Recently, within PvP, and rather understandably, treasure cards(oh no not again) have become something of a taboo for players. Suddenly now, even if one is a myth student and pulls out a single ninja card, which happens to be only usable as a trading card, that player is suddenly viewed as "cheating" or some other nonsense.
I think the very name alone "treasure card" has become seemingly despicable. But is it really the treasure card that is the problem? Understandably there are some issues with the treasure card system, such as players getting cards that they were probably never meant to have, but that is not to say all players do or abuse such a thing.
The problem isn't the use of a treasure card. The problem is the seemingly infinite amount of duplicates of a spell one can put into one's hands.
But this is a very tricky problem because of the system at work. Throughout the game we have free points for our specific school and a set of spendable points for spells of other schools. Treasure cards seem to work the same way but it cannot distinguish between spells one has bought and spells one has never ever had in the first place. And instead of points, they are gained through gold or fighting.
I think using me and how I would use treasure cards as an example would make where I am going with this a bit clearer:
I personally never use more than 2 to 4 treasure cards in a match. I rarely get to 4. And when I do use a treasure card, I use only the treasure cards from either my school, or from spells I have already earned through training points. So if I buy me a treasure tower shield, it would be because I already have earned it through training points. And I would only use attack spells from my school because the spells belong to my school.
Perhaps the real problem with treasure cards is how to have the system distinguish between a spell a player already has and would like to buy a treasure card version of it and a spell a player has never had, or was never intended to have. This is what should probably the biggest concern of the players, and not the mere use of treasure cards.
I think it was Greyrose, during the thread of enchanted trading who said something about fifty enchantment spells. There is an awareness of the high limit and I would guess from the acknowledgment of that enchantment issue that it is being addressed. But it has to be done in a way that would fit the normal card earning system in place.
So can we please stop overreacting in PvP over a single treasure card?
Can it not be seen as taboo for a ninja pig treasure card, which is a myth spell only card, to be used in PvP?
They are there to be used. Don't shy from them, but honor a limit.
The Problem is and never was Treasure Cards/Enchanted or otherwise. :)
Its not how much you have on your deck, or how many you are going/willing to use in PvP.
The Problem IS..... and Only IS.... (Players)
In particular players who Can't take losing gracefully.
Everyone wants to win, Everyone expects to win.
Wanting to win IS perfectly fine. But expecting to win is not.
Just because your a Grandmaster fighting a lower lever wizard does not mean you will win all the time, Even though you have the advantage of having more spells, more life (most of the time), better equipment (because of your level and not crowns), higher power pip % percentage, so on and so forth.
If your a GrandMaster, Act like One.
How many times have we seen people complaining about PvP? people losing their ranks to what they call lower level people. (NOOBs) as they call them. And blaming the use of Treasure Cards for their lost. Most of the times in their post you can see and understand that its not/never the cards that was used that made them lose the battle and their rank, but their arrogance/complacency that was/is the reason.
I would like to make this example that a player posted.
In her post, she complained about losing to a lower level person in PvP Rank Match. She describe the match as almost Won by her. But she waited a few rounds, but during her waiting she got hit with a Wild Bolt. My question here is, what was she waiting for? could she not have finish the almost dead opponent that in her post she said was Almost dead? This is what probably happened, she waited for PIPs so she can end the battle with a Big, Bad, and Awesome spell, and got beaten for it.
After their battle, her opponent said "Loser, you lost to a noob", That drove her mad, understandably. But, the thing is. She did Lose to A noob (lower/new wizard).
She didn't lose her Rank Points, She GAVE them away. And if she is upset, she should be only At herself. I can go on making examples like this all day, and everytime. Its not The Cards Its the Players mistakes that is the cause of the lost.
KI said it was a Mistake (the transferable crafted cards) well if it was a mistake, an unintended thing. It was an almost perfect system. Giving Wizards the ability to perform different things, rather than being stuck with just a few options. Soon the advert that no battle ever plays out the same, would not apply.
More flavors Now they say, BAH... Now Battles are Plain, you will now know how to beat your opponent the second you enter the arena. And no longer will you have to prepare for a near unlimited combo of cards.
PvP is for and only for Individual Glory, Its a way to Test Your Self, If you are Good. Now the Grands Battling the lower levels Will really Have a Huge Advantage.
An excellent Feature of the game, Card Crafting is almost made useless, because of the crying in another Feature of the game (PvP) also an excellent feature at that. =)
To players I would like to say it again. If You Are, a GrandMaster. Act like One.
To KI, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
(What happened here is no different from what kids do today, if they cry loud enough whine long enough eventually they get what they want, weather they deserve it or NOT.)
I agree with you, to a point. I agree that some people view Treasure Card use as "unfair", and many are quick to call folks who use them as Treasure Noobs, or, worse yet, Cheaters (argh!). For the life of me, I don't know HOW people can get upset about something that is built into the game.
However, where I disagree with you is your notion that it's OK to use them, but "honor a limit." I do honor a limit - it's the maximum given to me by my deck. That does not mean I use, say, 25 treasure cards a match, but if I have to use reshuffle once or more, it's quite possible I will use my entire side deck. But what of it? Again, the game gives you a side deck with up to 25 Treasure Card, so why should anyone be limited to using what you deem as "reasonable"?
If all decks only allowed, say, 5 treasure cards or so, then so be it. But they don't, and I think it would be impossible for everyone to agree upon what is considered a fair number of cards to use.
It's my belief that Treasure Cards should be all or nothing - either you can't use them, or else anything you put into your side deck is fair game. This middle ground of "use them, but within reason" is not practical.
I disagree with you is your notion that it's OK to use them, but "honor a limit." I do honor a limit - it's the maximum given to me by my deck. That does not mean I use, say, 25 treasure cards a match, but if I have to use reshuffle once or more, it's quite possible I will use my entire side deck. But what of it? Again, the game gives you a side deck with up to 25 Treasure Card, so why should anyone be limited to using what you deem as "reasonable"?
If all decks only allowed, say, 5 treasure cards or so, then so be it. But they don't, and I think it would be impossible for everyone to agree upon what is considered a fair number of cards to use.
It's my belief that Treasure Cards should be all or nothing - either you can't use them, or else anything you put into your side deck is fair game. This middle ground of "use them, but within reason" is not practical.
mlb
I probably did not make that section so clear, and in fact I noticed two improperly placed words, but I did this post at six in the morning! I just don't sleep well in the summer, I'm a winter person. Anyway, I am happy with the responses here but I think I do have something of an answer to your question on why there should be some set limit.
And my proposal for that "limit" was influenced by the thread on enchanted trading cards. "If every wizard was special, there would be no special wizards." I think a proper thing would be that players can only use treasure cards that are versions of spells they have already learned through the use of training points.
Given we get a LOT of training points aside from our free points, we can spend them the way we choose. how we spend those points makes us "unique" as individual players and can bring in a certain "unique" feel to the PvP arena, as well as our own knowledge of what to use and how to use them. This proposal goes hand in hand with the influence of finding that right balance which honors the system put in place by King Isle.
As mentioned before, certain cards were not meant to be given out to all people. Or rather, it sort of seems like it was supposed to be that way.
I think we could all use a little more clarification, I feel foolish trying to speak and think like a programmer of the game when I'm nothing but another subscribed player.
I have always taken issue with the use of Treasure Cards in PvP on principle alone. Period. It's never been about winning or losing. I say this as a player who has a long history in another TCG and has seen the damage that effects similar to an immediately accessible and customizable sideboard, and the lengths the creators of such games usually have to go through to establish order and fairness.
I will address these points one at a time.
(a) Almost unilaterally across TCGs, the ability to purposefully and reliably find a particular card is always severely limited, or appropriately costed. Wizard101 has many of the elements of most TCGs - a customizable deck, the ability to choose which spells primarily go into the 'active' or 'main' deck (in W101's case, the spells you learn by leveling up and spending Training Points on). Where they differ is the unique ability to throw away your hand and redraw just as many cards as you had before, either by using more from your 'main' deck or by accessing your Treasure Cards. In most other games, even the ability to draw a new card has *some* cost associated with it, and generally the hand you draw is pretty static as you draw a card at a time. Additionally, the ability to find a card of your choose generally has VERY strict costs or limitations on it - imagine for a minute that instead of being able to do as we do in Wizard101, we instead had to use Training Points to earn a 3-pip card which says "Discard 3 and draw 3" or a 4-pip spell which says "Find the card of your choice and put it in your hand". Not only does Wizard101 not implement this approach, but accessing Treasure Cards is a more immediate benefit than just tossing a bad hand and drawing a fresh one; in effect, the 'downside' of waiting a turn for new cards can be entirely circumvented by the use of Treasure Cards. This is an immensely powerful effect that most other CCGs regulate very, very carefully, and Treasure Cards do nothing but exploit this.
(b) Unlimited access to a sideboard full of cards that define PvP undermines many of the game's inherent checks and balances. Wizards are set up from the beginning to take on certain roles. Storm wizards are fundamentally different from Ice wizards, which are intrinsically different from Death wizards, and so on and so forth. But beyond that, through the use of Training Points, they can change even more; if you're a Storm wizard, you can spend those Training Points on Life spells so that if your primary attack fails you can regroup - OR you can spend those points on Feint and put all your eggs into one hugely aggressive basket. If you're Myth, using Life as a secondary school is a good way to protect yourself and your minions, but the Feint plan is useless as your minions eagerly break them or your own 2-hit attacks cannot take full advantage of them. In any event, our Training Points are *limited*, in that a good student of Wizard101 will carefully, purposefully dedicate Training Points in a way that defines their character and separates them from others. For purposes of PvP, Training Points are entirely undermined by access to Treasure Cards; not only can Wizards simply buy the proper competitive cards but draw them reliably by just pitching their hand. The main deck is almost better off to be stacked with nothing but 0- and 1-pip buff/debuff/shield spells while the sideboard carries your easy-to-find business spells.
(c) Treasure Cards allow your wizard to do things even Training Points won't do. Their relative ease to collect and wide range of abilities homogenizes strategies within the Arena and makes a given Wizard's Hit Points their most valuable asset. There's not much to say about this beyond the first two sentences; when every Wizard can access the "good spells" in the game, even Power Pip affinity fails to keep certain spells out of the hands of Wizards who may have never been meant to have them. I'm not even talking about Wild Bolt here; it makes no sense to let non-Myth wizards have access through booster packs to the Summon Minion spells of Myth. Those are 'school-only' spells which are one of the defining points of Myth. Allowing Ice Wizards, or anyone else, to cast those kinds of minions enables them in ways that belie their defensive stats. Likewise, spells like Balanceblade or Hex may be fun in PvE, but have no place being cast by non-Balance Wizards in PvP, especially not if for that kind of power boost without throwing Training Points into it. Training Points require a dedication of a very limited resource; Treasure Cards require only gold to spend and that can be farmed quite easily once a player hits a high enough level. It's not hard to sell a bunch of non-relevant equipment you pick up and trade it for usable, PvP-defining spells, and that signals a problem to me. It basically allows for ridiculous combos to be pulled off that span multiple schools and given the usual enablers in this game cost so few pips, Power Pips aren't even part of the equation. It is for this reason that the players with the highest starting life total will generally have the greatest advantage in PvP.
Primarily for these reasons do I wish to see an Arena which allows for no Treasure Cards. I'm not going up against an individualized Wizard when there are TCs involved; I'm going up against their buying power, trading capacity and gold reserve.
The problem with treasure cards is, if anyone uses them, we all have to use them. Unless you don't want to win, in which case why are you playing? I don't know about you, but I don't feel like farming gold (or buying crowns) just so I can have an unlimited supply of tower shields.
In my opinion, there should be no treasure cards in PvP. If you want tower shields, you need to invest 5 points in ice. (I'm not mentioning wild bolt and the like, because hopefully that won't be such a problem after the next few weeks.)
Nobody cares about ninja pigs. They're cute, they're fun, and they're not going to change the outcome of the match. But tower shields (and other types of shields), if used correctly, are an auto-win. The fact that you can have 10-20 of these in your deck and can pull them out on demand is just absurd.
