What do you mean, even I acknowledged the problem, haha. I said from the very start to the EA folk via Mod channel, before the stream had even finished, that the current cost to reward ratio is simply unfair at best for both P2W and F2P players, and it will backfire. That sentiment was echoed by pretty much everyone across all socials, and it is what ultimately drove the lite changes that were posted here earlier, but these changes were not enough.
I mean that you have said now more than once that you think the draft has some interesting/good aspects, but that even though you don’t seem inclined to chuck it out and go back to shards (as I and many other others do), you acknowledge the draft system’s biggest weakness is uncertainty. I don’t think I’m being unfair or inaccurate in this characterization. Maybe you’re just trying to be diplomatic with EA by giving the draft system it’s “due,” but you haven’t come out and said it needs to be thrown out as an ill-conceived “solution” to a non-existent “problem” (as I and others have). If I’m wrong in this characterization then feel free to correct the record.
1440666fd7e443ec If you strip out the emotion and dislike of the new format, and just apply pure logic/analysis, you'll see that it is much of a muchness. Shards, drafts, or whatever name you give it all follow the same core idea. You spend basic resources to get secondary resources locked behind RNG, then convert those into the cards you want.
Where Drafts fail right now is the upfront cost to reward ratio, which is ridiculous, followed by poor card to Phase 2 token conversion and the near total removal of supplementary resources through DR, store packs, daily rewards, and event grind. Add changes to the ET 07 token conversion (and a few other changes), and you end up with devalued player inventories.
On the flip side, Drafts do increase the odds of pulling top-end cards in the slot portion, and Phase 2 tokens carrying over to other future events is a positive. You also get more gems (well, if you can get to 50 stars in all 3 DR modes).
So yeah, the draft concept itself is not really the issue. The execution of drafts in the present form and other changes are. Also, why did EA try to fix something that wasn't broken needs an answer. Anyway, EA was given extensive feedback on it from various players and content creators, including me, via the moderator channel (and similar "sentiments" were sent via the socials by many other players). EA will either use it or not, at the end of the day its their call, but if you look at the stream and what the event is now, EA has listened to some of the feedback. How it turns out is yet to be seen, and that's when I'll give it a final rating.
At this point in time, the shards are more preferable as the execution/concept is much easier to grasp and has a lot less randomness to it with lower-tier cards, but it might change if the feedback is acted upon appropriately to reflect the realities of the game (not what looks good on paper). Keep in mind that shards also had negative feedback on launch, and now everyone wants them back.
