By way of background I work in financial analysis so focusing on numbers is a bit of a habit and given the fact that I have not been able to sell an epic card in over a month, yet UR and legends move, has had me wondering what the relationship is between the various card tiers and their minimums on the AH.
Below are my findings and a couple of suggestions.
Findings
First I want to say the way the card tiers are structured is very smart (I am talking for progression and game play not within the AH set-up). The fact you can progress say from Epic QG to Legend QG by having no legs but proing your epics which are then slightly stronger than the next level up (e.g legends) is great for grinding and working your way up. Therefore I was surprised when I found that there is NO correlation between the card tiers and their auction house minimums.
I would have thought based on the above progression through the tiers we would see:
None of the above is the case.
All figures quoted below refer to the minimum bid, I think the minimum buy now is fine and consistent at 20%.
A number of these inconsistency are also due to the minimum bid prices of the pro versions of cards compared to their non pro versions.
Obviously a pro version needs to be more costly than a non pro version but a range of 50% to 175% is crazy. 1) Where is the consistency, an Epic pro's power compare to an Epic non pro is the same as a leg pro vs a non leg so why the 54% vs 175% mark up?
Few people (other than the lazy or "must have now brigade") are willing to pay much in excess of double for a pro version. They might as well by two non pro's and level and combine themselves.
The above numbers also support my own personal experience with the auction house.
That is that I can sell ultra rare non pros, ultra rare pros and legends at current minimum levels (because they are all much more enticing than the respective comparable next level cards around them) but that it is nearly impossible to sell an epic at a minimum of 1300 or a leg pro at more than a non pro star. I have tried since the beta Auction house and have never sold an epic... probably about 300 credits wasted listing a variety of 3 slot fully trained epics with no luck. That is completely down to an incompatible set-up of card tier minimums.
My suggestions
To fix the auction house we don't need to do away with 20 credits for listing, we don't need to lower minimums across the board (I would actually raise some but lower others) and the min buy now at 20% is fine.
I would like to see the auction house cut % reduced but that is only to entice trading and is definitely not the purpose of this thread. If CD has other reasons for this cut or doesn't want to entice a more liquid trade based AH then I am comfortable with it.
The key point in this thread is fixing these minimums so they ALL represent a fair value for a card with respect to the card tiers either side.
Below are my suggestions, note these are all based on the following rules.
New card level BID minimums (Buy minimums set to at least 20%)
You will notice that a number of these are still pretty close to what we currently have while the like of Epic and Star reflect what is happening in reality on the forums via buybacks and the KEY is that all the levels are consistent which reflects the reality amongst the tiers when actually playing the game. UR cards aren't really 20% weaker than Super pros while Epics are 117% stronger than UR pros...
I think star values look a little low but that is only because of current pack costs which overvalue cards considerably. That being said we are already seeing 2k buy backs when purchasing a star like Swaggy and World B Free indicating they really are only worth 3-3.5k. You will never be able to sell these players with the current auction house set up.
Lastly, remember these are only MINIMUMS and help ensure cards actually start selling. Players like Klay, Kyrie, Lebron etc will still see significantly higher than minimum as they are desirable.
The main concern and reason I see CD not implementing something more reasonable like the above is that it isn't in line with their card pack pricing but the reason for this is that their card packs aren't in line with the perceived value the community is placing on the cards in the auction house.
Anyway have at it, these are only my thoughts and I am open to comments and criticism (hence posting it here). I just wanted to post something constructive, with actual suggestions for improvement, as opposed to the bitching I have done previously about the current patch changes.
Cheers and apologies for the novel.
Below are my findings and a couple of suggestions.
Findings
First I want to say the way the card tiers are structured is very smart (I am talking for progression and game play not within the AH set-up). The fact you can progress say from Epic QG to Legend QG by having no legs but proing your epics which are then slightly stronger than the next level up (e.g legends) is great for grinding and working your way up. Therefore I was surprised when I found that there is NO correlation between the card tiers and their auction house minimums.
I would have thought based on the above progression through the tiers we would see:
1) a relationship between a lower level pro card and the next level up non-pro in terms of pricing; and
2) we would have seen a consistent relationship between the cost of a non-pro and pro version of a card; and
3) a consistent setting of minimums across the board.
None of the above is the case.
All figures quoted below refer to the minimum bid, I think the minimum buy now is fine and consistent at 20%.
- An ultra rare card has a 20% lower min bid than a super rare pro. OK, accepted, it is a slightly weaker card
- An epic card is 117% MORE to list than an UR pro. What is going on here?
As mentioned above the card relationships between lower and higher tiers is the same from SR -> UR -> Epic -> Leg -> Star so if an UR single is 20% lower than a SR pro then shouldn't an Epic non pro be 20% lower than a UR pro? Not 117% higher? - Moving on to legendary here we find a different relationship again, a legend has the same minimum bid as an Epic pro (0% difference, this actually makes the most sense to me) but differs greatly from the 117% for Epics and -20% for Ultra rares.
- Lastly you go to stars and find they are 9% lower than a leg pro… again no consistency.
A number of these inconsistency are also due to the minimum bid prices of the pro versions of cards compared to their non pro versions.
- UR pro - 50% higher than UR non pro
- Epic pro 54% higher than Epic non pro
- Leg pro - 175% higher than Leg non pro
- Star pro - 120% higher than star non pro
Obviously a pro version needs to be more costly than a non pro version but a range of 50% to 175% is crazy. 1) Where is the consistency, an Epic pro's power compare to an Epic non pro is the same as a leg pro vs a non leg so why the 54% vs 175% mark up?
Few people (other than the lazy or "must have now brigade") are willing to pay much in excess of double for a pro version. They might as well by two non pro's and level and combine themselves.
The above numbers also support my own personal experience with the auction house.
That is that I can sell ultra rare non pros, ultra rare pros and legends at current minimum levels (because they are all much more enticing than the respective comparable next level cards around them) but that it is nearly impossible to sell an epic at a minimum of 1300 or a leg pro at more than a non pro star. I have tried since the beta Auction house and have never sold an epic... probably about 300 credits wasted listing a variety of 3 slot fully trained epics with no luck. That is completely down to an incompatible set-up of card tier minimums.
My suggestions
To fix the auction house we don't need to do away with 20 credits for listing, we don't need to lower minimums across the board (I would actually raise some but lower others) and the min buy now at 20% is fine.
I would like to see the auction house cut % reduced but that is only to entice trading and is definitely not the purpose of this thread. If CD has other reasons for this cut or doesn't want to entice a more liquid trade based AH then I am comfortable with it.
The key point in this thread is fixing these minimums so they ALL represent a fair value for a card with respect to the card tiers either side.
Below are my suggestions, note these are all based on the following rules.
- A pro version of the card is 105% of the value of a non pro version. This is to reflect the two non pro cards plus the time and value in having trained a correct pro version.
FYI I initially has this at 75% based on the numbers above but that give values a little to low IMO - A non pro card has a minimum bid set at 10% higher than the pro version of the tier below. This reflects the desirability of a higher level card e.g. a legend > epic pro. While the pro version the tier below (say epic pro) is a slightly stronger card than the non pro version the level above (a legendary card) the Epic pro has nowhere to go while the leg card can be pro'd and become significantly stronger, hence the increased desirability and higher starting cost.
- All numbers rounded to the nearest 25 credits
New card level BID minimums (Buy minimums set to at least 20%)
- UR non pro - 400
- UR pro - 825
- Epic - 900
- Epic pro - 1,575
- Leg - 1,725
- Leg pro - 3,025
- Star - 3,325
- Star pro - 5,825
You will notice that a number of these are still pretty close to what we currently have while the like of Epic and Star reflect what is happening in reality on the forums via buybacks and the KEY is that all the levels are consistent which reflects the reality amongst the tiers when actually playing the game. UR cards aren't really 20% weaker than Super pros while Epics are 117% stronger than UR pros...
I think star values look a little low but that is only because of current pack costs which overvalue cards considerably. That being said we are already seeing 2k buy backs when purchasing a star like Swaggy and World B Free indicating they really are only worth 3-3.5k. You will never be able to sell these players with the current auction house set up.
Lastly, remember these are only MINIMUMS and help ensure cards actually start selling. Players like Klay, Kyrie, Lebron etc will still see significantly higher than minimum as they are desirable.
The main concern and reason I see CD not implementing something more reasonable like the above is that it isn't in line with their card pack pricing but the reason for this is that their card packs aren't in line with the perceived value the community is placing on the cards in the auction house.
Anyway have at it, these are only my thoughts and I am open to comments and criticism (hence posting it here). I just wanted to post something constructive, with actual suggestions for improvement, as opposed to the bitching I have done previously about the current patch changes.
Cheers and apologies for the novel.
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