Not Enough Mana Crystals Anymore

System

This discussion was created from comments split from: Happy H2 is in the Vault Day!.

FindingHeart8

Yeah this is The Great Depression for yellow crystals.  This is the first time I can't afford a planeswalker since I started playing this game lol.

Guess it's back to story mode to farm the untapped crystals I left their just in case something like this ever happened.

Gunmix25

FindingHeart8 said:

Yeah this is The Great Depression for yellow crystals.  This is the first time I can't afford a planeswalker since I started playing this game lol.

Guess it's back to story mode to farm the untapped crystals I left their just in case something like this ever happened.

NOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooo...... 

That stinks dude. Hopefully you'll be able to gather up enough for her soon. 

FindingHeart8

Gunmix25 said:

FindingHeart8 said:

Yeah this is The Great Depression for yellow crystals.  This is the first time I can't afford a planeswalker since I started playing this game lol.

Guess it's back to story mode to farm the untapped crystals I left their just in case something like this ever happened.

NOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooo...... 

That stinks dude. Hopefully you'll be able to gather up enough for her soon. 

it's not that big of a deal this time around.  I completed story mode before I ever tried to be competitive in events, but never had the patience to play the 5 matches required to complete the 10-crystal planeswalker rainbow.

After the ~300 crystal mythic single-card pack purchases, I held off gathering anymore crystals from story mode just in case that opportunity came around again and I needed another supply of quick crystals that was not rationed out by events.  There's at least a couple thousand untapped crystals I could harvest to make up the difference I need to get H2.

That being said, it's a finite supply...so I won't be able to fall back on this safety net if this crystal-drought continues forever.

That also being said, I doubt a lot of us will be still playing this game if they continue to make it this difficult to obtain in-game currency long-term.

TomB

Meh...I'm thinking I'm currently in crystal deficit mode mostly due to the rapid-fire releases of XLN and RIX the last couple months (and my personal insistence on acquiring a decent amount of cards in each) and things will get better once the dust settles...

FindingHeart8

That's what I'm hoping for too, which is why I don't feel bad emptying the vaults

FeralSkald

I've asked before, but I'd love to see an option to purchase story mode reset with a large number of runes. Enough that you couldn't just reset and farm crystal's repeatedly, but somewhere in the 100-300k rune area. I actually enjoyed story mode and still play it time to time, but a little incentive to revisit it would be nice.

speakupaskanswer

I feel that depression too. I really wanted Angrath (and he's worth it) and I really want H2 but I'm still short of crystals for her. I expect to get there in the next couple of days, but I rarely had to fight so hard for every single crystal. And it made me not get almost any RIX packs which is doubly hard because they almost don't exist as prizes either while IXN packs are in overabundance. Let me get this straight: the content is as good as it has been in a long time but it's hard to get it (well, unless you want to spend a lot of actual money).

Sirchombli

I really don't think we'd be feeling this if not for 2 sets releasing 3 weeks apart . I think I'm going to be salty about that for a while. That was hot hot garbage 

Froggy

But I think that non-top tier players are taking the biggest hit for this.

I won’t suffer from a lack of crystals. I’ll only suffer from my own stupidity in deck building and play styles and rng issues during a game.

But newer players will take a hit because they won’t have the crystals needed to build their card collections, get the PWs they need, etc.

And when there are coalition events, they just take another hit. Top tier players will make progression and their coalitions will earn them more crystals. Thus widening the gap between top level and newer players.

An idea would be to make the card packs cost less when you are bronze, silver, etc. and the cost more as you level up. This would also make the tiny-kitty rewards for lower level players understandable and not backwards. (I’m in platinum).

There just a gap and the lack of crystals is not helping anyone.

FindingHeart8

Froggy said:

But I think that non-top tier players are taking the biggest hit for this.

I won’t suffer from a lack of crystals. I’ll only suffer from my own stupidity in deck building and play styles and rng issues during a game.

But newer players will take a hit because they won’t have the crystals needed to build their card collections, get the PWs they need, etc.

And when there are coalition events, they just take another hit. Top tier players will make progression and their coalitions will earn them more crystals. Thus widening the gap between top level and newer players.

An idea would be to make the card packs cost less when you are bronze, silver, etc. and the cost more as you level up. This would also make the tiny-kitty rewards for lower level players understandable and not backwards. (I’m in platinum).

There just a gap and the lack of crystals is not helping anyone.

Yeah, if we're feeling the drought of crystals at the top, I can't imagine how newer players in lower tiers feel

ElfNeedsFood

Froggy said:

An idea would be to make the card packs cost less when you are bronze, silver, etc. and the cost more as you level up. This would also make the tiny-kitty rewards for lower level players understandable and not backwards. (I’m in platinum).

I’d counter a better idea is to just push more crystals down or maybe simply give away more (or better) packs in the lower tiers instead of the crystals. 

Pricing by tier will just encourage the holdbacks from promoting to Platinum. 

Mburn7

I don't think its possible to get a good solution to this.

When rewards are better people complain that it becomes a "rich getting richer" scenario.
When rewards get more even (read:  worse), people complain that high level players are hanging out in lower tiers.
When rewards are balanced (ex. bad for everyone, but better at the top) people complain that they are too low.

I think we need either a slight bump to rewards, or just more events to play in to get them.  Hell, adding new story mode chapters solves both problems pretty nicely without adding in too much new currency to the game.

But I do feel bad for Oktagon, since no matter what they do they're the villains

Aeroplane

10 daily objectives in story mode would solve a lot of nothing to do . Award runes and the odd booster pack , yellow crystals not required. Runes should be in abundance in this game and the enjoyment of having challenges every day. The spend all this time releasing 2 sets and add only 2 new events? Daily challenge 1 , complete Story mode X , level Y using only RIX, or Standard , Vampire creatures or anything- reward 500 runes. Ding! that was fun.

Skiglass6

ElfNeedsFood said:

Froggy said:

An idea would be to make the card packs cost less when you are bronze, silver, etc. and the cost more as you level up. This would also make the tiny-kitty rewards for lower level players understandable and not backwards. (I’m in platinum).

I’d counter a better idea is to just push more crystals down or maybe simply give away more (or better) packs in the lower tiers instead of the crystals. 

Pricing by tier will just encourage the holdbacks from promoting to Platinum. 

I was thinking same thing about players “slumming” in lower tiers to get higher placement easier for rewards in PvP events.  But one change I think they can make is give all tiers the same as platinum buy in and rewards for AI and ToTP. Let everyone have a chance to win their crystals back (or some back in ToTP). It doesn’t bother me if everyone gets the same chance at the pinks as me in these 2 events. This should help alleviate some of the low tier tax and help with their card collections. 

ElfNeedsFood

Skiglass6 said:

ElfNeedsFood said:

Froggy said:

An idea would be to make the card packs cost less when you are bronze, silver, etc. and the cost more as you level up. This would also make the tiny-kitty rewards for lower level players understandable and not backwards. (I’m in platinum).

I’d counter a better idea is to just push more crystals down or maybe simply give away more (or better) packs in the lower tiers instead of the crystals. 

Pricing by tier will just encourage the holdbacks from promoting to Platinum. 

I was thinking same thing about players “slumming” in lower tiers to get higher placement easier for rewards in PvP events.  But one change I think they can make is give all tiers the same as platinum buy in and rewards for AI and ToTP. Let everyone have a chance to win their crystals back (or some back in ToTP). It doesn’t bother me if everyone gets the same chance at the pinks as me in these 2 events. This should help alleviate some of the low tier tax and help with their card collections. 

These are good suggestions!  I like how they democrotized packs in Battle of Four Tribes today. 

DBJones

Even just adding the crystal rewards to Across Ixalan and TotP for all tiers would help a lot. The purples are nice, but crystals are really lacking in the lower tiers, especially for anyone not in a coalition. I'm in a high-scoring coalition, but buying all the new Planeswalkers wiped out my crystals.

Thuran

Or just award more crystals to lower tiers, bit award unique rewards to plat with no in game effects.

Alternate art is easy to do, and you already got  paper promos to use. Heck, award them only to people who already have the card or Walker in question and then sell it right before that event; bam, moneys

madwren

Mburn7 said:

I don't think its possible to get a good solution to this.

When rewards are better people complain that it becomes a "rich getting richer" scenario.
When rewards get more even (read:  worse), people complain that high level players are hanging out in lower tiers.
When rewards are balanced (ex. bad for everyone, but better at the top) people complain that they are too low.

I think we need either a slight bump to rewards, or just more events to play in to get them.  Hell, adding new story mode chapters solves both problems pretty nicely without adding in too much new currency to the game.

But I do feel bad for Oktagon, since no matter what they do they're the villains

I think you misspoke there. It'd be more accurate to say that when rewards are significantly better for the upper tier and not the lower tiers, people complain it becomes a "rich getting richer" scenario, which is understandable.

However, when rewards are better for everyone across all tiers then it's a "rising tide lifts all boats" scenario. They could easily implement a vast increase in rune accrual, for example, but they choose not to. They could easily increase the crystal rewards for lower tiers without threatening the upper tiers, but they choose not to. They could give people something competitive to grind, they could give daily quests or monthly quests and rewards to augment TG and PVE play, they could run non-coalition legacy events on the weekend for people who are bored, they could develop story mode with new rewards and content...

I mean, there are solutions.  Instead, rather than encourage a fluid hierarchy, they instead enforce a rigid one, which is unfortunate for newer players.

Sirchombli

I think part of the issue is that new players "catching up" to top players is pretty unrealistic . That's part of the reason that standard happened . The other reality is that there is a  huge difference in the play experience of f2p players vs players who drop coin . I'm in a coalition that's about 50/50 and new set releases are strange times. I'm f2p, mostly. I'll pick up an exclusive or two that are especially interesting and I'll buy a pw if it seems sweet and I have 160k runes or so. Other than that, I get my cards from events and such . I'm scooping up my 4th mythic from the set the same time as 2 guys are picking up the last one . I've learned to accept that their collections will always be fuller than mine. I also know that I do just fine now and it was work to get to this point. The game is brutal to noobs and I think pumping out more crystals would help. The lack of mid week coalition events seems to have hurt us peasants

rafalele

Aldo it does not help at all the lack of rares as rewards.