gracewar7
(?)Community Member
Offline
- Posted: Sat, 19 Jan 2013 00:54:59 +0000
Update 1/21
Wowowow! We're getting tons of feedback on those new packs and pricing so I thought I'd give a bit more detail on how they relate to the old packs, since that seems to be what everyone's worried about. Overall, this change was to make it easier for those of you questing for rare (3 star) cards and better odds. Read the original post below on the intent behind the changes and the problems we wanted to address.
OK, now on to the new packs. A few things you should know:
1) On a pure essence to pack value basis, these packs should pay overall better odds on a rare than what you had before.
2) Think of the Silver (5000 essence) as between old Ruby (4000 essence) and Diamond (6000 essence) in terms of its payout but now available to all unlocked at some high levels.
3) Think of the Gold as a completely new pack benchmarked against the 25K Iona's Reserves (used to be unlocked at lvl 70).
Again, to summarize, the changes were not to make rares more difficult to get, but slightly easier to get and available to everyone regardless of level.
Hope that helps!
------
I know just a week or two ago I'd stated that we like to keep these changes to a minimum because we know how disruptive they can be. That said, many of you pointed out huge flaws with the existing system that deserve to be addressed sooner rather than later.
This will be a pretty radical departure from our existing essence booster packs - it's not just a rebalancing of payouts and pricing, so please hear me out:
1) Many of you are wondering which essence packs are the best ones to buy. That's bad.
That tells me the current design is confusing/not working. The intention was to reward progress with access to booster packs with incrementally better odds. However, it turns out that the incremental improvement in the odds with each pack wasn't enough to counter the variance of the payouts in small samples. Even if in theory the Ruby pack is supposed to pay better than the Sapphire, buying 5 or even 10 of each may sometimes give you roughly the same result. So it wasn't much of a reward at all, especially as players decided to buy more of the lower level packs because of the perception that they paid out better for the same amount of essence.
Change: we'll reduce the number of packs from 8 to 3 and make them really distinct from each other in price and content.
2) Lots of players were having a really, really tough time getting a rare card. Also bad.
Getting a rare card should not be easy (or it shouldn't be called a rare), but opening packs should not feel like an endless stream of disappointments. Because of the progressive nature of the packs, lower-to-mid level players had much worse odds than high level players. Since we had to cap payouts at the Diamond level and work our way down from there, low-to-mid level payouts ended up quite punitive.
To fix this, we'll remove the progressive booster pack system and make the same 3 essence packs available to all, regardless of level. To reward progress, we're thinking of putting in distinct level-based rewards instead (e.g., get a rare card when you hit level X, get a booster pack when you hit level Y, etc.). These rewards won't be in by Monday, though. smile
3) People who wanted to earn a rare had only one option: buy tons of essence packs each with a low chance of getting a rare.
We think there should be an essence pack with a pretty good chance at a rare. It won't come cheap, but it will be a different option to play. You can choose to roll the dice many times, each with a low probability or save up to roll the dice once with a more certain result.
Questions? Comments? Feel free to chime in here and I'll do my best to respond.
Wowowow! We're getting tons of feedback on those new packs and pricing so I thought I'd give a bit more detail on how they relate to the old packs, since that seems to be what everyone's worried about. Overall, this change was to make it easier for those of you questing for rare (3 star) cards and better odds. Read the original post below on the intent behind the changes and the problems we wanted to address.
OK, now on to the new packs. A few things you should know:
1) On a pure essence to pack value basis, these packs should pay overall better odds on a rare than what you had before.
2) Think of the Silver (5000 essence) as between old Ruby (4000 essence) and Diamond (6000 essence) in terms of its payout but now available to all unlocked at some high levels.
3) Think of the Gold as a completely new pack benchmarked against the 25K Iona's Reserves (used to be unlocked at lvl 70).
Again, to summarize, the changes were not to make rares more difficult to get, but slightly easier to get and available to everyone regardless of level.
Hope that helps!
------
I know just a week or two ago I'd stated that we like to keep these changes to a minimum because we know how disruptive they can be. That said, many of you pointed out huge flaws with the existing system that deserve to be addressed sooner rather than later.
This will be a pretty radical departure from our existing essence booster packs - it's not just a rebalancing of payouts and pricing, so please hear me out:
1) Many of you are wondering which essence packs are the best ones to buy. That's bad.
That tells me the current design is confusing/not working. The intention was to reward progress with access to booster packs with incrementally better odds. However, it turns out that the incremental improvement in the odds with each pack wasn't enough to counter the variance of the payouts in small samples. Even if in theory the Ruby pack is supposed to pay better than the Sapphire, buying 5 or even 10 of each may sometimes give you roughly the same result. So it wasn't much of a reward at all, especially as players decided to buy more of the lower level packs because of the perception that they paid out better for the same amount of essence.
Change: we'll reduce the number of packs from 8 to 3 and make them really distinct from each other in price and content.
2) Lots of players were having a really, really tough time getting a rare card. Also bad.
Getting a rare card should not be easy (or it shouldn't be called a rare), but opening packs should not feel like an endless stream of disappointments. Because of the progressive nature of the packs, lower-to-mid level players had much worse odds than high level players. Since we had to cap payouts at the Diamond level and work our way down from there, low-to-mid level payouts ended up quite punitive.
To fix this, we'll remove the progressive booster pack system and make the same 3 essence packs available to all, regardless of level. To reward progress, we're thinking of putting in distinct level-based rewards instead (e.g., get a rare card when you hit level X, get a booster pack when you hit level Y, etc.). These rewards won't be in by Monday, though. smile
3) People who wanted to earn a rare had only one option: buy tons of essence packs each with a low chance of getting a rare.
We think there should be an essence pack with a pretty good chance at a rare. It won't come cheap, but it will be a different option to play. You can choose to roll the dice many times, each with a low probability or save up to roll the dice once with a more certain result.
Questions? Comments? Feel free to chime in here and I'll do my best to respond.