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

OmegaLolrus

Mburn7 said:

OmegaLolrus said:

Well, let me say this, and maybe it can help put into perspective how some of the less-veteran players feel about it.

So I'm just barely over Platinum in every color except Blue, and I'm maybe two or three cards away from hitting Platinum there. So I am literally the person in the position that the veteran players are concerned about. I've got scads and scads of cards that I haven't mastered that could be used to rocket me to heretofor unknown levels.

Is that going to happen? Yeah, no. I'm at level 38, and I'd be surprised if, barring any changes to the game, I'm above 40 by the end of the month. Sure, I'll be mastering a bunch of new cards when Allegiance hits, but so will everyone else. I needs me my Simic.

Here's my counter-argument:

Matchmaking will be based on level.  We don't know the exact details but that much has been confirmed.

I am a player who has been in Platinum since the week it was introduced.  I have roughly 1600 mastered cards, not to mention a very large collection of Rare+ cards.

I am level 42, which means there is a very good chance that we will have to face each other's decks once the updated matchmaking comes out.

How is that fair to either of us?

So I haven't spent enough time comparing what Rare+ cards I have to the number I don't, so I can't speak to the breadth of collection. I do know that most of the Rare+ cards I do have, I'm fortunate enough to have lucked into ones that synergize well together. Trostani, March of the Multitudes, Emmara, Soul of the Accord, and Cord of Calling. Lazaf, Etrata, Szadek, and Bloodletter Quill.

I don't go into every match on the assumption that I'm going to win it, or even deserve to win it (not that I'm implying that's what you're saying, it's just a statement). So let's say I go up against your deck with Omni, Blue Sun's Zenith, and every other card that drives me a little nuts. Barring a little luck, I'm not going to get up to the 40+ Lifelink Soldiers that I need to win and keep them alive long enough to let me win. I will probably get crushed into a smooth, possibly creamy, paste.

Oh well. I'm just gonna move onto the next game. Maybe I'll get matched against that same caliber of deck. Fine. A third time? Maybe I'll get frustrated and ragequit for a little while, put the phone down and do something else for a while. Come back a couple hours later and carry on. Maybe I'll have a nice streak of luck, maybe I'll have another crushing experience. Who's to say.

By the same token, I can understand your point of view as well. You take out your deck that's been tuned within an inch of its life and hit the Start button. You wind up facing off against a deck that's 9 commons and a rare. All vanilla creatures and a nifty little land that makes it look like it'd be good. On paper it looks like a decent idea, but in reality, it's trying to do five different things at once and it gets smashed into dust. So you get a win. Hey, great, fine. Yay shiny rewards. And you smash the next one, and the next one, and the next one. You start to wonder why you put all the time into building this deck, if you weren't going to be matched with people of the same level. No challenge is no fun.

So yeah, it does suck a bit for both of us. What I'm saying is, I think this is only really an issue in the short term. I guarantee in about six months, the issue will be resolved. Hopefully because all the issues with level have been smoothed out and everyone's where they need to be. Hopefully not because the people in your position gave up and uninstalled and left.

The problem in the short term is we don't know the full scale of what they have planned. I could have my faith in the developers completely misplaced and they'll straight faceplant the implementation. Heck, for all I know, you and I are on the same page. You think that this will work out, but you're here to make sure that the portion of the player group has their voice heard. More likely, you and I aren't on the same page. That's fine too.

What am I trying to say. I might have gotten lost.

This thread is a week old, as of yesterday. I feel we're at the point where the people with the strongest opinions on this against this system are just going in circles. We've been told, by the developers, how they plan to alleviate our concerns (in admittedly vague descriptions). The people who believe most passionately that they're wrong have voiced their opinions. I desperately, desperately hope that those opinions have been heard. You can't make all the people happy all the time. If the developers go forward with a decision that would not make the enfranchised players happy, I hope it's because they have all the data available and decided it was the best of a bad lot of ideas.

I'm trying to communicate that yes, I understand and respect the feelings of the biggest and most vocal proponents of the other side of the aisle (bad metaphor, but it's all I've got). Please make sure you make your voice heard.

But I think we're at a point where nothing new has been said in a while and we're kind of stymied until we either get more feedback from the developers, or until we see patch notes for 3.3.

All (I think) we're doing now is making ourselves more upset over a situation that hasn't changed at all since we all first voiced our opinions. Please, let's calm ourselves and wait until we see what happens next.

If you feel your voice has not been heard, then (at least from where I sit), you might want to trying phrase it a different way. Because I'm not seeing anything new from folks that have already expressed the same opinion. We've tapped our clock (to use the chess metaphor), it's time to see what the developers' next move is.

Unknown

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GrizzoMtGPQ

OmegaLolrus said:

Well, let me say this, and maybe it can help put into perspective how some of the less-veteran players feel about it.

So I'm just barely over Platinum in every color except Blue, and I'm maybe two or three cards away from hitting Platinum there. So I am literally the person in the position that the veteran players are concerned about. I've got scads and scads of cards that I haven't mastered that could be used to rocket me to heretofor unknown levels.

Is that going to happen? Yeah, no. I'm at level 38, and I'd be surprised if, barring any changes to the game, I'm above 40 by the end of the month. Sure, I'll be mastering a bunch of new cards when Allegiance hits, but so will everyone else. I needs me my Simic.

I would love to have a big old level number next to my name. I'd love to have that perceived prestige. But if I sit down and do nothing to be work on leveling cards, I'd quit the game by the end of the week. I've got four, maybe five decks that I really like playing with (working on number six, but I can't find just the right combination of cards for Nissa, Worldwaker to make me happy). Those are all filled with eight or nine cards I've long since mastered and maybe one or two that I haven't.

The reason those one or two haven't been mastered? Because I'm rotating them in to see if I like them more than the cards that I already mastered that used to have those slots. Unless they're Common, or a really good synergizing Uncommon, they're probably going to get rotated out before they get mastered.

So yeah, I could theoretically pass the people with a higher number of mastered cards than me. But, unless they're on this forum... They probably don't even realize the potential for that to happen, and even if they do... there's a really good chance they wouldn't care. I know I don't. I'm happy with my level 38, I think it represents where I am in the game. I realize that there's someone with a level 45 that's got twice the number of cards I do that should probably be 60 or something.

But for those of us on the more casual end of the spectrum, we're going to be a lot more interested in the new toys that are coming out, or the event that we haven't played in two months that's rotating back around. By the time that difference would really come into play, I think the more veteran players will have other options to get the XP they need to get their player level to a more appropriate level and be a couple of dozen levels ahead me, as they probably should be.

That being said, it doesn't invalidate how the people who are upset about this issue feel. All I can say is: I don't think it's going to make as big a deal as you think it will in the long run. Yes, I agree that this whole situation could have been handled better. Brigby is doing everything he can with what he has to work with. I think, short of holding everything back and adding all these XP and level systems at once (which, depending on how big an undertaking it will be, might have been unfeasible from a programming point of view). I beg for patience. I understand if you have none left.

TL;DR - I think those of you that are very upset are blowing this a little out of proportion. I freely admit that I could be wrong.

@OmegaLolrus I too am in this position. The way to chip away at this is to start building decks with a few new cards. You can easily get 240 XP doing TG every day, in TOTP if you play the whole thing that will net you 1200 XP as you can get 100 XP fairly easily using good cards to bolster the weaker ones. All the easy peasy early nodes of the Standard and Legacy PVE events will net you 200 XP.

Aeroplane

You're in Platinum , you play people from Platinum.Sometimes you get an easy match or a hard match You master 25 cards you get a bonus, you master 50 cards you get a bonus. Why complicate matters when they should be simplifying things.
 Cut down on the loading screens, animations and repetitive events. Add simple daily, weekly, monthly challenges from story modes with coalition events in between. They have so many great resources at their disposal , but the go and spend time doing some weird mastery, leveling, xp,  matching kabob. 
 We should be discussing weekly objectives " defeat Battle for Zendikar , chapter 3 - 7 using Vraska with only uncommons /commons, not this . Oh,well Oktagon will get one day.

TomB

GrizzoMtGPQ said:

OmegaLolrus said:

Well, let me say this, and maybe it can help put into perspective how some of the less-veteran players feel about it.

So I'm just barely over Platinum in every color except Blue, and I'm maybe two or three cards away from hitting Platinum there. So I am literally the person in the position that the veteran players are concerned about. I've got scads and scads of cards that I haven't mastered that could be used to rocket me to heretofor unknown levels.

Is that going to happen? Yeah, no. I'm at level 38, and I'd be surprised if, barring any changes to the game, I'm above 40 by the end of the month. Sure, I'll be mastering a bunch of new cards when Allegiance hits, but so will everyone else. I needs me my Simic.

I would love to have a big old level number next to my name. I'd love to have that perceived prestige. But if I sit down and do nothing to be work on leveling cards, I'd quit the game by the end of the week. I've got four, maybe five decks that I really like playing with (working on number six, but I can't find just the right combination of cards for Nissa, Worldwaker to make me happy). Those are all filled with eight or nine cards I've long since mastered and maybe one or two that I haven't.

The reason those one or two haven't been mastered? Because I'm rotating them in to see if I like them more than the cards that I already mastered that used to have those slots. Unless they're Common, or a really good synergizing Uncommon, they're probably going to get rotated out before they get mastered.

So yeah, I could theoretically pass the people with a higher number of mastered cards than me. But, unless they're on this forum... They probably don't even realize the potential for that to happen, and even if they do... there's a really good chance they wouldn't care. I know I don't. I'm happy with my level 38, I think it represents where I am in the game. I realize that there's someone with a level 45 that's got twice the number of cards I do that should probably be 60 or something.

But for those of us on the more casual end of the spectrum, we're going to be a lot more interested in the new toys that are coming out, or the event that we haven't played in two months that's rotating back around. By the time that difference would really come into play, I think the more veteran players will have other options to get the XP they need to get their player level to a more appropriate level and be a couple of dozen levels ahead me, as they probably should be.

That being said, it doesn't invalidate how the people who are upset about this issue feel. All I can say is: I don't think it's going to make as big a deal as you think it will in the long run. Yes, I agree that this whole situation could have been handled better. Brigby is doing everything he can with what he has to work with. I think, short of holding everything back and adding all these XP and level systems at once (which, depending on how big an undertaking it will be, might have been unfeasible from a programming point of view). I beg for patience. I understand if you have none left.

TL;DR - I think those of you that are very upset are blowing this a little out of proportion. I freely admit that I could be wrong.

@OmegaLolrus I too am in this position. The way to chip away at this is to start building decks with a few new cards. You can easily get 240 XP doing TG every day, in TOTP if you play the whole thing that will net you 1200 XP as you can get 100 XP fairly easily using good cards to bolster the weaker ones. All the easy peasy early nodes of the Standard and Legacy PVE events will net you 200 XP.

I think you may have missed his point, @GrizzoMtGPQ . If I'm reading it right (and I myself feel this way) he hasn't felt the need to go out of his way to master ANYTHING, and has no plans to do so anytime soon. I master new cards when I add them to my decks due to rotations/deckbuilding challenges/getting something shiny and new that makes an already playable deck better, but I've never gone out of my way to do it. I'm at level 33 and turned Platinum I think sometime around Dominaria, and while I'm likely to gain a level or 2 once Allegiance drops I'm not going to just start grinding out of the blue.

Heck, I've barely got enough time to finish RT on time half the time...lol

jtwood

TomB said:

I think you may have missed his point, @GrizzoMtGPQ . If I'm reading it right (and I myself feel this way) he hasn't felt the need to go out of his way to master ANYTHING, and has no plans to do so anytime soon. I master new cards when I add them to my decks due to rotations/deckbuilding challenges/getting something shiny and new that makes an already playable deck better, but I've never gone out of my way to do it. I'm at level 33 and turned Platinum I think sometime around Dominaria, and while I'm likely to gain a level or 2 once Allegiance drops I'm not going to just start grinding out of the blue.

Heck, I've barely got enough time to finish RT on time half the time...lol

I've not felt the need to go crazy mastering anything, either. It feels like the level awards are very small and hardly worth the effort of risking losing RT/TG matches and spending more time than absolutely necessary getting the dailies. I'll master during events with highly specialized objectives, but rarely beyond that do I sit around and think about playing a new card just to gain some XP in it.

ZW2007-

I'm just flabbergasted that a lot of people are only concerned with the here and now. Are none of you concerned about the future ramifications this could have on the game? They've expressed countless times that they have big plans for this new system. Matchmaking is a pretty important part of the game. If this effects tiers, that is another pretty important thing. Who knows what else.

They act like players will be able to get gobs and gobs of experience from things besides mastering cards "at some point in the future!" but we have no guarantee of when it will happen or how much experience we will get. Currently you can get 6 xp per card per TG win, a whopping 120 xp if you play with a (probably) terrible deck and manage to win. I'm not holding my breath expecting rewards of 500 xp that come frequently.

I'm sitting half way through level 41 and there is zero urgency for me to master my 1,371 unmastered cards right now. If 3.3 drops and there's some crazy tier at level 100 where I can get a ton of extra jewels, then you better believe I will start mastering cards as quickly as I can. Guess who won't be racing to level 100? The guys and gals in the 2k club that already mastered all or almost all of their cards.

OmegaLolrus

TomB said:

GrizzoMtGPQ said:

OmegaLolrus said:

Well, let me say this, and maybe it can help put into perspective how some of the less-veteran players feel about it.

So I'm just barely over Platinum in every color except Blue, and I'm maybe two or three cards away from hitting Platinum there. So I am literally the person in the position that the veteran players are concerned about. I've got scads and scads of cards that I haven't mastered that could be used to rocket me to heretofor unknown levels.

Is that going to happen? Yeah, no. I'm at level 38, and I'd be surprised if, barring any changes to the game, I'm above 40 by the end of the month. Sure, I'll be mastering a bunch of new cards when Allegiance hits, but so will everyone else. I needs me my Simic.

I would love to have a big old level number next to my name. I'd love to have that perceived prestige. But if I sit down and do nothing to be work on leveling cards, I'd quit the game by the end of the week. I've got four, maybe five decks that I really like playing with (working on number six, but I can't find just the right combination of cards for Nissa, Worldwaker to make me happy). Those are all filled with eight or nine cards I've long since mastered and maybe one or two that I haven't.

The reason those one or two haven't been mastered? Because I'm rotating them in to see if I like them more than the cards that I already mastered that used to have those slots. Unless they're Common, or a really good synergizing Uncommon, they're probably going to get rotated out before they get mastered.

So yeah, I could theoretically pass the people with a higher number of mastered cards than me. But, unless they're on this forum... They probably don't even realize the potential for that to happen, and even if they do... there's a really good chance they wouldn't care. I know I don't. I'm happy with my level 38, I think it represents where I am in the game. I realize that there's someone with a level 45 that's got twice the number of cards I do that should probably be 60 or something.

But for those of us on the more casual end of the spectrum, we're going to be a lot more interested in the new toys that are coming out, or the event that we haven't played in two months that's rotating back around. By the time that difference would really come into play, I think the more veteran players will have other options to get the XP they need to get their player level to a more appropriate level and be a couple of dozen levels ahead me, as they probably should be.

That being said, it doesn't invalidate how the people who are upset about this issue feel. All I can say is: I don't think it's going to make as big a deal as you think it will in the long run. Yes, I agree that this whole situation could have been handled better. Brigby is doing everything he can with what he has to work with. I think, short of holding everything back and adding all these XP and level systems at once (which, depending on how big an undertaking it will be, might have been unfeasible from a programming point of view). I beg for patience. I understand if you have none left.

TL;DR - I think those of you that are very upset are blowing this a little out of proportion. I freely admit that I could be wrong.

@OmegaLolrus I too am in this position. The way to chip away at this is to start building decks with a few new cards. You can easily get 240 XP doing TG every day, in TOTP if you play the whole thing that will net you 1200 XP as you can get 100 XP fairly easily using good cards to bolster the weaker ones. All the easy peasy early nodes of the Standard and Legacy PVE events will net you 200 XP.

I think you may have missed his point, @GrizzoMtGPQ . If I'm reading it right (and I myself feel this way) he hasn't felt the need to go out of his way to master ANYTHING, and has no plans to do so anytime soon. I master new cards when I add them to my decks due to rotations/deckbuilding challenges/getting something shiny and new that makes an already playable deck better, but I've never gone out of my way to do it. I'm at level 33 and turned Platinum I think sometime around Dominaria, and while I'm likely to gain a level or 2 once Allegiance drops I'm not going to just start grinding out of the blue.

Heck, I've barely got enough time to finish RT on time half the time...lol

Bingo.

Yes, I could soar to insane heights... but it ain't gonna happen. I'm not mastering cards for the sake of mastering cards (now that I've hit the top tier of rewards). I'm playing with the cards I think are fun.

Like I can't imagine really playing a different blue or black deck than the Dimir deck I built, which as been mastered for at least two weeks with no changes.

Yes, it's a **** situation. Yes, I wish that the more enfranchised players weren't stuck in a place where they weren't getting the rewards they have worked for (or are at least put into a position that they could get those rewards).

In the long term, that could be very damaging to the game. That is, of course, if it goes unchanged. It sounds like that's not the plan. And it really, really sucks that they can't (or won't) give us firm details about how they plan to fix it.

What I'm trying to say is that those of us that didn't have 2000+ cards mastered before the last update aren't the threat we're being painted as. Yes, there are some that can use this system to take advantage and get ahead of you with effort that you straight can't put into the game (because you can't remaster the cards). We do sympathize with your problems, but we're not a threat.

With that being said, I have a question... For those of you that are stuck in a position where they can't level any further because of this problem and are getting passed up: Would you be satisfied with (what I assume is) the easiest solution, just resetting all your mastered cards and letting you grind them to mastery again?

I'm not saying you should be satisfied with that option, but would you be?

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OmegaLolrus

starfall said:

@Brigby

Can we, at the very least, get reassurance that you've recorded how much XP each player has 'lost' in the scale down, so that if this entire matter is completely forgotten about next week when the 3.3 update arrives, the problem can still be fixed retroactively at a later date?

It sounds like it'd be something that would be easy to figure out, even if they didn't, but...

It would be nice to know that they did. I really hope this isn't all set in stone, and this data would be really important for any changes down the road.

Brakkis

OmegaLolrus said:

Bingo.

Yes, I could soar to insane heights... but it ain't gonna happen. I'm not mastering cards for the sake of mastering cards (now that I've hit the top tier of rewards). I'm playing with the cards I think are fun.

Have you though? If player level is going to effect matchmaking, there's ample reason to believe it will also effect rewards. So while you and I and many others are all sitting in Platinum thinking we've reached the peak of rewards, the very plausible moment that player levels alter that, the perception of mastering cards or not changes. The higher the level you reach, the better the rewards. Bringing us back to how we who have mastered over 2000 cards can not level up using that method while those with, say 1000 mastered cards, can.

OmegaLolrus said:

With that being said, I have a question... For those of you that are stuck in a position where they can't level any further because of this problem and are getting passed up: Would you be satisfied with (what I assume is) the easiest solution, just resetting all your mastered cards and letting you grind them to mastery again?

I'm not saying you should be satisfied with that option, but would you be?

For the most part, probably. We'd be annoyed because it's an awful solution; but, it's a solution. In time we could master all of those cards again and there wouldn't be such an issue. We'd just grumble at the time investment having to be reinvested.

The best choice would simply be to remove the curve that was used and grant every player the sum total of experience they earned through each mastered card. They know how much each card is valued at, and they can see how many of each rarity of card we have mastered.

IM_CARLOS

It's hard to follow the thread. There are dozens solution flowing around, everbody has a opinion why he is (not yet) affected and a 'not so fix' statement from the devs.

This is a thread that split the playership. A thread that should be fixed fast. 

Conclusion: wait until thread is fixed to make it fair. 

Memo to myself: no more cash until then. 

Thuran

starfall said:

@Brigby

Can we, at the very least, get reassurance that you've recorded how much XP each player has 'lost' in the scale down, so that if this entire matter is completely forgotten about next week when the 3.3 update arrives, the problem can still be fixed retroactively at a later date?

Just count mastered cards, since they are the only source of xp, current total xp should equal what we lost minus what we got

OmegaLolrus

Brakkis said:

OmegaLolrus said:

Bingo.

Yes, I could soar to insane heights... but it ain't gonna happen. I'm not mastering cards for the sake of mastering cards (now that I've hit the top tier of rewards). I'm playing with the cards I think are fun.

Have you though? If player level is going to effect matchmaking, there's ample reason to believe it will also effect rewards. So while you and I and many others are all sitting in Platinum thinking we've reached the peak of rewards, the very plausible moment that player levels alter that, the perception of mastering cards or not changes. The higher the level you reach, the better the rewards. Bringing us back to how we who have mastered over 2000 cards can not level up using that method while those with, say 1000 mastered cards, can.

Well, true. For now, at least, it's the top tier of rewards. Going forward, yeah, it does sound like there will be rewards above and beyond. At that point... I don't know. I'm not expecting to get the highest rewards. I'd be... disappointed isn't the right word, but let's use disappointed. I'd be disappointed if there wasn't some place for me to go build to.

For the sake of argument, if I had master double the cards I have mastered currently to get to that top tier... I mean, I'd do it, but it wouldn't be fast. I've only been playing fairly seriously for about six months now. It'd probably take me about the same time to get that much done again.

It's going to be interesting to see what they're planning on using as rewards. Packs and runes are only so useful. Even gems, to a certain point, are useful. I'm moderately concerned about exclusive cards, planeswalkers, whatever to those levels, but we'll see. Perhaps prestige, who's to say.

Dropspot

I can't believe only 1,87% of the player base is platinum all colors. This number is for sure considers all players that have installed the game once and never played it again. The important number is how much of the active player base platinum players are. And in this case I have strong evidences that platinum player are the majority or close to the majority of the active player base.

There is evidences that plat have 3 brackets in HoD, making it up to 6k+ range of active plat players.

I believe gold only have 1 HoD bracket maybe 2, never 3. Making it 3k+ active players.

I don't have the numbers on bronze and silver but considering it takes 100 mastery points to go from bronze to silver and 150 from silver to gold and 250 from gold to plat. It's clear that gold is the lengthier tier a player stays in before going to plat. And as you can't surpass plat today. Most of the active and old player base must be in plat.

Ok, maybe bronze has a bigger player base considering all new player that are just trying a new game. But if you really think on the ones that are sticking to the game I believe plat is where the majority is right now. 

TheDude1

1.87% is a totally plausible number for all colors.  You're right it may be based on total players rather than active (however that's defined), but the bracket size you reference is going to be skewed.  In most events, Platinum bracket covers players who have Platinum status in at least one color - you don't need to be fully Platinum to fall into that bracket.  It's capturing a lot of people who are gold (or even silver/bronze) in other colors but happen to have mastered just one color enough.  

Without data, I find it perfectly plausible that some new players saw mastering one color as a means of jumping into Platinum quickly for the rewards.  I've seen many instances of new players being advised to not over-master cards early on that I can completely foresee that happening with the unseen player base that is not engaged in either the forums or a large active coalition.  Again, no idea what the numbers are without data, but it's a reasonable case to consider. 

Platinum may be the majority in events but I wouldn't be surprised if it's far from the majority of mastered colors.  And without going too far afield before the 3.3 updates, which will hopefully have more details on how XP/mastery/matchmaking/etc will work, these are probably included in reasons why the XP structure was devised, to divorce matchmaking from mastery.

fiirst

Dropspot said:

I can't believe only 1,87% of the player base is platinum all colors. This number is for sure considers all players that have installed the game once and never played it again. The important number is how much of the active player base platinum players are. And in this case I have strong evidences that platinum player are the majority or close to the majority of the active player base.

There is evidences that plat have 3 brackets in HoD, making it up to 6k+ range of active plat players.

I believe gold only have 1 HoD bracket maybe 2, never 3. Making it 3k+ active players.

I don't have the numbers on bronze and silver but considering it takes 100 mastery points to go from bronze to silver and 150 from silver to gold and 250 from gold to plat. It's clear that gold is the lengthier tier a player stays in before going to plat. And as you can't surpass plat today. Most of the active and old player base must be in plat.

Ok, maybe bronze has a bigger player base considering all new player that are just trying a new game. But if you really think on the ones that are sticking to the game I believe plat is where the majority is right now. 

For the @brigby equation.

i curious what is stand for 100%?

all active accounts?

OR

all accounts (supposed to be 3.2m*).

*p.s.newbie i knew have joined mtgpq for 3 weeks with uid 3.2m,

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ElfNeedsFood

There was nary a mention of mastery levels in the pre-release notes... 

The thing is if the new system barely recognizes card mastery once implemented, then those that mastered right in this gap may have an advantage (in the rewards they reap in this gap time), but then when we start ranking based on actual game play, the gap could totally iron out...

Unknown

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