Combinator Cards 101: A Primer on How Combinators Work

[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!

[bailey]

So, why can't we quick sell them? If I put it for sale in the card shop at minimum price and no one buys it after 30 days, why can't it be quick sold then?

[Matt Arnold]

Originally Posted by bailey

So, why can't we quick sell them? If I put it for sale in the card shop at minimum price and no one buys it after 30 days, why can't it be quick sold then?

At the moment, it was decided to not allow that. If you want to use it up, you can always use it to boost another attempt. They have extra value for that.

[gustoes]

Originally Posted by dishnet34

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!
__________________
OOTP's Official Perfect Team Hype Man / host of This Week In Perfect Team, TWIPT Friday Showdown and Perfect Team Weekly Prep

Will the team be considering a better lens / tool to help us identify chemistry / combinator relationship values?

See linked feature request
1. Relationship tab on every PT player
2. Chemistry Section includes Inactive players and not owned players (vs reserve roster only)

https://forums.ootpdevelopments.com/...d.php?t=355327

[gustoes]

Originally Posted by dishnet34

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!

These are some ideas mentioned in discord.

(While some players jumped in early but other were cautious or learning the combinator system
While some players had the resources via pp budget or early big card hit
While some had TIME to explore hard to discover relationship links...
and may now be excelling at combinator teams and snowballing
These were just some thoughts on how to make it easier for others to participate easier. market dynamics/cost etc.
May or may not be possible or desired by OOTP or all players, just food for thought from discord)

--lower min sell value / or allow quick sale (you addressed above)

--new feature for "crafting" CC's. undesirable CC's can be speculated and you can convert aka "craft" say 3,4 or 5 or 10? iron CC's for a guaranteed spin in to a crafted bronce CC. (creates demand)

--create a better way to explore relationship links on unowned cards
(suggestion posted to feature request)

--make lv1 or 2 slightly more attainable? (not just the curve)

--boosting appears to be expensive for most of player base. maybe create a new special ootp pt card type:
A combinator food card of different values. could be pulled in packs, choice packs, etc. or the pack itself can be a FOOD pack with odds of different food value hits

--possibly bump boost point value of lower end CC as combine food
currently 100 food value for a 5001 value iron where as you can often find a 200pp silver card that gives you more than that
(creates demand, ensure hitting a red card on a pack pull still feels like you got a good hit. sometimes you feel like you'd rather pull a non combinator gold than a undesired iron combinator as at least you can quick sell for 1k.. mostly just relevant to lower pp generating players that need to scrape pp)

--introduce tournaments with combinator caps so player that have not snowballed and are still learning the combinator system have somewhere to compete, generate a bit of pp and try to catch up. (currently, early adopters or resourceful players might dominate all formats and prizes... leaving not much left for new/casual/time limited players to find a home to play and grind a bit of pp)

--removing the chemistry boost between combinators has been suggested.. so that players with less resources who might try to dabble with combinators can try to put something together without having to go full 26 man combinator roster just to compete with the "same card type" chemistry.

Combinators are fun.... I think they would have been amazing with limit of 5 or 6 per team... then everyone would have decision to make and possibly be able to afford it as well. With limits you could decide to combinate a string of players your favorite team (with actual chemistry, not same card type) or defensive specialists or maybe top of your rotation.

Combinators have been interesting... maybe just need some tweaks for better relationship visibility, market / food value adjustments and something to balance out tournament landscape so more of the playerbase can dabble with them.

[bailey]

Allow conversion of any card to combinator status for a PP fee, perhaps limiting such conversions to 1 per week per team.

Allow upgrading combinators by a set PP fee as an alternative to using cards.

My thinking is that people are willing to spend money on PP but are less willing or unable to spend gobs of time hunting things down in the card shop.

[HRBaker]

Originally Posted by bailey

My thinking is that people are willing to spend money on PP but are less willing or unable to spend gobs of time hunting things down in the card shop.

This is the big issue concerning "fun" versus "work". Not only are many on a budget, but "life" demands our time too. Sitting at the computer all day looking for way to beat the system just isn't in the cards for many of us.

I will keep repeating this to make sure it's understood; Team Chemistry is a good idea - Combinators COULD be a great idea if it wasn't so complex, time consuming AND risky. I've been enjoying collecting cards for a possible future benefit, but giving them up in larger quantities is too painful.

[Stormhound]

Originally Posted by HRBaker

Sitting at the computer all day looking for way to beat the system just isn't in the cards for many of us.

Pun intended?

[Dmb]

Each failed upgrade should increase chances on the next boost. After so many points are used, it should be a 100% boost

Special boost a level cards should be available, either in certain packs or for all Champs od a certain week. In fact, a prize should be given to all Champs of each weekly league similar to the pt $7 monthly gift from 2024. That would make up for the cost of Go, since some people don't use PCs.

Also, how can we see potential Stat level numbers on Go? If you're charging 10bux for it, there really should be nothing missing from the PT side of it. To me and others, it's only a low phone capable mobile game and nothing more

[andyg22]

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.



It would be appreciated if OOTP could tell us specific information relating to the defense boosts.

The statement suggests some but not all def ratings are boosted - please tell us which and to what extent the boost is.

Likewise, are any of the components of batting ratings affected (speed, baserunning etc)?

I know the math may be difficult, but I personally prefer to know what I am getting for my PP. The game has become more transparent about the 'hidden card ratings' such as BABIP, but unfortunately some aspects of the Combinator release are opaque.

Thanks

[Matt Arnold]

Originally Posted by andyg22

It would be appreciated if OOTP could tell us specific information relating to the defense boosts.

The statement suggests some but not all def ratings are boosted - please tell us which and to what extent the boost is.

Likewise, are any of the components of batting ratings affected (speed, baserunning etc)?

I know the math may be difficult, but I personally prefer to know what I am getting for my PP. The game has become more transparent about the 'hidden card ratings' such as BABIP, but unfortunately some aspects of the Combinator release are opaque.

Thanks

The speed ratings are not impacted by combinator levels.

For defense, due to the nature of its calculation and in-game use, it's not broken down in the same way as the other ratings. Some rare defensive performance is not impacted, like sometimes we may use a players' infield range value to decide which base to throw to on a groundball. However the overall defensive performance (in terms of converting hits to outs, or checking OF arm values on plays at the plate, for example) will play at the adjusted levels.

[Matt Arnold]

We'll certainly look to add more places to search out relationship values, or other quality of life additions. Feel free to keep sharing other suggestions, some we certainly may consider for next year.

[jda]

Did someone already ask about the pBABIP ratings? Those don't follow the same pattern as every other rating, and in fact some pitchers with lower initial pBABIP ratings get larger pBABIP boosts than ones with higher initial ratings. That almost seems like behavior for a composite rating like Movement or Contact, but I didn't think pBABIP was one of those.


Also, FWIW, boosts go higher than 13.

[Big_Red_Machine]

To begin.... The combinator cards are a great idea. They have the opportunity to mix up the game and make it more enjoyable. Some ideas I have to help make them even better are included below. To begin, I'm a Controls / Software Engineer turned business so I tend to think about the customer side while trying to keep the implementation side in view.

* Increase the probability to get Combinator cards (downside the Whales will pick them all up; So you could limit how many Combinator's a player can obtain; significant software change but would be great for the game)
* Reduce points needed to upgrade cards. I spend a fair amount of money on the game and only have one combinator card in my lineup because it ended up being a huge investment to do so. 500k plus PP. Most users can't afford that. Getting variability in the game would be better if you lowered the cost and I'm confident you'd have alot more players spending PP to do so if prices were reasonable

* Possibly make the Combinator cards unique players so you can only get them if you get the Combinators. To do so you need to lower the entry price for a Combinator and allow players to sell them at Market price. The minimum value sale reduces probability significantly that they will get traded in the game which reduces OOTP revenue opportunities.

* Create a guide that helps explain which card types, card values, etc give boosts. Players have to spend alot of PP to get Combinators upgraded and it would help the user base immensely. I know Whales will take advantage of this, but it could also help users. I'm working on a bronze team with some Combinators and it's difficult to know how to upgrade

Last request which is not related to Combinators is Team Chemistry needs explained better. Best example I'll give is in Madden when you do an Offensive Line boost with players together it tells you the boost for all players. Users pay to get the Team Chem boost and should have guidance on how it helps them.

[ianmleavitt]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

We'll certainly look to add more places to search out relationship values, or other quality of life additions. Feel free to keep sharing other suggestions, some we certainly may consider for next year.

Given how poorly the combinators have been rolled out in terms of process, connections, and overall impact on tournament play, one would really hope that waiting until next year is not the only solution you have.

[2tango2]

Originally Posted by ianmleavitt

Given how poorly the combinators have been rolled out in terms of process, connections, and overall impact on tournament play, one would really hope that waiting until next year is not the only solution you have.

^^THIS^^

It's only May...........

[xserp3nt]

Originally Posted by ianmleavitt

Given how poorly the combinators have been rolled out in terms of process, connections, and overall impact on tournament play, one would really hope that waiting until next year is not the only solution you have.

Agreed. At the very least a tournament format needs to be added that doesn't allow Combinators. I've been playing for 5 days and the amount of times I have gotten to the semi's and then gotten rolled by teams with 5+ combinators is a pretty poor experience.

All while I have opened about 200 packs and haven't pulled a single one. And with a low PP balance preventing me from even buying one, never mind getting and upgrading one.

At the current rate newer players will drop PT if the delta of teams with/without combinators keeps increasing.

[Euroalien]

Originally Posted by xserp3nt

Agreed. At the very least a tournament format needs to be added that doesn't allow Combinators. I've been playing for 5 days and the amount of times I have gotten to the semi's and then gotten rolled by teams with 5+ combinators is a pretty poor experience.

All while I have opened about 200 packs and haven't pulled a single one. And with a low PP balance preventing me from even buying one, never mind getting and upgrading one.

At the current rate newer players will drop PT if the delta of teams with/without combinators keeps increasing.

I agree 100%. Lets see some "Non Combinator" tournaments to give those of us who are F2P or don't have a lot of time, etc. the chance to have some tournament fun!

[Tinkerman]

I realized that I've locked one of my iron combinators. Obviously, I can't sell it now, though it's crap anyway, so I will use it for 'food' at some point.

Anyhow, it got me thinking, how do you avoid locking combinators? I'm careful to lock non-duplicates so as to avoid tourney roster issues etc, but combinators take the priority spot. So how do I avoid locking combinators without changing the setting to lock duplicates?

[Tinkerman]

To add to this. I have silver and gold combinators (all rubbish) that I really don't want to lock, just in case I can ever sell them. On the missions page there is no indication that the cards are combinators. That really needs to change.