Anytime I see "Swedish" even 25 years later.... 

i

Not sure why an impending sale of the company would create pressure to implement short-sighted and poorly fleshed-out patches that seem to be having the net effects of (1) declining player engagement with content (Hydra) and (2) losing veteran players, including veteran spending players.  

Maybe they thought the Hydra changes would force people to spend more to get new Souls and Champs via spending? Or they fired the senior devs to make the company look more profitable so now it's a bunch of interns making the patches... would explain a lot

Curious to see what direction this takes the game.  Only time will tell.

Allow me to explain a little further:

Recently, one of the ccs mention that the devs told the ccs they'd be switching into "profit-mode" for the remainder fo the quarter.

Now, afaik, none of the other ccs have mentioned it, and I have a feeling he wasn't supposed to disclose it to his viewers. I won't say which cc because I don't want to get him in trouble if it was an accidental slip.

Point being that shortly thereafter, it turns out Plarium's (very healthy) financials were being gone over with by a fine tooth comb. The article specifically cites that MTG looked at thier profits "UP TO" late September.

So we had a number of issues people were complaining about, with frequent questions of "why aren't they doing anything about it?"

Well it turns out what they were planning to do about it pissed off a lot of people, including high-spenders, so the devs sat on the really, really bad ideas until the ~$650 million USD contract got signed, then pushed them all live over 2 updates.

Now, none of this explains why in the name of Zeus's butthole the devs decided to take the most complained about aspects of the game, then go in the opposite direction of the feedback the community was giving and instead make things worse, but it does explain the timing: first the delays, then the rush.

The secret is that CCs have zero insider knowledge. 

They aren't speaking from any informed position when they talk about whatever "profit mode" is, and they do not talk to the Dev Team directly. Lastly Plarium dislikes whatever that term means and never, ever uses it.

Whichever YouTube video maker that was is flat out speculating, pretending to be in a privileged position they are not, and telling you the devs told them something when they did not, and they do not.

As long as Activision doesn't buy it I am happy. 

I know very little about gaming but even I know we don't want this haha

Activison™: "The only people we hate more than our employees are our customers"

What about EA?  Are they acceptable?

EA™: The only people we hate more than Activisions™ employees and customers are *our* employees and customers.

:D

Aren't most businesses generally in profit mode?

I think anything recently done (hydra, live, ...) has nothing to do with this transaction. 

I also expect whoever is running the show to be in profit mode.  I forsee no change in the future based on this.  Whatever plarium was planning likely is still the roadmap.

We aren't getting the monthly login sacred back lol

Yeah, I very much doubt the parent company being bought by a different parent company will have any direct impact on the game itself, other than possibly some cross-game promotions, sorta like the monster-hunter champs.

New log in champ : dart throwing monkey; new event dungeon boss: 7 million balloons

New Log In Champ: Candy Crusher

New Event Dungeon: Epic Boredom

Even Dungeon Rewards: Set:StrenghtyHealth (1-9)

Set Bonus (1 pcs): +5 Str

Set Bonus (2 pcs) +10 health

Set Bonus (3 pcs) +5% chance to weak hit

Set Bonus (4 pcs) Fills the players frustration meter by 25% every time this champion dies

Set Bonus (5 pcs) +5% chance to attack the worst head in hydra

Set Bonus (6 pcs) Grants player 30% longer to chose champions in Live Arena

Set Bonus (7 pcs) 80% chance to turn decrease defense debuff on enemy into a poison debuff

Set Bonus (8 pcs) +5 str

Set Bonus (9 pcs) 90% Chance per turn to place a perfect veil on all champions, decreases all enemy turn meters by 100%, removes all debuffs and places them on enemy with the most annoying skill, stoneskin, and immune to poison. Works on bosses but not Ice Golem level 13 normal. 

Profit Mode gets thrown around incorrectly.  It just means the focus is on maintaining current users over acquiring new ones.  Of course we can argue whether Plarium is actually being successful in this task...

as  long as a CHINA company does not buy Raid (say TenCent) if that happened I would automatically quit

Sweden/German  vibe is fine by me and I  expect great things to come ;)

numbers do not lie and I think MTG   got a stellar deal

actually I might of entertained the  idea had I known it was for sale....lol

...

If you've got 650 million USD burning a hole in your pocket, can I interest you in buying me a house? 😁

Never too late to reach out, PG

Maybe you can offer them $650,000,001 and snake it from MTG.