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Thread: MTG Arena General Discussion

  1. #541

    Re: MTG Arena

    It's also interesting that (apparently) its news to WotC that historic players would not rebalanced of cards:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/MtGHistoric..._nerfed_cards/

  2. #542

    Re: MTG Arena

    "We heard you'd like to play digital magic, with the paper card set, on a modern client. Can I interest you in a predatory economy, digital-only cards, drastic & fundamental changes to the game, and a buggy client?"
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    MTG is a game 13+ (btw in cinematograph rating PG-13 allows nudity), while forum is open to anyone, and children under this age can see your picture and wonder how tezzeret is assosiated with anus and what is sexual t-rex means. Who knows where this path would take them? Are you responsible for their actions under the impression of your profile? I think no. You should be assamed.

  3. #543
    Hamburglar Hlelpler
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    Re: MTG Arena

    What a load of donkey jizz.

    I *just fucking crafted* a Chariot for my Historic Brawl deck too.

    As if I needed another brick to build this wall, but the fact that MaRo went "hunh, that's interesting? An Historic format with the real cards as-printed, you say? We hadn't thought of that, I'll relay it to my top men" just further shows he's a totally smoothbrained figurehead and Blogatog is a honeypot for Timmies that think there might be anyone left at WotC who would be motivated by speeches about the heart of the cards. Of course the point is to make the non-rotating formats more profitable, don't do that tech support "we'll pass your suggestion to our engineers" bullshit, just call it what it is. What a chode.
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  4. #544

    Re: MTG Arena

    Alchemy basically gives the appearance that they really want far more frequent Standard-legal set releases (because it gets stale quicker than their release cycle) but they can't justify it because they release enough paper product as it is, so instead they go with Arena-only card errata.

    Arena's core audience is likely actually in favor of this move, interestingly enough.

  5. #545

    Re: MTG Arena

    Quote Originally Posted by Wrath of Pie View Post
    ...

    Arena's core audience is likely actually in favor of this move, interestingly enough.
    If they had only made those edited cards for standard, yes, because they made them also for historic, then it heavily polarized the audience, the historic twitter is a real sh^&storm and most of the audience are really, really unhappy.

  6. #546

    Re: MTG Arena

    Quote Originally Posted by jmlima View Post
    If they had only made those edited cards for standard, yes, because they made them also for historic, then it heavily polarized the audience, the historic twitter is a real sh^&storm and most of the audience are really, really unhappy.
    Historic players are not the core audience.

  7. #547
    Hamburglar Hlelpler
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    Re: MTG Arena

    Quote Originally Posted by Wrath of Pie View Post
    Historic players are not the core audience.
    Here's the thing, is I have no idea who their core audience is from either a gameplay or a money standpoint.

    First of all, gameplay - where Arena beats the living shit out of the rest of the mobile TCGs I've ever tried is pure selection of formats. Last time I tried Heathstone there were, like, two constructed formats, one limited, and whatever the poorly balanced clown fiesta coin flip Tavern Brawl event was. Shadowverse had some different formats going for it but it had the downside of being fucking Shadowverse. Arena has like eight? ten? constructed formats to choose from and a couple of different limited formats at any given time, plus whatever event is going on. They obviously make an effort to at least have the illusion of choice on their app, so for them to suddenly go "well we reserve the right to dick with Historic if we want" is beyond disingenuous, I don't care what CYA is in their Terms of Service regarding digital access and user rights and whatever else. It's lousy.

    Second, Financials - this game is a stupid game to whale on. A little money here and there I can understand, but a true whale has better shit to buy than cosmetics on Arena. When I say whale I don't mean to throw some pittance at whenever mom and dad decide you've done well in math class and bumped your allowance up to $25 a week or whatever, I mean like the kind of whales that actually make mobile gaming a worthwhile endeavor for gaming companies to engage in, the kind where the floor starts at $10k a year and keeps rising. The kind where you hope that of your 1.5% of users that actually spend, of the 2% of *those* users, you actually land a $100k megalodon that gives your app a reason to exist. I can't figure out why or how MtG Arena could ever attract that kind of spender. There isn't enough product to justify that kind of expense. You can buy a whole set of everything on Arena for far less than that. You couldn't hook that whale unless maybe you pushed the rest of Magic's backlog to Arena. The *only* place for all that money to go would be like... cosmetics, and maybe Limited, but I'm having a really hard time believing there's that much meat on those bones that you can attract users to spend that kind of money to fuck around in Limited. Maybe I'm underestimating what drafting means to certain people.

    So like, if they can't understand the impact of the decision from the gameplay perspective, and the financials are already tenuous because when they "alchemize" a card you get both copies and can still choose to play old Standard anyway so you're not actually forcing rotating format players to change a goddamn thing - and whales *still* have no reason to spend more - I'm just not sure who it serves to neglect to implement a non-Alchemy Historic.
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  8. #548

    Re: MTG Arena

    Core audience is likely the newer players that don't understand or care how Magic has historically operated (as a side effect, don't care about paper Magic either), so they are confused by the concept of bans rather than what Alchemy is aiming for because most of the other games out there have a similar philosophy.

    Welcome to the new world of Magic: the Video Gaming.

  9. #549
    Hamburglar Hlelpler
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    Re: MTG Arena

    Quote Originally Posted by Wrath of Pie View Post
    Core audience is likely the newer players that don't understand or care how Magic has historically operated (as a side effect, don't care about paper Magic either), so they are confused by the concept of bans rather than what Alchemy is aiming for because most of the other games out there have a similar philosophy.

    Welcome to the new world of Magic: the Video Gaming.
    This just seems like a giant non sequitur to me for the reasons I stated but sure, cater to the people with 12-second memories that spend $30 once on a starting player intro pack and go "yeah no not for me"

    I must be getting old. Fuck this. I actually just want pancakes and Tums and to forget this entire discussion is a thing
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  10. #550

    Re: MTG Arena

    Quote Originally Posted by TsumiBand View Post
    This just seems like a giant non sequitur to me for the reasons I stated but sure, cater to the people with 12-second memories that spend $30 once on a starting player intro pack and go "yeah no not for me"

    I must be getting old. Fuck this. I actually just want pancakes and Tums and to forget this entire discussion is a thing
    I don't like this reality either, but it's not like they really need my precious dollars.

    On the other hand, pancakes are delicious, can't argue that.

  11. #551
    Hamburglar Hlelpler
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    Re: MTG Arena

    Quote Originally Posted by Wrath of Pie View Post
    I don't like this reality either, but it's not like they really need my precious dollars.

    On the other hand, pancakes are delicious, can't argue that.
    We did have pancakes for dinner. Pancakes and bacon. My wife and daughter put strawberries and Cool Whip on their pancakes. I only put syrup on mine; I have nothing against fruit and cream, I've just never preferred them on pancakes.
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  12. #552

    Re: MTG Arena

    Somehow a discussion on pancakes is more positively engaging than anything wizzards has shat out the last decade.

    I thought the audience for arena is people who want to play standard but can't or can only play 1-2 times a week.
    To get the top decks you need to buy enough backs to get the (wild)cards.
    Standard being a general dumpster fire doesn't really help.
    Interestingly, they introduced a lot of formats, but don't do shit to maintain them.

    But yeah, the disenfranchisement is real.
    The if I wasn't so addicted to this game and had actual access to my card pool I'd probably sold out a while ago.
    In the past, they at least only fucked over parts of the community, while now, everyone is taking it up the ass in some way.

  13. #553

    Re: MTG Arena

    Quote Originally Posted by Zoid View Post
    ...

    I thought the audience for arena is people who want to play standard but can't or can only play 1-2 times a week.
    ...
    I can only speak from what I see and saw since I have no insider knowledge but, certainly from the time of the beta, most people in there kept moaning and asking about drafts, not when would the standard experience be phenomenal. A second close was the bunch of people moaning and asking about older sets being added. The standard discussion was mostly on how crappy it was at the time and what could people play on arena when standard was crap.

    Right back at the start a lot of people even had this crazy illusion that WotC were secretly working to add modern, etc to it and did not say anything to keep milking MTGO. Only when release date came and it became obvious what arena really was did most people clock that arena was essentially for the video game players, not necessarily for MTG hard-core players, they wanted the short-span play quickly put some money on cosmetics crowd. Looking at it like this, Alchemy makes perfect sense since the new players want things to keep changing, they have no vested interest in formats like historic , etc. Unfortunately for WotC, formats like historic and brawl proved far more popular than they clearly ever expected or even desired (remember, historic was added under duress and so was brawl) and the fact they were forced to concede to player's wishes on these tells you that they are now a big driver on arena. I fully expect a climb back on the alchemy-historic connection, but it will only be done (again) under duress so it will be through gritted teeth and take its time.

  14. #554

    Re: MTG Arena

    BTW, pancakes are good, but blueberry with maple syrup.

  15. #555

    Re: MTG Arena

    Quote Originally Posted by jmlima View Post
    I can only speak from what I see and saw since I have no insider knowledge but, certainly from the time of the beta, most people in there kept moaning and asking about drafts, not when would the standard experience be phenomenal. A second close was the bunch of people moaning and asking about older sets being added. The standard discussion was mostly on how crappy it was at the time and what could people play on arena when standard was crap.

    Right back at the start a lot of people even had this crazy illusion that WotC were secretly working to add modern, etc to it and did not say anything to keep milking MTGO. Only when release date came and it became obvious what arena really was did most people clock that arena was essentially for the video game players, not necessarily for MTG hard-core players, they wanted the short-span play quickly put some money on cosmetics crowd. Looking at it like this, Alchemy makes perfect sense since the new players want things to keep changing, they have no vested interest in formats like historic , etc. Unfortunately for WotC, formats like historic and brawl proved far more popular than they clearly ever expected or even desired (remember, historic was added under duress and so was brawl) and the fact they were forced to concede to player's wishes on these tells you that they are now a big driver on arena. I fully expect a climb back on the alchemy-historic connection, but it will only be done (again) under duress so it will be through gritted teeth and take its time.
    One of WotC's biggest problem is that they continuously fail to identify and understand their audience.
    The only time that worked is for commander.
    For everything else, they fail so they just throw things at the wall and see what sticks.

    I was thinking more along the lines of people who can't get their fix IRL so they have to play online but don't want to play MTGO.
    Historic had to be added because they were dumb enough to think that people wouldn't be upset if their old cards couldn't be used anymore.
    Anyone with a brain would have seen that coming.
    As for Brawl, that seemed necessary on their part since they wanted to push that stillborn format but nobody outside of arena wanted to play it.
    However, they don't manage it which is why Brawl and especially Historic Brawl suck ass.


    Pancakes with sauce hollandaise and white asparagus.

  16. #556
    Hamburglar Hlelpler
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    Re: MTG Arena

    Quote Originally Posted by jmlima View Post
    I can only speak from what I see and saw since I have no insider knowledge but, certainly from the time of the beta, most people in there kept moaning and asking about drafts, not when would the standard experience be phenomenal. A second close was the bunch of people moaning and asking about older sets being added. The standard discussion was mostly on how crappy it was at the time and what could people play on arena when standard was crap.

    Right back at the start a lot of people even had this crazy illusion that WotC were secretly working to add modern, etc to it and did not say anything to keep milking MTGO. Only when release date came and it became obvious what arena really was did most people clock that arena was essentially for the video game players, not necessarily for MTG hard-core players, they wanted the short-span play quickly put some money on cosmetics crowd. Looking at it like this, Alchemy makes perfect sense since the new players want things to keep changing, they have no vested interest in formats like historic , etc. Unfortunately for WotC, formats like historic and brawl proved far more popular than they clearly ever expected or even desired (remember, historic was added under duress and so was brawl) and the fact they were forced to concede to player's wishes on these tells you that they are now a big driver on arena. I fully expect a climb back on the alchemy-historic connection, but it will only be done (again) under duress so it will be through gritted teeth and take its time.
    This is a pretty insightful take. I'm a fairly recent Arena player (June of this year) so I didn't realize how much pressure needed to be applied to make Historic happen. I only just learned of the 2-to-1 wildcard crafting thing, I'm glad I missed that nonsense. It sounds like they thought Arena was going to be a Standard-only app, but players hated that idea, and they've been drug kicking and screaming into supporting older formats ever since.

    Come to think of it, that whole "supporting older formats under protest" shouldn't really surprise me. It's comforting to know they have a history of capitulation when it comes to giving players a place to play their old cards. I suppose I'll just hang tight.

    It also does make a certain kind of sense to offer the "Magic: the Hearthstoning" crowd an adjustable format that sees more shake-ups than a set which relies on paper Magic printings can provide. We talk about metagames a lot in Magic, and for better or worse, the TCG video game meta has rebalancing acts. For Magic to not offer this in some kind of way would probably lose a lot of players that have never known anything else.

    Another interesting idea that I came across while reading endless screeds about this whole kerfuffle is that Arena enables way more in-game time than the typical paper player will ever actually have. It sucks when you lose to a meta deck every Friday at FNM; it sucks way more when you lose to that same meta deck when you login over lunch, after work, before bed, etc. The competitive meta used to only exist at, like, events - now it exists 24/7. That gets tiresome as fuck, but for paper Magic players to have to suffer bans just because Arena players are terminally online is equally dumb, because they're not banging their head against Mono Green but once a week. This is maybe the only good solve for that problem. (Maybe?)
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  17. #557

    Re: MTG Arena

    Quote Originally Posted by TsumiBand View Post
    It also does make a certain kind of sense to offer the "Magic: the Hearthstoning" crowd an adjustable format that sees more shake-ups than a set which relies on paper Magic printings can provide. We talk about metagames a lot in Magic, and for better or worse, the TCG video game meta has rebalancing acts. For Magic to not offer this in some kind of way would probably lose a lot of players that have never known anything else.
    The question is more why arena ever needed to be a 1:1 port of paper in the first place (which already existed) instead of something else with the IP that is more accessible to casuals.

    Quote Originally Posted by TsumiBand View Post
    The competitive meta used to only exist at, like, events - now it exists 24/7. That gets tiresome as fuck, but for paper Magic players to have to suffer bans just because Arena players are terminally online is equally dumb, because they're not banging their head against Mono Green but once a week. This is maybe the only good solve for that problem. (Maybe?)
    That is absolutely false.
    MTGO has been shaping the meta much more than paper could ever do.
    The big paper events were just when people noticed and adjusted.
    The arena crowd is at least loud enough so that bans might happen a bit earlier.
    But bans are mostly based on if the set has sold enough so it's on the paper players.
    In arena you can at least go next game instead of wasting time to go to a paper event only to play against the same 3 decks and get blasted the whole day.

  18. #558

    Re: MTG Arena

    Quote Originally Posted by Zoid View Post
    The question is more why arena ever needed to be a 1:1 port of paper in the first place (which already existed) instead of something else with the IP that is more accessible to casuals.
    ...
    I think there was always a tension between intention and outcome. They ended duels , kept mtgo and motored on with arena. Duels was the casual-vaguely-related-to-MtG game. MTGO was the online port of the paper game. Arena was (IMHO) intended to fit an in-between role between MTGO and Duels. They wanted something that would help bring MtG (the brand) to an whole new audience, in a simpler and more 21st century way. That's obviously the original intent behind Arena supporting solely standard and draft. They clearly saw Arena as an advertisement for MtG the brand, more than anything else. Why would they use their primary online advertisement means to make popular formats where 99% of players would not be able to get the paper cards? Because this is the other tension, paper / online, and I think they are far, far from having solved that one. They are continuously edging towards de-coupling, but every step is met with dismay by one or another segment of players.

    Arena is only making this murkier. They will now have 3 ways to play standard / draft (paper / MTGO / arena) and two types of standard (paper / MTGO / arena and alchemy). At some point, a decision will be made as to what is more important as a revenue stream. It's inevitable. The problem they are creating is that (with Arena) the obviously angled at bringing MtG in full to the e-sports arena. Every new playing mode inside Arena pulverizes the streamers (and the revenue from that) a bit more, leading to less streamers. I can see this ending with all premier play inside Arena being only draft and one of the standard modes as a way of re-focusing the minds into what WotC considers as important for the online play.

  19. #559
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    Re: MTG Arena

    Quote Originally Posted by Zoid View Post
    The question is more why arena ever needed to be a 1:1 port of paper in the first place (which already existed) instead of something else with the IP that is more accessible to casuals.


    That is absolutely false.
    MTGO has been shaping the meta much more than paper could ever do.
    The big paper events were just when people noticed and adjusted.
    The arena crowd is at least loud enough so that bans might happen a bit earlier.
    But bans are mostly based on if the set has sold enough so it's on the paper players.
    In arena you can at least go next game instead of wasting time to go to a paper event only to play against the same 3 decks and get blasted the whole day.
    That's probably a fair point about MTGO and I have no idea why but I constantly forget it even exists. Seems a lot of the dialog I've been seeing has also totally pasted over MTGO as well. Their user base seems to be 10x Arena's. I haven't even attempted to use it for almost 20 years, and just based on what little peripheral conversation I now recall about MTGO the first thing I associate with it is "my event didn't fire". Maybe that's not useful.

    MTGO at least has the virtue of being a PC client in a space suddenly full of mobile-first apps; it's a different product for a different player. Maybe my real problem is me and I should quit trying to find anything but predatory nonsense in the Google Play store.
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  20. #560

    Re: MTG Arena

    Quote Originally Posted by TsumiBand View Post
    ...Their user base seems to be 10x Arena's. I haven't even attempted to use it for almost 20 years, and just based on what little peripheral conversation I now recall about MTGO the first thing I associate with it is "my event didn't fire". Maybe that's not useful.....
    Re-installed recently and was absolutely amazed at how few players there were, including leagues and premier events just about to reach their time to fire. This when compared to when I sold out which was the day of Arena's public release.

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