[dishnet34]

Hey everyone, dishnet/Rob here!

I've seen a lot of questions get asked about Combinator Cards and how they work over the last month or so, so I figured I'd take some time today with some of the OOTPD developers to talk with them about how they work and what to do to make them work!
If we missed anything with this explanation, let me know!


Rob: So, um, I got these cards with red backs on them when I opened a pack. What the heck are they?
OOTPD: These cards with red backs are Combinator Cards! These are special historical cards that have boosted stats compared to their base-model. Any historical card (including Future Legend) that can be pulled from a card pack has a slim chance to become a Combinator Card! These can then be combined with other cards in your collection to boost their abilities further! Limited Edition cards are not eligible to become combinators.
Iron and Bronze cards have 1:400 odds (ie. 1 of every 400 iron cards pulled should come out as a combinator). Silver cards have 1:200 odds. Gold, Diamond, and Perfect cards have 1:100 odds.

Rob: Why do these things exist?
OOTPD: We wanted to give people some variety in the card pool this year, and being able to boost up cards is something we’ve wanted to try out. It allows for more variety in lineups, as some users may attempt to leverage a combinator card of theirs with boosts, and to extend the useful life of a combinator card for those who can get them.

Rob: You mentioned boosting the card’s abilities? What does that mean?
OOTPD: Each Combinator Card, once pulled, has a slight boost to their abilities compared to their base model. At Level 0, shown here, you can see that there’s a 1 or 2-point boost in each of these players’ categories. These can be further boosted up to 5 additional levels to get more of an increase in their abilities, using cards in your collection. How much of an increase depends on how high the abilities are, but usually these can end up anywhere from 8-15 additional points in each category.
The higher a card’s base stats in a rating are, the higher boost they will receive. So someone with a 100 power rating will receive more combinator boosts than someone with a 30 rating.





Rob: What are these levels you speak of?
OOTPD: Each card can be boosted up to five additional levels from their base combinator edition. Think of it like this:

• Level -1: base card (just like all the cards in PT24 and before)
• Level 0: base combinator card (this is what you get from packs and the card shop)
• Level 1 to 5: upgraded combinator card with increased stats

When you pull a combinator card, you can view what their ratings will look like at each level on their player card screen by hovering over the colored stars in the top right corner of the page.
Each level also has a different color associated with it; Level 0 is red, Level 1 is orange, Level 2 is yellow, Level 3 is green, Level 4 is light blue, and Level 5 is dark blue.



Rob: So, how do I boost this card I got to get it to these different levels?
OOTPD: In the game, we have something called the Card Combinator. This is where you’ll be boosting your cards to get them to these different levels.
To start combinating a card, click on the card you want to boost from the dropdown on the left side of your screen. All the combinator cards you own that aren’t fully boosted to Level 5 will be listed here.
Once you select a Combinator Card you want to attempt to boost, you will see a list of historical cards in your collection on the right side of the screen that can be used to combinate with the card, each with different point values attached to them. These point values take into account several factors:

• Teammates (This is what people consider to be one of the most valuable attributes for boosting; the longer a card has been a teammate with the Combinator Card you want to boost, the more value it has.)
• The team of the card (Sharing a team with the card in question gives it more value; however, due to technical limitations, at this time teams in the same franchise but with different locations or team names in their history, like the Brooklyn Dodgers/Los Angeles Dodgers and St. Louis Browns/Baltimore Orioles, do not give this boost)
• The decade/year of the card (Cards that played in the same decade/year as the card in question gives it more value for boosting.)
• Card Type (Having the same card type, like All-Star, Snapshot, or Hardware Heroes, gives the card more value for a boost.)
• Combining a combinator card with other Combinator Cards can also give a decent amount of points for combinating as well.

This result of the point value is then multiplied with a factor based on the OVR and whether or not the card is a Live one.

However, while many cards can be used to combinate with a Combinator, Live cards below Gold and cards on your active roster cannot be used to combinate a card. You can use up to 500 cards in any boost attempt.

So, in essence, the better the relationship score based on the above factors, the higher the amount of points they are worth in any boost attempt.



Rob: How many points do I need to boost this card?
OOTPD: It depends on the card tier and which level you want to boost it to. However, the more points you put into a single boost, the better your chances are of a successful boost. You cannot do multiple levels of boosts at once. Each time you successfully boost a card up a level, the amount of points needed to boost it to the next level increases.

For example to boost an Iron (55) Combinator card from level 0 to 1 you will need 1777 boost points for a 100% success rate.

Rob: I have a card that requires 6,000 points to boost up – why does putting 420 points into a boost give me a 1 percent chance and not a 7 percent chance? Isn’t that, like, basic math?
OOTPD: While you are technically right that 420 divided by 6,000 is .07, which translates to 7 percent, the relationship between the chance of boosting and how many points you put in is not a linear function when it comes to combinating, it’s on an S-curve. So it will take a certain number of points before the odds start increasing faster, to encourage collecting a group of cards together in a single attempt.

Here are the points to odds correlation graphs for an Iron (55), a Gold (82) and a Perfect card to reach the different levels.







Rob: What happens to the cards I use to attempt a boost?
OOTPD: Any cards used to attempt a boost of a Combinator Card will be removed from your collection. My advice is to be cautious with your boost, and boost when you believe you’ll have a good chance of success. Depending on personal preference, you can wait until you get to 100% to boost, but I’ve heard of people having successful boosts at a 56% chance of success, and failed boosts at an 80% chance of success.

Locked cards for collections/missions are eligible to be used to combinate a card as well, but these will also be removed from your collection once used. They do not impact missions that have already been completed, but if the card is used in a mission later, you would need to acquire it again to use in that future mission.

Rob: I got a message that “The Combinator Points between client and server differ.” What gives?
OOTPD: We are aware of the issues some people are having with boosting some cards and getting this error message. We’re trying to pinpoint the cause of this, and highly encourage you to send in screenshots of who you’re trying to combinate and what cards you’re attempting to use when filing a report. This can help the team try to pinpoint the issue.
The error means that the client calculated a different points total and therefore chance then the server and to avoid you having a different chance then displayed the combination process is aborted.

Rob: Can I use these cards in league and tourney play?
OOTPD: You can use Combinator Cards in league and tournament play. For tournaments, the level they are currently at in league play is the level they’ll be at for the tourney. If the level of a card is increased in league play, the level of the card will be increased in tourneys, including active tournaments.

Rob: What exactly gets boosted when I successfully boost a card?
OOTPD: The player’s hitting ratings, pitching ratings and position ratings get boosted up for every successful boost. Like I mentioned before, this can be anywhere from 8 to 13 points depending on how high the attribute was to begin with.



Rob: Why not the defensive ratings? Don’t those influence position ratings?
OOTPD: That’s a great question. Due to some technical issues of how defensive ratings are calculated and used, the individual component ratings are not shown boosted on the cards, but in-game the actual defensive performance will use the boosted ratings. So some of the in-game defensive values will play higher than the component ratings shown on the player profile.

Rob: What happens if I don’t want to do this combinator stuff, then? How can I get rid of these cards?
OOTPD: You are able to sell your cards on the Combinator Card Shop, which is a similar, but separate Card Shop that exclusively sells only Combinator Cards. However, when you sell a card, the player that purchases the card will get the Level 0 version of the card, not the level you had it boosted to when it was sold.

Rob: Why do these minimum sell prices for combinators exist?
OOTPD: The minimum prices were set to ensure that users would not be able to illegally pass combinator cards between accounts for cheap prices. The team is monitoring the activity and may decide to adjust the minimum prices.

Rob: Can’t I quicksell these things?
OOTPD: You cannot quicksell a Combinator Card at the moment. We will maybe change this in the future.

Rob: Why not? These cards are clogging my collection and I can’t get rid of them!
OOTPD: At the very least, even without attempting any boost, they will play at a level above a regular card, and can still be used anywhere a normal card would, in tournament, in missions, etc… They may gain extra value later, if, for example, a future tournament applies a roster restriction that makes that card more useful (i.e. A tournament limited to the era that card is from).
You may also use them to boost other combinator cards of yours. By default, they have a special value that can apply to any other combinator card boost attempt, so can help you boost a card that you feel you have more use for. You need to ensure that the checkbox on the combinator is set correctly to see them.



Rob: So, with all this said, should I take advantage of these Combinator Cards?
OOTPD: We think so, but it’s completely up to you! These cards can be very valuable for both League play and Tournament play, but it’s up to you what to do with them – you can keep them, boost them, use them for combinating, sell them off, whatever you want.

Again, this is something new we’re trying for Perfect Team 25, and we’re always looking to make improvements. If you have any suggestions for how to improve Combinator Cards, please let us know!

Rob: Thanks for the explanation! What if I have more questions?
OOTPD: You can ask them in this thread, and one of us will give an answer!