Trading Card Drops

[zolvur]

Currently I have a few games on "no drops remaining for this game". I know I have to trade cards to get my badge. But when I trade a card I obviously lose that, so I have to trade another one for that card and so on until infinity.

So how am I supposed to finish a collection without spending money in the Steam Marketplace? So far I didn't get duplicates, am I just unlucky or is there no way to get duplicates to trade away without spending RL cash?

[zolvur]

1. means I have to use cash
2. means I can't then craft badges in my other games, so I have to resort to option 1
3. means I have to get gems, thereby using cards to trade for gems, so I have to buy the other cards from the marketplace anyway, so still using option 1

What a sh*t system...

[zolvur]

Originally posted by M:

you still got the option to activate the descendant, grimm, and hitman 2 ep1, for free and use these cards.

and well, nobody is forcing you to collect cards and trade badges.

But I want badges for those games aswell, so I can't trade those cards in because I'd have to buy THOSE from the market then aswell :O

And yeah sure, nobody is forcing me, but the obvious greediness of this system is so apparent... I can still say how bad it is.

Basically you can't ever get all badges without purchasing them, thus the system doesn't represent a dude playing games, but more a dude buying stuff.

[zolvur]

Yeah, it's called trading cards, not buying cards^^

It'd be fine if I can get duplicates to then trade in with others, but that's useless because apparently I don't. So trading in one card means I'd have to buy it from the market then because I can't get it from the game. So, "trading" isn't really useful.

Imagine you and a friend have 2 apples. You both need 3. So you each trade an apple in for another apple. Wow. You still got 2, that's my issue. There's no way both can ever get 3 apples without buying a third one.

"but that would also make the cards pretty pointless."

No, not really. I always thought they represent the time someone has put into a specific game. So by playing those 6000 games you should be able to earn all your badges, trading would be acceptable for me, but that's not possible without losing your cards, thereby making it useless because you'd have to buy the "traded" card back from the market, I find it a bad system.

[zolvur]

So I will never be able to get cards for game B without playing game C because I spent all my cards from game B on game A. That's my issue exactly. The badge has nothing to do with game B except for the looks, because I have to play game C to get the badge for game B.

"if you could get all cards, by yourself, for free."
I never said such a thing, where are you taking this from? I accept trading, but it's useless in the current system, I'll explain it thoroughly the way I understand it:
You have 3 different cards, but you need 6 different cards. You trade in card 1 for card 4, now you have card 2, 3, 4, and are missing 1, 5, 6. Now you trade in card 3 for card 5. You now have 2, 4, 5 and are missing 1, 3, 6. Still missing 3. No chance of ever getting 6 solely by trading. I HAVE to buy them from the market for money.

[zolvur]

I edited my post above, you might want to read that.

"but that's how the system works"
Yes.

"but if you are so impatient, maybe trading cards are not made for you."
It's not about being impatient. What if I only like one game. And I want the badge for that one game. Im screwed. I HAVE to play some other game to get the badge for this game. So what does the badge have to do with the original game if I need to play another game to get it?

[DonJuanDoja]

It wasn't designed to be done for free... if it was free it would've died already.

The only reason devs add them is because they get a small cut of the money.

I mean I think it's absolutely beyond reasonable human thought to expect that all of these trading cards, the market, backgrounds, emoticons, would all be made and maintained for FREE. By real people working real jobs.

What kind of person expects people to work for free... not the good kind, I know that much.

All that said even with the incentive to make money some devs still don't add them... probably because they didn't think the INVESTMENT of their time and money would be worth it. Yes, I know it's terrible, people want to be paid for their work.

[zolvur]

Originally posted by DonJuanDoja:

What kind of person expects people to work for free... not the good kind, I know that much.

All of that without much thinking... you don't need to get aggressive out of nowhere. There are plenty of things people do for free. Steam itself is free. HOW? WHAT?

Yes, there is such a thing as trying to bind customers to a brand. That's what I thought trading cards were about. An effort by steam to lock their customerbase onto Steam so they wouldn't leave for an eventual competitor.

Appearently I thought wrong, but that's no reason to get hotheaded and just write anything without spending 5 minutes contemplating whether other people might have thought about things themselves.

[DonJuanDoja]

Originally posted by Viki:

Originally posted by DonJuanDoja:

What kind of person expects people to work for free... not the good kind, I know that much.

All of that without much thinking... you don't need to get aggressive out of nowhere. There are plenty of things people do for free. Steam itself is free. HOW? WHAT?

Yes, there is such a thing as trying to bind customers to a brand. That's what I thought trading cards were about. An effort by steam to lock their customerbase onto Steam so they wouldn't leave for an eventual competitor.

Appearently I thought wrong, but that's no reason to get hotheaded and just write anything without spending 5 minutes contemplating whether other people might have thought about things themselves.

sorry if you took it that way lady but I'm calm as the wind right now... drinking coffee in the morning, pretty relaxed... find your response odd.

Just because I have different opinions doesn't make me aggressive or hot-headed. I'm reading it going "What!?!" still don't see it

That's just how I talk... hope you have a nice day.

[zolvur]

Your rhetoric paints another picture, polemic is the term you'll be looking for. If that's how you usually talk you should work on that, doesn't come off as you'd expect^^

[Sleepy Yoshi]

The game library is really what locks people to the brand. Trading cards were developed merely to be another avenue of revenue for the platform and developers.

As far as is it possible to create a badge without trading cards that you would need for another badge or buying them, well yes it is technically possible. You'd essentially farm the free cards they give out during the holiday sales, craft those badges, then break down the items (backgrounds/emotes etc) for gems. You'd then use said gems to craft booster packs for w/e game, then craft and/or trade duplicates.

Of course that assumes you only want the level 1 badge instead of the level 5 for regular cards. I honestly have no idea how long it'd take you to get a badge doing that as it's not how I go about leveling.

There's also the rng booster packs that drop, but that's not really going to be applicable without a high level and the more eligible games you have the better. But I guess it's worth pointing out as a "technically this could happen".

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Is there a limit to how many trading cards can drop?

Most games will drop a number of cards equal to about half the number of cards in that game's set of cards. For example, Half-Life 2 has 8 cards in its set, you can receive 4 card drops by playing it. You'll need to collect the other half of the set from other community members. Try the beta group discussions, community market, barter with friends, and trade discussions. You can check how many drops you have remaining on your badges page.

https://steamcommunity.com/tradingcards/faq/

[Washell]

Originally posted by Viki:

Imagine you and a friend have 2 apples. You both need 3. So you each trade an apple in for another apple. Wow. You still got 2, that's my issue. There's no way both can ever get 3 apples without buying a third one.

Every time someone gets 3 apples and makes the badge, 1 apple (booster containing 3 cards) is given to a person who's eligible to get it (has all cards dropped).

Theoretically, given a long enough time frame, you could get all cards for free. Though given the way the system works, the time frame needed is longer than the average lifespan.