Why not recycle Bundle/Spotlight Variants ?!

[mynameisBlade]

I wish they'd make it to where the shop will cycle these back through so we can purchase them if we missed them... The fact that I can't get certain variants just because I didn't even play the damn game when those bundles were up for sale is ridiculous.. They don't want my money or what?

[Taonath]

The only way I'd be fine with SD making old variants available again would be to make them some kind of "Super Ultimate" for 6k Tokens or more.

Still not preferred, but that'd at least keep them rather rare.

[Taweret]

Originally posted by Taonath:

Originally posted by Taweret:

i don't know why? i mean i get you like having stuff that is rare and you use it because it's "unobtainable by any means"?, but why not use it solely just because you like how it look? you will be much more happy that way. i;m pretty certain they are looking for a way to bring back spotlight variants. the way you are getting them now is unobtainable for like 95% of the game population? i mean the only way to get variant you like is drop 6k tokens and 4 keys (less if you lucky) and with ratio of earning tokens +100 once in a blue moon that's torture (or drop 100 usd for wong bundle). i don't believe tho these artworks are better quality than 1.2k gold ones, it's all about "exclusivity" sticker. i;m pretty sure that even 1% of this game population don't buy all the spotlight variants. also even if they find a way to bring them back, is not like you will play against people using exactly the same variants as you. the only reason i would like to get Caiera variant is because i like how it look, i would still use it if it was 1200, 700 or 10 gold.

Sure and it's your prerogative to think and act that way, I simply don't.

Edit: 6k credits are by no means hard to get. That's why we own credit cards. And this kind of support for the game should result in at least the luxury of cosmetic exclusivity.

in mtga all card variants are available to purchase at any time, they are not exclusive, and guess what? i see person who use same variant for top tier meta deck once in 1000 games or less. avatars are not exclusive either they rorate and show up once in a blue moon in store, and guess what? i see someone use the same avatar as me once in 2000 games, same about pets (3d companions that show up at your side of board and have custom animations), in last months i bought beholder pet from d&d for like 14k gold (thats not even premium currency, and is worth 14 packs), and since then i never seen anyone using it, and that's like one of better pets in the game... in hearthstone, when i still played it, it was the same, about avatars that rotate in the store for gold, for 500 games i rarely noticed anyone using same as me, and i was using the best ones and more popular characters. therefore, your fear that they may become more popular is unfounded. in theory, perhaps 10% of people may use them instead 1% now, but in reality, you won't even notice the difference.

[Taonath]

Originally posted by Taweret:

Originally posted by Taonath:

Sure and it's your prerogative to think and act that way, I simply don't.

Edit: 6k credits are by no means hard to get. That's why we own credit cards. And this kind of support for the game should result in at least the luxury of cosmetic exclusivity.

in mtga all card variants are available to purchase at any time, they are not exclusive, and guess what? i see person who use same variant for top tier meta deck once in 1000 games or less. avatars are not exclusive either they rorate and show up once in a blue moon in store, and guess what? i see someone use the same avatar as me once in 2000 games, same about pets (3d companions that show up at your side of board and have custom animations), in last months i bought beholder pet from d&d for like 14k gold (thats not even premium currency, and is worth 14 packs), and since then i never seen anyone using it, and that's like one of better pets in the game... in hearthstone, when i still played it, it was the same, about avatars that rotate in the store for gold, for 500 games i rarely noticed anyone using same as me, and i was using the best ones and more popular characters. therefore, your fear that they may become more popular is unfounded. in theory, perhaps 10% of people may use them instead 1% now, but in reality, you won't even notice the difference.

Luckily this game is not this mtg you always refer to.

[Zlehtnoba]

Originally posted by Taonath:

Luckily this game is not this mtg you always refer to.

They usually refer to Arena, which is a totally different economic system.

As for variants, I'm with you. If they said they will not be available later, and somebody bought them because of that, they should not be available again. I buy variants because of art, not exclusivity, but i fully understand your position.

[Taweret]

Originally posted by Zlehtnoba:

Originally posted by Taonath:

Luckily this game is not this mtg you always refer to.

They usually refer to Arena, which is a totally different economic system.

As for variants, I'm with you. If they said they will not be available later, and somebody bought them because of that, they should not be available again. I buy variants because of art, not exclusivity, but i fully understand your position.

if they re-release it or not only depends on the game popularity, the more people will play it the more will ask to bring back old content they missed because they havent played game at that time. this elitism mindset need to go, is the same stubborn mindset that 1 % of population have while starving millions to death in real life. i fully understand when game like fortnite releases collaboration doctor doom skin that is licensed to marvel, and they have time limited license for selling that stuff. but is not the case with marvel snap or any other game that is tied to one frenchise.

[Taonath]

Originally posted by Taweret:

Originally posted by Zlehtnoba:

They usually refer to Arena, which is a totally different economic system.

As for variants, I'm with you. If they said they will not be available later, and somebody bought them because of that, they should not be available again. I buy variants because of art, not exclusivity, but i fully understand your position.

if they re-release it or not only depends on the game popularity,

Could you please reference a quote by SD where this has been stated? I cut all the irrelevant stuff, that is not Snap related. Speculations and going completely off topic won't help in any serious discussion.

Originally posted by Zlehtnoba:

Originally posted by Taonath:

Luckily this game is not this mtg you always refer to.

They usually refer to Arena, which is a totally different economic system.

As for variants, I'm with you. If they said they will not be available later, and somebody bought them because of that, they should not be available again. I buy variants because of art, not exclusivity, but i fully understand your position.

Thanks for explaining, coz the only thing I know of, remotely resembling this three letter acronym, is M:TG (played it back in 93/94) and it is a TCG, not a CCG. Never heard of this mtg before.

SD could give the new cards away for free and I wouldn't care, it probably would make the game more popular, potentially resulting in something good.

But for variants they should stick with their "unique collection" approach. It's a good one and one, that makes people like myself spend a few hundred every month. The removal of the whale-track already made me stop spending that kind of money. Once they remove the exclusivity I'm gone for good, as the gameplay isn't all that appealing to me, I like the game for it's collection aspect.

[Taweret]

Originally posted by Taonath:

SD could give the new cards away for free and I wouldn't care, it probably would make the game more popular, potentially resulting in something good.

But for variants they should stick with their "unique collection" approach. It's a good one and one, that makes people like myself spend a few hundred every month. The removal of the whale-track already made me stop spending that kind of money. Once they remove the exclusivity I'm gone for good, as the gameplay isn't all that appealing to me, I like the game for it's collection aspect.

then we play for the same reason, collecting stuff with the difference that for me collecting stuff doesn't necessary equal to cost hundreds very month to be satisfying but i guess appetite grows with eating and perhaps we are from different economic backgrounds, so for you worth of something is measured with the price tag. however, I'm very confident it wouldn't kill you if you came across someone using the indentical (yeah it still can have different frame and split rarity) variant once per 100 games. what you are afraid is that something you bought for good amount of money will devalue in it's price worth (in sense of the subjective worth, because nothing in this game has any real value) good example is one i give regarding Valve in Dota 2 re-releasing wraith king arcana it went down from 160 usd to 100 usd. but that's the case of most stuff in real life that has any functional value. let say you have super duper rare variant for a card that sees 0 play, it's worthless, since you can't use it. as long something is in use it's valuable and desirable.

"Could you please reference a quote by SD where this has been stated?"
until they say "we never do it", they opened the optional gate to do it. it's like in Valve wraith King arcana and any other exclusive International sets they released in very expensive battlepass, to later release it for ones who missed it. people "assumed" that these things are exclusive because i think Valve stated at some point something that alluded to exclusivity, but they never officially confirmed "never". and to think the Marvel Snap dev will "never" do it is wishful naive thinking, why? because like you said you eventually will get bored with the game as the other people who played since the same time frame as you. the new wave of players will come to replace you and people like you "veterans" will remain niche minority not worth the pandering to, and that new wave will push the devs to release the stuff they are missing. and it would be new whales who just want that stuff as well. so your retirement will change nothing.
as less people who own some old variant will play the game, the less of these variants will appear in game, so what is the point for the business owner having variant in the game code that wasn't even once used by anyone because everyone who own it don't even play this game anymore? that's the waste of resources they can capitalize on.

[Taonath]

Originally posted by Taweret:

Originally posted by Taonath:

SD could give the new cards away for free and I wouldn't care, it probably would make the game more popular, potentially resulting in something good.

But for variants they should stick with their "unique collection" approach. It's a good one and one, that makes people like myself spend a few hundred every month. The removal of the whale-track already made me stop spending that kind of money. Once they remove the exclusivity I'm gone for good, as the gameplay isn't all that appealing to me, I like the game for it's collection aspect.

then we play for the same reason, collecting stuff with the difference that for me collecting stuff doesn't necessary equal to cost hundreds very month to be satisfying but i guess appetite grows with eating and perhaps we are from different economic backgrounds, so for you worth of something is measured with the price tag. however, I'm very confident it wouldn't kill you if you came across someone using the indentical (yeah it still can have different frame and split rarity) variant once per 100 games. what you are afraid is that something you bought for good amount of money will devalue in it's price worth (in sense of the subjective worth, because nothing in this game has any real value) good example is one i give regarding Valve in Dota 2 re-releasing wraith king arcana it went down from 160 usd to 100 usd. but that's the case of most stuff in real life that has any functional value. let say you have super duper rare variant for a card that sees 0 play, it's worthless, since you can't use it. as long something is in use it's valuable and desirable.

"Could you please reference a quote by SD where this has been stated?"
until they say "we never do it", they opened the optional gate to do it. it's like in Valve wraith King arcana and any other exclusive International sets they released in very expensive battlepass, to later release it for ones who missed it. people "assumed" that these things are exclusive because i think Valve stated at some point something that alluded to exclusivity, but they never officially confirmed "never". and to think the Marvel Snap dev will "never" do it is wishful naive thinking, why? because like you said you eventually will get bored with the game as the other people who played since the same time frame as you. the new wave of players will come to replace you and people like you "veterans" will remain niche minority not worth the pandering to, and that new wave will push the devs to release the stuff they are missing. and it would be new whales who just want that stuff as well. so your retirement will change nothing.
as less people who own some old variant will play the game, the less of these variants will appear in game, so what is the point for the business owner having variant in the game code that wasn't even once used by anyone because everyone who own it don't even play this game anymore? that's the waste of resources they can capitalize on.

You might want to structure your walls of text a little better, it's very hard to read this way.

Besides that, let's simply agree to disagree. You want cheap stuff, I want exclusive stuff. Fact is, they offer both, variants for gold (cheap ones), spotlight ones (mid-rangy, as keys are free, but a little harder to get than gold) and the good stuff from bundles and exclusive releases.

As long as I get my good stuff, you can have all the rest.

[Taweret]

Originally posted by Taonath:

You might want to structure your walls of text a little better, it's very hard to read this way.

Then, we're playing for the same objective, collecting cards. The difference is that for me, collecting cards doesn't always have to cost hundreds of dollars a month to be fulfilling. However, since our income levels may differ and our appetites grow with each meal, I suppose that for you the value of an item is determined by its price tag. But if you happened to stumble against someone using the "identical" variant once per 100 games, yes, it may still have a different frame and split rarity, it wouldn't harm you, I promise.
You're worried that an expensive item you purchased may lose value in terms of price. In the subjective sense, as there is no actual value in this game. One such instance is Valve's re-release of Wraith King Arcana in Dota 2. The price decreased from 160 USD to 100 USD, but most items in real life with practical worth do that. For example, if you have an extremely rare variant for a card that sees no play, it is useless as you are unable to utilize it. Anything is desired and has appeal as long as it is put to use according to its functionality. Making variants that are rarely used and eventually go out of rotation is a waste of effort.

Until they declare that "we never do it" they left the option open to do it. It's similar to how Valve launched Wraith King Arcana and other unique international sets as part of pricey battlepasses, then made them available to others who missed out.
I believe Valve mentioned something at some time hinting to exclusivity, but they never explicitly said "never," thus people "assumed" that these items are exclusive.
Unless you get a variant with a "will never be sold again" sticker on it, you literally have 0 guarantees, and I'm pretty sure they'd use that as a selling point "feature" if their intention was to make them exclusive, in a sense to be "never sold again".
It is naive to believe that the devs of Marvel Snap will "never" take this option.

How come? For, as you indicated, like everyone else who has been playing the game during the same timeframe as you, will ultimately become tired of it.
The upcoming wave of players will replace you, and those of us who consider ourselves "veterans" will continue to be a tiny minority that is not worth catering to. By this new wave of players devs will feel compelled to rerelease the old content that people have been missing. And the new whales will emerge as well. Therefore, the desired impact of your retirement will not occur.
A decreasing number of these variants will be present in the game since fewer players who own them will play it. Given that everyone who owns it will no longer plays the game, what purpose does it make for the devs to have a variant in the game code that hasn't even been used by anyone for long time? That's a resource wastage that they can capitalize on.

Just have a look at this Hulk variant:
https://static.marvelsnap.pro/art/Hulk_05.webp
It's the iconic comic book depiction of Hulk, and for that reason I own it, and to assume it will never be re-released is naive.

[Zinkr7x]

Originally posted by Taonath:

Originally posted by Zinkr7x:

No no, for spotlight is great. We don't like Gacha Spotlights and I want my nightforged Nico that I could not even get at the time because I needed to spotlight cache for Nico. I presume that must have been before the current system where you could spend more than 4 keys to get it, but I forget why I never ended up with it.

You could always buy the card for Tokens and get the variant fro the cache. And I think such an "investment" should not be made obsolete, as it is done in good faith to get something more exclusive (even more expensive, than an Ultimate variant), than the average Snap player (not to mention the F2P crowd).

Without the exclusivity those variants become a lot less (in my case 100%) desirable. I get that someone wants something that is gone, I passed on a few bundle/spotlight variants, that I'd really like to have now (the Nico you are after being one of them too ^^), but I think it's good when they stay exclusive to the window they were available at.

Not everyone was playing at those times though. I'd prefer they gave something cool and exclusive for getting the Spotlight variant (maybe you'll get card borders now for it) when it was a spotlight variant, but it being available much later on without that is fine by me, as someone who tends to pull for spotlight variants over cards in the spotlight cache. It does not bother me if someone else also gets my cosmetic.

Even looking at like paid for things, to me, those are already going to be pretty exclusive even if they rerelease, simply because they cost money and that's it to get. But I don't really mind if those ones stay exclusive, I'll be the one guy with Casual Dazzler I guess, but for spotlights, especially since it's a mini gacha, those I think should come around again.

[Taonath]

Originally posted by Zinkr7x:

Originally posted by Taonath:

You could always buy the card for Tokens and get the variant fro the cache. And I think such an "investment" should not be made obsolete, as it is done in good faith to get something more exclusive (even more expensive, than an Ultimate variant), than the average Snap player (not to mention the F2P crowd).

Without the exclusivity those variants become a lot less (in my case 100%) desirable. I get that someone wants something that is gone, I passed on a few bundle/spotlight variants, that I'd really like to have now (the Nico you are after being one of them too ^^), but I think it's good when they stay exclusive to the window they were available at.

Not everyone was playing at those times though. I'd prefer they gave something cool and exclusive for getting the Spotlight variant (maybe you'll get card borders now for it) when it was a spotlight variant, but it being available much later on without that is fine by me, as someone who tends to pull for spotlight variants over cards in the spotlight cache. It does not bother me if someone else also gets my cosmetic.

As I see it they have the ability to use pretty much the same "art" but in a different posture (I think this is mostly taken from those "comics", kids seem to like in some areas of the world), so simply use a different picture from a different page and be done with it.

That would grant the opportunity to get new "old" stuff, w/o actually invalidating the rarity of the real "old" stuff. That's how I'd do it, as it should keep both sides of the argument happy.

[Zinkr7x]

Originally posted by Taonath:

Originally posted by Zinkr7x:

Not everyone was playing at those times though. I'd prefer they gave something cool and exclusive for getting the Spotlight variant (maybe you'll get card borders now for it) when it was a spotlight variant, but it being available much later on without that is fine by me, as someone who tends to pull for spotlight variants over cards in the spotlight cache. It does not bother me if someone else also gets my cosmetic.

As I see it they have the ability to use pretty much the same "art" but in a different posture (I think this is mostly taken from this comics, kids seem to like in some areas of the world), so simply use a different picture from a different page and be done with it.

That would grant the opportunity to get new "old" stuff w/o actually invalidating the rarity of the real "old" stuff. That's how I'd do it, as it should keep both sides of the argument happy.

I don't like that though, doesn't feel like you're getting the same thing.
Even better solution, make a custom infinity split for the spotlight version, one that looks actually extremely cool.

[Taonath]

Originally posted by Zinkr7x:

Originally posted by Taonath:

As I see it they have the ability to use pretty much the same "art" but in a different posture (I think this is mostly taken from this comics, kids seem to like in some areas of the world), so simply use a different picture from a different page and be done with it.

That would grant the opportunity to get new "old" stuff w/o actually invalidating the rarity of the real "old" stuff. That's how I'd do it, as it should keep both sides of the argument happy.

I don't like that though, doesn't feel like you're getting the same thing.
Even better solution, make a custom infinity split for the spotlight version, one that looks actually extremely cool.

Interesting, but like you do with mine, I don't like this solution. In the end we are only bystanders and SD will decide, what they do - IF they do it at all. I certainly hope not, but SD has a tendency to disappoint.

[mynameisBlade]

Would it really bother these bundle buyers if a tiny handful of people were able to also purchase said bundle? I mean I'll blame the devs for making the bundles seem more important than they should be, but keep that one of a kind stuff to the infinite rank/conquest rewards as those actually take effort to earn and are not just "press this buy button and you get something neat"...

[Si]

Originally posted by mynameisBlade:

Would it really bother these bundle buyers if a tiny handful of people were able to also purchase said bundle? I mean I'll blame the devs for making the bundles seem more important than they should be, but keep that one of a kind stuff to the infinite rank/conquest rewards as those actually take effort to earn and are not just "press this buy button and you get something neat"...

Hard disagree there.

Infinite is given for free to some people, as they face a plethora of easy bots, while otherd have to sweat for it.

Conquest is just about time rather than skill. If you're series 3 complete you will stock up on gold tickets anyway. Whats a more meaningful investment? 2 hours of time? Or £50? Not expecting an actual answer, its for the individual to decide.

Would I care if past bundles variants were brought back? Not really. Sure I would lose exclusive stuff but thats not a huge concern for me and is worth it in that I then get to buy variants from bundles I missed in return. However I can see this from SD's point of view - this radically devalues their (awfully priced) bundles. The recent £100 Shang Chi for example, would certainly lose some of its status if the variant were brought back in the shop rotation. I'm new to mobile games but this is what I came to realize with a lot of bundles, it's not so much abojt the cards or currency, it's about the status. It's about showing off what you have. The rarer it is, the more important it is. Like it or not, the vast majority of players will never pay a dime so these "whales" are required to keep the game going.

Now if they brought back the actual bundles that might be different. You would still need that monetary investment keeping the variant rare, but give new players a chance to get a bundle which was before they started playing.

All in all though, I'm personally generally against exclusive content in games. So many good variants I'd prefer if every single one was accessible via the variant shop.