POLL: Should existing dupes be automatically converted to runes when the new system is introduced?

Magic: The Gathering - Puzzle Quest MtGPQ General Discussion
41

Without any insight into the system, it’s only speculation at this point but suspect packs would be unaffected other than the usual 3 month timer on inbox items.

With regards to the method of conversion, that’s certainly a potential headache. Reading through this thread, there is ambiguity with regards to developer statements, but the biggest argument for auto conversion is the potential disruption caused by some players having months of dupes. This could in turn result in a less generous ongoing dupe system so as to not tip the balance.

The flipside is that players have lost out being able to use runes upon conversion and so should benefit from something other than the current rate.

One middle ground option would be to set an auto conversion at a level between the two systems (or at least different to the ongoing new system). For instance if the new system gives 2 jewels for a mythic, then the auto could be 1 jewel (just an example, not trying to equate value). The player could then also be presented with an option to convert at the current rate as well so there is a floor no worse than what we have today.

This means that if a player thinks the one off rate is more valuable that they can get more than just runes and thus a reward of sorts for holding dupes. This may not offset the opportunity cost they lost out on but as nothing concrete was ever promised think this would be a fair compromise. I am almost certain the conversion will not feel generous anyway.

It also means that any new permanent system need not be unduly influenced by the massive hoards. This can be designed with the long term in mind and allay concerns of those worried that the hoarders will impact what they themselves would stand to gain from the new system.

Ultimately, the purpose of the thread overall was to shed some light on the player perspective which is clearly split. Hopefully we will get some thoughtfulness from d3h and a realisation that they really would benefit from communicating both the what AND the why.

42

Brigby told us (in a post I don’t remember where) to wait to the new system better than exchanging them for runes. It would not be fair to punished people who has not exchanged them. I have done it until I read that Brigby post.

43

It’s my understanding that Vault and the Inbox are two seperate things, and that the three month timer only applies to the Inbox.

44

What they should do is pretty clear, the question is what they will do. The only real problem is that a lot of people have (sensibly) bet against them doing what they should do, and such people are going to be unhappy to lose that bet.

The game made it quite it quite clear that there was no reason to keep your cards, no need for a confirmation button, no plans for any other system. All that happened is a lot of people didn’t trust d3 to live up to the promise in the interface.

No-one’s being “punished” if d3 converts everything. They get the same thing everyone else got. No-one’s getting less than what they were promised originally. No-one bought more cards in the first place in the hopes of an unknown future system to convert them. Most of them only saved cards because they had too many runes already. Nobody’s being clever here, just cynical.

The choice d3 have now is just between “punish good faith” or “fail to reward cynicism”.

45

You have an uncanny ability to link quotes out of context to serve your purpose @shteev, so I’ll just address the quotes one by one:

Steeme was very much in favor of Baral’s raw power

The “Please nerf Baral” thread came out the day he was available for purchase. My post was merely a “Really, he was just released, why do you want him nerfed?”. It was a genuine question given that I did not even dream of creating decks cycling ad infinitum. You also have to bear in mind, Steve, that I don’t have the same cards that you already enjoy stomping the playerbase with and as such I take any opportunity I can to catch up even a little bit. Fast forward to today, I love the new Baral even more than the old one, do you still think he needs further nerfing? I don’t.

later altered his position slightly to Baral needing a nerf for the sole purpose of stopping the AI looping with him

Regarding the second post, that basically came after seeing how players abused his power, once again building decks that I would never build. Once I saw that in action, it was clear that he the AI cycling must be stopped. Wait, how does this support your rant? Seems like it supports the theory that I am in favour of tightening the power discrepancy, not widening it.

blame the players themselves for the problems that Baral’s design created

Oh? Is it not the players’ fault for constructing decks that spin in circles for 10 minutes? Is it not the players that stuff 4 removal cards in their deck so that the AI happily sits there picking you off for 10 minutes without a single win-con? I know that you like to place the blame on the developers, as you always do, but we’re going to have to disagree since the players are fully aware of the decks that they construct, and that other players will have to face them. Best example I can think of, when I had pre-nerf Baral, I built no cycle decks with him. Voluntarily. Yet other players merrily built their infinite combos and submitted them to events, despite the mass crying on the forums. If the developers didn’t intervene, their decks would still be there. That’s why it’s the players’ fault.

post certainly seems to imply that he considered Old Baral+Tezzeret 2 to be of a reasonable power level.

This is basically the same as the last post, perhaps a misquote?

Ah, with greatest respect. Sure. There is no hypocrisy here my friend, because I don’t have a huge advantage over other players. I am merely catching up. I realize that it’s a completely different perspective for you, because you’re already at the top, and of course don’t want anyone to catch up. But for me, I need something to bring to the table that can survive the many optimized decks that the matchmaker pits me up against.

By the way, can you explain to me how adding Tezz 2 to my stable gives me an advantage over the rest of the playerbase, who also have Tezz 2? Also, can you explain how having Baral and say Olivia or Ulrich give me an advantage over, say, you? Considering you also have the cards, n’est-ce pas? So, please grace everyone with your explanation of how me acquiring say, 60% of your library is going to give me an advantage over your already expansive library.

In addition, you seem to be linking Baral and Tezz 2. Just so we’re clear, my Tezz 2 deck did not contain Baral. I built one more recently to play with the new Baral, but that was after the nerf.

46

I stand corrected. Glad you did the work for me.

47

I’ve been hoarding for months now, chiefly because I haven’t needed/wanted to use the runes, and have been tracking my dupes (chiefly KLD, which stands at 6 dupe mythics, while still missing 17/32 non-exclusive mythics). Three copies now of the WORST. MYTHIC. EVER. (Depala, in case you were wondering). I shudder at the few missing rares compared to my dozen spares of peacewalker/siphoner, but that’s a much smaller pool of missing cards. I still don’t have all the spare rune deck slots purchased, so I’m forgoing that advantage in favor of hoarding, if people are talking about hoarders losing nothing of value. I’ve worked hard to get to where I am in regards to PW levels and rune stocks, and could have bought all, or nearly all, the slots by now with what I have hoarded.

That being said, I would understand (but not be terribly happy about) the devs leveling the playing field by auto converting it before the advent of the new system. The logic is sound, but would be kind of an eff you to dedicated, high end players, in a time when D3 has dug itself such a deep hole, reputation-wise, that they’ve hit bedrock.

Whether they choose to break out the jackhammers at this point is, of course, up to them.

48

The reason for auto-converting is you don’t want a small portion of the playerbase inflating the economy from day one.

Say they introduce a “dust” system. If they allow some players to convert existing dupes to dust, then what happens is they set the “crafting price” of new cards quite high just to balance against the amount of dust already in the economy. That means new players and anyone that has been converting for whatever reason (ie. the big button that tells you to convert them) will have a much tougher time “buying” in the new economy.

If everyone starts at the same level, then they can set reasonable prices that are attainable by everyone.

49

This game has never been fair. I don’t see why D3 would suddenly start now.

Yes, some players may have been hoarding duplicates specifically because a new system is coming. Some higher players may have given up regularly cleaning up their duplicates a long time ago because they already have 1000000000 mana runes with no way to spend them.

50

I’m thinking the price is two dupes of whatever level (probably restricted to rare and above) plus whatever currency they decide to tack on (gems or crystals, hopefully not terribly much) as a catalyst to get another pull of the slot machine at that rarity level. Whether they open the entire pool of cards, or restrict it to two cards from the same expansion block to get another card from that block, is likewise unknown. I’d pay three to one to get a guaranteed non-dupe, tbh.

51

While I feel that forcing conversions on everyone is the correct choice, I think it would be beneficial to also look at bringing back the 3-card pack purchase for runes.

52

I like the idea, @Gun_Bunny .
two, or maybe three cats for one random pull at the catmachine.
When it comes to the sets I could imagine that a random pull on all rares is a lot more easy to implement than the other way around - expect for the possibility to actually chose the set.

Non-guaranteed cards will never, ever be implemented in this game, on that I bet all my rare dupes.

And what about commons, uncommons ?
Pay 100 commons to get 50 commons to get 25 commons .. there would be actually any mass-exchange for those neccessary

53

There is another issue that I don’t see being addressed in this discussion so far. Right now I feel forced to stockpile crystals as well as packs (and of more concern to D3: avoiding money purchases that give packs). You actually get less value for packs right now than after the conversion system is released IF existing dupes can not be converted. When a new set is released it will make sense to get packs for a while but only until you start hitting a high dupe rare rate.

I don’t want to have to wait 3+ months to start getting packs again. I want to pick up some SOI and BRZ packs when available and to open them.

I don’t want them to force conversion of dupes to runes but if they are going to they should at least do it now and then remove the convert option. Or say now that they will allow existing dupes conversion (probably still a good idea to remove the convert button). Then we can at least move forward now.

54

When I read this post, I saw it as saying that they might do something with dupes in the future, which is why I never converted. I’ve never understood why people bring it out as proof they said there would never be anything else to do with. It is the sole reason for my hoarding in the first place; a shining ray of hope vs. the terrible rune conversion rate.

55

This was my reading of it too, and the same reason I started hoarding months ago.

56

You actually think they would have some algorithm that sets prices based on outstanding unconverted cards and set the optimal rate based on this? Regardless of whether players are able to convert old cards or not, I find it hard to believe they are using that as an input in setting conversion rates.

I don’t understand the argument of forcing conversion of your fellow players. We might battle each other but we aren’t enemies. And just because you didn’t bother saving any cards, even though the dev’s have alluded to an eventual conversion system for over a year, doesn’t mean hoarders like Majincob should get punished.

57

If they force a conversion, then a small number of players who care about balance and/or fairness will be happy. But thousands of players, a vast majority of whom never visit this forum and don’t read release notes, will feel cheated and/or angry.

Conversely, if they don’t force a conversion, lots of people will feel like they’ve gotten some additional reward. The only down side is that a percentage of your games will be matched against harder decks, and a small percentage of people will feel cheated because they knew this was coming but weren’t hoarding. And even then, any spikes in difficulty could be avoided by having a sorting algorithm that accounts for the relative rarity of your cards. (Using more common cards in your deck matches you against players with more common cards in their decks).

58

simple solution: Force convert everyone into runes with the current rates, and implement a fair and cheap system for the use of runes to a 5card pack of the players choice (Origins, SoI, etc)

i say 15k runes = 1x 5card pack is about right.
You make runes useful again, and you do not have to introduce a 4th (and maybe buggy) currency for card conversions.

KISS: Keep It Simple Silly, is the first rule of programming my Computer Science Lecturer taught me in 1984. Still applies today.

59

if you are worried about people like killwind with his 7 million runes, I say he deserves to have multiple 1000s of pulls of my recommended solution of 15k runes a pack as he had invested much time and effort from the past year in grinding out QB wins that resulted in his huge accumulated rune hoard.

60

See this is the key issue here. A small portion of the playerbase was privy to knowledge that there might actually be some reason to keep duplicates, while the rest of us converted them as that is literally all there was to do with them.

Contrary to what you believe, not everyone was aware there was going to be some other use for dupes.

You make it sound like we had a choice in converting. That’s where the difference of opinion lies.