Gemp-LotR Merchant explained - Q&A

[hsiale]

I just pulled a Masterwork card from a Black Rider booster. Merchant values it exactly the same as regular version - shouldn't it be worth more due to being a lot more rare? BTW, how likely is it to pull such card?

[Gartax]

I wondered when we will be able to buy ROTK starters?

[MarcinS]

I wondered when we will be able to buy ROTK starters?

After next restart.

[Air Power]

Is the probability of getting a R+ in a reflections booster the same as in real life (10 R+/box or probability of 0.41 per pack)?  I've opened 15 packs and only gotten 2 R+.  I know that this could happen with the normal drop rate, but it seems exceedingly unlikely

[MarcinS]

Is the probability of getting a R+ in a reflections booster the same as in real life (10 R+/box or probability of 0.41 per pack)?  I've opened 15 packs and only gotten 2 R+.  I know that this could happen with the normal drop rate, but it seems exceedingly unlikely

For each card in the R/R+ reflection slot in a booster a card is randomly selected from a pool of cards containing 4 copies of each R reflections card and 1 copy of each R+ cards.

Considering there are 26 R cards and 26 R+ cards, a chance of getting an R+ card in a slot is 20%. Therefore a chance of getting a specified number of R+ cards in a Reflections booster is as follows:
0 - 80%*80% = 64%
1 - 2*(20%*80%) = 32%
2 - 20%*20% = 4%

In case of a box (24 boosters), you get 48 R/R+ cards, so on average you'd be getting 48*20% R+ cards, so 9.6 R+ cards, which is close to what you're describing was happening in real life (10 R+).

[hsiale]

By the way, wouldn't it be a good idea (as Reflections booster costs 20G, all others 10) to make it possible to get a Reflections booster in return for 2 booster choices?

[ellesar]

and how are the rarities of the other cards in a reflection booster determined.
because i've opened reflection boosters with no rares in it (save the 2 from the reflection series itself)
but I also once had a reflection booster with 3 extra rares. isn't there a fixed distribution (like the 1R/3U/7C in regular boosters)

[Ringbearer]

Nope, reflections is like a box of chocolates, you will never know what you get.

I just wonder if we have god boosters in here as well.

[ellesar]

i like good boxesof chocolat: i once opened a booster with 3 good rares: total selling price of that reflection booster was probably around 150 gold.
but other boosters with just 15 common or so that are pretty useless or i could buy for 2 silver
It always makes me feel down when i open such a useless box of reflections :p

[bibfortuna25]

I'll never forget the time I pulled 3 foils out of a single ROTK pack. I even remember which ones! Cirion, King's Advisor and Gandalf, Manager of Wizards.

[hsiale]

Could you explain here how the new merchant works?

Also, now that it's no longer possible to sell off any cards you don't want, could you introduce "merchant settings" - two numbers X and Y we can set so that every time a booster I open contains a card that:
- the merchant doesn't want to buy,
- I already have at least X copies of it,
- I could buy it from the merchant for Y or less,
this card is not added to my collection and destroyed instead.

Also a possibility to destroy cards neither I nor merchant wants would be useful. My BoHD, EoF and SoG playsets look cool because I have exactly 4 copies of each card, not because I have at least 4 (end especially double digits look awful, and after opening 60 packs two days ago there are some FotR cards I have 10 or more of).

[bibfortuna25]

MarcinS, please change the merchant back to the way it was. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. There was nothing wrong with the way the system was functioning prior to this morning.

[MarcinS]

Could you explain here how the new merchant works?

Merchant maintains a stock of cards (how many it owns), a starting value is the difference of how many it sold and bought while the old merchant was working.
- If stock<=0, merchant doesn't sell that card, only buys, and the prize for the card rises over time until next transaction.
- If 0<stock<100, merchant both sells and buys the card, prize for the card lowers over time until next transaction,
- If 100<=stock, merchant doesn't buy that card, only sells, and the prize for the card lowers over time until next transaction.

After each transaction, the price of a card is increased/decreased (depending if it was buy or sell transaction) by 10%.

For the purposes of merchant, all card types and variants are equal, with only one exception. Merchant will always buy a foil version of a card, even if it has full stock of the card, and foil card price is always double the normal card value.

You can have a maximum of 255 of a single card, so there should be no problem with owning more than 4 of it. I don't see any value in "destroying" cards.

[MarcinS]

MarcinS, please change the merchant back to the way it was. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. There was nothing wrong with the way the system was functioning prior to this morning.

It was broke. As many people pointed out - boosters were practically worthless. There was absolutely no incentive to open or even buy them, as singles were always cheaper and also always available at the merchant.

The perfect system (IMO) is one, where average value of cards you open in a pack is equal to the price of a booster. This was not the case in the old system, and has a good shot at being this way in the new one.

[bibfortuna25]

Boosters have use for prize winnings. Singles have use for buying/selling. There's no point in changing something that no one had any problem with. Me, I enjoyed selling a lot of my random commons for 1S each every time I pulled stuff I didn't want in a pack. It's a way to increase my overall gold total a little at a time. Now I have even less incentive to open packs.

I sell cards back to the merchant for two reasons:

1) To clean out the clutter from my inventory
2) To gain more gold so I can buy the singles I want.

Now I can't do either one of those, since the uber rare singles are the ones you can't buy anymore.

Or perhaps we should put it to a vote?