I've talked to a lot of people about the acorn/gold/power/phantoms/player base problems, and here's my solution. I'm happy to explain any of the reasons for each solution, but I'd like to keep it simple here.

1) Make power untradeable.

2) Make the ladder give out rewards in power.

3) Make the EC give out rewards in gold, but have it tied to how much the market has earned. I propose total prizes = 10 + half the market has earned since last EC. Also, only give reward to winner of EC, not second or third place.

If you have questions/doubts about this solution ask me in game or post here.

I've got a different take...

1) Clear out the market - There's probably lots of cards on there being sold by inactive accounts, buying cards off of these generally just throw gold out of circulation where it can't benefit any of us.

2) All other market items older than X days (I suggest 10) should be automatically removed from the market on a daily basis or, their prices should be marked down automatically after 10 days - This would create a more dynamic/relevant market with actual prices people are willing to pay for cards. It gives buyers easier access to affordable cards and gives sellers gold when they actually buy.

3) Get rid of Kingdoms - They're buggy, they're frustrating, they turn people off. Kingdoms are a thing for later on when/if the game picks up again.

4) Award acorns for every win (yes, even against alts) - This will give all players a competitive chance in the game. This includes Free Sealed/Draft. I figure, with the game in it's current state, there's no more actual incentive to even buy any gold at all, so there's really nothing to lose by giving it away for free... that may actually kick the game back to life.

5) No more free acorns for sitting around doing nothing - Yeah, get rid of the 3-hour thing. Those make acorns worthless and they give a lot more acorns than actually playing does.

6) Drop the Acorn reward on EC's but retain the 5-hour EC schedule - I think that dropping it to 40-20-10 would be great for my next suggestion.

7) Reward Acorns on the Ladder - Maybe a similar distribution to the current phantom counts. This will make phantoms disappear outside of the initial set of cards (permanent phantoms). But that's ok!!! People can still build their decks! See number 8.

8) Convert Acrons to a viable, non-tradable currency - Make market items purchasable with acorns where 1 Acorn = 1 Gold. Acorns can not be given to other players/accounts directly. Acorns can not be used to buy packs.

The overall effects of all these items together is quite simple. The current player base gets to make one or more competitive decks for free. They can buy off the market at the rate of one common every two wins. One bad rare every twenty wins more or less. This is a much better ratio than we have now.

So... how does all this help Jed and therefore the game? Well... eventually, in a couple of months... all the cards from the market will be in circulation or of higher value.

Right now, a typical common costs 2g off the market because there's no demand for them. If people got Acorns to buy them for free... a common's price will eventually rise to maybe 10g each as the cheaper ones get sold and people make adjustments based off supply and demand.

Eventually, though, these will all run out. There's only so many Cloudbursts in circulation and almost every Elem deck will use these, even if they cost 10g a pop. So, we've got new player "Joe" stumbling into the game with no intention to spend. He buys cards off the market for free but still needs those damned Cloudbursts and there's none on the market!!!

On the other hand we have "Mike" who is willing to spend some money on the game. Mike wants a Belfrey, but because everybody plays DL and everybody can buy the cards... there's none on the market. Therefore, Mike has to buy packs! In order to buy packs, he has to purchase gold. In his pack, he gets a Cloudburst, which he doesn't need... he sells it on the market and makes Joe happy. Mike + Joe now satisfied.

It's just a cycle off the non-paying players living off the cast-offs of paying players. What's good about it is that there are actual players. There's life and activity in the game and Mike keeps on buying because he can actually put his investment to use. Joe keeps on playing because he can actually compete against Mike's uber-expensive decks after he puts a little effort into it.

Jimmy comes on, sees lots of people playing the game, tries it out... becomes a non-paying player.

Mark comes on, sees lots of people playing the game, tries it out... becomes a non-paying player.

Bill comes on, sees lots of people playing the game, tries it out... becomes a non-paying player.

Joey comes on, sees lots of people playing the game, tries it out... becomes a non-paying player.

Alex comes on, sees lots of people playing the game, tries it out... becomes a non-paying player.

Eric comes on, sees lots of people playing the game, tries it out... becomes a non-paying player.

Donald comes on, sees lots of people playing... becomes a paying player.

You get the picture...

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Looking for: Crumbling Alone (2)
Also looking for: Revenant Bishop, Osin Faith Healer, Pilgrim's Cairn, Avenging Angel (2)

I believe a combination of these two ideas and many others will work the best.

1) Ladder must reward currency with actual value. If you want, lower ranks can get phantoms, but there has to be some point where currecny with value is awarded.

2) Reintegrate Power into the game. Putting it back as an EC reward is my best suggestion.

3) Give acorns a a value. I like atahualpa's idea of ditching kingdoms and regen of acorns as well as making it a gold substitute, but alt accounts would still make it a problem when dealing with ladder.

4) For the sake of all players, FIX THE DAMN MARKET.

5) I'd also like to see a free Keep Cards tournament that requires a certain rank.

Some things I disagree with/suggest:

Untradeable Power: You basically limit Power to a currency that only allows you to participate in tournaments, and you won't neccessarilly get enough out of that tourney to get cards you want.

EC prizes: I honestly think we should've stuck with the basic format and kept Power as the EC's reward. Why? It was balanced, it was fun, and it was easy to keep track of. Screw the "must pay on the market" or "losta acorns" thing, it's clumsy and unreliable. Power in the EC was simple and straightfoward.

Awards acorns for every victory: *cough*PHANTOMS*cough* Anyway, you're basically awarding a player free gold for each win, which could lead to farming spam. Rather, I suggest a variation of jed's method: have tourneys that provide acorns instead of gold.

I don't see what this aversion to alts is all about... what more does jed have to lose from them? Contrast that against what he has to gain. Do the math. Could things get much worse than they already are?

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Looking for: Crumbling Alone (2)
Also looking for: Revenant Bishop, Osin Faith Healer, Pilgrim's Cairn, Avenging Angel (2)

Hugerer and ZBlader: main problem of both this solutions is that game just gives gold for free. May be not directly, but Power can be converted into gold/new cards anyway through Battle drafts, Domains and Keep Cards Drafts.
This may attract more players, but this will add more players that play for free. And in current game state many players that can't start playing for free will leave game. Even if they won't leave, older players that gain gold from game can sell it to new players for cash (cheaper that normal gold prices of course). Results is:
- may be bigger player base;
- group of players with good collections, that doesn't buy gold for cash;
- same group gain cash from playing game and selling gold to new players;
- Jed gain nothing at all, because most players keep buying gold with lower prices!

Atahualpa: I read your post twice before understood how this works. First I liked your idea, but here's thing that might break it:
first I think there are way too many commons in game, most of them have very low price and result of possibility buy/sell them for free is that all players will have all commons they need.
there are some uncommons and rares that many players have more than 3x and they will go to other players too. So result that most players will be able to sell all their cards for acorns, get gazillion of acorns and that's all. Market will be empty. So I think most possible result is:
- most players don't have more than 3x of copies of cards and got few new cards;
- market is empty, because everyone have many acorns and only few players have real cards that they don't need, but they won't sell them because there's nothing to buy.


It's clear why Joe is satisfied now. But why Mike satisfied, if he wanted Belfrey, but got some acorns that he can't use to get it? And probably can't buy any card that he need, "because everybody plays DL and everybody can buy the cards".

Sorry, I meant to say Mike bought enough packs to get his Belfrey.



Hm, after making a long-winded reply... I realized the flaw with my post is that Acorns convert to Gold and Gold may convert to packs... which is a bad thing...

So We'll add something new: You can no longer buy off the market with gold. You gotta buy packs or enter tournaments. You can also buy acorns!!! (1g = 1acorn, heck maybe even 1g = 2 acorns). Note that you can buy acorns with gold but can't buy gold with acorns.

What this means is that if everybody relies on just Acorns... eventually, there will be 2 billion acorns in circulation and no more cards in the market.

And that's where Mike comes in... Mike now really wants a Claimed With Blood... and there's none on the market. Even if he has millions and millions of acorns, he can't get that Claimed With Blood!!! So... what does Mike do? He buys gold and goes after the card through packs. After all, another $50 into the game is nothing to him. Mike finally gets his CWB, he gets a bunch of extra cards, he sells on the market. Market comes back to life, free players go buy cards... MIke now has a few more acorns... if he's lucky, when he decides he wants a Lord of Chaos, it will be on the market for him to buy.

Anyway... Acorns will only have value to purchase singles... there's demand for those, every single free player wants them. Where does the supply come from, though? Someone, somewhere is going to put in the $$$ to get those cards into the market. It's less of a risk for Mike because... even if he did not get the Belfrey but instead got a Paladin of Xosa... he could sell the Paladin in the (now active) market and get enough acorns to buy a Belfrey with the minimal effort that he prefers.

I ramble... and boss summons... please ask for clarification on specific points I was unclear on.

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Looking for: Crumbling Alone (2)
Also looking for: Revenant Bishop, Osin Faith Healer, Pilgrim's Cairn, Avenging Angel (2)

OMG, the world has just ended. Nah, just kidding, but market was obviously created for players to use gold on. Honestly Ata's plan seems good, but I think gold should still be used for singles. Packs are a reliable source of cards, but there's a lot of luck involved when you're trying to draw 15(?) cards from a database of about 900 (Correct if me if my memory's wrong). Singles are a bit more acurate and your hard work won't be wasted. I also agree that acorns should be limited to singles only, because as I said before, packs are still a reliable source of cards, but you still need the risk factor involved.

As for Power, I've been thinking.... why not make it a cost for tournaments that reward acorns, as well as making it buyeable? That way, we have a way to get acorns to buy our singles, and players might be inclined to spend money.

As for players having more than 3x copy of a cards, that is actually the situation for players that have lots of commons from excess pack cards they didn't need, and that is probably every veteran still here that has spent money on packs. I'm not if this will work, but please take a look at this idea i put in the suggestion box: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=2179

First off... I mentioned you can use gold to buy acorns and those acorns to buy cards... The reason behind this is to keep them from being interchangeable.

Secondly... The reason the market on TFW sucks so bad is the current pricing on it... There is no profit in using the market, it doesn't make sense at all to buy packs. The damned market is way too cheap.

Tell me... if you wanted to get an Avenging Angel... you really need it for your deck... would you buy it from the market for 145g or buy a pack for 150g and risk not getting it at all? It's stupid. All the risk falls onto the person that actually had to pay $$$ to buy into the game. And that's only a card that's roughly equal to the price of a pack.

Would you spend $$$ or gold to hope to get a Topological Paradox from a pack or would you pay the 35g to get it?

Would you spend $$$ or gold to hope to get a Scorched Horizons within the first 4 packs or would you pay the 500g to get it off the market?

There is abolutely no reason to buy packs because the market is so damned cheap. And market cards were possibly bought with free gold or power! The reason that the market is so cheap is because only a handful of people have gold to buy off it, so sellers have to drop their prices drastically just to get some gold back. If acorns were plentiful, card prices on the market would skyrocket. When that happens, people will buy packs because even if they get a Topological Paradox from it, then can sell that for better than 35g and then get enough acorns, themselves to save up for that Scorched Horizons. Why would it happen? Rright now, even a valuable common like Cloudburst sells for 2-3g. Cause the only people with gold probably already have more than three themselves... those who did not buy gold, well, they can't even afford to buy it for 1g. So the Cloudbursts on the market pile up and get cheaper and eventually become worthless where they should be extremely valuable being a no-brainer in almost every Elem deck.

ANY rare should cost AT LEAST 100g right now for pack purchases to be viable. Right now, it's a senseless risk to buy packs, which is why a lot of people just wait for domain league for packs instead of constantly buying straight off the site.

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Looking for: Crumbling Alone (2)
Also looking for: Revenant Bishop, Osin Faith Healer, Pilgrim's Cairn, Avenging Angel (2)

In regards to the market being inaccurate you're missing a key point. As I've posted on before the value of a pack is not 150 gold at all (search for a huger post to find it, there aren't that many). Because of keep card and domain you can get a pack worth of cards for much closer to 100 gold, hence explaining the value of cards.

And you don't see the problem with that? Where there's a 150g cost and a 100g value? Why would anyone pay 150g for 100g worth of products?

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Looking for: Crumbling Alone (2)
Also looking for: Revenant Bishop, Osin Faith Healer, Pilgrim's Cairn, Avenging Angel (2)