The Last Homely House
Undying Lands => Valinor => Topic started by: Legion on April 03, 2013, 08:42:08 AM
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I'm pretty sure everyone has noticed now that the merchant has gone out of control (and apparently slowing down games, too). People had been manipulating prices of cards in such a way that it was easy to make money by buying packs and selling the cards. Resetting all "my cards" was drastic (and very sad for me to lose all those promos/tengwars), but probably necessary. However, this will only temporarily stop the "merchant overload," so something will have to be done to stop this (if that's what we are going to do).
Therefore I have set up this poll to see what the community feels about what we should do to the merchant. Realistically I feel that there are 4 options, each with advantages and drawbacks.
1: Do nothing and keep the merchant as it is.
2: Allow the merchant to sell packs, but not singles.
3: Allow the merchant to continue to sell singles, but fix their prices, so their values never change.
4: Reset the merchant to its state before it changed a few months ago.
I'd imagine option 3 would then lead to a debate over the value of certain cards. I shall post my opinions later to try to keep this part of the thread as unbiased as possible.
There may be other alternatives (such as allow the merchant to only buy or only sell cards, but I reckon that they are not as feasible (or would practically fall into option 3)).
This poll does not come from MarcinS, so is not official in any way. However, I'm sure he'd like to know what the community feels about what should be done.
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I think that there should be a small amount of money paid (lets say 5$) to be able to play "my cards" and that casual games are free. This would surely cease the abuse (unless some1 has alot of money to spend irl), and some money for marcins for all the work he puts in.
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How difficult would it be to have the merchant just sell packs at its going rate, but allow the sellers of the cards key in a value they want their card to go for? The player that lists their card for the cheapest would get thier's sold first and once that supply is gone the player with the next cheapest copy would have their's sold. That might keep balance cause if someone values a Greenleaf at 500g someone else might have one they are willing to let go for 100g, that way the overly priced one has to wait to be sold until the ones people are letting go of for cheaper are sold and people just trying to over inflate cards have to wait for people with reasonable prices to sell their's first.
Either way I enjoy this program and whatever happens happens but since I posted an idea here I will cast my vote for removing the sale of singles and only selling packs as I think that is the best option of the four IMHO.
NK
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I think a one time big donation for access to merchant is a nice solution, but the best simple solution is to eliminate singles altogether. It encourages random jank in tournaments :)
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I was about to post the same thing, phew..
So I'm thinking about different ways to fix the 'my cards' system.
About the 1st of your points :
-New accounts start with no gold and they need to meet played games/amount of time requirements to be able to start "collecting".
-New accounts start with a sealed pool of unsellable/unsellable cards precon + boosters and NO gold.
In general I strongly believe new accounts shoudn't be allowed to be involved in the game economy from the start.
2: Allow the merchant to sell packs, but not singles.
This will make the dailies very luck dependent and near unplayable for some people. It is strictly worse than a sealed tournament.
3: This can partially solve the problem, however there will be a lot of arguing involved and many unhappy people (including me). Maybe the best decision from these 4...
4: No idea how was the merchant before that....
So this is my idea:
I do believe that the new accounts shoudn't be starting with any gold and receive it only when special circumstances are being met. Also no gold at the beginning of the week, some packs and league/tournament "ticket" for example instead. That involves the merchant selling more tickets for people who can afford to pay for them. It is kinda the same thing as it is right now, but less currency involved and more not-so exploitable stock.
This will allow new players to join tournaments with their tickets, from where they can expand their collection. They can still get lucky and open some good cards from their starter set or monday wage. Also I suggest some gold award at dailies and other tournaments and completely remove any other way to get gold besides selling cards and tournament wins.
Offtopic: There were some friendly comments about my collection since the reset- I would like to share how I've done it: At first - I was one of the few people who joined the site after the restart, so I've spend 120 gold on 6 top-quality rares. Then I bought 1 precon (Sam's starter from mount doom) and sold everything besides 2 Sams(I knew I was going to buy one more starter, since I need 4 Sam for my deck). I finished with like 10 gold ahead after doing this and reported it to MarcinS, asap. We realized it can't be done more than once with each card from the starters since the prizes were reduced drastically, so I bought another Sam starter, One gandalf starter and one Boromir, finishing selling near everything from those decks, leaving me with the cards I needed and 1 site path for each format. That left me with some more gold to spare, which I invested in good rares. After midnight before the late daily I received 50 gold more to buy Legolas, DH and stuff for my movie deck. I finshed 1st on the daily - 10 boosters. Won 2 or 3 more from the ongoing limited league. The next day I won the fellowship daily getting 10 more boosters. So I guess I was lucky to be from the first ones who joined the site and spent their time thinking for the best way to start the new "season".
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Now for my opinion.
Option 1 will lead to another crash in a few months time
Option 4 seems viable to me-the merchant wasn't out of control (I thought) before it changed a few months ago, But I have no idea if it can be abused.
Personally I don't like these options as I don't want there to even be a chance of a crash and me to lose all my cards again. You have no idea how much I miss my Tengwar ATAR and AI The Pale Blade :(
Option 2 is certainly the simplest, but I don't like the idea of having to build a collection with no way to get singles other than by luck. Starter decks aren't really viable as the contain 60 cards (not 71 which is the bare minimum for a deck), and for Hunters Block we don't even have them on sale. It was easy enough to turn the Gimli MoM starter into a viable deck, but you did need to have some cheap but rare cards. If there was a way to have a sealed (casual) draft game, that'd be awesome, but that's not how it works.
Plus, with this way there is next to no way to get Promos or Tengwar cards.
Therefore I'll have to go for option 3. Sorting out card values will be horrific. I mean terrible. However, once it is done we have a non abusable system (provided the prices of singles cost a bit too much, and sell for too little). I'd suggest that not much time is spent on arguing over prices, just get it done, and say tough to anyone who isn't happy. Provided the sell (to the merchant) average value for each set is less than the value of a pack, and its buy value is greater, I'll just deal with it.
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You could always provide starters for everyone if option 2 is decided upon, so everyone can participate in tournaments immediately, and maybe get more people in tournies that normally play casual. This would be a good time to put in dailies for other formats as well (towers standard, expanded, etc.). People would play any and all just to be able to win boosters.
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You could always provide starters for everyone if option 2 is decided upon, so everyone can participate in tournaments immediately, and maybe get more people in tournies that normally play casual. This would be a good time to put in dailies for other formats as well (towers standard, expanded, etc.). People would play any and all just to be able to win boosters.
The thing with that is that you need 11 good cards to make the decks semi viable-what are you going to do with a dwarf deck and a couple of Elf song and Lightfootedness clogging your deck with no elves? If the my card tournaments were all draft tournaments, that'd be fine, but you'll have no hope against a properly made deck.
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Of course not, but initially everyone could participate in the tournaments, and when some tournies go with only 8, they still have a chance to win a booster. Over time of course this would be useless, but if we do a reset/removal of the merchant, this way we can all go. I had to spend all my 200g on starters for movie/fellowship to make a viable deck, that now wins 5% of the time! :)
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I'm going to go with packs only and Nappy's suggestion -- i.e. have buy/sell prices determined by players and the "free market." ;) On GCCG there were several cards that were very expensive because they were HIGH in demand. Other junk rares were worthless.
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Of course not, but initially everyone could participate in the tournaments, and when some tournies go with only 8, they still have a chance to win a booster. Over time of course this would be useless, but if we do a reset/removal of the merchant, this way we can all go. I had to spend all my 200g on starters for movie/fellowship to make a viable deck, that now wins 5% of the time! :)
I'm talking more about people who join the game in a few months time. They'll have no chance to compete with the big kids. When I joined, I was able to build a very effective Hobbit Hospital/ Orc Banner deck for the FotR My Cards league for about 50 gold that won 66% of its matches against some all foiled decks. If you cannot buy singles, you'll never be able to do that (how many packs will you need to open to get 4 Orc Banners-a card not really worth more than 2-3 gold?)
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How difficult would it be to have the merchant just sell packs at its going rate, but allow the sellers of the cards key in a value they want their card to go for? The player that lists their card for the cheapest would get thier's sold first and once that supply is gone the player with the next cheapest copy would have their's sold. That might keep balance cause if someone values a Greenleaf at 500g someone else might have one they are willing to let go for 100g, that way the overly priced one has to wait to be sold until the ones people are letting go of for cheaper are sold and people just trying to over inflate cards have to wait for people with reasonable prices to sell their's first.
Either way I enjoy this program and whatever happens happens but since I posted an idea here I will cast my vote for removing the sale of singles and only selling packs as I think that is the best option of the four IMHO.
NK
I like the idea, but it does feel as though multiple accounts could abuse this easily by buying up commons that nobody else pays any attention to to jack that price up, whilst the main account sells for a profit. Plus I don't want to have to "bid" for a Goblin Armory using money I got from selling my Gondor Bowmen, if I may not get the card.
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Yeah, I guess we could think about those people :)
Or, you could pick 60 cards that you want, any cards, so at least you can start with your favorite deck :)
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It wouldn't be a bidding system. If player a thinks a Goblin Armory is worth say 800g and puts that as he asking price he will get if if nobody else tries to sell one for less. But if player b sees player a's armory for 800g and decides thats too much or just wants to sell theirs fast the could list it for 300g and theirs would show up in the merchant not player a's. Once player b's got bought then player a's would reappear for 800g. As for people abusing it the only way would be if someone decided to buy all the cheaper versions off the market so their copy would appear as the first listed. Even by doing that the take the chance constantly of getting undercut by others or by buying everything cheap and no willing to buy there more expensive copy. Not only that you would see who the seller was and if people started seeing who was trying to inflate costs they would have proof of it (and could complain if need be) or just avoid buying their cards and wait for someone else to list it cheaper.
NK
EDIT:
There were several people on gccg that tried to corner the market on certain cards and I either refused to buy from them or undercut them on prices until they eventually bought my copies and tried to jack the prices back up. The problem they would have is if others caught on to them they could make them pay by not buying from them or forcing them to buy their cheaper copies and 'TRY' to resell for higher later. This kinda puts the ball in the communities hands as well. If you suspect a player of trying to do this put the word out and others may refuse to buy from them.
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What was the merchant's state few months ago? I wouldnt know since i joined soon.
Otherwise I'm gonna go with Grond:
-New accounts start with no gold and they need to meet played games/amount of time requirements to be able to start "collecting".
-New accounts start with a sealed pool of unsellable/unsellable cards precon + boosters and NO gold.
In general I strongly believe new accounts shoudn't be allowed to be involved in the game economy from the start.
I like this option best, as me and some others enjoy the collecting part of the game.
P.S. Also, this:
I'm talking more about people who join the game in a few months time. They'll have no chance to compete with the big kids. When I joined, I was able to build a very effective Hobbit Hospital/ Orc Banner deck for the FotR My Cards league for about 50 gold that won 66% of its matches against some all foiled decks. If you cannot buy singles, you'll never be able to do that (how many packs will you need to open to get 4 Orc Banners-a card not really worth more than 2-3 gold?)
Exactly, plus part of the charm/chalenge for me when started was building the most effective deck with the least gold, and slowly perfecting it.
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I'm with Grond. Give new accounts no money, but a starter choice as well as 10 booster choices.
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Yeah, i actually like the merchant as it is (especially with the fixed sell/buy price system), if the multiple accounts exploits are put to an end.
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Hi all,
I haven't played that much on GEMP, but I voted for solution # 3 and would keep thinking its the sane one...
The idea to give out weekly tickets is good though.
We already know which cards are valuable and which are not.
And so far I have seen way too many decks repeated...
Take Towers Standard, its definition should be: a format in which everybody puts in a Legolas DH (and the 2 unbound hobbits off course).
Its that, with Aragorn somewhere in between and archery...
So perhaps pumping up the price of mostly demanded its logic, and could avoid everyone using the same thing (even though I could be strongly affected because I don't have as much gold nor can participate on tournaments easily).
By the way, there really should be a Movie format with no Galadriel LR and no Grond!
That's my 2 cents
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In addition, I'd give out tickets for My Cards tournaments for playing 20 - 30 casual games per week. Either for free or a reduced price.
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I strongly believe more and more that a tournament ticket based system in parallel with currency(gold) can work best. The bonus tickets for playing casual games is a good idea too! I would like to hear more comments on that!
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Here is my solution
1. Every player starts with 200g and a starter deck of their choosing from each block.
2. The merchant can sell packs, but not singles.
3. The merchant buys singles for prices dictated by the market.
4. The merchant allows players to trade 4 of any card for a foil version of that card.
5. League wins have their incentives changed to the following
1st, 3rd, 5th, ect win: 1 booster
2nd and 4th wins: 1 uncommon of the players choice
6th and 8th wins: 1 rare of the player’s choice
10th and 12th wins: 1 foil rare of the player’s choice
(1) allows players to participate immediately in each block. This will make it so that players don't have to choose between doing FOTR dailies and Movie dailies or TTT league vs. ROTK league. the 200g will allow players to reinforce the decks that they plan on playing most option.
(2) this will allow players to obtain more cards.
(3) this mitigates the randomness of (2). It will be harder to exploit because players will not be able to get a lot of any one card given the randomness of packs.
(4) foils are nice
(5) This will allow players to obtain cards faster and will mitigate the randomness of only allowing the merchants to sell packs.
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Take Towers Standard, its definition should be: a format in which everybody puts in a Legolas DH (and the 2 unbound hobbits off course).
Its that, with Aragorn somewhere in between and archery...
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By the way, there really should be a Movie format with no Galadriel LR and no Grond!
That's my 2 cents
I recently played about 20 TS games testing a new deck and I don't think I saw Legolas DH more than once.
Grond isn't bad compared to LR.
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5. League wins have their incentives changed to the following
1st, 3rd, 5th, ect win: 1 booster
2nd and 4th wins: 1 uncommon of the players choice
6th and 8th wins: 1 rare of the player’s choice
10th and 12th wins: 1 foil rare of the player’s choice
I lke this idea a lot and would like to see it no matter how or if the merchant situation is dealt.
I mean, 6 or 8 League wins are worth more than a random foil junk uncommon most of the time. Not to mention how you feel when for your 10th win you get a foil Strength of Kings or something like that..
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OK, the same caveat as the last time I commented on the merchant. I am an economist in real life so forgive any jargon.
Before we try to understand how to "fix" the merchant, it is important to recognize 1) what are its goals and 2) how is it not meeting those goals.
1) The goal of the merchant is to help distribute cards in a fair and consistent fashion to the people that value the cards the most given wealth. At a fair price, there will be some people with the card who value the card less than the price and so will sell it and others who value the card more and so will buy it, given enough wealth.
2) I believe that most people would agree that there are two primary ways in which the merchant does not seem to be working.
The first is "the exploit" where someone with multiple accounts manipulates the price of the merchant in order to sell the card at an inflated price. At least, I assume that is what the exploit is. The only person I know that has admitted to performing "the exploit" is Hugh-Jass (which is a great Simpson's reference). He claims that the exploit is still in the current system.
The second (and often related) problem is that sometimes prices do not reflect the true value of the card. While this problem will hopefully lessen if we can completely do away with "the exploit," I believe there are some corner cases where this problem could crop up again.
In my opinion, we should not switch to a trade system because any exploit that is possible with the merchant is doubly destructive with trade. Furthermore, trade has the tendency to exploit newcomers who do not know the true value of the card. A well designed merchant is like a trade system except it is evenly-applied and transparent. We should also not change the merchant to sell packs instead of singles or to be a fixed price, as this will make it much harder for someone to construct the deck they want and will not allow for the same flexible allocation of cards as the merchant or trading does.
So if the merchant is going to survive, what do we do? Well, to limit the exploit (as I believe it to be), we need to either raise the bar for someone to create a new account or lower what they start with. I prefer the former to the latter as I want truly new players to quickly become invested in the game. They should be able to make a deck that has a chance at winning.
Ideas to increase the difficulty in creating a new account include requiring an email account, making a $5 donation, creating a waiting period, playing a casual game (or two) before you get your starting gold, among others. I would prefer that we try to nip this exploit in the bud before we try to reform the entire merchant system.
As this is already a lengthy post and I have work to do, I will leave addressing the second issue to another day. Many thanks to everyone who makes this game and this site great.
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The thing is, if you want to participate in tournaments, you have to decide: tournament OR newcards. The ticket idea is a good one and should be implemented, or the tournament fee GREATLY reduced. If the tournament fee could be covered by a ticket, the exploits should mostly get away. If new accounts get starters and boosters instead of gold for the first week, the problem should be erased by 99%.
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only packs in merchant are the best choice!
100g/week or 5g booster pack. My card games will be more interesting and showing "true skill" ;)
maybe C and U could be in Merchant.
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:evil: i dont want to get into a trolling war over this. here is my piece. duelingnetwork.com is the yugioh version of lotrgemp but not in every way. this is not a rant to make gemp exactly the same as duelingnetwork, but DN for short, has alot of interesting points that i think would improve gemp.
1. DN has no merchant. all cards are able to be used for casual testing and tournaments. there is no my collection, just your deck garage.
2. DN has for its casual players a rating system to track how many game you have won and lost, along with a second number rating meaning your overall reputation on the site. are you a good or bad sport? these are all taken into your rating which is shown by xxxx/xxxx the first numbers being your rating in casual play and the second being your reputation number.
3. DN has 3 pools players can play in and only 1 of those pools allows a player to earn points to increase their rating. they are the traditional format where its no holds bar no ban list games end before your opponent can even get a first turn. this is like gemps format. the second format is the unrated advanced format where there is a ban list in effect and you can test decks here without fear of your rating going up or down. the last format is the advanced rated format where players play for the highest overall win rating. the reputation rating is just icing to some.
4. All DN tournaments being run in either pool or format can be chosen by players just like gemp but you already have access to all current cards in the game. again, there is no merchant. this allows much larger and in my opinion more fun tournaments.
5. why yugioh you ask? yugioh is the most popular tcg in the world. let it sink in for a second. the numbers have been proven. if you dont believe me check guiness world records. duelingnetwork had hundreds and yes thousands of players on at any given time. why? because of the free access to every card in the game. in yugioh the player base seems to care more about actually playing the game itself and grinding out the highest rating to see who really is the king. im sorry but gemp feels like it was designed for the collector and not the competitive lotr player.
for the sake of time i will stop here. if any of you want to register an account at duelingnetwork.com to see how it works go right ahead. even if you do not build a deck you can still go into the duel hall and click on the watch mode and watch the highest ranked players on at the time play a game.
please be kind to yugioh. it is the king of games after all. that is what yugioh literally means. i am simply a fierce fierce player in the tcg community. i am trying to make it to where gemp is flowing with players like duelingnetwork is.
TL/DR:
go to duelingnetwork.com register account and see why its the best. if gemplotr followed some of this sites ways it would increase our player base for tournament play.
but what about the prizes?!
if you win a tournament your prize should be a foil card of your choice. in the end you have a full foil deck only earned from tournament wins. bragging rights. and no merchant hassle. i am sorry to the collectors but i want to see lotr played in a more competitive atmosphere and not be limited to the massive public games.
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If you are such and competitive lotr player what have you won, how many tournaments or anything on gemp?
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djidjo you come off as such a power hungry nerd. lol you need to get out of your house more.
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djodjo...do you even lift bro? XD
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For me second way is the best. No merchant means no merchant crashes. It would mean, that road to having cool colection will be much longer but funnier.
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I think the ability to buy boosters AND singles is one of the best of this site, and I do not wish a stupid guy who found out about the exploit should ruin the experience for the rest of us.
I vote keep merchant as it is, and don't let this happen again. If for some reason a card skyrockets, you should shut down merchant imediately and restart merchant prices.
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Maybe capping commons at say, 10g, uncommons at 100g, and rares at 1000g? or 5/50/500? I think that just might slow it down, tho.
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Hi. I think there is a bug whem Madril 15R64 activate his +1 roaming for each threat in the start of maneuver. Minions stacked in possession (like 17C66) are being made romaing too. The rules says: "Stacked cards are not in play and are not active. You cannot spot them." Even cards in discard pile, entering the game after the "start of maneuver", are roaming!!!
Can you see this for me. Is that a bug, right?
Sorry about my english.
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OK, the same caveat as the last time I commented on the merchant. I am an economist in real life so forgive any jargon.
Before we try to understand how to "fix" the merchant, it is important to recognize 1) what are its goals and 2) how is it not meeting those goals.
1) The goal of the merchant is to help distribute cards in a fair and consistent fashion to the people that value the cards the most given wealth. At a fair price, there will be some people with the card who value the card less than the price and so will sell it and others who value the card more and so will buy it, given enough wealth.
I'd like to revisit #1, because it has never been clear to me what the goal of the gemp merchant is. I feel like I know what its goal is SUPPOSED to be, and that is:
*To give players a collecting experience that mirrors the collecting experience in real life, back when cards were still being made.
...But it seems to me that the gemp merchant has never come remotely close to that goal, nor has it even tried to. To my mind, it has overcomplicated the process, and yet ultimately created an environment that is nothing like real-life collecting was and is. The merchant seems overly focused on simulating an economy, and not focused enough on what the end-results are, i.e. the experience had by the players.
2) I believe that most people would agree that there are two primary ways in which the merchant does not seem to be working.
The first is "the exploit" where someone with multiple accounts manipulates the price of the merchant in order to sell the card at an inflated price. At least, I assume that is what the exploit is. The only person I know that has admitted to performing "the exploit" is Hugh-Jass (which is a great Simpson's reference). He claims that the exploit is still in the current system.
I think that's part of it. I think another part of it is people using multiple fake accounts to start a tournament, and then letting their main account win the tournament and get the biggest prize support.
The second (and often related) problem is that sometimes prices do not reflect the true value of the card. While this problem will hopefully lessen if we can completely do away with "the exploit," I believe there are some corner cases where this problem could crop up again.
It seems to me that the only sure-fire way of doing away with the exploit, is to fix-price and/or price-cap all of the cards. If users cannot influence the prices of cards, then there is no exploit.
In my opinion, we should not switch to a trade system because any exploit that is possible with the merchant is doubly destructive with trade.
I tend to agree... although trading is a big part of the real-life experience. Without it, gemp can't really simulate that.
We should also not change the merchant to sell packs instead of singles or to be a fixed price, as this will make it much harder for someone to construct the deck they want and will not allow for the same flexible allocation of cards as the merchant or trading does.
I'm with you on the first part. I don't really see the point of a merchant that won't sell singles (I'm amazed this idea is so popular!), and in my experience the card distribution when buying packs from the merchant can be really terrible. If there is no option to buy singles, it's all down to luck.
I disagree with you on fixing prices, though. How would fixing prices make it harder for someone to construct a deck they want? Just make all prices uniformly reasonable. Say, all commons cost 1g, all uncommons cost 5g, all rares cost 50g. Sure, some rares will be more popular than others. But WHO CARES???
Is it really necessary to have fluctuating prices for a fake economy dealing in virtual cards that don't really exist?
I prefer the former to the latter as I want truly new players to quickly become invested in the game. They should be able to make a deck that has a chance at winning.
I've been here for months now, and the current systems have not helped me become invested in anything gold-related. I never used any exploits, and found it far too difficult to create a viable deck of My Cards that I actually wanted to play. I was also annoyed and discouraged by sealed deck leagues that don't let you keep the sealed deck cards. I finally put forth the effort (without exploits) to build my first viable My Cards deck... which was then promptly erased by MarcinS when he reset the system. So, my current impulse it to just say screw the merchant, the gold, and anything "My Cards" related, and just play casual.
I also feel like the current gemp environment is biased against players who want to play Expanded Format. That's pretty much all I really want to do: Play in Expanded Format leagues and tournaments. Expanded Format is one of the top three most-played formats on Gemp, yet it doesn't get very many leagues, nor does it get a Daily tournament. So, Gemp is not catering to what I really want to do, other than casual play.
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I don't really see the point of a merchant that won't sell singles (I'm amazed this idea is so popular!),
I'm surprised too. What good is the merchant, when you cant buy the cards you need for your decks? Like someone said earlier, it will be real hard for new players to build decent decks, when they have to buy multiple boosters until they get a set of say Isengard Warrior (not to mention if they need some rare, thats crucial for their deck strategy)...
I'm a fan of the thicket idea Grond suggested (http://lotrtcgwiki.com/forums/index.php/topic,8468.0.html (http://lotrtcgwiki.com/forums/index.php/topic,8468.0.html)), its smart, helps new players and everyone who wants to play tournaments, and makes multiple account exploit not possible.
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Don't be amazed or surprised. One of the refreshing things to come out of the reboot is the lack of multiple power cards. I've seen 6+ fellowship sizes creeping in, more condition-based shadows, no more fear of archery, etc. The people who are continually winning tournies are the ones that bought singles with their 200/250 gold, as opposed to the people who only bought starters (like me). Starting over is like what we did when the game first came out irl: With the option of trading being the only method of getting some rares, store owners weren't selling singles yet, or they were in small quantities, and Ebay wasn't as popular as it is now.
When I first started playing irl, I didn't know people well enough to trade, so I made my decks around the few rares I opened. I'm guessing that was the case for a lot of people where there weren't organized tournaments. If you like a certain deck so much, then do what I had to do when I first got on Gemp, play sealed leagues for boosters until I was able to cobble together a deck with my pack winnings. I didn't bother with the merchant for a few months until I needed to "tweak" my decks for My Cards leagues. I didn't have much gold as everything I got was being spent on starters and leagues (this is before the dailies were in place).
Or if people are so concerned about having their "best deck", let everyone choose their 60-70 favorite cards (1 credit per card, regardless of rarity), then shut down the merchant for that person when they spend their credits. However, the multiple accounts will skyrocket then, and it defeats the point of collecting, which shutting down will only increase the fun. I still think the best option is to shut down the singles altogether to eliminate the abuse, and maybe bring down the cost of packs.
You wanna play for fun? Play casual. You want an even playing field? Play sealed. You wanna collect and play 'My Cards', then yer gonna have to work for it over time, and become a very good with the jank you have. Working as intended.
I think the voting reflects that this is what the majority prefer. Most of us didn't come to rl tournaments with internet purchased decks, but I know the percentage of people that did, and I see that :P and that's not an attempt at a bitter burn, just the reality.
My .02
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Maybe another option would be to have a merchant My Cards, and a non-singles HardCore Collector's Cards.... :-k
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You know, on second thought, I can actually get behind the idea of having no way to buy singles. It seems to me the best thing to do with the My Cards stuff, is to make it as DIFFERENT from Casual as possible. In Casual, you have as many copies as you want, of whatever card you want.
For My Cards, if there truly is NO WAY to get a specific single, then it all becomes like one gigantic never-ending sealed deck event, one where you actually get to KEEP THE CARDS you use. I like that. However, just a couple of things:
You wanna play for fun? Play casual.
We should ALL be playing for fun, regardless of the format. Having fun is one of the primary objectives of the game.
You want an even playing field? Play sealed.
If we go this route, then it basically IS sealed, just on a larger scale.
I do wish there were daily tournaments for the people who like Casual, though.
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Nah, I play 'my cards' for the competition, and it isn't fun, not in the disney cotton candy care bear sense of fun, but in the sweaty hands, consequences-for-my-actions, throw my computer "fun". :)
I should have used a better word, but I can't think of it atm.
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Nah, I play 'my cards' for the competition, and it isn't fun, not in the disney cotton candy care bear sense of fun, but in the sweaty hands, consequences-for-my-actions, throw my computer "fun". :)
Can't see that I really see a difference, beyond just caring about the outcome of the game you play. So, for some reason you care when you're limited to "My Cards" only, but you don't care when you have the option to build a deck exactly the way you want it?
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Pretty much... I've noticed I care less about my games now that they are casual. In fact, I haven't played any casual games except towers standard because I want more towers leagues from the stats, and cause I'm working on anti-dauntless decks in the hopes of a towers standard daily in the future. I just can't get excited about a game when there's access to all cards, but that's me, and I'm sure I'm in the minority. I'll take sealed over anything any day.
But then, I've been playing for a very, very long time.
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I havent been following everything too closely, but I see to have gone from over 2000 gold to 200 gold. Was there a reset? Or just something bugged?
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Pretty much... I've noticed I care less about my games now that they are casual. In fact, I haven't played any casual games except towers standard because I want more towers leagues from the stats, and cause I'm working on anti-dauntless decks in the hopes of a towers standard daily in the future.
That makes it sound like you care more because it's a league or a tournament, rather than because you don't get to build a deck the way you want.
I just can't get excited about a game when there's access to all cards, but that's me, and I'm sure I'm in the minority. I'll take sealed over anything any day.
I like sealed okay, but I definitely prefer constructed.
But then, I've been playing for a very, very long time.
I don't think that can have much to do with it, since you can't possibly have been playing longer than I have.
I havent been following everything too closely, but I see to have gone from over 2000 gold to 200 gold. Was there a reset? Or just something bugged?
Everyone's gold was reset because some people were unfairly gaming the system to increase their own gold. I suggest they don't bother trying it again, because the gold will simply get reset again. A lot of work for nothing but aggravation for everyone else.
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Also my "my cards" and unopened packs are gone. Is this the same reason?
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Your length of playtime has nothing to do with mine. The constructed meta-shift game for *me* is more of a rock/paper/scissors, and if that's my illusion, or the result of my perceived ADD, then so be it. So as much as *I* have played the game, constructed has gotten old. The quest for the perfect deck and playing each and every combo is not my goal (I have never played dunland, DH, PATHs, corsairs and countless other cards cuz of their lack of dimension and NPEness, nor do I plan to) thus I have reached a sort of 'end game' for casual play. Now 'My Cards', and randomness of sealed, that's good times for me. Since I'm here for my enjoyment, that's my .02.
Sorry to get all personal about myself, I'm sure many don't care, but that's what was behind my statement. In constructed casual I feel like an old man who's seen it all (or all I care to). Now the end result of this evolution of course means I get every card, or all my opponents do, and that's when I'll revert to sealed, most likely. However, the longer I can prolong it, the elimination of singles is why I voted as such.
If all of my casual games could be sealed, I'd go for that :)
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Offtopic:
sgtdraino just out of curiosity, on how many big tournaments (constructed), you have been on ?
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I have no idea. I never kept count.