Unlocking sets is a punishment and a reward

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I prefer to play and build mostly 10E decks, occasionally with some bits of
RAV or DIS added for variety. I think everyone who's played MtG probably
has one or two "favorite" sets, and it's those sets they'll be playing with
most.

When you begin the game, you've got a 1 in ~270 chance of any particular
card from 10E showing up in the shop. Every additional expansion unlocked
expands the pool of potential cards, and thus serves to reduce your chances
of "drawing" any particular card. 

I love the thrill of unlocking things. Because of how the shop is set up,
however, I've begun to cringe every time I see "Expansion Unlocked".
There's been discussion of the disadvantages of a shop "search" function,
and I've been convinced wholeheartedly. 

However, I think that providing a... "Limit shop to X set" feature would
not compromise the replay value, and would remove a ton of the frustration
of shopping. 

Further, I think that this feature should be an unlockable item, in the
same way that the difficulty setting is unlockable. Perhaps we could unlock
it after spending 10,000 credits in the shop, or something similar?

Thoughts?

Original issue reported on code.google.com by wagic.jeck@gmail.com on 23 Oct 2009 at 9:44

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Ooops. Updating labels.

Original comment by wagic.jeck@gmail.com on 23 Oct 2009 at 9:47

• Added labels: Priority-Low, Type-Discussion
• Removed labels: Priority-Medium, Type-Defect

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On further contemplation, I realize that a potential solution could be achieved 
by
use of restricted card sets, ala the wiki's FeatureGameMode page. This raises 
the
question, though, of how to handle the shop with restricted card sets. I'd been 
kinda
assuming that your collection was static throughout all game modes, just that 
some
cards would be banned, and have some graphical indicator of that in the deck
editor... and that the shop would only sell "legal" cards. 

On second thought, however, this seems a bit problematic, as, for example, a 
"Commons
only" set would be unable to support boosters, and other sets might make things
unbalanced in other ways. Hrm. I'll think on the issue a bit and then move some
thoughts onto the wiki.

Original comment by wagic.jeck@gmail.com on 24 Oct 2009 at 12:04

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I agree that if someone wants to play with specific sets, then limiting the 
shop 
selection to these sets will be more enjoyable. Otherwise the player will feel 
like a lottery player who keeps drawing blanks. It's *good* (imho) to encourage 
the player to make use of the cards currently displayed instead of waiting for 
one or two specific cards. However, this approach breaks down when 90% of 
displayed cards are unusable to the player because they come from sets that the 
player doesn't want to use.

There may be other solutions to the problems though - not necessarily better 
ones, but here's food for thought:

A) If the player doesn't want to play with a given set, then (instead of first 
unlocking it for him and then giving him the option to ignore it) why not give 
him a choice whether he wants to have this set at all? Instead of 
force-unlocking 
a random set, give the player the opportunity to choose one of three sets to 
unlock, and offer him a money prize as fourth alternative, if none of the sets 
meets his approval. This way, players can make a conscious choice with which 
sets 
they want to play, and there wouldn't be "unusable" sets in the shop in the 
first 
place.

B) Instead of unlocking a random set, award the player with a token that he can 
trade for a special treat in the shop. Such a treat might be unlocking a new 
set, 
or getting a choice of one out of 5 rares from a given set, or free boosters, 
etc. This would ensure that the player gets a reward he actually enjoys (or at 
least a higher chance for that, and less of a chance to get a reward that's 
actually detrimental to his enjoyment of the game.

(Thinking further about it, I come to the conclusion that the real problem is 
not 
that the shop has no filter for sets, but rather that the game rewards the 
player 
with things potentially detrimental to his enjoyment of the game.)

Original comment by Psyyri...@gmail.com on 24 Oct 2009 at 12:11

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Oh, nice! I like both of your solutions... they seem to handle the problem much 
more
elegantly than an option would. I do prefer option B though. I think part of 
the fun
of unlocking sets randomly is that it often /doesn't/ unlock the one you really 
want.
It's that whole psychology thing about variable reward patterns, etc :)

I really, really like the idea of awarding tokens, though. Check out the email I
forwarded to you of a bit of prior gmail conversation to see something related
tangentially.

As an aside, these kind of detailed game design conversations are something that
Wololo and Jean will definitely have to be involved with before we make any
decisions. We were using gmail for that earlier, and I'm not certain whether 
that or
this is a better way of tracking things... gmail is easier and more private, 
but if
we'd been using the issue tracker I guess I wouldn't have to forward things :P

Original comment by wagic.jeck@gmail.com on 24 Oct 2009 at 12:32

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Moved to wiki to clear out issue tracker. See
http://wololo.net/miki/index.php/Wagic/Dev/RewardTokens

Original comment by wagic.jeck@gmail.com on 25 Oct 2009 at 7:02

• Changed state: Invalid