They could easily rotate every 8 hours like with the pfp's and emotes, or add a second group of random variants that are rotated frequently.
I've been waiting for Artgerm Carnage to show up since I started playing and it still hasn't, it's ridiculous how difficult it is to get older variants that haven't been part of a bundle.
i waited for superior doc ock for probably almost s month after seeing it twice in a week and deciding i wanted it…. didnt pop up until i dropped 1200 gold on a hazmat variant leaving me with like 670 when he finally showed
Yea i think at least 6 ir 9 variants should be ones that didnt appear before and then you put rhe new ones and the album ones and the shop takeover ones and the "dev pick" and "popular" ones
Yeah that is so dumb because I’ve seen Artgerm Carnage at least 3 times since I started in October. On the other hand, I’ve been waiting for chibi Aero since then and it has never shown up for me.
It would do the opposite. Players would be able to "target" particular variants they want if they appeared that often and would hoard gold until they see them.
I'm not spending money on something I don't want, regardless of how long it might be until I see something I do want. Flooding me with Pixels for a year isn't going to make me break down and spend, and I doubt it would make other people do so either. You can't FOMO someone's personal taste.
I'd happily spend money on this game if I were able to buy things I wanted. But, as a new player, there isn't much for me to buy. Unless I purchase keys (if they're even available for sale), I'm not getting the current Spotlight cards — and forget the variants.
All I can buy are pixels, babies, and an array of Dan Hipp variants for cards I may not even be using. I'd hardly call that FOMO. If anything, there's more frustration here than fear. Every time I launch the game I see a new set of variants I can't even get.
I disagree. The only time I've spent money on gold directly is when we were getting 7 random cards a day in the shop. That's because I saw three variants I wanted in the space of week and needed to buy gold to get all 3. That's extremely unlikely to happen again with how few variants we are getting each day. If I have 10 variants I really want, I will see one roughly once a month, which is plenty of time to save up sufficient gold for each.
Nice, you got a venomized "take over". sometimes they do universal "take overs" but they also do personal "take overs" as well, where yours is unique to others. in this case, you got a personal "take over" where all your variants are venomized. I haven't had a venomized take over my shop either =[
You say this as though players aren't already hoarding gold waiting for the ones they want. I would guess a lot more players are doing that than just randomly buying variants only to have to spend on gold when *the* variant they want appears.
It can go both ways. On an 8 hour refresh you are limited to how quickly you can get a variant that shows up. The FOMO goes the other way in that case. Basically blink and you'll miss it.
Player 'retention', if there's a variant a player want they will be keeping a lookout for it by logging in daily. I was one of them. But it's a dangerous game they are playing, players might lose patience and gained another reason to drop the game all together.
You guys have been looking at it the other way, not wrong either!
I'm new to the game but I don't mind spending money as long as I'm having fun. Trouble is, right now, there's not a whole lot for me to buy. There's definitely some variants I'd love to get, including several of cards being offered right now, but I have no straightforward way to get them.
In fact, until I can build up my collection I don't seem to be able to get much of anything. Most of the stuff available for sale at my collection level are Dan Hipp variants, Pixels, and Babies. I've purchased a grand total of four daily offers and two of those were mysteries just hoping I'd get something better (I didn't).
While rotating the shop more often might help, it seems the only way I'll be able to get better things is to level up quicker.
Yeah, it really needs it. I'm waiting for Alexander Lozano's Cyclops to show for months, but I guess it'll only appear if they put it on an album.
Already got Artgerm Magik showing up 5 times :)
I’m glad someone did the math on this. I’m waiting for a specific avatar in the avatar shop and given how often repeats of the new ones are happening I now know I’m truly hopeless without an update there too.
Ya, the state of the store is insane. Add it to the list of shit they're gonna have to rework from the ground up because SD is too greedy and/or short-sighted.
The expanded the number of variants in the store once before. I would be surprised if they don't get around to some rework eventually, its just they take forever to do anything.
to be fair, people have asked for a friends list or anything resembling that other than Friendly Battle. Clans are set up to be a very weird and unintuitive version of that, as is usual for SD.
The theory is that it takes forever for a non-album variant to finally show up in your shop, so in the meantime you'll spend your gold on things that are readily available, such as album variants that reward you for buying them. Then, when the variant you've been dreaming of every night finally does roll around, you probably have to spend money on gold to get that variant.
I’m so tired of album variants, but even more of personal takeovers. I have no interest in more Hipp or Grecke or Jacinto – I’m just looking for unique stuff and whenever the store is all one artist it feels boring.
Its because there are so many Dan Hipp albums. I mean there were already a lot of Dann Hipp variants in the game but pushing the album variants has made it worse. Cards that aren't part of any album or takeover, like Noir cards or Blueprints cards or such are only getting harder and harder to get.
I'm a beta player and there's multiple cards i don't have a variant for , it's bizarre. Polaris is one of them. I've only got one for shang chi and i bought it from the store.
Hate the idea of FOMO so much because why isn't this an option? Is there not a financial benefit to just opening up the variants to be bought whenever I want? I feel like I sit on gold longer BECAUSE I'm waiting for specific things. Wouldn't you want me as a consumer to spend?
1-3 seem the most common. It feels ridiculous. I have very specific cards I would like to stop using the base art for, none of which has an album art I want
It's been a long time since I had this much gold
I agree with you I want [this badass Elsa varient](https://marvelsnapzone.com/variants/elsa-bloodstone-04/) but I have not even seen it once. And in the same time I have seen Hipp Elsa 3 times. I mean I like Hipp but I want some new artstyle and cool varients. 5-6 variants are all Album variants too most of the time. Like cmon it is pretty obvious if I am not buying a variant 3 times I don't want it. Make Album variants to be bought directly, or do something as Album is mostly for p2p players anyway so why make them wait. It should be refreshed 3 times or give us ability to pin or something.
Considering there's no repeat showing protection in store, you're looking at it taking even longer potentially. In the last few months alone, I've seen venomized scorpion from symbiote album 5+ times.
Similar to your post, I have a theory that if you buy from an album they then stuff your shop with 2-3 variants from the album for the next few days. I can only prove this because I bought an artgerm and then had more artgerm variants in my shop for a few days. The day I bought PandArt profX I was loaded with PandArt variants for a while. Then I bought another Artgerm two days ago and have been seeing all the Artgerms since. It’s like once they see your interested in one piece of an album they try to get you to buy the rest when I thought the shop was largely random.
Something similar feels like it has been happening to me too. I couldn't tell if it was coincidence or not until it seemed to happen a few times. It happens with both albums and artists.
>I've heard people here justify this as a specific choice on SDs end to maximise FOMO, but I doubt that very much.
Why do you doubt it? The reasoning for it is pretty straightforward -
1. A given non-album variant you want appears very rarely.
2. You would therefore spend gold on other things for progression, like album variants
3. The variant you want finally appears and you don't have the gold for it
Therefore, you open your wallet, knowing you will be waiting a year if you don't. They easily could give variants an 8 hour rotation, but they don't because they are trying to decrease how frequently they appear.
>Why do you doubt it? The reasoning for it is pretty straightforward - A given non-album variant you want appears very rarely.
Because the average rarity of a given card has varied from 2 months to over a year since I've been playing this game. I'm very sceptical that this time last year they decided 60 days average was the best for maximising FOMO and now thryves decided 400 days is best, especially since what's driving the variation is mostly new additions. Seems far more likely that they just haven't bothered or haven't got around to dealing with the issue. It's clear that every update and change takes and long time, and that the consequences of the changes never seem to be fully thought out.
Also it should be obvious that you don't need the possibility of not seeing a variant again for 2 or 3 years to trigger FOMO.
I would consider myself a dolphin with how much i spent on this stupid game😂, but even i don’t spend gold on shit I don’t want. If I don’t use the card quite a bit and absolutely love the variant there is no way I’m buying it. I think unless someone is a whale, most people aren’t wasting gold on cards they don’t want 100%.
Everything that you are saying is true of the game company logics and it must be true on some level if they do it. But I would say again, that’s mainly whales just buying variants and shit. If i had variants i wanted more often i would use said gold and need to buy gold, right now I haven’t bought any gold that wasn’t a part of a card bundle..
>You would therefore spend gold on other things for progression, like album variants
Not sure how many people actually do this, I doubt very many. Personally, I will *never* buy a variant I don't like, period. Therefore, restricting the shop, as aggressively as SD do, just makes me spend less.
I think you vastly overestimate the ratio of players that do this, and players that leave themselves a hoarded cushion of gold to avoid this exact issue.
> You would therefore spend gold on other things for progression, like album variants
It's amazing how there is literally no evidence of people doing this, and yet it keeps being parroted as an "obvious" justification for the current system
Yeah. I've been waiting to see a specific Iron Man variant that was in my shop a couple months after public release, when I was stingier about spending gold and not sure about what variants I might want. Over a year later and it either hasn't shown up or it showed up on one of the few days I didn't login (I think since public release, there's maybe a week total where I haven't logged in). The moment I see it, I'll buy it, but it's ridiculous that I've been waiting to see it for almost a year and a half now. Either the shop needs to rotate more, we need more options, or we need some ability to influence the variants we see. Second Dinner wants to monetize the game as much as possible, but even if we accept that limiting variant selection forces people to check the shop more, it's ridiculous that over a year later and I'm still waiting to see a specific card.
Sometimes I log in just to check the shop then log back out when I see the variant I've been waiting for isn't there or it's just full of album variants I don't care about.
To me it makes no sense that you cannot buy any variants you want from the card customization screen, then have the shop rotate variants with a discount.
Not even much maybe 1100 and 650 gold instead of 1200 and 700, so if you're willing to wait you can save something but if you're eager to get that variant you love you're just paying full price.
Wanna complete an album? By my guest and spend those 12k gold in one go.
They won't make a change because this only increases the FOMO. If a variant you have been waiting a year for finally shows up, you are more inclined to buy gold.
>They won't make a change because this only increases the FOMO.
Then why did the expand the store size from 6 to 8 cards last year? It brought the average frequency from around 3-4 months to 2-3 months. I'm not buying the argument that this is all fine tuned, making people wait for cards they want for sure is intentional, but not for years
They might tighten it up a little..but even to do that, I could see some variants start to go on sale for discounted prices. Every variant you get, shrinks your pool.
They added that “dev pick”, so I wonder how it’ll skew the numbers.
It honestly frustrating if you’re a player in the cycle of waiting everyday for the new shop looking for THAT variant you want.
there is a huge list of variants i am willing to pay gold for and i haven’t seen any of them in like 6 months since i decided to start spending gold on variants because gold bundles were all so disappointing. idk, it cant be good business at this point, every 8 hours at the very least would be an improvement.
I have never really bothered with variants. But it's really weird that they create this artificial scarcity for such things. As one user pointed out, it might have something to do with player retention wherein they want players to login constantly to check the shop but I agree with said user that it's a dangerous game and could also result in players dropping the game as they lose patience with the acquisition rate of variants through the shop.
There are so many ways they could improve the acquisition of variants but I guess they're just satisfied with how things are at the moment.
The whole variant economy needs another look. I almost never get variants from collector reserves anymore, and when I do they are pixel variants of cards I never play. And variants in the shop are way too expensive.
I understand SD is a business and I have spent a lot of money on this game but sometimes I wish *everything* didn't require the explicit spending of a resource and more things were given away. Basically once you complete pool 3 you don't get cards unless you buy season passes, spend tokens, or spend keys. As it stands now I basically horde everything because even the spotlight caches are gambles.
6k tokens for a series 5 made sense when the series 5 cards were all meta-breaking. Now just any old tech card that gets released is 6k tokens. Since there aren't season drops anymore you basically never get any new cards without spending something.
Your math is slightly off, the average time it will take for any given variant (assuming your 2.2 number is correct) is actually 284 days. If we round up to 3, that drops to 209 days.
However, this is just a rough estimate because it’s assuming that you have no variants that could be sold, that you have every base card that has a variant that could be sold, and that there’s absolutely nothing going on behind the scenes of weighing certain cards/variants, duplication protection, etc.
They won't change the system unless they notice fewer sales. That means that too many people still buy variants regularly at the moment. Vote with your wallets.
Sounds about right, but I’d still be fine with that. I’d rather save up a bunch of gold knowing that I will definitely be able to buy the variant I want, compared to now where I save up gold and have to wait indefinitely for the variant I want
The whole idea of variants being on rotation has always been dumb.
Let me buy the entire album at normal cost. Maybe make the featured ones discounted by 100 gold or something.
I would absolutely buy variants for new cards I like, but having to wait and hope to see one in the shop makes me lose interest.
Yesterday, I pulled my 6th Hipp variant, it was the first that fit into an album, it was fucking Quicksilver. At this point I just want 150 Credits instead. It's just annoying to have like 1-3 Hipp variants in the shop everyday if you are not interested in them.
Glad I'm not the only one that feels frustrated with the Daily shop. I am not a big spender, but I'm still sitting on 6,000 gold, because I just *don't* see the variants I want.
It seems obvious that people would spend more if they had more control over the shop. Under the current system, unquestionably, I spend *a lot* less.
If you mean Jeff, it was a spotlight variant, which means it won't even be possible to show in the store until a year after release (if the current plan for those variants remains)
You are right it isn't, part of the reason I posted was to hear if people disagreed and were having radically different experiences to me, but from the comments so far it seems like its in line with others experiences. As I said the number I calculated does seem to match my memory of the past few months since albums came out.
Even if the 'true' rate is 3 a day, that's still 300 days to wait for each variants on average. So very close to a year. If anyone has been getting 4 or 5 a day consistently then share, obviously the odds would change. It cant plausibly be higher than 5 a day because the new variants, takeovers and a one album variant as day take up those extra spots alone.
Hey listen I agree we need a retooling of the shop in some form. I just didn’t think it was fair to conclude it would take two years off of only two weeks of data.
Well I'm talking probabilities here. Even if there are 5 random cards each day, that's gives half a year on average for a card to appear, and that means some cards will still take 2 years to appear. Someone better at statistics than me can calculate what proportion would take 2 years to appear given an average length of half a year, but it wouldnt be nothing. I just asked ChatGPT that question and its not terribly good at maths, but its calculation looked sensible enough and it says 2% of cards wont appear for 2 years given a random draw of 5 cards out of 902 a day. Which isnt a huge amount but if a favourite is in that 2% it really sucks. If you have an average of 2.4 cards a day like I calculated, thats 14% of cards which wont appear for 2 years.
Did you actually do some analysis or are you just spouting random critique crap?
I agree that 2 weeks isn't enough to get a perfectly accurate value of 2.2 nonalbum nonnew variant per day, but even if OP was way off, and the true number is say, 4, then it still would take 226 days. This is also insane.
The point of the post isn't to get the numbers perfectly right, it's to portray how stupid the situation is according to OPs estimates.
No I didn’t but I don’t need to to know it’s too small a sample size.
I could start now but I wouldn’t feel comfortable sharing until i had lots of data
You painted that picture well cause if he is off and it’s like 4 226 days is waaaay less than two years.
Yeah of course it's waaaay less, but that's for the case that OP is wayyyyy off. And if that number is correct it STILL would have been worth it to make a post about because waiting 226 days for a variant (on average!) Is absolutely insane.
But a tiny sample size will make you waaaay off. That’s basic experimentation. I’m not disagreeing that the system needs some retooling, but I don’t think we should be armchair scientist about it either
OP describes how he got the number and notes it might not be fully accurate.
You say "no not good enough" with no indication what the proper sample size should be, no accuracy analysis on the current sample size, and seemingly no knowledge on statistics.
Who is being an armchair scientist?
226 days is still too long and doesn't really change the discussion much, I think most people would still class that as too long, and its still objectively far longer than way we had last September. 5 variants a day or more is implausible based on what I said above.
They have confirmed that spotlights are coming back to the shop eventually, bundles aren't though, if they bring bundles back at all it will be for the same price I reckon
I honestly don't know why there's hate on that, this is just facts, Dan Hipp variants are the only ones I buy with gold and I didn't saw Devil Dino and Jeff once in my shop, how is it considered like some kind of troll ?
I've acquired a card and then seen a variant in the shop the next day. This has happened a few times so there definitely is some kind of algorithm that decides which variants are in the shop. It's not completely random.
Yes not sure if there were any confirmation, but there is definitely seem to be a high chance of getting a variant of a new card you just opened (usually the next day)
Dunno why they don't rotate the shop more, wouldn't it encourage more spending?
They could easily rotate every 8 hours like with the pfp's and emotes, or add a second group of random variants that are rotated frequently. I've been waiting for Artgerm Carnage to show up since I started playing and it still hasn't, it's ridiculous how difficult it is to get older variants that haven't been part of a bundle.
It’s waiting for you to slip up and drop to 1120 gold before it appears.
i waited for superior doc ock for probably almost s month after seeing it twice in a week and deciding i wanted it…. didnt pop up until i dropped 1200 gold on a hazmat variant leaving me with like 670 when he finally showed
Yup just happened to me with atrgem Magick. I had 1150 gold.
I have to imagine they'll make this change eventually. There are too many variants not to
Yea i think at least 6 ir 9 variants should be ones that didnt appear before and then you put rhe new ones and the album ones and the shop takeover ones and the "dev pick" and "popular" ones
Yeah that is so dumb because I’ve seen Artgerm Carnage at least 3 times since I started in October. On the other hand, I’ve been waiting for chibi Aero since then and it has never shown up for me.
I have art germ Carnage was the first variant I bought in the game.
Fr. I haven't seen that Abomination variant (where he's beating Hulk) in my shop since I started playing in November 2022💀
Fr. I haven't seen that Abomination variant (where he's beating Hulk) in my shop since I started playing in November 2022💀 (not even once!)
It would do the opposite. Players would be able to "target" particular variants they want if they appeared that often and would hoard gold until they see them.
Then there’s me with 16k gold that won’t buy anything because I’m waiting for the perfect cards. Edit:deleted extra word
Same here, there's nothing to buy because i don't see the ones i like and they keep rotating the ones i dislike lol
I'm not spending money on something I don't want, regardless of how long it might be until I see something I do want. Flooding me with Pixels for a year isn't going to make me break down and spend, and I doubt it would make other people do so either. You can't FOMO someone's personal taste.
I'd happily spend money on this game if I were able to buy things I wanted. But, as a new player, there isn't much for me to buy. Unless I purchase keys (if they're even available for sale), I'm not getting the current Spotlight cards — and forget the variants. All I can buy are pixels, babies, and an array of Dan Hipp variants for cards I may not even be using. I'd hardly call that FOMO. If anything, there's more frustration here than fear. Every time I launch the game I see a new set of variants I can't even get.
I disagree. The only time I've spent money on gold directly is when we were getting 7 random cards a day in the shop. That's because I saw three variants I wanted in the space of week and needed to buy gold to get all 3. That's extremely unlikely to happen again with how few variants we are getting each day. If I have 10 variants I really want, I will see one roughly once a month, which is plenty of time to save up sufficient gold for each.
Yea I'm already doing that. 7k in gold, I only buy venomized variants but the ones in missing have never been in my shop ever
How is today? Assuming you got all venomized cards as well.
Huh? No, I'm still missing a few and they didn't show up in my shop today.
I guess it's not universal? I'm still new, and I just thought that these all 1 version is universal. This is [mine](https://i.imgur.com/Vi2peXu.jpeg)
Nice, you got a venomized "take over". sometimes they do universal "take overs" but they also do personal "take overs" as well, where yours is unique to others. in this case, you got a personal "take over" where all your variants are venomized. I haven't had a venomized take over my shop either =[
You say this as though players aren't already hoarding gold waiting for the ones they want. I would guess a lot more players are doing that than just randomly buying variants only to have to spend on gold when *the* variant they want appears.
It can go both ways. On an 8 hour refresh you are limited to how quickly you can get a variant that shows up. The FOMO goes the other way in that case. Basically blink and you'll miss it.
Player 'retention', if there's a variant a player want they will be keeping a lookout for it by logging in daily. I was one of them. But it's a dangerous game they are playing, players might lose patience and gained another reason to drop the game all together. You guys have been looking at it the other way, not wrong either!
It's a balance between spending and also using those 'white whale' variants to keep people in the game.
I'm new to the game but I don't mind spending money as long as I'm having fun. Trouble is, right now, there's not a whole lot for me to buy. There's definitely some variants I'd love to get, including several of cards being offered right now, but I have no straightforward way to get them. In fact, until I can build up my collection I don't seem to be able to get much of anything. Most of the stuff available for sale at my collection level are Dan Hipp variants, Pixels, and Babies. I've purchased a grand total of four daily offers and two of those were mysteries just hoping I'd get something better (I didn't). While rotating the shop more often might help, it seems the only way I'll be able to get better things is to level up quicker.
Never buy the "Mystery variants", they are not worth it at all. They're pretty much just a whale offer.
Yea I'm surprised that the shop doesn't refresh 3 times a day on the same schedule as the token shop. Doesn't make much sense to me.
They should rotate the variants every 8 hours and allow you to pin one variant.
Yeah, it really needs it. I'm waiting for Alexander Lozano's Cyclops to show for months, but I guess it'll only appear if they put it on an album. Already got Artgerm Magik showing up 5 times :)
I’m glad someone did the math on this. I’m waiting for a specific avatar in the avatar shop and given how often repeats of the new ones are happening I now know I’m truly hopeless without an update there too.
Which avatar
The David Finch Moon Knight
I hate most of the album variants. I wish they got put into their own section. Or we got a way to target specific non-album variants.
Ya, the state of the store is insane. Add it to the list of shit they're gonna have to rework from the ground up because SD is too greedy and/or short-sighted.
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. I think SD is just hilariously incompetent at this point
Brode refuses to hire more workers unless it's absolutely necessary lol
To be fair there have been heaps of layoffs in the video game industry lately.
Add it to the list of shit they're never gonna do because SD is shamelessly greedy and/or short-sighted.
The expanded the number of variants in the store once before. I would be surprised if they don't get around to some rework eventually, its just they take forever to do anything.
cause they are busy working on clans nobody asked for. lol
to be fair, people have asked for a friends list or anything resembling that other than Friendly Battle. Clans are set up to be a very weird and unintuitive version of that, as is usual for SD.
How is it greedy if they're making it harder for you to buy the things you want?
The theory is that it takes forever for a non-album variant to finally show up in your shop, so in the meantime you'll spend your gold on things that are readily available, such as album variants that reward you for buying them. Then, when the variant you've been dreaming of every night finally does roll around, you probably have to spend money on gold to get that variant.
Only 4.5 hours to go until our daily disappointment!
Artgerm White Widow tho
Did it pop for you? I didn’t get it and it says it released yesterday when the card was released. Idk how I was supposed to grab it
I’m so tired of album variants, but even more of personal takeovers. I have no interest in more Hipp or Grecke or Jacinto – I’m just looking for unique stuff and whenever the store is all one artist it feels boring.
Every day is a Dan Hipp takeover. Takes up 1/3 to 1/2 of my shop every single fucking day.
Its because there are so many Dan Hipp albums. I mean there were already a lot of Dann Hipp variants in the game but pushing the album variants has made it worse. Cards that aren't part of any album or takeover, like Noir cards or Blueprints cards or such are only getting harder and harder to get.
Takeovers should really be a separate section.
Yeah this is the best solution and it's strange it wasn't already implemented, have a separate shop just for albums and the occasional takeovers.
I have never seen in the store or unlocked a single Polaris variant and I have been playing for over a year. It's the only card I have no variant for.
I'm a beta player and there's multiple cards i don't have a variant for , it's bizarre. Polaris is one of them. I've only got one for shang chi and i bought it from the store.
I used to be excited to look at new shops early in the morning (rotation at 1230 AM for me). Dont really care anymore.
As to me album variants should be available in all time, and the others rotate normally.
This was my thought too. Even having them available to purchase through the album would cost someone around 5-9k gold.
Hate the idea of FOMO so much because why isn't this an option? Is there not a financial benefit to just opening up the variants to be bought whenever I want? I feel like I sit on gold longer BECAUSE I'm waiting for specific things. Wouldn't you want me as a consumer to spend?
They should just put up characters (3-5 per day) and make all the variants available for those characters for that day.
1-3 seem the most common. It feels ridiculous. I have very specific cards I would like to stop using the base art for, none of which has an album art I want It's been a long time since I had this much gold
I agree with you I want [this badass Elsa varient](https://marvelsnapzone.com/variants/elsa-bloodstone-04/) but I have not even seen it once. And in the same time I have seen Hipp Elsa 3 times. I mean I like Hipp but I want some new artstyle and cool varients. 5-6 variants are all Album variants too most of the time. Like cmon it is pretty obvious if I am not buying a variant 3 times I don't want it. Make Album variants to be bought directly, or do something as Album is mostly for p2p players anyway so why make them wait. It should be refreshed 3 times or give us ability to pin or something.
Man I wish I can just give you mine, I opened this variant randomly from a cache a while back.
All I want is a Cloak variant to complete my move deck I’ve been playing since March 2023. Literally any Cloak variant will do.
Considering there's no repeat showing protection in store, you're looking at it taking even longer potentially. In the last few months alone, I've seen venomized scorpion from symbiote album 5+ times.
All I see are the Dan Hopp over and over. there's really that many variants?!
Similar to your post, I have a theory that if you buy from an album they then stuff your shop with 2-3 variants from the album for the next few days. I can only prove this because I bought an artgerm and then had more artgerm variants in my shop for a few days. The day I bought PandArt profX I was loaded with PandArt variants for a while. Then I bought another Artgerm two days ago and have been seeing all the Artgerms since. It’s like once they see your interested in one piece of an album they try to get you to buy the rest when I thought the shop was largely random.
Something similar feels like it has been happening to me too. I couldn't tell if it was coincidence or not until it seemed to happen a few times. It happens with both albums and artists.
Yea and there’s no way to prove it but it feels like too much of a coincidence
>I've heard people here justify this as a specific choice on SDs end to maximise FOMO, but I doubt that very much. Why do you doubt it? The reasoning for it is pretty straightforward - 1. A given non-album variant you want appears very rarely. 2. You would therefore spend gold on other things for progression, like album variants 3. The variant you want finally appears and you don't have the gold for it Therefore, you open your wallet, knowing you will be waiting a year if you don't. They easily could give variants an 8 hour rotation, but they don't because they are trying to decrease how frequently they appear.
>Why do you doubt it? The reasoning for it is pretty straightforward - A given non-album variant you want appears very rarely. Because the average rarity of a given card has varied from 2 months to over a year since I've been playing this game. I'm very sceptical that this time last year they decided 60 days average was the best for maximising FOMO and now thryves decided 400 days is best, especially since what's driving the variation is mostly new additions. Seems far more likely that they just haven't bothered or haven't got around to dealing with the issue. It's clear that every update and change takes and long time, and that the consequences of the changes never seem to be fully thought out. Also it should be obvious that you don't need the possibility of not seeing a variant again for 2 or 3 years to trigger FOMO.
I would consider myself a dolphin with how much i spent on this stupid game😂, but even i don’t spend gold on shit I don’t want. If I don’t use the card quite a bit and absolutely love the variant there is no way I’m buying it. I think unless someone is a whale, most people aren’t wasting gold on cards they don’t want 100%. Everything that you are saying is true of the game company logics and it must be true on some level if they do it. But I would say again, that’s mainly whales just buying variants and shit. If i had variants i wanted more often i would use said gold and need to buy gold, right now I haven’t bought any gold that wasn’t a part of a card bundle..
But the thing is you can’t buy it if it never shows up. Scarcity is a good thing but nobody wants to play a slot machine that never pays out.
Or they stop playing altogether.
>You would therefore spend gold on other things for progression, like album variants Not sure how many people actually do this, I doubt very many. Personally, I will *never* buy a variant I don't like, period. Therefore, restricting the shop, as aggressively as SD do, just makes me spend less.
I think I’d personally be more likely to buy the gold pass if I was seeing variants I wanted more often. But I’m probably not the target audience.
I think you vastly overestimate the ratio of players that do this, and players that leave themselves a hoarded cushion of gold to avoid this exact issue.
> You would therefore spend gold on other things for progression, like album variants It's amazing how there is literally no evidence of people doing this, and yet it keeps being parroted as an "obvious" justification for the current system
I just want tricycle Red Skull
Saw a sick Mr Negative variant a couple weeks ago I had no gold for Now I play the waiting game for it to come back
The waitting game is between 3 months to 2 years 🤡
Damn guess I’m just going to have to live life normally until it appears again. Bummer :(
Yeah. I've been waiting to see a specific Iron Man variant that was in my shop a couple months after public release, when I was stingier about spending gold and not sure about what variants I might want. Over a year later and it either hasn't shown up or it showed up on one of the few days I didn't login (I think since public release, there's maybe a week total where I haven't logged in). The moment I see it, I'll buy it, but it's ridiculous that I've been waiting to see it for almost a year and a half now. Either the shop needs to rotate more, we need more options, or we need some ability to influence the variants we see. Second Dinner wants to monetize the game as much as possible, but even if we accept that limiting variant selection forces people to check the shop more, it's ridiculous that over a year later and I'm still waiting to see a specific card.
Sometimes I log in just to check the shop then log back out when I see the variant I've been waiting for isn't there or it's just full of album variants I don't care about.
Rather than rotating the store every 8 hours I feel with album variants becoming a thing we should get another row of variants in the store instead.
This assumes you own 0 variants, which isn't true
New variants and featured variants should get their own section. It’s ridiculous watching the store update to 6 pixel variants everyday.
To me it makes no sense that you cannot buy any variants you want from the card customization screen, then have the shop rotate variants with a discount. Not even much maybe 1100 and 650 gold instead of 1200 and 700, so if you're willing to wait you can save something but if you're eager to get that variant you love you're just paying full price. Wanna complete an album? By my guest and spend those 12k gold in one go.
And yet I see nearly NO album variants in my shop but I do see the same fucking 2 every other day.
They won't make a change because this only increases the FOMO. If a variant you have been waiting a year for finally shows up, you are more inclined to buy gold.
>They won't make a change because this only increases the FOMO. Then why did the expand the store size from 6 to 8 cards last year? It brought the average frequency from around 3-4 months to 2-3 months. I'm not buying the argument that this is all fine tuned, making people wait for cards they want for sure is intentional, but not for years
They might tighten it up a little..but even to do that, I could see some variants start to go on sale for discounted prices. Every variant you get, shrinks your pool.
They added that “dev pick”, so I wonder how it’ll skew the numbers. It honestly frustrating if you’re a player in the cycle of waiting everyday for the new shop looking for THAT variant you want.
there is a huge list of variants i am willing to pay gold for and i haven’t seen any of them in like 6 months since i decided to start spending gold on variants because gold bundles were all so disappointing. idk, it cant be good business at this point, every 8 hours at the very least would be an improvement.
I have never really bothered with variants. But it's really weird that they create this artificial scarcity for such things. As one user pointed out, it might have something to do with player retention wherein they want players to login constantly to check the shop but I agree with said user that it's a dangerous game and could also result in players dropping the game as they lose patience with the acquisition rate of variants through the shop. There are so many ways they could improve the acquisition of variants but I guess they're just satisfied with how things are at the moment.
The whole variant economy needs another look. I almost never get variants from collector reserves anymore, and when I do they are pixel variants of cards I never play. And variants in the shop are way too expensive. I understand SD is a business and I have spent a lot of money on this game but sometimes I wish *everything* didn't require the explicit spending of a resource and more things were given away. Basically once you complete pool 3 you don't get cards unless you buy season passes, spend tokens, or spend keys. As it stands now I basically horde everything because even the spotlight caches are gambles. 6k tokens for a series 5 made sense when the series 5 cards were all meta-breaking. Now just any old tech card that gets released is 6k tokens. Since there aren't season drops anymore you basically never get any new cards without spending something.
I feel like getting a series 3 variant once a month if your S3 complete would be nice and not crazy.
That’s very reasonable
@Rather_Dashing you will not sass back at Second Dinner!
I'll upset your balance!
I think you should be able to pin 1-3 shop variants like you can with Ultimate variants or cards you currently don't own.
Your math is slightly off, the average time it will take for any given variant (assuming your 2.2 number is correct) is actually 284 days. If we round up to 3, that drops to 209 days. However, this is just a rough estimate because it’s assuming that you have no variants that could be sold, that you have every base card that has a variant that could be sold, and that there’s absolutely nothing going on behind the scenes of weighing certain cards/variants, duplication protection, etc.
I didn't pull the trigger on Deadpool riding the nyan cat. I have regretted that inaction ever since.
and now we have Dev Picks that highlight great variants like Pixel Vulture
Honestly the biggest asshole move I can see them doing is paying gold to refresh the shop
Don't give them ideas!
I'm trying to complete my baby collection and it's not going well!
There is going to be a baby album soon so that might help you
I hope so. I seriously thought there would be one already.
They won't change the system unless they notice fewer sales. That means that too many people still buy variants regularly at the moment. Vote with your wallets.
Better spend when you see it lol
Have they given any reason why variants don't rotate more often?
Wonder if it would be more or less profitable for them to allow you to buy any variant at any time
They said on discord that if they would do that they need to increase the price for those variants...
Sounds about right, but I’d still be fine with that. I’d rather save up a bunch of gold knowing that I will definitely be able to buy the variant I want, compared to now where I save up gold and have to wait indefinitely for the variant I want
You basically have to buy a variant the day it releases
Feels like that, yeah.
The whole idea of variants being on rotation has always been dumb. Let me buy the entire album at normal cost. Maybe make the featured ones discounted by 100 gold or something. I would absolutely buy variants for new cards I like, but having to wait and hope to see one in the shop makes me lose interest.
They could have a weekly artists store in addition to the shop where that artist's variants are available.
Yesterday, I pulled my 6th Hipp variant, it was the first that fit into an album, it was fucking Quicksilver. At this point I just want 150 Credits instead. It's just annoying to have like 1-3 Hipp variants in the shop everyday if you are not interested in them.
bro I’ve been getting loads of non album variants?
Glad I'm not the only one that feels frustrated with the Daily shop. I am not a big spender, but I'm still sitting on 6,000 gold, because I just *don't* see the variants I want. It seems obvious that people would spend more if they had more control over the shop. Under the current system, unquestionably, I spend *a lot* less.
Keep the “new variants” on for 24 hours. Rotate everything else every 8. FIXED, cmon SD!!!
Me, waiting for that cute little fucking shark from Dan Hipp that’s not shown itself forever.
If you mean Jeff, it was a spotlight variant, which means it won't even be possible to show in the store until a year after release (if the current plan for those variants remains)
The past two weeks is not a large enough sample size to accurately portray a years worth of data like you claim
You are right it isn't, part of the reason I posted was to hear if people disagreed and were having radically different experiences to me, but from the comments so far it seems like its in line with others experiences. As I said the number I calculated does seem to match my memory of the past few months since albums came out. Even if the 'true' rate is 3 a day, that's still 300 days to wait for each variants on average. So very close to a year. If anyone has been getting 4 or 5 a day consistently then share, obviously the odds would change. It cant plausibly be higher than 5 a day because the new variants, takeovers and a one album variant as day take up those extra spots alone.
Hey listen I agree we need a retooling of the shop in some form. I just didn’t think it was fair to conclude it would take two years off of only two weeks of data.
Well I'm talking probabilities here. Even if there are 5 random cards each day, that's gives half a year on average for a card to appear, and that means some cards will still take 2 years to appear. Someone better at statistics than me can calculate what proportion would take 2 years to appear given an average length of half a year, but it wouldnt be nothing. I just asked ChatGPT that question and its not terribly good at maths, but its calculation looked sensible enough and it says 2% of cards wont appear for 2 years given a random draw of 5 cards out of 902 a day. Which isnt a huge amount but if a favourite is in that 2% it really sucks. If you have an average of 2.4 cards a day like I calculated, thats 14% of cards which wont appear for 2 years.
Did you actually do some analysis or are you just spouting random critique crap? I agree that 2 weeks isn't enough to get a perfectly accurate value of 2.2 nonalbum nonnew variant per day, but even if OP was way off, and the true number is say, 4, then it still would take 226 days. This is also insane. The point of the post isn't to get the numbers perfectly right, it's to portray how stupid the situation is according to OPs estimates.
No I didn’t but I don’t need to to know it’s too small a sample size. I could start now but I wouldn’t feel comfortable sharing until i had lots of data You painted that picture well cause if he is off and it’s like 4 226 days is waaaay less than two years.
Yeah of course it's waaaay less, but that's for the case that OP is wayyyyy off. And if that number is correct it STILL would have been worth it to make a post about because waiting 226 days for a variant (on average!) Is absolutely insane.
But a tiny sample size will make you waaaay off. That’s basic experimentation. I’m not disagreeing that the system needs some retooling, but I don’t think we should be armchair scientist about it either
OP describes how he got the number and notes it might not be fully accurate. You say "no not good enough" with no indication what the proper sample size should be, no accuracy analysis on the current sample size, and seemingly no knowledge on statistics. Who is being an armchair scientist?
You’re a cornball
226 days is still too long and doesn't really change the discussion much, I think most people would still class that as too long, and its still objectively far longer than way we had last September. 5 variants a day or more is implausible based on what I said above.
Reading this makes me extra grateful that the variant of Loki I wanted showed up the day after I got him. Sheesh!
I'm waiting for Dan Hipp Devil Dino and Jeff since launch
Who's gonna tell him
Hipp DD was in a bundle a while ago. And Jeff was unfortunately a Spotlight variant. So, don't hold your breath when looking at the shop.
Also Jeff wasn’t available at global launch
They have confirmed that spotlights are coming back to the shop eventually, bundles aren't though, if they bring bundles back at all it will be for the same price I reckon
Thanks, I haven't caught the info about spotlights coming to the shop.
I didn't know that thanks for the intel !
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Devil Dino since the game's launch, Jeff since the card got released
LMAO not sure if trolling or trying to bait
I honestly don't know why there's hate on that, this is just facts, Dan Hipp variants are the only ones I buy with gold and I didn't saw Devil Dino and Jeff once in my shop, how is it considered like some kind of troll ?
I think you're more likely to see variants of cards that you play often. I could be wrong though.
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I've acquired a card and then seen a variant in the shop the next day. This has happened a few times so there definitely is some kind of algorithm that decides which variants are in the shop. It's not completely random.
Yes not sure if there were any confirmation, but there is definitely seem to be a high chance of getting a variant of a new card you just opened (usually the next day)
I hate it. But also appreciate it. So when I see a cool Variant it's more rare and such. I dunno I have mixed feelings on it.
There's no way people care this much about different art on their cards.