Is this a mistake? (1.10.2 cost of entering TotP, new packs)

Azerack

Sarahschmara wrote:

Ugh. I'm hoping there is a typo somewhere... maybe the mythic pack is supposed to be 40 mana jewels? I just joined the event (I'm gold in green) and I'm super-disappointed that I just spent 60 crystals for the potential to win 1 KLD, 8 mana jewels, and 10 crystals.

In addition, it seems that I'll need to pay 60 crystals for each day I want to enter?!

I try not to complain too much about a (basically) free to play game but, wow! Just wow.

I've been noticing my comments, of late, have been negative, too. I want to be positive, but things like this and the obvious lack of QA on events pre-launch are just too much.

I love this game for what it is, but stuff like this, I'm just like,

khurram

Please also note that the rewards in platinum for the OGW event have also gone down in terms of crystals. You get 55 instead of 90 from progression now.

aenigmaeffect

khurram wrote:

Please also note that the rewards in platinum for the OGW event have also gone down in terms of crystals. You get 55 instead of 90 from progression now.

Wow! I just noticed that all the progression prizes in OGW are way worse. Wow...

wickedwitch74

Based on the feedback I have read, this update is an abject failure with players.

That said, if we wish to be constructive, how could this idea be improved upon to the point that players would be interested?

At first blush, I would say that 60 gems is far, far too high of an entry fee. After recently losing access to my primary account, I have been playing the game as a new player. Those 60 gems are a really, really big deal... to purchase packs to add to my card pool, or to buy new planeswalkers, which allow me to finish many of the Story Mode objectives.

I would never cash those in for an event like this, so right there we have made this event a poor choice for a new player.

Now, as an established player, what would make this event worthwhile?

I'd be willing to game 10-15 gems for entry into an event... but only if the payoff was worth it.

Those that have crunched the math recognize that the Mana Jewel payoff for that 60 gem entry is paltry. They also recognize that a booster pack is not an effective use of 60 gems. The statement that "we get our gems back in value right away" is just false, since it misreads the value of booster packs vs. those 60 gems.

But, if we lower that entry fee to, say, 10 gems... what would be a worthwhile payoff?

I'd gamble those 10 gems for a couple of boosters, 10-20 Mana Jewels, and 10-15 gems.

We play events in order to accumulate resources, not to convert them for lottery tickets, especially when the conversion rate is as bad as it is currently constituted.

This is a terrible implementation, but the concept behind it is not without value.

jogamundo

I like the idea of the Tiers moving for each release of new cards.

When a new set comes in adding cards to the overall pool.
The breakpoints for the tiers would move.

instead of being fixed numbers, that don't move, the tier thresholds, would be a percentage of the overall card pool mastery points.

This would mean that players would move up and down in the tiers as new sets are added.

For example, someone that was in platinum when Origins was released, but stopped mastering cards, would end up in a much lower tier now. This simply adds another dynamic to the game.

wereotter

khurram wrote:

Please also note that the rewards in platinum for the OGW event have also gone down in terms of crystals. You get 55 instead of 90 from progression now.

Of course it's down. How else are they going to force you to buy crystals to participate in the new daily events if you could otherwise just earn the crystals by playing the game?

aenigmaeffect

For a little more number crunching: (To quote myself on the other thread):

aenigmaeffect wrote:

The bundles in store now give ~150 jewels for $54.99 CAD. At that rate, you need to spend $150 to even buy a mythic pack of 1 card.

They really need to figure out how much they value a mythic, and make the numbers work better. I mean, Baral was $35 CAD (with extras), and the Mythic packs were 600 Crystals, which valuates a mythic at around $30 - 35 CAD. Now it's... $150.

MTG_Mage

Yvendros wrote:

As far as making money for the devs: I have a couple other games I play. And I've dropped a fair amount of money on them. Because the IAP's are small! I don't miss a dollar here or there, and so I keep spending a dollar at a time. I think this is your ticket to making more money. I know I would've spent $0.99 way more times than $30 once.

Several small IAP's is a proven successful business model and definitely more profitable than the few large IAP model.
Its sad that this has to be pointed out to the Devs. Do they not do any market research? I guarantee they would not only have more transactions with a higher total income, but it would increase the staying power and hold on each player.
Unfortunately the time has come to point this out after seeing the level of quality control on this version release. What kind of reception were they expecting? They must be informed of this just to try and hang on to the remaining player base. This is as much for keeping the community alive as the Devs success.

MightyKrakyn

Dropspot wrote:

If it was only the new event, it was OK. But no, at the same time they started charging for events, they reduced the prizes of the old events (look at the current OGW in silver it was 60 cristals + 3 boosters, now is 35 cristals + 2 boosters + 1 basic) and reduced the amount of cards you earn buying packs.

This is one of the biggest things that struck me. They reduced the value of crystals AND the amount they give you. They are trying to coerce payments by basically slowing your progress instead of giving you a positive incentive to buy. They're using negative reinforcement for not buying. It's crazy. Goodwill drives purchases, and you guys wasted the last of yours by clearly trying to manipulate us into getting less for more. This game is going to die like this.

SpaceDuck

aenigmaeffect wrote:

khurram wrote:

Please also note that the rewards in platinum for the OGW event have also gone down in terms of crystals. You get 55 instead of 90 from progression now.

Wow! I just noticed that all the progression prizes in OGW are way ****. Wow...

That's shady and it's down in silver too. The only explanation is to encourage real money purchases.

Irrbloss

I've seldom seen such a blatant cash grab.

You are forcing players to spend a real money equivalent to participate, motivating it with "but you will get this thing!". Only issue, as you well know, few people what the single packs. You yourselves recommend your customers to save up and spend on bigger ones.

You reduced the rewards across the board, while implementing forced spending on items noone would spend currency on to stay competitive.

I've spent far too much so far, since I felt the cost reward ration was at least decently fair. You've completely destroyed any illusion of that being the case anymore, so until that's fixed I'm out. Not a penny more.

klobberer

Glad I read this thread before joining the event. I won't be playing it. I'll keep my 5100 crystals.

Ampmp11

What seems to be glossed over is that it's no longer worth it to save for bb or premium packs. For 300 crystals you get 5 packs which is still 60 crystals a pack (though you get a guaranteed rare). So by entering in these you're actually getting additional stuff for the 60 crystals if you do well.

We'll see if they actually did increase drop rates or not, because if not wow they really screwed the players here.

Also can you fix QB rewards as that is really getting the shaft for the amount of effort put in those.

toastie

Registered on the forums just to post this.

IMO, this update is pretty terrible, and feels like a money grab.

So as it works out right now, you can spend 300 for 5 packs and a rare, or you can spend (at absolute best, platinum tier perfect scores) 1350 for 27 packs and a mythic. So by playing events you at best are trading 4.5 rares for 4.5 packs and a mythic, very possibly worse than that.

As someone still in silver the rewards are far worse than that, to the point that there is literally no reason for me to play the new events.

Additionally, the time it takes to get to 400 jewels is months, which is far longer than the time it takes for the elite pack to change, so even if I see something I want, I have no hope of grinding to it to in time, or really even before the next set comes out.

On top of that, there are 8 options for what can come out of that pack. It is going to be colossally disappointing when you don't get one you want, or worse, get a duplicate, given the amount of time and money that has to be invested into it.

I get that you don't actually play the game like we do, and that you don't have to suffer through the progression like we do, but I still don't understand how you missed the mark so badly on this one. It seems to me that either you didn't do the math, you are fundamentally out of touch with the wants of your player base, or you have decided this will be the most profitable approach and screw the players having fun.

All of this on top of the, again IMO, terrible handling of the bug during the last RATC event is just insult to injury.

I have no intention on spending any more money on this game as long as things are in their current state.

Babo21

Well.... It is a pitty that this is the way d3 wants this game to go. This was a great game and I was happy to support it. I loved the thrill of opening a big box after a long time invested on events where I played with the best of teams (no offence to the other coalitions, you see, we are one happy, utterlly mad, family). But now im seeing my happy family come apart torn by anger and revolt at the greed displayed by this last update!
Maybe this is a mistake! A very big mistake! One that d3 has the power to correct and will correct in a very near future, right?
I will wait for a bit, a few days perhaps. And then I'll make a decision about this game.

theBeard

What can I say that hasn't already been said. This update is a gong show. I think we are all hoping with enough public outcry you guys will rethink this model.

DumasAG

Reading the release FAQ, felt the event would be great. And I'll happily drop 60 crystals for an event like this, I think I'm good at deckbuilding and have a high win-percentage. Luckily, I checked the rewards before doing so. The rewards are a shaft. My entire coalition appears to feel the same way. We won't be playing.

The change to packs in the vault was also terrible. And 400 for the masterpiece pack? You really feel like I'll spend that much time and crystals for a dupe mythic. And thanks for the slap in the face that was the free 100 jewels. "Here's one fourth of what you need. Have fun looking at this for a month while you attempt to accumulate the other 3/4s by winning every match."

I'm fine with the new events costing 60 crystals. Heck, make it 100. But scale the rewards to match. If I'm potentially winning 30 jewels in platinum for 60 crystals, resulting in 800 crystals for a masterpiece pack every 2 weeks, then that's something I'm almost interested in. Add in a couple of free packs, a rare, and 10 crystals each event (bringing the total cost down to 670), and you have a deal. I'll play every single one of these events at that rate.

killwind

Alrighty, trying to figure out how many events I will need to play in to earn enough Unobtainium to buy my first Masterpiece Pack. It looks like you can earn 15 just from progression rewards. So lets forget about even winning the event. Lets just go with hitting progression. You need 300 more Unobtanium to purchase that pack. So just with proression rewards you will need to complete 20 events at 15 per event. There are 2 maybe 3 events per week. Just to be safe lets go with 2 events per week that you can earn Unobtainium.


15x2=30x for 1 week. You will need to play 10 weeks to earn enough Unobtainium to buy that very first Masterpiece Pack.

Delnai

Ampmp11 wrote:

What seems to be glossed over is that it's no longer worth it to save for bb or premium packs. For 300 crystals you get 5 packs which is still 60 crystals a pack (though you get a guaranteed rare). So by entering in these you're actually getting additional stuff for the 60 crystals if you do well.

Yes, I agree that people are not quite characterizing the value of 60 crystals properly. On the one hand, we no longer get Big Boxes, so we can't factor that in to the current value of 60 crystals. The best we can hope to get with 60 crystals using normal pack purchases is 5 packs and 1/5 of a rare. On the other hand, in the Trial of the Planes event at platinum tier, IF you manage to win every match, then you get 15 jewels and 10 crystals.

So, just looking at the best-case rewards and ignoring the time spent actually playing the event, after spending 300 crystals you can ask, "Which would I rather have: a random rare, or 50 crystals and 75/400 of a Mythic?"

When you look at it this way, playing the Trial of the Planes events seems like a better deal. But of course it should be; I'm assuming you win big. The real question is, how well can you expect to do in TotP on average? I'm guessing that for many people, even getting the last Jewel reward is going to be tough sometimes. If you go undefeated twice a week and miss the last Jewel reward once, then you've spent 300 crystals and instead of a random rare gotten 20 crystals and 70/400 of a mythic. Is that a good deal? I dunno.

Delnai

DumasAG wrote:

Reading the release FAQ, felt the event would be great. And I'll happily drop 60 crystals for an event like this, I think I'm good at deckbuilding and have a high win-percentage. Luckily, I checked the rewards before doing so. The rewards are a shaft.

Yes, I felt the same reading the FAQ. I was quite optimistic. But looking at the rewards now... eugh...

DumasAG wrote:

And thanks for the slap in the face that was the free 100 jewels. "Here's one fourth of what you need. Have fun looking at this for a month while you attempt to accumulate the other 3/4s by winning every match.".

For real. What are they thinking? Most players are just gonna have the 100 number sitting at the top of their screen until they stop playing.