Mana Jewels - Simply not as much fun.

babar3355

When mana jewels first came out many people were angry about them.  I was not one of those people.  I was certainly upset about a lot of things at the time (massive prize nerfs, increase to pack costs, etc) but I actually thought mana jewels would be a good thing.  Not only did it allow players who weren't at the top of the contest to get a piece of a mythic but it allowed targeting of specific mythics.  This seemed like a huge positive for players across the spectrum.

But after many months of collecting and spending jewels I have to say, it is WAY less fun than the old way. 

It used to be that if you were in a top 10 coalition or were a top 5 players in an event when you loaded the game up you would get a random mythic.  It got my adrenaline going to know that I might crack open a Startled Awake or a Metalworks Collosus and there was fear over seeing yet another duplicate, or worse Yaheeni or Mind's Dilation.

After events, slack and discord channels would erupt with all of the new cards that people attained.  Congratulations and condolences were thrown around and deck ideas started popping up and adding livelihood to the community.

Now what?  We log into to see our 5th or 6th copy of the same rare card.  Maybe 1 person opens a mythic from their pack and get a few congrats from the crowd.  There is nothing exciting or engaging about 25 mana jewels or even 60/80 mana jewels.  Honestly, even 300 mana jewels isn't that exciting.

Not only did the community fun aspect get butchered, but even using your mana jewels isn't particularly fun.  I sit and wait for weeks and weeks, grinding ceaselessly while passing on packs full of worthless cards that I would never use.  Finally, a pack comes up with some good cards in it and in the span of 1-2 days I spend most of my collected jewels, get a few new cards and/or some pack rerolls, and go back to the endless grind.

I guess ultimately, it feels like I am spending my hard earned cash rather than winning a prize.  Winning feels awesome and is a highly addictive behavior.  But for the vast majority of people, spending money gives a negative reaction.

I am not saying there is an easy fix to this... but even if players in top 10 coalitions got 400 jewels each contest, it would still be much less fun than the good ole days. 

TheDragonHermit

I remember when they started doing Mana Jewels and getting frustrated that the main means of obtaining them was behind a crystal paywall. I decided that my crystals would be better used on PWs and saw people saying that the rewards were not all that worth the effort, so after the first week I decided to ignore them, now I don't really notice them, they are just a number at the top of my screen that never changes to me, not a currency. 

babar3355

Perhaps this problem is less a problem with the mana jewels and more a problem with the elite packs.  I have no idea why they don't create more options for spending this currency.  How about a random mythic from a standard set for 300 jewels and legacy set for 200?  Or from a specific color?  

If they don't want to do that then why not rotate the sets more quickly? Or have a KLD block and AHK block going at the same time?  Why not BFZ, ORI, and SOI too?

Then again, maybe I wouldn't be complaining if the mythics and masterpeices in HOU weren't such utter garbage for the most part. 

TheDragonHermit

I think the elite packs were a good idea and was part of an attempt to address some of the complaints regarding austerity, but it missed the mark with both price, I at least found the cost of the elite packs high enough that I decided not to bother, and impact, the stuff within the packs tended to be underwhelming for the price, though I think top ten players in the "toxic elite" wouldn't mind winning them. Add to that the random draw and ever-changing rules on rerolls that makes it seem like the CS people are making it up as they go along and Mana Jewels kinda ended up a hot mess.

babar3355

Us toxic elitists don't like bad cards any more than anyone else

The rerolls are the only thing that makes the system even remotely bearable.  At least if I spend my months worth of jewels I wont get the only card in the pack that I already opened.

Gilesclone

The elite packs are bad enough in normal circumstances, the current situation makes them nearly completely worthless 

shteev

I've got 1,500j and no reason to spend them... the odds of me getting a relevant card out of a purple booster are practically zero. I was just thinking the other day that if I could spend jewels on deck slots, I would. You could say that I may as well spend them because there's nothing else for me to spend them on, but while I'm winning my games with what I've got I don't see the point.

I'm not spending crystals at the moment either for the very same reason. Or money, for that matter.

This is what power creep has done for the game.

TheDragonHermit

I am starting to get in that position with crystals, I have gotten all the PWs I want and am now focused on runes to get them to 60, I have no wish to buy more packs, I am hoarding enough as is, so I have been finding myself in a bit of a rut.

ElfNeedsFood

We haven’t had a new card added to the game in a month. Of course things are getting stale. 

shteev

ElfNeedsFood said:

We haven’t had a new card added to the game in a month. Of course things are getting stale. 

I haven't spent any type of currency on cards from HOR. I've got 2 masterpieces from the set, and one of those is from the free purple pack they accidentally gave away...

hawkyh1

with the delay in updating the hou cards, players
like myself are hoarding hou packs. without
opening my hou packs I don't know if I'll get
lucky on any of the mythics. I then end up not
spending on elite packs as I don't know which
rotation to target. as there is no other way to use
my jewels I just hold onto them. mana jewels is
not half as flexible as crystals.

HH

Fiddler

Got my 4th masterpiece yesterday. This one from a booster. That makes two purchased with jewels and two found in boosters so far. I find using the jewels frightening. I stopped spending money, and so they are slow to accumulate. Its not fun to spend months grinding towards getting 400 and then taking a chance on getting an unplayable masterpiece. 

Emanon2000

Be happy you have 4!

I've been playing AND Paying for a year and a half and haven't seen a Masterpiece YET!  (I know MP's haven't been around that long... Just sayin')

shteev

Emanon2000 said:

Be happy you have 4!

I've been playing AND Paying for a year and a half and haven't seen a Masterpiece YET!  (I know MP's haven't been around that long... Just sayin')

Dyou know, I'd rather have none than the single Counterspell I own

Sarahschmara

Yeah. It took a long time to accumulate those silly purple things and now I'm too afraid to spend them on something I don't really want. 

babar3355

@sarahschmara @fiddler This is exactly what I mean.  They changed the feeling from "Winning a Prize - YAY" to "Pulling out my wallet - UGH".  Also, since there are usually more cards you don't want than you do want, it feels scary and quite bad when you get one of the worthless ones.

TheDragonHermit

Thanks again all. This is really making me feel, not good, justified not having wasted my time with jewels

Sirchombli

I'm sort of at the point where I'm playing just to play. There really is no gain. I'm going to complete another play set of a rare and get a couple dozen money things that get me something I don't want. I understand that the newer players want to feel that they can compete. So we get to just sit back and say go team? There's got to be a way to make new players happy without pulling a Robin Hood move on higher level players. And unless there are going to be mtgpq exclusive masterpieces, the whole "draw" to the elite packs is gone in the next set. At this point, I don't even know what it would take to fix the issue, but it's definitely not doing anything for me. I'm glad I still need like 3 pws. At least crystals still matter. 

shteev

There's a quick and easy solution to solving this problem; just bump up the power levels of Masterpiece cards to impossible levels. Maybe even Mythics, too. This would make it exciting to open purple boosters again, and it would also seem like a good way of milking some money out of whales.

I imagine that's the kind of solution JC would have come up with in the old days, and I imagine it's also the kind of solution that anyone from D3 who happens to have tripped across this thread has throught of, too.

Of course, this would seal the game in an impenetrable pay-to-win bubble, but I bet no-one at D3 thinks that's a bad thing.

if I was y'all, I'd come up with a better solution. Me, I've long since stopped giving unsolicited advice to D3 about how to improve their game, but if some of you are less jaded than me, and think the new dev time would listen to your ideas, now is definitely the time to speak up.

babar3355

Done @shteev!

Step 1: Make it possible to collect the entire set (at least all of the mythics and below) with enough time, money, and skill.

Step 2: Change event brackets to pair players together based on skill rather than color mastery.  This will allow newer players and/or noobs to battle each other and eliminate the need for the mass austerity to prizes.

Step 3:  Return prizes to their former glory so that end game players actually enjoy playing the game.

There are plenty of other changes I would like to see, but these are the things that would rejuvenate the player base.

shteev

@babar3355 but what do you think they should do specifically about jewels?