First of all, let me start by saying that I’ve seen this game improve greatly since I started playing about a year ago. A lot of rough edges have been smoothed out, and it’s really incredible seeing minor fixes in just about every corner of the game.
That said, I’ve been playing less and less (for a lot of reasons) over the last few months. Most of these reasons can be attributed to offensive and poorly designed F2P incentives–which were handled in a much better way not that long ago. The pains started in KLD, and have grown considerably in AKH. So while the game (from a programming perspective) has improved greatly, the design itself has been fundamentally broken. I’ve been happy to toss $20 at the game with each improvement (probably totaling over $200 by now) to show my appreciation; but I’m left with feedback like this for the changes that break the game. Let’s step back a bit and look at the progression.
About 9 months ago–I recall a special Saheeli event. D3 was introducing a new PW with this 3-PW event. 2 of the decks were custom, player-created decks; and the 3rd was a pre-made, bad-ass Saheeli deck–loaded with myths and a lot of synergy. The top 10(?) players of the event were given Saheeli as a reward; and everyone else was drooling, waiting to buy her with crystals. Pretty cool way to introduce a new PW, if you ask me. Try-before-you-buy, and a strong competition for an even stronger prize.
About 6 months ago–specific card rewards for event participation were very common. Any mid-tier player who completed the personal reward goals for a particular event would be rewarded with a very specific rare card. This wasn’t quite as strong as the Saheeli incentive, and certainly not as fair.. (considering -everyone- could ultimately purchase saheeli with crystals later; not true for many of the event reward cards…) But, for the most part, everyone who tried to get these event cards was able to obtain them.
Then KLD was released–and it came with new energize mechanics that were in-your-face like void gems, but without the pain if you didn’t have your own energize cards. Not a bad expansion in and of itself, but the real problem is how the events and new PWs were laid out. Every PW released since KLD has an affinity for either energize or fabricate mechanics. Not only was this an obvious cash-grab to make KLD decks stronger than they would be otherwise–but it’s clear that this would be done for every subsequent expansion… leading to many obsolete PWs, and a lot of wasted crystals. Set aside all competition for a while, and just look at it from the perspective of deck design–PWs like Liliana 1 (and even 2), Koth, Nahiri, etc will always be more versatile and interesting than the PWs released since KLD. And that advantage comes from not being paired with mechanics that are only present in a handful of cards in a specific expansion. This was an incredibly annoying addition to the game, and ultimately when I started to fear the worst for MTGPQ going forward. Ultimately, I still enjoy Tezz2 and Dovin.. but most of that enjoyment can be attributed to multi-color deck options.
Then, bonus objective overload. Not a huge deal, but forcing players to use new mechanics with bonus objectives that only work with the latest expansion is a little rude. Thankfully, well-crafted decks with even the older (non-seasonal) PWs could land a pretty decent score in each event. This wasn’t game-breaking by any means, but it highlighted the mindset of designers at D3.
The nail in the coffin–Events requiring specific PWs. I can’t even begin to emphasize just how poorly-designed this is. Less than a year ago, a very similar design brought everyone Saheeli for a couple days to try-before-you-buy. Now we’re faced with buy (not even one, but two planeswalkers!) before you can compete? This is a slap in the face, and shows that D3 does not care about their customers.
And now, with AKH–All of these issues have been compounded into one. The bonus objectives keep bringing the pain. And following the trend of KLD, we’re obviously going to see AKH-specific-PWs. Not only were the KLD PWs annoying to buy before, but we know that both sets of expansion-specific-PWs will be useless in 1 or 2 expansions. And it’s not bonus objectives that kill it, but rather the inability to even use older cards. Deck standards are cool for seasoned players that want the game to stay fresh, and game designers too (because balancing against millions of card combinations is tough stuff). And I completely understand why both parties would want a standard somewhere in the game. Problem is, there’s a dwindling set of ways to play the game now. And you’re going to see a lot of coalitions breaking apart because of this.
If you really want to introduce a standard (and I think that’s a great idea, as an opt-in), do so in a non-intrusive way. Keep events and coalition events open, but have a specific standard-only event for individuals to participate in. It should exist only in a gated place, and not at the demise of our coalitions. To put this in perspective–many coalitions (including my own) are relatively competitive, and love the team events. But most players will not be interested in standard, and have already grown tired with flavor-of-the-month design. Our coalition (which is top-25 BTW), and many others, will be breaking apart if only some of us wish to participate in the absurd cash grab events. When coalitions (communities) split, players leave. This is bad for us, and it’s bad for D3.
And before people start with the whole “Standard is what keeps MTG alive in paper”… Let’s actually compare to paper then. In paper MTG, players are only affected by standard if they’re participating in tournaments, or opt-in with friends. There’s nothing stopping people from getting together and playing with cards that date back to 1st gen. With the current capabilities of MTGPQ, everything is a totalitarian tournament. There is no MTG unless it’s tournament. You must use these cards, you must use these PWs, and so on. To date, we haven’t been able to play against our friends with ridiculous decks (which would be really fun!). But the next best thing was hanging in a coalition and beating The Man together. For many coalitions, standard is the breaking point; and D3 will see it in their dwindling player base until something changes.
Steps to fix things:
-Make standard deck competitions a solo, opt-in event, such that it does not harm team events and participation
-Give us a 2nd deck slot for free, so that we can manage both standard and non-standard decks
-If you’re going to make events for specific PWs, design them as you did with Saheeli about 9 months ago. Try-before-you-buy is always better than pay-to-compete.
-Stop slapping us in the face with expansion-specific-PWs.. especially when everyone knows that they’re useless in 1-2 expansions with the new standard rules. Make more versatile PWs like Liliana 1, Kiora, Koth, Nahiri, etc.
-Try not to enforce new rules for events all at once when people don’t have the new cards yet. Especially for a team event. Encouraging peer pressure for P2W is not cool.
-Add a vs. mode to play against friends. We don’t care if it’s against the AI at first, but asynchronous PVP is where we should be headed. We can manage our own deck restrictions when it’s among friends.