First, I’d like to just say that I’m aware that Festivus isn’t until December but I’m thoroughly annoyed with recent developments in the game. From VIP to WAR, and the “ReWARd of the Spark” to the super maintenance, etc.
My biggest grievance, however, is the implementation of Vanguard packs. There are 28 Vanguard cards that are only available via jewels. Given the “Reward of the Spark” yesterday, I was able to complete my Vanguard collection with a whopping 15,300 jewels. That apparently was on the low end as most other reports said it took them anywhere from 16k-20k with some not even completing the set at 20k. Considering the average life of a set is 14 weeks (since a new set in paper releases every 3 months or so.) Given this, and using my own 15,300 (which seems to be the lowest reported and I know it’s accurate) as a baseline, it would take an average of 1,093 jewels earned weekly, and spent exclusively on Vanguards, to collect all the Vanguards in WAR. Keep in mind I had the lowest reported cost so it would likely be higher than that number. Now, let’s break down the maximum amount of jewels it is theoretically possible to attain. I looked at all events starting with the weekend coalition event that ended on 3/11 and concluding with the coalition event that ended on 6/16. This is roughly the entire span of RNA being the newest set and also 14 weeks (give or take a few days.) The maximum possible jewel income from 3/11 - 6/16 was 6,255 jewels. That is only possible for a platinum player that participated in every single event that rewarded jewels, and ranked in the top 5 individually/top 2 coalition, and was on the winning side of ZvE. So this imaginary, and impossible, fictional player would have averaged only 447 jewels a week over that 14 week span. That is a deficit of 646 jewels per week, or 9,045 jewels to reach 15,300. There are no other sources of jewels outside of the 300:75 crystals:jewels conversion and cash purchases/VIP. Converting crystals to jewels would require 36,180 crystals to make up that deficit, or the equivalent to $1,210 worth of crystals.
So even the greatest player that never existed in the history of the game would have to cough up over $1,000 to unlock the 28 cards that are the primary focus of this new set.
The real kicker here is that these cards aren’t available in the Standard only packs or the special VIP packs that contain only the cards from the newest set because they slapped the EXCLUSIVE stamp on them. Which brings me to my next grievance, VIP. They trotted VIP out in front of us like it was the greatest thing since sliced bread, even though we all agreed immediately that it was grossly overpriced. A lot of players, myself included, signed up for the free one week trial and found out the packs were non-duplicate packs. This lead players to signing up for the paid subscription, myself included, to get more of those packs. Some players, myself included, were able to complete their entire collection aside from the remaining exclusives. The reason I did this is because I was able to figure out how many packs I would need to complete my collection and then see that I would still have a decent amount of packs left over for WAR. Knowing that I would have a sizable number of non-dupe packs to use for WAR, I committed to purchasing VIP for a month. Fast forward a few weeks and those packs are only a fraction of the value I expected them to be. VIP packs went from containing all rares and ~83% of the mythics, to only containing ~62% of the rares and only 48% of the mythics (excluding the paid exclusives). Having this many cards marked as exclusives is a pretty drastic change compared to all previous set releases.
With this many exclusives in WAR, I feel like VIP was just another bait and switch.
Lastly, the communication has been a joke. I received roughly 54,000 jewels in the post-original maintenance mess and then the servers went down to “tie up some loose ends.” After that we heard basically nothing, and still have heard basically nothing.
Devs, you really need to take a long hard look at how these Vanguard packs will affect not only players enjoyment of WAR, but their enjoyment of the game overall. They are a great new additional to the game and something it desperately needed. The problem is, you locked them behind the most ridiculous pay wall and have left the remainder of the set lacking. The best energize/overload cards of KLD block being event reward exclusives completely ruined the entire theme of the block. You are repeating that process in a much worse way. We were told that events will start rewarding more jewels but I don’t see how you could ever reward enough jewels for even the best fictional player to be able to unlock all the Vanguards. I think there are a few good solutions:
- Remove the mythic rares from the 120 jewel pack and make the Vanguard packs contain non-duplicates only.
- Remove the EXCLUSIVE tag and have Vanguard cards in the WAR, standard, and VIP pack’s card pools but still make them available in the 120 and 300 jewel Vanguard packs.
- Change nothing but add the Vanguard supports to the Elite Pack rotation.
Or you could do nothing, remain tight-lipped about everything, and have a bunch of angry players.
