Ebay for covers, with a twist

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ Suggestions and Feedback
1

I would love to see some sort of auction system for covers. I believe it would generate money from the game while not affecting the game too much. Here are some suggestions on how to run the auctions.

  • You can sell as many covers as you want at once, but they all start at the same price, say 10 HP. So, a yellow Bag-Man cover costs the same as a Red Ragnarok.

  • You can only participate in 1 auction at a time for the same type of cover. So, you can’t be in 2 auctions where you are trying to win 2 Blue Classic Magneto.

  • The cost per cover is determined by how many covers you already have. For instance, if I have 0 Red Ragnaroks, then the price will be the base auction price. If I have 4 Red Ragnaroks, then the price will be 40 times the base price. So, if the auction is at 100 base price, then it will cost 4000 for that cover if you already have 4 of them.

  • Once you participate in an auction, you will stay in that auction until it ends. That should limit the amount of auctions a person participates in for the same cover. So, if I participate in an auction for a Blue Doom and I already have 3 blue covers, it would only be beneficial for me to bid until the base price is 41 HP. After 41 HP base price, it makes no sense for me to bid any higher since it would cost me more than 1250 HP, in which case I could just buy it straight from the “Train Powers” screen. But now, I can’t try to get in another auction for a Blue Doom since I’ve participated in this one and this auction won’t end until 5 hours from now.

  • Along with having to stay in until the end of the auction, once you place a bid, that amount is automatically put aside and cannot be used until the end of the auction. So, if I put a max bid of 100 HP for a Green Ragnarok, and I have 200 HP in my “account”, 100 of it will be put aside until the end of the auction. If I lose, I get the HP back, no problem. If I win, then I get the cover minus the HP that was already withdrawn from my “account”. That will further limit the amount of auctions I can bid on, since my HP will be tied up in other auctions until they end. That may also push me to buy a $5 HP pack if I see multiple auctions I want to bid on.

  • No sniping allowed. If a bid is placed in the last 30 seconds of an auction, it adds 60 seconds to the auction.

  • The “House” gets 50% of the base auction winnings and all of the “multiplier” winnings. An example of the multiplier winnings is this: I win an auction where the base price of a Red Thor is 55 HP. If I have 2 Red Thor covers already, the price for me is 1100 HP. The seller would get 22 HP (rounded down to the nearest HP) and the “House” gets 1078 HP.

Those are just some of the things I’ve thought of while playing this game. The chances of this idea being implemented are very slim, I know, but it would be fun to see it.

2

Given that D3P would make more money (assuming another HP sink would cause more people to buy more HP) the higher the final costs are, and given that more bids = higher prices, why would D3P want to limit the number of auctions people can participate in?

Also, I think the multiplier system would punish newcomers to the game. Going by the Thor tournament, a significant number, almost certainly a majority, of serious players have a maxed-out Thor. If you’re a newcomer looking for his 5th red Thor, if I understand this correctly, the least this cover can cost is 400 HP (40x minimum base price of 10HP). This seems like way too much HP for a cover that people have tossed dozens of for 125 ISO.

I say just set a suitable minimum price, maybe 100HP, and the market will figure out what the covers are worth, especially if people can bid on as many auctions as they like and can afford.

3

The limit 1 auction per cover type was so that multipliers would come into play. If you have 0 Blue Doom covers and bid on 2 at the same time and win both, then you’ve gotten around the multiplier tax. But, if you’re only in 1 Blue Doom cover auction and win it, then the 2nd auction has the multiplier on it. And that goes hand in hand with the “remove HP when you bid” rule.

I actually think the multiplier would help newcomers. If you’re looking for your 5th Red Thor, you aren’t really a newbie. At that point, you can either choose to spend 300 on 1 heroic cover and hope for a Thor, spend however many ISO on Standard covers, spend 500 HP to train the 5th Red Thor, or put in 400 HP in an auction and if you win, you’ve spent less than normal price for a guaranteed 5th cover. But if you lose, then it’s cost you nothing but time. But it would also limit the number of people in that one particular auction so that people who have 0 Red Thor covers can still purchase their 1st one for 40 HP, which is an awesome deal.