r/DuelLinks • u/DarkProjectM • Aug 28 '17
Discussion [Discussion] The opinion of a F2P player with 200 days in-game about the current state of Duel Links + some F2P guide updates.
Hey there! (If you only care about the F2P guide, check the end of the post)
''Who are you? and why should Konami listen to you?''
I'm DarkProjectM and i've been playing this game for 200 days, i'm quite dedicated to this game, i play it more than i'd like to admit to be honest, i've used everything this game has to offer to it's limit, PvE, PvP, Stages, Farming, Gems acquisition, etc, you name it, i have a lot of experience with it.
http://i.imgur.com/CQbv2n1.png
I like to believe that since i've been hardcore playing this game for 200 days straight, i have some very good insights on it, and i'd like to share some with you guys and maybe get a positive response from the devs in a near future.
- My opinions and suggestions
Daily Rewards: Right now, they are ok-ish, the gold amount is not that great and the gems are not superb either, but they get the job done, after all, they are supposed to be a help and not the main way of acquiring both of those resources, still they could see some improvements.
7 days during a week, right? On first 2 days we could get 3500gold per day, in the 3rd day we could get 4 Duel Orbs and in the last 4 days, we get 25 gems per day. This seems fair to me, a good, but not broken amount of gold, a very decent amount of Duel Orbs and x2 guaranteed packs per week for those who log in every day.
Stages: Underwhelming, we need to put way too much effort into them for little-to-no rewards at all.
On some missions we need to waste more than 100 colored keys in order to get 50 of them back as a reward for the completion of a task! This doesn't seem profitable at all and i know plenty of players who choose to ignore stage missions completely for this same reason.
Stage missions need to be updated with some more generous keys/gold/stones rewards and more stages should be added with more frequency in order to keep the hardcore players entertained.
The ‘’play 5 games on pvp for 100gems’’ quest also needs to show up EVERY week, not every two weeks as it is today, that quest was one of the best things you guys did for this game's quality of life since it gives people more reasons to play PvP and making it a weekly thing would only make it better.
- Gem distribution: Right now it's way better than it was before, no doubt about it, you guys really improved our situation with Duel-a-Thon, the back-to-back events and the gems we get for X number of downloads. But it still needs some tiny improvements, we could start by maybe making Legendary Duelists more likely to drop gem chests?
Key system: Right now? it is broken.
Farming Legendary Duelists is way too expensive and for the rewards that they give us, it is almost not worth it at all, we are much better off playing pvp and acquiring the tickets than gambling away our keys farming Legendary Duelists.
Something needs to be done about it, either increasing the droprate of platinum packs or rewarding more keys as we stage up and as we defeat Standard Duelists. I believe this is a necessity to keep the game enjoyable.
General Progression: Broken as well.
Players at stage 1 get the same amount of exp and keys than a player at stage 60!
To me, besides the curiosity i had to see what would i get after hitting stage 60, i didn't had any motivation to do the stage missions, since i knew that i wouldn't get better rewards for doing so.
I actually felt punished for completing them, the Standard Duelists got tougher to beat and to make things worse i had to set on getting the same rewards as the people who just started the game today!
We need more stages, with better rewards, more exp and more keys.
A great thing that'd make a lot of people happy would be to not allow lvl10 or lvl20 Legendary Dueslists spawn on duel world after we hit a certain stage, like 45 or maybe even 50.
It's very frustrating to see a Legendary Duelist you'd like to farm spawning on Duel World, just for you to find out that it is a lvl20. Make it so only lvl30's and lvl40's will spawn after Stage 40 and only lvl40's will spawn after stage 60, this would make a lot of people feel motivated to do the stage missions.
Another thing i'd like to see, is the ability to reset a character's level everytime we hit lvl40, replacing the cards and skills we got as lvl rewards for Gold or Gems. This would make the F2P life much more enjoyable and it would give people something to do at every moment, since we'd never hit a point where there's nothing left to do, i believe some people call this a ''prestige system'', but i'm not really sure.
Lastly, boost those login streak quests all the way up to the sky! PLEASE! i got TWENTY-FIVE GEMS for hitting TWO-HUNDRED DAYS in-game without a single day missed, this cannot even be seen as a reward, it’s just laughable.
Farming: Not rewarding enough, people play long and boring 30 turn games to get almost nothing at the end and to make things worse, this comes at the expense of 100 normal keys and 56 colored ones, this is really bad, we need to be rewarded better for farming.
Elegant Mai was the worst event ever IMO, her deck was almost impossible to farm and even when someone managed to farm her, her drops never really made up for all the stress. This HAS to change! either keep the droprates as they are today but give the Legendary Duelists decks that are easy to farm, or boost the current droprate x3 and make the decks somewhat hard-to-farm.
In my opinion, hard to grind but with a huge pay-off is the way to go. That last Bakura gate event was hard, but not impossible to farm and it made people be creative about their farming methods. Having future Legendary Duelists with decks similar to the one used during that event and with better droprates would make the whole thing a enjoyable challenge that makes everyone happy in the process.
Events:
Duel-a-Thon: Great event overall, i for one, feel really motivated to log in every day and play the game whenever Duel-a-thon is up.
Gate Events: Great! being able to challenge the characters at any given time is awesome, we feel more in control of the situation, they just need a little improvement on the platinum packs droprates and maybe some more gems throughout the event, i suggest getting rid of the ''10'' ''15'' ''20'' ''25'' and ‘’30 gems’’ rewards and replace them with ones that give us 50 gems.
Random Spawn Events: Now, that’s a whole diferente topic. Random Spawn Events are the most frustrating thing about this game right now, we wait 2 to 3 hours for a spawn, just to be disappointed with it when we see that is a lvl30. And when a lvl40 finally arrives, we are ‘’rewarded’’ with small droprates and tons of chests with gold or stones.
Make it so after stage 45, only lvl40’s will spawn and also boost the platinum packs droprate during these events, again, with hard but farmable decks.
This subreddit is filled with threads from people complaining about not being able to get x3 Red-Eyes insight and then not being able to play Red-Eyes decks as a consequence! Konami, think about all the money you lost from people not buying x3 Gozuki and X3 Red-Eyes Wyvern for the simple fact that they couldn't get their hands on x3Red-Eyes Insight, think about that for a second, add to this all the people that did not buy x3 Soul Exchange and x3 Double Summon because Ishizu/Odion never dropped the Gravekeepers cards needed for that deck.
Increasing the droprates would boost box sales by a lot from my point of view, just don't increase it by a lot, we don't want it to be super-easy, just dont make it almost-impossible as it is today, be generous, just not too much.
The current platinum packs droprate is pretty hurtful to the game, and it might make people quit Duel Links by itself. Also, PLEASE notify people whenever a Legendary Duelist spawns in Duel World! this feature alone would make the whole thing WAY more enjoyable.
Special PVP duels:
Exodia’s event was awesome, the animation of summoning Exodia was incredible, you guys really need to do something similar more often.
KC cup was great as well, the progression system used back then was great, and in my opinion, it should be the one used for regular PvP as well.
The WCS qualifiers was mixed, it felt great getting KoG and getting qualified, but then, during the final-qualifiers, it was all about who could play the most time and not about who had the most skill, the people who had the time to sit on a chair 24hours, 7days a week playing non-stop where the ones who got good results, people who didn't had that much time, but had good winrates got punished for it, what could be done? Limit the amount of wins one could get during a day, this alone would make the whole thing skill-based, only the ones with the most consistent winrates would be in the top ranks.
Regular pvp: It is in a weird spot right now, the streak system used feels really awful. Getting to KoG can be a total nightmare even to the most skilled players if they happen to get unlucky and don’t win that 5th game after a FOUR games winstreak. Something needs to be done about it, the streak system needs to go away, something similar to that system used during the KC Cup is the ideal one in my opinion. Win more than you lose and BOOM, you get a rank.
Consistency needs to be the key-word, make consistent players feel rewarded for their efforts.
The current PvP rewards: You guys did and AMAZING job with the rewards, they all feel really fair, the amount of N, R and SR tickets are fair, and can save a lot of trouble with farming, 3 SR tickets is the perfect number, just enough to get x3 Enemy Controllers and make anyone ready to competitive, for real, Congratulations, you handled this matter like masters.
But ofc, there’s always room for improvement, and locking people away from the gems of the past ranks during each season reset was not really a great decision to be honest, even though this one is not really a necessity it would improve the quality of the game by a lot.
I’m currently at KoG and next month i’ll start on Platinum already, which means i’ll not be able to get the gems from the Bronze, Silver and Gold ranks. And as a f2p, I’ll really miss those gems, and it would be great to get them for free at the start of each season, again, this change is just to reward people for playing the game a lot, which right now, doesnt happen that often.
- King of Games: There are literally no incentives to keep playing PvP after we hit KoG, a nice solution to me would be to treat the Kog rank as the Legend rank in Hearthstone, with a diferent ranking system on his own and maybe even diferent kinds of tickets as rewards, tickets that let us trade cards from past events maybe? it would be great to be rewarded with Red-Eyes Insight/Union Attack/Red Eyes Spirit and it would motivate a lot of people to achieve KoG every month by itself.
Boxes and Mini-Boxes: I think we’re gettin new boxes in a pretty good pace and being able to create entire decks with a single box is awesome too, this needs to keep happening.
The main problem with boxes and mini-boxes is that in the current state of the game, they don’t feel really fair, having to reset a box 3 times to play a deck while paying 50 gems per pack is not fun to anyone, a healthy solution would be to increase the number of UR’s from x1 per box, to x2 and the number or SR’s from x2 to x3 per box. Mini boxes could also see a increase on the number of rarer cards, UR’s from x1 to x2, and SR’s from x1 to x2 would be great as well.
A single reset per box is super healhy for the game in my opinion, it doesn't scare new players and it still requires quite the investment from players, but not a insane amount as it currently does. During my playthrough i HAD to ignore some boxes (Land of Titans and Electric Overload) in order to stay competitive, this is not really great or fun to anyone.
Card Trader: I think this needs some serious changes.
I hate having the gold to buy x3 of every card i want, but not being able to, because they never show up on the card trader’s catalog. Having a full catalog available at all times and improving it with more cards as you stage up would be the perfect solution and it would save us from a lot of frustration.
Upgrading cards to glossy or prismatic: I absolutely LOVED that you guys read the threads that showed our interest on upgradin cards, but they are too expensive in their current state! and having to manually take the cards out from the decks just to upgrade them seriously demotivates me from creating any glossy or prismatic cards.
A card like Wonder Wand, for example, i have it x3 on VARIOUS decks i use for farming, i really don't want to go though all of them in order to create the glossy versions.
- Deck Editor and Card Catalog: The changes made in the last patch were insanely good for the quality of the game, congratulations, another topic you guys handled perfectly.
Animations: This game is beautiful, i love the way matches end, with the Duelists suffering from the shockwave and all that. Ace-Monsters’s animations are pretty neat as well, i cannot play Bakura or Kaiba with the 3D animations on ‘’Off’’ cuz Dark Necrofear and Vampire Lord’s animations are way too good! specially Necrofear’s!
The dream now is to get a Gilford animation for Joey and maybe a Gravekeeper’s Oracle animation for Ishizu, but these are just my personal desires, apart from that, i’m 100% happy with the current animations, keep them coming!
Well, those are my opinions, i really hope i'm not sounding entitled or something similar, i really don't think we should be getting tons of gems for free, i just think some things could be done in order to make the playerbase happier.
I'm quite the happy player myself and i already recommended this game to all my friends who also like card games and even though i consider myself a F2P player i did put money in the game on some ocasions, two to be specific. The first time was when Valkyrie's Rage came out, i bought 4 of the ''2packs + 1sr'' deal, and i did it again on this last 48hours sale, buying 4 of the ''2packs + 1sr'' deals once again, so as you can see, not really a huge amount of money, just enough to make me happy and to show some support to this awesome game.
Konami has a real gem on their hands, i really hope they make this game better every month and never stop doing so, i really want to keep playing Duel Links for as long as i can, and i want to have a happy community doing the same with me too. That's why i make the guides, that's why i try to help the new players, i love this game, even the most flawed parts of it.
- END OF THE FEEDBACK PART
Now, about the updates to my F2P guide, don't freak out! i didn't add any new decks or boxes to it, i just added some topics i thought you guys would enjoy, like:
Frequently asked questions (FAQ)
How to get more gems ?
What to get with PvP tickets?
What to do with Duel Orbs?
You can check all this changes here: https://redd.it/6svgwb
Thanks for all the support, and thanks for reading until here!
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u/Kyle1337 idfk anymore Aug 28 '17
I mostly agree with the card trader, farming, and stage progression points.
I'm at over 200 days and still at stage 38 because of it.
One thing though is that you probably could have left out the "opinion of a F2P" in your title. it really detracts from the chances of a Konami representative reading it.
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Aug 28 '17
I agree with pretty much all of this. You should be properly rewarded for getting to a high stage.
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Aug 28 '17 edited Aug 28 '17
Yeah I agree with you for the most part as well. I really like your idea about KOG rewards, they will be a great incentive. I would also like to point out that:
- Mokuba was my first roaming event and it's indeed awful. The amount of times he spawns is not bad, but 50% of the time he is level 30... Konami could maybe replace level 30 Roaming Duelists with level 50 for higher stages, like they did with ParaBros. There is no reason to not be able to get all the drops if you fight him consistently 7-8k every time he spawns, it's not a good marketing move because players should feel that their time spent had value.
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u/Paul2803k ID: 777-775-240 Aug 28 '17
Great discussion, I'd like to add just that the weekly missions are a joke right now. I don't pretend new missions every week but konami could easily do some improvements imo. Also the rewards for them are awful since they require like 10/15 min to be completed.
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u/fortune_bullet Respect over competition Aug 29 '17
25 gems is ridiculous haha weekly missions could grant at least between 50 to 100 gems... at least they sometimes add the +100 gems pvp bonus. And I'm not sure if it's just me, but I seem to always get to beat either Joey or Tea (for the "win 3 duels against" mission)... I've been playing for 200 days as well now, and it's ALWAYS Joey or Tea hahaha
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u/Fitosone Aug 28 '17
Increasing UR's and SR's copies would be great, specially for mini boxes, i find the mini boxes to be the most problematic for me, since you sometimes just want one or two SR's, while in big boxes you usually want several cards from all rarities, i have invested in the game two times as well, for the most part im F2P but if prices for boxes were better i would not mind investing more often.
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u/Sevendrawstosix Aug 28 '17
I agree with most of the stuff you said. But I have a small thinking point. I'm kindof a firm believer that every card should be available at any point, as long as you pump enough resources into the game (be it money, or time, within reason of course), Reason being that otherwise, I feel like the game becomes too much of a I got lucky during this event so I'm better. (Maybe not the problem yet, but just wait until we get a tier 0 format). And also, newer players are always gonna have problems, because they can't get all the cards.
So, I'm personally more of a fan of a kind of crafting system like the card trader, just for every card, at any time (so no rotation of cards, you're just able to craft errything). (I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'm just looking for opinions on this).
I know you mentioned tickets for high KOG players to buy event specific cards, the thing is I don't think that SR tickets should be the main way of obtaining cards, because otherwise you become limited in the cards you can get with this, and you can 't really pump "more resources" into the game in order to get "more tickets".
But hey, that's just my opinion.
Other than that, yeah I agree with pretty much errything. I love this game to pieces, it just needs to take out the flaws.
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u/Oldeuboi91 Aug 29 '17
A crafting system is too good for them to implement, I think. Just imagine, instead of reseting 2 times a big box set just for that 3rd Gozuki, you can craft him?! Not profitable at all. My suggestion would be 1 craft per box set but they'll never do that.
Also, specific cards related to specific events means they can recycle the same events over and over. You didn't get a third Frost and Flame Dragon? Just wait 2 more months when Mokuba comes back again!
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u/Sevendrawstosix Aug 29 '17
It's not profitable immediately, I just think it might get more people to start playing because they don't feel so "afraid" that they have to buy up 3 entire boxes of the same set. You'ld still have to balance it in such a way that you can't just craft every card without question.
And I know that's why they put specific cards in specific events. But it stops people from playing the deck they want. I have a buddy that didn't get a single frost and flame dragon out of mokuba, really wanted to try the last gamble deck with it, and just stopped playing the last two days because he was pulling crap. And sure, you could increase the drop rate, but there would still be people that don't have a grind deck/aren't able to play as much/are just plain unlucky that don't get the cards and stop playing alltogether, because they can't play what they want, whatever kind of resources they throw at it.
I'm not saying you're wrong, 'cause you're not. You're completely correct. It's just, I think that your suggestions might not hold out in the long run and mine might.
But tbf, I'm not a game designer, just a person with a theory :p
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u/Oldeuboi91 Aug 31 '17
Your suggestions are great, I was sarcastic. It's clear why some things are the way they are when can be so easily improved.
I'm just salty because I spent a considerable amount in this game and feel I don't get much in return, the game demands more and more without giving much.
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u/LWKII Aug 28 '17
Agreed with most of your points about gems. Hopefully they increase the gem count for the daily log-ins as the current rewards are a joke. The 25/25 gem on day 3-7 sounds perfect and i would be willing to log in everyday for those.
They should make some of the older boxes cheaper too since they have become powercrept by a large margin otherwise no one will invest in those. ugh, we need a revamp.
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u/LV_Matterhorn Aug 28 '17
Spawn events are frustrating when they introduce meta-changing cards. I understand that they need to make the events replayable such that everyone doesn't just get 3x of all cards on the first go, but missing out on 3x Insight is very different from missing out on 3x Ishzark. Right now Mokuba has seven cards in his SR/UR drop pool, making it very diluted, and annoying because I really want to make a Frost and Flame Dragon deck but my drops keep getting diluted with stuff I already got from the first time around. The fact that these events typically only last a week mean that one is very likely not to finish on the first go. I think these either need to be rotated in more frequently so missing out is not as big of a deal (by the next time Super Joey comes around that will have been months of going without Insight, unable to play a top deck that might not even remain a top deck by the time he comes back) or make it easier to get the drops if you diligently farm without having the garbage drops clutter up your efforts (perhaps weighting a drop probability lower if you already have 3 copies)
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Aug 28 '17
There is little point in making an event re-playable when you cant even make it playable to start with imo. There is an event, you farm consistently every day, you should get everything, otherwise time is wasted so off you go and quit. And to be honest, if they dont want to repeat events so often, they can just make them longer so we do in fact get everything, and then replay it in 1 or 2 months.
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u/miguelotron Awaiting the -ini meta Aug 29 '17
I can see the frustration with not being able to get a playset of all the cards you'd want from an event (I know that feel, 0 insights here). However, I can see it being a problem if it goes too far in the other direction. Lets say everyone gets 3 of the exclusive cards, then what happens the next time the event comes around? People will complain that there's nothing new and the event is a waste. If they introduce a new set of cards in repeat events, then newer players will complain about not being able to get the good older cards. And if everyone were to get the event exclusive cards, what happens to PVP? Will everyone just run red eyes decks? Why not? There wouldn't be a need for as much deck creativity if everyone is able to get a playset of all the best cards easily. I'm sure there's a solution to all this, but I sure as hell don't know what it is.
1
Aug 29 '17
You sound totally right. I just dont like the feeling of farming consistently and getting nothing in return while someone else just got RNG on his side. This also brings dissatisfaction to the players/clients, which makes it not a viable marketing move imo.
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u/ZerobladeRising Aug 29 '17
Love this post. I'd like to add weekend events. It needs more variety instead of just changing duel joey/tea 3 times
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u/HobbitAncap Aug 29 '17
I want buy archetypes decks, like structures, not open infinity packs with cards who i don't want.
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u/havetheveryfun Aug 29 '17
u should talk about droppable skills too. ive been playing for over 150 days and yet to get Destiny Draw, 3SD and HHG. Granted 3SG and HHG isnt that good now but it would still be nice to get them first to prepare or just to try them out. The only one Im really farming with now is Paradox Bros as Gate Guardian makes it really easy, but I've gotten 5 times Guardian Call drop and no 3SD.. how laughable is that
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Aug 30 '17
This post has been featured in our Game Feedback Section.
This is an amazing write up and Konami can improve a lot of in-game details from it :)
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u/DarkProjectM Aug 30 '17
Thank you!
On a side note, a dude commented that the term ''F2P'' in the title might make Konami devs ignore this thread, and i kinda aggree now that i think about it, can you guys do anything to change the title?
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Aug 30 '17
We can't change submission titles sadly :(
But besides the Term, i think Konami devs should give this write up a shot, It deserves it.
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u/escanor_hype Aug 29 '17
Roaming duelists are bad because they reward no-lifeing which is different from commitment. Portal LD events are better because you can at least farm once every time you see SDs respawning, or once you wake up and right before sleeping if you live a busy life, but regardless you're guaranteed some progress every time you check back.
Even if you get fucked by RNG you still have the secured event cards and the EX gems you gathered a long the way to make something otherwise frustrating into at least a comfortable level.
Everytime they do these roaming duelists bs I just do some PvP instead, not worth tryharding on the farms for getting shat on.
1
u/FelipaoLDU Aug 29 '17
I agree with u post im a F2P from Ecuador , and reach KOG easy in 4 days , but cant complete a lot of decks because the swamp events random are terrible a lot of people dont have time to see the game every hour in the day so only play at the night . And the event os super Joey dindt drop the red eyes trap and only 2 magics and in the last event dont obtain frost and ice dragon so cant play other deck .
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u/Mbiojf Aug 29 '17
Nice and friendly review, even if we don´t match so much with many points; what is your opinion as a f2p player about the character's lvl rewards (such as Toon Kingdom, mostly the 40lv rewards, as they are the hardest to get)
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u/DarkProjectM Aug 29 '17
In think they're fine.
Toon Kingdom might have been a little ahead of it's time but it's not game breaking, it is annoying to play against but it's also annoying playing against 2400atk monsters that keep resummoning themselves (Phoenix & Red-Eyes).
What bothers me is that the only characters who got really good cards at lvl40 were Pegasus and Joey, i'd love to see everyone getting cards at the same powerlevel, it'd encourage me to lvl up all of them.
Are they too hard to get? i don't think so, i usually can lvl up a character from lvl0 to lvl40 within a week, so it sounds like a fair time to me.
1
Aug 31 '17
I agree with the points you made about the boxes and rewards and I really hope they take your suggestions into consideration. This game is beautifully animated and designed and I've really loved playing it. But now it feels like I've hit a wall. I don't feel like I can get much higher in PvP than I am now with the deck I have since the drop rate of boxes, events, and LDs at the gate just hasn't been kind to me, no matter how much I save up/farm. It's discouraging, since I spend so much on it and almost never get anything back worth batting an eyelash at. I would be more willing to spend money on this game if I knew it would be worth it. I'm not asking for easy hand outs, I just want to have at least a slightly better chance at making a decent deck that works well enough to be competitive.
0
u/Waidowai Aug 28 '17
The first point about the daily rewards is strange.. you are saying that they should give us 25 gems or 50 gems a week. But currently we get 60 gems a week. The 2nd and last day of the week is 30 gems.
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u/xKingSpacex Aug 28 '17
I read everything and I really hope Konami will listen to you in some aspects especially in PVP rank system and Roaming Duelist. I honestly feel that Konami are being generous with the ammount of gems they are giving us and I'm thankful but the packs are a bit expensive, like you said either upped the ammount of Urs and Srs cards we get from the boxes or make the packs 30 Gems. Nonetheless These are really good suggestions.