While we wait -- The biggest topic I hope is addressed in the Economy post
It feels like there are many expectations for what is coming in the economy post (will it ever get here?) but there is one topic I am most interested in hearing about: WotC's vision for the launch economy.
We are looking at ~8 sets live when the game goes in to open beta and all us closed beta players get our accounts wiped. That is a LOT of cards to collect all at once and feels like it will present huge problems for a mass of incoming players that are going to want to try the game out for free. Even spenders run the risk of being overwhelmed. I am hoping they will at least start to message some approach to this, such as:
-A more robust starting collection (in the form of more fully realized starter decks and/or large portions of older sets already included a la what they are doing with the Kaladesh drop next week giving all a bunch of cards)
-High Value one-time purchase intro package, low costed in the ~$5 price point that will provide a lot of cards and make finishing the collection as a f2p player more achievable (or at least provide a decent path to forming more than one deck)
As a f2p game, retention is key, and I am worried that the huge number of cards to collect on day 1 is going to churn a lot of players away, even those who were planning to spend, simply because it feels like an insurmountable task.
Posted May 31, 2018, 7:19 PM UTC
What they really need to do is add the challenger decks and let us start with one for free, and buy the rest for a reasonable sum of gold, which I've seen suggested by some players a few times. This would allow sizable boosts to collections AND give a clearer path to completing certain meta decks quickly which is the ideal for anyone playing this game even semi-non-casually.
The problem with this is then all the newbies will be playing the same couple of decks. I'm more in favor of letting them play whatever jank they want in the lower levels, which they can gradually refine into a tier deck as they gain experience and build their collections. So to that end I'd prefer a welcome bundle of packs and wildcards, maybe a draft token, assuming the bundle would be generous enough, of course. And beta testers should get it for free!
With different quests, newbies will still have to branch into other decks. Additionally, the Challenger decks are so much better than our existing 2 color precons and, I think, give newbies a better idea of what a well constructed deck is trying to do. They're not PERFECT, but they clearly have a well built around theme.
I love the idea of starting with challengers then brewing other decks. It also lessens the feel bads of spending all your WCs on jank as a newbie and then being left with a 20% win rate as you try to grind out your gold. Challengers also lower the barrier to entry on QC, where I can go in confident that my deck is at least not goddawful.
Edit: Side note about Challengers, in addition to being FAIRLY well constructed (counter surge's weird black card choices not withstanding), they also let people figure out decks they like. My wife and I have all 4 challenger decks. She digs Hazoret Aggro and Counter Surge. Is OKAY with Vehicle Rush (not a big fan of crew) and HATES Second Sun Control. It was nice to figure out what about each of those decks she liked and disliked and informs future deck construction in that way too.
This is exactly why they can’t give us challenger decks. You can’t give new players strong decks without wrecking the meta. Challenger decks are made to be halfway competitive — give every new player one and the meta will be destroyed by a huuuuge wave of one specific color, strategy, and decklist. The current system is perfect — the decks are fun to play, introduce archetypes, but aren’t strong enough to take down higher tier decks. That’s exactly how the game has to work for a healthy metagame.
The whole purpose of Arena's meta-game is to encourage jank over competitive decks at lower levels of play...
Not sure if that's really true, when jank costs as much as a t1 deck, and there's no guarantee you'll win much at all with your jank that you dumped WCs into.
That's potentially true unless they make some more challenger decks exclusive to Arena but I like your option as well. Especially the free for beta testers part. hehehe
This could be a solution if implemented correctly. Being forced to select out of a variety of decks can create a 'feel-bad' moment if done the wrong way. A well-considered new user experience could potentially provide players with a single deck (everyone would get the same), and quickly be able to unlock the rest through an onboarding quest-like progression track, with the requirements for unlocking each successive deck being a) very achievable in N games of play and b) clearly stated so that it is obvious to the player what they will receive. The downside to this is that the decks would need to continually change, not to mention that WotC will need to decide how to treat people who are learning the game for the first time.
They could also let you try out each of the decks for a few games in some kind of way, and then you get to pick which one you want at the end of it... I dunno there's a lot of different ways they could go about this though, hopefully they choose the right one...