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How is dusting any different than trading/selling cards in paper Magic? Isn't it essentially the same thing, turning cards you don't want into cards you do want?

How is dusting any different than trading/selling cards in paper Magic? Isn't it essentially the same thing, turning cards you don't want into cards you do want?

  • SaffronOlive
    Posted 3 years, 11 months ago (Source)
    How is dusting any different than trading/selling cards in paper Magic? Isn't it essentially the same thing, turning cards you don't want into cards you do want?

    • bbrode
      Posted 3 years, 11 months ago (Source)
      @SaffronOlive Dusting enforces a “rate” and makes the best thing to do with cards that are lower than a certain exchange rate be to dust them. There are fun “crap” rares that you *should* dust but you can’t trade (because nobody wants them).

      • bbrode
        Posted 3 years, 11 months ago (Source)
        @SaffronOlive In a trading system you get to use and sometimes have fun with crap rares. In a dusting system keeping a “bad” rare is a mistake. We used to call this the “trade prince gallywix” problem. If you had the card you might sometimes use it and have fun with it.

        • bbrode
          Posted 3 years, 11 months ago (Source)
          @SaffronOlive But you should really just dust it. Btw this isn’t a commentary on anything going on right now, just answering your question.

          • bbrode
            Posted 3 years, 11 months ago (Source)
            @SaffronOlive One other VERY IMPORTANT difference is friction. Friction can make or break mechanics. People bought and sold items in Diablo II, so Blizz made it part of the core game in Diablo III. But the friction was so low that the mechanic broke.

            • bbrode
              Posted 3 years, 11 months ago (Source)
              @SaffronOlive Dusting is a low friction mechanic. You can do it without anyone else, instantly. If you decide one day that you’re never going to play red again and dust all your red cards, and then regret it tomorrow, ehhhhh too bad.

              • bbrode
                Posted 3 years, 11 months ago (Source)
                @SaffronOlive Trading requires coordination. It requires other people. It requires agreement on value. It’s generally a high-friction mechanic (depending on implementation). This has huge ramifications on how often it happens.

                • bbrode
                  Posted 3 years, 11 months ago (Source)
                  @SaffronOlive In a digital game where you control more of the ecosystem you can actually tune up or down the friction. In paper games the fact that you can buy and sell for real money reduces the friction some amount.

                  • bbrode
                    Posted 3 years, 11 months ago (Source)
                    @SaffronOlive In trading system you can only trade away things of value. And if you trade away things that have little to no value you can at least get them back cheaply. In dusting systems you have a floor for value but also a ceiling for value. (Every common is worth the same)

                    • bbrode
                      Posted 3 years, 11 months ago (Source)
                      @SaffronOlive What this means is you should always acquire cards in the order of best to worst and it makes no sense to craft the worst cards. Trading doesn’t have this problem.

                      • bbrode
                        Posted 3 years, 11 months ago (Source)
                        @SaffronOlive Depending on how trading is implemented there are ways to sabotage onboarding experiences by relinquishing control of the complexity ramp to players who dump too many cards on players who aren’t ready to quickly.

                        • bbrode
                          Posted 3 years, 11 months ago (Source)
                          @SaffronOlive Usually this takes the form of long time players giving new players hundreds of worthless commons or other bad cards, thinking they are helping (and because there is no use for these cards in a trading system)

                          • bbrode
                            Posted 3 years, 11 months ago (Source)
                            @SaffronOlive But often all it does is overwhelm players too quickly and make pack opening much less fun as they don’t get the fun curve of getting a lot of fun new cards and instead skip straight to the part where only the rare card matters.

                            • bbrode
                              Posted 3 years, 11 months ago (Source)
                              @SaffronOlive btw none of these are necessarily big problems or even little problems. Just differences between the systems.

                              • bbrode
                                Posted 3 years, 11 months ago (Source)
                                @SaffronOlive I should mention in the friction comments I’m not talking about “rake” which is a different type of friction. Without “rake” dusting had too little friction, to the point of it making no sense.

                                • bbrode
                                  Posted 3 years, 11 months ago (Source)
                                  @SaffronOlive You can imagine a world where you can dust cards for 1600 and craft them for 1600, and then you only need very few cards and then you can just transmute them into any and all decks. Your collection means nothing.

                                  • bbrode
                                    Posted 3 years, 11 months ago (Source)
                                    @SaffronOlive If you reduce rake you increase the trade prince gallywix problem. If you increase rake you increase the variance in card pack outcomes.

                                    • bbrode
                                      Posted 3 years, 11 months ago (Source)
                                      @SaffronOlive In other words all of these systems have interesting pros and cons to consider 😂

                                      • bbrode
                                        Posted 3 years, 11 months ago (Source)
                                        @SaffronOlive Thanks for asking such an interesting question! One of my favorite topics and I’ve been reading so much discussion on it but didn’t have a good entry point to contribute 😅

                                        • Chadd Nervigg
                                          Posted 3 years, 11 months ago (Source)
                                          @bbrode @SaffronOlive I think another really important point of comparison between dusting and trading is the impact on the initial buy-in price to the system.

                                          • Chadd Nervigg
                                            Posted 3 years, 11 months ago (Source)
                                            @bbrode @SaffronOlive A company makes a game, and in very simple terms, it costs them X to make and run, and so they want to make >X real $ back from the all players (some will pay more than X, some will pay less than X, many will pay 0 in an f2p game).

                                            • Chadd Nervigg
                                              Posted 3 years, 11 months ago (Source)
                                              @bbrode @SaffronOlive In a dusting system, all of the $ being put into the system by players... stays in the system. Dusting lets you convert between cards, but the $ stays with the company.

                                              • Chadd Nervigg
                                                Posted 3 years, 11 months ago (Source)
                                                @bbrode @SaffronOlive With trading, some of players pay $ into the system... but then those cards are traded around between players. Most players don't buy the cards from the company, they buy them from other players. So the initial price had to be WAY higher, to offset that.

                                                • Chadd Nervigg
                                                  Posted 3 years, 11 months ago (Source)
                                                  @bbrode @SaffronOlive Or, put another way... Dusting: $10 buy-in, don't get any of that back when you stop playing. Trading: $40 buy-in, get $30 back when you 'cash out'. Either way, the player pays net $10... You just end up having to loan the company $30 while you're playing as well.

                                                  • pungeebit
                                                    Posted 3 years, 11 months ago (Source)
                                                    @Celestalon @bbrode @SaffronOlive Wow, you two sure know a lot about this subject for some reason.

                                                    • Iksar
                                                      Posted 3 years, 11 months ago (Source)
                                                      @pungeebit @Celestalon @bbrode @SaffronOlive Dusting helps us solve one big core problem of a pack model, which is give players a predictable path to owning the particular thing they want. Given a fresh start on a new game, I'd probably solve that problem a different way. Destroying things in your collection sucks.

                                                      • Iksar
                                                        Posted 3 years, 11 months ago (Source)
                                                        @pungeebit @Celestalon @bbrode @SaffronOlive Players often ask for increased disenchant values because they think the current ones are unfair. I feel very strongly that we shouldn't do that. If price of game is a problem, I'd much rather give people more stuff than give them reasons to destroy the stuff they own.

                                                        • Danirobot3
                                                          Posted 3 years, 11 months ago (Source)
                                                          @IksarHS @pungeebit @Celestalon @bbrode @SaffronOlive After reading it all, I understand that both systems try to solve the problem of selling packs. Is it possible to eliminate the sale of packs or is the random factor that contributes too important for the benefits?

                                                          • Chadd Nervigg
                                                            Posted 3 years, 11 months ago (Source)
                                                            @Danirobot3 @IksarHS @pungeebit @bbrode @SaffronOlive Possibly, but that drastically changes an absolute ton about the game, player behavior, what can be free, what can be paid for, what players are incentivized to do with their time, etc. It's also drastically harder to change that sort of thing after the fact.
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