Why is this game like this and please stop saying it’s “chance”

Wolfteeth

I bought 5 of the orange booster packs from the new Zendikar set and only got ONE mythic.  Then the last pack I bought out of that 5, were 4 repeats of 3 of the rares I got in the previous pack but 2 of the same one.  This **** happens all the time and I find it hard to believe it’s just “chance”.  This game is so stingy with giving out mythics it’s insane and disheartening. Trust me, I love the challenge of trying to earn mythics and masterpieces but aside from paying for VIP which has been a total waste of money based on the total lack of content, it just sends a really **** message to your players and I have spent a lot of money on this game.  Fix this nonsense, it’s annoying 

Tremayne

At least you got a mythic. My second premium pack gave me zero cards above uncommon I.e. no rare, mythic or masterpiece (of course I got the guaranteed rare).

And I have yet to get a mythic 4 or 5 packs in. I hope that my bad luck changes soon. 

Concerning the duplicate, someone tried to document a weird behaviour by opening 1000 booster packs and stumbled upon this thing about getting the same card twice in a booster pack way to often (I think), but as usual the radio silence is deafening from Oktagon.

FindingHeart8

It's a pay to win game these days, no amount of grinding with our minimized current rewards can match the VIP rewards.

andrewvanmarle

I got 1 mythic and one MP in 10 PP pulls.

and guess how many times I pulled the blue mimic as the  guaranteed rare?  6


I'd really like to have a liike at the RNG engine (if i understood how...)

Edit: I decided to get one more PP and got a mythic.... Yay..... Oh... Its a dupe of the ONE mythic I pulled


I know confirmation bias etc are a big factor, but having your players suspect that the rng is cheating is allready a bad thing. 


I decided to not spend cash this set, just my VIP and that is it. Your loss, oktagon.... 

jtwood

FindingHeart8 said:

It's a pay to win game these days, no amount of grinding with our minimized current rewards can match the VIP rewards.

Pay to collect.

The AI is really bad, so you can win quite a bit without any sincere investment.

But you can't collect without paying.

re:OP... It's just chance.

madwren

I sympathize. I usually open 10-12 premium packs with every set. I've had sets with terrible luck, and sets with good luck.  Yesterday I had three packs with only the guaranteed rare. I also had one pack that had 1 mythic and 10 rares, amazingly enough.  The good times come. It's just a shame that they seem few and far between. 

Gunmix25

I pulled 3 mythics in 10 PP. 1 was a dupe ... so technically I got 2 mythics.  I received the same amount in M21 and the set before that. Average seems to be about 2 per 10 PP at release. Not an official take, just an observational one. 

Endbringer

Last night and this morning after spending $300 and having 3200 mana crystals to start, I purchased 12000 crystals and used 15000 to open premiums. I received only 2 Masterpieces, still need 16 mythics, and 2 rares. Of course I didn't get the Angel of Destiny that was the very reason I spent all that money. I'm pretty sure they place certain drop rates on certain high quality chase cards just to get people to empty out their wallets and still need VIP packs to maybe acquire them in a few months once you've gotten to the point of hating yourself and questioning your life choices and all the money wasted on this electronic game that will never pay us back. Oh yeah can't forget the savage packs I bought for $5 an $15 that have their drop rate percentage change and drop the moment you buy them like false advertising. No wonder they changed VIP packs to not carrying over to the next set releases; $30 a month per person isn't nearly enough to fill their pockets. They need at least $1000 per set from each person, and more if you don't have VIP.

Endbringer

Oh and I still have 265,000 mana orbs that I can't do anything with.

Smokincookz

I had done enough grinding for 2 PP’s, as I don’t really have cash to afford much, anymore. The PW’s (for crystals, not cash) have seemed a better value to me.

Of the 50 possible cards (not including the 2 guaranteed rares) I had 9 common/uncommon dupes, two new rares, 1 mythic (a solid mythic, thankfully).

The rarity these days doesn’t mean jack compared to the written text, cost, and card features/effects...

Looking at you, GARBAGE cards! Such as: Wayfaring Temple, Evolution Vat, Plague Boiler, Chancellor of the Annex, Firemane Avenger, Experimental Frenzy, Charnel Troll, Spawn of Mayhem, God-Eternal Bontu, Momir Vig, and Illharg, the Raze-Boar.

Good riddance to these cards, as I doubt they’ll ever be played in Legacy. I almost never saw them used in Standard. I have never seen anyone use Wayfaring Temple or Plague Boiler! Hot garbage.

Thankfully, most sets since WAR have had fewer MP’s and Mythics that are worse than certain commons/uncommons.

These cards are so denigrating to the classification of Masterpiece and Mythic, IMO they should not have been selected as such. Considering the cost of pinks & non-dupe packs, these MP’s were a horribly negative value. 

Those are only from the previous Standard! Dreadwaters, Fraying Sanity, ugh, just awful.

Smokincookz

@Endbringer

I did not notice the Savage packs odds being changed. Remember, before you’ve bought it, it shows the odds for the ENTIRE purchase. So, if you add the percentages up for each individual pack, it should be the same. I bought the one for $5, got a couple mythics and a rare. I won’t spend more than about $5 at a time, and the deal has to be good as well, which I think it rarely is for bundles.

I’m not going to tell you how to spend your money, though it seems like in the beginning of your comment, $300 is not much to you. However, by the middle, I can see some serious regret expressed about the money spent. Hating yourself? Questioning life choices? Regretting the money spent...?

I am not saying you have a gambling addiction, but my grandma sure did, & like crazy. She lost so much wealth to them, but it never fazed her. She even snuck out, only one night after open-heart surgery, to drive over to the Thunderbird for bingo. Her hospice aide could not stop her, so just came with. She made it back into bed, plugged herself back into the monitors, just as the sun was rising, before staff came to work! That, right there, is a TRUE addiction.

These games operate on a similar principle as casinos do, but mainly in the use of flashing animations, glitz and glamour, and of course the shiny new cards! Casinos use this to lower our guard, have been ever since lighting was invented. There is strong evidence supporting that games have a similar effect. The card opening animations are SO obviously targeting those who are susceptible to glitz and glamour. 

Sadly, this mostly works on younger children, and some susceptible adults. Technically, all humans’ receptors are affected by screens, colored lights, animations, even more so when tied to a reward system... but those with non-addictive personalities will be mostly unscathed.

I am HEAVILY critical of this aspect of the microtransaction-based mobile game industry- it definitely creates misery, as I can see in your comment. I have criticized these animations here on the forums before. Mainly for card openings, as they cannot be skipped. I definitely have an addictive personality. Only the hard lessons I learned, seeing my mother and grandmother’s addictions, have allowed me to retrain my brain as much as possible.

If you have a strong temptation to spend on this game, even though you know it may well disappoint you, but you do it anyway, despite the known negative consequences, that is technically the definition of an addiction. 

I am not saying you should quit, or necessarily even stop spending, but merely suggest to reform your thinking a little bit, and try to slowly wean down to spending less and less, until you don’t regret the amount. Enjoy all the cards you’ve already collected thus far! That helps a lot. True, we lost a lot with the standard shift. But, if you have fully competed ELD, THB, & IKO, like me, you can still be dangerously competitive with that alone. Origins will always have synergy to be found with new cards as well.

I know that to keep up, we’d have to spend more and more, with how policy here is going. Without grinding 24/7 or spending a lot, you have to be alright with not having a full collection of the most cutting-edge cards. It can be tough to get over this fact.

I remember myself back at ELD & THB releases opening a ton of non-dupes and completing the set, but I haven’t even used most of those yet! This changed my thinking to “enjoy what I have now, master and build with those first. Chase the few best cards from each new set.”

I hope a little perspective can help you make informed spending decisions on this game, and elsewhere too. ☺️

madwren

Endbringer said:

I'm pretty sure they place certain drop rates on certain high quality chase cards just to get people to empty out their wallets 

A long time ago, a friend of a friend of a friend datamined the drop rates of individual cards and determined that specific cards were set to be "more rare" than other cards at those rarity levels. 

That was under Hibernum, but I assume that Oktagon has the same method.

Bubbles_CS

madwren said:

Endbringer said:

I'm pretty sure they place certain drop rates on certain high quality chase cards just to get people to empty out their wallets 

A long time ago, a friend of a friend of a friend datamined the drop rates of individual cards and determined that specific cards were set to be "more rare" than other cards at those rarity levels. 

That was under Hibernum, but I assume that Oktagon has the same method.

Hibernum would release sets in multiple chunks, so cards released in later chunks were significantly harder to get because they were simply available for a shorter period.

TomB

Smokincookz said:

I had done enough grinding for 2 PP’s, as I don’t really have cash to afford much, anymore. The PW’s (for crystals, not cash) have seemed a better value to me.

Of the 50 possible cards (not including the 2 guaranteed rares) I had 9 common/uncommon dupes, two new rares, 1 mythic (a solid mythic, thankfully).

The rarity these days doesn’t mean jack compared to the written text, cost, and card features/effects...

Looking at you, GARBAGE cards! Such as: Wayfaring Temple, Evolution Vat, Plague Boiler, Chancellor of the Annex, Firemane Avenger, Experimental Frenzy, Charnel Troll, Spawn of Mayhem, God-Eternal Bontu, Momir Vig, and Illharg, the Raze-Boar.

Good riddance to these cards, as I doubt they’ll ever be played in Legacy. I almost never saw them used in Standard. I have never seen anyone use Wayfaring Temple or Plague Boiler! Hot garbage.

Thankfully, most sets since WAR have had fewer MP’s and Mythics that are worse than certain commons/uncommons.

These cards are so denigrating to the classification of Masterpiece and Mythic, IMO they should not have been selected as such. Considering the cost of pinks & non-dupe packs, these MP’s were a horribly negative value. 

Those are only from the previous Standard! Dreadwaters, Fraying Sanity, ugh, just awful.

I don't know about all those "garbage" cards, but I've used Momir Vig to some positive effect before. And I've faced Firemane Avenger a few times as well. The rest might be hot garbage, but those 2 cards are okay I think...

Smokincookz

TomB said:

I don't know about all those "garbage" cards, but I've used Momir Vig to some positive effect before. And I've faced Firemane Avenger a few times as well. The rest might be hot garbage, but those 2 cards are okay I think...

I’ll give you that for Momir Vig, I suppose. Never found him to be more than niche-ok at best. Isperia had a pretty good record of showing up in Greg’s hands.

Firemane Avenger must be compared to Firemane Angel. The latter is worthy of the MP designation. Firemane Avenger is a low-end mythic card at best, IMHO. If you were to reform a card’s rarity based on power level and playability, & compare to all others, it would be closer to a rare.

It IS good to have some powerhouse lower level cards though, newer players need those to be easily accessible, to survive long enough to improve.

There are many more great cards I’m sad to see go.

I still think, I could maybe push Mizzium Transreliquat hard, beyond niche at some point, the free artifact copies mainly... that’s one of the strange MP exemptions that some may say should be on the bad list.

Bil

12 PP's .... 1 mythic and one dupe mythic so far ... 
Those awful droprates, on a set where 2/3 of the cards have been randomly set rare+ cards IS quite a blow in the jaw (80+ rares, about 60 mythics  for about 60 Commons/uncommons ... Seriously?)

Ok ... I have known bad Luck before and i Can live with it ... But this Time something IS diferent ...
This Time, When i think about the 200 daily events i should play to absorb the loss... When i remember it now means 2000 games under Time contraint instead of 800 relaxed ones ... i know something has gone out of control here ...

FindingHeart8

jtwood said:

FindingHeart8 said:

It's a pay to win game these days, no amount of grinding with our minimized current rewards can match the VIP rewards.

Pay to collect.

The AI is really bad, so you can win quite a bit without any sincere investment.

But you can't collect without paying.

re:OP... It's just chance.

I get what you're saying, and I don't entirely disagree.  But "pay to collect," feels like a downplay on the widening distance of power between VIP players and normal players.

I agree the AI does not generally optimize the deck it runs.  And heck a player running merely the complete Origins block could probably average a 50%+ win percentage.  But a player with the best standard cards with have a significant edge in average performance.  Skill takes a backseat to raw Card Power in this game...it's pretty difficult to screw up a high tier deck.

Volrak

Endbringer said:

I purchased 12000 crystals and used 15000 to open premiums. I received only 2 Masterpieces, still need 16 mythics, and 2 rares. Of course I didn't get the Angel of Destiny that was the very reason I spent all that money. I'm pretty sure they place certain drop rates on certain high quality chase cards

That may be true, but even ignoring that, you were unlikely to achieve your goal.

In general, buying packs with crystals is not an effective way of chasing specific cards of mythic+ rarity.  Non-dupe methods (elite packs or crafting) are much better.

Specific to your case, if you bought 50 PPs with those crystals, you'd be getting 1,250 random cards + 50 guaranteed rares.  Using the app drop rates, and assuming equal chance to open any card of the same rarity, you can work out in advance the expected outcome from that:

• 0.9 masterpieces
• 18 mythic drops, 13 of which are non-dupe (17 still to collect)
• 117 rare drops, 39 of which are non-dupe (2 still to collect)
• Chance of obtaining one specific chase mythic: 45%

You had good luck to get 2 masterpieces, and got results matching expectations pretty well in the other areas.  To avoid disappointment, the best thing I can recommend is figuring out what to expect before you press "buy" (or getting help to do that).

Volrak

Wolfteeth said:

I bought 5 of the orange booster packs from the new Zendikar set and only got ONE mythic. 

You got the single most likely outcome.