Petition for single-card of your choice shop! vote please

[luckysvn777]

Here's Alteil's conundrum: If they set the prices as they should to make a profit from this, it would be so high that no one would buy them... since they have to price it much higher due to the loss of risk... (After all, risk is how CCG's make money, so doing this would cost them a lot of profit).

Or it would be too low and Alteil would lose big time.


Obviously, being a business, they would have to do the first option. Thus, no one buys except the hardcore players, they get even stronger, and the new players get the same, or even worse, retention, since only those willing to shell out a few hundred dollars could hope to stay remotely competitive, since everyone will have "meta".


And thus Alteil still loses a profit.


By introducing that factor, you make the game even more for the hardcore, and we'll lose even more of the "little to none, play for fun" players... which is the core base....

In my opinion, that theory fails..

[Azul]

You assume hardcore players benefit absolutely more than new players. I don't, I assume there will be an easily reached plateau of competitiveness all players can reach - meaning diminishing returns (which you are already familiar with) for the hardcore. I cannot say that my opinion is more justified than yours since I'd need to do math first and I've got enough of that in my life already.

This is a barrier to entry thing. Either the model is 'dedicated spend lots of money' or 'many players pay a little bit'. As a card game, more players seems like a natural move to go after.

Tangential thoughts: if we had enough players on at all times and matched people up by RP, those who have been losing will stop seeing the people they kept getting beaten by. However, we will see elitism because this is the internet and people love to prove they're superior to other people on the internet.

Why are the new people quitting? Why exactly are they not having fun? Would having an automatic global chat help, as it will force people to meet each other and foster the community? The forums and main chat exist but they are optional and maybe as a multiplayer game we need a non-competitive chat to be standard so that as many people as possible can talk. I say non-competitive because you're thrown into a mandatory chat in games but that's with your opponent who you don't always want to talk with, of course. We'd need a whisper function.

[luckysvn777]

Well that was my point though... a system like this where one could just buy cards, boom boom boom boom boom, would mean that those willing to spend $500 or so could instantly get meta files. Whereas those who are not "hardcore" (defined as willing to spend a lot of money on the game in this case) will be stuck with what the current average iczer is stuck with, and against the massively increased amount of meta, will fall. So yes, hardcore players would benefit more, because they, by definition, would be the ones who pay in this system to get insta-meta. At the expense of the new player.

Also, a single-card pick breaks the idea of diminishing returns. Now you automatically pay for the three cards you want, and get benefit from each, and then never buy again. Its constant increase in return until you have the file you want. So, yes, i do believe hardcore players would benefit way way way more under this system.

Not to mention how stale a metagame we would have in this case. No reason to be creative when you automatically have the best.

[Azul]

...I'm pretty sure that's constant returns until 3... then diminishing returns as your return hits ZERO after 3. Also this is only true under conditions where there is a 'best'. You still need skill. You might have an argument that you can straight up copy procedure in the game right now but that's only because there's not enough flexibility in the game right now.

[luckysvn777]

Does it matter if there are diminishing returns after 3? If its single card choice, at least the way i'm thinking about it, there would be no reason, nor no chance, to get a 4th copy of any card. Hence why it doesn't come into play.

There isn't a "best" file at the moment, but for sure right now, EM, EN, and Primclone, among others, are a step above most files and usually more than the average iczer with average cards can handle (they wouldn't have such massive RP if it wasn't). With single card choice, the number of people using those files would shoot up dramatically and lock out all but those willing to pay a good sum of money a chance in the world of winning a decent amount of games ever.

[Azul]

Okay, so you're assuming no errata? Maybe I was implying too much when I should say 'we should do this and have errata' instead.

As things are now the system is already such that a person with 3 copies of every card they are interested in will stop purchasing. The difference is that the randomness inflates the cost needed to get to this endpoint. As a result, people's behavior towards this end up limited to two things: buy nothing because they can't afford to go all out (risk-averse), or buy a lot and eventually get there (risk-neutral or inclined). Whether or not they keep playing is completely up to the individual and only affects profit in the sense that if the game dies, all transactions will stop. That means 0 profit per -averse, and Xgranpercard/granperdollar*cardsperplayer + Xgranpercard/granperdollar*randomnessinflation per -neutral/inclined.

The selective-card shop makes it so that a person's behavior towards getting 3 copies of everything can be: buy as much as you can from selective-shop at profit Y (risk-averse/neutral/inclined) or play the lottery, still profit X (risk-inclined/neutral). You will get Ygranpercard/granperdollar*cardsperplayer for every player who would pay at all and Xgranpercard/granperdollar*cardsperplayer + randomnessinflation for anyone who wants to gamble.

The thing is either players buying would be higher (from adding more -averse players to the pool) or randomnessinflation would be higher.

Oh, this only works if people are paying purely to get the deck they want and that they are in for the full ride. People paying to get avatars are definitely out there, people paying to support the game might be out there, people paying because they are only going to play for a little while are out there, but we definitely have people who will only pay for more cards with no randomness involved. Or maybe we don't because they left already, in which case they show a willingness to give up the game which means they might not keep with it and shouldn't be considered anyway.

This needs a tl;dr doesnt it. How about you either get less per person but more people from the people who will pay for choice but not lottery (existing and future) or you will get more money per person but fewer people from the people who aren't burned out from gambling, but I can't prove either.

[luckysvn777]

To be honest, i'm braindead right now, so i'll reread your post tomorrow and continue this. I just want to mention one thing about the first line though

Yes I expect errata, but its nigh impossible to balance a CCG completely, and there will always be meta files. I simply used the current meta as an example.

[Peralisc2]

Aren't hardcore players currently still dropping 99999 $$ just to get the cards they want? But we can't be all that rish and easy-giving. :/

You can drop 500 at lotto rarity up events and you get everything for sure, except EX.

[Phenoca]

I wouldn't want a single-card shop unless you paid gran in order to trade existing cards between players.

Reason: Everyone would buy the same cards, and make the same files. If you are limited by what others have, then you can ensure that there is more diversity.

[Xovian]

Reason: Everyone would buy the same cards, and make the same files. If you are limited by what others have, then you can ensure that there is more diversity.

I'd argue against this for two reasons.
Current players even top RP players have their own files, and they are also quite varied.
The other reason i disagree with the copy theme is, mirror files are the most annoying thing to play, and if it was common you would see a lot of people stop. It's easier to think players may have some common themes for some of the top files but many of them will achieve them through different means. This is so they can avoid mirror matches, backlashes are something that can go on for quite awhile in a mirror match, and that isnt fun for anyone.

On another note, if people have more cards to play with they are often going to make different files anyways.
The restriction of cards is more the cause of the problem in my opinion. Think about it, all the starters for each sphere are the same. They begin with "copy files" If they had more cards, how fast do they change the file so its different to avoid backlash vs same files. Gowen rush is common even at high end, but other then a few "required" cards, you can see a lot of diversity once the iczer has acquired new cards. Making this easier, as well as profitable to the company is certainly not a bad thing.