Gemp-LotR Merchant explained - Q&A

[hsiale]

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.

I don't play in Collector's (or any other constructed) leagues for at least half a year (because Sealed is more fun for me and I have no time for two leagues running simultaneously so I choose Sealed). I collect cards purely for the fun of collecting. And the fun (for me, though I guess it's the same for most people who want to collect cards) is in seeing a nice row of "4" next to each card. Not to see a row of random numbers and trying to get all of them above 4. I don't want to have more than 4 of a single card because for me this makes my collection worse.

Of course the number 4 is completely arbitrary, so I'd prefer to leave the choice of his number to each collector (I guess 1, 4 and 8 will be most popular, the last to get two playsets and later turn one into a set of foils).

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.

Things change once you pull 500+ cards you don't need at once

[bibfortuna25]

That's why I've always suggested that MarcinS add the ability to sell multiple cards at once.

This new merchant is an absolute failure. It sounds good in theory, but there are just so many problems with it. Please change it back.

[butemin]

About the merchant limited format.

I agree with MarcinS it is necessary to add this constraints, is always possible to abuse of the system just by demand or being clever about which league may be upcoming at a very good time. Nevertheless, I do also agree with Nitsuj about the HUGE handicap against the new players.

I propose the following: (before saying no please read)

Trading available: this will definitively help newbies (in the site) to form a collection, is clear i would prefer to trade 1 of my aragorn's bow than sell it and when trying to buy an armory see that i need to sell another one. And for them i am sure it will depend on their meta game.

how to avoid "dirty strategies" to get a bigger collection with many accounts?: Weekly payment will be as 50D (diamonds i dont know to mention a currency); Diamonds will only work to pay for tournament entrances. G - Gold and s- Silver will continue to work as usual for card transactions but there will be no weekly payment, the ONLY way to earn gold is gonna be through tournaments (and not by winning games, but by position)

Prizes for collectors tournaments may be better to encourage participation.

Explanation of why it works:

1. Newbies may try for first, non-collector tournaments. Earn money and by trading rapidly build a decent deck.
2. Since you wont earn gold periodically by doing "nothing", the only way to cheat now is to make 10 accounts and participate in tournaments but this is quite exhausting and actually can already be done in the present configuration.
3. Better prizes (for collectors) do not represent an advantage over new players, why? because only the first 3 places (under a low mutiplier proportion maybe) are gonna get them, the thing: make it really hard to win this prizes as in real torunaments.

Well, I have no clue how hard is it to program trading, but for sure should not be a problem now paying attention to trades cause they are no profitable. Hope my idea is not stupid.

[MarcinS]

That's why I've always suggested that MarcinS add the ability to sell multiple cards at once.

This new merchant is an absolute failure. It sounds good in theory, but there are just so many problems with it. Please change it back.

Whatever merchant there will be in place (old or new or anything different), it will never anymore buy any card (think of all the useless commons everyone has in their collections). It makes absolutely no sense for the system to do that. The fact it was there in the first place, was because when merchant was set up, I had no way of configuring it to know, which cards are useless, and which are not.

So, your only complaint now, is that this ability was taken away from you, after you had it. If it was not there from the start, and merchant was able to distinguish junk cards and never offer to buy them, you would be absolutely fine and would totally accept an argument, that noone would ever want this card.

Please, do not judge the new system, and make (false) assumptions, based on it operating for 5 hours only. The old merchant has broken many other parts of the system (league prizes among other things), and I'm hoping that fixing this issue, will bring other parts to normal operation.

[MarcinS]

Well, I have no clue how hard is it to program trading, but for sure should not be a problem now paying attention to trades cause they are no profitable. Hope my idea is not stupid.

It's not very difficult, but your system can only be successful if there is no way of exchanging diamonds into cards (or gold). In other words - we would have to remove game win prizes from leagues. This would also make it very difficult (or even impossible) to introduce on-demand 8-player tournaments, for exactly the same reason.

I'm quite sure, if it was possible to make such system possible and safe, other free-to-play systems with trading would be out there already. Judging by the fact, that other systems use single-merchant as Gemp-LotR does, we can assume that this is the correct way to do this.

And if you think people don't already try to cheat the system - let me just give a small stat. Since the Gemp-LotR was established, I have banned over 800 accounts... yes, there are villains out there, some of them multiple offenders.

[bibfortuna25]

The way I see it, the purpose behind prize packs is to add more product to a player's collection. But in every pack, there are bound to be useless cards. Whether it is a card no one uses, like Cast It Into The Fire, or a card you don't need more than X of, or it is a card that a player just doesn't want, there are always redundant cards in each pack. But those cards should still have some value. Was it really hurting the system to sell random useless commons back to the merchant for 1S each? Apart from the weekly allowance, there's no way to earn gold except for selling cards. Even if every card you pull is crap, you should be able to sell each card in order to get SOME profit out of it.

No one that I know of ever bought packs with the hope of finding a specific card, even in real life. The odds are always against you in that scenario. If you want a specific card, the best way is to buy a single. Sure, IRL, the amount of physical cards is a finite number, which means some singles might not be available in some areas. But there's still no reason to simulate that shortage here, even if it is temporary as you claim.

[butemin]

yes i agree, but my argument is that exactly the ONLY way to cheat would be... to cheat like is done TODAY.

The argument, means that trading would not affect the current system of cheating but would give a fair way to mix merchant and participation for everyone. Anyway, still when there could be people with 10 accounts and trying to win a torunament wouldnt be possible because at least ive never seen top 10 people i dont know.

Of course would be needed to suprime booster prizes from winning matches.

  

[MarcinS]

yes i agree, but my argument is that exactly the ONLY way to cheat would be... to cheat like is done TODAY.

The cheating today, is not affecting the economy and player's collection. I don't really know what do these player want to achieve. Some of them join sealed leagues with multiple accounts to find an account that gets a good card pool, some of them join sealed leagues to increase end-of-league prizes.

[Nitsuj]

It is sort of possible to trade now, with the merchant only having finite stock.  I could start a ghost account, buy boosters, when I pull a savagery, go to the merchent to sell it, and then on another browser session go and buy it.  This didn't really matter in the old system, as the ghost account had no real incentive to sell anything to the merchent - but now its a way to farm hard-to-get rares.

[butemin]

by the way, if they do this to increase prizes. Well why not using multipliers depending on the number of matches played in the league

[MarcinS]

It is sort of possible to trade now, with the merchant only having finite stock.  I could start a ghost account, buy boosters, when I pull a savagery, go to the merchent to sell it, and then on another browser session go and buy it.  This didn't really matter in the old system, as the ghost account had no real incentive to sell anything to the merchent - but now its a way to farm hard-to-get rares.

PLEASE, in a few days, situation when merchant is out of stock SHOULD NOT be happening. We are currently in a transition state, and you're jumping to conclusions!

[MarcinS]

by the way, if they do this to increase prizes. Well why not using multipliers depending on the number of matches played in the league

I'd rather have the prizes be fixed, now that we have some good number of players, which is something we might come up with soon.

[hsiale]

Whatever merchant there will be in place (old or new or anything different), it will never anymore buy any card (think of all the useless commons everyone has in their collections)

But then there needs to be another way to get rid of the cards you don't want.

Look at those two pictures:
http://img171.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=114798841_cards2_122_1173lo.JPG
http://img140.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=114652256_cards1_122_552lo.JPG

The first one is pleasant to look at. The second is a complete mess. For me, first one is collecting, second is hoarding. And I would really like to be able to change what I see on the second picture into nice collection like on the first. Otherwise collecting loses all appeal to me. Within the system we have today I can aim only at all-255 collection, but I won't live long enough (I expect it will take me around further 2,5-3 years to finish the all-4 one, provided I can remain one of the top sealed league players).

A way to get rid of unneeded cards even if they have 0 market value is not needed for those who care only about strength of their deck. But it also won't do them any harm. And it will allow for fun of collecting sets, playsets, foil sets and so on.

[sgtdraino]

A question: can you still exchange 4 copies of any card for a foil version?

And would the merchant buy a foil version of a card, when it's refusing the buy the regular version?

If so, it seems to me you could convert a bunch of your garbage cards to foils, and then sell them to the merchant.

Still, talk about a huge PITA!

[hsiale]

Two problems:
- it will take huge amount of money (each conversion takes 4 cards and 2 Gold)
- this way, I can get rid of extra cards if I have 8, 12, 16 and so on copies, but this doesn't work for cards that I own a number of copies that is not a multiple of 4.