6 New planeswalkers is awesome.
However where will I get the 2 million runes? to level them on top of the 6 I’m already trying to level?
You really need to bring back something like QB to make this viable @Brigby
I would love to purchase Bolas but what’s the point if it’s going to be mo ths before I can level him?
It looks like they increased the rune progression rewards of Training Grounds. So that’ll help
Now, I’m not sure if I’m in the majority or minority in this opinion (and please hear me out on it), but I’d be in favor of eliminating runes as a whole and having planeswalkers be just as they are at what is currently level 60.
While levels are fundamental in other PQ titles, I’ve always felt they are a cumbersome and unnecessary part of MTGPQ, as this is a title that is based upon an existing card game and thus progression is based upon collection and no so much level. Using a low level walker to get a low level match and then swapping to a high level walker is also an exploit that still exists to this day. Outside of using them to cheese, competitive play isn’t truly viable for under leveled walkers, meaning that high level players are more likely to just wait until a walker is fully leveled before using them. Now that we have Booster Crafting, orbs are far more useful than runes in terms of account progression and I’d propose a level-less system with orbs being the main reward currency (quantity adjusted accordingly). If the rewards were 10% of the current rune rewards, it would take about as much time to earn a mythic booster crafting of a current set as it currently takes to fully level a new planeswalker and as for existing runes, do a one-time conversion of banked runes at a favorable rate compared to the reworked rewards (as those who have banked runes have likely poured millions of runes into planeswalkers and shouldn’t be left feeling cheated for all their time grinding for those runes).
Pretty sure it’s the minority, but I’m of the same mind.
I’ve argued in favor of removing runes/PW levels altogether in the past too.
Since the introduction of gems and orbs, Runes have really taken a back seat and feel entirely superfluous if it wasn’t for lvling planeswalkers (which is painfully tedious and not fun).
The only place where lvling makes any sense to me, is when a new player joins the game and levels up their first Nissa as they progress through story mode.
Here’s how I would change things:
Unless you’re after the specific type of challenge of coming in with known limits, or have use for them to meet specific Objectives.
I currently have 12/39 PWs at level 60. And only have plans to take a few more to 60 if/when I get the runes.
Some are great at low level (Liliana, Death’s Majesty), others play well in mid-range (Vraska, Karn, Teferi (even though I took him to 60)), and some are fun to stomp around with at max (Jaya, Angrath, Kiora).
Leveling PWs is one of the resource-management aspects of the game that extends it’s playability. If everyone bought every PW and they were all max level, would there be as much of an incentive to try out new decks that fit within the constraints of a lower-level PW’s build restrictions? I personally enjoy the challenge of trying to pull off something cool with say a 1-support limit on my decks (looking at you, level 12 Koth).
The other aspect, matching PW selection to meet specific Event Objectives, can also be a factor.
As examples: “win in 5 rounds or less” is a lot easier with my level 12 Koth than with my level 52 Bolas, as very few opponents in the level 12-22 range have 100+ HP to knock down.
Also, “win with 50 or fewer HP” means I can take any of my PWs with 50HP max (level 6 Liliana, Death’s Majesty; level 30 Sorin, etc.) into the fight, and not have to worry about the life-gain bug bumping my end-of-match total above the target. And I don’t need to do self-inflicted burn or wait around for Greg to do the job on my level-60 Angrath to work him down to sub-50 HP.
There’s potentially some valid points here, but one could argue that you don’t have to be restricted by low-level limitations - you simply say, “I’m going to use one support or less in my level 60 Koth.” Just because you have the ability to do more doesn’t mean you can’t challenge yourself.
Additionally, when it comes to the objectives, they’ve already shown a willingness to change the objectives to make them more interesting. Finish the game with only common and uncommon cards, finish with creatures costing 11 or less, etc. They could start throwing in difficult objectives like ‘finish the game with 1 or less creature’, etc. Generally speaking, the finish with x life or more/less is not a favored objective at the moment anyhow.
If we’re talking strategic builds, I’m much more a fan of everyone’s walker’s being at same level with same base abilities, and then allowing players to purchase augmentations that alter PW abilities, increase a mana bonus at the expense of 40 starting health, begin the game with a special support in play, etc. That would be far, far more interesting in my opinion.
They would need to go back and revamp a lot of old Legacy Events to change out the old Objectives.
As we have seen, even giving Hibernium’s spaghetti code a sideways glance can give rise to untold bugs and crashes. I would prefer they use new Objective goals going forward, and leave those Legacy ones where they are so long as they keep rotating those Events through on a semi-regular basis.
There is also the special rush of taking down a level 60 opponent in TG with a sub-15 PW on my side, when I want to reset the opposition when switching to a different PW/deck build idea. My smurf Koth and Liliana are good at that if say I had been stomping around with Angrath (60), then want to try out a slower strategy with Jace (22), and don’t feel like putting the poor boy up against the unrelenting wall of level-60 Koths and Bolases out there.
This saves me from having to waste potions every time I reset TG to an appropriate level.
The easiest change is just to leave runes and levels as they are (because that’s BIG stuff to change in one go and get right) BUT add giving a PW experience on every single win or when you master a card with them.
And yeah, some people try and keep things low and this STOPS them which is also good and allows people to just keep playing with the people they want to level. It also FEELS better to level up through playing.
(I’d actually prefer that every single PW have an “intro” like Nissa does that gives them their first levels and teaches you to play them, but that’s extra work and less likely.)
I don’t see forced-leveling of Plainswalkers as a good thing. If someone wants to play at a specific level, let them. If you max all your PWs, you will never encounter them in PvP.
The rate of rune accumulation has taken a big hit since the introduction of Booster Crafting (tradeoff - we get Orbs for crafting).
Perhaps Mastering a card ought to give some Rune payout bonus in addition to the tier color-ranking total.
You do realize you also get runes for dupes in addition to orbs?
If anything booster crafting increased the amount of runes we’re getting, since nobody is hoarding dupes just in case anymore.
I do agree that it would be nice to get runes (or something) for mastering a card. That would give it a purpose once you hit platinum with 1/100 (estimated) of cards mastered.
Yes, but since Booster Crafting, converting duplicates now only gives HALF as many Runes as it used to. The other 50% are the Orbs (+extra for new-set bonus).
People would occasionally convert duplicate cards pre-Booster Crafting days.
Not today, as the old Training Grounds is up.
I never felt a true shortage of runes until two things happened. The primary being that I stopped spending money in game . I’ll still spend 20 or 30 bux when a new set comes out, but I don’t buy exclusives at all anymore ,and I usually buy 1 pw. The amount of runes I acquired arbitrarily through purchases did add up. The second thing was XLN and RIX releasing on top of each other with karn and DOM following closely . I don’t really see runes going away ,but I think that levelling costs could be rethought. Especially with the trend of 320k pws. It’s really making me less inclined to pick up new walkers.
I second this. I don’t mind spend some bucks on a new PW, but with basically no runes left, I don’t buy the new Nicky B, because i can’t play with it properly. And I have Karn on Level 55 still, which i want to max out.
That is not true at all. We get the same number of runes we always did for duplicates. We just also get orbs.
Enygma is correct. It’s been long enough that it’s becoming easier to forget, but the runes given out were halved with booster crafting. Original rune conversion rates can be seen here: Pre-Release (v1.4) Notes (4/14/16) - MtGPQ News & Announcements - 505 Go! Official Forums
Wow version 1.4. Its been a while lol.
And I guess my memory is a bit foggy (damn I’m getting old). My apologies @Enygma6
There still needs to be more opportunities for ruins. I play this game daily and still have a boatload of planeswalkers I want to level up, now there is 6 more coming? It’s going to be impossible
I feel you man. My Huatli 2 has been sitting at level 40 for months because I was trying to level Bolas and Karn.
At least the new walkers are mostly monocolored, so they don’t take too long to level