The following message is from J. Todd Coleman, Director of Wizard101 at KingsIsle Entertainment.
"The trading of enchanted cards was never intended; it was an error on our part that players were able to use this system to gain access to spells they were never suppose to receive. Yes, this has been an issue in PvP, but that's really a minor part of the overall problem (as PvP is a relatively minor part of the overall W101 experience.)
Please understand that we went to great lengths to craft and balance the difficulty and "fun factor" of our game. We spent thousands of hours pouring over spreadsheets, implementing, testing, and then repeating that process until we got it right. We planned for players to have "easy" fights and "hard" fights. We planned on solo areas, and areas where we wanted them to ask other players for assistance, fostering social connections. As part of this process -- and to make each class feel special -- we created a handful of custom, unique spell that were restricted to each class. We wanted each player to feel like they could do something that other players could not. Each class was engineered to have areas of strength and weakness, so that the style of game play (and strategy) would different from one player to the next. We wanted to foster a sense of identity, to make the game interesting (and different) based on the path that the player chose to follow, and (of course) to make the game balanced across 300+ hours of gameplay.
After all that effort, we made a mistake, one which allowed player to use 50 gold enchantment cards to circumvent these class restriction. Oops! I wish this mistake had never been made in the first place; had the class restrictions been properly enforced from the beginning, players would have thought "well, that makes sense" and not given it another thought.
The problem is, this may seem like a minor issue, but it is not. This one oversight fundamentally dilutes the unique nature of each class. Replicating these spells creates a huge imbalance in our system, not just in PvP, but in the overall play cycle and in the experience of the game we spent so much time and energy crafting. If everyone can cast everything, what's the point of having classes at all? To borrow a phrase from The Incredibles, "When everyone's Super, then no one is." In my eyes, being able to mass produce a collection of class-restricted, high level spells for a trivial amount of gold falls pretty clearly into the category of stuff we should fix. And so, we are fixing it.
I certainly realize that you may not agree with this decision. Much like a parent sometimes the "right" decision is not necessarily the most popular one. In this case, I recognize that some people will be unhappy with this fix. But as the director of the game, I have to look out for the health of the game as a whole. It's my call to make, and I stand by my decision. You may not agree, but I do hope you will understand."
I want to thank the game designers for this change, changing the game back from where everyone is 'vanilla' to a multitude of assorted flavors, each a unique mix of individual flavors.
I know it will take time for some to get over the shock of actually having to play a class and think about how each school needs to face each challenge. I need to admit that this won't affect me in the least, as I don't use treasure cards for the most part...but if it means that more groups form, especially at the higher levels, it is better for myself...and the game.
I usually define maturity as 'realizing your parents were actually right' and now I guess to add in there 'realizing the game designers.....'
I not only understand, but I even agree with it pretty much. Yes, I've used enchanted cards for my other wizards to help them along their journeys and will probably miss the ability to do that, but when I face a wizard of another school, I expect to see cards from that school..that's what I prepare for. And its not just the wizards either, the AI needs to stick to their own school spells also. Yes, treasure cards can be used, but I've noticed a lot of the AIs use power pips for out of school spells and thats just not fair. I will try to find examples of that and post it as a bug in test realm soon.
It actually is cool as I mostly use my first and secondary schools anyway. I still have enchanted treasure cards but I now know I can't trade them so when the opportunity comes I'll just use them in battle instead.
Eh, I wont die without treasures. But they sure made it easier lol, this kinda stinks but it makes it more fair. I HATED that lvl 5 life and myth people would have WARLORD status just because of using a minion and wildbolt or just wildbolt and heal. I only used cards like frostbite and ice colossus, just to give the enemy time to be ready
I have never had an issue with KI's decision in removing the trade status from enchanted TC's, no matter what their reasons are behind it. It got to be a little annoying when some low level wizard wanted to buddy up with your grandmaster and the first thing the ask is "hey can you make me some treasure cards." After a while I got to where I made them go buy the keen eyes and toughs to put on them, and when they gave those to me, I made that many of whatever spell they wanted. But it was a hassle no matter what. This will also deal with the card scammers. Unfortunately something else will replace that.
Thank You so much for explaining this to everyone. I agree that their shouldnt be Enchanted Treasure Cards to Crade because then You can have every card to every school which isn't right cause every school is unique in their own special way! :D
question professor. does this also include cards such as buying a mutate card and mutating a card such as fire elf and mutate it to a ice or storm elf, can you trade the mutated card?
ok so you are stopping trading of T-cards,don't like it but i think i can get over it.
Now you are doing it so that "example" fire school cant give death school a dragon T-cards right or trade with any other schools,I got that.
Now my question is can fire person trade cards with other fire school students and death students trade with other death student...etc..etc
It is still keeping the spells with-in the respective schools.
Michael RedBlood death school
Just to let everyone know, you simply can't change enchanted cards. This means that you can trade a card like the seraph you get after completing Unicorn Way. You cannot trade cards that have been enchanted, meaning that you cannot go and make some bolts or whatever with any enchantment card and trade them with your buddies. This means you need to stay away from arena for a few weeks after these updates are done; it will take to for everyone's enchanted cards to run out.
I completely understand the position, and the imbalance created. That said, you have created a new problem in using the Mutate cards. Please consider making those tradable, or else reducing the price at the Bazaar so that those 1 to 3 pip spells cost 50-150, not 500-900.
The resulting spells are really just for fun, and shouldn't be prohibitvely expensive for low level wizards.
Maybe I am just slow, but are they getting rid of Treasure cards? I mainly enhance my own cards and use them as treasure cards. But I do have some others from the other schools that help in some areas with some bossess. I have even given my Judgement card to friends. So are we not going to be able to trade cards anymore or will we not be able to enhance them? Just need a clarification. I dont care either way Keeping the game fair sounds good to me.
It's fine with me that we can't trade cards to use in the arena and such, but I have a question. I noticed that some of the snack recipes require treasure cards that I can't make. Some of these cards aren't easy to come by at the bazaar. Is there some say I/we can get these cards more easily. I was hoping to be able to craft cards that aren't in my own school, but that's fine too. I love crafting stuff. Just wondering. :-)
I don't like this. I have four subscription accounts, two trial accounts, 12 grands, and a total of 26 wizards. I don't "sell" or "give" the treasure cards I make to others, but I do trade them within my personal wizard community for certain occasions. I usually play four at a time, and regularly put each of the four through a solo exercise while the others stand on the sidelines and cheer them on (so to speak). The other three actually come in real handy for positioning throughout the area for popping about.
I appreciate all the hard work that the developers put into the game and the projections, etc that were done and the fact that this particular option slipped through the cracks. However, I think that there could be some sort of compromise regarding the process. Perhaps restricting it to trading within individual accounts or family accounts, and/or keeping them out of PVP - and I think the whining from the PVP group is at least partially responsible for bringing this to the attention of KI in the first place - and restricting them to equal levels, i.e., you can't trade for an enchanted card above your current level. All that being said, I know nothing will change and I have to live with the decision by KI. Unfortunately, it will impact my play style, and possibly my continued participation in the game.
I really hate this idea as well. I mainly use healing treasure cards for my friends and it really stinks that I can't give them any of the ones I make. If you can't give them to friends, You should at least be able to switch them between your own wizards. If you're going to eliminate them like this then you should have more training points to use so you can learn more spells. Let's face it, even in real life people can learn 3 languages or 3 trades at least, so why can't we get more training points for more spells. And yes, it really makes me angry that we can't do that any more.
This was a great idea. I was soooooo tired of getting "wild bolted" by a lvl nine DEATH wiz (wild bolt is a magus/master storm spell) . i dont use treasure cards anyway, so thanks, now my grandmasters can actually BEAT an apprentice (not that i couldnt beat an apprentice before, but you get the point).
your point, that doing this lets novices get lvl 48 cards, um tell me: WHY would a Master or Grandmaster give their best card to a novice anyway?!?! like you said, they'll share it with their "buddies", and the amount of high-level players that have under-lvl-20 friends is infinitesimal. people tend to group together with their level range.
also, there are those that, um, actually dont intend to use the cards in the arena! shocking!
and all you have to do is ban enchanted cards in the arena, say by, um, jettisoning them from the players' decks until they leave.
additionally, many people who go the the "black market" to sell demand high prices for powerful cards. want a wildbolt? fork over a minotaur or pheonix or, um, something like that.
this decision has completely put me out of business, along with a few, um, tens of thousands others. gonna repossess my dorm next? after all, no income.
and under your whole "class" thing, the point of treasure cards was to let people have access to other-school spells. this new action defeats the entire point.
your "last word" was far from. this debate will rage on. the least you could do was let us express opinions about this BEFORE the action, to get both sides.
and for your "i hope you'll understand"? we DON'T.
and "in your eyes" doesn't mean "in the players' eyes"
please consider our side. the whining "a novice used wildbolt" side, in MY eyes, seem bitter that they were beaten to this. see how the whole "in *****'s eyes" works?
i don't like this idea... in fact... i HATE this idea! i may just quit playing... I: i demand you fix it!
how about you go ahead and quit. if its really bothering you that much(wow) then plz just leave.
apparently you didnt even see what the director said. hes standing firm by his desicion, wether you like it or not. it will bring improvement to the game.
and by the way, no ones really that intimadated when you say" fix it or i quit."
I think that is fine and dandy, but why don’t you also look into other issues, for instance. • Why can't I have a wizard from each school that seems like a bigger issue than the mere exchange of cards? • Why are we not allowed to change the way we look? • Why can’t we have a family shared bank? • Why did you change the obsidian chest quest so that only one player can get it, do you know how bad this is for people that play in groups? Just imagine we had to do the labyrinth four times to complete the quest. BBB Big Bad Bug! • Why can't all my wizards share the same castles? This is expensive! You have to understand the following, we are not all three year olds playing the game, we are grown adults that have to pay on a timely manner or get our expensive subscription canceled, if you are playing “big daddy” you should take other people’s opinions into consideration as well. Forget the whole issue with the cards, fix real problems! .
wow! big issue, glad it's being done. you can still use treasure cards, either bought or picked up in a drop. you just can't enchant a spell and give it away. use tough on your large spells and keep several in your treasure tray. make a deck that you can use against a foe in your school, using lots of converts and traps, ie. using a death convert to life, put a life trap down before the convert and then a death trap on top of that and pull a tough enhanced wraith, big hit.
I want to thank the game designers for this change, changing the game back from where everyone is 'vanilla' to a multitude of assorted flavors, each a unique mix of individual flavors.
I know it will take time for some to get over the shock of actually having to play a class and think about how each school needs to face each challenge. I need to admit that this won't affect me in the least, as I don't use treasure cards for the most part...but if it means that more groups form, especially at the higher levels, it is better for myself...and the game.
I usually define maturity as 'realizing your parents were actually right' and now I guess to add in there 'realizing the game designers.....'
Take care, and again thank you.
I like the way you think. All W101 is is big box of ice cream with 7 unique flavors when the flavors are put into a cone they are usually separate but both still there if you mix chocolate and vanilla together in a blender, in my opinion, it doesn't taste very good but when you take a bite of both at the same time separatly, it sends your taste buds to heaven.
