@Cthulhu - Please Explain!

Magic: The Gathering - Puzzle Quest MtGPQ General Discussion
1

Here is what you said last week… I will take it by paragraph.

Hey all,

Overall we have been listening to everyone’s comments and are trying some new things out in an attempt to address the great feedback we have been accumulating. We play Magic a lot at the office both the cards and the app, and we have added some Magic TCG related things to the app that we are excited to finally talk about.

First we have the Masterpiece cards for high level players, that are both devastating and a new fun thing to chase. The new currency is there to help with the collection of Rares, Mythics and now Masterpieces. This new currency mirrors Planeswalker tokens from the card game events. Not only will the Masterpiece cards be purchaseable with the new currency, but they are also rewards in events etc, so keep an eye out for these cards!!

Second we have made improvements to events to the rewards and we have reduced the amount of players in each event to give players more opportunities to achieve high ranks in the events.

Third the card packs we have done some balance tweaking to help reduce the amount of duplicates and give the player a higher chance at obtaining rare cards.

We will be monitoring the feedback coming in for anyone that has any questions today. Feel free to comment in the forums, and we will do our best to provide answers.

Thank you!
icon_greengoblin.png
Cthulhu icon_greengoblin.png

Lets get started!

Overall we have been listening to everyone’s comments and are trying some new things out in an attempt to address the great feedback we have been accumulating. We play Magic a lot at the office both the cards and the app, and we have added some Magic TCG related things to the app that we are excited to finally talk about.

There have been multiple polls including this one that I created over a month ago that specifically ask the community contribute to the direction we would like the game to take.
https://forums.505go.com/discussion/57380
Can you explain how any of these changes have positively impacted any of these issues?

  • Cheating - Nope, cheaters are back
  • Poor Drop Rate - Made it worse - And now you cant even get good rewards by winning events as individuals or coalitions
  • Unfair Ranking System - Nope - Ties still occur.. just no one cares what rank they are since the rewards were nerfed so badly
  • Freezes, Lag, Bugs - Nope - Even more bugs and freezes have joined the fray
  • No Deck Slots - Nope
  • Content - Kind of - Still a lot of the same just reworked.
  • No PvP - Nope Actual PvP, not AI controlled
  • Imbalanced Cards - Nope - This got way worse with Baral
  • No Card Trading System - Nope
  • Matchmaking (from the audience gripe I failed to include) - Nope

You haven’t been listening to the community.. that much is clear.

First we have the Masterpiece cards for high level players, that are both devastating and a new fun thing to chase. The new currency is there to help with the collection of Rares, Mythics and now Masterpieces. This new currency mirrors Planeswalker tokens from the card game events. Not only will the Masterpiece cards be purchaseable with the new currency, but they are also rewards in events etc, so keep an eye out for these cards!!

Masterpiece cards are clearly not purchaseable. They have a drop rate and you can increase your drop rate once every month or so by using unobtanium. iso8.png

How does the new currency help with the collection of rares?

You are going to issue masterpiece cards as event rewards? I don’t believe you. Not only do they not show as exclusive, but you have removed premium awards from contests.

Second we have made improvements to events to the rewards and we have reduced the amount of players in each event to give players more opportunities to achieve high ranks in the events.

“Improvements to events to the rewards” I guess the grammar is confusing but I think most people understood that to mean the rewards were improved? Not that the rewards were slashed brutally, including the removal of all mythic from individual and coalition events, reduction to crystals in individual events, and huge reductions in packs in each event. You have “reduced the amount of players in each event”, because they are no longer worth playing.

Third the card packs we have done some balance tweaking to help reduce the amount of duplicates and give the player a higher chance at obtaining rare cards.

I guess you mean you reduced the amount of packs we can win in events or by buying them. Thus, since we open less cards we get less duplicates? No thanks, but I guess not an outright lie.

“give the player a higher chance at obtaining rare cards” Ok, I get it. You removed mythics as rewards and replaced them with “rare cards”.. so our odds have gone up of getting “rare cards” Wow, you really have a way with words.

We will be monitoring the feedback coming in for anyone that has any questions today. Feel free to comment in the forums, and we will do our best to provide answers.

I guess the operative word on this one was “today”. Since you were very responsive with slyly worded answer for that one day, and have since left the community completely in the dark.

Conclusion: It was hard to find a truthful word in your entire post. The ones that did have an element of truth were phrased in such a way that people were intended on taking the information to mean something else. This is not the type of communication that helps build credibility to the community. Reading your comments last week was the first breath of fresh air this game has given me in months… I guess it was just a bunch of hot air spewing from your flaming pumpkins. icon_greengoblin.png

2

Reading all of this again reminded me how badly tricked i feel. Getting our hopes up like that and the actual update being in direct contrast of those hopes.

Please comment and dont just disappear when you see that it all blew up in your face.

3

This right here is the big reason why there is so much animosity toward the company right now. I hope they understand this.

4

Anyone who has read the old classic, 1984 (recently at the top of the amazon charts for reasons) will be well versed with the concept of Doublespeak.

Here we have some prima facie evidence of such.

5

I have spent $700 since masterpiece set was released. I opened two packs of the new currency and 50 packs of kedesh. I only received 2 or 3 mythics I didn’t have and 1 rare. Not one masterpiece. I also have yet to play anyone who used one. Witch makes me think that there is an issue with them and they have yet to be added into the game. Getting people to dump all they can into the game trying to get masterpiece cards that are not yet released.
I am curious to know if anyone to date have any? If so, how many? How much have you spent since MP release, to get it/them. I agree with you completely especially about the duplicates. I have so many duplicates. If they were to release a, decent new planeswalker once a month so, we can spend it leveling them up. It might help with that and the boredom. I am close to quitting for good with over 3k into my account.

6

I have dropped a stupid amount of money. Only got duplicate mythics from these masterpiece packs which is bad considering.. I don’t have 4 of those mythics. I got 2 of the 1 mythic I already had! I have opened close to 50 kaladesh boosters.. Not a single mythic?! What exactly are the drop rates for what in kaladesh packs? Its pretty awesome that we get a rare.. Even though I have everyone of them except 1.. I am no longer buying ruins at these crazy prices.

7

Stop spending money. Dang bro $700…ballin. Why would you invest $700 in a company that is a dumpster fire? Next time go watch Rudy over at Alpha Investments and buy a box or 4 of modern masters 2017. That is what I have decided to do. I own all rares from new set and started to get my mythics from cultivating a top 10 coalition. Placed top 10 in 3 events and we were very excited about our new cards. Then they release this update and screws us real bad. We cannot find 1 good thing about this update for us. NO UPSIDE. I as a leader have stopped playing all events except coalition events. Feels great to place 4th after all of our hard work, feels real bad when we claim rewards.

Moral of the story: Do not throw your hard earned money into a dumpster fire, instead buy modern masters 2017.

8

I probably don’t get a lot of love for this, but I like that the rewards have been streamlined and that the mythics and tons of boosters are not given out as candy to the top players who need them the least.

When I’m in top 50 in an event (and that is not bad for me) than the discrepancy to the top 5 is not that awful large anymore. Plus, the jewels I earn give me once I a while a mythic. So, I’m quite comfortable with that.

Of course, I’d also like to get more crystals, like before, but I’ll survive that since there are a lot of event every week.

So, the top players don’t get so much rewards anymore but you can still pay to win.

I guess that most players don’t really feel that impact (besides less crystals)

Here in the forum you have, of course, the top and active players so that the opinion about that patch is of course quite in one direction.

9

This is simply ridiculous.

10

And what should matter more of course is the opinion of the players who are not very active anyway.

There was time and effort involved in earning those rewards. Top players did not get to the top by just wishful thinking. If those rewards were so easy to get then you would have gotten them too.

But devs, i guess if the new rewards are making the less competitive players feel less bad about missing out on placing at the top then its all good? Doesnt matter that the long term playing more dedicated players feel alienated and competing in events seems pointless. In fact the word competing seems to have lost its meaning.

11

There are people with masterpieces already. The reason you did not get any is becausethe drop rate of a masterpiece is even lower than that of a mythic. Like if you open a pack containing just rares and mythics you are most likely to get a rare.

12

There was once a number shown how many players joined an event. It was above 20000. How many people are active in the forum? I think you know what I mean.

Furthermore, I didn’t say it is easy to get to the top places. I don’t know where I should have said that. I just said that I’m glad that the rewards where streamlined. So there is not that much of a gap between the places. It’s still better to be placed higher than lower.

If you think it’s not worth it, then don’t play the events.
I will continue playing them.

13

Wait out the good players, we will be leaving soon. Then when you get adjusted to be top dog and they knee cap you remember this post.

14

Until you don’t. How many iso8.png
(I find it humorous that they haven’t even added mana jewels to their list of smilies) do you have currently? I know for a fact that it’s 100 more than you would normally have after 5 days of playing. How long do you expect it to take you to earn the other 300 required to buy your first masterpiece pack? Everyone is touting how no more mythics and giving jewels balances out event placement but you are overlooking the entirety of the changes.

Let’s take a look at tomorrow’s NoP rewards and compare them to what they used to be. This will assume Platinum Tier since I don’t know what tier you are in. I’ll also assume top 50 for personal and coalition purposes.

Progression:
Old: 55 manacrystal.png
, SOI booster pack, KLD booster pack, 2000 manarune.png

New: 30 manacrystal.png
KLD booster pack, 1250 manarune.png

So here we already see you are getting 25 less manacrystal.png
, one less SOI booster, and 750 less manarune.png

Personal Leaderboard:
Old Rank 26-50: KLD Rare, KLD booster, 40 manacrystal.png

New Rank 26-50: AER Rare, KLD booster, 30 manacrystal.png

So here you are getting an AER Rare instead of KLD which could be better or worse but since there are fewer AER Rares, you will start getting dupes sooner. 10 less manacrystal.png
here as well.

It gets worse now:
Old Rank 51-100: KLD Rare, KLD booster, 30 manacrystal.png

New Rank 51-100: KLD booster, 20 manacrystal.png

Difference here is one rare and 10 less manacrystal.png
. Not sure where a Rare is valued but lets just say 100 manacrystal.png
for the heck of it.

Coalition Leaderboard:
Old Rank 26-50: KLD Rare, basic booster
New Rank 26-50: AER Rare, 2 iso8.png

Maybe an improvement here? It will only take you 200 of these events to earn you a masterpiece pack. 200 of these events in the past would give you 600 individual cards under the old system.

Old Rank 51-100: KLD Rare
New Rank 51-100: 20 manacrystal.png
, 1 iso8.png

At our going rate of 100 manacrystal.png
for a rare, the new system puts you out 80 manacrystal.png
but promises you a mythic or even a masterpiece after only 400 of these events! That said, the new system is better if you already had a decent amount of KLD rares.

So our grand total of differences under the new system depending on rank comes to:
Rank 26-50: 35 less manacrystal.png
, one less SOI pack, one less basic pack, two less KLD rares, 750 less manarune.png
, 2 more AER rares and 2 more iso8.png
.
At this rank for personal and coalition combined, assuming KLD rares = AER rares (which I don’t believe to be true), 2 iso8.png
cost you 35 manacrystal.png
, an SOI pack, a basic pack, and 750 manarune.png
.

Rank 51-100: 15 less manacrystal.png
, two less KLD rares, one less KLD pack, one less SOI pack, 750 less manarune.png
, and 1 more iso8.png
.
So here 1 iso8.png
cost you all of the above.

Lets expand from here:
Rank 26-50: Over the course of time it would take you to earn one masterpiece pack strictly from NoP events, you will lose out on 7,000 manacrystal.png
, 200 SOI packs, 200 basic packs, and 150,000 manarune.png
.

Rank 51-100: Over the course of time it would take you to earn one masterpiece pack strictly from NoP events, you will lose out on 6,000 manacrystal.png
, 800 KLD rares, 400 KLD packs, 400 SOI packs, and 150,000 manarune.png
.

You can argue all you want that there are other sources for earning iso8.png
but that is irrelevant as the prizes across all events have been affected similarly. It may fluctuate to be less of a loss for some events but again, irrelevant. These rankings represent the so-called casual or not-top-tier players that are supposedly benefiting from this update. What sane person would argue that one, ONE! guaranteed mythic (with a shot at a masterpiece) is worth more than the stuff you miss out on under the old system? Sure, the guys at the top got free mythics and you didn’t. Now they don’t and you still don’t. The difference is you are now also getting way less than you were before but you seem to think you are better off. I’m not complaining about not getting my free mythics anymore, I’m complaining because they D3ceived all of us.

If you would like, I’ll gladly break down different tiers, personal and coalition rankings, and even different events for you.

15

I’m sorry guys. i.e. all players, if you haven’t realised it yet, please appreciate it now: the admins of this game simply don’t give a sh!t about anything except the bottom line AND they are too stupid to understand that making a better and attractive game actually INCREASES revenue.

It’s evident in the poor support, poor PR, poor translation from actual MtG and now insulting our intelligence with the last update.

Wizards are sometimes daft, but these clowns are laughable. Unless you’re out a few K. In which case, sorry, suck it up. Trying to talk to these guys is painful, rather cut our losses and move on.

What backlash will it actually take before you guys start listening to people.

16

the actual problem here with money spent vs collection is the poor duplicate management.

In paper magic if you spend $700, you are very likely to have opened an expedition type card, but in case you were super unlucky, you can simply trade the stuff you did open into one. or you know, just buy the expes you want as singles. The lack of collection maturity tools here, actually limit how much one spends by negative reinforcement. i.e. the more you open, the more you will naturally get a dupe xyz with nothing to do with.

they need to install a trade back system of some kind quick smart, if only for mythics and masterpieces. Devs, this will INCREASE pack buying.

17

Thanks for breaking this down.

18
  • I have spent $700 since masterpiece set was released. I opened two packs of the new currency and 50 packs of kedesh. I only received 2 or 3 mythics I didn’t have and 1 rare. Not one masterpiece. I also have yet to play anyone who used one. Witch makes me think that there is an issue with them and they have yet to be added into the game. Getting people to dump all they can into the game trying to get masterpiece cards that are not yet released.
    I am curious to know if anyone to date have any? If so, how many? How much have you spent since MP release, to get it/them. I agree with you completely especially about the duplicates. I have so many duplicates. If they were to release a, decent new planeswalker once a month so, we can spend it leveling them up. It might help with that and the boredom. I am close to quitting for good with over 3k into my account.

@Robheaded / @Solfury - Guys please close those wallets and leave them closed! I enjoy spending loot on new cards too but we have to teach them a lesson here. Please, resist the urge until they have fixed some of these egregious errors.

@AngelForge - I appreciate what you are saying, even though as ZW2007 made pretty clear, making everyone worse off is a lousy way to even the playing field. To add to his point, now its impossible for you to ever catch up to my collection. Even if you start getting first place in every event and are in the best coalition, you will never have close to the collection I have if I quit today.

And on that note, you are looking at the game from your current position. Lets say you finally did get to top tier position. Why would you KEEP playing? For 1 lousy mythic once a month that was likely a dupe? Nope, you will end up quitting like everyone else because the content is redundant and boring and the game revolves around an exciting reward system… which they have completely killed. Think of it this way… you are at the very beginning of the end game. And its hard for you to get better quickly because its hard for you to compete against elite decks. All of us were there at one point. Don’t screw up your own fun when you get to the middle or late part of the end game because you get frustrated sometimes.

19

responding to zw2007 analysis

imo kld rare > aer rare (there are easily more cards, and
better cards)

you haven’t taken into account that there will be personal
rankings out of 1k instead of the usual 3k. this may or
may not bump your rankings up a little. it does mean
that there are now 3 times the number of rank top 100
per the previous 3k players. this distributes the rewards
pool amongst more players so a drop in individual
rewards is expected.

HH

20

Isn’t this partially because the brackets are now 1/3 the old sizes and so it’s easier to hit a higher ranking? Even just looking at Platinum with 3 brackets to 1, that’s overall 150 guaranteed Rares given out per event vs 95 Rares + 5 Mythics previously.

Actually the old rewards for the 51-100th ranked coalitions in NOP was 30 manacrystal.png
. NOP coalition rewards are different from the weekend coalition events. So we lost 10 manacrystal.png
for 1 iso8.png
. Still a drop imo but not as significant as the perceived 80 manacrystal.png
you’re claiming.

I think we should also calculate the total rewards given out per event to see if the rewards have been reduced or just spread out. The guaranteed Mythics can be 400 iso8.png
each so 200 Guaranteed Mythics for the weekend Coalition events converts to 80,000 iso8.png
? By my calculations the guaranteed mythics reward segment dropped by slightly over half, so there’s reason to push for higher Jewel rewards.