Well enjoy

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Comments

  • Gunmix25
    Gunmix25 Posts: 1,442 Chairperson of the Boards
    Quantius said:
    Fine. Let's not ask for a guaranteed non-dupe. How about a 10% chance to not get a dupe? And maybe they can bump it to 15% if you just spent $40 to buy that card and don't want 4 more copies of it right away.
    They already bumped up that dupe percentage and if I have it right it is much higher than 10% already. 
  • bk1234
    bk1234 Posts: 2,924 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited May 2018
    Mburn7 said:
    Look, guys, guaranteed non-dupes is never going to happen.  The point of the packs is supposed to be random.  And a guaranteed non-dupe once a month (or once every 2 weeks if you play ToTP) would be awful for the game in the long run, and just reward people who spend real money even more.

    I do agree that its frustrating to get dupes all the time, and I think it wouldn't hurt to tweak the rates a bit so there's less of a chance of pulling a dupe, but getting rid of them entirely is unrealistic.
    I agree with this -- we have guaranteed non-dupes -- it's called booster crafting. 

    However, especially for lower tiers, mana jewels are hard to come by -- so maybe the solution is to give more orbs just on these packs -- not enough to craft another non-dupe, but maybe something like half of what it would cost to craft a non-dupe in whatever set the elite pack is currently featuring. 

    They're not giving away the farm, but they are still rewarding the effort that went into earning the mana jewels. 

    Edit: Started typing this while DaddyO was posting so see above. 
  • ZW2007-
    ZW2007- Posts: 812 Critical Contributor
    Mburn7 said:

    I don't think its bad for the game for that to happen.  I think its bad if it happens a month or two after a set releases.  I had been playing for well over a year before I completed Origins, and I only did it because of crafting.
    I opened hundreds of packs before I got a couple uncommons I was looking for back in Oath (grip and Drana's Emissary, in case you're wondering), and I couldn't even get all 6 possible mythics from SOI when I was getting a guaranteed one twice a week from events (I still don't have that damn pig).

    So I understand the frustration.  But my point is, the grind IS the game, not part of it.  Striving to get those cards you're missing, and building around what you do have in the meantime, is what's so fun about this game.  Anyone could throw together an Omni-HUF-Deploy deck.  Not everyone could beat that deck with nothing but Drowner of Hope and a half a dozen commons and uncommons.

    Giving everyone access to every card from the get-go would remove the diversity and creativity from the game.  Everyone would be running the same uber-efficient decks, since everyone would have all the cards needed to both make it and fight it.  We'd all be bored out of our minds.

    I agree that grinding for a month and then getting a 1/16 chance dupe is frustrating and needs to be addressed in a more meaningful way than "well, 4 more of those and you can get a different card!"
    But I don't agree that mythics should be handed out like uncommons.  It should take a long time to get a full collection, not a few months and 50 bucks.
    I disagree that non-dupes would be bad for the game. I do think they would be bad at the current cost though. Everything needs to be tweaked. TotP needs its cost adjusted or its rewards updated. Currently TotP is selling a 50% off HOU booster that comes with 20 jewels. At least update it to a RIX booster. TotP and AX should both be balanced in terms of cost and rewards. Jewel rewards and Elite+ pack costs should be balanced out so that a non-dupe could be acquired by the average player in a reasonable time frame. If they don't want to do that, they really need to consider upgrading the orbs from dupes in Elite+ packs. DaddyO nailed it and I've said it elsewhere in the past, 2500 Orbs from an Elite+ pack mythic dupe is perfectly reasonable. If you open 2 Elite+ packs in a month, you can still get a guaranteed new card if both are dupes.
    Gunmix25 said:
    We have the orb system and to be honest they did not have to do that but they did. To graduate from that point and demand non-dupe pinks is, to me, a bit overboard.
    I personally believe they had to do the orb system. I think if they hadn't, Hibernum wouldn't have been the only one to close up shop, MtG:PQ probably would have too.
  • Gabrosin
    Gabrosin Posts: 259 Mover and Shaker
    DumasAG said:

    In my mind, the argument here is enjoyability and feelings. When you grind for a resource, anxiously use two weeks worth of grinding to buy a pack, and get a dupe - it's a really bad feeling. Feelings are important to player motivation and participation. If a player feels that their effort and time is in no way rewarded, that lowers player count/motivation. Lower player count means less players spending money, less money means more austerity for the rest of us. Nobody is questioning dupes out of normal packs, even if I hate that. But they instituted a special pack, that requires special resources and effort to obtain, and that shouldn't result in a slap to the player's face. If the concern that mythics will suddenly flood the market is legitimate, then find out what the ideal number of guaranteed mythics per month is for this game, and increase the cost of the elite packs to match. 
    This is a very insightful paragraph.  What are the high points of the MTGPQ grind?  Putting up a top score in a multiday competitive event, certainly.  Perhaps having a really good showing by your coalition over the weekend.  Beyond that, it's opening packs... and most importantly, opening elite packs, where you know you're getting something scarce and have the chance to get something great.  Getting a duplicate there is going to produce an intense level of disappointment; everyone can open a couple packs a day through normal events, but that elite pack takes two weeks and carries with it your best (sometimes only) hope of pulling a masterpiece, or that chase mythic that's been dominating you in your events.  It's disappointing enough just to get a mediocre mythic that you didn't have before... getting nothing but orbs is even worse.

    I'm on the "no dupes in elite packs" bandwagon, but at a minimum, can we publish the odds of getting a duplicate on the pack before opening it?  That way people are making an informed decision before they invest their jewels.  I have less sympathy for someone getting a duplicate when they've got all but three mythics in a set than I do for someone who's only opened a couple and gets unlucky with the RNG.

  • Brakkis
    Brakkis Posts: 777 Critical Contributor
    I'm still not even sure how they would "flood the market" by removing the chance of a dupe at the 400 level.

    Let's look at just RIX. There are 22 Masterpieces/Mythics from that pack. Basing it purely on a Platinum player who grinds Across Ixalan and Trial of the Planes every day it's available, excluding coalition event rank rewards, you're pulling an Elite Pack after 9 days of grinding both. That's assuming you can afford to keep running Trial of the Planes with all the new PW's, and if you're not purchasing any Premium Packs out of new sets.

    That's 198 days worth of grinding before you get all 22 cards. That's over 6 months.

    Now factor in that the Elite Pack rotates what set is available and you go back to Ixalan's with 36 available Masterpiece/Mythic cards to acquire (another 324 days of grinding); additionally, you add in the new sets that come out every 4ish months and you will very likely never complete that collection through purchasing Elite Packs from grinding.

    The amount of pink you can acquire compared to how much you would need, even without any dupes, is already at the point where it should be. The solution of giving more crafting orbs is not a terrible suggestion and would alleviate some of the harshness of the situation, but removing the chance of a dupe from those 400 packs would not result in everyone having every mythic. 
  • Kinesia
    Kinesia Posts: 1,621 Chairperson of the Boards
    And with new sets being released more regularly and reliably you will _never_ catch up to "all mythics" through this system anyway.
  • jtwood
    jtwood Posts: 1,285 Chairperson of the Boards
    Quantius said:
    We shouldn't get dupes at all from pink gems. I have 900 sitting there that I can't bring myself to click the button cause I know it's a dupe. No point.
    This is where I’m at. I’ll cash then in when DOM drops and I don’t have as great a risk of dupes.  
  • Bil
    Bil Posts: 831 Critical Contributor
    edited May 2018
       I've got the feeling that frustration is a widespread problem all over the game. The pinks are probably the most obvious aspect because they are the endgame currency but the fact that they are RNG really sums up with many other frustrating aspects that are involved when collecting or spending them.

       First of all is getting pinks ... Not the hardest thing to do ... But you'll get frustrated in the process. The fact that you can drop from 300 pinks to 80 by missing a single secundary because of an unlucky cascade is the first hit... But luck is part of the game right?
       Then you open your mythic pack and ... Get a dupe ... Ok, you'll deal with it ... Again.
       Then ... After 10 (or 15 ) duped mythics you think you'll finally pull that card that is supposed to make you feel better after being so unlucky ... And you pull one of those "useless" mythics that almost always find a place among the good ones because crafting is RNG too.
       Now that's when you really know you have wasted your time ... A lot of it actually ... for nothing. 
       
      If, In the meantime, a casual teamate that opened a single premium pack pulls not one, but two valuable mythics ... Well, even if you feel happy for him, you will feel the pain twice.

      That's why in most collectible games, you'll find a way to tweak luck, by trade, effort or some kind of investment. Precisely to ensure that a devoted player will never get too frustrated because of a real bad RNG.
      Overall, i think Orbs and pinks should probably be that lifejacket... They look like they are designed for it ... but in many ocasions, they are the most frustrating mechanics ingame.
  • Machine
    Machine Posts: 857 Critical Contributor
    Last week I had my first dupe from 400 unobtainium. Man... that feels incredibly terrible! All this grind for only 500 mana orbs is not rewarding at all. I see a lot of good suggestions in the earlier posts and I think something should change, even if it is just a small change. 400 hard-earned pinks for 500 orbs is NOT a good trade and very frustrating.
  • DumasAG
    DumasAG Posts: 719 Critical Contributor
    edited May 2018
    jtwood said:
    Quantius said:
    We shouldn't get dupes at all from pink gems. I have 900 sitting there that I can't bring myself to click the button cause I know it's a dupe. No point.
    This is where I’m at. I’ll cash then in when DOM drops and I don’t have as great a risk of dupes.  
    I don't play TotP, and I rarely even make top 50 in Race because of green node. But I refuse to buy elite packs when I own three or more of the potential hits specifically because I'm terrified I will have wasted my resources. I find it baffling that they won't implement events more often because they don't want to frustrate players, but this singular, distilled frustration is apparently completely acceptable. Surely they understand that people actively don't want to spend their unobtainium because they fear getting dupes...
  • Gunmix25
    Gunmix25 Posts: 1,442 Chairperson of the Boards
    ZW2007- said:

    Gunmix25 said:
    We have the orb system and to be honest they did not have to do that but they did. To graduate from that point and demand non-dupe pinks is, to me, a bit overboard.
    I personally believe they had to do the orb system. I think if they hadn't, Hibernum wouldn't have been the only one to close up shop, MtG:PQ probably would have too.

    That still doesn't change the fact that to demand pink elites to be non-dupes is a bit much when we already have booster crafting implemented.

    As for "had to do," they didn't. Just that the original devs (read as Hibernium, not oktagon mind you) mentioned a way to get non-dupe cards through the dupes you already had. It was let slipped that the conversion was going to convert all accounts to zero before it was released. The forums insisted that this does not happen, in fact pleaded is the word I would use. fast forward: Hibernium went under and Oktagon is now helming the development side of things. These guys did their homework and to their credit it was a fantastic marketing move to both revitalize the game and bring Oktagon on board in a good light. We as a player ate that scheme up and here we are. They did not have to that and this game has gone through countless phases in which players claimed MTGPQ would close shop and never did... case in point: 6 month dry spell and Ixalan was a joke as it wasn't very viable yet we are still here. We can only guess as why Hibernium went under and I won't try to presume why either.

  • Sirchombli
    Sirchombli Posts: 322 Mover and Shaker
    People have got to be realistic about this . Do I want my lil jewels to give me non dupes ? Of course I do. Dupes feel bad. They explicitly removed rerolls from elite packs . That means that the possibility of dupes is by design . Could the odds be adjusted? Yes , and they should be . As it stands, I won't buy an elite pack if I have a single card from it. This may be my feels talking, but dupes do legitimately seem to happen at a higher rate in elite packs . Realistically , the rate of dupes needs to be adjusted, means to obtain jewels need to be increased and the amount of orbs obtained from elite pack dupes needs a big hike. Again , we're never going to get 7500 orbs for dupes, because they're not going to guarantee us non dupes . I'd love it , but it's not going to happen . I'd take something like 2500 and feel far less insulted. That's an amount that makes my purchase feel far less foolish . As is , unobtanium is effectively worthless because none of us feel comfortable spending it. That translates directly to robbing us of more rewards . As I've stated in other threads, d3 can't just rely upon the people who loyally drop coin on every set to keep this game alive . We're losing players at all levels, including the big fish . Something has to be done. 
  • crusher
    crusher Posts: 11 Just Dropped In
    I think that is the price for masterpieces. You can't get them by crafting.
  • wereotter
    wereotter Posts: 2,070 Chairperson of the Boards
    jtwood said:
    Quantius said:
    We shouldn't get dupes at all from pink gems. I have 900 sitting there that I can't bring myself to click the button cause I know it's a dupe. No point.
    This is where I’m at. I’ll cash then in when DOM drops and I don’t have as great a risk of dupes.  

    I fail to see how that’s an issue. The same argument could be made for crystals. I’m sitting on over 2,000 of those right now because I know it’s not worth it to spend them on Rivals packs, waiting for Dominaria.

    Duplicate cards are a reality of the game regardless of if it’s this digital version or the paper one. Spending jewels is a calculated risk now, and I’m not upset about that as before people were able to abuse the no duplicate policy to reroll until the got their masterpieces.

    As for me, once I hit about 40-50% of the mythic rare cards on offer, I stop spending on the packs and save them till they can have the maximum value. 
  • Gilesclone
    Gilesclone Posts: 735 Critical Contributor
    Kinesia said:
    I think the costs need to be adjusted but the non-dupe part is needed. The "feelings" _really_ need fixing. This game needs a "game psychologist" like casinos have to sort this stuff out.

    I'd recommend that rare packs only give rares, mythics give mythics and masterpieces only give masterpieces, that removes one of the layers of potential disappointment (getting the lesser level of what is possible).

    Rare only non-dupe pack - 100
    Mythic only non-dupe pack - 300
    Masterpiece only non-dupe pack - 600

    Or bump the last two up to 400 and 800.
    I would add: if they are still using tiered rarity, they should either spell it out or stop.  (In the past, it appears that some rares are harder to get than others, not sure if this is still true.)
  • Kinesia
    Kinesia Posts: 1,621 Chairperson of the Boards
    Gilesclone said:
    Kinesia said:
    I think the costs need to be adjusted but the non-dupe part is needed. The "feelings" _really_ need fixing. This game needs a "game psychologist" like casinos have to sort this stuff out.

    I'd recommend that rare packs only give rares, mythics give mythics and masterpieces only give masterpieces, that removes one of the layers of potential disappointment (getting the lesser level of what is possible).

    Rare only non-dupe pack - 100
    Mythic only non-dupe pack - 300
    Masterpiece only non-dupe pack - 600

    Or bump the last two up to 400 and 800.
    I would add: if they are still using tiered rarity, they should either spell it out or stop.  (In the past, it appears that some rares are harder to get than others, not sure if this is still true.)

    Legally they now have to display that. If they are still doing the tiered rarity so some cards don't match the percentages then they are breaking the law that has made them put those figures in.
  • DumasAG
    DumasAG Posts: 719 Critical Contributor
    Gilesclone said:
    Kinesia said:
    I think the costs need to be adjusted but the non-dupe part is needed. The "feelings" _really_ need fixing. This game needs a "game psychologist" like casinos have to sort this stuff out.

    I'd recommend that rare packs only give rares, mythics give mythics and masterpieces only give masterpieces, that removes one of the layers of potential disappointment (getting the lesser level of what is possible).

    Rare only non-dupe pack - 100
    Mythic only non-dupe pack - 300
    Masterpiece only non-dupe pack - 600

    Or bump the last two up to 400 and 800.
    I would add: if they are still using tiered rarity, they should either spell it out or stop.  (In the past, it appears that some rares are harder to get than others, not sure if this is still true.)
    I realize this could be pure chance, but when the RIX elite pack first dropped, a coalition member and I both purchased 2 packs, but they bought theirs two days after I did. We both received Jugan, then Ghalta. I later bought a third pack and received Keiga. They then bought a third pack and received Keiga. Obviously we could have simply hit a weird lottery-type statistical anomaly, but it's very weird.
  • Gunmix25
    Gunmix25 Posts: 1,442 Chairperson of the Boards
    wereotter said:
    .

    As for me, once I hit about 40-50% of the mythic rare cards on offer, I stop spending on the packs and save them till they can have the maximum value. 

    Maximum value? I am not exactly sure I understand. Could you expand on this please?

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