24 days...

[JFP]

is a long time to wait for the next mission... just saying

[Dr.Drill]

Originally Posted by JFP

... is a long time to wait for the next mission... just saying

Hello, and welcome to Moviefone!

[bailey]

Originally Posted by JFP

is a long time to wait for the next mission... just saying

Do you have all the cards? ...just asking

[Dr.Drill]

Every mission has an opportunity: cost. Some are FAIL.

[Dr.Drill]

Not trying to make these images ridiculously large.

This board is built on old DOS. No way to render these images correctly.

[daves]

Originally Posted by Dr.Drill

Hello, and welcome to Moviefone!

Technically, we are now at 27 days or 33 days without any relevant missions as of 05-19-26.

Mission failed, movie cancelled despite the nice poster

[atomzero]

Yeah, the most recent missions came out because a former played passed away. Hopefully, that is not the requirement.

[cwhitman]

Originally Posted by atomzero

Yeah, the most recent missions came out because a former played passed away. Hopefully, that is not the requirement.

Just to clarify, there were going to be missions regardless on that Monday, but that was the motivation behind the specific ones they chose.
But again, we already have missions confirmed for today.

[daves]

Originally Posted by Dr.Drill

Hello, and welcome to Moviefone!

Movie renamed 100, starring Dick Van Dyke.

[LeeD]

With all the CGI available now, I wouldn't be surprised if Tom Cruise is still starring in films when he hits 100. Software nip here, tuck there....

[rburgh]

They were a good thing for most players. I don't see why little missions like these aren't dropped every couple of weeks, they don't compete with the major missions very much and are within the capabilities of pretty much anyone who isn't packs only.

I've been playing I think since the late stages of 18, and my favorite mission year was when in addition to the live missions, missions for the historical cards for every franchise consisted of

1. A mission where collecting a certain number from a group of iron cards for the franchise got you a bronze version of one of the franchise icons.
2. The next round of missions asked you to collect bronze cards from the franchise to get a silver version of the same player.

And so on until you had to collect diamonds to get perfects. This was doable, and especially appreciated by the people who just played a specific franchise in PT.

I don't see any reason why something like this couldn't run concurrently with the other mission sets that lead to the premium cards from all teams, eras, and leagues. And several of the ATG's like Mays or Koufax could have their meta cards based on these mission trees.

I also think there should be more emphasis on having multiple types of met teams, e.g. sets of meta cards for each of the seven historical eras where teams could be constructed to be deadly in a particular environment.

[LeeD]

I have no real objection to the low-level, team-specific missions that were released yesterday. They're a nice bit of grist and easy to create. As you said earlier, they're within everyone's reach (and thus keep players involved).

What I object to is waiting four weeks and then touting them as "mission content." They're mission filler, something that ought to be happening every week in between the serious mission content.

[Hwilensky]

Originally Posted by LeeD

I have no real objection to the low-level, team-specific missions that were released yesterday. They're a nice bit of grist and easy to create. As you said earlier, they're within everyone's reach (and thus keep players involved).

What I object to is waiting four weeks and then touting them as "mission content." They're mission filler, something that ought to be happening every week in between the serious mission content.

100% agree. That is the way it used to be....since they have been sold...not at all...

[LeeD]

Looking at it from their perspective, I can see why the steady stream of missions has declined and continues to decline. They appear to have convinced a significant number of players to open up their wallets and pay for points and packs. No sense giving stuff away if enough people are willing to buy it.

I base this on my skill level (I'd say about a B or B-minus), where my main team is sitting, and on how many teams are ahead of me. I'm currently in Low Gold, first place (best in conference), Team Score of 88, have pulled in between 500 and 600 Clubhouse Stars (almost all from tournaments), grind the Twitch drops daily (well over 500 packs opened), and have only a dozen uncompleted missions (one to go for Perfect Jackie). Live Series completed. Launch Deck completed. Pack luck has not been a problem, probably about average. Roster is 13 Perfects and 13 High Diamonds.

Despite this, there are somewhere around 900 teams ahead of me in league terms and about 600 in terms of team score. That's a lot. Sure, there are players who are simply better players and players who've had killer pack luck, but a good portion of that will be actual cash spending.

As I said: no sense giving stuff away if enough people are willing to buy it.

[rburgh]

The advantage to the spenders (and I am one) would be insurmountable. As it is, the slow pace of releasing significant missions allows those of you who grind tourneys and twitch drops (one of my FtP teams is doing quite well solely on twitch drops and PD's) to keep up.

I'm all in favor of that, I spend because I have a regular job and no family. So the energy I spend on this serves to relieve job stress and the job provides the disposable income to keep a team relevant. But there are hundreds of players who have neither the time to grind nor the skill to compete, and they should have some avenue for improving their teams with the resources available to them.

Even the theme teams and packs only guys could use some sort of tangible card rewards for smallish tournaments. I suggest that they bring back choice packs at low levels, where completing a mission of mixed iron and bronze cards got you a low silver choice pack, a mission with bronzes and low silvers got you a high silver choice pack, etc. And the choice packs should contain a dozen cards, or maybe just a few that fit their team's theme.

[daves]

The lack of missions explains why face of the franchise or the players by position were enjoyable and is missed.

[LeeD]

Originally Posted by rburgh

[If they had significant missions drop every week]
The advantage to the spenders (and I am one) would be insurmountable. As it is, the slow pace of releasing significant missions allows those of you who grind tourneys and twitch drops (one of my FtP teams is doing quite well solely on twitch drops and PD's) to keep up.

On this point I disagree. One of the effects of steady and consistent mission streams is that they significantly lower the prices of previous mission component cards. If we had the older-style mission sets coming out every two to three weeks, then we wouldn't be seeing launch day cards like Jack Lynch (91, part of Charlie Sweeney Pitching) still trading for 20K two-plus months after mission drop. The card would have dropped to the vicinity of 8K by now since it's only useful in low-level leagues and only included in that one mission.

Why do the prices drop? Because the hoarder/gougers move on to hoard and gouge cards from the newer sets, leaving the older set component cards to drop toward their true value. This might not thrill someone whose team is in Perfect League and only interested in a roster full of meta cards, but the mission topper (Sweeney) is a useful card in most leagues and a dominant card at the lowest levels. There are plenty more examples where that came from.

I've run a lot of teams through PT over the past six years, and my opinion is that the current system, with its lack of missions and focus on extra-curricular activities like Variant purchases for tournament use, is not at all helpful to casual or FTP players. At every turn, the powers that be have strangled rewards, whether that be through mission completion or tournament performance.

Current year is looking like it will be nearly impossible to start a new team mid-cycle and have any chance of catching up without spending actual cash thanks to the twerping of Live Series rewards. Even after live cards become readily available for low, low prices, the rewards will not generate the 250K or so that past years' Live Series have generated. Another avenue blocked...

and more people who try out the game for the first time giving up in disgust as their teams founder in Iron or Low Bronze with few good cards and not enough Perfect Points to correct the deficiencies.

[Hwilensky]

Originally Posted by LeeD

On this point I disagree. One of the effects of steady and consistent mission streams is that they significantly lower the prices of previous mission component cards. If we had the older-style mission sets coming out every two to three weeks, then we wouldn't be seeing launch day cards like Jack Lynch (91, part of Charlie Sweeney Pitching) still trading for 20K two-plus months after mission drop. The card would have dropped to the vicinity of 8K by now since it's only useful in low-level leagues and only included in that one mission.

Why do the prices drop? Because the hoarder/gougers move on to hoard and gouge cards from the newer sets, leaving the older set component cards to drop toward their true value. This might not thrill someone whose team is in Perfect League and only interested in a roster full of meta cards, but the mission topper (Sweeney) is a useful card in most leagues and a dominant card at the lowest levels. There are plenty more examples where that came from.

I've run a lot of teams through PT over the past six years, and my opinion is that the current system, with its lack of missions and focus on extra-curricular activities like Variant purchases for tournament use, is not at all helpful to casual or FTP players. At every turn, the powers that be have strangled rewards, whether that be through mission completion or tournament performance.

Current year is looking like it will be nearly impossible to start a new team mid-cycle and have any chance of catching up without spending actual cash thanks to the twerping of Live Series rewards. Even after live cards become readily available for low, low prices, the rewards will not generate the 250K or so that past years' Live Series have generated. Another avenue blocked...

and more people who try out the game for the first time giving up in disgust as their teams founder in Iron or Low Bronze with few good cards and not enough Perfect Points to correct the deficiencies.

Very well said!!

[Dr.Drill]

Originally Posted by LeeD

we wouldn't be seeing launch day cards like Jack Lynch (91, part of Charlie Sweeney Pitching) still trading for 20K two-plus months after mission drop.

Got 14,850 for Jack Lynch this morning. He's been sitting there, doing nothing, after 2 bad years. Sweeney complete rewards no longer worth much.

[rburgh]

But I see no point in hoarding cards that have significant helium at the time. And I play multiple FTP teams that can't hoard dupes.

But in all cases, I refuse to sell cards to people who are bidding less than 110% of the base value of the card, I quicksell them instead.

And I don't think the problem is "hoarders" anyway, it's that most packable diamond cards don't drop as many as a hundred a week. Assuming that the average team opens 50 packs a week, the 8346 current teams will open 417,300 packs. Every 30th pack will pull a diamond no matter the level and at least 1 in 30 packs will be a diamond pack, so let's say that 1 in 15 packs overall will drop a diamond.

That amounts to 27,820 new diamond cards in circulation each week. 45% of all cards in packs at a particular tier are lives, so 12,519 of those new diamonds are lives. So the number of new historical diamonds each week is 15,301. There are a total of 200 non-live diamond cards according to the card shop, 17 of those are mission rewards, 7 are in the clubhouse shop, four are PTCS rewards, 2 are PTMS rewards, and 4 are LE's. So there are 166 packable historical diamonds. 15,301/166 is about 92.

So for any diamond card that's needed in a mission, the number of teams who want that card is a number that is much smaller than 8346 but also much larger than 92. I'm going to multiply 8346 and 92, then take the square root of that (it's called a geometric mean), I get 876. And I suspect that 876 is a pretty low estimate of the number of teams that would like to complete any particular mission that has a significant reward. When the demand is many times larger than the supply, the price stays up. Eventually, the number of bidders will drop to about 2x the number of available cards and the price will start to fall. And I suspect most everyone is working on the Launch missions if they haven't completed them, since Charlie Sweeney is pretty useful at lower levels.

I have long advocated that the devs add bronze and silver level cards to missions that are more than 3 months old, but that has so far fallen on deaf ears. And several of my FTP teams are waiting anxiously for the June live update so that they can complete the live missions. There is going to be a huge burst of activity on those cards, even the irons are going to be offered (and purchased) for several thousand PP's for a few days.