Combinator Cards 101: A Primer on How Combinators Work

[biggerme]

With the introduction of Caps on CC cards in tourneys, regular version of the card ends up being a duplicate, which means I have either sold it already or it does not show up when using show Originals only. In some tourneys I cant use those cards as a result - Dr Dynastic Daily Silver is a good example.
This needs some special handling, my possible options for handling this issue:
* find a way to have easily both versions of the card available, that I can have both versions of the card usable in roster editor
* Combinators included in Rosters which don't allow Combinators, assign CCLvl = -1, problem solved and I have both versions as a result readily available, upgraded and standard

[Matt Arnold]

Originally Posted by biggerme

With the introduction of Caps on CC cards in tourneys, regular version of the card ends up being a duplicate, which means I have either sold it already or it does not show up when using show Originals only. In some tourneys I cant use those cards as a result - Dr Dynastic Daily Silver is a good example.
This needs some special handling, my possible options for handling this issue:
* find a way to have easily both versions of the card available, that I can have both versions of the card usable in roster editor
* Combinators included in Rosters which don't allow Combinators, assign CCLvl = -1, problem solved and I have both versions as a result readily available, upgraded and standard

You can filter in there by cards which are on tournament rosters, or cards which are not on tournament rosters. So if you add a card to your saved roster, you can use the dropdown on the manage cards screen to filter them out, if you are concerned about accidentally quickselling a duplicate card, for example.

Also, in the missions page, and in the pt settings page, you can change the default card locking order, whether to include combinators first or last. If you change that order, so that combinators are handled last, then in the above list, they would show up as the "duplicate" card in the above dropdown.

[biggerme]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

You can filter in there by cards which are on tournament rosters, or cards which are not on tournament rosters. So if you add a card to your saved roster, you can use the dropdown on the manage cards screen to filter them out, if you are concerned about accidentally quickselling a duplicate card, for example.

Also, in the missions page, and in the pt settings page, you can change the default card locking order, whether to include combinators first or last. If you change that order, so that combinators are handled last, then in the above list, they would show up as the "duplicate" card in the above dropdown.

That does not work after the mission has been completed, I tried all options First, Last for Combinator and only the regular version shows up as duplicate, not the Combinator.
This is inconvenient to say the least

[Matt Arnold]

Originally Posted by biggerme

That does not work after the mission has been completed, I tried all options First, Last for Combinator and only the regular version shows up as duplicate, not the Combinator.
This is inconvenient to say the least

Yeah, correct, the mission lock order is not used for duplicate status. Combinators always show up as the originals in that page. You can still use the other filter options to adjust and manage the card screen.

[biggerme]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

Yeah, correct, the mission lock order is not used for duplicate status. Combinators always show up as the originals in that page. You can still use the other filter options to adjust and manage the card screen.

Which one of those options locks base card? And leaves Combinator unlocked, somehow currently active option does not fit on screen.

[Matt Arnold]

Originally Posted by biggerme

Which one of those options locks base card? And leaves Combinator unlocked, somehow currently active option does not fit on screen.

If you choose one of the Combi Last options, then base versions of cards will lock before combinator versions.

[biggerme]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

If you choose one of the Combi Last options, then base versions of cards will lock before combinator versions.

Can you just add manual card locking feature in the next patch? That would enable solving this issue entirely

[bbgods]

Originally Posted by erad677

Came to the forums to see if anyone had positive things to say about these. Not seeing it. LOL. In my opinion, interesting idea, but the choice of cards you can upgrade seems to mostly suck and the amount of resources you need to burn to upgrade them doesn't seem worth it. Am I missing something?

No. You're not missing anything.

The only cards I still have for sale are four useless combinations.

PT people: Please add an automatic sale price on CCs.


#LFGM

[biggerme]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

You can filter in there by cards which are on tournament rosters, or cards which are not on tournament rosters. So if you add a card to your saved roster, you can use the dropdown on the manage cards screen to filter them out, if you are concerned about accidentally quickselling a duplicate card, for example.

So, now I have placed regular Gio Gonzalez on sale 3rd time as duplicate. This Filter approach does not work at all, especially when you have more than 1 filter defined and used in Game. If it would be Diamond then I would of noticed a lot earlier that this should not be sold as duplicate.

Sometimes that specific filter is enabled and sometimes it is not.
Point being, at some point regular card will show up as Duplicate and as a result will receive undue treatment.
Please, allow me to lock cards that I don't want to be sold. There needs to be protection mechanism in place, even a warning would be good enough approach.

[bailey]

Originally Posted by biggerme

So, now I have placed regular Gio Gonzalez on sale 3rd time as duplicate. This Filter approach does not work at all, especially when you have more than 1 filter defined and used in Game. If it would be Diamond then I would of noticed a lot earlier that this should not be sold as duplicate.

Sometimes that specific filter is enabled and sometimes it is not.
Point being, at some point regular card will show up as Duplicate and as a result will receive undue treatment.
Please, allow me to lock cards that I don't want to be sold. There needs to be protection mechanism in place, even a warning would be good enough approach.

Yes, I agree you should be able to lock cards voluntarily. For example, I may have a bronze card that got a diamond achievement in rookie league that I am no longer using for anything. Because of that achievement, I don't want to sell it, EVER. How do you filter for that?

[biggerme]

So, I am going to do something that I promised to myself that I will avoid at all costs, namely I am going to complain and rant about latest greatest disasters around Combinators. I am truly sorry about that already beforehand.
My intention initially was to conclude second part of Combinator guidelines and how to cost efficiently perform upgrades, that analysis has had now significant setback.

Namely I lost one very expensive Combinator to reprocessing, one that I had invested a lot of Perfect Points and time. Its stated that Combinator Card is a special type of card but it is clear that it is not any of that. All of the problems rise already with duplicate handling, which worked fine without that abstract concept which I don't understand how it got any approval to be released at all, considering the fact that OOTP data model has been one of the cornerstones of the games stamp of quality.
Every card visibly has already CC level assigned, so it is truly unclear why there has to be some special abstract construct that consistently brakes the gaming experience in new and not in so nice ways.
Because of reasons I had to change the order of locking cards, which resulted new collected Combinator being a standard duplicate. If you check in Combinator upgrade screen and you don't have a duplicate "Combinator" and use Show Only Duplicates then all Combinators are removed from that list, yeah, that does not happen when it is treated in previously mentioned scenario. And then you want to use your regular card to do the upgrades, to fill in the missing points and the rest is history - HELP, Combinator ended up being food.
Admittedly there is also separate checkbox to force removing from display all Combinators, but when part of the mechanic works mostly in a certain manner you expect it work always in that manner, not to have curveballs waiting to bite at the worst moment.

I still think that crafting for upgrades is a great way forward, just not the way it is currently. There are better ways doing it, that can scale with the game for future changes and even more game mechanics that can be introduced based on that.
Combinator card type as such should be dropped and replaced by Crafting/Upgrade, all cards have anyway already assigned Levels, and every card in everyone's collection is already a unique resource.
Instead of having a Combinator odds you can have Upgrade level odds up to being able to pull a Level 5 upgraded card, much more elegant way of designing upgraded Cards and that would be one awesome screen grab if someone pulls fully upgraded card, regardless of tier.
Handling of duplicates would be also way easier to implement, by just selecting card with the highest CCLvl as primary Locked card.

And starting an upgrade should not be cheap either, it should require effort from anyone who wants to go down that road to improve odds or to make an extra PP income stream.

My loss in this specific case is that about two thirds of my carefully collected PP balance is now wiped out with one incident, that my dear friends is not fun. Clearly I don't have the resources to recover to previous state of things, you cant plan getting lucky with card pulls that help in growing that balance.
That is one of the problems, but the more erring question is that can overhaul of Combinator concept be postponed to OOTP 26? I can only see more fundamental issues coming up in OOTP 25 which no one can predict, but there will be those and they are waiting for the "right" moment to appear, when the damage can be maximized.
You don't need a special type of a card to make a card upgradeable, all you need to know that a cards starting Level is 0 or greater, that is just good practice in data modeling.

And that button to convert Combinator to Standard card, I bet the only thing it does is to update cards CCLvl attribute to value "-1" and nothing else. Which inherently means that all the core components for fixing combinators are already in place. If there is more to it, then something has gone horribly wrong in design already very long time ago.

Checking out and thanks for all the fish.

[biggerme]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

If you choose one of the Combi Last options, then base versions of cards will lock before combinator versions.

Well, that did happen with not so nice impact of unintended combinator showing up as regular duplicate that is not filtered out in Combinator Upgrade screen. That was one expensive feature making me lose very expensive 2B Connie Day combinator.
This makes upgrading very tricky in future when I can’t trust filtering behaviour, in this case, duplicate filtering has always filtered out combinator because I don’t have duplicate combinator and when one mechanic works consistently one way and then another for 1 card, things go wrong.

[sox]

An actual guide on how combinators work: $

[psav13]

I’ve read this thread and still have no clue how these things are supposed to work. Can someone explain to me like in kindergarten why I would want to sacrifice a Jose Ramirez card (100) that sells for over 90k PP in order to “boost” Tyler Naquin (92)? In what world does that make any sense?

[dishnet34]

Originally Posted by psav13

I’ve read this thread and still have no clue how these things are supposed to work. Can someone explain to me like in kindergarten why I would want to sacrifice a Jose Ramirez card (100) that sells for over 90k PP in order to “boost” Tyler Naquin (92)? In what world does that make any sense?

Well, there are presumably other cards in your collection that you can use *instead* of Jose Ramirez if you really wanted to boost him. Just saying. It's only there because it is technically an option.

Here's a fun fact: You don't have to boost him with that card if you don't want to!

[YankeeCpt]

I accidently deleted many 100-90 rated players....
i need a lot of help and quick....
this is a deletion of many `100,000 points....

[YankeeCpt]

Help!!!!

[dishnet34]

As unfortunate as your situation is, I passed it along to the team, and there isn't anything the team is able to do to reverse a Combinator attempt. My apologies for being the bearer of bad news.

For future reference, any cards being used for Combinator attempts will be removed from your collection.

[DOOMTHO]

Originally Posted by dishnet34

As unfortunate as your situation is, I passed it along to the team, and there isn't anything the team is able to do to reverse a Combinator attempt. My apologies for being the bearer of bad news.

For future reference, any cards being used for Combinator attempts will be removed from your collection.

First off, let me just say that I have no skin in this matter, and for what it’s worth I hold a very favorable opinion of OOTP as a whole. I also fully understand the myriad plausible justifications for refusing to take any action in this situation (there is an explicit warning in the game which requires manual confirmation; there is presumably no backend function to simply undo the attempt or “un-erase” the cards in question; the time and effort it would require to rectify the error would likely not be feasible to offer all customers and thus it would be “unfair” to offer it just this time, etc.).

Having said all of that, this is a really, really bad look. For a number of reasons. But to highlight one in particular, based on the specific cards this user lost, it seems likely that they are a fairly new user (of PT mode, at least, if not necessarily OOTP), and the cards they’ve lost would have thus represented virtually their entire resource base from which to continue building their team - it wouldn’t surprise me if they simply gave up on the game entirely at this point. Beyond that, the mistake this user made is honestly quite understandable, which makes it particularly disheartening to see them turned away empty handed - especially since there is a real financial cost associated with the in-game currency, and through that lens one could make the argument that this user just lost the equivalent of several hundred dollars due to a simple mistake.

Again, this doesn’t affect me at all; I simply felt compelled to advocate on this person’s behalf as a neutral observer.

[Kushiel]

Originally Posted by DOOMTHO

First off, let me just say that I have no skin in this matter, and for what it’s worth I hold a very favorable opinion of OOTP as a whole. I also fully understand the myriad plausible justifications for refusing to take any action in this situation (there is an explicit warning in the game which requires manual confirmation; there is presumably no backend function to simply undo the attempt or “un-erase” the cards in question; the time and effort it would require to rectify the error would likely not be feasible to offer all customers and thus it would be “unfair” to offer it just this time, etc.).

Having said all of that, this is a really, really bad look. For a number of reasons. But to highlight one in particular, based on the specific cards this user lost, it seems likely that they are a fairly new user (of PT mode, at least, if not necessarily OOTP), and the cards they’ve lost would have thus represented virtually their entire resource base from which to continue building their team - it wouldn’t surprise me if they simply gave up on the game entirely at this point. Beyond that, the mistake this user made is honestly quite understandable, which makes it particularly disheartening to see them turned away empty handed - especially since there is a real financial cost associated with the in-game currency, and through that lens one could make the argument that this user just lost the equivalent of several hundred dollars due to a simple mistake.

Again, this doesn’t affect me at all; I simply felt compelled to advocate on this person’s behalf as a neutral observer.

I dislike Combinators very much. I think that they were a terrible idea where the rush for the Benjamins outweighed any really workable planning for something like this. I have lost nothing combinating and will not waste anything doing it. However, I sympathize with this person. But it is their own fault. The warning is there and easy to see if time is taken to read. If the devs help one player, then they will need to go back and do the same on every failed attempt. Chaos!