Guess if/what Riot will give refunds for nerfed cards

So Riot has stated we're going to get our first real balance patch on Feb-18, and my question is: what do you think their policy will be do for nerfed cards?  E.g.: for Hearthstone, for 2 weeks after a patch that changes a particular card to have less power, players can refund that card for 100% of its crafting dust (roughly equivalent to converting it into LoR shards equivalent to its wildcard rarity).  Significantly, it's ONLY the cards that were changed--many times, a single card out of a multiple-card synergy will be nerfed leaving players angry that the other cards now have no place in the meta yet can only be dusted for the standard 25% refund.  I'm not as familiar with MtG:Arena, but I saw in the recent Oko/etc nerf that they banned the cards from the popular formats and everyone automatically received wildcards of equal quantity and rarity.

For the closed LoR betas Riot didn't do anything, but I'm discounting that because the collections weren't "real" then--all collections were planned to be reset and all coins were refunded.  Now, if you go and buy wildcards with cash to craft specific cards, that's effectively permanently spent.

My personal guess: they won't refund anything.  Unlike MtG, they can actively tweak cards after publishing and unlike Blizzard, Riot seems to be committed to balancing rather than just hindering cards until they cease to be relevant.  This seems to be their design philosophy with League of Legends: they want all champions to be relevant, so they will buff and nerf a particular champions over and over until they find equilibrium--and as such, they don't give refunds.  (At least not as far as I can tell; I'm not a big LoL player so please tell me if I'm wrong here.)  I could potentially see them giving out some shards in LoR just to placate players who are used to the other systems--especially if complaints get too vocal--but I don't think there will be any consequential.

What is your guess?

Maybe Shards or maybe Wild cards.

Unlike Hearthstone you can't hoard cards beyond their maximum number so they won't have to worry about giving out too much.

I'd probably assume they'd give everyone respective wild cards according to how many copies of the card you own. LoR doesn't really have a dusting system, so it's kind of impossible to implement a system in which you can "refund" something.

ON the other hand they'd have to give out free wild cards whenever they want to nerf any card..or even multiple ones for the same card if the nerf it twice. It would also mean that you can basically "cheat" the system by crafting all the card when their nerfs are announced and basically get them for free.

I honestly have no idea how they're gonna implement it in a way that isn't going to be abused in some way. I don't think they can get away with doing no refunds whatsoever....especially since you can buy cards with real money.

I think the best solution to the problem is to refund the nerfed cards to wild cards if you own the nerfed card, that way it can't be abused in any way and it's always fair to both riot and the players, you can recraft the card that was just changed, or craft another deck if you want.

We will see I really support constant card changes, that's the main reason the game is so accessible - so it can be frequently changed... Once per month balance changes are really a lot for a card game. 

IF Riot will refund anything, I would expect DoubleSummon being right (nerfed cards get converted into wild cards). This would be nice, but I would not be too surprised if nerfs won't give any kind of refunds. They plan on implementing balance changes every two weeks, which I think means that a lot of cards have a high chance of eventually being nerfed or buffed, and that they will try to keep the nerfs and buffs as small as possible. This would result in balance patches just being a source of free resources, which is not what balance patches should be about. However, since converting nerfed cards into wild cards ends up being the same in terms of total resources, I think this is the most likely form of refunds we might get.

Btw you are right about League of Legends, players don't get anything if a champion they own/play is nerfed. This makes sense though, since balance patches are very frequent and there are a lot of players who own most champions (+there are a looot of champions), meaning that nerf refunds would just be more free stuff in an already free to play friendly game.

Don't see how refunds would give people "free stuff" it would just give you the choice again if you want to craft the nerfed card again or if you want to craft something else *instead*

Besides what riot said is they will patch the game every 2 weeks But only once a month it will be a balance change patch (aka big patch) 

We will see what's their initial policy about nerfing cards.. Hoping for the fairest concept of giving the players the choice with wild cards...

I don't see any reason for any kind of refund.

Cards are extremely easy to come by in this game -- plus, if they nerf correctly, the altered card would not become useless.

Refunds are a tacit admission that the affected cards are no longer worth playing -- something that should never happen in practice.

Looking at Riot's previous nerfs, every single altered card is still very strong.

I'm with FortyDust. Maybe I just don't get the mentality of today's playerbase (in Hearhtstone, for instance), but I think expecting compensation from a developer for nerfing a card that you own is the definition of entitlement. The devs aren't maliciously stripping your hard-earned cards of their power - they're balancing the game to bring it into a better state. If nerfs are handled competently, the affected cards won't become unplayable, they'll become fairer. A developer giving out refunds/rewards for that seems asinine to me, and I think it's sad that some devs feel forced to do so in order to retain customers.

Yeah I think You are both right , if the cards are still playable there's no reason to refund them.. and yes as far as I have seen any nerf kept the cards playable.. the dust refunds in HS are kinda dumb now I think about it.. if the system was much less greedy then I wouldn't be so necessary there..

Quote From DoubleSummon

I think the best solution to the problem is to refund the nerfed cards to wild cards if you own the nerfed card, that way it can't be abused in any way and it's always fair to both riot and the players, you can recraft the card that was just changed, or craft another deck if you want.

We will see I really support constant card changes, that's the main reason the game is so accessible - so it can be frequently changed... Once per month balance changes are really a lot for a card game. 

the problem I see with that is that, unlike Hearthstone, you don'T get to "test"" the nerfed card.

One of the main benefits of HS nerf policy is that you get some time to play the nerfed card and decide for yourself whether to disenchant it or to keep it (as well as allowing players who don't have the card to get a free trial basically)

This way you'd basically force players to recraft their cards just to see if they'Re still playable, which sort of defeass the point.

Quote From YourPrivateNightmare

Quote From DoubleSummon

I think the best solution to the problem is to refund the nerfed cards to wild cards if you own the nerfed card, that way it can't be abused in any way and it's always fair to both riot and the players, you can recraft the card that was just changed, or craft another deck if you want.

We will see I really support constant card changes, that's the main reason the game is so accessible - so it can be frequently changed... Once per month balance changes are really a lot for a card game. 

the problem I see with that is that, unlike Hearthstone, you don'T get to "test"" the nerfed card.

One of the main benefits of HS nerf policy is that you get some time to play the nerfed card and decide for yourself whether to disenchant it or to keep it (as well as allowing players who don't have the card to get a free trial basically)

This way you'd basically force players to recraft their cards just to see if they'Re still playable, which sort of defeass the point.

Maybe they add a "disenchant" option for nerferd cards where YOU can convert them into wildcards for 1-2 weeks after the nerf? That would be the most fair to the players and doesn't give away "free stuff"

Assuming we're drawing a direct comparison to League, the answer would be that you get nothing, but you'll wind up using those cards in three months anyway as the revolving door of 'balance' changes comes around :P

It would probably be Wildcards that get refunded, but they're doing balance updates so fast I'm not sure if they want to crank out refunds every single month. I guess we'll find out for sure in the next 2 weeks.

Quote From Bystekhilcar

Assuming we're drawing a direct comparison to League, the answer would be that you get nothing, but you'll wind up using those cards in three months anyway as the revolving door of 'balance' changes comes around :P

More likely, you'll never stop using them and won't even blink.

That's what happened with the pre-beta nerfs, anyway.

Quote From FortyDust

I don't see any reason for any kind of refund.

Cards are extremely easy to come by in this game -- plus, if they nerf correctly, the altered card would not become useless.

Refunds are a tacit admission that the affected cards are no longer worth playing -- something that should never happen in practice.

Looking at Riot's previous nerfs, every single altered card is still very strong.

I quote this at 101% !

If they give us a refund for a changed card I'm expecting it to be able to be done through the normal refund window in the shop

Quote From BlueSpark

I'm with FortyDust. Maybe I just don't get the mentality of today's playerbase (in Hearhtstone, for instance), but I think expecting compensation from a developer for nerfing a card that you own is the definition of entitlement. The devs aren't maliciously stripping your hard-earned cards of their power - they're balancing the game to bring it into a better state. If nerfs are handled competently, the affected cards won't become unplayable, they'll become fairer. A developer giving out refunds/rewards for that seems asinine to me, and I think it's sad that some devs feel forced to do so in order to retain customers.

I think I'm with you and 40, but to attempt devil's advocate: say within a month, Fiora decks become super refined to the point where they have > 60% winrate in non-mirror matches and comprise 30% of all decks on ladder.  You don't have a large collection and you're tired of constantly losing, so you channel the ancient adage for when you can't beat them, netdeck some winning decklists, crack your wallet to buy 3 champion wildcards and then use up them plus all your freebie wildcards to craft something that you can compete with.  Then a week later, Riot announces that they dislike the prevalence and success of Fiora so they are going to nerf her win condition from 4 kills to 6, and as a result Fiora decks go to ~45% winrate and <1% playrate.  You feel enraged, right?  You just paid $10 USD plus most of your starter resources towards a deck that will never climb ladder--what are you going to do now?  Not only are you out the cash, but you still don't have a competitive deck AND your out most of your wildcards.  Maybe you even stop playing altogether.  However if Riot were to allow you to convert your Fioras back into 3 wildcards, you have a path forward.  You could pick a new archetype and swap over to that.  You still might need to grind / buy some common and rare wildcards to field a full deck, but at least you have your choice of any three new champions, so that $10 doesn't feel "lost".

The above scenario assumes 1.) there's a hyper-broken strategy that suddenly dominates the entire meta, 2.) management over-compensates for said strategy rendering certain high-cost cards to be almost worthless, and 3.) said cards stay worthless for the foreseeable future.  I feel like Riot has done an exceptional job balancing this game so far and that their commitment to regular balance patches and practice to include buffs as well as nerfs makes each of these conditions very unlikely, let alone all 3 simultaneously.  That said: I'm also shocked it happens ever with veteran CCG companies who invest millions of dollars and labor hours developing balanced expansions **cough**Oko Thief of Crowns**cough**Galakrond Shaman**cough**.

Quote From OldManSanns

  You feel enraged, right?  You just paid $10 USD plus most of your starter resources towards a deck that will never climb ladder--what are you going to do now?  Not only are you out the cash, but you still don't have a competitive deck AND your out most of your wildcards. 

No, because I can easily earn every bit of it back by leveling up one region. No one playing this game will suffer from having a truly limited collection for very long if they put forth a minimal amount of effort to complete quests and such.

The kind of person who gets enraged at Riot for something that is so clearly a result of the player's own impatience? That person is never going to be happy with any game they try.

(Also, if Riot makes a habit of nerfing cards into unplayability or letting a broken meta fester, the problem is bigger than some silly refund can solve.)

Quote From OldManSanns

I think I'm with you and 40, but to attempt devil's advocate: [...]

A valiant effort :). I still think I have a very different mentality in this regard. I know many people these days view practically any kind of nerf as "the developers ruining their fun" - they don't grasp that a healthy game balance requires buffs and nerfs in equal measure. I witnessed this first-hand with the baffling outrage in the Borderlands 3 community; for once, the developer Gearbox started actively tuning different weapons, skills, etc. right from the game's launch - which I appreciate a lot -, and people immediately got hung up on their favorite weapon(s) being "ruined" when the devs adjust the numbers to bring it back in line with the rest of the arsenal (In this case, unlike your example, they didn't even pay real money for the items in question).

Me, I'm just glad to see any developer put effort into properly balancing their game. Yeah, of course Riot will still stumble and over- or undertune certain cards, but they can always catch those outliers with the next patch. I have faith that they'll be doing a good job, and I have no qualms with the cards I'm using getting nerfed if it's justified. Oh, and I also don't have any aspirations to climb the ladder, so that's a moot point for me.

Quote From FortyDust

(Also, if Riot makes a habit of nerfing cards into unplayability or letting a broken meta fester, the problem is bigger than some silly refund can solve.)

They do certainly have a history of doing that on League... just ask Evelynn or Olaf :P

In case you all missed it from an article earlier today, there won't be any refunds for cards that get changed.