What should we do with the Merchant?

[Eukalyptus]

I'm with Grond. Give new accounts no money, but a starter choice as well as 10 booster choices.

[Cthulhu]

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.

[daisukeman]

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

[Eukalyptus]

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.

[Grond]

 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!

[fenix]

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.

[Kralik]

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...

...
 
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.

[Cthulhu]

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..

[sdevelyn]

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.

[Eukalyptus]

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%.

[freelanc3r]

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.

[Squeeze-Play]

  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.

[Grond]

If you are such and competitive lotr player what have you won, how many tournaments or anything on gemp?

[Squeeze-Play]

djidjo you come off as such a power hungry nerd. lol you need to get out of your house more.

[Squeeze-Play]

djodjo...do you even lift bro?