Why You Need to Fix Magic Duels

Why You Need to Fix Magic Duels An Honest Plea to Wizards of the Coast and Stainless Games The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of tappedout.net or any other user.

A brief history.

DotP had always been Wizards’ way of drawing in new/casual players and the complexity of having to forge an entire deck would’ve been daunting.

Creating a balanced meta-game for ten pre-made decks each time around was already hard enough, as evidenced by 2014’s invincible control decks. Building a meta to support a healthy diversity of player-built decks? Probably impossible at the time with the seemingly restricted resources of the development team.

One step forward and two back.

So what the hell happened?

Wizards of the Coast settled for mediocrity at our expense.

staying

Best

My plea.

Charge players to own the game.

The "free-to-play" philosophy derailed this franchise, but it’s not too late. Roll out a pay barrier with a massive update and market it with the fact that you fixed all the glitches, the game is now up to your standards, and promise that major updates won’t be delayed by several months. Make it a subscription service, even, at $20/year. Each summer, each person who has subscribed for a year gets the "big summer update" with a graphic/engine overhaul and new features/cards. The coin system doesn’t even have to go away! In fact, keep it but give players far more coins for quests (200-300) and winning games (100-150). This will encourage players to keep signing in and playing your game while still allowing them the option to buy more coins if they want. Those who don’t renew a subscription or want to just try the game could still play offline to save a reduced amount of coins for if/when they do subscribe. You could even offer trial periods.

coins for quests (200-300) and winning games (100-150). This will encourage players to keep signing in and playing your game while still allowing them the option to buy coins if they want. Those who don’t renew a subscription or want to just try the game could still play offline to save a reduced amount of coins for if/when they subscribe. You could even offer trial periods. Fix the connection issues that have been plaguing multiplayer since launch.

This one is a given. If people are going to pay you a good chunk of money to play the game, they want to be able to play the game. As it stands now, even after all your alleged "connectivity fixes," I’m still being split up from my 2HG partner (whether as an opponent or in a different game entirely) and have to restart the game on a daily basis to reset frozen queues.

As it stands now, even after all your alleged "connectivity fixes," I’m still being split up from my 2HG partner (whether as an opponent or in a different game entirely) and have to restart the game on a daily basis to reset frozen queues. Offer occasional incentives to get Duels players into card shops.

Why stop doling out promotional codes for special cards at game launches? Do this and you’ll give players a reason to come back to Duels if they’ve left it behind while encouraging new players to discover paper Magic. Better yet, have it be a reward for each new campaign. Everyone likes free stuff, especially when it’s shiny.

if they’ve left it behind while encouraging new players to discover paper Magic. Better yet, have it be a reward for each new campaign. Everyone likes free stuff, especially when it’s shiny. Manage the meta in the game.

If Shadows over Innistrad taught us anything by adding four strong Planeswalkers to the card-pool, it’s that this game cannot function properly without ways to deal with that card type. Suppression Bonds

Release Magic Duels on PS4.

This would be the ultimate form of apology toward your fans on PlayStation 4. Not only would this broaden the player base and increase overall exposure for the game, but you’d suddenly look like a more honorable game company by coming back to support those you left behind in the first place.

Save your game.

With tough love,

z a n d l

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Beginning all the way back with 1998’sfor PC, digital Magic had always been a coveted and sought-after product. We were finally able to take our cards and play from the comfort of our remote caves against others from across the world (after a later update)., Wizards’ premier computer program, was introduced in 2002 and brought with it the ability to own digital copies of cards, build your own decks entirely from scratch, and buy/sell/trade cards just as in reality. As consoles progressed technologically through the years, though, Wizards was obligated to introduce a digital Magic game to the online stores for Sony and Microsoft. The end result wastitledand was glaringly similar to the 1998 release, though obviously included updated graphics, gameplay, and card options.It was $10 and it wasAt the time, Magic was completely dominating the TCG world and going through its largest period of growth the game had ever seen. We didn’t have much to compare the game itself, so we just sort of assumed it was about as good as it would get for a console. With each subsequent year, though, we would see a quick rehash of the game released with a slightly improved engine and some shiny new cards for another $10. There were minor gameplay improvements and the variety of game modes gradually increased, slowly attracting a few more players with each passing title.The persisting problems, however, kept the franchise from ever really taking off in the mainstream Magic community. It became obvious why they refused to refer to each game as direct sequels (i.e.); though they were standalone games with no connection to prior versions, they each felt like a DLC update to its predecessor. For awhile, decks were all pre-made and you could only ever swap out a handful of cards from a small pool of choices that was unique to each deck. I understand and concede to the fact that this was likely due to two separate reasons:On top of these issues, perhaps the most maddening fact of all was that Wizards would give us new game modes to play around with (Archenemy, Two-Headed Giant, Planechase, Free-For-All, etc.) but then randomly omit some while bringing others back down the road. It became difficult to stayed hyped for a new DotP game each summer when you had no idea if your favorite modes were going to be returning.was perhaps the biggest letdown of all, promising online Sealed play but then tricking players by only letting them build two decks from a predetermined pool and demanding a micro-transaction to unlock more packs. Needless to say, the game mode was dead within a few days. To compound these difficulties from, Two-Headed Giant inexplicably disappeared fromdespite overwhelming community support for the format. I, personally, played each version of DotP up to this point exclusively for 2HG with a close friend.Perhaps the only redeeming quality of(though it didn’t make up for the game itself) was that we finally had the ability to construct our own decks from scratch out of about 300 unique cards. Most players’ decks were similar due to the relatively small card pool and a small number of broken spells (i.e.) -Fully customizable deck-building was progress and there was hope for a better game on the horizon.Late in Spring of 2015, nerds everywhere rejoiced after watching an interview with the Duels brand manager regarding the upcoming version of(rebranded to just). She explained at great lengths that Two-Headed Giant was returning, deck-building was going to be fully customizable, cards were going to be added to the game as they were released in real-life, and it was all going to be free to play and fully unlockable. On top of this, there were no longer going to be yearly, rehashed versions of the game but instead a focus on updating this new one periodically to keep it current. Bricks were shat and we all (Duels fans, at least) waited patiently with bated breath for what we could only imagine was the game we always deserved but never received.As the summer went on, there were no further updates on the release date beyond "July 2015". The community grew increasingly skeptical of the game as Wizards remained eerily silent on any news heading into July. About halfway through the month, theFacebook page unexpectedly announced that the game was suddenly available for iPhone, and the other platforms would follow soon thereafter. Giddy with anticipation, I hastily downloaded the app and soon discovered it was an unmitigated trash fire of a game.The game crashed on every other campaign level, gameplay was almost impossible on my relatively small phone screen, and the coins I earned in games Icomplete weren’t saved on my account. From the looks of their Facebook page, they went into damage control mode and begged everyone to be patient while they came up with a fix. Unbeknownst to us at the time, the iPhone version of the game would taketo improve. Worst of all, though I should’ve seen this coming, the "free-to-play" format of the game followed the latest, pitifully insulting trend of games that make grinding unbearably slow, cap you at a certain point, and then direct you to a micro-transaction store to improve your situation.I convinced myself (and I think many others did) that the iPhone-version debacle was simply due to releasing a large, new game on an already-touchy device. But when the game launched on Steam, it was also seemingly unplanned. The game appeared to work a little more consistently for those on computers, but they were still having a multitude of connectivity issues. I was rapidly losing faith in the game and simply braced for the worst. On literally the last day of July 2015,appeared in the Xbox Live game store. On that same day, Wizards just completely canceled the PS4 version unexpectedly and entirely, issuing a general statement of "Sorry; maybe in the future, but we’ll see, okay?" The poor PS4 fans went fromtoin one Facebook post. If that doesn’t make you raise an eyebrow, then I don’t know what will.The Xbox version (which I downloaded) had its fair share of glitches and flaws at release. To name a few, coins would disappear from accounts, signing in wouldn’t work on some days, multiplayer games never fired, and there were still game-breaking bugs in the campaign missions. The sloppy, unprofessional, and rushed release was just one sweeping insult to the fans who remained loyal through a quiet build-up.Well, Stainless Games (the co-developer of all the DotP titles, alongside Wizards) had never really been a particularly noteworthy game studio. Their short résumé included mostly family board-game ports and re-skinned arcade classics. I’d like to say we were all surprised by the complete failure of the launch of, but all thehad been clunky, lacked obvious features and improvements, and were bogged down by annoying bugs. The real warning flag (and what made me uncertain about the future of DotP) was that past games wereupdated with patches to fix anything but game-breaking glitches. This, truly, was the most disappointing thing aboutWhether or not that was their intention still remains to be seen to this day and they haven’t exactly earned our trust back yet. One of their main selling points ofwas the fact that cards in real-life expansions would become unlockable in the game at the same time as the paper launch. Battle for Zendikar released in paper on October 2, 2015, butpushed back the release in-game to December, citing game-quality concerns. It was frustrating to learn of the delay, but hearing them admit to sloppiness was a bit reassuring. When Oath of the Gatewatch’s paper release came and went without an update to Duels, though, the overworked Facebook page announced that Oath would just release alongside Shadows of Innistrad and everything would be awesome.Personal fact: I’m an elementary school teacher. If had a student who was two months behind on classwork, thenhe’d have some pretty dire consequences.The Shadows update arrived on time (with Oath in tow) and brought with it a slew of minor bug and gameplay fixes. A video interview of some of the higher-ups in the Duels department at Wizards was released just beforehand. In it, they tried to apologize for all the mishaps in policy and unfortunate glitches that shipped with the game, but their words largely fell on unlistening ears. Though the update managed to improve multiplayer connectivity issues (though I’d still like to point out not much happened), there were suddenlyglitches for us to worry about. For example, priority was no longer being held for players who only had instants in their hands, leading to skipped turns and missed plays. Players quitting in the middle of a match had a random chance to just freeze the game for everyone else.Worst of all, the patch notes they released with the update had athan the list of fixes.How is thatWizards? How can you just go about your days and pretend like this game is good enough for your fans/players/sources of revenue? If this game isn’t brought up to a higher standard soon, I fear people will grow weary of the mediocrity and lack of trust. New and potential players will see this game, not understand how to play because of the myriad of bugs and glitches, and then rightfully assume the paper game is just as unorganized. Is this really a product you’re trying to use to attract new players and keep older ones entertained with, or is it just something that someone in your company thought they could milk for a little longer?Even with all of my harsh criticism and reservations regarding this release (and franchise as a whole), I admit that the current iteration isto being exactly what we want - but it needs to be changed at its core before things can be turned around.It’s not too late for Magic Duels, but this current pattern of false hope followed by a letdown is not sustainable. Take it offline for a while to fix it up and you’ll see all those fans coming back in droves once word gets out that it’s better.Magic is a tool to help us build relationships and confidence in ourselves as gamers, friends, and competitors. For the sake of your reputation as game creators and the sake of your customers’ loyalty, faith, and trust, heed my plea and let us feel important to you again.