Duplicate Crafting System - How to make it a positive!

Magic: The Gathering - Puzzle Quest MtGPQ General Discussion
1

@Brigby

The community was thrilled to hear that the duplicate crafting system is nearing release and I wanted to give you some feedback on how to make sure the community is happy with the design. Honestly, if you bungle this too badly you will get more ill-will than doing nothing at all. So heed my advice =)

  1. Allow us to target specific cards. Perhaps you can convert 5 mythics into a new mythic of your choice. Or perhaps you can convert 5 mythic “chips” into a draw on the elite pack. Just don’t make us convert mythics into Premium packs… even if we can target certain colors or creature types.

  2. Do not restrict cards along rarity lines. Allow me to turn my rare duplicates into a mythic upgrade. Perhaps it costs 10 rare chips to equal 1 mythic chip, but I need to be able to use my rare cards to upgrade to mythic. Same goes with mythics to masterpeices.

  3. Allow players to convert runes into crafting chips. Many players who have played forever have converted their runes because there was no other options and the “Convert Duplicate” button is obtrusive and sometimes hard to dodge.

You guys can scale this so that we are still incentivized to spend money on the game. But it shouldn’t be impossible to get cards that you really desire. If I am willing to pour everything into Black Vice… then let me have it… for a price. Please use this system to give us the cards we really want.

2

I’m totally against 1. (first half)
'of your choice '.. Would totally be a huge problem.. Well, but some kind of influence as already mentioned by Brigby would be nice, making targeting at least possible.

  1. Seems like a good idea to handle the incredible amount of dupe comons. Maybe the different rarities will just have different values of the same currency, that’d include this point by default.

  2. Hm.. I don’t care for that, no opinion.

3

How would it be a huge problem? Everyone targets the most broken cards? The alternative is random people get lucky and get the most broken cards, giving them a huge advantage, while the rest have nothing but hope and prayer of getting them. Sounds like a balancing issue if it’s a huge problem if we can target cards.

4

I suspect that the last option will one day come along but will be for a literal price ($$$) rather than in game currency in the form of dupes, crystals or anything else.

And the second they introduce “pick the card of your choice” into the ecosystem it will likely be a desperate last ditch attempt to breathe life into the game which will probably end soon afterwards. Chasing cards is a core part of the game and any shortcuts to that will provide a short term bump at the expense of long term challenge.

I do like the optimism of 10 rares for 1 mythic but fully expect this to be a factor of 10 off and the likelihood of that mythic being a dupe will be high.

Set the bar low my friend. Real low :slight_smile:

5

The core issue with dupes is that a lot of currency is invested for nothing in return.

You can spend 900 crystals opening packs and not get a single new card.

The crafting system needs to address this issue, because there is no worse feeling than dumping 30USD+ worth of currency and getting absolutely nothing.

I’m Ok with not being able to target specific cards, as long as there’s a guarantee that it is a non-dupe. If they do allow targeting, then it basically devalues the pre-purchase packages because players can just wait until it enter rotation and just craft it. They would then have to completely redesign their pre-purchase model. (Not saying this is a particularly bad thing, because I think their pre-purchases are overpriced).

If they build the crafting system correctly, they will make more money. I refrain from buying packs etc. because I know that I will just get dupes. If they increase the value of dupes, then I think players would be more willing to buy packs as the expected value skyrockets.

Edit: Clarity

6

If specific cards can’t be targetted, then at the least rarity, color, set and type and a guarantee that the gained cards are not dupes.

This way players who spend on the game are rewarded with a higher chance of getting that one card while players who don’t spend (and have less cards in a certain catergory will get a non dupe, but have possibly a lower chance on the card they were hoping for

7

If specific cards are so powerful that they would break ‘the meta’ if everyone had one, then I think those specific cards are problematic and need to be looked at.

The entire game (both mtg and mtgpq) is built around synergies and combos yet we have no way to aspire for a specific one because they are generally gated behind mythics.

Just look at any other collectible card game (cough, Hearthstone) , everyone has potential access to all cards if they are willing to either spend the time or money and those games are just fine.

Balancing the meta by ensuring not everyone has the good cards is bad balance.

8

To compare this with paper magic: go to a store and you can buy any specific card you choose. and no it doesn’t break the game either.

if a card is game breaking in it self, then that card needs a look (like Furks says above)

giving people the chance to get what they want also ensures different ideas can be tested and played

9

Keep in mind that the more specific you can be in your targeting, the more expensive the price.

Example (for demonstration only):

Non-dupe card from KLD = 10 tokens

Non-dupe Red card from KLD = 20 tokens

Non-dupe Red Mythic from KLD = 30 tokens

Dynavolt Tower = 40 tokens

You can’t expect to craft a specific card for 10 tokens. You can get a booster containing a non-dupe from the entire set. This should (in general) be the most cost-efficient way to obtain cards.

The minute you start placing restrictions, the cost goes up. The reasoning is that once you have those specific cards that you need, you don’t really need anything else and so that’s when the game stops generating revenue. If that happens, the game shuts down.

The crafting model should be sustainable, meaning it benefits the players but not to the detriment of the financial success of the game.

10

Firstly, this isn’t paper.
In paper, what do you see on standard tournaments? 2/3 of decks nearly look the same, as what’s considered to be the most efficient strategie. 1/4 of the decks look alike, built to win against the decks mentioned earlier.. The rest are unique, okay. The thing is, that in 60+n card decks, even the decks who look alike are slightly different - in 10 card decks here, that won’t be the case. That’s boring, the luck factor makes it more interesting because people have to work with what they have.
I totally agree that game breaking cards need to be revised, but that’d need to happen before this system is introduced. And, honestly, won’t happen at all. Olivia, the pig, drakes Haven, RishkarsEx, old baral are just few examples - just think about what these cards did when they came into play, and how / if / when they were nerfed.
Drakes Haven for example - once I see it played in.. 90% of Kiora decks I face, I can lean back and consider it an easy win. Auto win for the player who uses it and the player facing the AI using it.

Finally, I said I’d be a huge problem, not game breaking. That’s a difference. My problem is : it’d make the game boring after a while. I could built perfect decks, would face the same decks and need only to reconsider that every couple of months when a new pw/set is introduced.

11

1 is bad. This heavily benefits anyone of the D3-“insert sub clan name of choice here” and maintains thecarry over power creep. Newbies and even players 6 months in don’t have equal opportunity to cash in like this. I like what the devs are doing by restricting select cards in standard qualify for upgrade. Now your suggestion… could work here if your idea was implemented in the same manner. But even then I suspect a power creep eventually occurring.

  1. Same as above.
  2. No opinion as it will never happen. Runes have little to no value and the devs have made it obvious that it isn’t high on their list to restructure at the moment. There are more important matters to deal with, case in point… the dupe conversion system for non-dupes
12

Ironic, because this actually broke the paper game when it started.

13

Because they counted on scarcity to balance the game instead of making balanced cards.

14

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? :wink: Except they already messed up the scarcity bit and are trying to redo that now.

15

You say this like it isn’t already the case here. Go into Training Grounds and see what you see from each planeswalker. 90% of the time I can tell what the deck will be and what cards will be in it just by seeing what planeswalker is piloting the deck.

If It’s Liliana2, I know I’m going to see: Diregraff Colossus, Prized Amalgam, Graf Harvest, Grip of Desolation, To the Slaughter, Oath of Liliana. The other 5 cards are changeable, but usually more kill spells, maybe a Gisa and Geralf or Behold the Beyond.

If it’s Koth, I know I’m going to see Abbot of Keral Keep, Volcanic Rambler, Scab Clan Berserker, Embermaw Hellion, Olivia, and Unlicensed Disintegration.

If it’s Nahiri: Solemn Recruit, Lightning Runner, sometimes Champion of Iroas, Gisela, Olivia

Koira always has Fertile Thicket, Nissa’s Pilgrimage, Animist’s Awakening, Imprisoned in the Moon, Turn to Frog, possibly a Part the Waterveil

My point here is, allowing people to target specific cards isn’t going to make decks any less unique than they aren’t aren’t. People “solve” a planeswalker, then everyone follows suit with either an exact copy of that deck, or something as close as they can get maybe changing one or two cards for something else.

16

Yes it did…black summer anyone.

Followed by the Kia Buddy Cursed Scroll rotation.

The only true diversity I have seen was early in the Urzas block and when Innistrad and RtR were featured blocks.

17

I don’t see that as an argument against, but in favor of my point. Also, this is a good reason for the introduction of standard. Do you want that in standard? That’s what you’re heading towards.

18

My point is more that even before booster crafting, this was already a thing. So, targeted cards or not, this will continue to happen.

19

For the sake of @shteev , I hope crafting requires copious amounts of tapping on the screen to place each token into slots in order to build the boosters.

20

It already exists in Standard. One need look no further than Trial of Ambition to see the same core cards and deck strategies again and again. That’s how collectible card games work: People gravitate towards cards that help them win.

What you’re defending is the right to arbitrarily deny individual players the ability to play with these cards, based on nothing but bad luck, in a game predicated on collecting and acquiring cards.