scarcity of cards in card shop

[Thundercrack]

you guys need to loosen that up somehow

[dishnet34]

Originally Posted by Thundercrack

you guys need to loosen that up somehow

And your proposal is...?

Also, please elaborate what you mean by "scarcity"

[Hoover36]

Has duplicate protection in packs ever been considered, similar to what games like Hearthstone use? I dont know that it would add supply to the card shop, but it would likely increase the desirability to purchase additional packs. I am not suggesting that the odds of a pulling a higher level card could be manipulated, just if you happen to be lucky enough to open a pack with a Diamond in it and there is a Diamond card, you don't own and never opened in a pack previously, you would pull that card instead of a duplicate Diamond you already own.

[usa_hank]

I have to agree here. With how scarce perfect-rated cards are, and how few we pull, I've somehow managed to pull 3 Tarik Skubals and 3 Tubby Scales out of the 15-20 or so perfects I've pulled from packs. I get that pack odds are "random" but yeah.

I've always appreciated that the card shop is free market, but some cards are perceptibly impossible to get. For instance, to finish the "Kid" mission for Junior, you gotta buy Max Clark + Travis Bazzana (250K for both) or Andrew Painter (300K). I can't believe they are still going for these crazy values. I get it that Griffey is still super competitive in HD, but he sells for 150K. Painter is maybe a low end HD player, and Clark and Bazzana are barely serviceable in LD. I have a hard time believing these cards are NOT rare at this point. Everyone competing in LD/HD/Perfect has Griffey. So the demand shouldn't really be as high anymore

Do I think there are things that can be done? Yes.

[Hawkwing7423]

Amos Otis to finish the Nolan Ryan launch mission is still 33k, 5 months after the mission came out.

[OswanX]

Originally Posted by Hawkwing7423

Amos Otis to finish the Nolan Ryan launch mission is still 33k, 5 months after the mission came out.

Yes, and the 100 Nolan Ryan sells for around 30-40k now as well, yet there is rarely an Amos Otis available (based on the times I checked) and he costs as much as the Reward for the mission. Similar to the cards from the Griffey mission. The market has been weird this year.

[LeeD]

Sticky prices are sticky. Basic Keynesian economics.

edit to add: Keynes would advocate increasing the supply of mission input cards to alleviate the problem. This would, of course, cause OOTP all kinds of problems and isn't an available solution.

[rburgh]

Adam Smith economics.

[LeeD]

Originally Posted by rburgh

Adam Smith economics.

No, it wouldn't be. Smith was arguably the first true economist and sketched the foundations of all that followed; but he merely implied the concept while discussing differences between natural (or equilibrium) price and market price.

Sticky prices are a core concept in Keynesian theory, which holds that wages and prices are slow to adjust to shifts in aggregate demand and that government, through central banks, spending, and tax policy, should intervene to correct the problem at its root by stimulating or constraining aggregate demand (as the case may be). There are, of course, problems with this approach (particularly in regard to inflation), but it's been the dominant theory for nearly a century now.

[textilemonster]

In a related note: Can I complain about how messed up the Immortal Relievers mission is?
Why is Mark Eichhorn worth 75 points? You need 250 points to complete the mission, but there are only FOUR CARDS TOTAL: TWO PERFECTS, and John Hiller (50 points). Since Perfects are worth 200 points--and 50 plus 75 equals 125, not 250--Eichhorn essentially has 25 points that would never be 'used'.
ALL the other Immortal missions are either # of cards missions, or have lower points totals that CAN be reached by just collecting the less-than-Perfects in the mission.

And naturally, the two Perfects in Immortal Relievers are very expensive, often just not even for sale.

[bailey]

Originally Posted by textilemonster

And naturally, the two Perfects in Immortal Relievers are very expensive, often just not even for sale.

When that happens, it is best to wait for the needed cards to show up in spotlight packs.

[usa_hank]

Originally Posted by bailey

When that happens, it is best to wait for the needed cards to show up in spotlight packs.

Spotlight packs are pricey AF: 56K PP for a 50% chance to pull Gold. IMHO they aren't worth it for those of us on a PP budget. Most of us are living OOTP paycheck to OOTP paycheck :P

And prices aren't going down. We're not far from end game here. I'd say the market is broken for several of these missions, and time isn't fixing it. I blame whales, who don't need the PP and just put the cards up for sale at the current L10 price or greater - if they sell they sell, if not, they don't care, they've got 2 million PP anyway. So crazy to see people posting pics of their screen and seeing several with 2+ Million PP and 2000 CS while I'm scrounging around to get enough of either to get a good card once every two weeks. Then again, I haven't pulled a perfect from a daily drop pack in about 7 weeks.

[textilemonster]

Originally Posted by usa_hank

Spotlight packs are pricey AF: 56K PP for a 50% chance to pull Gold. IMHO they aren't worth it for those of us on a PP budget. Most of us are living OOTP paycheck to OOTP paycheck :P

Yeah, if I ever have the PP to afford a Spotlight pack... I can use that PP to buy specific cards needed for OTHER missions. (Which I already DID when the Spotlight pack suddenly shops up, so I don't have any PP anyway.)
It would be nice if in the larger tournaments that awarded Clubhouse points, they extended the number of rounds that get Clubhouse points. You're telling me I have to make it to THE THIRD ROUND for a measly 10 Clubhouse points? I don't think this would affect people who already get a lot of Clubhouse points, since they're inherently making it much deeper into these tournaments.

[usa_hank]

Originally Posted by textilemonster

Yeah, if I ever have the PP to afford a Spotlight pack... I can use that PP to buy specific cards needed for OTHER missions. (Which I already DID when the Spotlight pack suddenly shops up, so I don't have any PP anyway.)
It would be nice if in the larger tournaments that awarded Clubhouse points, they extended the number of rounds that get Clubhouse points. You're telling me I have to make it to THE THIRD ROUND for a measly 10 Clubhouse points? I don't think this would affect people who already get a lot of Clubhouse points, since they're inherently making it much deeper into these tournaments.

The perfect drafts and tourneys are like playing Call of Duty - the players who are already playing well get the killstreaks to play even better. Errrr I mean, get their wins in tourneys and then get even better cards to play even better. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I forced myself to work at perfect drafts this year. I play 3 of the 100CS/130CS tourneys daily, and tend to get to top-4 once a week and an average of about 20 CS per day. It's still only good enough to get me around 500 pts (enough for a good card) every 2.5 weeks. About 1/2 the people tend to pick not-so-great players, so once you know what you're doing you'll usually get past the 1st round (70% of the time, it seems). If you need some pointers I'll happily help.

That said, the fact that I only get top-4 once a week still seems like the whole perfect draft format is 90% luck and 10% skill. I've heard someone compare it to poker, but at least in poker you play many hands, not just one. So yeah, despite having some success there, I actually find it annoying. Sorry this went off topic, but I figured since you brought it up, why not get into it.

[bailey]

I didn't mean for anyone to buy spotlight packs! What happens is those that do buy spotties flood the market creating a temporary surge in supply enabling the player to grab the cards they need, often at a relatively lower price than the week before.

[LeeD]

Originally Posted by usa_hank

And prices aren't going down. We're not far from end game here. I'd say the market is broken for several of these missions, and time isn't fixing it. I blame whales, who don't need the PP and just put the cards up for sale at the current L10 price or greater - if they sell they sell, if not, they don't care, they've got 2 million PP anyway.

It really is just sticky price syndrome. People hate listing for less than L10 and dream of scoring the amount of PP that everyone was paying a couple of months ago. This is why you see copies of Tannehill, Otis, and Lawrie jump right back up to 90,000 and 45,000 and 30,000 whenever there are no other sellers. Well, Lawrie might've finally crashed for good now that Brooksie isn't much of an option at third base and doesn't help with any other missions.

We're also not that close to end-game. Coming up will be playoff cards and missions, close-out on the live cards, some form of PT Elite, and god knows what else between now and January. There's still a lot of time to catch up or watch your teams fade into obscurity.

[textilemonster]

Originally Posted by bailey

I didn't mean for anyone to buy spotlight packs! What happens is those that do buy spotties flood the market creating a temporary surge in supply enabling the player to grab the cards they need, often at a relatively lower price than the week before.

Ah, that makes sense.

[textilemonster]

Originally Posted by LeeD

It really is just sticky price syndrome. People hate listing for less than L10 and dream of scoring the amount of PP that everyone was paying a couple of months ago. This is why you see copies of Tannehill, Otis, and Lawrie jump right back up to 90,000 and 45,000 and 30,000 whenever there are no other sellers. Well, Lawrie might've finally crashed for good now that Brooksie isn't much of an option at third base and doesn't help with any other missions.

I'm impatient. I want PP NOW, so I sell it at bare minimum because somebody's got a Buy order for more.