Source
r/MagicArena•
helacious

WotC, please reconsider daily progression being only wins.

general discussion

The focus on only wins to progress is, in my opinion, lazy and badly implemented. Lazy because it's taken straight from similar games (ie:Hearthstone) with no consideration of what magic is and badly implemented because it only favors playing monored or ragequitting bad hands. If you intended to grind rewards you have zero reason to play a 30min control match only to waste all that time on a loss.

WotC, you are very keen to just copy Hearthstone's business model without taking into account how different the variance between decks' game time is in Magic compared to HS. With that keenness in mind, why not just take the experience system of Hearthstone (the system that gives you class level and gets you basic cards) and apply it to the daily progression? It would equalize contribution to daily progress for all decks archetype and encourage playing the game instead of leaving the moment you feel you have a decent chance of losing.

For those who don't know, the experience system in Hearthstone takes into account multiple factors to calculate how much experience the match was worth but in short you get more experience the longer a game goes on with a small % bonus for a win. With this system, all archetypes would contribute proportionally similarly.

Posted Mar 24, 2018, 3:24 AM UTC

16380
Alkung•

I have suggested about only win reward and win quest in beta forum for months.

Not even a single dual color win quest get removed or improved. It is still there. You still cannot even play 3 colors deck to complete 2 color quest.

55
Aunvilgod•

You still cannot even play 3 colors deck to complete 2 color quest.

really? oh shit

23
LonelyTex•

Yeah, you have to match the quest exactly. If your Boros deck splashes green for ONE card, you won't get quest completion

20
mirrorgiraffe•

Dirty boros player...

12
tom_rorow•

What about a monored deck running struggle to survive? Would that count towards the red green quest?

1
l0w_birk•

that works (source: had to splash an uncastable in my hazoret deck just for 300g)

6
SixesMTG•

To be fair, my first thought when I saw the 2 colour quests was to make a good fast deck (monored probably) and add 1 card of each colour to get all quests done in two games. I'm assuming their system is built to avoid the abuse.

2
moush•

They need to just have it be "play x red cards" or something.

3
TiagoRabello•

They actually have those. The most common type of daily quest I get is playing 15 spell of X or Y color.

6
Fatalstryke•

I hate that. "Win with a white and green deck." Abzan control? NOPE, janky gw dinos that I haven't been wildcarding for at all...

3
SixesMTG•

Better yet "Win with a red+X deck" is just "add one card of colour X to your monored build and hope not to draw it (or use an aftermath card so you can cast half of it).

1
Fatalstryke•

I'm assuming Mono Red is really strong with the new sets?

1
SixesMTG•

Mono red gets a lot of its toys and, most importantly, can still work with downgrades.

3
Kanthes•

My problem with purely win-based progression is that it indirectly punished people who want to play something less optimal but more fun, and instead pushes players to simply google the best meta deck right now and just grind it out with that.

55
Skuggomann•

I think that if the game goes longer than 10-15 min both players should be rewarded, then you are being rewarded for spending your time on the game and not for winning.

This could cause a problem of people stalling but you could just test if people actually do that by you know putting it in a beta test.

16
Fatalstryke•

I love this idea. With my control deck before the latest patch, every game was either longer than 15 minutes, a win for me, or I got stuck on 2 lands for like 8 turns playing 24 lands.

2
helaciousOP•

Yes, one of the reasons I'm playing ramunap red to grind my collection atm. I love my janky ass treasure pirate deck but I'm not encouraged at all by the game to play it.

3
moush•

How else can you reward players besides wins or quests though?

1
Kanthes•

For playing. It's fine to have a bonus for winners, but it shouldn't be the only way to progress.

There's other ways of determining if people are just throwing the games than just rewarding the winner.

4
moush•

For playing

And how do you determine who's actually playing and not just afk or botting?

1
SixesMTG•

Types of cards cast/resolved/countered/drawn.

A quest for "draw 80 cards" that doesn't count starting hands would be a control reward. Same goes for "counter 5 spells" or "destroy 10 creatures outside of combat".

There are a lot of things that happen in a magic game, focusing on only wins is lazy.

4
moush•

I feel like they eventually will add quests like that, HS started out very similar to how Arena is now and has moved on.

1
SixesMTG•

You'd think the Arena team could learn from it rather than following the same path ...

1
t0nberryking•

The fact that they're copying HS pretty much 1-to-1 without adapting to the unique and different features that mtg has to offer makes me think that the people working on Arena are a very different group of people than the staff that's actually working on paper magic. At least, the people making the decisions about the game seem to be driven by a profit motive which ironically won't be likely to give them any solid form of return.

27
[deleted]•

[removed]

6
Trampoline8•

The day the NDA was lifted, I was watching a well known streamer saying how much he hates Merfolk. Within an hour, he was grinding wins with Merfolk - that encapsulates all that’s wrong with the progression system imo.

17
helaciousOP•

I'm playing ramunap red myself. Not a big fan of the deck but it's producing results fast while i'm still in need of a collection =/

7
anti-squid•

And HS quests are heavily criticized for the same reason, they encourage lightning fast games usually with aggro decks...

16
moush•

HS quests are way more varied than winning.

3
[deleted]•

They were heavily criticized for a long, long time.

8
moush•

And yet WotC learned nothing from it.

1
anti-squid•

Now it's somewhat better but it still favors the faster decks.

6
moush•

It wouldn't be hard to implement a "counter 10 spells" quest. But it will run into the same problem of people just making jank decks to finish quests.

1
SixesMTG•

Might be now, but near release (when I actually played) you just kept 4-5 super fast aggro decks (you only needed 4-5 because of the choice of class in the quests). The bigger issue is that with nothing on the line, quests encourage concession the minute something goes south. Hopefully competitive leagues with something on the line (gold?) and best of 3 will be implemented.

2
DMaster86•

We already suggested a turn system rewards, based on the total number of turns played in a certain day.

Ex. 5 turns played today get X reward, 15 turns get Y, and so on.

This allow people to play with their favourite deck and still get rewarded even if that deck is bad, instead of promoting an aggro-fiesta environment. In the last two days i've faced 18 aggro decks out of 20 games (9 merfolk, 6 red-white aggro starter decks, 2 vampires and 1 pirate). The other two games were against a midrange dino deck...

But as usual WotC doesn't seem to listen. Actually thank god the rewards are frontloaded in the first 4 wins now, before you had to go to 9 per day to get the most profit...

10
Boieru•

I completely disagree with your attitude but I completely agree with your points.

Currently, the F2P experience of magic suggests 30 daily wins in order to getting your collection up as fast as possible. This rewards fast decks even if the winrate is bad, as you get more rewards than playing a control deck where you grind 3x twice as much for each game.

7
Timeetyo•

On a "positive" note, there is no need to go past 5 wins daily since the rewards are such trash. Mission accomplished, now you don't need to feel bad playing control. /s

5
PatrickBecerra•

Dear OP,

Go post this in the beta forums where WOTC is actually looking for feedback.

3
helaciousOP•

Already ahead of ya

4
WotC_Charlie•

We read feedback posted here too!

9
helaciousOP•

Sorry for the snarky tone in the OP, I know you guys want to make a great game I was venting frustration from my play experience

1
WotC_Charlie•

No sweat!! I didn’t even notice snark, honestly. You bring up some interesting points. I don’t personally work on those systems but can confirm we’re talking about whether the current economy and play cycle/quest options fee rewarding enough.

4
PatrickBecerra•

Serious question: Why is WOTC reading on a forum where any random person can give feedback on a game they haven't played yet?

1
SixesMTG•

Thanks for confirming!

The "Common Card" should at least be renamed to "Random Card" or something ... though really, I'd prefer if it were just gold.

0
Finalow•

they're not copying HS business model, this is somehow even worse.

this game has the potential to be a really good card game but jesus christ almighty how fucking greedy can you be, Wotc? You had feedback before the recent update about the economy system being awful and guess what, it's still awful. adding some miserable daily rewards for wins is not how you improve it.

if you keep it like this, most people won't keep playing this game. you won't make more money because people like having pay2win card games, this won't be the next HS, and the economy as of now is, again, even worse than HS'.

what you don't seem to understand, Wotc, is that by being this fucking greedy you won't get more money, completely the opposite.

not to mention the fact that blatantly showing how greedy you are and how players need to pay $$$ if they want to make any decent deck is pretty revolting.

3
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
moush•

without taking into account how different the variance between decks' game time is in Magic compared to HS.

I'm guessing you don't play hearthstone because there is incredible variance in game times. There's a reason low rank is all aggro.

That said, I do agree it's a problem but not one easy to solve. Quests are the best way to do it, but even then they can be annoying.

1
helaciousOP•

There is variance in hs and i do play it but its nothing close to magic. There is a reason you have a cummulative timer of 50min in mtgo.

1
SixesMTG•

To be entirely fair, standard isn't a format that goes to time all that much. Standard actually isn't all that far off Hearthstone (bearing in mind that the cumulative 50 minute clock is for 2 players and 3 games).

2
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
MrGrrrey•

If this would be Blizzard, the next patch would read:

"We listened to your feedback! 30-win rewards removed from the game."

1
Mortkamp•

They have to do it this Way. Otherwise there will be tons of Bots, which just concede within the first turn.

They should increase the daily rewards or make the packs cheaper. It's also sucks, that you can get more than 4 times.

1
dj0wns•

There is already a fleet of successful bots who play and win games in hearthstone(even with more complicated decks). I dont think it would be difficult for a bot to pilot like merfolk or any other heavy aggro deck and get 20+% winrate. Bots are very sophisticated these days and I dont think its reasonable to hurt the player experience because of bots because bots will always come out ahead.

3
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
helaciousOP•

Try doing this in hearthstone and marvel at your experience points not increasing at all.

1
Mortkamp•

The Experience Points are not that important in HS.

Furthermore, sou have to win in Games to get your Gold, which is already possible. Just at this moment there is a Thread, which complaines about bots in Legend

1
nashdiesel•

HS allows you to play against “friend” accounts to get win credit towards quests but there are rules which ensure you have lethal on the board prior to an opponent conceding to get credit for a “win”. That prevents win farming against bot accounts. You can’t just queue up and concede for quest credit.

1
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
BatemaninAccounting•

There needs to be more magic-centric rewards. "Mulligan'd three times in 1 match" kind of things. Make people get rewarded by weird RNG and it does make it feel a little less bad.

1
Tylerbrave•

The only thing thats keeping this from completely falling apart is the fact everyone has access to the same decks so the meta is for now balanced

1
Moose1013•

I just play control so that people ragequit against me. That way I get my grinding done fast too AND I gain ranks from it. If they actually want to play it out then I just waste their time for 45 minutes lol

1
BlueBokChoy•

If you intended to grind rewards you have zero reason to play a 30min control match only to waste all that time on a loss.

Dear WotC.

Please keep doing this so that we don't have to sit through 30+ minutes of someone masturbating on the internet, only to concede when you are finally about to have fun.

For those who don't know, the experience system in Hearthstone takes into account multiple factors to calculate how much experience the match was worth but in short you get more experience the longer a game goes on with a small % bonus for a win.

My opponent concedes and my win is worth less than if they drug out the match.

Brilliant. Absolutely astonishing.

0†
helaciousOP•

If your opponent concedes it's a win for you... if you means it's worth less experience because he didn't "drug out the match" keep in mind the game was shorter too. Your exp/time will be the same.

5
BlueBokChoy•

Your exp/time will be the same.

so?

I don't play games so my opponent can concede, I play games to enjoy the game.

I've had wins against control payers what would have been more fun as losses against aggro players. I want to have a good time

-4
helaciousOP•

I don't play games so my opponent can concede, I play games to enjoy the game.

Then you'd like this system since there's less incentive to leave early.

I've had wins against control payers what would have been more fun as losses against aggro players. I want to have a good time

Well good news you'd have a higher chance of playing out your control game instead of someone leaving to fish for an easy game.

3
BlueBokChoy•
I don't play games so my opponent can concede, I play games to enjoy the game.

Then you'd like this system since there's less incentive to leave early.

No, because they have an incentive to abandon games where I'd win ASAP.

Well good news you'd have a higher chance of playing out your control game instead of someone leaving to fish for an easy game.

Learn to read.

-1
Firipu•

Fairly certain it evens out to about the same xp/hour. 1 30m game will most likely be the same amount of xp as 2 15m games. Ignoring extra win xp

1
BlueBokChoy•

so?

I don't play games so my opponent can concede, I play games to enjoy the game.

I've had wins against control payers what would have been more fun as losses against aggro players. I want to have a good time

-1
awaytothedawn•

Sounds like someone REALLY likes aggro and no other deck archetypes lol

1
BlueBokChoy•

Sounds like someone REALLY likes aggro and no other deck archetypes lol

not really. midrange is good too. Novelty combo decks that work quickly are interesting.

Sitting there with blatantly busted cards that are overpowered are fucking bullshit as you make no attempt to win for half an hour is not playing a game.

1
awaytothedawn•

Alright fair enough, I’m usually a combo player in card games so I can get behind that. Having some sort of win condition that isn’t “play magic until it’s over” is important.

1
[deleted]•

[deleted]

-27
Gaiametris•

That's not the issue being discussed.

12
tehn00berer•

And I don't mean any of this as a "get gud scrub" - I mean it as losing in Magic is where you learn the most. A 30 min control match up you lost you're calling a complete waste of time, when in fact, you take what you learn from that and it becomes the best use of your time.

-1†
Gaiametris•

That's absolutely true. OP agrees. His argument is that the incentive to play long matches is not present via the rewards system.

8
tehn00berer•

And my point is that one shouldn't put so much weight on the reward system. Be mindful and track your own progression, it leads to better motivation.

-7
tehn00berer•

You literally talk about feeling like needing wins to give you a feeling of progression in the first sentence. You should focus on finding ways to motivate yourself to play Magic because you like Magic instead of needing like a progress bar to achieve any sense of accomplishment.

-3
Gaiametris•

I'm not OP lol

4
tehn00berer•

Oops,lol. For some reason, I thought you were.

-2
MrMeltJr•

If the game has any sort of matchmaking system based on wins, then no, you won't. The game will try to pair you with other players of a similar winrate so you'll likely hover around 50% wins. You'll only consistently have a higher winrate if you're currently ranked a lot lower than your actual skill level.

Also, the fact that winning games quickly is the best way to get the cards you need for your deck still incentives playing fast aggro and conceding early if you have a bad start. Getting better at the game is all well and good, but you also need to build your deck.

Finally, the meta will be skewed towards fast aggro and decks that prey on it regardless if you or me or OP decides to play normally. Unless you can convince literally every player to slow down their own progression, which seems unlikely. You won't really be getting good practice when half your opponents are on fast aggro and concede at slight disadvantages.

3