Averting Disaster

JopeX37

@Brigby @Oktagon_Daiane You have a crisis brewing with this game.  As someone that, with the exception of a short hiatus during the games darkest days during the transition between Hibernum and Oktagon, has played daily for three years and has been a part of one of the game's premier coalitions for over two and a half years, I need you guys to know that I'm trying being honest in an attempt to help you avert disaster.  I think you can even still salvage a win out of this, but you need to act quickly and decisively.

I love MtGPQ, but the game has its flaws.  The many bugs and system instability, the lack of new content, the leveling system etc., but in my opinion by far the most dangerous flaw, and the only one that could actually kill the game, is the consistent and frankly baffling lack of communication between the Devs and the community.  When you nerfed the DDZE rewards after the first beta, we heard nothing for weeks.  The Veteran Player Adjustment(which you still haven't really answered for).  When you went public with the loop timer, it was initially way too short and then we were told it was to be even shorter still and there was a miscommunication between the Devs and Brigby regarding it.  Thankfully you did listen there and I think the 90 second timer has been a net positive for the game.  The GL nerf was poorly handled, but you were able to recover and find a happy middle ground there too.

And along those lines I feel it is worth mentioning that a lot of the things Oktagon have done have been fantastic.  Booster Crafting was a smashing success.  On balance,  the new events Oktagon have come up with have been excellent (AI, BoFT, AWR, TDW, RT, the 4 part Dom suite?  Great, all of them.  DDZE has its issues, but overall I like it and it's something new and there's still a lot of untapped potential there.)

But with the announcement of the VIP system at the same time RT mysteriously vanished, you have entered very dangerous waters.  For well over a year now, since the introduction of IXL and AI, we've had TotP, TG, and a third daily event, either AI or RT, that nets a booster and both MC and Jewels.  So it is not unreasonable for us to assume that having those are the game's standards and to expect a third daily event.  It's no secret that RT was a huge boon for the players, 100 MC and Jewels and 2500 orbs a week in addition to the 10 new free mythics are really good rewards.  RT had us happy and excited.  So to take it away without an explanation?  Yeah, we're going to be angry.

I feel like I shouldn't have to ask this, but do you understand what doing that while pushing a new and very expensive VIP program tells players?  It tells us that you're shifting the fundamentals of the game with no warning to a community that has stuck by it through thick and thin for three and a half years.  Now look, maybe RT is only gone for a week and it comes back post-3.4 because you needed to fix some things in the event.  That's totally fine, BUT YOU NEED TO TELL US THAT.  Ideally you'd have given us a substitute, like a week of old school AI.

We're mostly adults here, we understand that the game has to make money to exist.  A large number of us don't mind paying for extra content, or to get cards and walkers early, or whatever, but YOU NEED TO TELL US WHERE THE GAME IS GOING AND WHAT YOUR PLAN IS.  If we know what it is we'd be a lot less likely to get angry about things like this.  It's not good for your game to jerk people around so that they seriously consider quitting.  Every time they do, the likelihood that they do quit and you lose chunks of your playerbase increases.  It's a lot easier to ask us to handle a hard truth than it is to expect us to follow you into the dark not knowing what to expect.  People will assume the worst, and that's not our fault, it's yours.

So to sum up, here's where I think we are as a community and what we need from you going forward:

* 3.4 has a ton of bug fixes and that's freaking great.  We need them, the game needs them, good job all around.

* RT/a third weekly event: what is the status of this?  Is it gone for a week or are you scaling back the best rewards without warning?  Something else?  Let us know here.

* We are starved for new coalition events.  We haven't had a new PvE in a year and we haven't had a new PvP in nine months.  Please give us something.

* The VIP system and rewards in general- what is your plan?  Are you cutting back rewards to drive people into the VIP system or is the VIP system more of an add-on that will give additional benefits to those that opt in?

* Quality of life implementations?  Are any of them coming and if so when?

Please throw us a bone here, you're really playing with fire right now.  I haven't seen things this bad in a long time, both in the forums and in my coalition's discord server.  

Shadowslayer

As someone who has put a lot of money into this game in the past year, I couldnt agree more. I will gladly continue to spend in this game if we are all informed on what is happening. As far as the VIP goes, I still havent seen enough info, or platform for it to really make up my mind. I'll say I'm still in the middle, hovering more towards not agreeing with it. I think there is still a ton of potential in this game for the future. I'd hate to see it fall off, only for profits. 

FindingHeart8

It shouldn't be like this.  This isn't the same game that captivated me into playing 3 years ago

wereotter

I agree with your sentiment.... however just to fact check one of your statements, we did get a new PvE events with the Dominaria set, though we haven't seen it very often. And they did put in Tour de Ravnica as a PvE event as well, though I'll admit that one is less engaging since you can 100% it in less than a day.

JopeX37

wereotter said:

I agree with your sentiment.... however just to fact check one of your statements, we did get a new PvE events with the Dominaria set, though we haven't seen it very often. And they did put in Tour de Ravnica as a PvE event as well, though I'll admit that one is less engaging since you can 100% it in less than a day.

I was referring to Coalition events, so TdR doesn't count.  And I thought AWR/Dom came out last May but if it was June, I guess it's only been eleven months.  Still not good.

Magic123

Good post Jope! This sums everything up that i could think of, lets hope brigby sees this, he needs to take some action and let the devs know this gold advice!