I was wondering if there is any news regarding dupes from Elite packs. I just opened another dupe with only a 20% chance of getting a dupe (I only have two of the mythics out of the 7 mythics and 3 MPs). In last week’s elite pack, I also only had two of the mythics and also got a dupe. Being nailed a second time by RNG I’m furious and demotived. It takes quite some time to accumulate 400 pinks and in the end they turn out to be nothing more than 750 mana orbs. Being one of those 4% (which should actually reward me an MP :-)) it feel very bitter at the moment.
So… any changes planned for this terrible player experience?
I know this topic is something that’s been brought up numerous times in the past, so don’t worry. I made sure to pass it along to the team.
I don’t have any updates to communicate at this time, but they do want to take some time to evaluate the state of Elite Packs; what aspects are in a good place, what could use some improving, etc.
Just to throw my anecdotal hat on the pile. I made 3 Elite Pack purchases so far since DOM came out.
First Pack, I had no cards from the available pool, I open Naru.
Second Pack which I bought immediately after the first, I only have Naru. I open another Naru.
Third Pack, I bought after the elite pack rotation, I only have 1 card, Phyrexian Scriptures. I open a Phyrexian Scriptures.
There is something funky with the seeding for your random number generator, or there is a heavy weighted bias somewhere in the formula. Either way, it needs to be fixed.
I’ve pulled 2 Tendershoot Dryads in Elite Packs – and I purchased it.
The day DOM dropped, I opened 2 Elite packs in a row – I pulled Karn’s Temporal Sundering in both – this happening after the Tendershoot experience took away my desire to ever purchase another – unless something changes.
I miss the days when Exclusive cards were actually exclusive until a set rotates and elite packs were actually exciting.
Getting duplicates from the packs is absolutely disappointing, however…
Considering booster crafting is a thing, if rerolls are to be offered I think it should ONLY be while the set can not be crafted. If I have crafted all the mythic rare cards from a set, then opening elite boosters skews the percentages and gives me an even larger advantage changing that 35% change for a masterpiece to 100%.
Yes the masterpieces have been tamed down from earlier sets, but the fact remains that this is still an unfair advantage for those who either have large stockpiles of orbs from long-time play, or those who spent a lot of real money opening packs of the current set.
I feel like if they did decide to make it so you can’t get dupes from pinks, we’d see a significant reduction in the amount of pinks from events. Which would probably be better than the feeling of getting a dupe, given that everything was equal. Maybe a compromise would be when the system is determining which card is in the pack it would reroll X times if it came up with a dupe. You could still get a dupe but it would be less likely if you don’t have many of the cards. I think it would be hard to convince that shot-callers to a system where if you’re only missing 1 or 2 rares in the elite pack that you would be guaranteed to get exactly what you are missing.
This is a great idea. I’ve seen other games use a similar concept (Faeria, for example, lets you re-roll 1 of the 5 cards you get from a pack, but only once per pack and it will always be the same rarity)
It means if you own most of the cards in the pack you still probably get a dupe, but if you only own 1 or 2 you most likely won’t. It also keeps the balance, since a mythic stays a mythic and a masterpiece stays a masterpiece, so you’re not gaming the odds
I thought I would offer what I assume are the general (emphasis on general, not universal) community feelings about what the team is pondering relating to elite packs.
Aspects that are in a good place: guaranteed mythic or masterpiece!
What could use some improving: dupes! (we don’t want them)
I don’t think it really gets any more complicated than that. Instead, I would challenge the dev team to write a persuasive argument explaining why they feel elite packs should offer the possibility of a dupe, given the amount of effort (and in some cases, money) players put into accruing the resources necessary for purchasing an elite pack - and the demoralizing feeling of receiving a dupe after expending those resources.
The problem is, dupes are healthy for the game as a whole (to stop top players/top spenders from getting every single card guaranteed), and with booster crafting they aren’t as horrible as they used to be.
There are definitely ways to compromise and make a better system, but I highly doubt that they will ever put in a guaranteed non-dupe anywhere other than crafting.
That’s fine, but a system like what was outlined above would make sense. Something needs to be done, because nobody in my coalition will spend unobtainium on an elite pack if they own more than one of the possible cards. If the fear of an expected outcome is that egregious, I think it shows a complete disregard for player psychology to not address it.
When you craft a card, you don’t get a dupe. Clearly it would be a trivial change to make it so for Elite packs. It’s like it is because they want it to be like it is.
I can empathize with this “Not purchasing another mythic elite pack out of fear of getting the single mythic you’ve already packed,” psychology, especially after getting Traxos
I have been waiting the change of the elite packs content to get 2 120 packs.
My first one Lich’s Mastery, dupe. The second one, again Lich’s Mastery, of course dupe
Bad luck? Could be, but I do not think so.
Of course that getting orbs is better than getting nothing but I am tired of getting dupes from everywhere. Getting the same common/uncommon dupe in the same booster (not pack just in the same booster) is frustrating and it has happened to me a lot of times since Ixalan was released.
To add my experience to the bunch, I know that customer service used to be able to perform rerolls while exempting cards already in your collection - this was during the “no dupes policy” time before we got booster crafting. I learned of their ability to do this since I went through the old “submit a ticket if you get a dupe” process 4 times - pulling Overwhelming Splendor multiple times in a row out of a pack in which I was missing 75% of the mythics and 100% of the masterpieces. After the fourth time, they issued the reroll in which the pool excluded what I already had, so I had to wonder why this wasn’t included in the client.
I totally get not wanting to guarantee masterpieces, but adding a process to the masterpiece collection pack purchase to first check if there are any unowned mythics in the pack, then if the result has any unowned mythics proceeding by checking if the randomly selected card is already in the player’s collection, and finally rerolling if it is already in the player’s collection shouldn’t be that difficult to code based upon my own experience writing code. If the first check comes back with a result indicating all mythics are owned, then it would just roll against the whole pack and if a dupe happens, it happens. That would keep masterpieces from being guaranteed while vastly lowering the chances of dupes.
At some point in the past the Devs said that they would improve player experience regarding to getting dupes.
Something about being mayor of valuetown?
nothing changed…
Eilte packs give dupes while the jewels are still hard to come by (400 per moth on average), so getting a dupe from a moths playing is a slap in the face
