madwren said: It's just silly that we're going to forever have to deal with the same stale cards like Thopter Spy Network, Gaea's Revenge, and Starfield of Nyx in the meta.This would be the same with any set, mind you.
MarvinFine said: Mburn7 said:In summary, we're going to have to deal with TSN, Starfield, Gaia, and the rest of Origins for a very long time, no matter what we say or do. Honestly I think this is wishful thinking. Clearly, some directives about this game come down from WOTC, and I can't see WOTC wanting this spin off game to revolve around Origins long after the paper game has moved on.Rewriting the tutorials really isn't as big a job as you make out, and the players will get over rotation, just like they did when Standard was introduced into MTGPQ and paper.The key problem to solve, as you point out, is probably new players entering the game just before rotation, but I think there are solutions... making both Origins and the new set legal for a period of time during rotation, or perhaps guaranteeing new players who sign up a minimum amount of time for which their cards will be legal. maybe even just giving them a ton of free crystals.
Mburn7 said:In summary, we're going to have to deal with TSN, Starfield, Gaia, and the rest of Origins for a very long time, no matter what we say or do.
bken1234 said: MarvinFine said: Mburn7 said:In summary, we're going to have to deal with TSN, Starfield, Gaia, and the rest of Origins for a very long time, no matter what we say or do. Honestly I think this is wishful thinking. Clearly, some directives about this game come down from WOTC, and I can't see WOTC wanting this spin off game to revolve around Origins long after the paper game has moved on.Rewriting the tutorials really isn't as big a job as you make out, and the players will get over rotation, just like they did when Standard was introduced into MTGPQ and paper.The key problem to solve, as you point out, is probably new players entering the game just before rotation, but I think there are solutions... making both Origins and the new set legal for a period of time during rotation, or perhaps guaranteeing new players who sign up a minimum amount of time for which their cards will be legal. maybe even just giving them a ton of free crystals. And what about players who return to the game and find 100% of their cards unusable. A unique thing about this game is the "they always come back" phenomenon. Players will leave for 3 months, 6 months, 18 months and they seem to find their way back. We have had several of my top 10 teammates come back after 6-18 months out of the game and they are able to get a good jump start because of their Origins collections. My alt is in Platinum and half of the standard cards there are Origins. In short -- it can't just go away, pretty much ever. It can be renamed, or built on -- but those cards can't go away without alienating part of the player base.
Brakkis said: bken1234 said: MarvinFine said: Mburn7 said:In summary, we're going to have to deal with TSN, Starfield, Gaia, and the rest of Origins for a very long time, no matter what we say or do. Honestly I think this is wishful thinking. Clearly, some directives about this game come down from WOTC, and I can't see WOTC wanting this spin off game to revolve around Origins long after the paper game has moved on.Rewriting the tutorials really isn't as big a job as you make out, and the players will get over rotation, just like they did when Standard was introduced into MTGPQ and paper.The key problem to solve, as you point out, is probably new players entering the game just before rotation, but I think there are solutions... making both Origins and the new set legal for a period of time during rotation, or perhaps guaranteeing new players who sign up a minimum amount of time for which their cards will be legal. maybe even just giving them a ton of free crystals. And what about players who return to the game and find 100% of their cards unusable. A unique thing about this game is the "they always come back" phenomenon. Players will leave for 3 months, 6 months, 18 months and they seem to find their way back. We have had several of my top 10 teammates come back after 6-18 months out of the game and they are able to get a good jump start because of their Origins collections. My alt is in Platinum and half of the standard cards there are Origins. In short -- it can't just go away, pretty much ever. It can be renamed, or built on -- but those cards can't go away without alienating part of the player base. The "returning player" argument is garbage and semi-invalidated by any number of MMO style games out there that also has the "they always come back" player base. For instance, If I were to return to World of Warcraft right now I'd be stuck running around in gear from 3 expansions ago and super low level comparatively. I was one of the top 50 players in the world when I quit. I wouldn't get any sort of compensation for returning and I wouldn't be immediately capable of jumping in to new content. I have to work for it.A returning player here would be on the same level as a new player and that is completely fine. You don't get to compete just because you used to play. You stopped playing. You came back to a different playing field. Time to work for it like anyone else. It's the price to be paid for stopping playing for an extended period of time.You made an investment in this game four months ago, or sixth months ago, or a year ago. The investment period has worn off. Time to reinvest.Origins being permanent made some sense when WOTC was no longer doing Core Sets. That stance has changed and the game should change to reflect that. I love my Origins cards, but they need to not be permanently in Standard.
Brakkis said: The "returning player" argument is garbage and semi-invalidated by any number of MMO style games out there that also has the "they always come back" player base. For instance, If I were to return to World of Warcraft right now I'd be stuck running around in gear from 3 expansions ago and super low level comparatively. I was one of the top 50 players in the world when I quit. I wouldn't get any sort of compensation for returning and I wouldn't be immediately capable of jumping in to new content. I have to work for it.A returning player here would be on the same level as a new player and that is completely fine. You don't get to compete just because you used to play. You stopped playing. You came back to a different playing field. Time to work for it like anyone else. It's the price to be paid for stopping playing for an extended period of time.You made an investment in this game four months ago, or sixth months ago, or a year ago. The investment period has worn off. Time to reinvest.Origins being permanent made some sense when WOTC was no longer doing Core Sets. That stance has changed and the game should change to reflect that. I love my Origins cards, but they need to not be permanently in Standard.
That's pretty much how I feel, as well. If you make a choice to leave, you make a choice to potentially fall behind and have to climb back up the ladder. It's true in MMOs, it's true in paper CCGs, it's true in any type of game in which there is asset progression and growth. Expecting one's assets to retain their value permanently isn't reasonable in this era of gaming. This isn't a problem. It just is. The game marches on.
However, the reason the "returning player" argument fails is that a returning player still has a significant advantage in resources over a brand new player--yet we expect that with patience, time, effort, and little luck, that the new player will become competitive. Removing Origins puts returning players behind, but they're still on Square Two compared to where new players start. If removing Origins would be such a terrible idea because so many people would be disadvantaged, then you're aiming at the wrong target--the target should be, as it has always been, refining the new player experience and growth curve.
1.The new player experience is largely poop, and the game is ridiculously austere with low-value currency that is needed in large quantities, for no reason.
2. Events provide scarce rewards in irrelevant sets and are designed to make it harder to accrue cards in the current set at a reasonably fast rate;
3. Lack of prevalent and repeatable daily quests/tasks/objectives that can be accomplished in order to augment collections or currency in a direction players can choose, at a reasonable rate;
4. Lack of meaningful Legacy events, whether coalition or otherwise;
5. An inherently flawed tier system.
All of those are solvable. Heck, we have an army of creative and intelligent people on the forum, and I bet we could crowdsource it if it actually mattered and they would actually listen. Unfortunately, solving those issues requires direction and commitment by the Powers-that-Be that I have yet to see recognized, implemented, or communicated.
FindingHeart8 said: 3. Yeah GR and Starfield can be annoying, but every set has powerful cards. What's the argument then? To have the only set usable in both legacy and standard having no powerful cards? Making it even more difficult for a beginning or returning player to jump into the fray is just going to make more problems.
wereotter said: FindingHeart8 said: 3. Yeah GR and Starfield can be annoying, but every set has powerful cards. What's the argument then? To have the only set usable in both legacy and standard having no powerful cards? Making it even more difficult for a beginning or returning player to jump into the fray is just going to make more problems. Even if these cards are balanced to be more in line with how they're treating cards in the game, there will still be plenty of powerful cards in Origins. Hangarback Walker is still very powerful. Pyromancer's Goggles is a regular card in a lot of spell slinger decks. Avaricious Dragon, Infinite Obliteration, Hixus, Chandra's Ignition, and Alhammarret's Archive are all cards I see on a regular basis.I think the point of a staple set should be to provide the basics each color needs to cover its bases, so it's more important to as if Origins is providing those staples to each color and let supplementary sets provide flavor. To that end, I don't think that Origins is covering all the bases. White typically has artifact/enchantment (in this case support) removal. That's absent in Origins. Same problem for green. My personal thought would be to look at the commons they didn't print in Oath of the Gatewatch, Eldritch Moon, and Aether Revolt and see if there are any holes that need to be sured up, and add those cards into Origins. Ironwright's Cleansing (exile a support) in white, and Natural Obsolescence (shuffle a non-token support into your opponent's library) in green would be good additions.
wereotter said: madwren said: It's just silly that we're going to forever have to deal with the same stale cards like Thopter Spy Network, Gaea's Revenge, and Starfield of Nyx in the meta.This would be the same with any set, mind you. Considering this is a digital product, they can always rebalance the cards from Origins at any time. And given how they've added certain types to cards, they can make several of these more in-line with their paper counterparts.For example, Starfield might only be able to return enchantment supports. That still leaves the card as very powerful, but limits the cards it can pull back, currently, to 166 from 373, and will eliminate some of the more degenerate combos the card has (things like Hixus, Gideon's Defeat, and Settle the Wreckage aren't enchantments)Thopter Spy Network can trigger if you control an artifact instead of control a support, which is more inline with it's paper card as well. This still leaves 183 cards it can pair with to trigger, but does reduce the power level and prominence of the card.Gaea's Revenge I would say is the one that's still tough for them to balance properly. The actual card doesn't have hexproof and can only be targeted by green sources. So in this game you should be able to target it using Rabid Bite since that's a green spell, additionally, it's controller shouldn't be able to cast something like Uncaged Fury or Stratus Walk on it since those aren't green. It's a lot of work for one card to be sure, but there should be something done to address it's current dominance in green strategies.