How well should a F2P user be able to compete in MTGPQ?

TheDude1

Lost in all of the uproar around the VIP system is a fundamental question that I think everyone skirts, which is how much difference a paying player should have versus players who are only free-to-play (F2P).  I think your answer to this question will strongly correlate to your feeling on the VIP system as well as your view on how much you should be rewarded from free-access events.

Note that I'm NOT asking how much a player should be able to buy their way to a win, but how much success you think a true F2P user should expect without spending money.

(Also not sarcastic, I hope I'm doing these poll choices right.)

TheDude1

F2P users should be able to show consistent improvement, but should be considered lucky to reach the highest levels of competition

To answer my own question, I don't think a F2P player should have a real expectation to make it to the top of any game.  At this point the argument seems like a lot of haggling over degrees of freebies given to the user base, especially for people who don't in turn invest in the game.  We do need a regular population of new users to continue growing the user base, but I don't think they should be expected to do particularly well.

This game is very F2P-friendly, which I think is a tremendous benefit to get people interested in what is otherwise a very complicated game structure.  That means you have to provide resources to get them off the ground and experience success early, with an incentive to do better.  I'm not at all opposed to free daily events with rewards that give just enough to entice more activity.  The best games provide enough resources to feel like you have a shot at victory, but need a little more luck and maybe some more resources to get over the hump.

But I think what got lost with the VIP introduction/losing RT is that it was by far the richest daily event the game has ever provided.  It was due to go away eventually based on timing, just as Across Ixalan was, and there is no guarantee that anything replacing it would be as lucrative.  It sucks to lose an event that rich, but given that the event is open to everyone, should we be expecting something that rich to be available to users who don't (ever) pay?

And as far as the VIP package in particular is concerned, I don't think this will get a ton of users joining and I don't find the value particularly compelling.  But the irony is that the fewer people who take up the offer, the less impact it will have on the game's ecosystem.  It's either going to have an impact or it's not - whether it should is a subjective question.

OmegaLolrus

F2P users should be able to achieve regular success at the highest levels of competition

So I think they should be able to reach the highest level of competition, though the time taken to get there may be longer than if you're putting money into the game. Luck, of course, can always be a factor.

Gabrosin

F2P users should be able to achieve regular success at the highest levels of competition

This is already a weird situation because players are never truly competing against each other in MTGPQ; they're always facing off against Greg, playing a random deck designed by another PQ player but generally not knowing what to do with it.  As such, winning nearly every game is an achievable goal even for players who are only a few months into their PQ journey.  The main difference at the highest levels is a few percentage points of consistency, and a dramatic reduction in the amount of time it takes to achieve that winrate.  Eventually you no longer need to load your deck up with removal and resilient threats and pray Greg doesn't accidentally combo out on you; you can just play the same ruthless decks that win by T5 as everyone else is.

The margin of error between being at the very top and being an also-ran is as much defined by whether you can avoid bugs as it is by your collection and deckbuilding prowess.

I think F2P players should be able to compete at the top like everyone else.  The more important questions: how much of each new set should a player expect to be able to get without investing money?  And how much reward should a player expect for the investment of their time?

The big backlash over RT isn't just that it's the most lucrative event they've produced but also the most efficient.  Playing through four matches of RT, assuming you hit all the secondaries, would get you 10 crystals plus a bunch of jewels, a pack, and 500 orbs.  The same amount of wins in TG gets you just the 10 crystals.  This is a VAST difference in reward for your time investment.  And the same can be seen in other events, some of which have big consequential rewards and some of which have paltry insignificant ones.

I've suggested it before, but I think this game would benefit from moving to a model like Arena, where no matter which event you participate in, you get rewards for each daily win, and then the rewards from each event are separate and consistent.  If I'm doing a Bo1 draft, I know how many gems/packs I get for my record at the end, and it's the same for every set.  For PQ, even events that look superficially similar can have wildly different time requirements; Oath of the Gatewatch requires twice as many matches as Fateful Showdown because of its mutually exclusive secondaries and infinitesmal margin for error.

Sadly, I know that's not going to happen.

BATMAN1

F2P users should be able to achieve regular success at the highest levels of competition

Yea this game is about strategy and luck. Luck can be supplemented with purchasing power in this game, but a player has to build, craft and fine tune his/her own strategy. (Of course strategy can be supplemented as well with the help of a guild). So a f2p should be able to make it to the top tier echelon it’s just a lot harder for them. 

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morgue427

F2P users should be able to achieve regular success at the highest levels of competition

being able to compete as f2p helps keep the game visible and chosen because so many dont want to have to pay to win, by being f2p you trade your time for the abillity to play at the top levels

TheDude1

F2P users should be able to show consistent improvement, but should be considered lucky to reach the highest levels of competition

Thank you all for the thoughtful, civil responses thus far.  I didn't create this poll to argue or advocate, just to take the pulse of the forums.  I do appreciate everyone's feedback because this is a highly subjective issue with plenty of personal opinion.

Based on early returns from this poll I'm clearly far in the minority.   My view is that "Free to Play" does not necessarily equate to "Free to Win".  I know that isn't the prevailing view, but I didn't know how much that view was shared/not shared.  It helps to put these other conversations into perspective.

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madwren

F2P users should be able to achieve regular success at the highest levels of competition

I'm a firm believer that a F2P player should, through a combination of skill and effort, be able to experience success at all levels of the game. Over the last three years I've advocated multiple times that there needs to be a reliable pathway for F2P players to access upper tier content--particularly players who are very new to the game. Honestly, if there is one thing Oktagon did right, it was having something like RT. It provided a reasonable amount of rewards in an accessible manner for everyone.

My preferred type of gacha games are those that encourage players to pay for:

--Convenience or quality-of-life upgrades

--Resource accrual advantages to reduce the grind

--Cosmetic improvements (skins, avatars, frames).

I've been fairly heavily involved in MTGPQ, Fire Emblem Heroes, Girls Frontline, and Langrisser (played all of them since they came out, only just recently quit FEH). In all of those games, you can have high-end success as a F2P user.  The only difference is that it typically takes you longer (due to the grind not being shortened), and that you sometimes have less room for error (as you don't have as much breadth of a collection)  All of those games are generous in terms of the ability for F2P players to earn reasonable amounts of currency through gameplay and challenge.

In other words, I dislike pay-to-win, but I do support pay-for-advantage. However, it's paramount that the free players, who still make up the largest proportion of the playerbase, are able to reasonably progress from the bottom to the top.

wereotter

F2P users should be able to achieve regular success at the highest levels of competition

Payment in games should be in exchange for not spending as much time in the game. For example, being able to buy runes. Either you can grind them out in story mode or quick battle, or you can buy a bundle of them.

I think this game doesn't exactly have a free to play model since if you don't purchase crystals, your earning potential for being able to acquire packs and earn booster crafting orbs is severely limited, and there's no way to grind to earn crystals to purchase packs. You either earn the exact number on offer through events and daily logging in, or you buy them. I don't like that aspect of this game since it feels like you're forced to spend an already arguably inflated amount on the premium currency.

That said.... the premium currency is given out more frequently than it is in other games I've played. So perhaps having that currency be grindable might be worse for players overall.

Azerack

F2P users should be able to achieve regular success at the highest levels of competition

I'll just say that in addition to the answer I chose, I'll add..
F2P users should be able to achieve regular success at the highest levels of competition but not at the same pace as someone who spends money.

Thanks to booster crafting, events with jewel rewards and the recent RT bounty, nothing is impossible for a F2P player to acquire, but obviously it takes longer since they're not buying packs, their earning them via playing and that's a slower pace.

The VIP thing, as much as I think it's overpriced, is just another way to ramp up the progression of card acquisition and getting ahead of a F2P player.

Basically, the F2P can still play the "long game" and eventually get all the cards, and with luck, masterpieces and mythics they need to keep up with the paying crowd. Some even are lucky and get the masterpieces and mythics before the paying crowd.

I wholehearedly enjoy this game and don't mind supporting it, financially, but I also play other games that don't charge near as much (Path of Exile comes to mind) to play (if at all) and only ask for support in return for cosmetic and storage items.

However, if $30 a month is someone's idea of VIP support PER MONTH, I'm thinkin' they'd better be asking me for my physical mailing address because they want to send me a t-shirt or something, not just allow some crystals and jewels and free in-game stuff... 

Sorry, got off topic, but I think I explained my point before that.

Theophilus

F2P users should be able to reach the highest levels of competition, but not win consistently

I will not be purchasing a subscription to this game. Like many of you, I have real bills to pay. As a result, I expect that within six months or so the wins at the top level will not come as easily. So my response is more about what I expect it to be, and less about what I want it to be.

Brigby

starfall said:

Let's also just take a minute to define our terms properly: technically, we are not

TheDude1 said:

haggling over degrees of freebies given to the user base.

With the removal of RT what's been taken away are not freebies but event rewards. 'Freebies' are the 6 hour boosters and the daily login calendar.

-snip-

Hi Everyone. I just wanted to jump in real quick to clarify that Rising Tensions is not being removed. It is merely being scheduled at a less frequent rate than every single week. As of right now, it's anticipated to be scheduled again for the beginning of June.

Magic123

F2P users should be able to achieve regular success at the highest levels of competition

Brigby said:

starfall said:

Let's also just take a minute to define our terms properly: technically, we are not

TheDude1 said:

haggling over degrees of freebies given to the user base.

With the removal of RT what's been taken away are not freebies but event rewards. 'Freebies' are the 6 hour boosters and the daily login calendar.

-snip-

Hi Everyone. I just wanted to jump in real quick to clarify that Rising Tensions is not being removed. It is merely being scheduled at a less frequent rate than every single week. As of right now, it's anticipated to be scheduled again for the beginning of June.

That's terrible, once every month is bad, once every 2 weeks is just as bad! Taking away that event was literally the only income i had in this game.

1. Can you tell me if they are going to add a new one just like it for everyday playing?

2. If they aren't, can you tell me how players are going to actually gain anything from any event but the coalition events?

@Brigby

Gabrosin

F2P users should be able to achieve regular success at the highest levels of competition

Azerack said:

Basically, the F2P can still play the "long game" and eventually get all the cards, and with luck, masterpieces and mythics they need to keep up with the paying crowd. Some even are lucky and get the masterpieces and mythics before the paying crowd.

Just to note, it's questionable whether this is true right now.  I've been keeping track of my total progress, measured in orbs, for the past few releases.  Even basically maximizing your available rewards by doing well in every event and playing in a top coalition (a luxury not everyone has), it's tough to break even... and that was before RT got the axe.  Without RT and its thousands of orbs of value each week, F2P players will start falling behind.

Now, it's also true that not every masterpiece or mythic is needed to succeed.  Being able to target a specific pack with jewels to get a premium masterpiece and then rely on it across many decks will still be available for F2P players.  And plenty of players have such a depth of cards and resources available over years of play that they'll be able to ride those advantages for years before truly feeling the squeeze.

Where this is really going to hurt is newer players.  Without a wildcard system or trading or some other mechanism for obtaining specific cards, building up a collection to match the veterans is going to be a daunting challenge.  Even the most direct route, spending jewels on a Mythic+ Elite pack with the card you're after, could require 4000 or so before you're certain to hit your target.  When you're getting 200 a week from TotP (at the cost of crystals) and they're hard to pick up through other events, that's months of effort chasing just one card.  With RT in the mix, you could get one mythic/MP pull each week with a little to spare.

Trying to collect enough orbs to finish off a legacy collection is a multi-year effort at this point and will only get harder once rotation happens in the fall.

In paper Magic this wouldn't be a big deal.  Don't have the cards for Legacy, or the money to invest in Legacy?  Simple, don't play Legacy.  Proxy it with your friends at the kitchen table but skip the tournament scene and stick to Standard or Modern or Limited.  But PQ doesn't give that option.  On Arena, I can get my daily rewards by playing Standard, or Draft, or Sealed, or oddball formats like Singleton or Pauper.  I can play ranked if I'm feeling competitive or casual if I want to throw together some jank.  No matter what, the game is going to reward me for my time and victories.  For PQ, about half the events are Legacy, and if it's Legacy PvP, battling the "haves" of the game can be frustrating.  There's no option to say "I'm new and I can only sling Standard", because if you do, you're dropping half the available F2P resources on the floor.

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Azerack

F2P users should be able to achieve regular success at the highest levels of competition

@Gabrosin - Agreed, with the removal of RT.. .sorry, my bad.. the severe reduction in frequency of RT, the current new players coming on the scene will definitely be at a greater disadvantage. But I'm pretty sure there are staunch F2P players from when the game first started that are at the top, now, anyway.

I'll also give that the "long game" probably does not suit many players who need that instant gratification (or even eventual gratification) that the last few months or more have given us. Even a demi-whale like myself (I spend on some months then take a break for others) has enjoyed a lighter budget with RT being an every-weekday thing. I've seriously been able to catch up on my legacy Mythics with the orbs, allowing the jewels and crystals to help me catch up on the newer mythicals and masterpieces.

-----------
@Brigby - I know I already mentioned this in another thread, but since you popped into this one, too, just wanted to throw out that the timing is really really bad on reduction of one and introduction of the other, I mean if everyone here sees it as a bait-and-switch, I'm sure people on the D3 side can see it, too...
-----------

Anyway, before RT there was just ToTP (which, to this day, I still avoid because it annoys me. ) and before that we had ... I forget what it was called but you know what I mean when I say the daily event to rank high enough to get a hoard of cards?

So I agree without something to supplement the two TG daily events, new players' "long game" is going to be far longer than those from even just 6 months, ago...

Thuran

F2P users should be able to achieve regular success at the highest levels of competition

Consider this; The meta is, as in any game, always changing, you will never reach the end of collecting new and strong cards.

Let's go over what this means. 
It means that if you accept the best card costs 40$, and is only available through purchase, then you also must accept that the next card to be the best in 3 months will also cost 40$.

If so, in order to be able to play the game competitively, you MUST pay 40$ every 3 months, aka a subscription. 

Due to this vicious circle of endless purchases, your ability to be competitive Will be determined not by your skills, but your RL wallet.

Therefore, F2p MUST be able to compete at the top level, with s big enough time investment, in this and in other games, since otherwise p2w players also get hurt by an endless void of purchases that never end.


However, what the Devs CAN do to earn money, and has shown to work supremely well in games like League of legends is to sell cosmetics. People will pay to look cool, and that has the benefit of possible endless purchases which the consumer does not perceive as mandatory nor takes away from the game experience.

But they also have to be microtransactions, something successful games do a lot and this game fails at. Put items at 5$ and watch people buy your alternate art for Bolas or for BSZ.

It's always better to sell 5 people an item for 5$ than selling a single person a 25$ item, because that creates 5 new customers, which all could make potential future purchases. And it's also way easier to convince people to spend 5$ "just this one time.." than have that single person check their budget for whether they can afford a 40$ single card purchase.

A competitive F2p model with cosmetic MICRO transactions is a win for everyone, and exactly how you get games like Fortnite and LoL.

Bil

F2P users should be able to achieve regular success at the highest levels of competition

 I think F2P should be able to reach the same level of competitivity than VIP, while counting on time and luck  instead of money. 

  In other words, the VIP can give access to exclusive features as long as they have no radical impact on competitivity in events.
  However it should provide some advantages in terms of currencies that would lead to a global advantage in terms of card gathering and collection completion. (exclusive discounts on packs, higher rewards in non-competitive events like TG or RT, higher MP chances in EPs, pity timer, etc ...)

TheDude1

F2P users should be able to show consistent improvement, but should be considered lucky to reach the highest levels of competition

starfall said:

Let's also just take a minute to define our terms properly: technically, we are not

TheDude1 said:

haggling over degrees of freebies given to the user base.

With the removal of RT what's been taken away are not freebies but event rewards. 'Freebies' are the 6 hour boosters and the daily login calendar.

Players must invest time and effort to win the 'freebies' on offer in RT.

You may argue that many players don't have to even try in order to win the prizes in RT, to which I would counter, that's because they have built a collection of cards which has taken them time and effort, and progressed to a player tier which has taken them time and effort.

Fair comment.  To clarify my definition of "free", I was defining it as anything you don't pay cash for.

My opinion is that event rewards are a subset of "free" grants.  They're earned through successful completion, but they are "free" in that you don't have to pay real money to receive them.  They are the same as the daily grants except for the amount of effort needed to acquire them.  Effort required has a spectrum, spanning from the easiest (daily log-ins) to the most difficult (TotP?), but none of the rewards come as part of an actual monetary transaction.  

Time and effort are investments/sacrifices from the player, but they don't go to D3/Oktagon's bottom line.  That's the main distinction I was making, though it may be too reductionist a view for others.  As with the other notes on this thread, YMMV.