Why not just limit the number of phantom cards someone can get? Something like 40 (full deck) maximum... Then if someone wins a 41st phantom, then the 1st one he'd picked up disappears.

Of course, that means one should be able to turn off receiving phantom cards, otherwise, people stop playing at 40 in fear of losing phantom number 1.

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I don't see what the big deal is, there is no way to maintain a competative deck through Pharming. Yes, you can make one, but it will eventually fade and I haven't seen many EC's being taken down by Pharmers. So, all Pharming is really doing is exposing new players to cards, exposing them to more game play, and giving them a chance to compete against other decks.

Also, with very little access to free gold and market prices exploding into silly prices, phantoms are the only thing that new players have to test drive the game. I feel like an old man telling a 'back in my day' story but, when I first started I used phantoms alot and found out what I like and put some money in and bought what I needed off the market and from players. Now with prices out of control this game has become very pricey for a new player to put together a strong deck.

To sum up...Just let the new players play, stand by your product and if they like it they will invest in it...when they start dominating EC's then start worrying. If its about EC's, go back to not allowing phantoms and give new players another kind of clash that allows Phantoms. A new player is not just going to throw $20 at every game they run across.

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I was thinking of suggesting something like Atahualpa did. I think the number would need to be much higher than 40 cards, though - say around 100. After all, doing well in the ladder nets you more than 50 phantoms.
Maybe a system could be developed where a player is allowed to choose which phantoms to keep and discard when winning phantoms which would take him/her above the phantom limit. I'm not sure that would discourage farming, though, since you would be able to keep discarding unwanted phantoms and stay under the limit.

I think even 100 is a very low number. That's only 5 games per day average before you start getting penalized. Also, it will make it extremely hard to make CI and Chaos decks, including a partial. With 6 domains plus unaligned, the most you'll have on average in any domain is 15 or 16 probably. Of those 15 or 16, about half of them probably won't be very useful due to synergy, cost, strength, etc.

If you're going to cap the number of phantoms you have, then you might want to eliminate giving out CI and Chaos as phantoms.

as I noted in the original post, the problem here isn't access to phantoms. I think phantoms are a great part of the game and particularly useful to new users for all the reasons mentioned. and, from a personal perspective, I am all for users having access to *more* phantoms because it makes the game more varied and fun for me.

and, as I noted in the followup (and which Psyclone inadvertently supported), I think "investing time" in farming (i.e., mindless games with the sole purpose being the reward) phantoms is a poor use of anyone's time.

that being said, I do have a problem with the way in which phantoms are currently being earned -- not because I care how other people choose to spend their time -- because, rightly or wrongly, it is framing TFW as a game in which mindless spamming is a legitimate avenue to success.

at present, an increasing part of the player base finds it beneficial to play multiple games against the AI concurrently. if I am a new user and I log in to see that there are 20 battles ongoings and that eighteen of them are a particular player against the AI, I think this game is poorly designed and/or a waste of my time ... and I leave. or, if I am a new user and people in the lobby tell me (as I have heard three times in the past two weeks) that the best way to be competitive is to farm phantoms as fast as I can ... I leave.

again, to emphasize that I am not anti-phantom, I would consider it a dramatic upgrade to the game to replace awarding phantoms for AI games with a button that a user can click every M minutes which awards a phantom directly (or just make it automatic for non-idle players). and I think we can do better than this via a greatly increased tournament schedule and quest rewards and milestones and the like.

You guys have driven me up wall just trying to come up with a 1 post respone, but here goes.

I agree... with pretty much everyone in one way or another. Yes, I think phantom farming is beneficial to any player, and Yes, it is certainly discouraging sometimes to hear others blab to you about how good farming is. Yes, Minor Clashes and more tournaments would be great, and maybe even a phantom limit.

To stop this from turning into 1 huge post, I'll just reply to everryone in this post. Don't all turn on me and kill me now guys, this is just my opinion *activates a Halo Shield Generator for good measure*.

@Queeshai: It's not that I am going to litterally invest time, I use farming as one of my methods to burn time instead and do away with the boredom when you don't want or can't get a match. I am not a farming fanatic, but I'm not going to say kill it off either. Minor Clashes are useful, but even with expert and rank limits:

(NOTE: This isn't the exact quote, but you get the idea.)
And if you're still thinking you don't care about Psy's personal time, I suggest you read your posts one more time.

@Psyclone: I agree with most of the stuff you said, especially farming beign a great test drive. If the ladder still gave out gold, I would've totally disagreed. Now with the ladder being phantoms (which mostly are sucky commons for that matter), I agree. Farming is perhaps the only way moneyless/ new players even obtain cards.
I'm in a bit of disagreement about your math though: Half of me says that you're taking the opposite of queesh's stance and trying to support farming, other half says it makes more sense than it looks.

@ATheist: I agree that's not beneficial, but the few cards that are worthwhile often outbalance the sucky ones to me.

@Mist: Agreed with you here. I don't see many minor MOGs be as sucessful and evolving as this one. Well said, I can't criticize you.

@Athahualpa and Pug: You guys pretty much have the same idea, but as Psy said, you have a small limit. Actually, if there was a limit, I would quit this game.

@Noob and other tournament supporters: Good idea, but let's no go too crazy here. Most newbies don't have a lot of success in tourneys unless peopel go easy or they fight someone their level. expert control is also difficult to implement without havign billions of loopholes.

@jed: If you really go through with shutting down the phantoms, I will really quit this game and never come back. Most new players aren't willing to invest money in a game they have no knowledge about, and phantoms is a great test drive as mentioned above by others.

Unfortunatley I did have to spilt it into two posts. T_T

@Smello: If i'm correct, you want a balance between getting phantoms and actual cards. Farming is great, but I'd like it to have a little bit of heavier weight than actual.

My overall opinion: We may all like/hate the phantoms, but they're an essential part of the game. Jed's plan to remove it would probably degrade the player base like hell unless some compensation was made.

For alternative methods: The only thing I think of (as a noob, and as a seasoned player) is that I will most likely get my ass kicked by most people in a tourney, like it or not. I'm not sure if this is wholly true, but I think people see the tourneys as a more "official" and "expert" thing than the simple matches and script(mostly conciously, but all of us subliminally). Phantom quests are a great idea, but limiting what kind of phantoms you get may make a player say meh.

For limiting: This is our problem. No one can come to a concrete agreement on whether we can even limit anything, and turns this thing into one **** of a crappy BS mess. I say nay for limits unless they are equally compensated.

For player base: Actually, newbies have the choice to farm or not. So I wouldn't really give concerns unless some one is encouraging their unwilling firend like crazy.

For Test drive: This is what farming is all about. Newbies will get tired of the default decks eventually, and most have already started to craft their own decks after a second match.

DudeZ:

I will now sum up my opinion in 1, yes I said 1, word!

non-issue

DarkJello

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Then I will sum it up in 4 charecters of the English Language .

2 Bad

Zblader

What that means : Sorry man, but evidently everyone thinks it's an important issue to give a hissy **** about. I'd like to drop this and move on to the story mode, but as long as people continue to argue about it, we have to keep defending or stating our point of view.

A) Players having 10 ongoing matches against poor SarsAI looks silly
B) ...and it probably wastes their time as well
C) We would rather that they played matches against real people
A+B+C= Award more phantoms for PvP, less for SarsAI?

Problem might be that B isn't really true for the newbies. Playing SarsAI lets you win, playing only other, better player makes you lose too much for the game to be enjoyable.

I put up the idea of a volontary handicap system somewhere on the forum some time ago, and been thinking a bit about it since. It makes sense to me: I'd enjoy my games against newbies more if they had some extra flux, 2 cards/turn or something.