Drops shouldn't be so LIMITED, this should be PLAY FOCUSED, not $ Market

[way-o]

*Updated 5/31/13*

THE PROBLEM

I was excited to see this update, it has a lot of potential, but I think it could be much better.

I think it's a mistake to limit card drops so severely. Don't get me wrong, the ability to trade and buy/sell your cards is very cool, but realistically, you're basically making it that unless you buy cards from the market your not really going to be able to enjoy this system.

Even if you collect all the cards from all the games, the logistics are that in order to build a lvl 1 badge another participant has to give up ever having a lvl 1 badge (even if that person ebbs through the system) and a level 5 badge means 9 participants can't ever obtain a lvl 1 badge.

Essentially this creates inflation, Since there simply aren't enough cards to trade up multiple levels, you must pray on the disheartened and those that have given up and purchase their cards for your badge, (or sell items you have from other games which still equates to someone purchasing the badge).

I don't see the fun in that, and it will exclude a lot of people that might take part in this otherwise.

THE SOLUTION

Suppose that instead of 5 badge levels there are 10-20 lvls (depending on the game), and instead of 5-8 cards to make a set there are far more , like 20-30 cards per set (as many a possible per game), but each level requires more cards then the previous (a lvl1 badge require 5 different cards, a lvl 2 requires 8 different cards etc).


Instead of turning on the game and getting all the cards you'll ever get in an hour or two, there is no drop limit, but they don't drop as frequently (maybe 1 on average every 3-4hrs of play (and Valve figures out a way to prevent getting them if your idle the game)

IMAGINE THIS

Imagine this in Dota 2 - every character has a card. Instead of each card having a chance to be a foil there are specific cards that are rarer and have silver or gold around them. Since DOTA has a lot of cards and players there could be up to 20 lvls for the badge. Obviously it would take an absurdly long time to reach level 20, but it would be so fun working on it and trading cards to get ones your missing, selling duplicates to buy missing cards etc.

Better yet it would be more geared towards the people playing the game and anyone could enjoy it if they were so inclined.

Honestly the system now is a bit lame.

I guarantee this system will encourage more trading, and more market use, because the current system is a bit of a 1 hit un-wonder for each game.


What do people think? Your input is valued, because these ideas won't go anywhere unless they get noticed.

[NoZ]

agree 100% this system is just good for ppl who are willing to pay a lot of money. i got 4 cards of dota 3 of cs go and 4 of portal. if i traded some i could make 1 badge and thats it. if i want to get more i have to pay? thats just ridiculous...

[way-o]

Yeah it's ridiculous. I'm still hopefull since it's a beta that they'll make it more accessabile instead of just a way to show off who's given Valve the most money.

[....]

Yep, I agree 100%. Valve is pulling a stunt straight out of EA's playbook.

[enter a profile name]

+

[way-o]

I also think the foil cards should just be a badge upgrade (i.e. make it shinny or something) instead of a seperate badge...

[Razzlero]

I agree completely

[ForKarl]

I completely agree. 1 card drop for every nine dollars spent is absolutely ridiculous. If they had done something closer to the tf2 drop system, where the card drops reset after a certain amount of time, I could tolerate it. But the massive amount of cash you need to spend versus the incredibly low reward for doing so has put me off investing serious time into doing card collecting.

[Archangel00]

Totally agree as well. Not that it matters. Valve only cares about itself and nothing else.

[Florence]

They are trading cards. If you remove the need to trade by making it that much easier to get cards, then they have failed at what they are trying to do.

They are never, EVER going to allow you to get all of the cards just by idling in a game or farming achievements.

And Level 5 badges are for enthusiasts, don't think of them as a goal you must reach, because honestly it's really far out there.

[internisus]

I agree with this as well. There are solid ideas here that would simultaneously improve the enjoyability of both the achievements system and the new trading cards system while tying them together in a very sensible way. I understand that different games have implemented achievements better or worse, but if Valve is curating which games are a part of the trading card program they could fairly easily assign value to achievements on a selective, individual basis to lead to greater trading card yield, although cheating could be an issue.

I also agree with "waoh" that a foil badge should be a badge upgrade rather than a separate one, but I admit that this is complicated by badge levels; someone with a level 1 Half-Life 2 badge and someone who has worked to make a level 5 HL2 badge would both jump to foil from either of those starting points with the same effort, and that wouldn't be right.

Actually, the existence of rare foil cards combined with the limited drops doesn't really make any sense. Some limitation on drops is fine, but a hard and fast permanent limit doesn't work for would-be foil hunters and is naturally frustrating for anyone who wants multiple levels on a badge. At the very, very least, I would expect that the drop limit would reset when a badge hits a new level.

Overall, this is a complicated new feature set that doesn't seem to have been thought out as well as it should have been. I'm sure that it will go through changes over time, but I worry that some of them may lead early participants to feeling frustrated or ripped off in terms of time/effort/money spent versus latecomers who may have an easier time of things. Most predictably, if badges in any way become easier to accumulate later on through refinement of the system, early users will surely complain that their own accomplishments have been devalued.

[Atombath]

The fact that a 8-card badge would take 40 cards to reach level 5, yet only 1/10th of cards can be achieved from 'free' drops, makes me feel like Valve is a drug dealer that is giving me the first hit for free.

[Suzaku]

If only half the cards will drop, then it needs to be half the set guaranteed, with an unlimited number of drops that just add extra copies of the cards that have already dropped for you. Otherwise it becomes physically impossible to complete all the card sets without buying extra drops. Buying cards does not work, because fully half the people participating would have to give up all their cards just so the other half could fill out all their sets.

In other words, if the trading card system requires money to be spent just to fill out sets, it's a horrible system. If you own one of the TC games, you should be able to get the full set exclusively through drops and trades, and not neuter your ability to collect the other sets at the same time.

By all means, limit the number of *unique* cards that will drop in each set to half the set, but those cards should be able to drop in unlimited amounts.

Even better, assign each card a rarity and allow *all* cards to drop for *everyone*. It will be much harder for each person to get some cards from drops than other. And if each Steam account gets seeded with a different set of rarities, then not only will everyone be statistically capable of getting all the cards eventually, but trading will still be encouraged because a card that is a rare drop for one player might be a common drop for another, making trading a much more efficient method than grinding.

[Frostaneous]

I agree...lets hope they listen..pretty sure i read somewhere that they are looking into idea on how to drop more cards

[Jardex22]

Originally posted by Louisville15:

Yep, I agree 100%. Valve is pulling a stunt straight out of EA's playbook.

I wouldn't go that far. Most of the money is circulated between the community. With EA's model, all the money goes to them.

Still though. Considering all the transactions go into your Steam Wallet, it will all go back to Valve eventually (either through in game purcheses or % cuts of Market sales.)

[protohipster]

Someone pay OP.