Player Level and Card Experience (2/25/19)

Brigby

Hi Everyone,

In the recent 3.2 update, we introduced several new features: two of which were Player Level and Card Experience. The 3 Year Anniversary and Player Profile and Player Level blog posts shed some light on new and future features that are all interwoven together with these systems, and we highly recommend taking some time to look those over first.

Even with the two blog posts though, we understand that players may have some unanswered questions, so we wanted to take the time to address some of the main concerns you all might have.

Player Level and Color Mastery

Player Level is intended to be completely separate from Color Mastery moving forward. It is a new progression system in the game, and neither Color Mastery nor Card Experience are planned to be the main source of Player Experience. Color Mastery had a slight influence on initial Player Level, however, it was not a direct 1:1 conversion for a major reason:

• Matchmaking
• Matchmaking in the future will be largely influenced by Player Level, not Color Mastery.
• Were the Player Level to have been a 1:1 conversion from Color Mastery, there would’ve been a small demographic of players that would have had levels much higher than everyone else. This is harmful for two reasons:
• Since Matchmaking will be primarily based on Player Level, placing those players at such a drastic height would’ve meant they only had access to an incredibly small pool of competitors.
• If that pool of competitors were to be widened, then the side effect would be high-level players being matched against players significantly lower than them.
• This wide gap in levels also creates an intimidation factor for newer players, which can be discouraging for those that are just starting out in the game.

We also understand that some players are concerned about having mastered the majority of their cards Pre-3.2, and how their Player Levels compare to a player that mastered them Post-3.2. We have plans to implement new features in the future that will be additional sources of Player Experience, which means at that point the number of available cards to master would no longer be the limiting factor.

Since Player Level is separate from Color Mastery, a Platinum player that may be at a lower level than say...a Gold player, will inevitably surpass them once the new features are added into the game. This is due to the difference in their rates of play. A Platinum player will likely be more engaged and active than a Gold player, therefore yielding a faster rate of Player Experience that results in quicker Player Level progression.

Rewards

With the initial implementation of Player Levels, we credited players with a sum of resources in accordance to their level of progress at that time. Following this, some players were quick to point out that the sum of progression rewards from prior levels is greater than the initial sum of resources given to players at various levels.

This was done on purpose, because we are actually able to give out more rewards if distributed over time, as opposed to all at once. This brings us back again to the topic of future features.

With our plans of implementing several new features in the future, it gives us the opportunity to gradually reward players with more resources, as these features are introduced. In addition, higher tier players will inherently benefit more from them as they’re added into the game; Competitive Seasons is a great example of this.

We know that implementing new major features has the potential to confuse players, to no fault of their own, so we hope that this provided some further insight and clarity. Thank you for your patience and understanding, and of course, thank you for being a part of our Magic: the Gathering - Puzzle Quest community!

Laeuftbeidir

Wow! Such much noise about.. That.

Good luck for all ascending players who will reach the level of us who mastered all their cards before the update soon! The opposite effect of your idea is that we will never get to a high level at all, but hover a hundred levels below maximum..I'd consider that a major unfair avantage in my favor.. If the extra ways to gain XP don't take that into account, of course (like more XP the lower the initial XP conversion?). 

Why not make a one time de-mastery to everyone is on actual equal foots? Or only let cards from future set grant player level xp ? I'd haven been fine to start at level one. I'm fine with this, too. But it seems to be a really impractical way to solve a self-made problem (I still don't see the rewards as relevant issue to me)

Avahad

I couldn’t care lass about the rewards- I’m just thoroughly frustrated at the fact according to all that’s been said up to and including this point means I’ll be sitting a massive amount of levels behind newer players as I’ve mastered pretty much all my cards prior to 3.2

Brigby

I understand that players might be frustrated that some others may be higher than them in level at the moment, simply because they had more cards available to master post-3.2 update, however I cannot stress enough that this is merely a temporary situation until future features are implemented.

Once those features are added in, veteran players will find that they quickly increase in player levels and surpass other players even in the short term, especially considering veteran players are far more active in the game than other demographics. Mastering cards would no longer be the limiting factor to player levels. 

Gabrosin

@Brigby, thank you for continuing to communicate with us on this issue.  I know you're in a tough place here, going between the community and the developers to try to find a solution to this problem.  But reading over this makes me feel like there's still some misunderstanding going on.

By and large, I do not think that the player base is "confused" on this feature.  The developers have introduced a new system to measure player growth, which is a good thing!  We can all agree that the color mastery system has a lot of flaws to it.  We like having experience points and player levels, and we are very much looking forward to seeing these "other sources of experience" and "competitive seasons" and everything that is being discussed but not defined in these posts.

The fundamental problem here is with the way things are, right now.  It's understandable that the developers did not want to provide a gigantic pile of rewards all at once to a small handful of already wealthy players, those with extensive collections who have also taken the time to master those cards.  But in choosing to severely limit the initial award of experience, they have introduced a separate problem.  They have created a system which punishes those same players, the ones that are most heavily invested in the game, and provided them no way to overcome that punishment.

This would be like a game where the max level is 100 releasing an expansion which increased the max level to 150, but only for players who were level 50 or below.  Anyone who was already at 100 can only stay at 100.  What incentive is being offered to those players to continue playing the game?  Is the goal to get them to quit and start over, or to look elsewhere for their entertainment?

It feels like we're still at the point of trying to receive an acknowledgment that this is a problem, but I'm going to go ahead and talk about prospective solutions anyway.

Option 1 is obvious: simply award players full experience for already-mastered cards.  Yeah, some players who have mastered 2000+ cards will get a blast of crystals and gems in their account.  Oh well.  Rewarding your most loyal players (and probably some of your biggest investors too) doesn't seem like a huge negative to me.  But maybe you want to adjust the XP numbers so that higher levels cost more than 6500 XP to achieve, or something.  Maybe having players at level 100+ is undesirable for some reason.  If you can get past objections to these outcomes, this is by far the easiest solution.

Option 2 is to let players remaster (or at least earn experience for using) any card that was already mastered before the system was introduced.  This would be annoying, because it would still penalize the players who took the time to master additional cards, essentially making that time a waste.  But it would allow a dedicated player to go back and redo their work and still achieve a top level.

Option 3 is a hybrid of the two approaches.  Give players partial experience for pre-mastered cards, equivalent to how much they would have played with those cards to achieve mastery under the old system.  If it took 16 wins to get to mastery for a mythic, start them out at 320/800 XP and let the players take them the rest of the way.

Regardless of what option is chosen, the end result of all of these systems should be the same: every player, regardless of where they were before this system was implemented, should have a fair chance to earn every available point of XP from the cards in their collection.  Any other outcome is going to be unfair to someone, be it newcomers or veterans.  Even if you introduce new ways to earn XP in upcoming releases, such that the total amount of possible XP is no longer a fixed quantity, you are still handicapping the top players by giving everyone else a head start.  One player in our team of coalitions is up to level 60 already; another player cannot achieve this level thanks to owning so many already-mastered cards.  Even if you change things so that the second player could get there by grinding out a bunch of Heroic Encounters or something... why should they?  They did that once already to master all those cards in the first place!

By all means, please continue to work to improve the game and offer new features to keep our veteran players engaged.  We all want the same thing here, the continued success and viability of MTGPQ.  But these continued messages saying "this is all going to be moot in the future but we're not going to be specific on how" are not inspiring.  Telling players "we've limited what you're going to receive now so that we can give you rewards more gradually over time" is not going to placate them while they watch their peers zoom away from them.  It's only going to make them regret the additional time and energy they chose to invest in the game, and that's not where you want to be to retain them.

Opperstamper

I'd like to point out that when that say.. gold player decides to level up to a level in high 60s, that player will be on equal (platinum) ground very quick. That gives them the chance to level up way further than others who have mastered all cards in their collection, grabbing the rewards on the way and profit from the faster rate of player progression. Which in turn keeps them way ahead of the rest.

Am I missing something here? 

Laeuftbeidir

Brigby said:

I understand that players might be frustrated that some others may be higher than them in level at the moment, simply because they had more cards available to master post-3.2 update, however I cannot stress enough that this is merely a temporary situation until future features are implemented.

Once those features are added in, veteran players will find that they quickly increase in player levels and surpass other players even in the short term, especially considering veteran players are far more active in the game than other demographics. Mastering cards would no longer be the limiting factor to player levels. 

Okay, I and another player with basically the same collection are 20 levels apart. Actual compared numbers, no theoretic example. I mastered prior to the update, he afterwards. He's on the same level of competitiveness as I am. How are the future implementation favoring me over him until I can reach his level? In a game where +95% win rates are not outstanding, but below average? The one thing is to compare vets and new players - the other thing vets that did, and vets that didn't master cards.

Brakkis

Brigby said:

I understand that players might be frustrated that some others may be higher than them in level at the moment, simply because they had more cards available to master post-3.2 update, however I cannot stress enough that this is merely a temporary situation until future features are implemented.

Once those features are added in, veteran players will find that they quickly increase in player levels and surpass other players even in the short term, especially considering veteran players are far more active in the game than other demographics. Mastering cards would no longer be the limiting factor to player levels. 

No, it's not **** temporary. Those new methods are not going to be limited to the players with more mastered cards. They'll be open to everyone.

Player 1 - Level 47
Cards Owned - 2067
Cards Mastered Pre-3.2 - 1832
Cards Mastered Post 3.2 - 2067

Player 2 - Level 68
Card Owned - 2134
Cards Mastered Pre-3.2 - 701
Cards Mastered Post 3.2 - 2134

That's a big **** problem. Your **** reasoning runs on the poor assumption that the veteran players will participate in these new methods more frequently than a newer player. What the actual **** kind of thought process is that? "Oh this person is new to the game so they won't play as much" ... seriously?

Give everyone the experience they **** well deserve and earned. **** the rewards. Just give us the proper levels. We'll be matched against players who got just as equally bored playing the same 5 events each month and we'll be fine with that.

pbmtg

Not gonna lie, it is super disheartening to the point that I am not even really playing much any more.

Unknown

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Brakkis

Admit you tinykitty up. Correct the issue.

//Removed Profanity -Brigby

Gideon

Did you ever have an argument in which  literary everyone told you that you were wrong but you kept insisting that you were right? Drop the **** and fix it.

Duress

As a relatively new player who struggles in legacy events, I really appreciate the spirit of what it seems you are trying to do -- as I understand it, you are trying to make this game more attractive to newer players. Wonderful! Legacy events are awful. Had you not incentivized daily grind platinum rewards over top one leaderboard gold player rewards, I wouldn't be here in platinum and this issue you're attempting to address wouldn't be as bad as it is.

So I appreciate that you recognize it's a problem for attracting and retaining new players, and therefore a problem for you. However, I have zero confidence that the solution you have implemented and are planning to implement will actually address the issue, let alone cause more issues than before. You're advocating for a total revamp of the system and using a corner case as justification while being either passively or willfully ignorant of how your latest attempt at balance has panned out.

Unknown

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Duress

I also don't give a damn about veteran players receiving the full rewards they are due. This doesn't bother me at all and should never affect me if you're able to address the issue properly.

fiirst

imo,

what Dev must do
1.1) make a versatile and consistent XP gaining system.
1.2) redeem all lost XP Reward to all player as per their lv at started of 3.2.
1.3) involvement XP and LV to matchmaking.

what we see
2.1) unfinished and move to 2.2)
2.2) unfinished OR non schedule making it OR ignoring it and move to 2.3)
2.3) very hastely doing it as always and run into 2.4)
2.4) Billing to D3

please focus on (x.1) and (x.2)

Theros

Brigby said:

I understand that players might be frustrated that some others may be higher than them in level at the moment, simply because they had more cards available to master post-3.2 update, however I cannot stress enough that this is merely a temporary situation until future features are implemented.

Once those features are added in, veteran players will find that they quickly increase in player levels and surpass other players even in the short term, especially considering veteran players are far more active in the game than other demographics. Mastering cards would no longer be the limiting factor to player levels. 

 These are some wrong assumptions my friend. Many plat level vets are inactive and many vets haven't reach plat level. Level of activity if directly related to level of motivation and contents related stuff, vet or not

ZW2007-

Brigby said:

I understand that players might be frustrated that some others may be higher than them in level at the moment, simply because they had more cards available to master post-3.2 update, however I cannot stress enough that this is merely a temporary situation until future features are implemented.

Brigby said:

Once those features are added in, veteran players will find that they quickly increase in player levels and surpass other players even in the short term, especially considering veteran players are far more active in the game than other demographics. Mastering cards would no longer be the limiting factor to player levels. 

Player A has a larger collection than Player B. Player B has, at most, 12,999 more experience than Player A at this exact moment. Player B has 1,129 more cards mastered. If Player A mastered all of their unmastered Commons, Uncommons, and enough Rares to match Player B's number of mastered cards, Player A would earn 221,100 experience. Assuming all levels from 41 and up require 6,500 experience, Player A would reach level 75. This means that as of this exact moment, Player A has the capacity to be 33 levels higher than Player B by investing a whole lot of time mastering a whole lot of cards, something Player B already did!

Now, let's say Player A does not take the time to master all those cards right now. When the new set and new ways to gain experience become available to the players, both will have equal opportunity to gain more experience. Both players will be matched against equivalent opponents with the opportunity to receive equivalent rewards if it is based on either color mastery, player level, or both. Assuming both players are equivalent in skill levels, Player B is at a MASSIVE disadvantage compared to Player A in terms of reaching a higher player level because Player A can still go back and master all of those cards that Player B already mastered. If Player A is so inclined, Player B will never be able to compete with Player A in terms of player level. This is a broken system. You guys done **** up.

mayor

This delayed answer is beyond insulting for the player base for more than one reasons. If I read right, your official reply is "Let things be as they are now and we see how this rolls". You avoid to state the obvious disrespecting those who give life to your game. Shame... shame... shame... shame.............

Firinmahlazer

Hey Brigby thanks for taking the time to address some of the questions that have been floating around. Much appreciated! 

Irishme

Not directed at you brigby but this is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.  They are basically screwing over there most loyal player base.  I can’t imagine how they thought this would be a good idea?  Those who decided to master cards out of boredom before the update are now permanently disadvantaged to those who didn’t.  More to the point, if I played every event, spent money, and got ahead I will basically be nerfed to those who didn’t.  Why would I bother doing that in the future?  Do they not understand if they will do this now, why I would ever spend money on this game just to be nerfed again?  Because it shows they have no problem screwing players for playing, why should I keep playing?  I know I’ll never spend another penny here.  I’ll probably play one more event for my team mates, but after I’m done.  It’s a pity because I enjoyed this game, but I’m not going to waste my time getting ahead only to be penalized for doing so. There other games who actually value there loyal players.