Should @Brigby pass this message on to D3's upper management?

Magic: The Gathering - Puzzle Quest MtGPQ General Discussion
1

Background:

The game has undergone a host of changes in 2017 which have presumably been aimed at increasing the retention rate of players and ultimately leading to additional revenue to the firm. D3 likely expected that many of these changes would be unpopular to many of the veteran players but felt they were necessary changes for the longevity of the game. These changes include:

  • Nerfing individual prizes, especially for top performances

  • Nerfing coalition prizes, especially for top 10 coalitions

  • Removing quick battle from the game

  • Introduction of mana jewels

  • Introduction of standard format

  • Reducing the bracket size of contests

  • 4-hour recharge timers on weekend PvE contest

  • Many others like power creep of commons and uncommons, AI nerfing (maybe), more casual content like weekday PvE events, etc

Most of these changes resulted in extreme negative sentiment from the veteran community including a name change protest and the Not.Another.Dime. movement. Despite the resistance, D3 continued down the path that they thought was appropriate for the long-term health and profitability of the game. However, evidence has mounted that these changes are not having the desired outcome. Evidence includes the shrinking number of brackets opened in each event, survey results about willingness to recommend the game, witnessing and hearing reports of high attrition rates from coalitions and third-party data showing popularity and profitability have declined

https://searchman.com/android/app/us/com.d3p.olympic/en/d3-go/magic-puzzle-quest/?d=android

(The line is clearly downward sloping even though they always get a bounce post patch.)

Synopsis:

First, I just want to say, I want D3 to succeed with this game. I have spent countless hours and a substantial amount of my hard-earned money on the game. I have a great network of friends in the MTGPQ community.

My belief is that the game’s target audience is primarily those who are familiar with and appreciate Magic the Gathering. I would absolutely recommend the game to my brother, who still plays MTG, but never to my wife, who doesn’t. MTGPQ is a complex match 3 game and it really helps break the learning curve if you understand some of the mechanics in MTG. It’s also cool to see the translation of cards, to follow the story through the beautiful artwork etc.

Now a key component of MTG is that you collect cards and then combine them into synergistic decks to take down opponents. Opening new and powerful cards is awesome. But it goes beyond that. It gets into collectability for a huge percentage of MTG players. Not only can you get whichever cards you want if the price is right, but many MTG players highly value having complete sets of these cards. Fortunately, a constant stream of new content allows the game to stay fresh with players having new cards to chase, new blocks to build from and new formats to engage in.

Let’s compare this to Marvel Puzzle Quest. They have a broader audience and likely a somewhat less nuanced audience. If I thought it was a cool game I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to my wife or a friend who wasn’t into more complicated games. Not only that, but it doesn’t translate directly from a card game which has a constant stream of content and there isn’t a direct translation between collectability of marvel characters in and out of game.

Now this is where I feel that D3’s primary blunder originates. They wanted to make each players collection different and purposefully prevent players from acquiring the entire set of cards. They have created the first game licensed by Wizards MTG (that I am aware of) which purposefully restricts the collectability of the available cards to the player (Duels restricts the card pool and number of cards, but players can collect all of those available in the game). This goes in the face of what has made MTG such a successful and lasting game.

I believe the outcome of this is poor retention of new players. A paper MTG player downloads the game. After getting acquainted with the mechanics and playing through the first handful of battles they start realizing the card pool and the necessity of deck building and card collecting. Then after grinding through each chapter of story mode 5 times for a 10 crystal progression on each one, they finally get a premium pack and it gives them a total of 1 rare, probably not even a very usable one. They try a few PvE and PvP battles and realize this game is an absolute grind fest and that it’s very hard to acquire a decent set of cards. Or maybe they run into some extremely strong player decks and realize they have no capacity to compete. Most of them then decide it is just not worth their time and either uninstall or just stop logging in every 2 hours for their 1 card booster.

On the other side of the player spectrum are the veteran players who have been dedicated to the game since the start. The attrition rate is huge with these players who feel that D3 has sabotaged the end game and removed anything worth playing for. Pair that with bugs, awful communication with the community, boring and redundant content (and the list goes on, and on, and on…..) and players have been quitting in droves.

Solution:

First and foremost, D3 needs to recognize what they have. They have a tinykitty license from Wizards of the Coast! They have an endless stream of new content that comes out roughly every 3 months and contains fresh and exciting cards that players WANT to play with and collect. They do NOT need to make the cards exclusive or impossible to collect. If someone gets the entire set of KLD/AER then AKH and HOU are right around the corner. I can’t even begin to speculate how much more money I would have spent if I was chasing those last 2-3 cards from a set with the knowledge that eventually I would get them. I can guarantee you it would have been at least 5-10 times more than I have spent. And with never-ending new content what is the downside for D3?

Currently, when a new set comes out I glance at the mythics but don’t even bother looking at the masterpieces. I am so unlikely to get them that I won’t even salivate if they are bombs. They mythics I fleetingly hope for but have virtually no real hope of attaining. This is not the desired reaction to a new set release, and is certainly not the reaction to new sets from the MTG paper crowd.

If you are worried about players getting bored once the collection is complete then give them other things to chase and spend money on. Custom skins, sound effects, backgrounds, etc. Also, make sure there is plenty of new engaging content to play. Add other types of overlays besides enraged and supercharged. The community has already recommended dozens of fresh and fun game modes that would keep players engaged. Include a ranking system, where players could battle it out for top spots each release which would incentivize them to spend cash early rather than earning cards through F2P means. In fact, use this to determine brackets and who you play against to make the learning curve that much easier on newer players, rather than the silly system of color mastery. Do the same thing with coalitions and give seasonal rewards that can be as simple as “trophies” but will still create a competitive environment. Of course you can retain card collecting as a core aspect, but not as the only thing that engages players.(Hint: it already isn’t the primary aspect).

On the subject of newer players, if they are able to get ahold of some strong cards early and know that they will eventually have a strong collection without waiting and grinding for years they will see what the game really has to offer. It’s a great game at its core, but it is not fun to have to use awful cards or shell our loads of cash to get started. Give them a chance to compete by actually allowing them to build a strong collection of their own.

Conclusion:

Basically, it comes down to the philosophy that you should give MTGPQ players what attracts them to MTG in the first place. The ability to actually use the cards that Wizards releases. You can do this through increased drop rates, better prizes for contest, and a crafting system that allows players to target cards they want and avoid additional duplicates. If you continue to approach the problem of sub-optimal retention rates by harming the end game experience to veteran players you will fail to meet the desired objective for newer players and continue having a high attrition rate for veterans. I genuinely believe that the plan I have outlined will lead to a better game, a more active game, a more profitable game and a game with more longevity than its current form.

TLDR: The target audience of MTGPQ is people familiar with MTG which is a collectible card game. Making it impossible to collect all of the cards leads to attrition and is an unnecessary and negative crossover from Marvel Puzzle Quest. Allow MTGPQ to be what it could be by allowing players to actually build sets to completion.

Should @Brigby pass this message on to D3’s upper management?
  • Yes
  • No
  • No Opinion
0 voters
2

Well done! I could add to the list but let’s start with yours and see what happens. My guess would be: nothing, but let’s stay positive for once

3

There’s just one other thing I’d like to note.

Make microtransactions actually micro. I’d pay three or four bucks for a solid rare. I’d pay $10 to $15 for a mythic without other stuff bundled into the purchase. Dozens of others have made similar statements. I am certain this would increase revenue. It’s very difficult to justify paying 2/3 of the cost of a physical console game disc for a purely digital purchase that also happens to have a shelf life.

@Brigby

Please take a verbatim copy of @babar3355 's post to your team. This is very well thought out. As this post indicates, it’s pretty obvious to the player base that the developers have a bottom line they need to try to meet. It’s also baffling to the player base that the developers would completely ignore suggestions on how to get them to spend money. We are literally telling you ways you can get our money. It has been spelled out in no uncertain terms here. Why in the God Pharoah’s name are they ignoring us???

4

^This

5

Why bother bringing Brigby into this? Seems to me that asking Brigby to help isn’t working well. Just tag @LakeStone on everything. Remember, @LakeStone is the one you want to direct everything at. @LakeStone.

Not sure if Josh Austin is LakeStone, but he might be worth contacting through LinkedIn or other means.

6

Well wouldn’t @Lakestone be considered one of many senior management that @Brigby could take this appeal to?

7

How has that been working out for you?

8

To be honest, quite a few positive changes have resulted from Brigby passing community feedback on. He passed the D3 Prioritization thread I posted about 6 months ago and lots of that stuff has been worked on or fixed. But I really think this is a big one and we need to make the case for why there is a better way.

9

I’d like to add another note. If we were able to collect the whole set (we clearly aren’t) and we’d get bored, instead of gimmicks like backgrounds and stuff, they could always add old cards/sets because there are thousands of cards to choose from.

10

Something like this would quickly get out of hand and the whales will ultimate dominate the events once again and leaving the FTP players in the dust. I am not against the idea completely but there must be a balance. IMHO with the crafting system coming and Brigby hinted that a type of crafting point system is used. I suggest what you are asking for but that micro transaction also requires X amount of crafting points to be able to do so. If you do not have the points then you cannot spend the cash to buy the mythic or rare outright. If you do have those points available, then the transaction deducts said points (which would likely be more expensive than that of crafting directing because it pinpoints a purchase outright). This would certainly slow the roll of any whales from trying to abuse the system.

11

My two cents: I actually like standard, but it bodes ill for quite a few Planeswalkers, I was shocked by how my fairly recently purchased Arlinn Kord got spayed, in Standard I have no werewolves and so I can only access one ability. This speaks to either a shortsightedness in design, or a planned obsolescence that effects only a few Walkers. With how unevenly this effects Walkers, I am tempted to believe the former.

12

Yes… Very well thought out… One thought I had was it may not be the developers decision, it may go higher up in the d3 management where it comes down what d3 contracted with Wizards… Wizards is notorious for having absolute control on things. If this is the case then the issue needs to go to Wizards and not d3.

13

Our coalition had a new member join a while back. He was an avid gamer with a long background in paper Magic as well as many other games. He understood the puzzlequest mechanics and was full of enthusiasm to get started. In fact he had crafted a number of decks on a spreadsheet that he wanted to try out. The deck ideas he had were creative. They involved multiple rare and mythic cards. He was a busy guy - a pastor with a lot of responsibility. He didn’t stay long and I really didn’t have the heart to tell him he would most likely never have the chance to play any of the decks he had designed even utilizing time and money. He was at the mercy of RNGesus.

I would like to suggest a Netflix model of payment that allows for monthly card rental. This would allow new and old players immediate access to some number of mythic and rare cards. Say $20 for any four specific mythic and rare cards. After 30 days the cards go away. You could renew the same or get different cards each month. Deck builders could have a field day. One benefit is the grinding will be more pleasurable for newbies since even one strong mythic can increase the deck performance dramatically. As it is now we can’t craft the best possible decks because there is no good way to get your hands on specific cards. That is very unlike the paper game. Obviously, Olivia could become ubiquitous but given the standard environment the power cards should rotate. This rental wouldn’t interfere with the cards we obtain thru purchases or win as prizes. Could that work?

edit to add: Great post OP

14

The message has merit and is good, but let’s get it to the right person ourselves and stop asking Brigby to do everything. Dude has enough on his plate.

15

Call me cynical, but isn’t NOT being able to get the cards you want exactly what d3 wants? Seem,s to me that first they spend a year being mildly generous with the game, get the game known as a more or less generous f2p game. Then slowly drop ways for players to gain cards in any other way than purchasing overprised random draws. Once they get you to spend $50+ in the hopes of gaining a good card, they idea is you’ll repeat that, cause now you’re in, if you didn’t get anything good, you wasted all those $$, don’t want that right, better to spend some more and if it gives you something good, well, than you haven’t wasted $$. As ridiculous as that sounds, it’s normal human behavior and all free to play games exploit it. Super sneaky things like holding parts of a set back to a later time only help repeated purchases. (It doesn’t help d3’s case that their marvel match 3 game folowed the same pattern, start more or less generous, then turn for the worse.)

16

Just to set the record straight I want to acknowledge that the ideas, thoughts, and opinions in the original post are in no way mine alone. Lot’s of credit is due to many people including most recently efforts by Seifer, Dogslaya and many of their crew at YH1J. Lots of ideas and data also came from my coalition GP, work with other coalitions and their members, and many of you on these forums. I just want to have some positive improvements in this game that we love and am willing to try whatever it takes to get them done.

On the subject of asking Brigby to push this up the ladder… well it’s what he does. I don’t think we need to protect him from his own job.

As @Brigby said in @bken1234’s post last week, “I will continue to do my best to be that bridge of communication between the community and the developers”. Basically it is his job and he has done a pretty solid job of it in my opinion. I know that he stated he brought these threads to the developers:

https://forums.505go.com/discussion/57380/d3-prioritization-thread/p1

and

https://forums.505go.com/discussion/65461/why-austerity-is-the-wrong-plan/p1

I am also confident he has brought many others to the developers which is why I think we have stuff like deck slots, a fair tie breaker system, Trials of the Planewalkers, and an incoming duplicate crafting system. Can we not try to protect Brigby from the community and instead acknowledge his positive efforts in a tough role?

Anyway, seems silly to vote no because you don’t want Brigby to be the one to take the message to the developers in his weekly meetings with them. So I am going to assume the vote stands at 27-1-3. I also think my letter was too long and people forgot to vote, as a few agreeing posts don’t show as yes votes =)

17

+1 for the tie in the rankings

18

Player numbers may be down, but are revenues? Maybe they like have less players who pay more. There are a lot of dev teams out there who despise having to pay for server time for their free users… and because the PvP here is asynchronous, they’re not losing so much vital content by jettisoning potential opponents; those opponents have already logged their decks for use.

19

So basically the basis for this is the opinion of the top 2 coalitions and your interpretation of what people say on the forum combined with some data?

Becaude i think the thousands of other coalitions might weigh a little more.

My vote now stands on te basis of elitist bias – why don’t you hop into Discord or get on shteev’s Facebook and ask these questions and lead this discussion with non-top 10 players.

20

Or hop a plane to Indiana.