Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-203.59.51.117-20130117103804/@comment-5945414-20130118173509

Good comments. I like the idea of trading. Here's my own idea on how it could be successfully implemented. Keeping in mind the factors of making sure the company still makes money (which is their only real incentive) and player experience/balance. So for your thoughts, comments, and opinions I present my idea:

They add another area in the Space Bridge screen called something like "Supply Ship"-whatever. On that screen you have three sections of columns. Two of them are just cards lists (like the Cyberdex and your base screen with the same and maybe expanded sorting functions). After each card is a box where you can enter a number. Column I is your "Have" list. Column II is your "Want" list. Column III is a list of messages from other players that contain offers-such as My X for your Y (there is a function that automatically compares your Have list to everyone else's Want list). You can review the offers and choose to accept, decline or counter. Things go back and forth until you both come to a resolution-either agree or disagree.

Now here is the angle on the cards. Whenever you add a card to your "Have" list, it gets reset. This means that if you put in a Level 50 Trans-scanned Megatron (ALL HAIL MEGATRON!), the system breaks it back into two Level 1 cards-a robot form and an alt form. If at a later date you remove either one of those cards from your Have list, you do not get the "bonus" back. It's just like you got it from a space bridge. Thus when you trade with other players, everything is singular and level 1. This helps keep things balanced as a Level 88 player can't trade a monster card to a Level 4 player. In regards to value, each player has to make their own determination. My experience playing CCG's since 1993 indicates that people will do what they want to do for whatever reason. So having the company try to regulate trading with "values" will not work. The market will pretty much establish a value. For example, my event silver medal data states certain probabilities when it comes to free card pulls. The fact that the pay-for-use bridges have a real cost also sets values. Commons and Uncommons values will be a minor part of the trading. It's going to be rares and super rares. Thus let the players who own the cards make the trade valuations. If I paid $3 for a premium bridge and got a super rare, I might only trade that for another super rare. Or maybe I trade it for 3 rares. Maybe I trade 20 rares for that one super rare that I want cause my trading partner is Level 7 and he got a lucky bridge pull. At his point in playing, he could use 20 rares more than 1 super rare-and since you've got multiples of all of the rares, you don't care. See where I am going with this?

Therefore in the above scenario, the company still has you in the same buying mode as everyone/you will still need to get cards from somewhere. It will keep players involved longer as they still need to play and level up cards. They might even find more indirect revenue as people get cards they want (ie got all of the uncommon dinobots now I need to go out and get Grimlock). Plus the balance is still there as I can't trade you my "time spent". I can only trade you cards at the level that you could eventually get yourself.

Does this all make sense or am I crazy?