Idea for PT22 - Separate Leagues for F2P/P2W

[JeffersonJim]

Originally Posted by dkgo

Introducing a price ceiling to combat the problem of limited supply is the opposite of all economic theory.

Ultimate Team has them. All that happens is highly demanded cards go completely extinct instead of being available in limited amounts.

Fair, is that something that was solved there? I have never played that. I understand fixing that could require very fundamental game mechanics changes.

[Marleigh]

Originally Posted by dkgo

Introducing a price ceiling to combat the problem of limited supply is the opposite of all economic theory.

Ultimate Team has them. All that happens is highly demanded cards go completely extinct instead of being available in limited amounts.

And they were only introduced in UT to combat RMT gold selling

[eldur00]

Perhaps a solution would be in silent auctions ?
You don't see other listings, all the info you have are last 10 sold, with no dates. Last 10 could have sold over the course of a month, or in the last 48 hours.
As a buyer, you get a rough idea of what you may have to pay for the card. As a seller, you may have to think twice about the value of a card when there are no other open listings that you can undercut by 1PP.
Wouldn't solve the scarcity issue, but would bring a different dynamic. Although I'm sure it would bring its share of issues I am not thinking about right now.

[dkgo]

I don't think a complete programming rebuild of the auction house is on the table.

It's best to look at the levers available to manage supply and demand. The price is simply where the curves meet. You can lower demand for a specific card by not making it required for collections, or you can increase supply. What if tournaments rewarded historical diamonds instead of near-useless special editions?

[JeffersonJim]

Originally Posted by dkgo

I don't think a complete programming rebuild of the auction house is on the table.

It's best to look at the levers available to manage supply and demand. The price is simply where the curves meet. You can lower demand for a specific card by not making it required for collections, or you can increase supply. What if tournaments rewarded historical diamonds instead of near-useless special editions?

I agree to consider the dev team priorities/effort/duration, but tournaments and missions were major addition code projects just for PT.

Ongoing performance and stability issues along with hosting problems are/were hampering/hampered the team. But I'm hoping the feedback on the economy gets acted on, plus getting the mobile app out, twitch drops implemented, constant special exposure partnerships, ongoing franchise improvements can still balance out. One can hope.

[QuantaCondor]

Price ceilings would basically resemble how collections worked in PT20: you basically constantly refresh the AH, as often as you can justify, looking for minute1 snipes on huge value cards. That existed there because the L7 values were way underpriced, but it's basically the same thing that would happen under price ceilings, and is consistent with how those worked elsewhere: everything is extinct everywhere. And it wouldn't even prevent snipers and gougers from buying and relisting stuff.

The people to ask about how to fix speculation aren't the casual observers, but the speculators themselves. As a heavy speculator, which is something I'm forced to do just because of how lucrative it is, I'd prefer if the collections just weren't so telegraphed. You can do a series of sets if you want, just don't make it as predictable. The content themes this year just so happened to be astoundingly predictable, which is why speculation is such an issue now.

[ronhatch]

Originally Posted by dkgo

Like how everyone has equal opportunity to buy points at the same cost?

Spending money is less of a factor in success than spending time.

Not like that, because how much money someone is willing to spend is simply not an interesting area to compete in.

Spending money IS a factor in success, how much of one is irrelevant since there's nothing that says you can only be strong in one of the areas that lead to success.

Having skill lead to success is a fundamental element of competition, so of course that should be in the game. Having time spent lead to success is more debatable, but you could still argue that it's a good thing to have in a competition. (Though here, I would claim that time spent should only matter to the degree that it increases skill. Spamming tournaments shouldn't really be a factor.)

Having money spent lead to success benefits the developers, but not competition. In fact, that's exactly the stated reason for luxury taxes and similar measures taken by sports... to make the leagues more competitive.

[mcdog512]

Originally Posted by QuantaCondor

Price ceilings would basically resemble how collections worked in PT20: you basically constantly refresh the AH, as often as you can justify, looking for minute1 snipes on huge value cards. That existed there because the L7 values were way underpriced, but it's basically the same thing that would happen under price ceilings, and is consistent with how those worked elsewhere: everything is extinct everywhere. And it wouldn't even prevent snipers and gougers from buying and relisting stuff.

The people to ask about how to fix speculation aren't the casual observers, but the speculators themselves. As a heavy speculator, which is something I'm forced to do just because of how lucrative it is, I'd prefer if the collections just weren't so telegraphed. You can do a series of sets if you want, just don't make it as predictable. The content themes this year just so happened to be astoundingly predictable, which is why speculation is such an issue now.

You can't possibly be serious. FORCED TO?

We're playing a game brother, you don't have to do a damn thing. Time is money unless you are retired in which case time is abundant in many cases.

[QuantaCondor]

Originally Posted by mcdog512

You can't possibly be serious. FORCED TO?

We're playing a game brother, you don't have to do a damn thing. Time is money unless you are retired in which case time is abundant in many cases.

If I want to be competitive, I mean. If you're on a limited budget and you want to be competitive at the highest levels, speculation is the only way to get at it because it's way more lucrative than any other aspect of the game, and because the amount of PP you have is relevant when you're trying to succeed up there. Obviously no one has a gun to my head saying "BUY TOTD AND FOTF CARDS", but if I don't then I'm just not going to be able to match whales in the only format in the game that has a real, competitive payoff (tourney series hardly counts because the format is so luck based. A single Bo5 followed by a single Bo7 event? In a sport where a 60% winrate is dominant? Nah doesn't count).

[MaroonAlberich]

Originally Posted by Orcin

The market manipulation is a far bigger problem in the game than people spending money. People spending money open lots of packs that provide supply for the AH so others can build teams without investing their hard-earned points in a game of chance. Market manipulators, many of whom are free-to-play, make their points by taking yours in a zero-sum game.

Almost. Let's not forget the 10% vig taken out. As much as I hate when people "buy" titles, they are definitely necessary for the health of the economy.