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Treasure Cards Allowed in PvP?

AuthorMessage
Defender
Jul 01, 2008
143
Should treasure cards be allowed in PvP: I think not. I know you are going to say that you can create treasure cards on your Grandmasters and have someone trade them to your other lower level wizards, then use them in PvP but I think that can be considered a matter of fact of cheating.

For example, once in a 4v4 I was with my dueling friends they were all Grandmasters: Storm, Death, and Fire. We had saved up all pips to cast Storm Lord, Scarecrow, and a Fire Dragon at the same time, hoping to kill the other team. One person was still alive however, but he had slipped past with a mere 57 health. This person was a Grandmaster yes but not a Theurgist and he Rebirthed his whole team. Unfortunately, we had the disadvantage of going second in the duel. Weirdly enough the other team still had full pips and went on to kill us the next round.

I think that treasure cards being banned from the arena is only fair. It can be a way of cheating because you can give high level cards to your low wizards (ex: level 3) and keep on 1v1 people using spells created on your Grandmaster. Is this fair? That one wizard could get up to Warlord in a few days no doubt about it!


Survivor
Aug 09, 2008
29
ya i mostly agree. i don't like how people use other school treasure cards and not their own cards. expecially beguile, earthquake, and wild bolt. i think they should only allow shields because those aren't that bad as the attacks.

Survivor
Aug 20, 2009
12
I'm somewhat torn on the issue. Granted, the scenario of a high-level giving a low-level treasure cards is fairly cheap since at first such cards are quite capable of tipping the favor of the duel almost entirely in the user's favor, due to no merit of the character itself.

At the same time part of the strategy of dueling is preparation, and someone who prepares better has an advantage. Still, though, I'd be in favor of a level restriction on treasure cards, one that prevents cards that are more powerful from being used at lower levels, especially when their use more or less guarantees a win because the victim doesn't have means to counter it. Not being high enough level to have access to any shields, for example.

Defender
Dec 14, 2008
101
They should not remove treasure cards... it gives lower levels a chance.....

what they need to remove and I have stated this like 5 times in the PVP section of message boards is TREASURE CARD FACTORIES!!! these are players who will use tough or keen eyes etc to make a treasure card then pass it on to other players. this is cheap and KI already bans these "factory cards" from the bazaar so why not the ARENA? so ask yourself this.... HOW MANY REBIRTH TREASURE CARDS HAVE YOU SEEN DROPPED OR ON BAZAAR? so this person was either lucky or a cheater......

either way they need to remove these factory cards :(

Survivor
Aug 20, 2009
12
Yeah, I'd *really* be in favor of a level restriction for Ranked Treasure card usage. The classic strategy games like chess involve players having tools in exactly equal amounts. Yes, everyone can get Treasure Cards, but not everyone has access to cards like Earthquake or Storm Lord at level 16.

What would be REALLY ideal is to alter the matching system to recognize your Sidebar so it says "Oh, you've got a Frost Giant card that you're capable of casting. Since you can cast a level 48 spell, you'll be matched as a level 48." Granted that probably isn't possible, or if it is it would probably be difficult, but this is a problem.

Survivor
May 11, 2009
24
I don't like the use of treasure cards in PvP. A few reasons -

- It gives players access to spells that they wouldn't otherwise have earned without a dedication of Training Points. The TP system is undermined if Treasure Cards are allowed to be used in PvP.

- It gives players access to school-only spells that they shouldn't have access to. These are the spells which serve to separate the schools more than the rest, and muddling the movepool by making SO many of those spells widely accessible basically makes the wizard with the higher HP the better suited to simply win.

- It does a number on deck design. In addition to being able to ditch your entire hand and draw a fresh one, you can selectively pitch spells to add a critical one to your hand. Allowing a player to discard a card and simply draw from their sideboard allows for decks to be too redundant; essentially you're removing more of the random aspects that generally follow TCGs. It's already difficult to lose to your own bad luck, being able to discard 'bad spells' and draw that many next turn.

Treasure Cards are, for most intents and purposes, a way to stack your deck, and the more deck stacking is allowed the more degenerate a TCG becomes. Proof of this is in every major competitive card game; why do you think most of the major TCGs have a banned/restricted list? Moreover, most of those banned/restricted cards are directly tied into aspects of card manipulation - card draw spells, card searching spells, so on and so forth.

Explorer
Feb 14, 2009
73
Treasure cards in the sideboard of PvP decks are where the real unbalance is seen. If there was a way to restrict what could be loaded into a PvP deck based on level, school, or some other qualities that might solve the issue here.

Baring a more equitable solution I am leaning on the side of banning Treasure cards from PvP if that is what it takes to make it worth playing again.

Survivor
Nov 26, 2008
37
I so disagree with you all. Lets say you need a Storm Lord and it's not showing up. And if treasure cards were banned, then you wouldn't be able to make Storm Lord treasures in time of need. And what if a life wizard needed to rebirth and didn't have it? So...He/She wouldn't be able to make Rebirth treasure cards if treasure cards are banned. Sure people use beguile etc. But beguile is a smart and funny spell. Sure its cheap, everyone thinks its cheap. I even think so myself. But I don't wanna start any trash talking or drama. And you shouldn't too. Just have fun and if you win or lose just say good game, good fight etc. And that's it.

Defender
Jul 18, 2009
160
GoodWill wrote:
I so disagree with you all. Lets say you need a Storm Lord and it's not showing up. And if treasure cards were banned, then you wouldn't be able to make Storm Lord treasures in time of need. And what if a life wizard needed to rebirth and didn't have it? So...He/She wouldn't be able to make Rebirth treasure cards if treasure cards are banned. Sure people use beguile etc. But beguile is a smart and funny spell. Sure its cheap, everyone thinks its cheap. I even think so myself. But I don't wanna start any trash talking or drama. And you shouldn't too. Just have fun and if you win or lose just say good game, good fight etc. And that's it.


How about allowing treasure cards if it is something you can already cast as an option? Would prevent other schools/lower levels getting these over powered cards and still fall in line with design criteria.

Survivor
Aug 20, 2009
12
GoodWill wrote:
I so disagree with you all. Lets say you need a Storm Lord and it's not showing up. And if treasure cards were banned, then you wouldn't be able to make Storm Lord treasures in time of need. And what if a life wizard needed to rebirth and didn't have it?


That's called "playing a card-based game". You *are* going to lose some fights because you couldn't get the cards you wanted. Guess what? That's part of the entire concept of a TCG-style game. If you're going to guarantee you'll have what cards you want in your hand when you want it you're changing a basic tenet of the system.

And while you're at it, why bother schools or levels either? With unrestricted treasure card use everyone's a bloody Grandmaster in any school they want anyway.

Don't want drama? TOUGH. This DOES need tweaking.

Survivor
May 17, 2009
1
I wish tresaure cards could only be used in lvl 45 and up because those wizards are prepared for such cards. i get so tired of fighting against people that just use treasure cards so i made another character to fight at a lower level. the people that have grandmasters have the advantage because now they make the powerful treasure cards, create a lower lvl character and beat you with cards that arent your lvl. you never get to fight and test your skills. I wish that if a treasure card would be used at a lvl lower than 40 maybe it would cause a forfeit by the person using the card. I have seven or eight wins fair and one lose fair but five loses against people that use their grandmaster treasure cards. It is just not right. maybe have an arena for any thing goes and one for people that just want to fight fairly, win or lose but no treasure cards. we fight so hard and in two rounds have our ranking knocked down by people that cheat. please someone at Wizards101. help those of us that want to have fair pvp fights.

Survivor
Jun 19, 2009
33
Cyrus said that they would try to ban the trading of Enchanted Cards, probably because PvP is suffering and complaining. Everyone in PvE would be torn to shreds if this happens. I think since the problem resides in the Arena to fix it there and not change the overall feature of the game.

Survivor
Jun 20, 2009
1
yah i agree like rebirth storm lord wildbolt treasure and ALOT OF TOWERING SHIEL unfair

Survivor
Aug 20, 2009
12
Shikage wrote:
Everyone in PvE would be torn to shreds if this happens.


I highly doubt this is the case. Granted I haven't made it through much of the game but if PVE relied heavily on cards outside one's own school and above one's own level then how often do you think people would make it to Grandmaster? Hmmm? Do you really need to be able to cast Heliphaunt as a level 10 Life in order to survive in PVE?

Survivor
Oct 26, 2008
33
DiggerPat wrote:
GoodWill wrote:
I so disagree with you all. Lets say you need a Storm Lord and it's not showing up. And if treasure cards were banned, then you wouldn't be able to make Storm Lord treasures in time of need. And what if a life wizard needed to rebirth and didn't have it?


That's called "playing a card-based game". You *are* going to lose some fights because you couldn't get the cards you wanted. Guess what? That's part of the entire concept of a TCG-style game. If you're going to guarantee you'll have what cards you want in your hand when you want it you're changing a basic tenet of the system.

And while you're at it, why bother schools or levels either? With unrestricted treasure card use everyone's a bloody Grandmaster in any school they want anyway.

Don't want drama? TOUGH. This DOES need tweaking.


Treasure cards for the most part are where you can use strategy to help win where you would otherwise lose a duel depending solely on deck design and luck. This game is TCG based, but it's not a TCG. In a TCG all players have access to the same card pool. In this game it is different and tresure cards are part of the design of the game so no tenet is being changed.

There are a few notable exceptions to the balance of treasure cards, but there are only a few cards that are imbalanced. (wild bolt and beguile come to mind). Outside of these exceptions treasure cards require normal pips to use so any power pips you have are wasted when you use them. They are a static number and used treasure cards are not replaced when you reshuffle and the maximum you can have at level 50 is 25.

Stating that everyone is a grandmaster with unrestricted treasure cards is highly exaggerated. In a novice deck you can have only eight treasure cards. That hardly makes a level 14 or lower a grandmaster.

Until you get to level 35+ your restricted to 16 treasure cards. Again, 16 cards from other schools will not guarantee winning a duel.

But the main reason treasure cards are balanced is because everyone can use them. If you choose not to then that is your decision, but they are a legitimate part of this game and available to all characters.

Survivor
Aug 20, 2009
12
Malhavoc wrote:


Treasure cards for the most part are where you can use strategy to help win where you would otherwise lose a duel depending solely on deck design and luck. This game is TCG based, but it's not a TCG. In a TCG all players have access to the same card pool. In this game it is different and tresure cards are part of the design of the game so no tenet is being changed.


Not necessarily. Some TCG's don't work on a set deck size, they allow players to choose the size of their decks with certain restrictions.What they usually do not allow is the ability to draw a card at any time from a reserve stack that you prepare beforehand.

You're right, this isn't a TCG, it's got a lot of RPG mixed in too with the concept of levels and training points. The idea behind these is that you have a limited amount of resources with which to increase your spellcasting, meaning you have to pick and choose wisely to get maximum effect for the type of play you are building. Treasure cards are an extra to that - single-use boosts to get you out of a jam or capitalize on an opportunity. When Grandmasters can make treasures of their highest level spells and distribute them to whichever characters they like who can then use them at any level it destroys that concept. It now makes very little difference what your strategy is or what level you are: all that matters is who you have to supply your cards.

Malhavoc wrote:


There are a few notable exceptions to the balance of treasure cards, but there are only a few cards that are imbalanced. (wild bolt and beguile come to mind). Outside of these exceptions treasure cards require normal pips to use so any power pips you have are wasted when you use them. They are a static number and used treasure cards are not replaced when you reshuffle and the maximum you can have at level 50 is 25.


True, but at low levels many more treasure cards are capable of 1-hit kills than just those considered unbalanced and there is currently no restriction as to what cards can be used when. If they don't kill in a single use they most definitely shift the changes drastically in favor of the user, and for any school except for life it's very difficult to recover from. There's a reason you don't get 7-pip spells at level 10: part of a good PVP system is scaling a player's damage to his opponent's ability to survive it. Give either side too much favor and the situation becomes unfair.

Your notes about the limited number of treasure cards available for use is moot because with unrestricted use a large portion of the time it only takes one.

Malhavoc wrote:


Stating that everyone is a grandmaster with unrestricted treasure cards is highly exaggerated. In a novice deck you can have only eight treasure cards. That hardly makes a level 14 or lower a grandmaster.

Until you get to level 35+ your restricted to 16 treasure cards. Again, 16 cards from other schools will not guarantee winning a duel.


At lower levels unrestricted treasure card use very much can, and often does, do just that. In the 20's a single level 48 spell drastically changes the balance of a duel all by itself. My statement about everyone being a Grandmaster is only slightly exaggerated. For any player who has a Grandmaster it is perfectly valid - as far as damage goes any character they put a high-level treasure card onto in a low-level duel is, for all practical purposes, a GM.

Malhavoc wrote:

But the main reason treasure cards are balanced is because everyone can use them. If you choose not to then that is your decision, but they are a legitimate part of this game and available to all characters.


As I've said before, even if everyone can *use* them not everyone has access to high-level treasure cards in early duels. I wouldn't have a problem if the treasure cards used were restricted to those appropriate to the user's level - that is, if the damage were properly scaled to the opponent's health in accordance to those spells attained by normal progression. At that level having to wait an additional turn or three is a small price to pay for that much damage.

Let me again make myself clear. My problem is not with treasure cards - it is with the lack of restrictions on which cards can be used at what level that I have issues. Oftentimes a single spell can decide the outcome of a duel but when the only question for victory is one of who has the level 48 spell it's obvious that the situation is unbalanced. If a change were implemented to enforce that a level 10 could only use treasure cards for spells normally acquired at level 10 or less, or their equivalents in damage, I'd have no problem. Barring that I also have no problem with them being taken out entirely or made untradeable; it's not the ideal solution but it works.

Survivor
Oct 26, 2008
33
DiggerPat wrote:


Let me again make myself clear. My problem is not with treasure cards - it is with the lack of restrictions on which cards can be used at what level that I have issues. Oftentimes a single spell can decide the outcome of a duel but when the only question for victory is one of who has the level 48 spell it's obvious that the situation is unbalanced. If a change were implemented to enforce that a level 10 could only use treasure cards for spells normally acquired at level 10 or less, or their equivalents in damage, I'd have no problem. Barring that I also have no problem with them being taken out entirely or made untradeable; it's not the ideal solution but it works.


While low level duels with level 48 spells are a problem, they are hardly the norm.

I have a level 10 wizard who is a warlord, but at this point I can no longer duel since I am matched against level 35 to 50 wizards.

I have some treasure cards, (including a reshuffle), but the typical cards I have are 5 pip or lower. I don't survive long enough to wait for a 7 pip spell, and wouldn't use them anyway. I have a couple of them, but don't put them in the deck.

If I didn't use treasure cards I could not possibly win against wizards three or more times my own level. If I used only treasure cards I have access to then I have very slim odds of winning a duel. I only keep a few higher level cards, and they are actually a dropped spell not a school trained spell.

Now this is more a matching problem than a treasure card problem, but until the one is changed the other needs to stay as it is, or low level wizards can not advance in ranked pvp.

Survivor
Dec 14, 2008
41
I totally agree but just on rank cause mostly 40 and under people use treasure cards like WILDBOLT and i think just on rank cause practice wont be a problem.

Chris emeraldfinder lvl.50, Chris rainbowcaster lvl.30, chris spellcrafter lvl 18, Wolf winterstaff lvl.11, chris deathpants level 5

Survivor
Aug 20, 2009
12
I wouldn't be making complaints of it if it did not happen very often. It's all well and good to come back with examples of fighting levels 35+ but it does nothing to address cards used in fights of equally low levels.

If you're complaining about fighting high-level wizards at 10 there seems a fairly simple solution: level up.

As you said, you choosing to use non-school specific cards is your decision. There are plenty of others other than you who don't play with that self-imposed restriction.

Explorer
Mar 08, 2009
72
Slushie3704 wrote:
Should treasure cards be allowed in PvP: I think not. I know you are going to say that you can create treasure cards on your Grandmasters and have someone trade them to your other lower level wizards, then use them in PvP but I think that can be considered a matter of fact of cheating.

For example, once in a 4v4 I was with my dueling friends they were all Grandmasters: Storm, Death, and Fire. We had saved up all pips to cast Storm Lord, Scarecrow, and a Fire Dragon at the same time, hoping to kill the other team. One person was still alive however, but he had slipped past with a mere 57 health. This person was a Grandmaster yes but not a Theurgist and he Rebirthed his whole team. Unfortunately, we had the disadvantage of going second in the duel. Weirdly enough the other team still had full pips and went on to kill us the next round.

I think that treasure cards being banned from the arena is only fair. It can be a way of cheating because you can give high level cards to your low wizards (ex: level 3) and keep on 1v1 people using spells created on your Grandmaster. Is this fair? That one wizard could get up to Warlord in a few days no doubt about it!

well i dont feel it was the card that was the prob i feel it was how you went about it and seems you much not have had pips to make to hits each if thats how you wanted to go about it at first i felt it was unfair to have gold cards in pvp i didnt think it was right at all but as i pvp with my low lvl (21) i see it much of a help they can be and like i have been told and seen on here everyone has them or can have them its not someones fault you dont have them i my self like them pigs and i get them from bazaar but i have other cards as well all i have is troll and a small deck so i dont think i would be doing so good with out gold cards i feel you need to know what you need befor you get into a fight (dont take a knife to a gun fight) and now i kinda dont feel the same about gold cards in pvp scot deathhammer-grandmaster-fire-storm-balance-noob myth

Survivor
Aug 30, 2009
11
DiggerPat wrote:
I wouldn't be making complaints of it if it did not happen very often. It's all well and good to come back with examples of fighting levels 35+ but it does nothing to address cards used in fights of equally low levels.

If you're complaining about fighting high-level wizards at 10 there seems a fairly simple solution: level up.

As you said, you choosing to use non-school specific cards is your decision. There are plenty of others other than you who don't play with that self-imposed restriction.


I agree about levelling up: lvl 50 is the best to pvp w/ since you fight no one higher than you. But I am a one of those people who uses treasure cards at a low lvl in pvp. I used five pip and six pip (also kraken) treasure cards, but for fairness sake, I decided not to use Wild Bolt.

In my mind treasure cards are fair since it takes a long time to gain enough pips for the card. Also the other person is undoubtadly using treasure cards, so the only way to survive in pvp is to use them.

Again, If there was a single treasure card that should be banned it should be Wild Bolt: Wild Bolt only has 10% accuaracy, that's 1 out of 10 times it will hit. Treasure carded Wild Bolts can have around 50% accuracy, that's 1 out of 2 times it will hit. Treasure cards are not discarded when they fizzle, so probability shows that the Wild Bolt strategy is almost unbeatable. If I get 2 pips on my first turn, and my Wild Bolt only has 10% accuaracy, I draw it, it fizzles, I draw it, it fizzles, but one out of ten times (usually pvp battles take longer than ten rounds) Wild Bolt will hit w/ buffs and be devestating.

Keep treasure cards, but restrict Wild Bolt.

Survivor
Jun 06, 2009
5
I think treasure cards are one of the great unique things about this game. You take away treasure cards and you take away your "endless" possibilities in any fight, not just pvp.

These cards are at your disposal to use in pvp, should you choose to do so. I will say it is very rare to see any duel player who has NEVER used a treasure card that is not in their school. But that is the point of treasure cards; to have access to cards that are not in your school, or cards that are higher lvl then you, or cards that are both higher lvl then you and not in your school. Using a surprise card that someone is not expecting CAN be the turning point in any type of duel. If no one can use treasure cards in pvp, or there are large restrictions on treasure cards then everyone will know what everyone else is going to do, can you say BORING. Treasure cards are great for adjustments in balancing in the pvp arena also. TI can inject a treasure card (like cloak) into the mix and see what happens, or they might be able to make minor balance adjustments with treasure cards that are less rare then cloak.

The bottom line is this: Someone is always going to complain about something, even if most people like it or have found a way to deal with it, someone will want it changed. The people that you call "cheaters" will just find another way to win in the arena should this avenue be closed to them.