Player Level and Card Experience (2/25/19)

Magic: The Gathering - Puzzle Quest MtGPQ General Discussion
1

Hi Everyone,

In the recent 3.2 update, we introduced several new features: two of which were Player Level and Card Experience. The 3 Year Anniversary and Player Profile and Player Level blog posts shed some light on new and future features that are all interwoven together with these systems, and we highly recommend taking some time to look those over first.

Even with the two blog posts though, we understand that players may have some unanswered questions, so we wanted to take the time to address some of the main concerns you all might have.## Player Level and Color MasteryPlayer Level is intended to be completely separate from Color Mastery moving forward. It is a new progression system in the game, and neither Color Mastery nor Card Experience are planned to be the main source of Player Experience. Color Mastery had a slight influence on initial Player Level, however, it was not a direct 1:1 conversion for a major reason:

  • Matchmaking
  • Matchmaking in the future will be largely influenced by Player Level, not Color Mastery.
  • Were the Player Level to have been a 1:1 conversion from Color Mastery, there would’ve been a small demographic of players that would have had levels much higher than everyone else. This is harmful for two reasons:
  • Since Matchmaking will be primarily based on Player Level, placing those players at such a drastic height would’ve meant they only had access to an incredibly small pool of competitors.
  • If that pool of competitors were to be widened, then the side effect would be high-level players being matched against players significantly lower than them.- This wide gap in levels also creates an intimidation factor for newer players, which can be discouraging for those that are just starting out in the game.
    We also understand that some players are concerned about having mastered the majority of their cards Pre-3.2, and how their Player Levels compare to a player that mastered them Post-3.2. We have plans to implement new features in the future that will be additional sources of Player Experience, which means at that point the number of available cards to master would no longer be the limiting factor.

Since Player Level is separate from Color Mastery, a Platinum player that may be at a lower level than say…a Gold player, will inevitably surpass them once the new features are added into the game. This is due to the difference in their rates of play. A Platinum player will likely be more engaged and active than a Gold player, therefore yielding a faster rate of Player Experience that results in quicker Player Level progression.## RewardsWith the initial implementation of Player Levels, we credited players with a sum of resources in accordance to their level of progress at that time. Following this, some players were quick to point out that the sum of progression rewards from prior levels is greater than the initial sum of resources given to players at various levels.

This was done on purpose, because we are actually able to give out more rewards if distributed over time, as opposed to all at once. This brings us back again to the topic of future features.

With our plans of implementing several new features in the future, it gives us the opportunity to gradually reward players with more resources, as these features are introduced. In addition, higher tier players will inherently benefit more from them as they’re added into the game; Competitive Seasons is a great example of this.

We know that implementing new major features has the potential to confuse players, to no fault of their own, so we hope that this provided some further insight and clarity. Thank you for your patience and understanding, and of course, thank you for being a part of our Magic: the Gathering - Puzzle Quest community!

2

Wow! Such much noise about.. That.

Good luck for all ascending players who will reach the level of us who mastered all their cards before the update soon! The opposite effect of your idea is that we will never get to a high level at all, but hover a hundred levels below maximum..I’d consider that a major unfair avantage in my favor.. If the extra ways to gain XP don’t take that into account, of course (like more XP the lower the initial XP conversion?).

Why not make a one time de-mastery to everyone is on actual equal foots? Or only let cards from future set grant player level xp ? I’d haven been fine to start at level one. I’m fine with this, too. But it seems to be a really impractical way to solve a self-made problem (I still don’t see the rewards as relevant issue to me)

3

I couldn’t care lass about the rewards- I’m just thoroughly frustrated at the fact according to all that’s been said up to and including this point means I’ll be sitting a massive amount of levels behind newer players as I’ve mastered pretty much all my cards prior to 3.2

4

I understand that players might be frustrated that some others may be higher than them in level at the moment, simply because they had more cards available to master post-3.2 update, however I cannot stress enough that this is merely a temporary situation until future features are implemented.

Once those features are added in, veteran players will find that they quickly increase in player levels and surpass other players even in the short term, especially considering veteran players are far more active in the game than other demographics. Mastering cards would no longer be the limiting factor to player levels.

5

@Brigby, thank you for continuing to communicate with us on this issue. I know you’re in a tough place here, going between the community and the developers to try to find a solution to this problem. But reading over this makes me feel like there’s still some misunderstanding going on.

By and large, I do not think that the player base is “confused” on this feature. The developers have introduced a new system to measure player growth, which is a good thing! We can all agree that the color mastery system has a lot of flaws to it. We like having experience points and player levels, and we are very much looking forward to seeing these “other sources of experience” and “competitive seasons” and everything that is being discussed but not defined in these posts.

The fundamental problem here is with the way things are, right now. It’s understandable that the developers did not want to provide a gigantic pile of rewards all at once to a small handful of already wealthy players, those with extensive collections who have also taken the time to master those cards. But in choosing to severely limit the initial award of experience, they have introduced a separate problem. They have created a system which punishes those same players, the ones that are most heavily invested in the game, and provided them no way to overcome that punishment.

This would be like a game where the max level is 100 releasing an expansion which increased the max level to 150, but only for players who were level 50 or below. Anyone who was already at 100 can only stay at 100. What incentive is being offered to those players to continue playing the game? Is the goal to get them to quit and start over, or to look elsewhere for their entertainment?

It feels like we’re still at the point of trying to receive an acknowledgment that this is a problem, but I’m going to go ahead and talk about prospective solutions anyway.

Option 1 is obvious: simply award players full experience for already-mastered cards. Yeah, some players who have mastered 2000+ cards will get a blast of crystals and gems in their account. Oh well. Rewarding your most loyal players (and probably some of your biggest investors too) doesn’t seem like a huge negative to me. But maybe you want to adjust the XP numbers so that higher levels cost more than 6500 XP to achieve, or something. Maybe having players at level 100+ is undesirable for some reason. If you can get past objections to these outcomes, this is by far the easiest solution.

Option 2 is to let players remaster (or at least earn experience for using) any card that was already mastered before the system was introduced. This would be annoying, because it would still penalize the players who took the time to master additional cards, essentially making that time a waste. But it would allow a dedicated player to go back and redo their work and still achieve a top level.

Option 3 is a hybrid of the two approaches. Give players partial experience for pre-mastered cards, equivalent to how much they would have played with those cards to achieve mastery under the old system. If it took 16 wins to get to mastery for a mythic, start them out at 320/800 XP and let the players take them the rest of the way.

Regardless of what option is chosen, the end result of all of these systems should be the same: every player, regardless of where they were before this system was implemented, should have a fair chance to earn every available point of XP from the cards in their collection. Any other outcome is going to be unfair to someone, be it newcomers or veterans. Even if you introduce new ways to earn XP in upcoming releases, such that the total amount of possible XP is no longer a fixed quantity, you are still handicapping the top players by giving everyone else a head start. One player in our team of coalitions is up to level 60 already; another player cannot achieve this level thanks to owning so many already-mastered cards. Even if you change things so that the second player could get there by grinding out a bunch of Heroic Encounters or something… why should they? They did that once already to master all those cards in the first place!

By all means, please continue to work to improve the game and offer new features to keep our veteran players engaged. We all want the same thing here, the continued success and viability of MTGPQ. But these continued messages saying “this is all going to be moot in the future but we’re not going to be specific on how” are not inspiring. Telling players “we’ve limited what you’re going to receive now so that we can give you rewards more gradually over time” is not going to placate them while they watch their peers zoom away from them. It’s only going to make them regret the additional time and energy they chose to invest in the game, and that’s not where you want to be to retain them.

6

I’d like to point out that when that say.. gold player decides to level up to a level in high 60s, that player will be on equal (platinum) ground very quick. That gives them the chance to level up way further than others who have mastered all cards in their collection, grabbing the rewards on the way and profit from the faster rate of player progression. Which in turn keeps them way ahead of the rest.

Am I missing something here?

7

Okay, I and another player with basically the same collection are 20 levels apart. Actual compared numbers, no theoretic example. I mastered prior to the update, he afterwards. He’s on the same level of competitiveness as I am. How are the future implementation favoring me over him until I can reach his level? In a game where +95% win rates are not outstanding, but below average? The one thing is to compare vets and new players - the other thing vets that did, and vets that didn’t master cards.

8

No, it’s not fucking temporary. Those new methods are not going to be limited to the players with more mastered cards. They’ll be open to everyone.

Player 1 - Level 47
Cards Owned - 2067
Cards Mastered Pre-3.2 - 1832
Cards Mastered Post 3.2 - 2067

Player 2 - Level 68
Card Owned - 2134
Cards Mastered Pre-3.2 - 701
Cards Mastered Post 3.2 - 2134

That’s a big fucking problem. Your bullshit reasoning runs on the poor assumption that the veteran players will participate in these new methods more frequently than a newer player. What the actual fuck kind of thought process is that? “Oh this person is new to the game so they won’t play as much” … seriously?

Give everyone the experience they goddamn well deserve and earned. Fuck the rewards. Just give us the proper levels. We’ll be matched against players who got just as equally bored playing the same 5 events each month and we’ll be fine with that.

9

Not gonna lie, it is super disheartening to the point that I am not even really playing much any more.

10

You expect me to happy with the fact that my level is lower than all of my contemporaries just because I mastered more cards than they did? I can never reach the same levels as most of my team-mates, and the people in my rival coalitions, if they now master their cards? The entire game will play differently for me than it will for my peers?

You’re really going to have to explain just how these future features are going to allow me to be the same level as people who catch up to (and have already caught up to!) the number of cards I mastered before the update, because it seems so, so obvious to me that ANY system of gaining XP available to me will also be available to them.

OF COURSE I will be in a better situation than anyone in Gold Tier. I have been for literally years; Gold Tier has been an utter irrelevance to me ever since I hit Platinum Tier in… 2017 was it? From where I am on the coalition leaderboard, I can’t even see any coalitions which have Gold Tier players in them. I can’t possibly know what the Gold Tier metagame is like because I can never play a game against a Gold Tier player. Gold Tier players are not my peers.

This is wildly unfair. What’s worse is that you know, you KNOW that what we’re saying is true, and yet you choose time and time again not to address what we’re talking about.

We don’t care! We don’t care if we are being matched against players whose level is much lower than ours, as long as we are being matched against other veteran players! I challenge you to find a single player from the 'small demographic of players with much higher levels" who is AT ALL bothered by the fact that they will play games against someone else in Platinum Tier, with a comparable collection of cards, whose level number is 40 less than theirs.

This is wrong in so many ways. If it was bad 3 weeks ago that Laeuftbeidir would have had a large level number, why is it not bad today that his friend who he talks about has an equally high level number? (I feel the need to add at this point, that Laeftbeidir’s friend is only unnamed in this thread because of forum rules, not because he is hypothetical: he is real. He exists).

If you are introducing MORE ways to increase your level IN ADDITION to card mastery, then what about new players who join in 6 months time? Or a year? Won’t they be even more intimidated by the even larger levels that exist in the game?

And you’re replacing a system where a brand new player next year could eventually reach my level by mastering the same number of cards as me, with a system where they can’t possibly because they missed all the extra opportunities to gain XP from play that I had in the previous year?

Finally, let’s not forget that new players have absolutely no context for those level numbers, so they have no idea whether it’s going to be intimidating to reach them or not. They’re going to be far more focused on getting hold of copies of cards that completely destroy their low level decks the first time they meet them, or that they can see in the ‘favourite decks’ of the high level players they are apparently so interested in. If I’m level 100, they will just assume that that’s possible to achieve if they put in the hours and get all the good cards. They’ve got no idea how long it might take to do that, and they certainly aren’t going to be able to work it out.

Did World of Warcraft die because people looked at level caps being increased by each expansion and decided not to start playing as a result? It did not!

I’m annoyed that I’ve had to write such a long post, because it makes it easier to cherry pick the parts of it to answer without addressing our concerns. But I think it should be clear that the reasons for defending this decision do not hold water. I understand what Oktagon wanted to achieve: a bunch of numbers that were close to each other, because it’s nicer to conceptualise for them. But they’ve done it by erasing the achievement of dedicated players and punishing them on a permanent basis.

I don’t think I’ve ever been this angry about this game.

11

Admit you tinykitty up. Correct the issue.

//Removed Profanity -Brigby

12

Did you ever have an argument in which literary everyone told you that you were wrong but you kept insisting that you were right? Drop the BS and fix it.

13

As a relatively new player who struggles in legacy events, I really appreciate the spirit of what it seems you are trying to do – as I understand it, you are trying to make this game more attractive to newer players. Wonderful! Legacy events are awful. Had you not incentivized daily grind platinum rewards over top one leaderboard gold player rewards, I wouldn’t be here in platinum and this issue you’re attempting to address wouldn’t be as bad as it is.

So I appreciate that you recognize it’s a problem for attracting and retaining new players, and therefore a problem for you. However, I have zero confidence that the solution you have implemented and are planning to implement will actually address the issue, let alone cause more issues than before. You’re advocating for a total revamp of the system and using a corner case as justification while being either passively or willfully ignorant of how your latest attempt at balance has panned out.

14

At this point, I guess I’d accept you just clearing my XP and mastery and letting me master the cards again.

I don’t like it. But I feel obliged to give you solutions which are within your limited capabilities to give.

15

I also don’t give a damn about veteran players receiving the full rewards they are due. This doesn’t bother me at all and should never affect me if you’re able to address the issue properly.

16

imo,

what Dev must do
1.1) make a versatile and consistent XP gaining system.
1.2) redeem all lost XP Reward to all player as per their lv at started of 3.2.
1.3) involvement XP and LV to matchmaking.

what we see
2.1) unfinished and move to 2.2)
2.2) unfinished OR non schedule making it OR ignoring it and move to 2.3)
2.3) very hastely doing it as always and run into 2.4)
2.4) Billing to D3 :tongue:

please focus on (x.1) and (x.2)

17

These are some wrong assumptions my friend. Many plat level vets are inactive and many vets haven’t reach plat level. Level of activity if directly related to level of motivation and contents related stuff, vet or not

18

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Player A has a larger collection than Player B. Player B has, at most, 12,999 more experience than Player A at this exact moment. Player B has 1,129 more cards mastered. If Player A mastered all of their unmastered Commons, Uncommons, and enough Rares to match Player B’s number of mastered cards, Player A would earn 221,100 experience. Assuming all levels from 41 and up require 6,500 experience, Player A would reach level 75. This means that as of this exact moment, Player A has the capacity to be 33 levels higher than Player B by investing a whole lot of time mastering a whole lot of cards, something Player B already did!

Now, let’s say Player A does not take the time to master all those cards right now. When the new set and new ways to gain experience become available to the players, both will have equal opportunity to gain more experience. Both players will be matched against equivalent opponents with the opportunity to receive equivalent rewards if it is based on either color mastery, player level, or both. Assuming both players are equivalent in skill levels, Player B is at a MASSIVE disadvantage compared to Player A in terms of reaching a higher player level because Player A can still go back and master all of those cards that Player B already mastered. If Player A is so inclined, Player B will never be able to compete with Player A in terms of player level. This is a broken system. You guys done fucked up.

19

This delayed answer is beyond insulting for the player base for more than one reasons. If I read right, your official reply is “Let things be as they are now and we see how this rolls”. You avoid to state the obvious disrespecting those who give life to your game. Shame… shame… shame… shame…

20

Hey Brigby thanks for taking the time to address some of the questions that have been floating around. Much appreciated!