Thanks for the giveaways. Please count me in on for a Pelacor Conjurer.
Good luck, all.
!PIZZA
For the reward changes, I fear we are in a chasing-our-tails cycle. Will a brand new player have the ability to rent a whole starter deck, and if so the ability to play it well enough to advance in the game thereafter? If so, the advancement amount can be farmed. If not, a new player's prospects for advancement are hampered. And it always comes back to that very fact. If it's not possible to farm, how can a new player advance?
I have come to think the only way to really address these issues is to really address them. The problem, the real problem, is that low level accounts drain more equity out of the game than they put in. The formula for earnings should be based on equity put into the account vs. equity withdrawn. At low levels withdrawing equity and not advancing would have a severe impact on rewards and less so as you level up. At some point, an account could withdraw unlimited equity, but before that point there would come a point where the account could no longer earn rewards. So in effect, yes, you own what you earn. Yes, you can always withdraw it from the game. But if you are not keeping assets to advance in the game, then the game will stop rewarding you before you can drain the game.
Just my two cents, and probably exactly what they are worth.
It's almost definitely a given that all the changes they've made since months ago (it started with the nerf to was it Novice or Bronze 3? not earning DEC), has been to combat the multitude of bots running on starter cards. So I definitely do not fault the team for going in this direction.
The unfortunate side effect is that genuine new players might have a steep slope to climb.
However, as in any traditional TCG (I've been playing MTG 2 decades ago), one has to invest cold hard cash into building a deck. So in that sense, yes you're right. The game intends to reward people who've put in a commensurate amount, and I definitely have no problem with that.
Do I have a solution to the entire problem? Probably not 🤣, else my services would be in demand among lots of P2E companies.
!PIZZA
I do think the intentions are totally good, and I am glad they are trying to deal with problems. I think they are taking on one specific way value has been drained. And not at all in an unreasonable way. But I just also think the bar will be moved higher again inevitably, when say all the bots rent a least expensive but profitable deck. Naturally the profits are just drained from the system because that's what the ill-behaved bots have always done.
Time will tell how it will all shake out. Especially in light of the upcoming wild/modern changes which will greatly benefit new players, too.
And really, what I would like most is for it to reach a stable point where we are all not just waiting to adjust to the next change.