What should we do with the Merchant?

[Legion]

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.

[UnPapayaCoconut]

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.

[NappyKorn]

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

[Skeeve]

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

[Grond]

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".

[Legion]

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.

[Skeeve]

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.

[Legion]

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.

[Skeeve]

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!

[Kralik]

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.

[Legion]

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?)

[Legion]

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.

[Skeeve]

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

[NappyKorn]

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.

[Cthulhu]

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.