Deploy the Gatewatch, Decimator, Mirrorpool'd Gaea's Revenge or a bunch of these stuff altogether. This imbalance is why decks are now forced to play with creature removal cause you can no longer outplay strong creature presence from the AI; you have to get rid of those cards NOW. Planeswalker mana gains gradually creeping up has also made high cost cards much more palatable to play (and also as a side effect much easier to cascade out).
I love the feeling of a swirl of rainbows leading to my whole hand being casted. Likewise I generally find it pretty amusing when it happens for the AI (not so much worried because I already build my decks to factor in such situations) but I can imagine the frequency of it happening nowadays is not being all that well-received by most others as we can tell from outcries on the official forums and elsewhere. For clarity's sake, the issue isn't with cascades. The issue is with cascades now more frequently leading to situations which one cannot recover from, ie. situations which feel out of one's control and hence generally aren't perceived as fun in the context of games, due to power creep in cards and planeswalker mana gain.
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Comments
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I think the main and critical point that bears repeating here is that the progression booster is the lifeblood of the game in many respects. I would think in many cases more important than crystals as far as the entry curve is concerned. Though having only gone through creating and growing an account once I really can't speak to that current experience myself.
I can appreciate the difficulty in balancing many different concerns.0 -
This is a very, very insightful post, and I hope someone from d3go / MTGPQ team reads this.
Yes, it's a freemium game. However, the average player (ie. non-"whales") spend money when they can see the rewards are worth it. When they can't even get a glimpse of if the rewards (ie. boosters) are any good - missing that extra booster in the middle of the progression - they likely will have quit before MTGPQ earns any money out of them.
span_argoman also pointed out another great point: The ones who speak up in forums are likely the enfranchisedd veterans who are likely already going to keep playing, and not the brand new players that MTGPQ needs to attract and keep. MTGPQ team probably isn't hearing the concerns/frustrations of those new players.
Please, please, please keep the new players in mind, and make the game more attractive and easier for new players if you want to keep this going (and keep earning money). Paper MTG (and many games, really) went through a similar phase, where they don't know how to attract and KEEP new players, until they realized it was a problem, and actively went out to fix it (ie. block structure so new players can keep up with cards, Friday Night Magic, not all the great cards were Mythics and Rares).0 -
This Is an amazing post.
I joined this game because i saw it on finkel shirt at pro tour aether revolt.
Two Of my friends joined too. I am doing sort of fine because i spent 300 dollars.
But honestly i think im done spending cause the IAP really sucks. Getting no mythics for 3 big boxes and then a dupe in the 4th is really bizarre. I need To review your IAP prices or make at least one mythic per big Box. This is actually more expensive then paper magic cause For 80 bucks ( 4 big box) I get a booster box with 4-5 mythics and 30 rares. The only thing i would ever buy again is guaranteed stuff.
One of my friends bought the 4.99 pack and the other is free player. But they both are considering to quit because of horrible rewards.
Please do something. This has potential. Don't ruin it.0 -
I'm just going to leave this link here in support of basically everything span_argoman said. It's a little dated at this point but still completely applicable to this game:
Ethical Free-to-Play Game Design (And Why it Matters)0 -
Yup. I've also argued that the game needs to treat the lower tiers of players better.
One thing that particularly discourages me is that they force lower tiers to battle the same objectives as higher tiers, for lesser rewards--even though by all rights, it's more difficult for a person in silver to beat X objective than it is someone in platinum who has access to far more cards. Silver will get a booster pack for finishing in the top tiers of an event, while platinum gets a rare or mythic, while progression rares are gated away at a level where many in lower tiers can't reach them.
Basically, the rich get richer, all the time. While I suspect this is in order to "encourage" people to spend money on the game, I'm afraid it'll wind up drying up the player base.0 -
Thanks for writing this insightful post! It's definitely very informative and, when placed alongside the plethora of pertinent posts bken1234 has produced, will help us out in identifying key areas to improve upon in the new player experience.span_argoman wrote:--words--
I hope you don't mind, but I've gone ahead and forwarded this post among the rest of the D3 Go! team to take a look at.0 -
Thank you Brigby. I really hope they will do something about it soon.Brigby wrote:
Thanks for writing this insightful post! It's definitely very informative and, when placed alongside the plethora of pertinent posts bken1234 has produced, will help us out in identifying key areas to improve upon in the new player experience.span_argoman wrote:--words--
I hope you don't mind, but I've gone ahead and forwarded this post among the rest of the D3 Go! team to take a look at.0 -
Hi,
i am a pretty new player too. I started about 2 months ago and it took some time until i got the hang of it.
As i usually play these games on a very competitive level, i quickly realized that i can never catch up in this game without spending thousands of dollars.
So for a new player there are literally only a few options to play this game.
1. Spend thousands of dollars to get a "basic" card pool. I guess for an awesome card pool it is more like hundred thousands of dollars, because of the awesome bad drop rates.
2. Just play free for fun without any real connection to the game, and leave a few weeks later.
3. Directly delete the game and look for another game that is worth the time.
4. Make some leader of a top10 guild your buddy and get you invited there to receive the mythic guild rewards and build your card pool that way
I think 95% of the players will choose option 2 or 3. I for myself choose option 2, since my card pool is pretty basic and i just hit "gold" level because i realized to late what "mastering cards" is
The frustration to compete in gold vs veterans with my cards cannot be compensated through deck building or good gem matches.0 -
ECOMANIAC wrote:I think 95% of the players will choose option 2 or 3. I for myself choose option 2, since my card pool is pretty basic and i just hit "gold" level because i realized to late what "mastering cards" is
The frustration to compete in gold vs veterans with my cards cannot be compensated through deck building or good gem matches.
This relates to something that's often unsaid is how much more informed the members of this community are than the vast majority of MTGPQ players.
For every one of us that realizes the move from silver to gold, and then to platinum, can be a pretty big deal, you have some newcomer who has no idea of the surprises that await him.0 -
I was going to quote OP but I think it's all quotable.0
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From the 16 mythic cards i own, is one the free one we got on Christmas.
I managed to get 3 as rewards from events before the prices changed in silver tier, and i do own a dynavolt tower!!!
How i got one? Because i am awesome!!!
4 are directly bought from the store through the guaranteed slots.
That leaves the other 8 coming from a lot of big boxes and many many many free and won boosters. And its no secret when i say that boosters and big boxes are not worth a ****, since the drop rates and duplicates are just dump.
Even though i only had access to the basic planes walkers with a very limited carpool, i felt that the objectives of events were doable even in silver, since the most opponent decks are not too OP either.
The whole "card mastering" system to punch players into a certain Tier is just wrong. There are too many players that avoid mastering cards, so that only the "OP" cards are mastered on their accounts, so that the difference between two GOLD players can be very very frustrating.
Also the QB is completely wrong too. A game mode where you can play limitless on a very flat level with the best rewards cries out loud: "Please write a BOT for this!!!". Also people who do not have the time to play 24hours in QB non stop do not even bother about this game mode. A maximum number of fights that give points with side quests for placement would be more challenging. Additionally every match beyond the maximum will add tiebreakers points for placement. The old veterans of MTGO with the old leagues now what i mean
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Just a little sad to see the Progression Rewards for this week's Emergency Ordinances Event still missing that middle tier of 5-card boosters like last week's.0
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Agreed, this change hurts the future lifeblood of this game - the new players. Unless they feel like they're getting some new cards every now and again, they won't find the game very rewarding and will possibly give up.0
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I echo the sentiments that there need to be more ways to support newer players, which is why last week I worked together with Alve to draft up a full report of what you, the community, feel are the pain points within the new player experience.jetnoctis wrote:Agreed, this change hurts the future lifeblood of this game - the new players. Unless they feel like they're getting some new cards every now and again, they won't find the game very rewarding and will possibly give up.
I have gone ahead and passed that report along to the development team, and it is with that report that I hope we can work together to address those key issues.0 -
Good.Brigby wrote:
I echo the sentiments that there need to be more ways to support newer players, which is why last week I worked together with Alve to draft up a full report of what you, the community, feel are the pain points within the new player experience.jetnoctis wrote:Agreed, this change hurts the future lifeblood of this game - the new players. Unless they feel like they're getting some new cards every now and again, they won't find the game very rewarding and will possibly give up.
I have gone ahead and passed that report along to the development team, and it is with that report that I hope we can work together to address those key issues.
I think You starter pack should be boosted drastically to let new players stay competitive or
4 hour free boosters
Ability to boost one PW for free per account to lvl 60 ?0 -
Increased drop rates for new accounts for 1 month?0
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