A Plea to Oktagon and D3

babar3355

James13 said:

I don't see why I or anyone else "has" to get more.  We don't even have crafting yet, so I'm reserving any comments till then.  Having perfect collections of all mythics is not good for the game generally, IMO.

Why would collecting all of the cards be not good for the game?  I have heard this sentiment before but I don't understand.  If the fear is dominant strategies then the issue is card balance. And unlike in paper where they have to ban certain cards, MTGPQ can just nerf or buff cards at their leisure.

I personally think it sucks that I will never get to play with any of the MP swords, Startled Awake, and many other awesome cards that look like a ton of fun.  Why create content where only 10% of the player base will ever get to use them?

I also think it would be a lot of fun to be able to share deck ideas and talk deck tech with other forum users.  There is very little of this compared to other MTG games because we can't acquire the cards to build the deck.

As an aside, I think they should increase the deck size as you tier up in rank/color mastery.  I really don't understand why we only have 10 card decks throughout the game.

Anyway, I can appreciate your stance but would love for you to elaborate on why collectability would be bad for the game.  Thanks!

TheDragonHermit

babar3355 said:

The community has already recommended dozens of fresh and fun game modes that would keep players engaged.

This is the part that has often baffled me. They have a vast source of free ideas and they don't do much with them. I can only assume they are issues in communication, getting the ideas from the forum to the developers, execution, or, and I truly hope this is not the case, apathy

Ohboy

babar3355 said:

James13 said:

I don't see why I or anyone else "has" to get more.  We don't even have crafting yet, so I'm reserving any comments till then.  Having perfect collections of all mythics is not good for the game generally, IMO.

Why would collecting all of the cards be not good for the game?  I have heard this sentiment before but I don't understand.  If the fear is dominant strategies then the issue is card balance. And unlike in paper where they have to ban certain cards, MTGPQ can just nerf or buff cards at their leisure.

I personally think it sucks that I will never get to play with any of the MP swords, Startled Awake, and many other awesome cards that look like a ton of fun.  Why create content where only 10% of the player base will ever get to use them?

I also think it would be a lot of fun to be able to share deck ideas and talk deck tech with other forum users.  There is very little of this compared to other MTG games because we can't acquire the cards to build the deck.

As an aside, I think they should increase the deck size as you tier up in rank/color mastery.  I really don't understand why we only have 10 card decks throughout the game.

Anyway, I can appreciate your stance but would love for you to elaborate on why collectability would be bad for the game.  Thanks!

The chase is part of the fun.

Consider the dog that finally catches the car.

Ohboy

Sarahschmara said:

Ohboy said:

Sarahschmara said:

MADAFAKA said:

Nice post and thank you for reposting.
But I'm in favor of nerfing top 10 coalition prices (no mythics)

I disagree. After all, I still have my collection. They just made it more difficult for others to catch up. A rising tide lifts all boats or something. 

Edit: I got most of my mythics from the guaranteed rare PLUS (what happened to the chance, however slight, of a better card?!?) top 25 reward which was typically achievable with 12-14 “all in” players. I’ve only started playing top ten because of lack of interest with my vast team of skilled slackers. I’d much rather go back to my casual team. So, yeah, if you can outscore me, you can have my spot in a top ten team. It’s not that difficult to be “elite.”

If only the point wasn't to decrease the pull the top and bottom closer, this would be the case.

But like you said, you already have your collection and headstart, so it's necessary to pull the bottom at a higher rate than the top.

Oof. It seems as if you completely misunderstood my point. They actually reduced prizes for everyone, not just the top. They made it harder for new players to collect cards and catch up. It’s misleading to imply otherwise. 

They reduced the top more than the bottom.

This means the bottom accelerates towards the top, otherwise known as catching up.

I think calculations were done before for new players that showed they were practically net neutral. In all that elaboration you gave on how prizes fell for top players(everyone knows that), you missed out on this detail. Perhaps you have numbers to share on this as well?

James13

babar3355 said:

Anyway, I can appreciate your stance but would love for you to elaborate on why collectability would be bad for the game.  Thanks!

With perfect collections there's no real goals left.  Rankings and booster collections become meaningless.  The heart and soul of the game and similar collectible games is in the chase.  Further, imperfect collections breed creativity in using what you have.

Just as a quick example we can point to MTGO where all cards are purchasable for cash.  Competitive high-end games are often monotonous slogs through the same builds with the same cards over and over.  Ad naseum, Storm, Tron, etc.

I just predict that in the absence of any chase, where everything is obtained too easily, generalized interest wanes dramatically with only a few "hardcore" outliers.

babar3355

@ohboy and @james13 I think you both have fair points.  Chasing cards does add to the fun.  And perhaps most players would never reach full completion on any given set.  But perhaps 5-25% of players who are willing to put in the effort and/or money can reach the completion point.  Some players like the chase, some like to complete the set.  By no means am I saying they should just give away all the cards immediately or that it should be easy/cheap to collect the whole set.  Just not 100% impossible. 

Again, MTG is unique in that there is always a new set on the horizon and the card synergies are fun to explore which means most players enjoy tinkering with decks rather than downloading the most recent pro-tour winning deck and buying all of the pieces.

But unless they really make booster crafting target specific cards, it will be rare for players to complete sets even if they bolstered prizes substantially and tripled drop rates of mythics/Mps.

As an example, I was in the #1 coalition during the KLD/AER block.  (About half the time we had mythic prizes).  I had multiple top 5 individual finishes, bought 2 of the cards, spent $100 on crystals to buy packs with, and won all 5 of the exclusive mythics.  Yet I currently own just 23 of the 40 mythics and 1 of the 20 MPs from that block.  Not even 60% of the mythics and 5% of the MPs.  I wonder what the average player experienced?  Is it not hard to imagine that we might have a lot of attrition from newer players when they realize they won't be able to play with but a handful of the best cards from each block?

In other words, even if they don't want to make the game collectible by most players they should still massively increase drop rates or decrease elite pack costs to make the game more approachable by newer players.

luckyvulpi

We can only speculate if letting all cards be collectable would be bad for the game since the rewards were changed shortly after.  What we do know is constantly reducing rewards IS bad for the game as evidence by the notanotherdime movement, loss of players and the fact that Hibernum shut down.

MTGO is a slugfest of the same decks only if you play modern or legacy where the high powerlevel of old cards make it hard for new cards to make any sort of impact.  If you play Standard, the format we have now, then you would know decks are constantly changing and evolving with each release of new sets and the loss of old sets.  If mtgpq allowed anyone who put in time and effort to collect all the cards then a constant stream of new cards to collect in the form of sets would fix the problem people have of having no reason to play if they have already collected everything

bk1234

TomB said:

I think that if you want newer players to be more competitive right out of the box the starting decks you get with new  PW's should be better. The garbage most of them come with make early story mode tough enough as it is, but playing in events against other people's decks with them is downright painful.

I agree with this -- it's well past time for the original 5 to be buffed. 

Kinesia

bken1234 said:

TomB said:

I think that if you want newer players to be more competitive right out of the box the starting decks you get with new  PW's should be better. The garbage most of them come with make early story mode tough enough as it is, but playing in events against other people's decks with them is downright painful.

I agree with this -- it's well past time for the original 5 to be buffed. 

And I agree with this way of doing it... Buff their decks to work with their abilities, to be good _usable_ examples. Mostly their abilities don't really need changing, but their starter decks should give people a better idea of how to play them.

bk1234

Kinesia said:

bken1234 said:

TomB said:

I think that if you want newer players to be more competitive right out of the box the starting decks you get with new  PW's should be better. The garbage most of them come with make early story mode tough enough as it is, but playing in events against other people's decks with them is downright painful.

I agree with this -- it's well past time for the original 5 to be buffed. 

And I agree with this way of doing it... Buff their decks to work with their abilities, to be good _usable_ examples. Mostly their abilities don't really need changing, but their starter decks should give people a better idea of how to play them.

Their mana gains could use some buffing too -- it's very hard to be competitive against bosses in PVE with huge mana gains when you can't get anything out. 

Kinesia

bken1234 said:

Kinesia said:

bken1234 said:

TomB said:

I think that if you want newer players to be more competitive right out of the box the starting decks you get with new  PW's should be better. The garbage most of them come with make early story mode tough enough as it is, but playing in events against other people's decks with them is downright painful.

I agree with this -- it's well past time for the original 5 to be buffed. 

And I agree with this way of doing it... Buff their decks to work with their abilities, to be good _usable_ examples. Mostly their abilities don't really need changing, but their starter decks should give people a better idea of how to play them.

Their mana gains could use some buffing too -- it's very hard to be competitive against bosses in PVE with huge mana gains when you can't get anything out. 

Possibly true, not big buffs though.


Actually, instead of changing the starter decks, why not use those cards as the first examples of low cards to be rebalanced better

Mainloop25

How could you run out of cards to chase when new sets come out regularly? As long as the carrot isn't dangled too low, I don't see that being a big problem. 

Ohboy

Mainloop25 said:

How could you run out of cards to chase when new sets come out regularly? As long as the carrot isn't dangled too low, I don't see that being a big problem. 

Deja vu

 I have been here before, 
 But when or how I cannot tell: 
 I know the grass beyond the door, 
 The sweet, keen smell, 
 The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.

TomB

Ohboy said:

TomB said:

I think that if you want newer players to be more competitive right out of the box the starting decks you get with new  PW's should be better. The garbage most of them come with make early story mode tough enough as it is, but playing in events against other people's decks with them is downright painful.

Story mode is beautifully designed and paced for the beginner starting out. This possible because progression is slow and gradual.

If you take that player and ask him to play events, he's definitely going to have a hard time. But then if you give him the firepower to play competitively in events, he doesn't get to enjoy the challenge that story mode provides.

I think a lot of people make this mistake, thinking they should start out at the deep end. Pvp should start when chapter 3 of story mode is completed. 

I wasn't thinking of asking them to play in events - I was suggesting it would be nice if they could try it and not get totally annihilated when they do. A compromise might be to leave the decks of the starting 5 alone, since newbs can easily buy those right away, but perhaps improve the decks you get with the multi-color PW's to include some better cards and make them play kinda like pre-cons, you know, starter decks with a coherent theme.

babar3355

Ohboy said:

Deja vu

 I have been here before, 
 But when or how I cannot tell: 
 I know the grass beyond the door, 
 The sweet, keen smell, 
 The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.

That's actually quite beautiful.  Original?

Anyway, I have a question that I would appreciate a straight answer to @ohboy. 

Do you think the distribution of mythic and better cards is at the perfect long term profit maximization point?  And why did you come to that conclusion?

Ultimately we both want this game to succeed even though we clearly don't see eye to eye.  I am laying out my case for why I think the distribution rate is far too low to maximize profits.  Perhaps you think the distribution rate is still too high.  The hardest argument to make would be that the current rate is the perfect rate.  That would scream of anchoring bias, inertia bias, etc unless you had some really strong evidence. 

Theros

Collecting all cards is actually good from my experience in other card games
Creativity should be about how you use cards at your disposal to come up with strategies, the unexpected or uncommon. In that sense, people race to get as much as cards as possible for the sake of strategy, the unexpected and so on.

The problem with mtgpq is lack of card ballance; complete collection shouldn't be a problem. In this game, power is factor of witch specific bomb cards you got, not so much about strategy. Therefore, limiting complete collection makes sense to limit availability of top cards. In mtgpq, decks are similar because there realy no other alternatives. Decks are quite predictable.

From my exp from other games, chasing cards is fun causee you get  to try so many ideas. Facing similar decks is very rare, more fun and so much unpredictability.

People who think complete collection is bad would be  in favor of the existing dupe system. If not for dupes many people that have invested time or time&money would have been at least near complete collection, despite the nerf in rewards. I'm sure the majority in here does not like wasted time, money and effort for dupes.

D3 would like us to spend as much as possible for chasing cards and at the same time complete collection is not good for the game. This a serious dichotomy

If complete collection is really that bad, it makes sense all players not to spend another dime.
Why do we spend a dime in the first place?

James13. Getting all card easy should not be detrimental. In a reasonable balanced games, people look more forward to what they can do with cards, not chasing cards. From the complains on forums about dupes, players do not see any fun in chasing cards

Ohboy

D3 would like us to spend as much for chasing cards and at the same time complete collection is not good for the game. This a serious dichotomy

Of complete collection is really that bad,it makes sense all players not to spend another dime.
Why do we spend a dime in the first place?

There's no contradiction here. What's good for the game isn't necessarily best for the player or the devs. Let's take a real life example here. Obviously giving out mythics like candy at halloween was great for the game. It got people hyped, and everyone was super active because candy!

But is it good for the player? Sure, for the chosen few. But merit based rewards that feedback into getting the same players into a stronger position is bad for all but the few who get there. Eventually the gulf widens to the point a new player joins and realises there's no point. A whale joins the game and realises no amount of money will allow him to catch up. Worse, he realises if/when he catches up that there's no point in spending any more money. This is bad for the company.

The goal of mobile games like these are to dangle bait so that they can hook a few whales. No, not you people who spend $100 here and there. You pay the bills and that's much appreciated, but the year end bonuses come from the whales. The goal is to catch one that spends tens of thousands a month. And you can't bait that hook unless there's something to chase that few others have. They want everyone to chase. And it's not good for the game(for reasons others have highlighted so many times).

Of complete collection is really that bad,it makes sense all players not to spend another dime.
Why do we spend a dime in the first place?

A complete collection is bad, because people don't spend money anymore. People spend money to try to approach(but ideally almost never reach) that goal. Again, there's no contradiction here. If anything, you've strengthened the argument that no one should have complete collections.

Matthew

Ohboy said:

A complete collection is bad, because people don't spend money anymore. People spend money to try to approach(but ideally almost never reach) that goal. Again, there's no contradiction here. If anything, you've strengthened the argument that no one should have complete collections.

Part of what you're overlooking here, or maybe just misunderstanding, is that those of us who are arguing for a realistic possibility to collect all of the cards are not saying it needs to happen all at once. I don't think it even needs to happen in the 3-month space where a set of cards is the newest in rotation. It merely needs to be a realistic possibility to collect everything over a time frame of several months rather than one that stretches into a double-digit count of years.

People are going to spend the most money on cards in the current rotation. The nature of MTG's continuous flow of new content dictates this. Furthermore, I have no problem with D3 trying to maximize their profit margins from the current set. It makes the most sense for them to do it this way, because those cards have historically been needed to participate fully in events, and thus people are more likely to spend money to try to get them.

However, upping drop rates for older sets that are on the tail-end of Standard, or which are no longer considered Standard, is something that should happen. Legacy event rewards at this point are paltry. I just can't see how it could hurt them to open the gates a bit more on the flow of cards from those older sets, given the fact that the bulk of the game's income almost certainly stems from the new cards.

Ohboy

babar3355 said:

That's actually quite beautiful.  Original?

I wish. It's the first part of the poem . The whole thing is beautiful. I heard it once recited on TV as a kid and it's stuck with me.

http://www.potw.org/archive/potw52.html Anyway, I have a question that I would appreciate a straight answer to @ohboy.  Do you think the distribution of mythic and better cards is at the perfect long term profit maximization point?  And why did you come to that conclusion?Ultimately we both want this game to succeed even though we clearly don't see eye to eye.  I am laying out my case for why I think the distribution rate is far too low to maximize profits.  Perhaps you think the distribution rate is still too high.  The hardest argument to make would be that the current rate is the perfect rate.  That would scream of anchoring bias, inertia bias, etc unless you had some really strong evidence. 
No, like you, I wish they were better, and I think they could be better. Where we differ is where we think we are. To me you are the naive optimist who thinks that they have a choice to give us better rewards. To you I am a pessimist who thinks the game requires bad rewards to succeed.

My stance is well documented and hasn't changed at all. The game burned through it's capital early by giving out ridiculous amounts of it away in the form of guaranteed mythics. I thought that was a bad move and would result in a deadly backlash later when they were forced to stop this obviously unsustainable free giveaway madness. I liked the increased rewards(having already resigned myself to the 2 big boxes available during storymode as my lifetime earnings), and didn't want it all taken away later on to satisfy the current top 1% of players(of which I was one by the way. Let's put that sour grapes argument to rest). I blame the top players for campaigning against the sensible solution, and when you call the devs greedy, it just sets me off. Because to me, we are the greedy ones who deserve to be punished. I remember the days when my expected monthly "income" was 1 fat pack IF I logged on EVERYDAY of the month(all 30 days in February!). Anything they do to avoid going back to those days is absolutely generous in my opinion.

So now that what I feared(and was unable to convince them to avoid) came to pass, I am sad. And pissed. But mostly sad. Because this was preventable from the start. If you had asked me what a good balance was at the beginning of the game, we would have seen eye to eye I think. I think the OGW pve events era was about the correct place for rewards. Maybe a little too much...but definitely in the right vicinity. We got lots of boosters,crystals and runes to keep us excited. But no guaranteed mythics to give some people a shortcut.

But this is not then. We're now standing in the aftermath of a big giveaway. It's obvious things are bad. They can't just give us that "optimal value" I'm talking about last paragraph, because they've already given it away. They have precious little capital left to give out. I recognise that, and am frustrated that you don't because it's so obvious. You can't squeeze blood from a stone. There's no point putting up countless threads that turn players away, and organising boycotts that just hurt your root cause even more(by cutting off their revenue). I want better rewards in the form of more boosters and currency. I know it's possible. But the current rewards scheme is necessary while the team tries to recover(and not outright die). Your demands for more are worthless because they will never come to pass. You can choose to hunker down and ride out the storm together or run around creating more chaos. You repeatedly choose to do the latter. That's why we're in conflict.

In summary, my vision for the game probably isn't far off from yours. It's the journey to get there that we disagree on. Vehemently.

Ohboy

Matthew said:

Ohboy said:

A complete collection is bad, because people don't spend money anymore. People spend money to try to approach(but ideally almost never reach) that goal. Again, there's no contradiction here. If anything, you've strengthened the argument that no one should have complete collections.

Part of what you're overlooking here, or maybe just misunderstanding, is that those of us who are arguing for a realistic possibility to collect all of the cards are not saying it needs to happen all at once. I don't think it even needs to happen in the 3-month space where a set of cards is the newest in rotation. It merely needs to be a realistic possibility to collect everything over a time frame of several months rather than one that stretches into a double-digit count of years.

People are going to spend the most money on cards in the current rotation. The nature of MTG's continuous flow of new content dictates this. Furthermore, I have no problem with D3 trying to maximize their profit margins from the current set. It makes the most sense for them to do it this way, because those cards have historically been needed to participate fully in events, and thus people are more likely to spend money to try to get them.

However, upping drop rates for older sets that are on the tail-end of Standard, or which are no longer considered Standard, is something that should happen. Legacy event rewards at this point are paltry. I just can't see how it could hurt them to open the gates a bit more on the flow of cards from those older sets, given the fact that the bulk of the game's income almost certainly stems from the new cards.

I will remind you that prizes being primarily being standard are a community driven request, and aimed at helping new players get up to speed in the fastest possible manner.

I do agree they should make legacy more easily lootable if desired. The discount on origins could be applied to legacy, maybe even at a lower price, and I would applaud it.