Brigby said: @PersonMan I can understand the concern, which is why we added this line at the bottom: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!Increasing the line of communication between the players and the developers is something I've heard time and time again as being desired from players, and it's something I'm striving to improve with early announcements like these. Unfortunately it's an inherent risk that details might change after announcing them so early in development.We've spent many a meeting discussing how to address the issue of hoarded duplicates, and this was the result of those discussions. At this point, there is a very high chance we are sticking with the original announced plan, but we just can't 100% guarantee it. If for some unforeseen reason we need to change that plan, I will do my best to communicate that ahead of time.
Brigby said: @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.
Can you relay to the team that using ambiguous marketspeak that falsely raises hopes of the players has a backlash effect that reduces trust in and credibility of the company? This sounds suspiciously like being able to "target" certain mythics/masterpieces in the Masterpiece collection packs which added to the perception of negative value that led to the not.another.dime movement and the coalition name change protest.
What players want is to be able to get new cards to play with (cards not previously in their collection). Preferably with a way to guarantee getting a specific card they want. Opening packs isn't enjoyable unless you feel like there is a substantial chance there will be something new and fun in it. By the very nature of the system as players get more entrenched that becomes less and less of a possibility. The new dupe system is purportedly a way to make sure that even if you get a dupe you don't feel too bad because it moves you incrementally closer to the cards you really want. If you spend all your dupes and hopes and dreams and get yet another dupe or something like lightning greaves for your month(s) of anticipation it will achieve an effect counter to its stated goal.
I can see two possible ways to avoid the potential feel-bad problem. Either have a system where the player is guaranteed non-duplicates (preferably with a way to get specific cards), or make the conversion rate very generous so that players can have many chances to pull the lever so they feel they have a good chance at something new AND will have multiple tries at getting it. (Hint: 2 Mythic pulls from a limited pool of mythics/masterpieces a month is not generous)
Really nice compromise to allow converting all existing dupes into non-standard tokens.
Since a compromise was made for hoarders, why not a compromise for players oblivious to the impending crafting system? A Rune --> Non-Standard crafting exchange should be set up for all players and allow them to acquire crafting tokens up to a set limit.
Here's what I'm hoping for:
Since they seem hesitant to remove the random element from gaining cards, I would think the following would match.
Choose Rarity: (Uncommon, Rare, Mythic)
Choose Set: (Origins, etc...)
Choose Color:
You get a single card pack much like the "rare with a chance at mythic" packs we had a while back that gives you a random card matching your specifications that is guaranteed to not be in your collection of cards.
The primary decider on the amount of the new currency is the rarity, and the set would determine if it costs standard currency or legacy currency. The color seems to match what they've been playing around with in terms of the color packs. This would give you quite a bit more flexibility toward targeting a card. Happy land would be a card category e.g. Choose Type (Creature, Spell, Support)
That would feel like I'm crafting a pack to target something I'm missing for my super sweet discard deck that is missing a key card. Or whatever deck you want to build. (I have a soft spot for building a discard deck, but I don't have the pieces for it). Right now it feels like I can't target a deck, I have to build a whatever.dec.
In terms of conversions, it would be nice to have a 3-1 for mythic, so if I have 3 dupe mythics to blow up, I would get enough currency to try for a mythic pack.
Rares wouldn't have quite as good a conversion rate, but maybe it'd be okay to still have a 3-1 in terms of getting a rare quality card. Same with uncommon?
That feels optimistic for the conversion rates though...
Dropspot said: My approach to that is: I don't expect much, so don't get upset.In fact I am expecting something that we would want the convert to runes back.At least all the time they make something we asked for they transform it so much we always end up wanting to going back to what we had before...
Corn Noodles said: I think this system is a step in the right direction, but a few tweaks might be warranted.Runes are very valuable for a new player in order to level up and compete. Duplicates were a source of runes for new players, and this should be addressed.My thought is this: Standard duplicates become tokens for booster crafting and non-Standard duplicates become runes. This could then be combined with adding new non-Standard 3-card boosters that cost runes. This booster would have a weight on it for providing cards that you don't already have.
Tilwin90 said: If there's no duplicates, yet you cannot choose rarity, it will be interesting to see what I can drop in those boosters. I still have 3-4 commons and 3 uncommons to get, all from Amonkhet. Other than that, I have all commons/uncommons in the game. It'll be interesting to see what they can put in those boosters so it isn't a dupe!
speakupaskanswer said: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.
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!