The economy on MTG Arena has always been a pain point, and a grand debate over how far a digital version of a card game should go to ensure players feel as if they are getting proper value for their time. Wizards has two different versions of its beloved game on the internet, and they both seem to have their benefits and drawbacks. On February 11, Arena launched the Achievement System to reward players for hitting milestones in-game, and completing specific tasks. While it is always fun to do these kinds of things in each game, something that gamers always do is assess whether the reward for doing so in-game is worth putting forth the extra effort for the task. While there are some things in the achievement tab that I believe to be kind of fun, and certain things that I know people will want, I view the entire thing as largely a waste of time. Today we will look at why the new feature on Arena simply isn't enough for what the game should have, and what it could be.
The Good and The Bad
There are plenty of things that we love about Arena, with how it is the easiest way to play our favorite decks from Standard, and not spend thousands of dollars in doing so. It is probably the most efficient way to try out decks. We also love the wildcard system. Although it is not the easiest to obtain them, it is great that a rare/mythic wildcard could buy a rare/mythic card that is of any value and it still just costs one wildcard. This was especially helpful in getting a play set of Sheoldred, the Apocalypse. I still don't have a play set in paper simply because I don't want to spend that much money on it, but on Arena it was easy. I had the wildcards to do what I needed. The only part where this may be lacking is the economy itself. What if we could earn wildcards for hitting certain achievements (I.E. the achievement tab giving us wildcards instead of sleeves, etc.)? I believe that the rewards from this new feature being solely cosmetic underscores the ongoing issue of the economy on Arena simply not being enough for us.
I will applaud Wizards for their efforts to get new players into the game. There has to be growth for the game to stay alive, and well, this game is almost as old as I am. They have to have been doing some things right over the last few decades. It stands to reason that they are probably better at marketing and innovation for their game than we are, and I am willing to accept that. I believe that this new addition, however, is an attempt to create a familiar reward system to what other games have. Most games that we play these days have some type of reward for achievements, or some type of resource that one can acquire by getting more and more achievements. That is just what we are lacking here though - resources. I get that there is a certain level of prestige to simply getting all of the achievements in a game. I have done it with a few video games, but MTG has never been that kind of game. One does not simply "permanently" win at MTG. It is an ongoing thing, and that is what makes it such a complex and interesting experience. I believe that the reward system calls for a similar level of nuance, and that simply giving us sleeves is lacking in thoughtfulness.
It Causes People to Not Actually Play MTG
One of the issues I have is with some of the achievements. I believe that people will be playing the game differently in order to try and hit some of these milestones. One of them that comes to mind immediately is "Win the game with 1 or less life" and I am instantly thinking of people toying with/exercising bad manners on their opponents in order to get a milestone. While it is ideal to do this in a digital environment so that nobody can get mad at you in real life, I believe that it kind of goes against some of the fair play cornerstones that help make MTG a good game. I would prefer to not have to "BM" my opponent in order to get an achievement - and heck, some people may choose not to do so because of having to do that to hit certain goals. I also think going down that line could foster suboptimal play. While I get that Arena isn't the premier competitive client, I still like to use it to try and get better at the game, and I need an opponent who is playing optimally to do that. Maybe it's the case that we are migrating more towards the fun side of MTG for Arena than we are the competitive side, and I can't control that. For what I personally want out of the game, however, I feel as if this isn't exactly the greatest thing to get people to try to improve at the game. I get that some of these achievements can still occur naturally. Plenty of people have played MTG long enough and made correct plays, then subsequently won the game at 1 or less life, but an equal amount of people will be toying with the game and their opponent to try and do that as well.
So What Should They Do?
I think that some type of resource-based reward system is ideal. We have the mastery pass and the store to get all of the cosmetics that we could want. While I do enjoy having titles next to our name on Arena, it feels like that could easily be added to the store. Ideally, we would use achievements to earn gold, gems, wildcards, etc. We could possibly even unlock decks within that category. This is something that other TCGs do, and it is a fun experience. It would encourage people to try new things, and give them something to work towards that they wouldn't give up on so easily. I think that we could also tweak what some of the achievements are. Like I stated earlier, "Win the game With 1 or Less Life" can foster suboptimal play patterns, and we could maybe modify what the achievement is going for in that case. It sounds like such a cool thing to try and do, but in application, it can lead to a less than ideal experience for some players. There has to be a better way to do this, because I honestly appreciate the idea of having achievements, I just believe it has to be implemented better, and rewarding enough for people to want to do it.
