Upcoming New Feature: Booster Crafting (5/25/17)

Brigby

Hi Everyone,

Opening boosters and acquiring new cards is a fun and integral part of Magic: Puzzle Quest, and is a great way to improve and build your card collection. Having said that though, we understand that it can be very frustrating to encounter duplicates of cards you already own. With that in mind, here is Hibernum_Will to talk a bit more about the upcoming new feature: Booster Crafting

Hi everyone!
We are excited to officially announce a new feature that we've been working on - Booster Crafting!

What is Booster Crafting?
Booster Crafting lets you turn your duplicate cards into new cards. Duplicates will be converted into crafting tokens, which can be used to craft custom boosters. Importantly, Booster Crafting will provide a way to guarantee getting new cards! Looking for a new Mythic? Not a problem with Booster Crafting!

What happens to existing duplicate cards?
Until the release of Booster Crafting, the option to turn your duplicate cards into Mana Runes will remain in the Cards menu. When Booster Crafting is released, we'll automatically convert existing duplicates into crafting tokens. Afterwards, duplicate cards will be automatically converted when opening packs.

Opening boosters is one of the best parts of Magic - and we want to make that experience even better by providing a way to get guaranteed new cards. We also want to keep PvP competition fair for all players. In order to do so, we’re introducing two token types. Duplicate cards from the newest card set (Amonkhet) will provide tokens used to craft boosters from "Standard" card sets (currently Origins, Kaladesh, Aether Revolt and Amonkhet), and duplicate cards from older card sets will let you craft boosters from sets outside of “Standard.”

Booster Crafting is still in the early phases of development, so some details may change along the way. Having said that though, we wanted to let you know about the feature as soon as we could! We expect to launch Booster Crafting in an update in late June.  Stay tuned - we’ll post more details before the release of Booster Crafting!

James13

Exciting!  Thanks for the preview

Fiddler

Purchasing booster tokens with Mana Runes would be helpful for those who already converted duplicates to Mana Runes.

Laeuftbeidir

That is seriously worth an announcement! Great news! Also, these informations from @Hibernum_Will are really nice put together and actually answer most of the question I had in mind!

Will there be different booster in terms of type or size (some dupes = 5 cards booster, lots of dupes = 15 card pack, tons of dupes = 25 card pack)? Or "only" the 5 card boosters (the marks on only = that wouldn't be actually bad, just FMI ) ? 

Waschecht

Big like.looking forward to it

AgainstOne

Just remember everything they announce sounds wonderful up front, but it never is wonderful when it actually arrives

Brigby

@Laeuftbeidir
Keeping in mind that it is still in development, and certain details might change before release, last I heard was that players will have the ability to customize their boosters, in order to hone in on what kind of card they're looking for.

Corn_Noodles

Using two tokens for Standard and non-Standard is a good way to reward people who have been hoarding duplicates in a way that won't unbalance PVP worse than it already is, I guess.

shteev

Hibernum_Will said:

Importantly, Booster Crafting will provide a way to guarantee getting new cards! Looking for a new Mythic? Not a problem with Booster Crafting!

This is enough to pique my interest, certainly!

GrizzoMtGPQ

Yessss! Thank you! Here's hoping! So glad I hoarded dupes. Now the rich shall become the SUPER-MEGA-RICH.

speakupaskanswer

I really like the idea and I'm curious to see how it will turn out. Two observations/objections:

1) Still seems kinda unfair that people who hoarded dupe have an advantage (which includes myself, so I'm not jealous). An auto-convert to runes still seems more fair but I guess that would create even more of a backlash now.

2) This basically means we have another (the fourth? fifth?) currency in the game.

madwren

I should get a bonus booster for predicting they'd create a fifth currency for this.

MisterPete

@Brigby this is great news thanks for sharing!  And thanks for confirming the plan for existing duplicates as many of us have felt we had to hold back on purchasing and opening packs until this was confirmed.  I like the solution to balancing existing dupes vs obtaining cards in standard, nice job.

As long as the booster you craft is guaranteed to be cards you don't already own this is great.   Would have preferred a way to target specific cards but i think this will still be a huge step to retaining players in this game.

And if the conversion rate of tokens to new cards isn't too bad I think you'll see a decrease in the 'not another dime' mantra that arose after the changes to drop rates/rewards/etc.

I hope to be able to recommend this game to new players again and to be able to open packs without the huge disappointment of a dupe rare/mythic as it is now.  Looking forward to the update.

Dropspot

I just wish they communicate the conversion rate for the new tokens and how the system is going to work before they force us to convert.

I just want to make a informed decision of converting of not converting all my dupes into runes before the system is implemented.

Brigby

@Dropspot
Exact details regarding the conversion rate and how the system is going to work are still being developed, but once those are finalized, we'll be sure to inform the community ahead of time.

majincob

First of all, thank you @Brigby for having them clarify the fate of our present dupes going into the future dupe system. 

What is Booster Crafting?
Booster Crafting lets you turn your duplicate cards into new cards. Duplicates will be converted into crafting tokens, which can be used to craft custom boosters. Importantly, Booster Crafting will provide a way to guarantee getting new cards! Looking for a new Mythic? Not a problem with Booster Crafting!

This sounds nice, but as usual when Hibernum/D3 says new cards, people read it to mean non-dupe cards when it is really an ambiguous statement. What it sounds like to me is you purchase a "pack" of one (or more) cards of a guaranteed rarity for some unspecified amount of duplicates you open, it will contain some random card(s) from the associated blocks. As it is, that could by any number of cards you may or may not want, including potentially more dupes. The conversion rate at this juncture is extremely important because if you need 100 dupe rares to make 1 dupe rare, I'd rather convert all my dupes into runes before the "feature" hits.

What happens to existing duplicate cards?
Until the release of Booster Crafting, the option to turn your duplicate cards into Mana Runes will remain in the Cards menu. When Booster Crafting is released, we'll automatically convert existing duplicates into crafting tokens. Afterwards, duplicate cards will be automatically converted when opening packs.

Are there talks of increasing rune payout for completing games? With the removal of QB, the "fast & fun" way of accruing massive amounts of runes, and now runes from dupes (admittedly a minor source of runes) coupled with the new deck slot rune sinks, runes are now a more scarce resource especially for newer players who can't grind heroic encounters.

Opening boosters is one of the best parts of Magic - and we want to make that experience even better by providing a way to get guaranteed new cards. We also want to keep PvP competition fair for all players. In order to do so, we’re introducing two token types. Duplicate cards from the newest card set (Amonkhet) will provide tokens used to craft boosters from "Standard" card sets (currently Origins, Kaladesh, Aether Revolt and Amonkhet), and duplicate cards from older card sets will let you craft boosters from sets outside of “Standard.”

Once again "guaranteed new cards" sounds an awful lot like "non-dupe cards" but doesn't necessarily mean that.

The Dev teams response to cries of unfairness is to take everyone's dupe hoard and only make it pay out in sets that aren't coalition event legal. I suppose I can live with that even though it is really disappointing that all my Origins dupes will not convert to Origins packs. As it is, you have the dupes from 7 sets converting into cards from 4 sets, and dupes from only 1 set (the one no-one has much of) converting into the 4 sets competitive players really care about.

Booster Crafting is still in the early phases of development, so some details may change along the way. Having said that though, we wanted to let you know about the feature as soon as we could! We expect to launch Booster Crafting in an update in late June.  Stay tuned - we’ll post more details before the release of Booster Crafting!

I implore the Dev team to release working drafts of "booster crafting" for comment from the community well before it goes live. At the very least players should have a week of full knowledge of the new system before it is implemented so that they can make an informed decision about whether they want to convert to runes or funnel all their dupes into the new system.

Can we assume that [no forced conversion of dupes for runes] will not be one of the details that "may change" along the way? If so, I will start cracking my massive stash of KLD packs this Sunday with videos to YouTube in case anyone is interested.

I will also continue to hoard my AKH packs until the specifics of how the conversion system works is revealed so that I can make a more informed choice on whether hoarding is still warranted.

PersonMan

@Brigby
Can you confirm that duplicates that players have been holding onto will be converted into Tokens (and not Runes) AND more importantly, that this decision will not be changed during development?   Some of us are still holding onto a lot of unopened boosters precisely so that our many many duplicates can be used in the new crafting system, and would feel horribly cheated and lied to if we opened them now and they were converted to Runes before the crafting system is introduced.  

Thanks.  Also, assuming the conversion rate is something reasonable, this is a great change.  In particular, people who spend 400 shards to get a Mythic (with a small chance of a Masterwork) should get a Mythic, not 50% (or some other fraction) of the crafting tokens the need for another pull of the slot machine where they might get a Mythic or might get more duplicates.  It takes MONTHS of playing regularly to save for just 1 card.  Don't shaft people on it.  

madwren

It's a bit ridiculous that Kaladesh and Aether Revolt dupes will not be converted into Standard.

@Brigby It'd be great if the devs could reassure the cynical masses that "guaranteed new cards" does not mean "with the possibility of duplicates still".

I mean, I get guaranteed new cards right now. I just need to buy an outrageously large number of boosters in order to do so.

So, the simple question is:

Will the crafted booster packs contain cards you already own?

If no--they do not contain cards we own--then yay. That's really all anyone wants, I think: to stop getting duplicates.

If yes--they do contain cards we own--then this is much ado about nothing, and will go over as well as, say, duplicates in elite packs.

zaann85

NOT ACCEPTABLE! Existing cards all need to be converted to runes!  It is no way fair to people who have played since before you stole all of our duplicates!  This game is on a tight rope and here you go putting the nail in the coffin!  I should have thousands of duplicates laying around,  but instead I have nothing to show for my countless duplicates but runes.  To make this fair for everyone, you must convert everyones duplicates before this new system launches, or you'll have screwed your loyal players for the last time.

Corn_Noodles

madwren said:

It's a bit ridiculous that Kaladesh and Aether Revolt dupes will not be converted into Standard.

I agree with this. Sets currently in Standard should convert into tokens for Standard.

Laeuftbeidir

I don't see it as bad as the others. I'm almost certain you'll get a random amount of cards, and the more you have, the higher the chance to get dupes. It's at least a chance to get something.