Booster pack screen

Ohboy

shteev said:

Ohboy said:

shteev said:

Hibernum_JC said:

I'll say this - we are actively listening to all your comments about duplicates and will seriously take them into consideration for the future. This doesn't mean we'll actually do a system like Hearthstone's dust system, but we are really taking these comments to heart.

So... maybe my reading wasn't quite so optimistic as you're implying? Perhaps there are some grounds for me believing that it's possible that duplicates might mean something?

You're kidding right. I'll just use the quote you supplied and even your interpretation of it is hopelessly optimistic. 

Nowhere does it say they will do or even consider a crafting system or any use of dupes other than runes. 

Really. So you're saying that what JC was really saying was 'We're listening to your feedback, but we guarantee that we'll never do anything about it. Keep submitting it tho because we like the sound of your mouths flapping up and down'.

What about this quote, then, which I've posted on the forums a couple of times recently:

Brigby said:

1) The team is currently developing a system that addresses duplicates, in order to give them more value than just converting into runes. You can expect this to be implemented within the next couple of months.

It does seem rather that an interpretation of that comment as a system which gives your duplicates more value than just converting them into runes is quite justified, isn't it?

I put it to you, sir, that your argument merely boils down to 'You have some things, I don't have some things, I don't like that you have things, and I want those things taken away from you'.


@Brigby If probably looks like me and OhBoy are getting quite personal here, but you have to remember the important psychological warfare that is going on under the surface: both of us are trying to imply that our reading of the prior statements of D3/Hibernum team are the most obvious one, and that anyone trying to make up their own mind rather than just agreeing with us is just wasting their time. To that end, I'd see it as a personal favour if you didn't do your usual thing and delete all my posts and leave his intact.

Why is it that you guys always fall back on the ridiculous idea that I'm arguing because I can't have something? 

First it was your assumption that I can't get into a top coalition. 

Then andrew tells me I'm not putting as much effort as him in the game

And now you're telling me I'm only complaining because I've converted all my cards. 


This isn't even relevant, but I don't think I have less to lose than you if the cards got force converted. I haven't converted any cards either. I'm saying this not because I'll lose out. It's just fair. 

shteev

Ohboy said:
It's just fair. 

Not at all. They've been suggesting that there might be some use for duplicates since the start of the game, and so I've held on to mine, deliberately foregoing the extra runes I could have earned and spent on levelling my PWs quicker. I've been sitting onto a potential for future earnings by giving up on advantages I could buy right now. It's the same as what I'm currently doing with my huge unspent stash of crystals and mana jewels and unopened boosters, in fact.

Some players have chosen to make that one way transaction, and now they realise that they can't go back, but that's unforutunately the reality of the game. I find myself in a very similar situation with regards to my PWs levels.... I've levelled all my old PWs up to level 60, and now I'd give anything to be able to bust them back down to level 1 again so that I can gain an advantage on the 'Win in less than 5 rounds' nodes in NoP and EmO, but I can't. My alt account does better in NoP than my main, for god's sake. But, I can't go back. That's life.

speakupaskanswer

If everyone starts at zero, it's totally fair. You haven't lost anything by saving your dupes, except the runes you didn't get. Since there was no promise (well, and to be fair, no specifics), no one said we should save them. I just don't see how it would be unfair to give everyone the same starting point. That's the definition of fair.

But I guess it doesn't matter because you enjoy your personal conflict more than discussing with the community...

shteev

I fail to see how writing sereval cogent posts putting across my point of view is failing to engage with the community.

speakupaskanswer

Because you mostly only engage with your archenemy. Like, now, you only reacted to my (personal?) comment on your way of discussing instead of my arguments about the actual discussion.

shteev

speakupaskanswer said:

Because you mostly only engage with your archenemy. Like, now, you only reacted to my (personal?) comment on your way of discussing instead of my arguments about the actual discussion.

Well you're not as evasive as he is.

You've put your point across, I've put my point across, and in this instance I was happy to leave you with the last word. My apologies if it looks like I've been ignoring you.

majincob

speakupaskanswer said:

If everyone starts at zero, it's totally fair. You haven't lost anything by saving your dupes, except the runes you didn't get. Since there was no promise (well, and to be fair, no specifics), no one said we should save them. I just don't see how it would be unfair to give everyone the same starting point. That's the definition of fair.

But I guess it doesn't matter because you enjoy your personal conflict more than discussing with the community...

Do you mean destroy everyone's collections? 0 cards, only a lvl1 Nissa and the starter deck, no packs, crystals, jewels, runes etc? I've been hoarding all my dupes since the start of the game because JC's comments clearly indicate that a new future use was a distant possibility. To say that my lost utility (lack of access to runes they would have provided) has no value is a personal insult.

The fair thing is to recognise that converting was optional. 

I guess until we find out what the new dupe system will be like, I'll continue to hoard packs. I wonder if I can get to 4 digits?

Volrak

majincob said:

speakupaskanswer said:

If everyone starts at zero, it's totally fair.

Do you mean destroy everyone's collections? 0 cards, only a lvl1 Nissa and the starter deck, no packs, crystals, jewels, runes etc?

I was fairly sure he meant zero dupes.  I suspect there will be little disagreement that starting again from zero cards would be slight overkill...

majincob said:

The fair thing is to recognise that converting was optional.

This is where D3 missed a trick.  When they introduced rune conversion for dupes, they should done this mental experiment:

<code>some players will have huge dupe stockpiles, and others will have none. Should those stockpiles be force-converted when the new system is added?
    [2.A.i] Yes - Perceived as unfair by players who stockpile.  Problematic.
    [2.A.ii] No - The new system will introduce serious imbalance, all but ruling this out. This will also be perceived as unfair by players who don't stockpile.
  [2.B] No - No balance or unfairness problemsWill we ever let dupes be used for anything other than runes?<br>[1] No - Let players convert at will (as opposed to force-converting to runes on opening a dupe)?<br><b>&nbsp; [1.A] Yes - No balance or unfairness problems</b><br><b>&nbsp; [1.B] No - No balance or unfairness problems</b><br>[2] Yes - Let players convert at will (as opposed to force-converting on opening a dupe)?<br>&nbsp; [2.A] Yes - When a new system for dupes is introduced, 

By following the decision tree, D3's only option when they first introduced runes for dupes to guarantee no balance or unfairness problems in the future was to force-convert dupes to runes as they were opened (i.e. choosing B is fine regardless of whether 1 or 2 eventuates).  Unfortunately, a different decision was made, leading to the present situation.

hawkyh1

I was thinking carry over dupes can be used to trade
for non imbalance cards such as the free thopter pie
network and invite a friend cards. it would be a
smaller pool of cards(origins maybe) before feeding
into the implemented dupes system. by conversion
this will have diminished most of the impact of huge
dupes whilst not affecting much those who have
smaller quantities.

HH

hawkyh1

toastie said:

I have two 50s and a 60 on the nodes. Every single game has been against a 60. And this is in gold, not even plat. I have a grand total of 100 runes right now, there is literally nothing I can do about this.

just one example that dupes are not just runes.
these runes are an increased chance for a better
reward if timed well.

I don't fully agree with this
'You haven't lost anything by saving your dupes, except the runes you didn't get. '

HH

speakupaskanswer

hawkyh1 said:

toastie said:

I have two 50s and a 60 on the nodes. Every single game has been against a 60. And this is in gold, not even plat. I have a grand total of 100 runes right now, there is literally nothing I can do about this.

just one example that dupes are not just runes.
these runes are an increased chance for a better
reward if timed well.

I don't fully agree with this
'You haven't lost anything by saving your dupes, except the runes you didn't get. '

HH

I might be dense but you have to explain this better. I can't see your point.

hawkyh1

not having the runes right now might be costing some
players what chance they had at the exclusive mythic (re).
same goes for pve events such as ratc tezz 3.3. the lack
of runes is not just about runes it's also about
opportunities for better cards, more crystals etc.

(I would never call a fellow player dense, especially as I've
been known to not always be that clear)

HH

Lagartha

I'm just going to step in and point out that one of the things the guy from Wizards of the Coast was MOST excited and tight lipped about was a NEW system to address duplicates. If I recall correctly, he said that they were working on it, we just needed to be patient..

Matthew

Lagartha said:

I'm just going to step in and point out that one of the things the guy from Wizards of the Coast was MOST excited and tight lipped about was a NEW system to address duplicates. If I recall correctly, he said that they were working on it, we just needed to be patient..

Are you talking about the guy you spoke to when you walked into their offices? (Btw, that was not me; if I remember correctly, he and I share the same name).

span_argoman

No time for a full-length reply, but consider this: if they allow us to keep our duplicates from the start of the game that's some 10,000 duplicates for the top players. The developers have to design the new duplicate system while factoring this giant hoard in mind.

And if conversions are going to be differentiated by rarity, there will be all the duplicate mythics from the era of guaranteed coalition mythics to account for. Shteev has proclaimed that he has 70+ duplicate mythics.

For the rest of the players, think whether you would prefer that the developers balance the new duplicate system based on duplicates generated under the new reward system (ie. less cards overall and hence each duplicate can be worth more) or having to factor in the excesses from an era of abundance.

Of course there's no guarantee that they put all that consideration into their design of the system. We might just get a system where a duplicate Masterpiece/Mythic/Rare cards are converted into 10 Jewels/1 Jewel/1 Crystal.

But forcing a conversion before the new duplicate system is implemented would justify better rates for duplicate conversion considering the developers probably don't want to give any group of players an easy route to having all (or many) of the cards they desire.

As for those questioning whether they might force an opening of all your hoarded packs before the conversion, I doubt they will nor will it be necessary. Say in an act of massive dedication, you hoard up to 400 packs over the next few months before the new system is implemented, that is 2,000 cards. With the mythic drop rate of ~0.8% that's 16 Mythics, some of which might be new cause they will come from Amonkhet which if you're hoarding packs you will be missing a fair number of the mythics.

That's only 1/5 of what almost all the top players currently hold in duplicates. Just use that ratio to think about how bad they'll have to make the conversion if they allow us to keep our duplicates going into the new system.

And @shteev I don't buy the argument about it being a sacrifice not converting the duplicates into Runes to level up our planeswalkers especially for top players. My accidental conversion of 7,000 cards (earned over 9 months or so) yielded only 240k Runes. Which is only 1.5x the amount you need to level a single dual-colour planeswalker to level 60.

As an active Platinum player and mild/moderate QB player I have earned more than enough Runes each set to fully level the new planeswalkers once they're available in the Vault. This argument may be more valid now with the loss of QB but considering the period of 'sacrifice' was when QB was still present, to me it doesn't hold much water.

Matthew

span_argoman said:

No time for a full-length reply, but consider this: if they allow us to keep our duplicates from the start of the game that's some 10,000 duplicates for the top players. The developers have to design the new duplicate system while factoring this giant hoard in mind.

And if conversions are going to be differentiated by rarity, there will be all the duplicate mythics from the era of guaranteed coalition mythics to account for. Shteev has proclaimed that he has 70+ duplicate mythics.

For the rest of the players, think whether you would prefer that the developers balance the new duplicate system based on duplicates generated under the new reward system (ie. less cards overall and hence each duplicate can be worth more) or having to factor in the excesses from an era of abundance.

Of course there's no guarantee that they put all that consideration into their design of the system. We might just get a system where a duplicate Masterpiece/Mythic/Rare cards are converted into 10 Jewels/1 Jewel/1 Crystal.

But forcing a conversion before the new duplicate system is implemented would justify better rates for duplicate conversion considering the developers probably don't want to give any group of players an easy route to having all (or many) of the cards they desire.

As for those questioning whether they might force an opening of all your hoarded packs before the conversion, I doubt they will nor will it be necessary. Say in an act of massive dedication, you hoard up to 400 packs over the next few months before the new system is implemented, that is 2,000 cards. With the mythic drop rate of ~0.8% that's 16 Mythics, some of which might be new cause they will come from Amonkhet which if you're hoarding packs you will be missing a fair number of the mythics.

That's only 1/5 of what almost all the top players currently hold in duplicates. Just use that ratio to think about how bad they'll have to make the conversion if they allow us to keep our duplicates going into the new system.

And @shteev I don't buy the argument about it being a sacrifice not converting the duplicates into Runes to level up our planeswalkers especially for top players. My accidental conversion of 7,000 cards (earned over 9 months or so) yielded only 240k Runes. Which is only 1.5x the amount you need to level a single dual-colour planeswalker to level 60.

As an active Platinum player and mild/moderate QB player I have earned more than enough Runes each set to fully level the new planeswalkers once they're available in the Vault. This argument may be more valid now with the loss of QB but considering the period of 'sacrifice' was when QB was still present, to me it doesn't hold much water.

"Sorry guys, I don't have long, I'll keep this brief" **jams out 474 words** (congenial joke, please take it as such; I am guilty of exactly the same thing)

If @shteev really does have over 70 dupe mythics, that's over 70K runes he has missed out on under the current conversion system. You can say that he could (and likely did) go to QB as an alternative source for those runes, but the fact remains that he was handicapping himself either way. One way, he has lost out on instant runes, the other he has lost out on many hours of time. I don't think it would be fair to punish someone for making a that choice. It's not like he's been sitting Smaug-like on top of his growing pile of cards since the beginning.

Honestly, I don't think the developers would have much to worry about with the imbalance you are implying will occur once this happens. They have a golden egg-laying goose to supply them with as much content as they want, provided they don't screw themselves out of the legitimate longevity this game inherently possesses. Shteev et al are in the minority here, so they shouldn't factor into the equation very heavily.

Regarding the packs, I will actually drop this game if they make me convert them. I have exercised extreme patience by accruing my pile of 100+ boosters. Furthermore, I have certainly handicapped myself by doing so. There could be a Lightning Runner in there for all I know, which is the one non-exclusive card from this entire block that I would actually pay real money for. It would be incredibly inappropriate to punish me even further for my own decision to (hypothetically) limit myself as I have done.

shteev

span_argoman said:

Shteev has proclaimed that he has 70+ duplicate mythics.

For the rest of the players, think whether you would prefer that the developers balance the new duplicate system based on duplicates generated under the new reward system (ie. less cards overall and hence each duplicate can be worth more) or having to factor in the excesses from an era of abundance.

I did, indeed, proclaim that!

I've been playing since 2015, so I've got a lot of stuff. A lot of mythics, certainly... I'm not going to pretend that only owning half the mythics in the game isn't 'a lot'. But I earned all of it. I won my first mythics through time and effort, and then later mythics with time, effort, and those other mythics, and so on, and so on. I spent a bit of cash on a few things too, I reckon somewhere in the region of $100 to $150, buying OP stuff like Shrine of the Forsaken Gods, Gisela, and Baral.

I started with nothing, like everybody else does. When the third era of abundance came along, I had already spent a considerable amount of my personal resources getting into a position where I could compete hard for those prizes, and I did, and I won them, through my time and effort, my play skill, and the powerful and overpowered cards I'd collected and paid for along the way. Anybody could have done that. That's fair. I did it, and I earned the rewards that were available to me.

The fact of the matter is that anyone who has been playing since 2015 is going to have a lot more stuff than anyone starting today. We've had many advantages over new players in the past. The drop rates were roughly halved in update 1.3, for example (signifying the end of the first era of abundance). We were able to spend runes on 3packs. I got all the prizes and rewards that were available to players in January 2016, something which was unfairly denied to players who started in February or later. Compensation used to be regularly handed out for bugs and crashes in the game, and now it almost never happens.

On the other hand, there were no events before June last year, when the second era of abundance came to pass. The return in prizes compared to the amount of time and effort I put in back then were vastly lower. Isn't THAT unfair? Isn't it unfair that someone playing all week now earns far more than me when I was playing all week last year?

This all just boils down to the fact that I want to get better value of of the things I've earned than you want me to. Fair enough. We just have a difference of opinion about what we want my stuff to be worth. Now let's just wait and see what happens.

shteev

I had another thought.

What we all want from this game is regular content, isn't it? We like getting new stuff, and we get bored if we don't get new stuff. Probably none of us will agree on how quickly this drip feed should occur, but I for one think that three months of RatC and NoP going around and around and around with no changes except reducing the prizes is dull, and I'll bet a lot of the people who are quitting their coalitions right now agree with me.

The thing about being at the top of the game is: diminishing returns. As your collection grows, each booster or prize becomes less and less likely to give you a new card. I bought the 3x150 crystal Deluxe packs the other day, and got 2 dupe rares and a dupe mythic. And as a player with a large collection, you have to accept that that's going to happen to a certain extent, it's just the nature of a game with random collectables which has no crafting system.

But I'll be honest, things are a bit dull for me atm. And I know it's funny to laugh at my saltyness, but when your collection grows to the size of mine, it'll be dull for you too.

Surely the prizes for the top players SHOULD be larger to ensure that they get new stuff regularly enough to renew their interest in the game? Sure, you could argue we were getting too many 'free mythics' before, and we'd probably have agreed with you, and agreed to some sort of cut. But really you shouldn't have to play us with all our OP cards: for one thing the cards shouldn't be OP, and for another, the Tier system means that we should only have to play each other. In theory, you shouldn't get ganked on by a broken TSN deck until your collection has at least an outside chance of dealing with it.

I actually completely agree that there should be chase cards that you almost never see; that's what the Masterpieces should be. But I don't like the fact that all the Mythics in the game have been bumped up to a incredibly rare collection rate too.

span_argoman

@Matthew Haha it's cool, but it's already much shorter than my usual post length on issues which I think are much more complicated than we give credit for.

My point really is though that shteev started this game the same time as I did back in Dec 2015. I have never had an issue with Runes in particular due to the few months before events came along where all there was in the game was story mode and QB so grind grind grind and Runes are just there to look pretty like one's bank account never seems to.

I am reasonably sure he has been a fairly active player all this while so he really shouldn't be having any problems with Runes for levelling planeswalkers whether or not he converted duplicates. Ie. There was no sacrifice for him not converting the dupes. You're no doubt in a different situation because you were not playing during that phase of the game.


@shteev You're right about identifying there being 3 ages of abundance. There are a few points in your reply but let's address the on-topic issue of duplicates first.

Yes we can try to fight for what gives us the most value for our efforts. But at the end of the day, there's an issue of balance within the player base. The nerf to top rewards was an attempt to level things off as much as it was to reduce rewards. How likely is it that they will give the top players a windfall via the new duplicate system disproportionate to what the rest of the player base gets?

Until a proper tier system comes along, top players with strong collections will always cause grief when their decks are matched for a weaker player. And that problem is getting a lot of airtime around here so who knows how the developers are trying to deal with that? Hopefully in a positive manner. But looking at the way things are, just to rephrase what I said if I've not been clear enough, I doubt the developers are going to introduce the new dupe system in a way that lets the top players consolidate their position at the top by acquiring more of the best cards.


Now on to the other stuff. Yes, we have all worked hard for what we have earned. No one begrudges you that. But as long as our decks are still there for people to bash their heads against, there has to be some consideration for the other players who are trying to catch up or who are facing those said decks. It's nice to be king but at least accept that consideration?

And the Jewel system was supposed to be the answer to older players getting new cards more regularly. It's still fairly new considering how long the developers take to make changes so there's still hope it can become what it needs to be to retain the interest of older players.

shteev said:

On the other hand, there were no events before June last year, when the second era of abundance came to pass. The return in prizes compared to the amount of time and effort I put in back then were vastly lower. Isn't THAT unfair? Isn't it unfair that someone playing all week now earns far more than me when I was playing all week last year?

This all just boils down to the fact that I want to get better value of of the things I've earned than you want me to. Fair enough. We just have a difference of opinion about what we want my stuff to be worth. Now let's just wait and see what happens.

This bit confuses me. First you say that you put in a lot of effort to be able to compete in the events and earn more rewards than others but then you say it's not fair that someone joining later but putting in say the same effort earns more in Crystals and card packs than you do?

If that's what you're saying, that player has to build up their collection from scratch whereas we only need to build up cards from the new set. We had the benefit of 3 sets of cards to combine for synergies (Origins + BFZ + OGW). By the time the third era of abundance came around, we still had enough of an advantage to be taking top positions in the bulk of events (I do remember your perfect score in the first Saheeli event).

These players have to spend a lot more resources catching up in a shorter period of time than we had. I don't begrudge the game for letting players catch up, in fact my posts on this forum should reflect that I fault the game for not having enough of a catchup mechanism, to reach at least to the mid-game, for new players. There's the perspective of seeing the absolute number of Crystals they earn each week or the perspective of seeing how much closer they are to being competitive each week.


You talk about me laughing at your saltiness, I have 47% of the Mythics (or 50% of lootable Mythics). We're not exactly in very different situations. I only received 1 new Mythic out of the 3 Crystal and 3 Jewel tries we had from this weekend's special offer. Not amazing but if one considers that the number of new cards I have over the past month is countable on one hand...

I've done the breakdown in that other topic and if you do care about gains, you should be playing Trial to improve your chances of getting more stuff (especially after they reduced the total matches to 8 from 12) if you do still care enough to continue being competitive in this game, all things considered.

If you want to hear my ideal version of this game it would be the following: more cards for newbies to help them catch up to the mid-game, an extension of Story for old players to have some new content but also designed to help new players ramp up their collection (guaranteed rares can't be that damaging to the game economy if they're one-time off per player rather than recurring), a proper implementation of the Jewel system for older players to be able to get new cards at a less glacial rate, quicker fixing of bugs, nerfing of OP cards so the game isn't so skewed to the few OP cards, more frequent new content, a better way to differentiate players that more closely matches their skill level and collection (like the ELO system you've been suggesting), player council (as people have suggested) to give the developers feedback on what the community wants and what could help the game grow.

But well this game isn't raking in a ton of cash like say Hearthstone is so their budget is a lot more limited. There's a whole bunch of other factors too like whether D3/Hibernum cares about the long-term sustainability of the game (the signs haven't been encouraging) or how big/small a percentage of the revenues are being ploughed back into developing the game. So hoping that the game will suddenly morph into the ideal version is wishful thinking. I'm more pragmatic so I try to suggest things which can hopefully nudge the game in the direction I would like.

Quite a few players in my coalition including myself are feeling how stale the game is at the moment. And that's not just the matter of not getting new cards but also how routine the game has become. My prediction is that they pretty much have to bank on Amonkhet being a hit or else there'll be another exodus of players. Expect the power creep.

And that said I'm probably going to get modded for being off-topic for this. If that's going to happen, I would appreciate if instead this were split into a separate topic.

Lagartha

Matthew said:

Lagartha said:

Words

Are you talking about the guy you spoke to when you walked into their offices? (Btw, that was not me; if I remember correctly, he and I share the same name).

Mhm. He kept saying, "I promise, they're working on something amazing. But I can't talk about it."