Quest Mode Ideas

[justalocalhero]

I would like to say that I love forge's quest mode, and I love some of the more recent additions to the mode: being able to start a quest with a draft deck, being able to choose specific boosters as prizes, more interesting challenges and challenge rewards, etc. With that being said, in my hundreds (if not thousands) of quest games, I have come up with a few features that I would love to see in future releases:

1. Incorporating Drafting, Sealed, and/or Tournaments into quest mode. Like most players, I love to draft and to play in tournaments, but at the end of a draft, the experience doesn't feel as rewarding as the quest mode matches (I want to open my prizes and pull some sweet rares damnit! =P). I wonder if there is a possibility of supplementing the "play a duel, win a pick" nature of the quest with limited tournaments that can be bought into for a chance at prizes, or format-enforced tournaments that would incentivize the player to maintain a standard, block, or pauper deck for example. There are many cute design options here for gimmick tournaments: "deck must contain 20 creatures of the same type", "no blue spell tournament". Having constructed tournaments instead of just 1v1 duels would have the added benefit of allowing the player to compete in "fair" matches. Playing a quest in standard format and having the opponent open with volcanic island double mox time walk ancestral on turn one can be a bit off-putting. Obviously it would take a lot more work to create working and fun ai decks in every format, but it's something to consider.

Speaking of tournament prize structures..

2. Varying the methods of obtaining cards. I see a push in this direction with some of the new challenge rewards: "choose a black card", "choose a duplicate card" being two that I've noticed recently, and I feel that it is a step in the right direction. For one, the currency feels like such a minor part of the game. I always seem to open hundreds of packs while purchasing only a few singles. If ever my previous suggestion about tournament inclusion were included, I could see a system where the 1v1 matches provide more credits as rewards, but no free packs, and then you can use the credits to buy into tournaments/drafts/sealed which offer larger rewards in packs if you place well. This feels more immersive than mindlessly grinding matches to earn packs.

With a better system of currency in place, perhaps comes...

3. A better shopping experience. It feels somehow weird that you cannot go to the shop and buy as many boosters as you can afford in the format you're playing. Furthermore, it is frustrating that the card you need never seems to be available at any price. I can't count the number of times I've played a quest in standard and had the shells of several of decks I'd like to play, but each missing a few key cards, forcing me go to the shop after every match in hopes that they'll show up. I can only imagine the woes of trying to collect that fourth beta underground sea when playing in older formats. I wish there was some sort of an on demand card market where you could pay a premium for your cards in order to be able to get exactly what you need. You could even get cute with the design to simulate real world card collecting, "your card will arrive from the shop in three matches." The current random singles in the shop could still remain as a way of bargain hunting if you just want value and don't need specific cards to finish out your deck yet.

(I apologize for ranting so long, I certainly don't mean to make it sound as if I don't enjoy the program, it is excellent. By far the only worthwhile experience for collecting cards and simulating life as a magic grinder. I also will admit that I didn't browse too deeply into the forums to check if any of these topics had been broached before, so I hope that I'm not bombarding you with old, repeated issues. Thanks for your time.)