Question Questions about XenCard features & functionality (drop rates + packs)

[gatorco]

Hi, I am in the process of setting up a gaming-oriented board and one of the add-ons I found really interesting is your XenCard system, however the demo board has been offline for a while and I haven't been able to take a look at it myself.

1) Booster packs and what they pull from.
Do booster packs just pull from "everything" currently in the system? Or, can I create packs that only pull from certain sets.

For example, if I have four different sets of 25 cards apiece are the booster packs hard-coded to simply pull from that entire pool of 100 cards? Can I have four different packs, one for each set? Can I have a combination of the two (such as a "surprise me" pack that does contain all 100, or the option to get a pack that only pulls from one of the four sets)?

2) Booster pack contents.
Is the number of cards in a pack configurable? Can I create a pack that has 5 cards and all of them are Uncommon or lower, or a pack that has only 3 cards where all rarities are represented?

3) What to do with bulk.
If the card system really does take off on my board and users eventually wind up with a lot of "bulk" commons and the like, is there a way to let them take their dupes and "recycle" them for XP?

(edit: For recycling, if there isn't a mechanism built-in that lets users dump their extras if they don't want to bother with the marketplace, would it instead be possible to have an automated user account such as "CardBot" who has an unlimited - or just very high - amount of XP who will always accept trades for commons at a specified rate? That way the cards are still removed from the economy.)

 

[Gwendal]

Hi gatorco, and thanks for the detailed questions. You are right about the demo board: it is closed for maintenance at the moment, sorry about that. Here is exactly how the current version (1.8.2) behaves.

1) What a booster pack pulls from

Each pack has a card set setting: either one specific set, or "All sets". You can create as many packs as you like, so your example works as is:

• four packs, one per set, each pulling only from its own 25 cards;
• plus a "surprise me" pack set to All sets, pulling from the whole pool of 100.

The one thing a pack cannot do today is pull from a custom mix of sets (two out of four, say). It is one set or all of them.

Two related details: a card flagged as Special never drops from packs (it is unlocked by a criterion or granted by an admin), and a card can have a print-run limit, after which it leaves every pack for good.

2) Pack contents

Yes, all of this is set per pack:

• Number of cards: any value from 1 to 50.
• Drop rates: each pack has its own weight per rarity, decimals allowed, and the shop shows members the resulting odds. A rarity set to 0 never drops from that pack.
• Guaranteed rarity: a pack can guarantee at least one card of a given rarity or better.

Rarities themselves are configurable. The defaults are Common, Rare, Epic and Legendary, and you can add your own, an Uncommon for instance. So "5 cards, all Uncommon or lower" is simply a pack where everything above Uncommon is set to 0.

What is not possible today is fixed slots, such as "3 cards, exactly one of each rarity". Every card is an independent roll against the pack's rates, with that single guarantee on top.

Each pack also has its own price, and can be a limited edition with an end date, a limited stock, or both.

3) Bulk and duplicates

Honest answer: there is no recycling yet. With their duplicates, members can do two things today: sell them to other members on the marketplace, or trade them. Both move cards around, neither takes them out of the economy.

Your CardBot workaround would not work as is either, because a trade has to be accepted by the other member and nothing accepts automatically.

A "recycle duplicates at a rate the admin sets" option is a sensible sink for a card economy, so I am noting it as a feature request for a coming version.

One thing to know before you buy

XenCard runs on XenLevel's XP: packs are bought with it and marketplace sales are paid in it, so XenLevel is required. Both are part of the Engagement pack, which may suit a gaming board. This page shows the price either way.

If anything is unclear, just ask here.

 

[gatorco]

Thanks for the response!

I am planning on getting the Engagement pack some time soon, we are in the process of getting things implemented and tested on our own demo environment including a few minor quality-of-life add-ons we're developing ourselves. For XenSupport's add-ons I was indeed going to start with installing, configuring, and testing XenLevel first (and also getting Journey running too). XenCard comes after that, but I did want to get a head start on knowing what to expect so that I can relay better details to the people who offered to do some of the card artworks.

Regarding point #2, I may have worded that badly (and I also got the figures backwards). What I meant to ask is if it were possible to have a pack where all the drops were guaranteed to be low-tier rarities, but then also have a "normal" booster pack with all the standard drop rates (including Commons). The way I pictured it is if someone wanted to check off a lot of collection boxes at once with bulk Commons they could get the lower XP price "Commons + Uncommons only" pack, but if they wanted to get the rarer drops there'd be the normal-priced standard pack.

And for point #3, that is okay for now - I do think that some way to handle bulk would be ideal (even Steam, which you'd mentioned XenCard takes inspiration from, lets to dispose of your cards into Gems that you can in turn redeem for free packs). Though to touch on the "CardBot" idea again, would this perhaps be something that a system cron task could be created for? I haven't yet installed or looked at the add-on yet, or the full scope of what you can and cannot do via cron in XenForo, but could you in theory connect a task to the account to automatically accept all offers for [X] amount of XP (and decline all others to prevent misuse) when the task is set to execute? - That kind of sounds like a massive pain to set up though, even as just an interim thing, so it might be best to hold off and just wait for the recycling mechanic.

 

[Gwendal]

Thanks for the response!

I am planning on getting the Engagement pack some time soon, we are in the process of getting things implemented and tested on our own demo environment including a few minor quality-of-life add-ons we're developing ourselves. For XenSupport's add-ons I was indeed going to start with installing, configuring, and testing XenLevel first (and also getting Journey running too). XenCard comes after that, but I did want to get a head start on knowing what to expect so that I can relay better details to the people who offered to do some of the card artworks.

Regarding point #2, I may have worded that badly (and I also got the figures backwards). What I meant to ask is if it were possible to have a pack where all the drops were guaranteed to be low-tier rarities, but then also have a "normal" booster pack with all the standard drop rates (including Commons). The way I pictured it is if someone wanted to check off a lot of collection boxes at once with bulk Commons they could get the lower XP price "Commons + Uncommons only" pack, but if they wanted to get the rarer drops there'd be the normal-priced standard pack.

And for point #3, that is okay for now - I do think that some way to handle bulk would be ideal (even Steam, which you'd mentioned XenCard takes inspiration from, lets to dispose of your cards into Gems that you can in turn redeem for free packs). Though to touch on the "CardBot" idea again, would this perhaps be something that a system cron task could be created for? I haven't yet installed or looked at the add-on yet, or the full scope of what you can and cannot do via cron in XenForo, but could you in theory connect a task to the account to automatically accept all offers for [X] amount of XP (and decline all others to prevent misuse) when the task is set to execute? - That kind of sounds like a massive pain to set up though, even as just an interim thing, so it might be best to hold off and just wait for the recycling mechanic.

Hi gatorco, that order makes sense: XenLevel first, then Journey, then XenCard on top of both.

Point 2: a cheap low-tier pack next to a standard pack

Yes, that works today, exactly as you picture it. Drop rates belong to the pack, not to the set, so two packs can pull from the same set with different rates and different prices:

• Bulk pack: weights on Common and Uncommon only, every higher rarity at 0, and a lower XP price. A rarity at 0 never drops from that pack.
• Standard pack: your normal rates across every rarity, Commons included, at the normal price, with a guaranteed rarity on top if you want one.

The shop shows the odds of each pack, so members see the difference before they spend.

Point 3: the CardBot on a cron task

Possible in theory, but it is development work rather than configuration, for two reasons:

• A trade is card for card. An offer carries cards on one side or on both, never XP, so there is no "offer for X XP" to accept. A member could send the bot a one-sided offer (cards given, nothing asked in return), and the bot would then have to pay the XP itself.
• A XenForo cron entry runs PHP code from an add-on. So you would write a small add-on whose task accepts those one-sided offers and credits the XP through XenLevel.

The cards would also pile up on the bot's account instead of leaving the economy. So I agree with you: not worth building as a stopgap. Recycling is the right answer, and it stays on my list.

For your artists

• Cards are portrait, and 5:7 is the reference ratio. 1000 x 1400 px is a comfortable size.
• JPG, PNG, GIF and WebP are accepted, one image per card, uploaded from the card's form in the admin panel. Your board's usual attachment limits apply.
• A transparent outline in a PNG is kept, so rounded corners or a shaped border survive.
• Each set has its own cover image and each pack its own artwork, so there is more to draw than the cards.
• Since you are setting up Journey as well: a Special card can unlock when a member reaches a Journey step, so milestone cards are worth planning.

Ask here again whenever you reach that stage.