Top Ten Leaderboard

gruntface

I like to think that these changes were funded with the 100 free crystals recently mailed out.

bk1234

Cheaper than entering Trial of the Plains!

Apothecary

Removal of the mythics from top ten awards makes sense. It just serves to put a disproportionate amount of new wealth in the hands of the rich, ,just like in real life, Am I right?

Also, it's silly that the playerbase came up with things like feeder coalitions and trial periods and this or that to monopolize their power over those leaderboards. The majority of the player base will not miss these people, and contrary to what the top 10 coalition vocal minority believe, there are tons of other players who spend money on this game. Their voices were recognized this patch.

I'm in platinum, and I have to deal with these decks every day that are just filled to the brim with mythics. I catch a couple of losses, then miss out on some of my rewards resultant of this.

Alve

Apothecary wrote:

Removal of the mythics from top ten awards makes sense. It just serves to put a disproportionate amount of new wealth in the hands of the rich, ,just like in real life, Am I right?

Also, it's silly that the playerbase came up with things like feeder coalitions and trial periods and this or that to monopolize their power over those leaderboards. The majority of the player base will not miss these people, and contrary to what the top 10 coalition vocal minority believe, there are tons of other players who spend money on this game. Their voices were recognized this patch.

I'm in platinum, and I have to deal with these decks every day that are just filled to the brim with mythics. I catch a couple of losses, then miss out on some of my rewards resultant of this.

Please keep in mind, that there's a difference between expressing your opinion on recent changes or in-game economy in general (X makes sense, voices of Y were recognized in this patch) and disrespecting other players (they do Z to monopolize the leaderboards), which can be considered flaming. Many of those players care about the game as much as you do, most of them also lose against decks filled to the brim with mythics. You are free to disagree with their views and more than welcome to provide some positive feedback regarding the recent update, but please don't do that by putting your fellow players down.

losdamianos

Alve wrote:

and more than welcome to provide some positive feedback regarding the recent update,

positive feedback in recent update ? that made me chuckle
Its like picking up pieces of corn/nuts in fresh experiment, sure you can find some tasty bits but is it really worth the hassle ?

all they had to do to keep playerbase happy is to keep things as they were and just charge astronomical amount of crystals for the new masterpieces pack.

madwren

Apothecary wrote:

Removal of the mythics from top ten awards makes sense. It just serves to put a disproportionate amount of new wealth in the hands of the rich, ,just like in real life, Am I right?

Also, it's silly that the playerbase came up with things like feeder coalitions and trial periods and this or that to monopolize their power over those leaderboards. The majority of the player base will not miss these people, and contrary to what the top 10 coalition vocal minority believe, there are tons of other players who spend money on this game. Their voices were recognized this patch.

I'm in platinum, and I have to deal with these decks every day that are just filled to the brim with mythics. I catch a couple of losses, then miss out on some of my rewards resultant of this.

You're more than welcome to your opinion, but a large number of people posting are not in top-10 coalitions, including many posters who have been non-participatory in the forums to this point. Calling it a vocal minority is thus something of a misnomer.

No discussion or debate has been quashed. If there is a majority that is in support of these changes, then I'd expect to see them here rallying to the defense of the devs. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case.

Also, feeder coalitions are a win-win scenario. Many people who would otherwise be unable to participate in top-25 coalitions have been able to do so, simply by 1) applying, and 2) putting forth effort to play and improve. Certain individuals in particular have taken it upon themselves to organize these people. Anyone could do this. Literally anyone. This is a benefit to the community, not a detraction. Feel free to start another thread if you want to discuss it, so we don't clog this one.

Celerial

Apothecary wrote:

Removal of the mythics from top ten awards makes sense. It just serves to put a disproportionate amount of new wealth in the hands of the rich, ,just like in real life, Am I right?

Also, it's silly that the playerbase came up with things like feeder coalitions and trial periods and this or that to monopolize their power over those leaderboards. The majority of the player base will not miss these people, and contrary to what the top 10 coalition vocal minority believe, there are tons of other players who spend money on this game. Their voices were recognized this patch.

I'm in platinum, and I have to deal with these decks every day that are just filled to the brim with mythics. I catch a couple of losses, then miss out on some of my rewards resultant of this.

I can't speak for everyone not in a top ten coalition, but I can tell you what I know from what has been in expressed in my coalition which is certainly not top ten.

In summary, they don't like the update either

Mainloop25

Apothecary wrote:

Removal of the mythics from top ten awards makes sense. It just serves to put a disproportionate amount of new wealth in the hands of the rich, ,just like in real life, Am I right?

Also, it's silly that the playerbase came up with things like feeder coalitions and trial periods and this or that to monopolize their power over those leaderboards. The majority of the player base will not miss these people, and contrary to what the top 10 coalition vocal minority believe, there are tons of other players who spend money on this game. Their voices were recognized this patch.

I'm in platinum, and I have to deal with these decks every day that are just filled to the brim with mythics. I catch a couple of losses, then miss out on some of my rewards resultant of this.

As someone who has been on all sorts of teams, from top 10 and down, I can try and shed some light on that.

The vast majority of coalitions are made up of 1-3 actually active players. Many of the people I recruited for top coalitions volunteered themselves into our coalitions because they wanted to be around a group of like-minded players. I have seen people go from no coalition to one of the top scorers in top ten coalitions. Good coalitions actively search for the best players. It's really not as hard as you think to land yourself in a top-25. Feeder coalitions are inclusionary by design. No one is trying to shut anyone out. That's counter-productive.

As for the last part of your comment, guess what. We all face those same decks too. If we lose to them, we don't score for our coalition either.

Skiglass6

I would disagree that taking the mythic reward from top 10 coalitions is a good thing. I totally understand player's feelings that the gap of top tier cards widens with this reward system (and it does even though not all mythics are created equal). But as several members have already stated that we need to bring the bottom up and keep the top receiving more. I will tie this in later

D3 has to make money. For the devs, that is why this game exists. This isn't a couple of people getting together to see if they can make a great game in their basement. So how does D3 do this. Here are a few ways they do this but I am sure there are more.

1. The gambler- From reading articles that members have posted, great knowledge from the community here, people get excitement and satisfaction from rolling the dice and winning. A lot of these people do not realize the amount of money they are spending to achieve those jackpot rewards. I think of BINGO. I imagine that most people think this is a benign form of entertainment with a chance to bring home some cash. And for many players it is. But there are gamblers here. Pull Tabs. Bingo's slot machine. You can win big money with these things. But the house wins more and always. The block of pull tabs always nets a fixed amount to complete purchase than the payout. These gamblers when they win come home say, "I won $600 at bingo tonight" but do not explain that the spent $200 to win it. Nor do they explain they the other weeks they spent $200 and didn't win anything. I truly hope there are not any players that fall into this category.

2. Interest with Competition- This is a very strong force. It is what drives nearly every game. Card games, video games, board games and sports. What would be the purpose of these games if not to win. So they asynchronously pit us against other players decks to battle for the top prize. Which, if you rank high enough, can earn you more game content and possibly stronger cards or cards that synergize well with the cards that you already have. This will in turn allow you to possibly achieve a better chance to win the battles and higher rank next time. Then they allow direct purchase of shiny new powerful cards to somewhat shortcut the system at a premium cost. I will date myself here a little but I am sure I am not the only one that falls into this category. I consider myself a gamer and it started in the arcade. Competition was showcased immediately. Between videos of game play, the leader board would be displayed. But one of the strongest examples of competition for me was Streetfighter. The arcades knew how to use these games. The cabinet was never in the back, it could be seen as soon a you enter the door. The crowd of players watching and waiting their turn to take a crack a the winner.

3. Camaraderie- Money is the reason for the coalitions. This not a bad thing but it is a powerful concept. Most of would say that we like being in a group of similar minded people enjoying a game. Sharing ideas and game experiences. Collaborating together to accomplish a goal. This also creates thoughts of not letting your team down. Not only because your team might not place as high, but on the other side, getting dropped from your team.
Camaraderie- For me this changed the way I played games on the home consoles. Originally, they were not connected by the internet and with generous save points, I would play until I was done or needed to do something else. I would save and come back for the next gaming session when I wanted to and had the time. Now, I am not good at competitive first person shooters, so I never got into Halo. But competitive online Tetris hooked me. This was the first time I really got into online gaming. I found myself not wanting stop when I needed to do something else. I would get into a group of players that pushed me and a back and forth of wining and losing emerged. This would distort time for me, after what I thought was a short amount of time playing was actually a very large amount of time. Thank goodness this was on an older console, and the gaming group has all but vanished. Now I just play this! A freaking match-3 game. ugh.

4. Fun- The above reasons will only work if we are having fun. If the devs create something that is fun, we will stay and continue to spend money. If we are not having fun we will move on to something else we think is fun. This game title merges 2 already established game ideas. MtG and Puzzlequest. I own a Puzzlequest game and i think it is fun. I do not consider this to be the same type of game. Maybe because MtGPQ is a f2p game and therefore all the content is currently not obtainable. Disclosure: I have never played paper Magic and didn't even know this was a thing until Duels came out. But I think it is safe to say that the player base thinks the deck building is what makes this game fun. Maybe I am wrong but I do not think D3 understands this as they have locked game content away from their player base. We are stuck trying to win events and pulling the slot machine handle. Therefore pushing us to purchase more pulls of the handle or buy a shortcut to obtain the game's content. The life blood of any game. So now they have tightened up the dispersal of game content. This will lead to the destruction of this game. I have Tree of Perdition. Not an overpowering card ,maybe even junk), but when I obtained it I saw potential at the time. I saw a way to do indirect damage but felt like I needed Mirrorpool to make my idea really work. So I started throwing crystals at it and have never got it or other mythics that I would want to get. I know Mythic is supposed to be ultra-rare, but in this case it is game content and can not be locked away from players.
We ask for additional story content, not because we do not want competition, but because D3 is only giving us competition, camaraderie and gambling. We want to create different decks to defeat difficult prearranged decks and get progression to more content from winning these battles. D3 has set up a system where there is no progression to additional game content, just progression to a slot machine pull.

So the tie-in. This is nothing new. We need to stop asking D3 to hold back gaming content from a group of people and demand them to find a better way to get the game content to everyone. I could be wrong here, but I do not think anyone would have a problem with handing additional chances at game content as long as there is way for everyone to progress to additional content, instead of additional slot pulls. IE STORY MODE progression or non-dupe rewards.

Lastly, if D3 is going to consider mythics as walled off content with only luck as a way to obtain, they need to create more content by narrowing the gap between the rarities. Keep the mythics special, but all the other content playable. Otherwise you have no game content and therefore no fun. It shouldn't be insert Baral and tap screen for the win. And I know the narrowing of the gap is an idea that others have had for a long time and even listed the unplayable game content.

95 mythics (66 unique/29 dupes)
currently in a top ten coalition but not always

Ohboy

Alve wrote:

Apothecary wrote:

Removal of the mythics from top ten awards makes sense. It just serves to put a disproportionate amount of new wealth in the hands of the rich, ,just like in real life, Am I right?

Also, it's silly that the playerbase came up with things like feeder coalitions and trial periods and this or that to monopolize their power over those leaderboards. The majority of the player base will not miss these people, and contrary to what the top 10 coalition vocal minority believe, there are tons of other players who spend money on this game. Their voices were recognized this patch.

I'm in platinum, and I have to deal with these decks every day that are just filled to the brim with mythics. I catch a couple of losses, then miss out on some of my rewards resultant of this.

Please keep in mind, that there's a difference between expressing your opinion on recent changes or in-game economy in general (X makes sense, voices of Y were recognized in this patch) and disrespecting other players (they do Z to monopolize the leaderboards), which can be considered flaming. Many of those players care about the game as much as you do, most of them also lose against decks filled to the brim with mythics. You are free to disagree with their views and more than welcome to provide some positive feedback regarding the recent update, but please don't do that by putting your fellow players down.

It's disrespectful to point out uncomfortable facts now?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxottica

This is exactly how people monopolize some industries.

andrewvanmarle

Apothecary wrote:

Removal of the mythics from top ten awards makes sense. It just serves to put a disproportionate amount of new wealth in the hands of the rich, ,just like in real life, Am I right?

Also, it's silly that the playerbase came up with things like feeder coalitions and trial periods and this or that to monopolize their power over those leaderboards. The majority of the player base will not miss these people, and contrary to what the top 10 coalition vocal minority believe, there are tons of other players who spend money on this game. Their voices were recognized this patch.

I'm in platinum, and I have to deal with these decks every day that are just filled to the brim with mythics. I catch a couple of losses, then miss out on some of my rewards resultant of this.

Taking away mythics for the top isn't about equalising the playing field, it's about jealousy. And that is never a good motivation to do anything.

Instead of pulling down your fellow player lets be constructive and think of a way that early range and midrange players get a shot at mythics too. Yes, unobtanium (ok stupid jewels) are a good way to earn mythics over time, i generally like that, though the way the rewards are doled out and the gem cost for the daily event is bad in my opinion.


To get back to your remark about the top 10 monopolizing the system, think of it like this:
This is a competetive arena just like for instance soccer. In soccer you have the main team but also secondary teams and even youth teams. The players in those teams get training, help and the chance to move up when they improve.

The same goes for the coalitions. Many of us have taken a starting player under our wings and helped with deckbuilding, strategy and building a good coalition for them. Everyone who applies has an equal chance to show how good hey are and get in on the top 10 action.

Point out what is unethical there and we have a good start of a debate.

zaann85

My coalition is currently full, however we regularly score top 100. Opening come open often and if you score well eventually you can be chosen to play for top 10 groups. Yea those teams still get mythics, but some of you must think its the same 200 players every event. Thier rosters change over time and while 10-15 groups are always getting mythics, you can be too.

losdamianos

zaann85 wrote:

My coalition is currently full, however we regularly score top 100. Opening come open often and if you score well eventually you can be chosen to play for top 10 groups. Yea those teams still get mythics, but some of you must think its the same 200 players every event. Thier rosters change over time and while 10-15 groups are always getting mythics, you can be too.

far from 200, more like 400 as You said there are about 12-15 coalitions which ends up on top 10 spot frequently and on top of that You get between 0-5 players new players in each coalition. Mythic for top 10 was acting as a goal for newcomer and also established players (with most mythics of the current set) from top 10 often were switching to lower collations to give chance for newcomers.
It was really good system promoting active pleayers. Well WAS ...

Volrak

My view is that the people who set up and maintain the systems of feeder coalitions have worked hard in order for their coalitions to get where they are.

But that's not what I think the key competitive aspect of mtgpq should be. Others may disagree, but I see mtgpq as a game where the key rewards should relate to skills in match-3, deck construction skill, and tactics and strategy in card sequence and timing. It shouldn't be a game where getting in with the best organisers and managers is one of the key deciding factors between whether you consistently get the big rewards, or get relatively tiny rewards instead.

I have a great deal of respect for those organisers and managers and their talents. I just don't think that's the soul of game, and flattening coalition rewards is therefore not one of the changes I have a problem with.

andrewvanmarle wrote:

Taking away mythics for the top isn't about equalising the playing field, it's about jealousy.

In case you're wondering, this change happened when my coalition was poised to join that top 10 group of regular mythics; we've basically missed the boat on that. Even though I would stand to gain from it, I don't think that boat coming back would be a great thing for the game.

buscemi

Can you be a monopoly if you're made up of seperate groups who don't get along with each other?

Ohboy

andrewvanmarle wrote:

Apothecary wrote:

Removal of the mythics from top ten awards makes sense. It just serves to put a disproportionate amount of new wealth in the hands of the rich, ,just like in real life, Am I right?

Also, it's silly that the playerbase came up with things like feeder coalitions and trial periods and this or that to monopolize their power over those leaderboards. The majority of the player base will not miss these people, and contrary to what the top 10 coalition vocal minority believe, there are tons of other players who spend money on this game. Their voices were recognized this patch.

I'm in platinum, and I have to deal with these decks every day that are just filled to the brim with mythics. I catch a couple of losses, then miss out on some of my rewards resultant of this.

Taking away mythics for the top isn't about equalising the playing field, it's about jealousy. And that is never a good motivation to do anything.

Instead of pulling down your fellow player lets be constructive and think of a way that early range and midrange players get a shot at mythics too. Yes, unobtanium (ok stupid jewels) are a good way to earn mythics over time, i generally like that, though the way the rewards are doled out and the gem cost for the daily event is bad in my opinion.


To get back to your remark about the top 10 monopolizing the system, think of it like this:
This is a competetive arena just like for instance soccer. In soccer you have the main team but also secondary teams and even youth teams. The players in those teams get training, help and the chance to move up when they improve.

The same goes for the coalitions. Many of us have taken a starting player under our wings and helped with deckbuilding, strategy and building a good coalition for them. Everyone who applies has an equal chance to show how good hey are and get in on the top 10 action.

Point out what is unethical there and we have a good start of a debate.

Generally I hate the Crab in the bucket mentality as much as anyone else, but this isn't it.

Mythics and other resources aren't free. They cost nothing to create, but cost something to give out. That's the crucial part a lot of people seem to be missing. If too much is given out free, there's no point spending money on the game, because you'll get it eventually. I refer to Shteev's recent repeated posts about his abundance of crystals. He hasn't needed to spend them on boosters because he has such a big mythic income that it's pointless for the most part. Thus, the only way to get him to spend money is to print exclusive imbal as hell cards. Remember baral? Seems like an eternity ago when everyone was talking about him right? This is why there's power creep.

So they can't just give out more stuff. There's a balance to be struck. That's why when people demanded ties share prizes, I warned that they would not like the result. The current jewel currency is partly due to this. It's impossible to split a mythic card among many people, but a mythic pack that costs x jewels... We can split those jewels.

The other reason for jewels is of course as you noted to smooth the reward curve. Unfortunately the game is such that mythics are so much better than rares that there's no meaningful way to stagger rewards. It's like if you had to give out prizes and only had a 1k note and a $20 note. You end up being forced to give horrible prize structures, which was what we had.

This isn't about pulling people down. It's about sharing from a limited pool of resources they are willing to release for free every week. We can't just go "just print more money!". There's a cost to printing money, even digital currency. To give to the poor, we must take from the rich. The rich have never liked that, and that's OK. But it's how it works.

There's nothing unethical about how top 10 coalitions worked. They played to the rules. It was the system that was broken. And this is the repair. Obviously if you've taken for granted this unfair advantage for months you'll feel pissed that the free ride is over. Again, that's OK, because it's a natural reaction. What's disingenuous is the reluctance to understand it WAS a free ride.

There's a three way relationship between the things everyone hates to see the most in the game, namely

1) power creep
2) price
3) free rewards

If you request for one of them to change, the other two have to change accordingly. It's a classic case of being careful what you wish for.

As for taking people under your wings in coalitions, what's your limit? Can your coalition take in 2000 people? Because that's about how much you'll need to take in to make the argument that you can help everyone.

Of course it's managable now when you're recruiting here, maybe on reddit and/or Facebook. But the vast majority of people don't show up in these places. Who looks after their interests? The devs have to. Once again, in a common pool, they'll need to take from us to give to them.

So much of what needs to be done is unseen by the people here because we're already the privileged class just by being here.

Ohboy

buscemi wrote:

Can you be a monopoly if you're made up of seperate groups who don't get along with each other?

You prefer to be called cartels? Alliance sounds better. Stick to that.

buscemi

Ohboy wrote:

I refer to Shteev's recent repeated posts about his abundance of crystals. He hasn't needed to spend them on boosters because he has such a big mythic income that it's pointless for the most part.

It wasn't worth buying boosters for non-dupe mythics before the patch, and it sure as hell isn't now either. I came up with this spending plan a while ago, and it still stands now. If I spend 1,200 crystals on boosters, I'll get 1, maybe 2 mythics. It will never be worth buying boosters for mythics alone. Sure, you get rares from packs, but under the new reward system I'll be up to my eyeballs in rares. I won't need to buy them. The number of mythics I get from winning events has been vastly reduced but it doesn't affect the return I get for my crystals buying boosters. I don't sit on my crystals because I'm rich; I do it because I consider the opportunities to spend it at the moment to be very poor value, and I hope that better value offers will come along in the future. And given that I know that a new set will be out in a while, and new Planeswalkers will be released, and other, unknown special offers will probably be run, I'd say that's a safe bet. (Although I'm sure the money men at D3 who are reading this post right now are already working on a way to further devalue my stash).

I find it interesting that so many are clamoring for the rewards to be nerfed for the top players, but very few actually calling for the nerfing of ludicrously overpowered mythics. It's kind of the same thing, isn't it? You don't want to have to fight against decks which have stupidly high levels of power in them? The former line of argument reeks of self-interest to me.

We, at the top, have already GOT a bunch of overpowered cards. Cutting everyone's rewards doesn't stop us beating you with those cards; it just means you can't get hold of them so easily, so you keep losing. Unless, of course, you pay for power by buying cards like Baral, which I would have thought was pretty obviously an unhealthy model for the game.

Yep, it's us and them now. That's what we've come to.

Ohboy

buscemi wrote:

We, at the top, have already GOT a bunch of overpowered cards. Taking our rewards away doesn't stop us beating you with them; it just means you can't get hold of them so easily, so you keep losing. Unless, of course, you pay for power by buying cards like Baral, which I would have thought was pretty obviously an unhealthy model for the game.

Yep, it's us and them now. That's what we've come to.

Great points. All of which I raised half a year ago when I said it needed to stop immediately while it wasn't that bad, because eventually it will come to this. Remember how that went?

You never got full value for mythics from boosters because you were eventually going to get them all as rewards anyway. Of course you felt the box wasn't worth it. That's precisely the point. Boxes weren't the only source of mythics for you like the vast majority of the players.

ErikInVegas

How to lose friends and alienate people:

[ pic can't be posted because this forum has a 1200 pixel limit on shots for a game that exports 2208 pixel images ]

Now in manual low res = more trouble than it's worth which seems to be the theme these days....

ErikInVegas

Ohboy wrote:

Great points. All of which I raised half a year ago when I said it needed to stop immediately while it wasn't that bad, because eventually it will come to this. Remember how that went?

Or they could use an Elo type matchmaking system which already exists and works in a long list of heavily competitive games.

Instead they continue to match total beginners with only a few commons vs sandbaggers with a deck full of mythics.

It is the dev's fault for creating such an environment when it's so avoidable.