Rationale behind replacing Auctions with Buy/Sell?

[the doctor]

Has anyone seen an official explanation on this change? I'm curious about the logic behind it. Entirely possible it's out there already, but my cursory search hasn't been able to turn anything up.

Based on the other changes they've implemented (or have hinted at), it seems like the biggest thematic consistency so far with '23 has been "crush the F2P model in the hopes of forcing more players into purchasing points", but assuming that's actually true, the change to the auction model might be having the opposite impact, which is why I'm curious if anyone knows more about it.

For example: the Limited Edition cards. Last year, those were easily and routinely selling on Auction for north of 150K, because of how rare they are. Now, you have to logically assume anyone trying to collect all the Limited Edition cards is almost certainly a whale willing to drop huge cash to buy those up at whatever cost is necessary - F2P players aren't hoarding 100K points to buy a single card.

However, with the removal of the auction model, prices for everything are extremely depressed because buyers can say "screw you, you can take this offer or you can take nothing". This seems to short circuit the idea of getting the whales (where the money is in these games) to spend more - without the Auction component driving prices up, they don't have to purchase more points to acquire these extremely rare cards.

Now maybe I'm just being overly cynical here about all the PT changes this year, but this seems like a change where in the desire to crush F2P, they've unintentionally ended up harming themselves.

Thoughts? Feel free to tell me I'm an idiot and that I'm thinking about this all wrong, but I'm just having a hard time wrapping my head around this change when looking at it from the perspective of "how do we make more money off of Perfect Team?".

[SlinkyTWF]

I, for one, as an F2P player, am happy to see sellers unable to control the market to the extent they could under the old AH. In the new system, I can see every card available, instead of only those which are currently for sale. Also, I no longer have to scroll through 500 screens of cards I already own to find one that I might want or need. Neither system is perfect, but based on 3 weeks using the new Card Shop, I prefer it.

[TwanLX2000]

I’m also preferring the simplicity of the card shop, and since my bread and butter is buying up cheap cards in anticipation of future missions, it’s simplified the process of completing that task.

That said, I haven’t received the impression that changes have been designed to crush F2P players as much as the initial mission sets aren’t as F2P friendly as last year, but they’re not far from what we saw in PT ‘21. Part of every new release is looking for the F2P angle, and it wouldn’t be much fun if it was a plug and play approach every season. I think all of the other PR disasters (or algorithm changes) have been less targeted at F2P as much as they’ve been poorly timed, ignorant of their user base, or a flat out mistake. In which case, they’ve made efforts to fix these issues, albeit with inconsistent and poorly administered results.

[the doctor]

Originally Posted by SlinkyTWF

I, for one, as an F2P player, am happy to see sellers unable to control the market to the extent they could under the old AH. In the new system, I can see every card available, instead of only those which are currently for sale. Also, I no longer have to scroll through 500 screens of cards I already own to find one that I might want or need. Neither system is perfect, but based on 3 weeks using the new Card Shop, I prefer it.

In the case of making F2P more viable, though, I believe the sellers SHOULD control the market - the easiest way for F2P players to get their economies going in the past was to sell a rare/high value card that has only marginal utility to a player that isn't rolling with a 26 man roster of entirely 100s. A single Perfect reliever to a F2P team that maybe has 8-9 platinum total is way more useful as something they can sell to generate more packs than it is on their roster.

To use the Limited Edition example again - as someone that doesn't care at all about collecting every single card like some folks do, this card is worth way more (in theory) as something I can flip for 100 packs than it is as "just another card I have on my otherwise middle of the road team". The way the Buy/Sell system has eliminated the "competition" aspect of the Auction system and crushed the prices we can get for something like that.

[AdequateRandomGaming]

Originally Posted by the doctor

Has anyone seen an official explanation on this change? I'm curious about the logic behind it. Entirely possible it's out there already, but my cursory search hasn't been able to turn anything up.

Based on the other changes they've implemented (or have hinted at), it seems like the biggest thematic consistency so far with '23 has been "crush the F2P model in the hopes of forcing more players into purchasing points", but assuming that's actually true, the change to the auction model might be having the opposite impact, which is why I'm curious if anyone knows more about it.

For example: the Limited Edition cards. Last year, those were easily and routinely selling on Auction for north of 150K, because of how rare they are. Now, you have to logically assume anyone trying to collect all the Limited Edition cards is almost certainly a whale willing to drop huge cash to buy those up at whatever cost is necessary - F2P players aren't hoarding 100K points to buy a single card.

However, with the removal of the auction model, prices for everything are extremely depressed because buyers can say "screw you, you can take this offer or you can take nothing". This seems to short circuit the idea of getting the whales (where the money is in these games) to spend more - without the Auction component driving prices up, they don't have to purchase more points to acquire these extremely rare cards.

Now maybe I'm just being overly cynical here about all the PT changes this year, but this seems like a change where in the desire to crush F2P, they've unintentionally ended up harming themselves.

Thoughts? Feel free to tell me I'm an idiot and that I'm thinking about this all wrong, but I'm just having a hard time wrapping my head around this change when looking at it from the perspective of "how do we make more money off of Perfect Team?".

My honest opinion ? It has nothing to do with FTP or not...they just looked at competition and what it is they are doing that works and introduced a similar system. It's extremely common for games to "borrow" features from the competition.

[the doctor]

@ AdequateRandomGaming - yeah, absolutely, entirely possible it's that simple. I am wondering if there has been an official "party line" on why the change was made, or if it's just one of those things that will go un-commented on by the developers.

[<Pion>]

I think the new card shop has been a great addition. You can see the Last10 like usual, the best x selling offers and the best x buying offers. Seems to me that makes nobody exactly in control. When the lowest selling offer is higher than the highest buying offer, then either the buyer comes up or the seller comes down, or both. And if you're freshly looking at the player and have not posted a buying price, it has made it easier for me to decide whether to pay the low sell offer and get immediately or post a high buy offer and hope the seller comes down an nobody outbids you. This gives a lot of flexibility for each side.

[ubernoob]

The card shop rules for F2P players.

Also it's just a much better system than the auction house. Wish MUT/FUT/NBAMyTeam would do it, Diamond Dynasty already does.

[professor ape]

Originally Posted by ubernoob

The card shop rules for F2P players.

Also it's just a much better system than the auction house. Wish MUT/FUT/NBAMyTeam would do it, Diamond Dynasty already does.

I’m F2P as well, isn’t it six of one and a half dozen of the other. I’m finding that the prices of top cards is not as high as in previous years which is great if you are a buyer but getting a windfall of PPs from those occasional mega-pulls is gone as well right now.

[kq76]

As a login every couple days for a little bit F2P player, I find it much better. I don't have to spend far more time than I want hoping a card comes available so I can bid on it, then set an alarm close to the auction end time to ensure I get it. If I want a card, I just put in a bid and go on with my day. It's great. I was ready to walk away from PT because I was finding it too much of a time sink. This saved my interest.

And the post I saw explaining the change didn't come across as nefarious at all. IIRC, it was done to fix exactly the problems above, which apparently plenty of people were complaining about.

I somewhat sympathize that some people's competitive advantage is gone. I know, that can suck. But find another. From my collector's viewpoint, I'd much rather have a buyer's market than a seller's market.

[PocketsAintFull]

Having much better access to the whole market far outweighs the occasional lucky pull selling cheaper, IMO. There is a lot of opportunity with the new order system.

[daves]

It is great that all cards are in the Card shop. No more online database to sort through.

[Kushiel]

The new card seems to be the best thing for FTP players. We can still put a card up to sell for a nice profit. There is just no auction to artificially inflate the price. That in turn helps the FTP player.

[EvvCat]

I'm going to say it's a benefit to FTP and PTP alike.

The biggest positive, IMO, is that you can purchase or sell a card immediately if you choose. Need a card to help your team *right now*? If it's for sale, you can buy it. You may pay a premium, but that's fair for immediate acquisition. Same goes for selling, in reverse.

There was nothing worse than needing to buy a card that didn't have a Buy It Now price, or only had some outrageous price, and having to wait hours or even days for an auction to complete.

[revo]

In "Your Card Orders" they need to add Lowest Sell Order price, so you don't have to jump back and forth on every card you have up for sale.

[SlinkyTWF]

Originally Posted by revo

In "Your Card Orders" they need to add Lowest Sell Order price, so you don't have to jump back and forth on every card you have up for sale.

That would be useful.

[frankbama]

Expiration date would make this more interesting. I like the pluses of it but I have to keep checking the list and removing orders I forgot about for days since their sale order price was now double what it's worth.

[Marleigh]

I think the obvious answer is that this takes less resources to run

[ncap99]

Comparing prices of top end cards between PT22 and PT23 is pretty pointless. Made even more so by the fact you're using LE cards (there are many more of them in PT23 and many have higher total quantities).

There is less PP in circulation in general in PT23. While I doubt they'll ever post official numbers, steamcharts shows a peak of 1,990 players for PT22 and 1384 for PT23. There are just less players this year, due in large part (in my opinion) to a long delay to release and a rocky launch.

We also saw a lot less packs injected at the start of the year because live missions didn't reward packs. We also had PDs nerfed into oblivion when it came to PP rewards, even factoring in the second slot.

And probably most importantly, there really aren't many chase cards available early. The early content sets have been very underwhelming - the FL set didn't really add a single starter for a team running a fairly top end squad. The BAL missions are only at silver level. Cards aren't selling for 150k+ because there aren't any cards really worth that, aside from maybe a couple tournament reward cards.

In almost every respect the card shop is an improvement over its auction house predecessor no matter what way you choose to play the game. The only thing I see really missing capability wise is the previous ability to set a no buyout auction, which would come in handy for newly released missions/cards or tournament rewards, or just in general when you didn't really have a feel for what people were willing to pay. Even that functionality is somewhat replicated with the buy order system.

TLDR: People aren't paying a ton for cards because there aren't good cards yet, and the card shop does better than the auction house at what is supposed to do: facilitate card sales.

[daves]

Originally Posted by ncap99

Comparing prices of top end cards between PT22 and PT23 is pretty pointless. Made even more so by the fact you're using LE cards (there are many more of them in PT23 and many have higher total quantities).

There is less PP in circulation in general in PT23. While I doubt they'll ever post official numbers, steamcharts shows a peak of 1,990 players for PT22 and 1384 for PT23. There are just less players this year, due in large part (in my opinion) to a long delay to release and a rocky launch.

We also saw a lot less packs injected at the start of the year because live missions didn't reward packs. We also had PDs nerfed into oblivion when it came to PP rewards, even factoring in the second slot.

And probably most importantly, there really aren't many chase cards available early. The early content sets have been very underwhelming - the FL set didn't really add a single starter for a team running a fairly top end squad. The BAL missions are only at silver level. Cards aren't selling for 150k+ because there aren't any cards really worth that, aside from maybe a couple tournament reward cards.

In almost every respect the card shop is an improvement over its auction house predecessor no matter what way you choose to play the game. The only thing I see really missing capability wise is the previous ability to set a no buyout auction, which would come in handy for newly released missions/cards or tournament rewards, or just in general when you didn't really have a feel for what people were willing to pay. Even that functionality is somewhat replicated with the buy order system.

TLDR: People aren't paying a ton for cards because there aren't good cards yet, and the card shop does better than the auction house at what is supposed to do: facilitate card sales.

So no Gold pack rewards for live missions?