Toxic Elite vs n00bs... going forward, how should they relate to each other?

shteev

I'm fascinated by how the hardcore players and the casual players relate to each other here on the forums. And I love a good scrap, me, so I thought I'd run a poll, to see where we all stand on the subject.

Every so often, there are going to be game elements which appeal to one group or the other, but which are hated by the other side. What's the best way of dealing with such issues, I wonder? Digging in, and demanding that the game be changed to favor only the side that we support, whilst disregarding the other side's wishes? Or looking for solutions which are ideal for both sides (or, at least, a compromise between the two)?

Phillmoore

All out war

Love this.  My opinion probably isn’t all out war.  But l Loved that answer.  Really game should be designed to appeal to both equally.  Good content for both sides to have fun with rewards being best for either developing pws or to enter events or buy more cards etc. Depending what the individual needs most 

Sarahschmara

Attempting to understand and be respectful of each other's position

Why am I not surprised by the results?

Gormhaus

Attempting to understand and be respectful of each other's position

Understanding is always the best option. I am not the person i was before and not the person i am tomorrow. This game is definately a harsh gradient of skill, luck and cards that you own. Be patient with each other.

Steeme

All out war

All out war.  Survival of the fittest.  May the game be tailored to those who fight for it.

TheDragonHermit

My experience as a noob here is that the "toxic" elite have been nothing but helpful, so I cannot vote for either option in the false dichotomy presented here. Put me up for a rising tide raises all boats. The elite have always seemed to give people who needed help a hand up, and the game works better for it.

Kinesia

Attempting to understand and be respectful of each other's position

The elite and the beginners are at different points in the journey, they need different rewards, different focusses, they don't need to contradict each other at all. There's a 3rd side to balance too, though, the company. All 3 need to be thought about. While we all want more rewards etc, if you think about "how to encourage noobs to keep playing" and "how to get the company money to keep the game going", if you always put forward an idea that deals with all 3 then you will be listened to by almost everyone. But, yeah, don't forget the company, instead of just wanting free stuff, tell them what will encourage you to buy stuff, we need that too.

madwren

Attempting to understand and be respectful of each other's position

TheDragonHermit said:

My experience as a noob here is that the "toxic" elite have been nothing but helpful, so I cannot vote for either option in the false dichotomy presented here. Put me up for a rising tide raises all boats. The elite have always seemed to give people who needed help a hand up, and the game works better for it.

Exactly. 

It's always disappointing when accusations of being self-serving are hurled at the upper-tier coalitions, despite there being reams of evidence to the contrary.  

Many of the long-time posters have gotten into scraps or disagreements about particular actions taken by d3 and Hibernum, but I think that most of them want the same thing--a viable game for both casual and hardcore players, that provides both stimulating and motivating content while providing a genuine path for meaningful progression.  While some of us disagree on the exact way this is to be accomplished, there has been a lot of heart and soul poured into the community, and I respect the passion of even those I don't always get along with. 

Kinesia said:

. But, yeah, don't forget the company, instead of just wanting free stuff, tell them what will encourage you to buy stuff, we need that too.

We definitely have done that. People have thought up things to buy with in-game currency, as well as encouraging them to create meaningful microtransactions for cards. What's odd is that occasionally they experimented with this type of things, but then would simply abandon it altogether without giving the community any feedback as to why. Why did they at one time make some uncommons purchaseable, but choose a set of uncommons that were virtually unplayable, instead of cards people clamored for? What happened to the "starter pack" for planeswalkers, which was 3 cards (one rare) for around $4.99?  Remember when we got 3 shots at mythic packs (before elite packs)? Where'd they go? 

Everything has just been so haphazard and random that we never know what to expect. 

Sarahschmara

Attempting to understand and be respectful of each other's position

@madwren I absolutely agree that, while we don’t always agree on the best route, we are all headed towards the same destination.

bk1234

I think it's time to stop stereotyping. 

Sirchombli

Attempting to understand and be respectful of each other's position

While, I wouldn't call myself toxic or elite, I'm no noob. The game sort of wrote us into separate camps in such a way that it's almost impossible for the new players' collections to catch up. I think that one of two things could help. 

First would be increasing card availability to newer players. Either via drop rates or beefing rewards back up a little bit. Cards is the primary division. Even dropping a bunch of money isn't a guarantee. Personally, I don't think this is realistic, so I'll move to option 2.

Adjust difficulty between mastery tiers. I've been playing with my super noobish alt a lot lately. Bronze with 6 pws, all below lvl 30. My main breezes through pve. My alt can't beat bolas. I can get a good 400 damage in, but my cards are bad, so he has a lot of chance to hail Mary and kill me out of nowhere. If he had like 300 or 400 up, it would still be tough, but manageable. I think that giving lower tiers a bit of a break on the pve matches would really go a long way towards building new players' collections, and bridging the gap between ogs and rookies. I know that the game is a touch unforgiving at first. 

bk1234

Sirchombli said:

Adjust difficulty between mastery tiers. 

I don't remember ever seeing this suggestion before and it's awesome. 

Ohboy

bken1234 said:

Sirchombli said:

Adjust difficulty between mastery tiers. 

I don't remember ever seeing this suggestion before and it's awesome. 

Same problem with people staying in lower tiers on purpose because there's no penalty for staying there for a softer group. 

Sorin81

A poll to get the general opinion of whether we should go to war or not. I don't think I like this concept.

Froggy

All out war

We all started out as noobs. I worked my way up. I won’t say I’m a Power Elite, but I do score well in events and my team is steadily moving up in overall ranking. I have been helped by very good players and I have helped new players. “All out war” is a little dramatic, but the idea of just having players really play to get better is what a game is all about.

Good game improvements are always welcome. And adjusting the difficulty on mastery levels to better fit players in general would be a good change that I would welcome.

Sirchombli

Attempting to understand and be respectful of each other's position

Ohboy

said 
Same problem with people staying in lower tiers on purpose because there's no penalty for staying there for a softer group. 

There are always going to be lazy people that sandbag in gold. There could be work arounds. The point is that as a platinum player, pve bosses are easy. That doesn't mean they aren't challenging, I'm just not working with a card pool as limited as a new player. That's essentially punishing new players. 

Ohboy

Sirchombli said:

Ohboy

said 
Same problem with people staying in lower tiers on purpose because there's no penalty for staying there for a softer group. 

There are always going to be lazy people that sandbag in gold. There could be work arounds. The point is that as a platinum player, pve bosses are easy. That doesn't mean they aren't challenging, I'm just not working with a card pool as limited as a new player. That's essentially punishing new players. 

I'm not saying that a solution isn't necessary. I'm saying the proposed solution is just a variant of one that has been discussed before and dismissed, not a new one.

There needs to be a penalty imposed on people who don't move up if this is implemented. The carrot and the stick. It's as simple as that. And people are unwilling to support that idea. 

bk1234

Ohboy said:

Sirchombli said:

Ohboy

said 
Same problem with people staying in lower tiers on purpose because there's no penalty for staying there for a softer group. 

There are always going to be lazy people that sandbag in gold. There could be work arounds. The point is that as a platinum player, pve bosses are easy. That doesn't mean they aren't challenging, I'm just not working with a card pool as limited as a new player. That's essentially punishing new players. 

I'm not saying that a solution isn't necessary. I'm saying the proposed solution is just a variant of one that has been discussed before and dismissed, not a new one.

There needs to be a penalty imposed on people who don't move up if this is implemented. The carrot and the stick. It's as simple as that. And people are unwilling to support that idea. 

I think the penalty is worse rewards. I think better rewards such as runes for mastering cards would be more effective. Positive reinforcement generally trumps negative. 

Doomstat

Once you hit platinum, there is no reason to master cards anymore. Why try something new when tried and true works every time? I agree with @Bkon1234. A reward for mastering cards would be appreciated, for both old and newer players alike.

Give us a reason to play new and different cards, besides just rotations.

Kinesia

Attempting to understand and be respectful of each other's position

That's a simple and elegant thing that fixes a few problems at once... Runes are hard to get and we need to encourage people to master cards, so how about, with the current mastery points, getting 10 runes for each +Mastery point. (Numbers can be modified.)

ElvaanStride

TheDragonHermit said:

My experience as a noob here is that the "toxic" elite have been nothing but helpful, so I cannot vote for either option in the false dichotomy presented here. Put me up for a rising tide raises all boats. The elite have always seemed to give people who needed help a hand up, and the game works better for it.

This is 100% truth.

Within a day of joining the Forums I got tons of advice and invited to a Discord group full of veterans who have been nothing helpful and nice.

Tomorrow will be two weeks since starting this game and I am way further along progression-wise than I should be.