Will cards I've bought ever be changed?

[DanTheTimid]

So from what I'm understanding from other topics, our cards are not going to be identical to the japanese cards, atleast at launch. The Japanese game apparently is suffering from an issue with soul skill balance in which several soul cards are just far and away better then the rest and thus used in pretty much every deck. This creates a difficult situation, if you ban the over powered cards you're going to get players angry at you because they invested money in those cards that are now useless. Now because this is a computer game and not a real card game you have an additional option, you can alter the cards. However if you weaken the cards this too could annoy players who paid top dollar to get the best cards only to have them become average and have their price crash. So then the only option that isn't very likely to anger people is to make all other soul cards better... except with 1,000 some cards in the game thats quite a task to take on.

Long story short, my question is, what can we expect in the English game to maintain balance? Its awesome to hear that an effort is being made to pre-emptively prevent us from having the same balance issues by making the initial cards different, but in the long run if a card does prove to be too strong or completely useless what sort of action can we expect to be taken? Will there be a ban list? Will cards be buffed or weakened for balance issues? If they are banned or weakened what sort of compensation might owners of those cards receive?

I will add though that I am for some sort of action being taken, the worst choice is to do nothing and allow degenerative cards to ruin a game.

[TheVogfather]

i think they will likely be nerfed or buffed.. i can see a comp if they got banned however if its weekend you still can use your card so i don't see any reason for comp with that.

[dawn]

I think the best way to balance it back without players feel cheated (if the card has to be bought) is to introduce a new sets of cards that are viable alternatives with different effects.

[Raeith]

Banning a card is probably the point where you're wondering what happened. While it might only be a tournament level ban (let the card be played casually), it not only effectively turns one card into a dead card for tournament players but also still leaves it alive to forever plague the casual playing field. Basically this will not only annoy the people who have the card but also annoy the casual players who now still HAVE to get a tournament useless card to play in casual if they want to stand a chance.

Nerfing the card is definitely something that will get some people in maddened fits of rage but it's a solution that allows the card to still be useful to both casual and tournament players (unlike banning the card).

The buffing of every not-so-great card to bring up the power of every card to a kinda-great level only makes the problem worse in my opinion. It not only limits the scope in which new cards can be made but it also makes the cards that were originally overpowered, weaker. Which will result in just as much whining from those owners as a nerf. (Because after all every cards power is going to be compared relative to another card, a half bad card is great compared to a fully bad card, and so if everything gets better its _effectively_ the same as the strong cards getting weaker, only it closes the scope of new cards since new every new card has to be at the similar higher power level.)

Well thats the end of my rant ;D, but yeah, I'm one that would vote for nerfs to balance the hideously overpowered cards. (Or as dawn said, bring out new sets with other potent abilities, but you've really got to be extra careful with the balance, as theres nothing worse than feeding even more overpowered cards into the hoards)

[DanTheTimid]

I've always despised banning cards but in real life card games I've at times been one of the voices calling for them simply because I'd rather my expensive cards be regulated to casual play then continue to make tournament play unfun. In virtual card games however I'm completely against banning. To me the best option is to nerf/weaken the over powered cards to something thats still playable but just not so ridiculous and then give all players who own any copies of the effected card some sort of compensation for each copy they own to make up for the imminent decrease in value said card will receive.

Regardless it would be nice to know what the people who actually decide how this is going to be done in this game think is the best way to deal with the situation.

[Logress]

The japanese are totally in charge of game balance, but we have discussed it with them on several occasions. We're never planning on banning any card, and we'd like to keep nerfing cards to the minimum. You might have noticed if you've looked at the card list and were at A-kon, that many cards have already been nerfed a little-- Like LeBeau and Will o' the Wisp (although I can tell you both are still very effective). The idea is to do the nerfing before launch, so no one has bought anything yet, and then if we can as more cards come out, we'll return their abilities.
Unfortunately, in this type of game, modifying cards slightly over time is pretty hard to avoid (look at the errata section of MtG's website), at least here since the cards are virtual, the change actually happens on your cards... and you not sitting there at a tournament pulling out your LeBeau for a big move when the judge suddenly tells you your card doesn't work that way any more...

[Cr4zy_P1r0m4n14c]

um, can cards be traded?, like between players?

[TheVogfather]

i don't think they can be but however a tradeing table or even an in game auction house (useing the in game cash) would be an idea i think

[Grain]

i don't think they can be but however a tradeing table or even an in game auction house (useing the in game cash) would be an idea i think

The Vog Father has the best ideas!

-Grain

[Logress]

The only trading system built into the game right now is a Recycle system where you can trade your extra cards in to the computer and it will give you Gran for them. The Japanese do some manual trading with the GM's for specific cards, but that was implemented after there were a lot more cards out there. We'll see what's possible for us as things get rolling.