Card Packs In the Bazar

[AnonymousRevival]

However, shards are still rares. If you look at the top left corner of the shard and rare weps you'll see two bold curves.

In a nymph however, there are three. This makes them the only ultra rares in the game.

[ZephyrPhantom]

Let's clarify the rarities a bit first:

Ulta-rare : Not winnable from the after-victory spins or from the bazaar, but can be won from Oracle. Generally refers to something obtained through other methods such as Nymphs and Marks.
Rare : Not available in the Bazaar, but winnable from after-victory spins and Oracle. Generally refers to any card that fits this definition (Rare Weapons, Shards, Arctic Squid, Miracle, Pharoah).
Uncommon : [Not present as of yet. Would likely end up being pack exclusive cards.]
Common : Cards obtainable from Bazaar/Spins/Oracle. These are the ones you'll generally see in every deck.
I do find the possibility of making booster-packs more cost-efficient than just buying singles interesting, but I'm not sure if it would be appealing to anyone besides newbies (who don't really need to buy certain cards for certain decks yet) and PvP Events/Tourneys designed to specifically use them. IMHO, the appeal to buying a pack is getting cards you normally wouldn't get through simply buying the singles/getting a bunch of preselected cards when there are too many to choose from to begin with. (The first generally applies to most online CCGs. The second works when there's a very large cardpool like MTG's, but eventually has to share with precise card-selection from online websites as players wise up from playing the game enough.)

[Sidenote : Packs should all give the same amount of cards for the sake of being fair.]

[OdinVanguard]

Implementing a bunch of pack exclusive cards would make this interesting (pack exclusives can simply be derivatives of existing cards like an "Etheral Queen" that generates "Etherbugs" with generation each turn, with most/all exclusive variants simply having -1 cost as their upgrade.)

Otherwise, I would wait until the ETG has built up a sizable 'standard' card base that all players can build capable monos from in all 12 elements, and then start thinking about introducing packs with non-Bazaar "Uncommons".

As long as all non-rare cards are obtainable in the bazaar or through the upgrade panel, I otherwise don't see much of a point since all rares are obtainable ingame. (I love the art Ajit made though. )

(Sidenote : Pack Exclusive Uncommons shouldn't be mandatory to build good decks/dominant metadecks, similar to how not all decks need rares.)

Pack Exclusives would be very cool indeed. As a step to that end, I'm thinking of suggesting the splinterling series I'm working on:

Spoiler for Schism Splinterling:

Spoiler for Schism Egg:

Spoiler for Aurora Splintering:

Spoiler for Aurora Egg:

Spoiler for Nexus Splinterling:

Will be making a formal series out of these in the near future and will add in spell cards, permanents, etc. to fill out...
About how many cards would be needed to make this sort of thing worthwhile (assuming packs will contain a mix of pack exclusive and non-exclusive cards)?

[OdinVanguard]

I had an idea for a fun series that could be used as good fodder for "card pack only" cards:
Hybrid Pendulums
These could provide 66 new cards with relatively little effort once all the background card art is finished.

Once the hybrid element project finishes, it would yield nearly 200 new cards (66 hybrid types with 1 permanent, 1 creature, and 1 spell each = 198 cards... 264 if pendulums are added as well)
Booster packs would also make a great place to add in the new hybrid element cards.

For more info on the hybrid element project see:
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,46237.0.html
For current artwork see:
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,46114.0.html

[Marsu]

I don't know about hybrid cards, but seriously:
Booster Packs are the f-ing best thing in trading card games. And the world.
The Bronze top 25 agrees by the way, if you know what I'm saying. :-)

[OdinVanguard]

I think the main barrier atm is that there needs to be new cards made to put in them so that players have a reason to want them instead of just using the bazaar. Having a set of cards that can only be obtained from boosters, or perhaps only boosters or spins, would be a great way to get players to use them.

I.e. There would need to be "booster only" cards to help give an incentive. (otherwise why use them over the bazaar?)

Hybrid cards is just an idea that could help there.

Hybrid pendulums would be a cool start because they would be a way to add a lot of content with a minimum of fuss since they can be automatically generated once the background card arts and hybrid marks are put in place.

This is important because adding a lot of unique and distinct cards would be alot more work for zanz compared to a set that could be built up from a template.

I think they would be useful enough to give a good incentive to hunt for them since they would give a nice edge to multicolor decks. Due to quanta production issues, right now options are mostly mono duo or rainbow, with a handfull of specialized trio or quartets.

So we could kill 3 birds with one stone. Help open up a lot of deck options to players, add in the art and infrastructure for Hybrid cards and kick off booster packs all at once.

[Marvaddin]

I would love having booster packs we could buy from bazaar. But I think this hybrid pendulums idea just terrible. 1st, because I dislike this hybrid thing considering what I just saw (I can change my mind later, couldnt really read enough now). 2nd, because if you are going to use pendulums in a deck, you will probably need like 5-10 of them. And having tons of pendulums types wouldnt really help the player.

A card to be booster exclusive (not found in bazaar) should be something strong, otherwise there is no point. Well, like the actual rares. But I would also include them in arena rare spins (not really booster exclusive, you know).

About generating some demand for the boosters. For common only boosters, the price should be really low, so you could have cards that could give you more electrum than what you paid (maybe like 20% of the times). I imagine, maybe 200 for 5 cards. For a 33-50% chance of the booster containing a rare, a higher price, maybe around 500. And we could also have a 5 rare booster, maybe for 10k. Well, we also know zanz dont want Nymphs to be grindable. But maybe for the right price... how about 100k for a booster with a nymph? Not a simple task. If people stick to EtG to do this, its good for zanz and tha community, I think.

[neuroleptics]

i played shadowera, another card game and many others, what makes ETG special is a solid community, cards that aren't just all grind-able, balanced cards and most of all --->free. Booster pack is a great idea. Now to think that you save up 1500 for an upgrade in the beginning, why not make it 5 card booster pack (basic pack) say, 1800 , the rest you can decide what to put in for that and tell zanz. However, me too, i don't think nymphs should b included, at least not in standard version of booster pack, maybe ultimate booster pack that requires you to participate in pvp events to gain 'elemental energy' perhaps? 10 required + another 20,000 (this can be from grinding or donate). That sounds more logical. The purpose zanz makes it impossible for us to grind nymphs and marks actually encourage us to join the pvp events, which is a good thing

[Jangoo]

Who most wants random scattered cards? Probably newbies.

The correct answer is: profit oriented companies.

The whole idea of booster packs was invented to create an easily marketable steady income stream
from kids that desperately want to get certain cards and (since the statistical chance to actually
get them is always against them) constantly have to go and buy new packs.

Packs fit in with random corporate trading card games that determine the skill of a player mostly
by the size of his wallet. However, in a free online game that doesn't even have a trading system,
like Elements, this would just be a FART.

Elements is about deck-building and playing in an environment where everybody has similar chances,
where the game is highly well balanced and adhering to strategic rules, sort of like in chess.
Being able to directly buy just about any card in the Bazaar is a vital part of this environment and
there are many people here who think that there shouldn't even be Rares.
Why would you want to add to this debate by introducing some crappy, random, pseudo-coporate pack-system?

If this idea reads as "Bazaar as it is + Packs" it's most likely useless.
If this idea reads as "Packs instead of Bazaar" it couldn't possibly be more misguided.

[Marsu]

^
Nope. Gaining all the unupgraded cards from Booster Packs would (or could) still be easier than gaining 6 rares now, so your point is not valid.
And it seems like you think differently, but literally everyone I talked to about this so far loves the feeling of tension when opening a Booster Pack.

As a compromise for risk-averse people, the Bazaar could still stay, but be more expensive on average.

[neuroleptics]

but literally everyone I talked to about this so far loves the feeling of tension when opening a Booster Pack.

Haha.... sort of agree with you.

[Jangoo]

Comparing unupgraded cards with rares is "not valid" 

The whole idea of packs in this thread went very different directions of course but from what I understood
it boils down to the usual "1 Rare, 2 uncommons, 3 commons"-thing ...
The problem is, that nobody mentions what should/will happen to the already existing ways to obtain cards.
Elements already has a system of very specific ways to get certain cards, and this system is not exactly
compatible with a pack-system, if the pack-system is implemented in a meaningful way.

What happens to the spins in the meantime? Will I still be able to win shards in the Arena?
Will FGs still pay out their cards upped? Can I still win a Nypmh in a tourney? Will I still get to buy
all the commons in the Bazaar?

If the answer to these questions is "yes" then sure, go ahead ... introduce as many packs as you want.
They would just be an extra chance to win rares but not really much more ...

However, if the idea is to have packs as more or less exclusive source of cards in general/certain cards,
then you are proposing to change Elements economics completely. Hours and hours of mindless and
meaningless grinding will be ahead just to afford another 10 packs to finally get that damned 6th SoSac ...

I don't find that very thrilling to be honest.