War #11 - Market Prices

[Zawadx]

War #11 - Market Prices

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1794ycRzDZxHk-2WYS2_LsD6pFK8ErXclggyIcyCDIcA/edit?usp=sharing

Spoiler for Old OP:

An Experimental Market

Note: These are not the market prices for War #11, nor the main baseline for them.


https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cJaVS0tnBCpq3vx2J_Q-Rnw2wlOOBxL1SLEhMgjNLeg/edit?usp=sharing

The main inspiration for this experiment was Serprex's vision of market as a 300 variable system to switch up the meta. I wanted to see if that can be applied to obtain a somewhat reasonable market which aims to balance everything, with a heavy hand. This will also serve to test how some prices might affect the final meta, and give a bound for how much subjective tweaking is needed compared to the objective algorithm.

Here I first decided a power tier for each card, in the 'Power Tier' tab. The expectation was 30 for worthless/vault fodder cards, 100 the cost of an average power level card from a proper vault and 170+ the really strong cards. This tries to judge each card's power individually, in the context of the elements where it usually appears in vaults. The actual experimental market takes these prices and tweaks them heavily, notably trying to buff weaker elements (Light, Life, to a lesser extent Death) and nerf the stronger ones (Air, Gravity, Darkness). There are also a few other tweaks such as decreasing the price of situational/counter cards and yes, setting Shard of Freedom to 500 (this hopes to address the meta issues SoFr might cause). Bold indicates cards where price has been tweaked.

Now the main thing about these prices is that they are an experiment. And to make the experiment successful, we need your help! If you want to help in the further development of war, you can build a vault following these market prices and pm it to The Warmasters. None of the information such as who sent in vaults or their contents will be disclosed to anyone, so your secrets are safe with us. Build vaults with a maximum point total of 26,000 points. And since it might affect your vault strategy, note that we will start at the full 6 salvage, 20 discards from round 1 and transmutations will be done based on market price of the card being transmuted into (1:1 for cards costing 60 or less, 1:2 for cards costing 70-150, 1:3 for cards higher than that and 1:4 for SoFree).

If you have the time, please help us out with your take on a vault. Here's to an amazing war!


Thanks a lot to all of you for all the amazing feedback! While this is an experimental market, the suggestions you put forth will give us serious food for thought for actual market decisions, especially when designing the algorithm for the baseline. Here a few questions which you might answer to provide more general feedback!

1. What do you think about the levels of the prices? Do you think the numbers of 30 for minimum, 70/100/120 for the different levels of the average power cards for vaults, 170+ for OP cards are good? If not, any number distribution to suggest?
2. What do you think of the variance in these prices? Do you like that the prices are so spread out, or would you rather have them be more close to each other, or perhaps some other distribution like all the low cost cards close together but OP cards are significantly higher?
3. Do you think manually placing nerfs/buffs on elements on the basis of their war record (putting more emphasis on recent wars) a good idea?
4. Do you think these prices would properly address the balance issues for War, and make the event more fun and interesting?

Feel free to add in other thoughts as well. Thank you all!

[Vangelios]

if SoP is 250 Sofree should be maximum 300, if Sofree is 500 SoP should be 400, both shards are very unbalanced for war

[JonathanCrazyJ]

if SoP is 250 Sofree should be maximum 300, if Sofree is 500 SoP should be 400, both shards are very unbalanced for war

Sop isn't in the same league as sofo because all elements can make use of SoP where only 1 can use sofree (possibly 2)

[TheonlyrealBeef]

Here's a small list of cards that stick out for me:
Wings seems cheap compared to Dims.
Shard of Patience seems cheap compared to Shard of Freedom. You can slap 3-4 in many decks whereas SoFree often requires 6: just their required quantity makes it that SoPa is more valuable per copy. Giving SoFree its own tier just isn't fair.
I know Fire did an awesome job last war, but ramping up the prices even further is bound to hurt. Oh, that was sarcasm, so let's just say RIP Fire.
Flying Weapon is really, really cheap. I'd throw Adrenastaves/Catitan into any vault. With these prices.

Apart from all that, the prices seem rather daring. But without modified salvage, I'm not sure making decks super-duper expensive is the main solution. Without being forced to discard them, it doesn't matter how expensive they are to transmute towards, either. Air just would not ever lose SoFrees for example.

I may try to build some vaults for testing verification purposes and send those. In the end, the different strategies from different people sending in vaults will lead to entirely different conclusions, so best to have as many as possible.

[iancudorinmarian]

Vagger > Discord

1) More upgrades means towers+cheaper cards, meaning Discord will only be good against underquanta'd decks.
2) Discord is a situational card, Vagger isn't. Vagger can be put in every single deck that can afford 2 and it's good in every single matchup.
3) You need 3+ Discords in each deck, otherwise you won't draw it early. In the mid to lategame, Discord is just an overcosted long sword. That's not the case for Vagger. Vagger is good in every single moment of the game. The moment you draw Vagger you can potentially swing the game, especially when combined with the in-element duck shield.

I'm not trying to say Discord is a bad card. It's certainly a great card, but it should cost less than Vagger.


Regarding SoP/SoFr, those cards are both busted and it would make me happy if they would both cost like 1000. Unsure which is more broken, but as stated by TorB, you need less SoP than SoFr in a deck, so SoP should cost more.

[Blacksmith]

But without modified salvage, I'm not sure making decks super-duper expensive is the main solution. Without being forced to discard them, it doesn't matter how expensive they are to transmute towards, either. Air just would not ever lose SoFrees for example.

This^The market only balance the game during vault building. Then we have to look into transmution and salvage to balance the other part.
Btw I like the bigger difference in market prices. It makes for more creativity variety. So this level seems about right to me. Life and light will be able to build really big vaults. Will be interesting to see how this develops.

[JonathanCrazyJ]

Creatures:
Too Expensive: Lava Golem, Sapp Charger, Phase Spider, Blue Crawler, Dragonfly, Wyrm (the last 2 have been put up, this is good, but with Sofree being so high these prices on air's basics is just silly)

SoP conversation: I feel really strongly about this, and not because I am Water Master. I do not understand the SoP hate. It is a strong card, but 250 is fair, because it makes weak elements stronger, but not discriminately, because it is still usable by strong elements, and everybody has counters to it. Several counters. Seriously. It is no stronger than Dims, and just as easy for all elements to use, with far more diversity in builds. Nerfing this cards cost too much is BAD for the meta, not good. The opposite can be said of SoFree

[Blacksmith]

SoP conversation: I feel really strongly about this, and not because I am Water Master. I do not understand the SoP hate. It is a strong card, but 250 is fair, because it makes weak elements stronger, but not discriminately, because it is still usable by strong elements, and everybody has counters to it. Several counters. Seriously. It is no stronger than Dims, and just as easy for all elements to use, with far more diversity in builds. Nerfing this cards cost too much is BAD for the meta, not good. The opposite can be said of SoFree

I agree here. As far as I know no Sop version dominates as much as the best sofree decks. Sop is okay for several elements while sofree is mainly good for air. Sop also got more counters than a good sofree deck. So basically what JC said. I think 250-300 is fair considering how much that is already. Any card seems cheap compared to sofree. I personally think we should put a limit on max 6 sofree in vault at any time and reduce the cost just so would be able to afford it as well.

[Vangelios]

I Agree partial with Jonathan, really SoP is very useful with various elements and Sofree practically is good with , however says that SoP would be 250 because is good for various elements not one argument to justify your price, even because we have a lot of cards doing the same like (I named it like Dinamic Cards) , nova, graboid, discord, fractal, steal, deflagration, miracle, sundial... but SoP is more OP that all non shards elements "dinamic cards", the price would be 350/400 points

[ddevans96]

I Agree partial with Jonathan, really SoP is very useful with various elements and Sofree practically is good with , however says that SoP would be 250 because is good for various elements not one argument to justify your price, even because we have a lot of cards doing the same like (I named it like Dinamic Cards) , nova, graboid, discord, fractal, steal, deflagration, miracle, sundial... but SoP is more OP that all non shards elements "dinamic cards", the price would be 350/400 points

SoP is not notably more powerful than the majority of those cards. Certainly not so much so to warrant a price increase of 50-100% over Nova, Graboid, Discord, Fractal, and Sundial.

250 is good. 275-300 could maybe be a diversity tradeoff so that'd also be fine. Anything more I can't find reason in.

[Zawadx]

Apart from all that, the prices seem rather daring. But without modified salvage, I'm not sure making decks super-duper expensive is the main solution. Without being forced to discard them, it doesn't matter how expensive they are to transmute towards, either. Air just would not ever lose SoFrees for example.

We are starting with full discards tho, and costly transmutes means influx of new cards from thin air is limited (no pun intended). Don't you think that will do some good in ensuring salvages don't takeover all vaults and we have some interesting decks? Air might be able to stick with their SoFrees, but it will be a significant risk for them to put them in vault and to use them (at least that's the intention).

We are also going to consider forced vault discards, and see if they can work out these issues. But a big problem there is that it places a huge emphasis on initial vault design - this means the market has to be perfectly balanced, as one card out of place might result in serious imbalance. This might force us to simply pile all weak cards together and drive their prices up, which removes the possibility for variety. There's also the fact that this would trade out mindgating and vault prediction, which a lot of people think of as part of the core experience of war.


Thanks a lot to all of you for all the amazing feedback! While this is an experimental market, the suggestions you put forth will give us serious food for thought for actual market decisions, especially when designing the algorithm for the baseline. Here a few questions which you might answer to provide more general feedback!

1. What do you think about the levels of the prices? Do you think the numbers of 30 for minimum, 70/100/120 for the different levels of the average power cards for vaults, 170+ for OP cards are good? If not, any number distribution to suggest?
2. What do you think of the variance in these prices? Do you like that the prices are so spread out, or would you rather have them be more close to each other, or perhaps some other distribution like all the low cost cards close together but OP cards are significantly higher?
3. Do you think manually placing nerfs/buffs on elements on the basis of their war record (putting more emphasis on recent wars) a good idea?
4. Do you think these prices would properly address the balance issues for War, and make the event more fun and interesting?

Feel free to add in other thoughts as well. Thank you all!

[Blacksmith]

1. What do you think about the levels of the prices? Do you think the numbers of 30 for minimum, 70/100/120 for the different levels of the average power cards for vaults, 170+ for OP cards are good? If not, any number distribution to suggest?
I think that is a good distribution.

2. What do you think of the variance in these prices? Do you like that the prices are so spread out, or would you rather have them be more close to each other, or perhaps some other distribution like all the low cost cards close together but OP cards are significantly higher? Like question number 1
3. Do you think manually placing nerfs/buffs on elements on the basis of their war record (putting more emphasis on recent wars) a good idea?It's fair but there shouldn't be a to bid difference in vault price. The reason it's needs to be balanced was because the first war with market team had the most expensive vault and the cost of the average card in light was second highest I believe. That is way it has to get balanced elements wise as well and not only by card power.
4. Do you think these prices would properly address the balance issues for War, and make the event more fun and interesting?
The market prices are a good start but Salvage, transmution and discard really has the biggest impact.