What would D3 need to provide you in order to start saying nice things about the game again?

Sarahschmara

A comment on another thread got me thinking... what would turn me back into an active spokesperson for the game?

Meaningful rewards; the purple jewels are not rewarding to me. I'm not at all excited about them or the masterpiece packs. 

Respect for my time; being rewarded for logging in is one thing, being punished for failing to log in is another. 

Better communication; the lack of real communication is so frustrating. I hate that updates to "official policies" are hidden in replies to comment threads rather than easily found in their own thread. 

ManiiNames

Hope that thing will improve.

Corn_Noodles

A refund for my two elite packs. One pack gave me the exact same card 6 times in a row and the other pack they wouldn't replace because I already reached my "limit" with the previous pack. Until then, I have nothing nice to say.

Sarahschmara

It's stories like yours @Corn Noodles that make me not-at-all excited about those elite packs. 

Corn_Noodles

I'd post what support sent me, but I suspect I'll get banned for violating some silly rule.

Sarahschmara

Nah. I believe you... and I think you posted it in Phoenix Family slack. I remember being shocked that even @Brigby was unable to help you get a good resolution. Makes those purple jewels about as exciting as mud after reading what you and others have gone through. 

shteev

Card balance; AI; RSIcling; bugs; customer support; drop rates.

I think that's the bare minimum that would need to vastly improve if I was going to get one of my friends into this game and still have them respect my opinion at the end of a month or two.

Sirchombli

There's actually quite a bit that they would need to do. 

Something needs to be done about the reward system. The jewels are not exciting. The reasoning is twofold. For one, they're just another form of currency to give us another random booster. You could get a masterpiece, or you could get a janky mythic. Sure, there are good mythics, too. The split, lately has been one good mythic to 5 garbage mythics. The other is a bit more of an issue. There's no more masterpieces. Which leads me to believe that we're going to be paying the same price for just mythics in the next set. Maybe I'm wrong. This is a good transition into my next issue. 

Transparency, or rather the complete lack of it. What are drop rates? We've been asking since day 1 to tell us what drop rates are. We get crickets. We all know why we'll never get an answer, but the issue is never even addressed. Does d3 not respect it's player base? You guys promised us booster crafting months ago. Never got it. Many of us don't believe we're even going to get it at this point. Why? Because it's never mentioned. No progress reports. The. Best we get is that it's getting pushed back because sets. OK, but sets happen about every 3 months. 2 sets have released and we're nearing a third since the announcement. Forgive me for being cynical, but I think you can see why there's concern. 

The last is probably the most common gripe drop rates. I know I mentioned before that we want to know what they are, but whatever the answer is, they're insulting. There is absolutely no reason I should ever be able to open 12 packs and not have anything to show for it. I'm not talking about dupes. I'll get there, though. 12 packs, which is what I opened from prizes this week, zero rares or better. I go to the store and crack open a 15 card pack for 4 bucks. That's roughly what a 5 card pack in pq would cost if you were to buy a crystal pack. For my 4 dollars irl, I get 1 rare, 3 uncommons, 10 Commons and a basic land. Unless something went wrong at the plant, those cards are all going to be different, too. I open a booster in mtgpq, I could get 5 commons. I could get 5 copies of the same common. The only way to get a guarantee is to spend more. There's no exchange rate. 5 prize packs doesn't get you the same guarantee. The only way to get a guarantee is to spend. I understand that d3 is here to make money, but where's the incentive to support d3 when d3 doesn't respect me? Since I started this game a little over a year ago, every single update has taken something away from me, while asking me for more of my money. Why should I give you my money, though? You're going to essentially reward me with nothing. 

Alright. My final point is easily the biggest issue for me. Dupes. I open packs, I get dupes. I grind every 4 hours for 3 days I get dupes. I open a single pack, I get dupes. There are sooooo many cards I still need, but I'm getting nothing but dupes. Let's talk about hour. I'm still 17 rares short of having all of them. That means I have just over half. Why do I have 7 copies of vizier of the true? Why do I have 5 copies of vizier of the anointed? Why would I even want to open a pack when it's got like a 95% chance of being full of air? But booster crafting... What booster crafting? It's been half a year. I don't believe you when you say it's coming. With the current algorithm, I don't even know that it'll make a difference. I'm positive it'll have diminishing returns and I'm positive it'll give me more packs full of air. That doesn't really sound like incentive to me.

I really like this game, but the people that make it don't like me. They don't respect my time, my money, or my intelligence. It's been a roller coaster since I jumped on. There have been periods where tech issues made the game nearly unplayable. I pushed through. The system with packs changed, legitimately giving us less for our money. I pushed through. New form of currency and complete neutering of the reward system. I pushed through. The dev team quits. I pushed through. I'll keep playing because I enjoy mtg. I used to be a cheerleader for this game, but it's not what it used to be. It has huge issues and a team that neither delivers on promises, nor respects the people it relies on for income. It needs to change. I've decided that I'm not putting any more money in unless things get better. I'm not delusional. I understand that my money isn't going to hurt in the slightest. I'm just tired of flushing money down the toilet. If we get to a point that I feel respected again, I'll gladly champion this game. I still love playing. Until then, I'll just keep my mouth shut. I'm tired of complaining about this game and I've completely lost faith in d3. Man. This is a whole lot of words. Guess I had some stuff to get off my chest. 

norjee

They just need to make the game fun and rewarding for casual play again But i think my suggestions will make management choke with laughter.

Allow unlimited decks, it's ridiculous that a game that is about deck building charges and limits the number of decks you can build.

Add something like a monthly ladder and don't only have events. It's no fun to have to play every x hours. Allow me to play when i feel like it, allow me to not play a day when i don't want to. Win is move up the ladder, loss is move down. Don't only give the top 5 players at the end of month the big rewards, instead split the ladder in say 100 trees, one loss is move a tree down, win is move up, then split this in 10 tiers, so everyone that manages a net of 100 wins get the top reward. Be generous with these wins in terms of gold, 5+ gold/win, and runes.

More rewards for casual play would be nice the 1 card for a login every x hours feels like spitting in the face. I haven't seen a legendary, let alone masterpiece, since the packs you can buy for gold have been made smaller. Add rewards and daily quests (like play x red cards / do x damage) that reward you with cards/currency. Allow those quests to stack, so if you don't complete them on one day, allow me to do it later.
(a reward system that would make me happy would be that a daily quests gave my like 50 gold, so that after 4 days i'd be able to buy a super pack of 15 cards, and please, guarantee a rare, with a decent chance of mythic in these packs)

Tie the daily login bonus (where x daily logins give you a superpack ), to daily quests instead, and then make 21 quests done give you the biggest pack with guaranteed mythic). Just drop the other rewards if runes/gold can be acquired easily by daily play.

(this system is heavily inspired, only really taking account card acquisition, not runes, on another f2p tcg game. Though that game is real pvp. (It's unfortunate that mtgp decks consist of so few cards, which makes giving a bunch of cards daily unrealistic, but receiving a bunch of cards daily feels really great))

Need some way to make upgrading pw's with runes not a chore either, so make say 150 wins net you enough runes to push a pw to level 60)

Rework the event system in something that throws fewer events at me, that last a little longer and that don't need me to set an alarm to even get half decent rewards out of them. It'd also be neat if they don't need specific mythic cards to be competitive. Don't make peer pressure (aka coalitions) the driving force of them, allow non coalition players to be rewarded for their play as well.

Simplify the boardstate game, until kaladesh, things where rather simple. With kaladesh, the entire board became a highlight fest with each gem having some effect on them. Since there is absolutely no synergy between the effects of different sets, i found things became a hot-mess. I'd like more synergy and less boardstate. (Maybe the standard format helps here, i have no experience with it as i still find myself lacking the fun cards to play standard whereas i have some fun (mythic) cards to play the old sets).

(Speaking of having less fun cards for the new sets, for me this has been to nr one reason to move over to other games, mtgpq was fun when i had a few fun cards, then standard came, i had no fun cards for it, no means to acquire them apart from soaking lots of money in it, so i quit, now i collect my daily login and play a little when i feel like it, which is like once/week tops)

Then there is the performance of the app, my phone shuts the screen down due to inactivity while i'm waiting for the game to startup. Play a quick game? No way, wait a (few) minute(s) to get things loaded. I thought it was the unity engine that is to blame, many games suffer from it. It's also overkill to use a 3d engine for what is essentially a 2d game. But a game like hitman-go manages to load fast.

andrewvanmarle

A way to target specific cards, dupe free elite packs, rewards that feel rewarding and open ad transparant communication without double speak

TheDragonHermit

The ability to chose in support destruction
A longer QA process
Addressing game locking errors
More event overlays (something like supercharge for loyalty would be unspeakably fun)
A semi open Beta before major updates for about a week, to address the inevitable card issues
New set events, something to net players a decent amount of cards from the new set based on performance (see my sealed deck poll)

Phillmoore

Bring back quick battle 

TheDragonHermit

Oh hey, another thought, link a recovery option to the forums.

Kinesia

The lack of communication is the biggest thing. Everything else can be dealt with over time but only _after_ the communication is fixed. We need to know our feedback is listened too and respected.

This is _not_ a game owned completely by them in a vacuum. There is history and expectations. They have the potential of a long term relationship with Wizards but they need to treat us far closer to how Wizards treat people. They should be holding up the Wizards brand in _support_ as well as in game.

babar3355

1. Better communication

Honestly, that is about it.  If they told us what was going on and explained their rationale, I could support almost any move.  Nothing worse than being totally ignored.

Doomstat

Make it where we can target individual cards to purchase with purple gems. (Instead of those darn elite packs.)

I have been spending many, many crystals to try to get Inferno Jet in packs and it's driving me sane. I want one card, not even a Mythic or Masterpiece, and it eludes me in every pack. It seems like every time I pull a rare/mythic/masterpiece, it's a duplicate and I don't have that many from HoR. I only have one Masterpiece, and I've pulled 3... how does that work? (Happy to say that it's Slaughter Pact, though:) )

Giving the players a way to use these purple gems to target cards would give a secondary market feel to the game and allow players to gain what cards they want at a cost. I would gladly pay 240 purple crystals for a rare that has eluded me. Just double the price of elite packs for the rarity, maybe triple it for masterpieces. 

shteev

babar3355 said:

1. Better communication

Honestly, that is about it.  If they told us what was going on and explained their rationale, I could support almost any move.  Nothing worse than being totally ignored.

If the game wasn't constantly dogged by delays, and bugs, and traps for the unwary, and poor design, would we even need better communication? I went years without feeling the need for a constant back and forth between myself, the community, and paper MTG.

Grenade110

While the game does have issues I am still a supporter of it. 

I know fixes and updates take time. Changing of the guard takes time as well.

Do I want information on the future of MTGPQ? Yes I do. However, I know that I cannot speed up the process by griping about it. Therefore I patiently await updates and information. They will come I am sure of it. In the meantime I'll play and pay when I can and enjoy it.

Gilesclone

"We understand you have questions about bug fixes, missing content, and the new developers.  We're not going to answer any of those questions. Thank you for your patience. "

stikxs

Like norjee said (though, I didn't read the whole thing), more accessible to casual play. I don't have the time nor the inclination to spend hours rebuilding decks for different events, playing through charges and then have to come back some hours later to do it again. I don't know if something like making reward placement rank based on your personal win% would work better, but it'd certainly be a lot more conducive to casual players. Maybe on week A I only have time 1 or 2 charges per node for event X, while week B I have time for 8 charges per node (unrealistic but whatevs). This game just requires so much time when you have 3-5 nodes at 5-7(8?) charges each + refills when a single match can easily take 10 min if your hand/deck/gems don't fully cooperate.

Another issue I have is some of the objectives in events. Some that stand out in my head atm are the "take <15 damage" which is pretty **** to begin with on a high level PW when you aren't cheesing the matchup, but then it's also put on enraged nodes.... and you have to face a Chandra1, have fun. I also dislike the 5 vehicles in FiRF, it just feels a little high (also an enraged match). And freaking Bolas in RotGP, easy with obnix, but obnoxiously tedious cycling forever.

And the 1 free card/2 hours was just a big middle finger.

Kinesia

shteev said:

babar3355 said:

1. Better communication

Honestly, that is about it.  If they told us what was going on and explained their rationale, I could support almost any move.  Nothing worse than being totally ignored.

If the game wasn't constantly dogged by delays, and bugs, and traps for the unwary, and poor design, would we even need better communication? I went years without feeling the need for a constant back and forth between myself, the community, and paper MTG.

Perception bias. The communication was still happening and you were still a beneficary, it's just you weren't immediately involved.
Paper Magic had fairly good communication from early on, it not only listened to players but it explained back why it was doing things, it released rarity information, it even discussed the reasons behind design decisions and admitted to past mistakes. If the devs here had actually read the entire backlog of design articles describing the intent behind things a lot and the reasons for certain things then a lot of the problems we have wouldn't exist. They have adapted the _surface_ level of paper magic, but not the depth, not the full understanding that is actually out there for everyone to read.
So some of our frustration is that, because of the communication from Wizards, we actually know MORE about what this game is really meant to be and why than it seems the Devs do. They are behind.