Duplicates vs packs = ridiculous

Tiburon

Long time player of MTG, semi newish to MTGPQ

I had been saving crystals up for quite some time for when Nicol Bolas came out, turns out I didn't need as many as I had accumulated. Since I had most of the planeswalkers I wanted, and determined that I didn't have the runes or time to commit to more planeswalkers, I should get some new cards with my excess crystals.

What a mistake that was, even with this new crafting **** (prices are insane vs accumulation) I received no Mythics and 1 new rare from purchasing 3 new packs and 1 origins. The rest went to crafting for a grand total of 1320ish orbs.

I see little reason to play anymore if this is the rate at which I will receive new cards...using cards IS THE **** POINT OF PLAYING MAGIC, I believe bottle necking the flow of cards to players is detrimental to this games health. We all want to configure our decks and play with them, and really the only thing to keep playing is getting new cards.

I think the boosters should cost slightly more than they do now and contain 0 duplicates. Now when I save up say 800crystals and purchase a new pack I can be assured I will have new fun things to play with...not a few lumps of coal I can turn into (likely) a card I didn't even want.

Also in the crafting the only way this is worth it, is if we get to pick exactly the card we want. Stop with all this random ****....never walk into a card store and just buy the one you friggin' want? How do you think us peasants play this game?

Theros

people qull realise that the new crafting system is not useful  once  people spend all their accumulated orbs and get bored of them new toys. this crafting is very expensive. The least they could do is to add crafting  by color or set. the system is only useful for getting as many mythic using accumulated orbs. beyond that is not that helpful. according to my projection the most you could get is 6000 Orbs/month max playing all events and totps and ranking high. this is like extra 1 or 2 mythic a month
 

James13

I'm not sure collecting an entire set including all mythics and masterpieces for under 6k crystals (at your proposed 800 per 5booster+1) would be healthy for the viability of the game, sorry.

Booster crafting is the most generous thing I've seen in a microtransaction supported f2p game thus far.  I'm a little taken aback that a guaranteed non-dupe mythic a month is already being called insufficient.

Bigred5442

i am not sure how quickly you need to get new cards for it to seem like a good system for you. my calculations are basically double yours, based on platinum rewards (not sure if lower tiers get less boosters/rares in events, or just less crystals/runes) and completing maybe 75-80 % of events. it also correlates with the actual rewords ive received since crafting dropped, i am crafting a origins mythic a week so far.

That works out to 3-4 origins/legacy mythics a month, which seems pretty good to me.  it will take a while to get everything, and sure i would love to be able to target specific cards, but i am pretty happy with crafting as a whole.

i just wish they would make the elite packs not have dupes, saving up all that time to get a dupe, even with crafting, is still a bad experience.

Theros

Bigred5442 said:

i am not sure how quickly you need to get new cards for it to seem like a good system for you. my calculations are basically double yours, based on platinum rewards (not sure if lower tiers get less boosters/rares in events, or just less crystals/runes) and completing maybe 75-80 % of events. it also correlates with the actual rewords ive received since crafting dropped, i am crafting a origins mythic a week so far.

That works out to 3-4 origins/legacy mythics a month, which seems pretty good to me.  it will take a while to get everything, and sure i would love to be able to target specific cards, but i am pretty happy with crafting as a whole.

i just wish they would make the elite packs not have dupes, saving up all that time to get a dupe, even with crafting, is still a bad experience.

How did you come out with 3 to 4 origin/legacy mythic a month? a breakdown will be useful.

wereotter

Bigred5442 said:

(not sure if lower tiers get less boosters/rares in events, or just less crystals/runes) 

They do. That's the incentive for tiering up.

It's good for low level players not to face off against long-term players, so they offer incentives to players to tier up.

hawkyh1

someone in my coalition uses temple because he doesn't
have shrine. I use shrine because I don't have temple
being able to target cards removes this variation of play?
with the introduction of booster crafting, mythics are more
accessible than they used to be.

HH

Bigred5442

it was based on number of packs and rares rewarded from events (including ToTP), plus the daily rewards, plus the 2 hour rewards, basically all the packs/cards you could earn in a week, assuming you place high enough in events to get a pack and rare.

i cut the max number by about 80%, because i don't always play every event that isn't coalition, and don't always place high enough to get the pack and rare.

i also factored in the drop rates for rares and mythics that Voltar (think that is his name) posted to get a more accurate orb count. worked out to something like 4 rares and a mythic / month dropped from the packs calculated above, then dived by 4 weeks.

i used the 60 orb minimum for a pack, plus the stuff stated above, and i came up with between 2500 and 3000 orbs / week, which matches my experience so far.

if you don't play that much, you will obviously get less orbs, and if you are spending crystals on packs (i don't at the moment, saving for ixalian) you would get more once they are converted. if you don't have a lot of cards you would also get less as they wont have as many dupe conversions.

i don't have the exact calculations i did any more (was in a spreadsheet i deleted after doing it) but it shouldn't be hard for you to recreate it from what i wrote above, if you think I'm not correct. but as i said, so far my results have matched my calculations. i have crafted one origins mythic a week after spending all the mana orbs i received after conversion.

Hateborn

James13 said:

I'm not sure collecting an entire set including all mythics and masterpieces for under 6k crystals (at your proposed 800 per 5booster+1) would be healthy for the viability of the game, sorry.

Booster crafting is the most generous thing I've seen in a microtransaction supported f2p game thus far.  I'm a little taken aback that a guaranteed non-dupe mythic a month is already being called insufficient.

While I have been quite happy with Booster Crafting (mainly because I had a giant pool of orbs to work with), I will admit that the OP is right - the prices are pretty high once you get past Origins and Legacy.  As for F2P games supported by microtransactions and generous, look at Hearthstone's card crafting.  In Hearthstone, a card breaks down for roughly 20-25% of the cost to craft a card of the same rarity, all sets cost the same to craft, and you pick exactly which cards to craft.  Both games give out freebies at similar rates and both also have around the same number of cards overall, Hearthstone just has a larger number of players and thus more people making purchases (so they can afford to be that much more generous). 

All that being said - I think the higher orb costs are fine or random is fine, but the combination of both is understandably frustrating, especially for newer players who don't have huge collections with just a few missing pieces.

Emanon2000

I could see this changing in a set or two... I think they had to draw the line due to so many players having a large duplicate pool since they had been waiting for crafting rather than converting to Runes.  Too low/cheap then too many players would have ALL/Most of the cards.   Many have returned with crafting but I'm sure there are many more that are waiting for another set before returning and getting that first BIG boost of Orbs.  If they lower the bar too soon I think there could be a bigger issue (personally).

Hateborn

Emanon2000 said:

I could see this changing in a set or two... I think they had to draw the line due to so many players having a large duplicate pool since they had been waiting for crafting rather than converting to Runes.  Too low/cheap then too many players would have ALL/Most of the cards.   Many have returned with crafting but I'm sure there are many more that are waiting for another set before returning and getting that first BIG boost of Orbs.  If they lower the bar too soon I think there could be a bigger issue (personally).

Totally agree and hopefully that will be the case - I hope the higher cost is temporary and, as you stated, mainly there to offset the initial influx of orbs that many players had from saving up for so long.  Either that, or if they keep the costs where they are, they just let us pick what we want for those prices.

span_argoman

Hateborn said:

While I have been quite happy with Booster Crafting (mainly because I had a giant pool of orbs to work with), I will admit that the OP is right - the prices are pretty high once you get past Origins and Legacy.  As for F2P games supported by microtransactions and generous, look at Hearthstone's card crafting.  In Hearthstone, a card breaks down for roughly 20-25% of the cost to craft a card of the same rarity, all sets cost the same to craft, and you pick exactly which cards to craft.  Both games give out freebies at similar rates and both also have around the same number of cards overall, Hearthstone just has a larger number of players and thus more people making purchases (so they can afford to be that much more generous). 

All that being said - I think the higher orb costs are fine or random is fine, but the combination of both is understandably frustrating, especially for newer players who don't have huge collections with just a few missing pieces.

Unfortunately MtGPQ and Hearthstone don't give out freebies 'at similar rates'. In Hearthstone, they estimate you can earn 0.6 packs worth of Gold a day by optimising your quests. Plus the pack from Tavern Brawl, that's 5.2 packs a week.

In a week of events, MtGPQ at Platinum level gives you ~7 packs, enough Crystals for a Premium Pack (5 packs + 1 Guaranteed Rare), and 2-3 Guaranteed Rares. Add in TotP and that's another 2.5 packs and 1/4 of a Mythic a week.

That comes up to 14.5 packs, 3-4 Guaranteed Rares and 1/4 of a Mythic vs 5.2 packs a week. Hearthstone has nothing on MtGPQ in terms of giving out free stuff. And this calculation doesn't even include Daily Rewards, free boosters, Ranking or coalition rewards yet.

*edit*
Btw to those who think the conversion rates are too steep, by my calculations those who have managed to complete their collection with their stored up Orbs and who will continue to compete in MtGPQ at top levels are expected to be able to continue having complete collections except for the newest set for the foreseeable future.

bk1234

I used all of my orbs on day 1 and have been able to craft 2 legacy mythics with what I have made in dupes since. I think this is acceptable for only being 2 weeks into booster crafting. 

The point is for people to have access to better cards, but to still work to achieve that, not for everyone to have everything right away. 

I think the conversion rate is logical and fair, and it gives us a new thing to work towards and save for. 

I opened a KLD pack the other day (premium), it had 4 rares in it -- I have all of the commons, uncommons and rares from KLD, I didn't see a bunch of dupesn that would make runes I don't need since I have all of the PW and they are all leveled, I saw 750 orbs / or 25% of a legacy mythic that I otherwise wouldn't have. This is pretty spectacular to me. 

FindingHeart8

if everyone had every card, we'd see the same overpowered decks used again and again with little variety.  You wouldn't have to strategize and work with what you've got.  It would also be less exciting to get the good cards of the sets because everyone else already has that card anyways.

Sirchombli

This is far better than the dupe situation before crafting. Dupes are going to happen. Drop rates didn't change. After my initial orb expenditure, I've been able to craft 2 origins mythics and 3 legacy rares. Seems good to me, since before crafting, runes were completely worthless. Being a new player in this game is a little rough. I started around bfz, and didn't really feel like I had "arrived" until the tail end of aether revolt. Gitting gud is a process in this game. At least gitting gud toys is. 

TheDragonHermit

If you want to leave, go ahead. But at least acknowledge that booster crafting has given this game new life, that even though the prices are steep (which I don't think they are, I was expecting a little bit steeper) it gives a decent amount of control to the players that we haven't seen. So far Oktagon has done nothing but right by the players and I for one am excited to see what they have up their sleeves next, perhaps orbs as event rewards?

Mainloop25

I am almost 100% positive that they have mentioned implementing orbs as rewards in future events. 

bk1234

Mainloop25 said:

I am almost 100% positive that they have mentioned implementing orbs as rewards in future events. 

You are correct: 

"On release, the only way to obtain Mana Orbs will be via duplicate conversion, however, later on you may even be able to gain some Mana Orbs from Events!"

https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/69222/booster-crafting-details-updated-12-8-17#latest

Mainloop25

I
Yes, that was what I was referring to, but I did vaguely remember them using slippery language in that sentence. 

tfg76

I also think Orbs are fairly generous. I wish they would just do away with Jewels at this point and give out Orbs instead (but more of them!), or give guaranteed non-dupes (if possible within rarity) from Elite packs - i.e. if you have all the mythics you won't get a masterpiece unless you would have done so normally, but if you would have gotten a mythic, it would be non-dupe.

James13

It's hard to simply do away with a game currency.  And, to be fair, Jewels do still have some use that orbs do not.  Both in the context of increased masterpiece chance and in the context of curated pull pools which can be very favorable in the right conditions (like I anticipate using jewels when the next set releases and odds are high I won't have any/most of those pools yet).