- I am open to a $1 pack with 5 cards instead of the $5 pack with 25 cards. It really doesn't make any difference as far as economy design.
- The thinking behind making the starter packs non-transferrable was to discourage people from looking at them as a financial/speculative asset and trying to keep them more for new players or players looking to grow their collection. That being said, since the cards in them can be sold I'm not sure it makes any real difference, so I see no problem with having them be transferrable.
- The plan for Mage Wagons has been that they could be used for all of the Rebellion conflicts. I don't recall at any point saying that they would be able to be used for future sets, but please correct me if I am wrong about that. This seems to be a common problem, though. People seem to assume a lot of things, which have never been stated, and that causes a number of issues. Either way, there is immense amount of value being given out through the Conflicts and I believe it is a massive mistake for the ecosystem to continue to give that out without any type of value being put in.
Maybe it's more of a messaging issue. The current Mage Wagons were for Rebellion conflicts, which are now ending, so the life of those assets is done. So we are not adding any fees or anything to existing assets. People purchased assets to participate in those Conflicts, they received very valuable cards, and now that is done. With Conclave Arcana something new is being released, and players can choose to purchase new assets to participate in that. We proposed to offer a benefit to players who had bought the previous Mage Wagons that they could be upgraded to the new wagons at a reduced cost.
In any case, the community can ultimately propose and approve whatever they want regarding Conflicts and Mage Wagons, but as far as I am concerned I really don't like and don't appreciate hearing that I am "losing trust" with the community. For one - I don't believe I ever said or implied that Mage Wagons would be for anything but Rebellion conflicts, and I believe that I have been extremely clear with the community that the ONLY promise and the ONLY commitment I will make is that I am going to push for whatever I believe best creates a sustainable ecosystem that creates value over the long term for its participants. I am not going to leave something in place that I think hurts the ecosystem just because it has been that way in the past or because people didn't expect it to change. Please refer to my post from 1.5 years ago on this exact topic: https://peakd.com/splinterlands/@yabapmatt.sps/new-account-for-splinterlands-posts-and-my-goals-thought-process#change
4
The Legendary and Alchemist packs offer roughly double the amount of Legendary and Gold Foil cards per dollar spent respectively as compared to Booster packs. The tradeoff for that is you receive fewer total cards. I believe the tradeoff is well balanced as-is. If we add more cards to the packs we will need to increase the pricing of the packs, which I think would make it a worse deal overall for the people buying the packs because they want to focus on those types of cards. Again, this is ultimately up to the community to decide, but I have spent a lot of time on the packs and the pricing and believe what has been proposed is the best option.
5
I don't see any reason for doing a 2.5k DEC pack. It's not a big enough price difference from the 4k DEC booster packs in my opinion.
6
Like always, we'll do the best we can with the resources we have available. We try to make all cards interesting and valuable regardless of their rarity, and we definitely want to do more to make the stat increases higher especially at max level to really encourage people to get there considering how many more cards it takes (again at all rarities). I also don't think it's such a bad thing if there are some Common or Rare cards that are very valuable and highly desired and I don't think the Starter packs will cause overprinting - it's all just a market function.
For #2 - I don't think Starter Packs should be transferrable, they are Starter Packs and should not be sellable. Your initial concerns are valid.
For #5 - What about a 3-card pack for 2k DEC but an altered drop rate so it's not statistically better than the 5-card pack? Having a half-price option with a chance at a GFL is what I'm trying to accomplish. What do you think?
Thank you for the thoughtful response here, Matt! I'll be sure to share this with all who tossed their questions into the pot.
As an aside and on a related note - man, I love that this conversation is happening now, 6 months ahead of time. Thank you for gettin it all goin and movin us into what looks & feels like a very bright 2025 in such a fashion :)
To clarify #2 in my other comment, I feel like they can be transferrable from account to account so streamers can give them away, but not be available on Tribaldex or the in-game market.
How about a 1-card pack for 800 DEC, also transferrable between accounts but not be available on Tribaldex or the in-game market. This still gives the chance for a GFL and should be pretty easy to implement. The more smaller price options the better.
Too many options can cause decision fatigue. Few clearly differentiated options is good. Having many options with small changes mean new players are going to have to learn more and make more calculations. Keep it simple.