Thoughts from an Old Gamer

Outersider

I’m probably one of the older players (turned 60 last month). I played the original card game starting with the 3rd edition and played pretty regular through the 7th when the game lost its fun for me. I’ve also played the pc games for a few years. I got into puzzle quest right when it’s started and have played continually since.

I’ve been reading the forums for about 3 months without commenting because for all intents and purposes others have expressed what I have felt, so I’ve felt no need to contribute.

The recent post doing a survey on would you recommend the game has spurred some thoughts coming from and old time gamer. Take them however you like.

Would I recommend the game. No. It’s not the same game I started playing a little over a year ago and for the most part that’s bad. One of the greatest things about MTG and MTGPQ is the constantly rotating blocks. The newness of each block makes it fun and challenging for at most a few weeks at a time. After a few weeks though it’s boring as the top decks have mostly been established and copied so many times you can play the same deck 5 times in a row. (Training Koth anyone?).

Playing the same events week after week have also become a boring grind to get the rewards leaving not much fun or challenges left in PQ.

One of the things I did enjoy when playing the card game was opening a new deck and some boosters and crafting a deck and playing in a tournament. It was always fun and oft times just as frustrating, but it was always challenging. Creating the new decks and then playing them kept the game feeling new.  I’d like to see a variation on that for PQ. 

Since PQ is much more color oriented than the card game it would work something like this. Every day  you could purchase 1 premium pack consisting of 5 single color packs (Bue for Monday, White for Tuesday…. etc) . These premium packs would be based on the standard format, you would create a deck from just those cards and then play another players creation from a deck they made… or perhaps maybe the AI choosing a deck from the same exact cards you purchased).  You could play this deck up to 10 times in a day with rewards progressing with each win. Get a perfect score and win a random rare or higher (it would be nice if it would be color specific).  The cost would be 200 Mana Crystals or purchase for a cost that’s less than the equivalent of purchasing 200 Mana Crystals.

There would be major benefits to both the players and the game itself. While not everyone could afford to purchase everyday (some will I know but they are already the ones spending lots of $$$). Some would be able to focus on certain colors. It also would encourage new players to learn about deck building along with presenting a challenge on a regular basis.

Once a month you could do a Legacy type event using cards from all blocks for a change of pace and give players a chance at older cards.

MTGPQ is an addicting game and once players have a chance at decent rewards along with a challenge that’s fair. (Training grounds is anything but fair for new players), they will continue to play. 

I’m not sure how much longer I’ll continue to play myself because I’m not challenged anymore by boring events that have objectives that run contrary to good deck building (leave less than xx life, play only 2 or less creatures/supports/spells…. Etc).   If one of the reasons Wizards allowed D3 to create this game was to get people to play the card game then good deck building, where the ultimate objective is to win, needs to be a goal for for PQ, not one in which we obtain rewards for objectives that are out of place in the card game.

Just a couple of thoughts from an old man……