Revamping the Progression Systems in KARDS

We are very excited to share with you guys that we are currently working on a major overhaul of the Kards progression systems.

As some of you may have heard us mention before, we have been so focused on the “playing cards'' part of the game that other aspects may have suffered to some extent. We feel now is the time to give those parts some serious love as well to improve the overall gaming experience of Kards for new players and veterans alike.

To inform you in the best possible way, we are publishing a series of blogs on these changes over the next days:

• High-level overview blog (this blog)
• Wildcards and Resources
  
• National Progression and Achievements
  
• Non-nation specific seasonal ladder
  
• Transition to the new systems or "What happens with my stuff?"

This blog gives you a high-level overview and especially explains the motivation behind our plans.

Before we go into details, we want to start by explaining what we want to accomplish with these changes.

[h3]GIVE PLAYERS MORE KONTROL[/h3]

• Allow you guys to better control where you go with your card collection, thereby making it easier to build the decks you want to play.
  
  "Use Zee Germans to improve Zee Germans"

[h3]SIMPLER AND FAIRER CARD ECONOMY[/h3]

• Simpler and more elegant card creation and a more economically fair way to get the specific cards you want.
  
• Separating bling and value, so you don’t have to make an uncomfortable choice between the two if you really want both.
  
  “No more 1 - 320 exchange rate of doom when recycling to craft your Elites”

[h3]CLEAR & LOGICAL PROGRESSION GOALS[/h3]

• Give you clearer short-term and long-term goals and more logical ways to reach those goals and reap the rewards.
  
• Separate national progression and competitive ladder progression.
  
  “A + B = Elite Golden C”

With these objectives in mind, what exact systems do we want to introduce, revamp and in some cases phase out altogether?

[h2]NEW NATIONAL PROGRESSION IN - ACHIEVEMENTS OUT[/h2]

For each of the main nations, you will have a new national progression path that allows you to earn experience and rewards for that nation: National Wildcards, Gold cards from that nation, National Packs, National Cardbacks, National Emotes, plus some Gold, Draft tickets etc. You will progress in this system simply by playing and, while winning will make you progress slightly faster, putting in the time and effort is the main driver of progression.

We have never been 100% satisfied with the Achievements system, and it has always been a bit hidden and difficult for players to base their goals on. So, since there is a big overlap with the new national progression system, we have decided to phase out Achievements completely (at least for the time being in its current form). In the new system you will be earning rewards more consistently before and the rewards are more focused around the nation you are playing. This means how you decide to spend your time in game will dictate your progression. With this we want players to have a clearer view of their progression, and more control over it.

How the transition will take place and what happens to the work you have already put into achievements, will be explained in subsequent blogs and announcements.

National progress. Work in progress. (Edit on Feb 8: Above image has been updated with the latest in-game example screenshot)

[h2]WILDCARDS IN - RESOURCES OUT[/h2]

Wildcards are cards you can get from packs and by other means that can be used to create any specific card of the same rarity level as the wildcard used.

We are confident that Wildcards are a much more elegant, fun and fair way for players to acquire the specific cards they want, instead of grinding for resources and surplus cards to craft something meaningful. In some ways, the current gold cards did serve as a sort of wildcard but this was not clearly visible or user friendly and also forced players to make a choice between owning a nice gold version of a card or converting it into resources, creating an unnecessary conflict in some cases.

As with before, the exact details of what happens to your current resources and gold cards, will follow soon in blogs and announcements.



Wildcards

[h2]NON-NATION SPECIFIC SEASONAL LADDER[/h2]

Because the current seasonal ladder offers a lot of rewards depending on the Nation being played, we felt it overlapped too much with the new national specific progression system.

So we opted to simplify the current ladder, making it more competitive to reach the top and more about status and bragging rights than rewards.

It didn’t really make sense that the most advanced and experienced players with big collections were getting the most cards from this system while players outside of the top few hundred players were struggling to get cards they needed to complete their decks.

In the new Kards ecosystem, the national progression system is the main driver of your collection, while ranked play drives your status through prestige and cosmetics. Overall the amount of rewards in the game will be higher and more consistent, hopefully allowing for a great player experience.



Rank icons

[h2]HOW, WHEN, WHAT?[/h2]

The exact details of when and how these systems will be rolled out and the transitions, what happens to your current gold cards, resources, achievements etc. will be explained in separate, subsequent blogs and announcements following this quick introduction.

[h2]WE WANT YOUR INSIGHTS AND THOUGHTS![/h2]

We are pretty confident we are on the right track with these changes to allow you to use your time and money more deliberately and clearly when playing Kards in order to make the whole experience more logical and, most importantly, more fun.

We would love to get feedback from you guys, our awesome community, at this point and during the next phases, so please share your insights with us and make sure to stay tuned for further information.

Provide feedback!