Suggestion: Add a Mission Bottleneck Protection System

[alanohio]

One issue I have noticed in Perfect Team is that some missions become effectively locked because one or two required cards are extremely scarce or priced far beyond their practical value. In these cases, the mission may technically remain available, but in reality it becomes almost impossible to complete unless the player pulls the exact missing card from a pack or pays an unreasonable price.

This is especially frustrating when the missing card is not necessarily valuable because of its on-field usefulness, but because it is the final bottleneck piece needed to complete a mission or mission chain. A card that might otherwise be a normal Diamond or Perfect card can become priced far above its realistic value simply because it blocks access to a desirable reward.

I understand that rarity and market value are part of Perfect Team. I am not suggesting that every mission should be easy, or that rare cards should lose their value. However, when one card can sit as the only practical obstacle to a mission for weeks or months, the mission system starts to feel less like a roster-building challenge and more like a dead end.

This creates several problems:

Some missions appear completable but are not realistically completable.
One bottleneck card can freeze an entire mission path.
Free-to-play and lower-budget players are disproportionately affected.
Players may stop engaging with missions once they learn that too many paths are blocked by one unavailable or absurdly priced card.
The value of mission planning is reduced because progress depends less on strategy and more on either lucking into a pack pull or paying a ransom-level price.

A possible solution would be a mission bottleneck protection system.

For example, if a player completes a high percentage of a mission, such as 90–95%, the game could allow one limited substitute option for the final missing card. This could be handled in several possible ways:

a mission wildcard token,
a duplicate-card exchange,
a PP surcharge,
a limited “bypass one missing card” option,
or a special mission voucher earned through play.

This would not make missions free or easy. The player would still need to complete most of the mission normally. But it would prevent one unavailable or unrealistically priced card from permanently blocking the entire reward path.

Another option would be to allow the game to identify long-term bottleneck cards. If a mission-required card has very low availability and remains at an extreme price for an extended period, the mission could offer an alternate completion path. That alternate path could still be expensive, but it would give players a way forward other than waiting indefinitely or hoping for a lucky pack pull.

The goal would not be to eliminate rarity. The goal would be to prevent missions from becoming functionally dead because of one card.

A similar idea could also apply to the Card Shop itself. If a mission-required card is listed for weeks at a price nobody is willing to pay, the game could discourage permanent “hostage pricing” through tools such as listing cooldowns, escalating relisting fees, or alternate mission-completion options. A card sitting forever at an unrealistic price is not truly available; it is just occupying the market while blocking mission progress.

Perfect Team missions are one of the most interesting parts of the mode, especially for free-to-play players and long-term roster builders. A mission bottleneck protection system would keep missions challenging while making sure they remain realistically playable.