What will it take for TPCi to update the rarity symbols and revamp the system/pull rates?

General
1

If I’m not mistaken, rare cards have never existed in Japan. They were invented by WOTC to dilute pull rates (Japanese early sets guaranteed holos, not sure until when - if anyone has any references or articles, please do let me know) so they would presumably sell more cards by prolonging the chase. It has been anti-consumer from the very beginning.

Unfortunately when Nintendo took over and created TPCi they didn’t get rid of rare cards, so they have existed until now. But what even is the purpose of making them?

The 1/3 hit rate (including holos) has never changed in main sets, so all ‘rare’ does is artificially increase the rarity of some non-holo cards. Considering they have no intrinsic value and it’s already difficult to get playable cards (ignoring the fact that most of these aren’t even playable) then why does it still exist?

Either way you’re not getting a holo+ card in 2/3rds of the packs. Does anyone really care that at least Comfey is now a rare instead of an uncommon?

Additionally, it’s meant to be a game yet whilst Japan guarantees you most of the normal set cards with 1 box (4 of 6 Vs, 2 of 3 VSTARs etc.), English sets are massive and guarantee nothing. How does that help anyone get into the game aspect? Also what is the purpose of having the energy card in the packs? It’s a waste of paper and space. Energy cards are overprinted and they are already in ETBs. There is no reason to include them. No one buys packs to get energies.

Secondly, in Japan each rarity has a different symbol to represent its rarity. Currently TPCi has 4 symbols with 2 of them encompassing 11 rarity tiers. It’s misleading and doesn’t even make any sense. Why do they continue to use it? Not that consumers can’t guess which cards are actually rarer with the ETB booklet and the Internet, but it’s just purposefully misleading on the actual cards for no reason.

That leads me to the final part which is why have pull rates not increased when the amount of cards confined to that 1 slot has tripled? And 3x doesn’t even give enough context because there were only 2 rarities in the 32 cards from Base Set and now there are 7 with increasingly tougher rates.

Cards which are worth a lot today for ‘low’ pull rates back then are common compared to today’s pull rates. The only difference is that the SWSH era might finish with the most cards ever printed, so the value for many cards are non-existent.

That in itself is a conundrum. If you’re a collector and want to collect the whole set, you should just buy singles because you’ll never be able to do it opening them yourself unless you’re in the 1%. But if everyone is buying singles, then TPCi doesn’t make money selling packs and technically the price of singles would increase because there is more demand than supply - but does anyone truly want many of the cards in those increased rarity tiers? It is just CGI and recolours that you need to wade through to get to the alternate arts and full art trainers.

TPCi is probably the most successful its ever been, so they would probably have no incentive to change anything now when people are still buying record amounts of cards but surely it is not sustainable in the medium term? There have been boom and bust cycles before and surely consumers will start to realise how bad pull rates actually are and start to buy less or lose interest?

Since I returned, I have not bought a single pack because it just made no sense. It’s gambling with the worst odds the game has ever had. Even if the argument is it’s always been gambling, back then you could ‘gamble’ buying 2 booster boxes and pull every holo. Now, gambling is buying 50 booster boxes and hope you pull close to perfect. It’s not the same at all.

Having said all that, I don’t think it’s anything new, but certainly SM and then SWSH eras have got exponentially worse. Does TPCi do any market research or user research? It just seems wildly unsustainable in the medium term, not even talking about long term.

PS: They also changed card stock (probably many eras ago) and made holos look so cheap and disposable compared to the past, further devaluing the holo rarity and yet still consider them hits and part of the fixed hit rate. What? Who makes these decisions? :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

TLDR: Rarity tiers are outdated, rarity symbols are nonsensical, pull rates keep getting worse, how is this sustainable for TPCi past the short term?

7 Likes
2

i dont think rarity symbols will go away on the western side, but it would be cool if they diversified it a bit. i agree there should be slight variations on the star or something for the different rarities. they could make the star transparent so that the holo shines through on holo cards (this would appear different depending on the actual type of card/rarity. could be textured for example. heck, even doing double or triple star (although vintage japanese promo collectors wouldn’t like that)

btw i’m sure someone is going to say it, so i’ll get it out of the way… japanese base set did have non-holo rares. i think they returned in the gym sets as well, but i’m not 100% on that.

3 Likes
3

I think the main thing to keep in mind is that ultimately, the Pokémon tcg is a game marketed towards kids.

Many cards that aren’t necessarily rare are stellar for play, and I’m not even talking about Vs- many commons and uncommons are great if you know how to use them. I think in that vein, it’s actually a good thing to keep printing energy cards as well- kids who buy packs every once in a while with their allowance or birthday money aren’t buying ETBs, and you need energy to play the game. Making those cards “overprinted” is a good thing and allows kids the accessibility to play the game.

From a collector’s perspective, I do think that the rarity symbols need some sort of rework. I don’t see English sets getting rid of them altogether, but as they are now, they don’t really mean much. Card distribution within packs would also be great to have a rework, since regular holo rares have started to feel like non-holos used to due to the influx of trainer galleries, full arts, alt arts, and just gorgeous cards in general with the newer sets (which are fantastic!).

I guess I have a bit of a split opinion, since the average collectors’ goals are different than the average tcg player, and I think it’s important to keep both perspectives in mind when coming up with improvements to sets and the like.

2 Likes
4

Rarity symbols have existed since before WotC ever printed a single Pokemon card. The initial print run of base set in Japan didn’t have them, but immediately after in 1997, symbols were added by Nintendo in Japan before the cards ever were released internationally in 1999.

image

Extra higher rarity tiers (especially alternate arts / rainbow treatments) actually drive the cost to play the game down. When there are 3 different variations of the same V / VMAX pokemon, the base variant becomes cheaper since collector money is driven to the Rainbow / Gold / Alt art treatment. Pokemon has never been cheaper of a TCG to play than it is now. Before all the extra rarity tiers, you had even some uncommons required for competitive play costing over $10 (looking at you, Holon Receiver). As more people crack packs to chase big hits, it lowers the value of all other cards in the set, aka all the cards people need for play.

It doesn’t matter how bad pull rates are since supply & demand forces will cause booster box EV to stabilize to the market price. If boxes stop being worth opening, people won’t buy & open them. If the contents have positive EV, people will open more of them until there’s enough supply of singles on the market to make the EV neutral again.

TPCi seems to have done plenty of market research given the positive reception alt arts and such have had for collectors. Their main priority is keeping the game itself healthy and accessible. The secondary market is an afterthought, but they still cater to it with alt arts and such.

Do not confuse the fact that the product isn’t catered to your specific taste with TPCi being out of touch. You’re just not the main customer anymore.

8 Likes
5

If it’s marketed towards kids, then it’s insidious to not have pull rates posted anywhere official. We all acknowledge it’s basically gambling, so what more a kid? Whether they want a V, VMAX, Alt or Rainbow, do they or their parents know the odds on that? This ain’t no Base Set no more.

True, but if you look at the meta decks (I don’t play btw, just looked up on Limitless) most require multiple Vs and VSTARs as the main component. If kids really wanted to play at their local without energies, they could just get them there, but realistically, I don’t think this happens at all - needing or getting excited about energies so that they can play.

They could choose to overprint rare cards, which there are at least 20 of in each set but have artificial bumped up rarities. Not saying that they are any good, but having another low rarity tier become more accessible or back to its intended rarity would be good. You need 3 booster boxes to be safe of getting 1x of each rare card. Maybe 4x. That’s insane. Their distribution isn’t great either. In JP packs, most likely you won’t double up on the holos, Vs and VMAXs that you get. In international, I’ve seen people open BBs and pull the same rare card 3x.

I do think that the product as is doesn’t meet the needs of either demographic. Watching Danny Phantump, one of the most insightful YTers or maybe even the only insightful YTer, LGSes are forced allocated those battle decks all the time. Those never sell. Things like Boltund V boxes and the upcoming Hisuian Electrode and Virizion boxes, I mean, really? Even (but not surprising) Pokemon Go is not selling that well and has lots of backed up product with more waves coming. How could they not foresee that making the set as it is? CGI Conkeldurr alt trying to be the chase amongst rainbow trainers. Pokemon Go players are meant to be attracted to that?

IMO the pull rates, rarity distribution and product lines don’t meet the goals of the audiences and seeing as TPCi hasn’t changed the first 2 for main sets ever except make it worse, it’s hard to believe they have learnt anything or are doing any research. The product lines are also the same, do they think they should make more battle decks than Eeveelution premium collections? Mindboggling.

6

Thanks, but I mean that in some of the early JP sets, you would be guaranteed holos. Were cards like Bedrill rare or uncommon? Or even better, using Jungle and Fossil as examples where WOTC invented rare versions to sell more packs.

I think player money is driven more to rainbows, gold and alt arts to bling out their decks actually. Things which collectors don’t find attractive or collectible aren’t going to see $ anyway. Beyond set collectors, the demand for rainbows and golds and full arts are really low which is why they continue to be so cheap compared to their actual rarity. But, yeah I agree that other cards - and even all cards in Charizard sets become cheaper because more people are opening, but if pull rates were good enough, you wouldn’t need to wait for singles to be listed, you would open yourself.

I think it does because they are exposing millions to bad pull rates of main sets and then good pull rates of special sets. They are also teaching their own audience to devalue most of the set. Holos are bulk. Vs are basically bulk and if you’re at the stage where you’re only chasing 4 cards in a set whose pull rates are 1/650 packs, that just doesn’t seem sustainable.

Well, honestly mate, my taste went out the window at the beginning lmao. I was annoyed that Jungle and Fossil had repeat cards in the rare slot. I didn’t collect Team Rocket because they repeated Pokemon and randomly had Dark in front of them. I just don’t understand how modern can be sustainable in the long run when pull rates are now so much worse than before. As I said, I returned to only buy singles because the pull rates make no sense. They are doing well now because of the pandemic boom + nostalgia but it also means they millions of customers and potential customers are being exposed to their pull rates.

I’ll only say that the Trainer Galleries were a great addition and made sense, but it also draws further scrutiny on how bad S&M-Fusion Strike are and Scarlet and Violet will receive the same if they revert back to those pull rates in massive sets.

7

If it’s marketed towards kids, then it’s insidious to not have pull rates posted anywhere official.

Pull rates would be great for sure! Since there isn’t law around it (at least in the US), I don’t really see it happening though.

True, but if you look at the meta decks (I don’t play btw, just looked up on Limitless) most require multiple Vs and VSTARs as the main component.

I do play, and many, many meta decks can be played without Vs or VStars. The shady dealings engine uses sobble and drizzle, which are super easy to pull. Same with ice dance frosmoth. Even then, kids who are playing with their friends at recess can and will still have fun without the most meta relevant cards (source: me. I was that kid lol.)

They could choose to overprint rare cards, which there are at least 20 of in each set but have artificial bumped up rarities. Not saying that they are any good, but having another low rarity tier become more accessible or back to its intended rarity would be good.

This is true!!

Things like Boltund V boxes and the upcoming Hisuian Electrode and Virizion boxes, I mean, really? Even (but not surprising) Pokemon Go is not selling that well and has lots of backed up product with more waves coming. How could they not foresee that making the set as it is? CGI Conkeldurr alt trying to be the chase amongst rainbow trainers. Pokemon Go players are meant to be attracted to that?

It greatly depends on the person, and I think here you’re conflating people opening packs exclusively for the shiny cardboard and the people who buy the boxes for other things (playmats, pins, promo cards, etc). Overprinting product is a good thing, imo, because it makes it accessible to the common consumer (children, in this case). I can walk into a target and grab a pack off of a shelf these days, and I don’t have to wait in line at open to make sure I get one box.

I can only speak for myself, but I love the promo and collector boxes, especially the GO ones that came out recently. I’ve bought one of every box set, if only for the pins and promos (and that shiny eevee playmat!), and I have plenty of friends who have done the same. Maybe it’s just the difference of I like opening packs to open packs, not that I expect anything good out of them. I don’t really need to expect anything good out of them to have my fun, but I know people enjoy things in different ways!

8

Yes, Beedrill was a rare and non-holo:
image

Yes, WotC did make non-holo variants of holos to increase set sizes, but when Nintendo took over with their first set, EX Ruby Sapphire, they did away with those. Even when the same Pokemon is both holo and non-holo, they are actually different cards with different competitive effects (and this actually made the game more expensive to play): EX Ruby & Sapphire (TCG) - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia

I’m not sure why you’re saying player money is driven to rainbows / gold / alt arts. That is ignoring the point I made completely. If someone wants to bling out their deck, that is their choice. The cards are still functionally the same as the “bulk” V cards that are much, much cheaper. The player with an expensive alt art Mew V has the same powerful card as the player with a regular cheap Mew V. The way TPCi is approaching chase cards is good for the game, since it makes decks more accessible. They want the cards to be devalued so kids don’t have to shell out $400 for a tier 1 competitive deck. Remember, this is a game where you can have a 9-year-old world champion. They need the functional cards to remain cheap otherwise kids can’t actually play.

Your point about disliking the Team Rocket set and Dark Pokemon is a little nonsensical. There were only 151 Pokemon at the time, and they had released them all by Fossil. Of course they were going to repeat Pokemon! What else were they going to do? It’s fine if you don’t like them, but it’s clear that your taste is once again, not the one of the majority.

2 Likes
9

What is accessible to you? The winning deck cost $146.04 to assemble at base rarity of the cards. It may be the cheapest it has ever been, but I’m not sure why you’re defending this so hard when JP already has the alternative? TPCi’s booster boxes don’t guarantee a VMAX/VSTAR Pokemon. And yet there are 7+ in each set, and you potentially need 4 of them for 1 deck.

And in any case, I’m asking or suggesting for pull rates to be increased - are you saying that’s a bad thing? I didn’t ask for them to eliminate rarities, I asked for them to differentiate rarities which they don’t do on the card itself and then to make all those rarities easier to pull because there are now 3x as many as the original set and of those 5 rarities above the holo, each are progressively harder to pull so pull rates are too low both as a collector and as a player.

I mean, I don’t know why you’re criticising my taste? How is that relevant? You said my taste was not the majority and I agreed. My point was it’s not sustainable in the medium run independent of my taste. Unless you are arguing that people actually want pull rates to be this low, which you know what, may be true, but I highly, highly doubt so.

10

Wotc also added nh rares for players. That is a big reason why base 2 and legendary collection exist.

1 Like
11

Alternative version of this thread: I don’t like buying/opening modern sealed product, so I don’t. Other people seem to enjoy opening countless packs, and that’s fine. TPCi also seems to be doing okay as a business and probably has a lot more data on what people want to buy than I do.

1 Like
12

Pokémon is printing cards for players (flat V) and collectors (Full art, alt art, etc) in the same set. They seem to be connecting to both audiences. The only improvement would be CTRL C + CTRL V of Japan, but that isn’t going to happen.

2 Likes
13

Never realized that, but that makes a lot of sense. I always wondered why they would do non holo version.

14

$146 is pretty accessible especially since you can trade and work your way up to the cards needed. During the ex era if you wanted to use a card like Mew ex you had no alternatives–you had to buy the only variant of the card which was also expensive.

Presently each booster box does guarantee a certain average number of hits. Even if you don’t open exactly what you need, you can trade those hits for the base version of the VMAX / VSTAR card you need (hence the monikor, trading card game).

The differentiation of rarities already happens in non-western sets. Here’s Indonesian Rayquaza for example with R / RR/ RRR rarities:
image
image
image

As for why western sets don’t do this? It’s probably because market research shows that people don’t like change. There’s a reason that all other regions have done away with the WotC-era Black Star Promo symbol, but the western sets still use it. It’s because customers are used to a certain paradigm.

image
image

image
image733×1024 179 KB

image

I’d also argue pull rates are fine for functionally unique cards. In 1/5 packs you’ll get a UR card which will either be what you need for gameplay or something you can trade up into a card you need.

image
image728×761 44.1 KB

Yes, you could increase pull rates for the more rare variants, but it would ultimately drive down prices of non-desired variants and you’d end up with a similar end situation as someone trying to open packs for “value”.

Even in early sets, there are chase holos that are worth far more than every other holo in the set because value gets concentrated in that chase card (see Fossil Dragonite / Gengar vs. Fossil Muk / Kabutops / Hitmonlee / etc). TPCi is simply creating structure around those chase cards rather than letting the market organically determine the chase card, which is overall better for the game since it lets them control gameplay accessibility by ensuring there are “less rare” versions of the same card.

3 Likes
15

To me it just reads like you don’t “get” the point of opening packs. The problem is that it works for a HUGE amount of people, which is partially why the tcg is so successful today

It’s ok though, I don’t really “get” it either. In the end it’s better and easier to buy singles in most cases so it works out in my [our] favour

7 Likes
16

At least this year the Trainer Gallery cards giving 3-5 bonus “hits” are a vast improvement on the English side when opening boxes.

Wouldn’t surprise me if TPCi took the VSTAR Universe alt/special arts and continued to make them as bonus hits in 2023 sets to help drive sales.

1 Like
17

That would be ideal, but I think the vast majority of them will be coming out in SWSH12.5 or as promos for the set.

Once Silver Tempest is out, they will have no new Vs to put in besides whichever ones get new artwork in VSTAR Universe, so they would have to be putting in the alt arts and whatever else is coming because otherwise there is nothing to attract people to buy into that special set.

18

Fair enough, perhaps my mind just doesn’t work that way.

If I lived in the US I might have had interest in picking up boxes and then getting those packs there as a ‘bonus’, but the shops here have at least a 50% if not more markup on anything not booster boxes, so I have no interest whatsoever in any sealed product.

1 Like
19

That kinda makes sense, but they didn’t have to do it when every pack was meant to have a holo for Jungle and Fossil (and whichever other sets).

@HumanForScale
An average number is not the same as a guaranteed number though. You’ll rarely if ever find a JP pack without the guaranteed numbers. English has a wide variance, but they don’t make up for one another. It’s just a lack of QC or since there isn’t actually any guarantee, a lack of care for the user experience.

That could be the reason if they did research and chose not to switch it, but it really also depends on the way their questions were phrased. With the extreme amount of ignorance shown on YT comments, Reddit and Discord of how pull rates work and how rare different rarities are, it feels more like it wasn’t explained well or people inexplicably prefer not actually knowing. And if so, why do they complain so much? (But looking at how people engage with politics, I guess it’s not surprising at all.)

As far as I know, Chinese and Korean are produced by/in Japan, no? (Not sure about Indonesian and Thai.) So it’d make sense that they would follow the Japanese structure/design.

Only the first 2 rows have functionally unique cards. As I’ve said earlier, JP guarantees 4 of 6 Vs in each set as well as 2 of 3 VMAX/VSTAR.

English has an average of 15 Vs and 7-8 VMAX/VSTARs in each main set and has an average of 4 Vs and 1 VMAX/VSTAR. I guess we’ll have to disagree that it’s fine, because to me it meets neither demographic. (66% vs 27% for Vs and 66% vs 12.5-14% for VMAXes)

I don’t think it’s quite so apples-to-apples because if the goal is to collect, then making things easier to pull means you achieve the goal faster and cheaper if you want to open packs. It’s not like it’ll make that much difference when Vs and VMAXes are already mostly sub $1 and $3 respectively. Falling a bit won’t make much more of a difference compared to increasing pull rates. & I am once again arguing for the long run.

So, say someone was actually collecting sets, then buying one booster box now and with a higher pull rate could result in the same overall value, but at least with the higher pull rate you are much more closer to completing the set.

That’s mainly a popularity contest though. Charizard has mostly unplayable cards but is arguably the most popular Pokemon amongst people buying the TCG so its value is always many times everything else. An unpopular Pokemon can have many rarities and all of them could be worth nothing but it’s still hard to pull.

21

Warning, long post, wasn’t expecting the length when I started writing hahaha!!

TLDR; basically while it sucks that we, the collectors, can’t bust boxes and profit anymore, at least kids are able to have fun. Let the kids create good memories and enjoy the game without worrying about value. Let the collectors work within the secondary market. We are adults and can handle a little bull crap. Gripe all you want, kids are first and foremost to TPC. Always has been and always will be.

Start of what I actually said :rofl:

After reading everything that’s going on in this, it feels to me like what @eeveeteam said makes the most sense. Just copy/paste JP method to English.

Although the pull rates are high it doesn’t feel like they are in and of themselves the problem. I feel It’s an issue of mashing a hundred(exaggeration) sets together and causing each individual rarity slot to be populated with too many cards. This is an issue that’s been spoken about repeatedly on eFour.

I may be conflating my feelings for everyone’s when I shouldn’t be, but having a little chase to the top tier cards is something that collectors like, is it not🤔

I don’t mind some difficult pull rates, but the cards in that high spot should be like gold stars were, 2-3 per set. That way, to get a particular card, the chances aren’t astronomical.

I feel that TPC might be recognizing that there are two distinct categories in the market, players (targeting kids) and collectors (targeting adults) and I feel they’re “trying” to meet the demands of both markets. I can’t speak for their market research, but there’s no chance they do zero. And it doesn’t even really seem worth arguing anything about that aspect as no one here has much relevant insider info :man_shrugging: (As far as I know)

I agree with what many others said where the competitive realm is becoming more accessible due to the playable cards becoming cheaper. It opens many avenues for pokemon as a whole to continue creating strong memories for kids into the future. And therefore perpetuating the collectors/secondary markets.

While we may not like the standard V’s because they’re crummy and “common” and we get pissed when that’s our pull; or when our SR slot goes to a crummy card instead of the expensive one, kids likely don’t give a crap. They see shiny and say “woooo! Sick pull!” We should be catering to the IDC about value mentality for kids. For me, as much as I love my knowledge and collection, it kinda sucks to exist in the pokemon world where all I care about is getting the $ in a trade being even. I long for those days when I didn’t know prices by heart.

I recall being in competitive Yugioh and there were cards that were always just inexplicably expensive due to them being top tier. With only that rarity available at the time, people were, and still are, forced to pay up. Top tier decks are, afaik, still a thousand dollars or near it at least. And with yugioh, it seems to be either Tier 0 or bust. Not a whole lot of fun imo. Tier 1 decks hardly do anything. Tier 2, can’t even begin to compete. (I haven’t been competitive for a long while, so forgive me if this is out of date information.)

On the whole, just wait and see what they will do. At this point it seems like this current distribution method is here to stay.

3 Likes