State of the game and it's players

Rhasget

Discussions about the game and it's content seems to be 'nothing to do on weekdays and too timeconsuming on weekends'.
And reading some comments there seems to be a loss of players in the top teams, either to be more casual or leaving all together.

And our coalition has been steady in top 25 despite not even being full strength and having many newer players. 
Is interest fading at the top since DOM released? 

Events have been rewarding but way too easy and short, the lack of events at all and no info about whats to come seems to diminish interest (I know my enthusiasm has faded last few weeks).

Although some said the last PvP had three brackets open in platinum, meaning atleast 6000+ players logged in and joined during the weekend.
During the great drought between Hibernum and Octagon there were times when there was only one bracket in PvP so it seems more are in platinum or more people are playing agains altogether.

How is the talk running in your coalitions?

Stormbringer0

MtG PQ most important flaw is that it don't keeps the players excited. Drop rates are too low to pull interesting cards constantly. Rewards are too small to increase your chance of getting good cards to durdle around with. The match-3 experience is too marginal to keep you excited. The timers in events are obnoxious, because you cannot completely play your own style despite of time zones. Not being in a high ranked coalition is disadventagious. Luck is a way too big issue to keep the competition up, because even inside the card rarities, there are big gaps in power levels (e.g. Slimefoot as rare or Pernicious Deed as Masterpiece). Shall I go on?

DumasAG

My coalition usually finishes events around 80, but we describe ourselves as mostly casual despite having a full complement of players. Most everyone in the coalition is playing regularly, though we’re probably missing on average a quarter of our team on the weekends due to real life. We are definitely stronger on weekdays.

people in my coalition generally complain about drop rates and elite packs - specifically that they don’t want to open them for fear of dupes (and then someone inevitably opens one, gets a dupe, complains about it, and we’re all that bit more cautious). Most of my coalition can and does compete in legacy events - I think we’d all like to see a few more of those. 

From our end, we basically haven’t seen a drop-off, but conversation about the monotonous feeling of the game due to bad drops, low(ish) rewards, and no events is on the rise. About half of my coalition regularly purchase PWs from the store for cash, so we’ve got a mix of P2P and F2P.

gogol666

In our group there 6+ coalitions and we saw many old players retiring recently and fewer new players joining. However, summer is a tough mistress with vacation and kids at home.
My feeling is the content to be used is great at the moment, but the events where to use it are lackluster and poorly organized.
In my group the main reasons for people leaving are:
- coalitions are requested to grind for 3 days against neverending battles
- nothing or very little to do midweek and non coalition
We repeatedly suggested to shorten the weekend events and to give us continous non-coalition pve to let us grind some currency midweek, but to no extent.
My feeling is there so much wasted potential here...

FindingHeart8

Yeah I'm getting similar complaints from my crew as well.  There's nothing to play during the week and you have to devote a significant portion of your weekend into this game to complete the objectives and remain competitive.  I want to play this game for fun, not as a part-time *unpaid* job.

Mburn7

The lack of content during the week is really the killer.  We go 5 days with basically nothing but the daily events, and then have a massive coalition event on the weekend.  We need more during the week.

Note:  We don't need coalition events during the week.  I personally like them, but I know its tough for people with work schedules and stuff.  We need more non-coalition events during the week.  Bringing back the planeswalker arena would be good, or just more runs of the legacy PvP events (and legacy PvE events too).

HarryMason

Things during the week would be nice . I'd take bootleg legacy events. Last couple weeks were cool because we had the little pve events . I'd gladly take more of the old pve events . Never did get a reworked trial of zeal, so that would be sweet. I don't think we really need much, it's just feast or famine

DumasAG

Mburn7 said:

The lack of content during the week is really the killer.  We go 5 days with basically nothing but the daily events, and then have a massive coalition event on the weekend.  We need more during the week.

Note:  We don't need coalition events during the week.  I personally like them, but I know its tough for people with work schedules and stuff.  We need more non-coalition events during the week.  Bringing back the planeswalker arena would be good, or just more runs of the legacy PvP events (and legacy PvE events too).

Start a different legacy event every day, with a 48-hour timer, and have them overlap two at a time. Rewards for legacy events aren't that great, so I wouldn't think we'd be flooded, and the smaller rewards would hopefully cut down on FOMO so people don't feel obligated. We'd have lots to do, and not feel terrible about not being able to do it.

bk1234

The summertime blues hit this game hard last year and I assume they will this year as well. I am not seeing many players leave, but there are a lot of vacations and such. 

babar3355

The developers still don't seem to realize that we actually need something to do in this game....  It seems they occasionally chunk in a mid week coalition event that overlaps with the weekend event, and quickly change back to their providing no content ways.  Then they grind away to build out the next set.

Please listen to us @Oktagon_Daiane, we need events and other competitive content... and lots more of it!

FindingHeart8

babar3355 said:

The developers still don't seem to realize that we actually need something to do in this game....  It seems they occasionally chunk in a mid week coalition event that overlaps with the weekend event, and quickly change back to their providing no content ways.  Then they grind away to build out the next set.

Please listen to us @Oktagon_Daiane, we need events and other competitive content... and lots more of it!

they should bring back previous legacy events, and only make the blocks that were standard for those sets playable.  That way all our legacy cards are useful, but you can't just use your most insane legacy combos from all the sets combined.

Rhasget

FindingHeart8 said:

babar3355 said:

The developers still don't seem to realize that we actually need something to do in this game....  It seems they occasionally chunk in a mid week coalition event that overlaps with the weekend event, and quickly change back to their providing no content ways.  Then they grind away to build out the next set.

Please listen to us @Oktagon_Daiane, we need events and other competitive content... and lots more of it!

they should bring back previous legacy events, and only make the blocks that were standard for those sets playable.  That way all our legacy cards are useful, but you can't just use your most insane legacy combos from all the sets combined.

It would practically lock out all newer players from those events though.

FindingHeart8

Rhasget said:

FindingHeart8 said:

babar3355 said:

The developers still don't seem to realize that we actually need something to do in this game....  It seems they occasionally chunk in a mid week coalition event that overlaps with the weekend event, and quickly change back to their providing no content ways.  Then they grind away to build out the next set.

Please listen to us @Oktagon_Daiane, we need events and other competitive content... and lots more of it!

they should bring back previous legacy events, and only make the blocks that were standard for those sets playable.  That way all our legacy cards are useful, but you can't just use your most insane legacy combos from all the sets combined.

It would practically lock out all newer players from those events though.

not entirely, a Kaladesh event could range from Kaladesh to Amonkhet blocks in card accessibility, and newer players should have HOU and possibly Amonkhet (as well as Origins).  Sets prior to that didn't have standard restrictions, as it was before its introduction to the game.

If M19 comes out for mtgpq, I personally also believe it should function as a secondary (or expansion) to the current core set.  So even if new players dont have access to any of the cards from a set, there's still a wide selection of Origins/m19 cards they can use to compete and obtain cards from those sets to add to their collections.

Kinesia

We need more of the events that you can do whenever you feel like (or ignore if you choose) and the new history journey is a great example of the right kind of thing, just needs to be longer. (For a low effort way to increase, just put the same fights a second time but with brainy Greg.)


My coalition GarbageJuice, now YawningDark, is usually just on the border of top 50. What _I_ saw the last few weeks is that we had a HUGE jump to level 30ish after cycling disappeared because too many higher up teams had been relying on it but almost none of us ever used it. I also did hear of people leaving because of that which I find hilarious.
So it's interesting to see more realistic placings now.

Timewise... We mostly need more flexibility, neither more nor less specifically but _flexibility_.

DumasAG

Kinesia said:

We need more of the events that you can do whenever you feel like (or ignore if you choose) and the new history journey is a great example of the right kind of thing, just needs to be longer. (For a low effort way to increase, just put the same fights a second time but with brainy Greg.)


My coalition GarbageJuice, now YawningDark, is usually just on the border of top 50. What _I_ saw the last few weeks is that we had a HUGE jump to level 30ish after cycling disappeared because too many higher up teams had been relying on it but almost none of us ever used it. I also did hear of people leaving because of that which I find hilarious.
So it's interesting to see more realistic placings now.

Timewise... We mostly need more flexibility, neither more nor less specifically but _flexibility_.

People actually left because of cycling? That's... well, a little sad...

Rhasget

People actually left because of cycling? That's... well, a little sad...

I heard the same from others aswell. When cycling left standard, players that had relied on it for perfect scores for almost a year found themselves way behind in the new standard and left since theh didn't win all the time anymore.

I like that cycling went away and the events are more open now. A few dropped points doesn't mean you loose 200 spots in the leaderboard.

In my coalition there were no players relying on cycling, only some using it for a few PvE nodes so no-one really missed it.

I also find it interesting to read about how your coalitions are doing and approach the game.

Aeroplane

 I believe they're following the paper magic game to closely. Seasonal events and cards, holiday events and cards, Take old cards and tweak their colors, effects, add a santa hat. Give obscure objectives in story mode during events. A daily log in bonus during events. x2 mana bonus using a certain planeswalker today....
 This might irk hard core Magic fans but if you're going to attract new players they need to spice things up. Either they lack the resources or they're under strict guidelines from Magic from being more creative with their product.

Kinesia

Aeroplane said:

 I believe they're following the paper magic game to closely. Seasonal events and cards, holiday events and cards, Take old cards and tweak their colors, effects, add a santa hat. Give obscure objectives in story mode during events. A daily log in bonus during events. x2 mana bonus using a certain planeswalker today....
 This might irk hard core Magic fans but if you're going to attract new players they need to spice things up. Either they lack the resources or they're under strict guidelines from Magic from being more creative with their product.

I think it's more that they had an obligation to catch up to paper, I don't think Wizards mind if they add extra, but there were the basics not being done before. They probably have more space to start looking at a lot more of this from now on.
I totally agree it would be good though!

(And we have had holiday events and things, but fairly haphazardly.)

DumasAG

Kinesia said:

Aeroplane said:

 I believe they're following the paper magic game to closely. Seasonal events and cards, holiday events and cards, Take old cards and tweak their colors, effects, add a santa hat. Give obscure objectives in story mode during events. A daily log in bonus during events. x2 mana bonus using a certain planeswalker today....
 This might irk hard core Magic fans but if you're going to attract new players they need to spice things up. Either they lack the resources or they're under strict guidelines from Magic from being more creative with their product.

I think it's more that they had an obligation to catch up to paper, I don't think Wizards mind if they add extra, but there were the basics not being done before. They probably have more space to start looking at a lot more of this from now on.
I totally agree it would be good though!

(And we have had holiday events and things, but fairly haphazardly.)

Actually, I bet deviating from the original is specifically what a wizards minds the most. Wizards is fiercely protective of their IP - any change, even if n Cesar’s, probably causes hold-ups.

span_argoman

3 consecutive coalition events starting this Saturday (though the first is just AWR). Plus more non-coalition PvE events running across the week.

Happy matching everyone!

madwren

I'd just like to see them go back to having two coalition events a week with a gap in between. You know, like Tue-Wed for an event, then Fri-Sun for an event. Monday and Thursday off days for single-player events. It seems like that would be the best of both worlds, but instead they've engaged in a very feast-or-famine approach.