For people like Johhny Appleseed:

TLDR: The problem with Magic the Gathering Arena is that they are trying to force people to buy packs in a competitive format when that is not how Magic the Gathering works anywhere else. This is a problem b/c packs are designed to support Draft with bad cards that only exist to support Draft that no one playing the game will want. They need to add a way to buy singles into the game, on the cheap, or it's just going to be a way more expensive version of paper standard for no good reason. The best they can hope to achieve with the current economy is maybe a cheap draft simulator where no one will play Constructed.

Then they need to convince people that not being able to sell your collection on the secondary market does not mean this game isn't worth playing.

Some real good points Jack (there really are Yondar). Squider your post almost mirrors me atm. Around 40/15 with no reset and got beat by an Approach deck last night.
LoL

Magic Duels is the worst magic the gathering digital game ever made.

A lot of your liked it for the same reasons it is the worst magic the gathering digital game ever made. If you started when it first came out, and you kept playing non-stop, it was completely free for its entire life-cycle.

This fundamentally is the dumbest thing they could have ever done for what was supposed to be the Free To Play Magic the Gathering game. Full deck building with most of Standard available and absolutely zero cost is the worst game design Wizards of the Coast could ever come up with, and it absolutely murdered the game. That's fundamentally it. The fact that it also had an extreme barrier to entry like every other Free to Play game ever didn't help, but the true bad decisions behind Magic Duels and why it is the worst digital magic game ever made is that it was fundamentally flawed from its inception.

No one here is going to like hearing this, but any Free To Play Magic the Gathering game is going to be at least as expensive as Magic the Gathering Online. Or it's going to go the same way as Magic Duels. The game cannot be as free as



people like you and others want it to be, because then it won't make money. That is just how the Free To Play model works. It has to be a miserable grind and it has to continue being a miserable grind even after you have paid into it. Otherwise the game won't make money with the Free To Play model.

People who keep lauding Magic Duels as a great game don't seem to fundamentally understand this fact of how the F2P model works. It's Free To Play and Pay To Win or otherwise there's not much reason to pay. Absolutely none of you planning to not spend any money on this game are going to have any fun with it, and that is not going to be because the game is poorly designed. It's going to be because that is just how the Free To Play model works.

Similarly,



you can also probably stop paying attention right now. It's going to be roughly $100 per deck and you aren't going to have the kind of deck building freedom you want because that is just how the F2P model works. It's sad but true.

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MTG Hearthstone is actually going to end up being MTG Hearthstone, and the sooner ALL OF YOU learn to accept that fact the sooner we can either start accepting the game for what it is and grind it out, or the sooner we can all just give up on it.

There is no situation in which any customer is going to be happy with the game's economy. The actual balance they are going to find, which they haven't found yet, is the balance Hearthstone has where customers are unhappy but they keep paying a little bit at a time to chase the dragon rather than doing the smart thing and walking away.

The game's current economy DOES mean it is dead on arrival. It is going to HAVE to get better. But it is not going to get better enough that a lot of you are going to end up playing this one.

Short Version: They should have gone with a model that isn't the Free To Play model. The Free to Play model is inherently anti-consumer and inherently requires you to make your customers just unhappy enough that they'll consider spending money on the game but not outright quit. The final version of this game, once they "fix" it's economy, will be slightly cheaper than MTGO with a Hearthstone like grind for "free" players.

Anyone who doesn't like the sound of that should just jump ship now. And anyone who doesn't expect that to happen needs to adjust their expectations so they match reality. Consumers are not going to like this game's economy. The real question is whether enough of them will put up with it.

Magic Duels was my favourite cuz it had the deepest pool of cards for the most variety. I still play each and everyday much to Elijins chagrin. It makes sense that it is as free for people that were willing to do the grind.

2014 would be a close second just cuz of being able to pick random decks which was great.

Coming full circle, MTG Hearthstone:

- Needs to steal players from Hearthstone. This requires the game to be friendly enough to overcome sunken cost.

- Needs to convince players from Paper/MTGO to play this game. This requires convincing them that it is A) worth paying for the same cards twice, B) that not being able to "cash out" is not a bad thing, and/or C) that they should "cash out" and just play MTG Hearthstone.

- Needs to convince people with WOTC's track record that it will be around long-term.

- Needs to come up with a plan for cards rotating out as standard as soon as possible.

- Needs to find a way to deal with the fact that well over half of MTG cards are pure **** no one wants.

- Needs to be fundamentally financially stable on release.


I'm sure WOTC can handle it. /s

No it doesn't. NOT AT ALL. THIS IS WHY IT DIED. Why can't you understand that fundamental fact?

Free To Play games can't let people play for free forever. Eventually, no matter which game they are, they need to rely on old customers paying money into the game every so often. Hearthstone does this by making it impossible to play more than one or two decks for free. Overwatch does this with Loot Box cosmetics. League of Legends does this by giving you a good enough taste for free and then using a combination of the two models.

Magic Duels is one of the worst designed free to play games ever made. It was fundamentally flawed because it didn't FORCE older players to keep spending money on it, and that's why it died.

Edit: Force might be the wrong word. You can also use INCENTIVIZE here. But either way, old players had nothing to spend real money on. /Edit

I understand that people really liked being able to play with such an expansive card pool for completely free without ever having to pay money into the game, but the game died because of it and that is not a model that works. It is fundamentally the worst designed digital magic game EVER. Because no one who played it long term spent any money on it.

I just don’t get why that means it can’t be my favourite Duels game. I’m not a Hasbro shareholder, I’m a customer

And I know lots of guys who played long term that spent money. In fact they spent more on this than any of the previous Duels games. The grind wasn’t for everyone.

Meh, they ought to just add a subscription price. Trying to get all of the consumer surplus is a bad move, imo, and it only makes sense when the game is simple (e.g. bejeweled).

This is basically what I'm saying. They should have just gone with a different model.

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@Barney, I never said it couldn't be your favorite duels game. I said it's poorly designed and quoted the part where you essentially used the words "it makes sense it was as free as it was".

It's pretty obvious that, at least on this forum and the subreddit, real Duels fanatics who played every day had too much gold and no way to spend it. Emphasis on played every day, not the fanatic part.

I'm gonna be honest. After Magic Duels, I am sincerely convinced that Wizards of the Cost is that stupid. I keep saying "of course they are going to change it so that it's a working game." I'm lying out my ass when I say that, just because I don't (or didn't I guess) want to go that deep into the rabbit hole on the WOTC hate train. But between the last deck pack in Magic 2014 and Magic Duels (I am going to pretend 2015 just doesn't exist because it didn't release on PS4), they may actually be that stupid. There are no guarantees other than the ones they give in press releases. Assuming they don't decide to change their minds later.

Magic Duels, which was obviously intended for a much longer life-span than it had, is just that much of a train wreck in hindsight. When they were making Magic Duels that was going to be the F2P MTG game and Arena just wasn't going to exist. The fact that things changed that drastically that fast is a bad omen for the life-span of anything they do outside of Paper MTG.

- Agreed

- Not at all, it just needs to make sure paper/mtgo players don´t feel like they are being scammed by a far better economy and this is a big issue coz paper magic is time consuming, expensive, and very competitive. Not at all the profile of online players. Who basically play digital coz they dont have the time or the will to invest them selves in this kind of BS.
- Agreed

- I sure they have that covered

- This is the big problem,and its the most important point, coz this is a game that mirrors paper, where like you said you got limited and draft, the card pool is just too damn big for anyone to own a full collection in Arena.

- Agreed but this is a digital market... how much does a competitive player spend on Heartstone, Gwent or the likes, coz that´s where the line is being made, Arena need that money coming their way and they are not going to make that happen with anything that resembles paper magic costs with BS packs and no way to buy wild cards.

A very large problem with this game at the moment is that a lot of people who have already invested a whole bunch of money into paper or MTGO see this game as a scam by comparison.

There are two big complaints that are essentially the same complaint:

1. MTG Hearthstone doesn't let you "cash out" if you decide to stop playing. Both paper magic and MTGO let you sell your collection when you want to leave.

2. MTG Hearthstone doesn't let you sell your cards you aren't going to use to other people so that you can afford to buy cards you are then going to use for a new deck you want to play. This is essentially the same complaint. People cannot "cash out" and then go buy a different deck in MTG Hearthstone. You may recognize this complaint in many other forms via complaints related to the rarity of mythic wild-cards.

And being blunt, these people already have a sunken cost into Paper or MTGO at this point, so the question then really becomes "Why should I play both?" If it's the exact same Standard experience, but you can't "cash out", why should these players decide to play MTG Hearthstone over MTG or MTG Online?

That is a question that needs to be answered, and it needs a serious answer. There has to be a major incentive for people to play both. They are talking about putting promo codes in Paper packs that would give you cards in Arena, but nothing solid has come out yet and it's going to be interesting to see what they do here.

But as it currently stands, people who are heavily invested into one form of Magic the Gathering are not going to pay to play the exact same game twice without some major incentive to do so. MTGO is already Draft simulator with a "cash out" option, so unless that gets shut down cheap Drafts may not even be an answer for people who go infinite (or near) on MTGO. The honest truth is that it's going to cost a whole lot of money to play MTG: Arena, and it's going to cost a whole lot more money to play Arena ON TOP OF PAPER.

They need to come up with a real answer for converting not only the HS audience but their MTG audience to the game as well.

I forgot to add:

- Need to have a good new player experience that isn't paying players and/or long-time grinders stomping all over newbie F2P peasants.

No offense to anyone (most people would actually take pride in it): MTG is a very hard game when it comes to deck-building/brewing. Very bad for Scarab God to scare off new player horde.

I think there’s an untapped market though mjack. I just don’t think they’ll reach it with this product if it’s as expensive as you say. I’m too casual to be interested in MTGO or paper, but I’d pay for a solid experience, just not infinity dollars. I don’t know if that makes any sense.

What I’d like: a fun game that acts as a sketch pad for deck building, with solid competition to try decks out against. I don’t mind a pay wall, in fact I expect it. They just need to erect it in a way that I don’t have to participate in anything approaching a grind, and I’ll be in. Make the game too expensive and my interest will not exist - mostly because I’m casual, but also because of the lack of resale value.

@DJ,

I'm going to be honest. I'm giving 90% odds you aren't going to even consider touching this game. My honest expectation is that WOTC is going to expect people to pay minimum Hearthstone prices for packs. Without a secondary market. And they could double the rate of the grind and it wouldn't be "free" friendly. Add in all those useless commons and uncommons, and the fact that WOTC isn't able to understand basic common sense supply and demand until their product is already dead and they are giving up on it since it's.... well dead and it's easier to start over again. Odds are you will not be able to grind fast enough or purchase cards cheaply enough for what you want out of this kind of game.

Edit:

For those of you who don't know, at last check I think their current stated plan is for a regular "free" player to earn roughly 25-35 packs per month + whatever they can get from events if they are good enough.

I’ve had another way to look at this. Whilst it’s out and they have the weekly 3 packs going I will Play to unlock those. I realised too that I had a full vault. Tops it will give me 1 day a week where I play because that is how they set the reward. I am not buying into the quests (meaning selecting a deck based on them) - it was similar for me in Duels. I can spend maybe 30 / 40 mins max Post unlock to try a few games with a deck I’d like to build properly but with the occasion of an odd match where the deck kind of runs (very tricky in this format with a 3 colour deck) but I can get some limited enjoyment as much as the format allows with the approach to the free to play model.

I am curious too if anyone is actually spending any real money and how that investment will be rewarded on full launch. Anyway the game is not worth the days on end of playing that Duels used to engender (even back with DOTP days) when there was good reason to play more.

Arena certainly does not feel like that so that’s another week before I will jump back in again.

SD

I actually did the math with Hearthstone packs, and if they use that as a model at all we are screwed.

The average Hearthstone set has 130-140 cards? 20-30 of those are legendary, meaning you can only play one copy. For the rest you can play two copies.

People have done the math and at the cheapest price point, with deals from Amazon coins factored in, it costs $180 to get a full set of playable cards in a single Hearthstone set. This includes dusting, and includes Amazon discounts that MTG: Arena probably won't have. Getting just a full playset of cards in a set is estimated to be around $400 on average.

Let's be generous and say that MTG: Arena is going to be about as friendly as Hearthstone. With all the discounts it is definitely not going to get. For a full playset of playable cards on release, it will cost you 7 * $180 = $1260 to get a full playset of playable cards in MTG: Arena, on it's release. And then $180 per set after that, so $720 per year on top of that initial $1260. Just to have a playset of every playable card in MTG: Arena, at Hearthstone prices.

MTG: Arena currently has a much worse grind than Hearthstone. And their sets are bigger and harder to complete. So $180 per set, at Hearthstone prices, is way too low. I'm being very generous above.

If you could get a full playset of cards for less than $2000 on release at Hearthstone prices, I would be extremely surprised. If you could get a full playset of playable cards for less than $800 I would be extremely surprised. They could be four times as generous as Hearthstone with their pack prices, and I would still easily guesstimate buying a full playset of playable cards would cost you over $500.

Hearthstone sells 60 packs for $70 US.

MTG Paper currently sells 36 packs for $85 US. Do you think they would be nice enough to sell us packs at Hearthstone prices? That would be really nice wouldn't it?

Magic Duels, the dead predecessor to this game, sold 75 packs for $50. That is not four times as generous as Hearthstone. And that is the most generous I would expect WOTC to be here if I had to bet money on it. I would still bet they are going to be closer to HS prices though if I really really had to bet. So... yeah the math sucks.

I don't know what the price point is going to be, but unless I am extremely pleasantly surprised people are going to do the math as soon as it's announced and a bunch of people are just going to up and refuse to play at all right there. Including me, DJ, and anyone else who can't be **** to grind WINS in a blatantly pay to win game just to have a chance to play one deck forever; but who also don't want to spend a fortune to have options.

I’ll withhold judgement until I see the actual prices, but they will make the entirety of my decision. It doesn’t make much sense to worry about it until we actually know.

I guess this is where they should make a clear separation on the formats... now that the announced full standard this becomes a mess coz you got 2 economies for the "same" product. I have read this article -from the same guy who wrote the one on mtg Arena economy- about all the other digital TCG and the numbers are in short: free to suffer or pay to play. -big surprise!!-

I got no problem on paying for a product I did put some dollars on Duels and I would have paid some more as the sets released but by then I got way to much gold sitting in my account, Arena has to figure out their fair price so the game can be profitable for the developers and enjoyable for the players.

Full sets on arrival are out of the question, and at this point I think the grind will be one essential part of the game. Basically you build a decent deck grind your way to the next and so on...this It´s just the way to take money from addicts, keep them on the hook and give little rewards so they can keep spending, If they have a decent way to by pass half this torture with money I guess I´m in.
-I wonder if drug dealer tactics are any different than this free to play "economy"-