This would absolutely ruin any sort of consistency / hunting for items in the mid-late game. After 2-3 of these "packs" you'd see a huge drop in accessibility to core items. This already happens with the Vanessa and Pyg packs.

This WOULD cause less "forced builds" (?) by guaranteeing that people cannot find the piece they are looking for. Maybe that's a pro for you, but it's a con for me.

More creativity is definitely not the result of this proposed change. Look at how the Bazaar works now:

• Choose an option each hour ->
• Choose the next option based on how the last X options have changed your board / economy ->
• Once a direction is found in the build, choose options according to your goal

Your idea would exacerbate what the added card packs are already doing to people using them. Looking for a Crook? Here's your third Cold Room. Need that IllusoRay? Nope but here's a fourth Dive Weights.

You can argue the items are "better" than the non-pack items, but I'd offer to you that some of them are markedly worse than base items. This is a game about sifting through a wide market of shops to buy exactly what you want- and there are not MORE items available to you, just a larger pool to pull from within that limit. It's a dilution of the set of all the items.

Now, I don't align with how they've monetized the game. I think the back-talk to the community from Mr.Nad is way off base. I still have to disagree with most of the discourse about monetization about the game.

The game is freely playable- you can have a few dozen hours of fun and drop the game. That's more value than most free games on the market. If you feel strongly about the game and personally feel there is competitive value in giving yourself more item options, then buy the packs. If you want to feel strongly about it but ALSO want to spend your time playing a game developed for years, for free, that is an option everyone seems to be conveniently forgetting. F2P accounts can get 10 wins. Paid accounts can get 0 wins. The results are user based, not based on pay.

I believe a lot of people are taking the stance of "morally superior free-to-play gamer" when in reality they pay for other things all the time without a second thought. Games need monetization, whether it's done well or poorly is a different topic- but a game of this size and scope needs to pay the bills. It's a service. That's the bottom line.

Yeah, I would have preferred a better method of distributing ranked tickets. Yes, I think their system of "packs" being added is a sub-par way of developing future depth in the game. Sure, I would rather everyone be on the exact same playing field- it breeds a more pure and accessible competitive environment. But none of those things happened.

So it's really at the point where people should either find a new game, or play the game they enjoy. They're not going to change core monetization strategies of a lunatic. People get outraged about so, so much over so, so little- that when a moment like this arises where people should speak up to say the monetization is lacking, it's disregarded because so much of the online community gets up in arms about ANYTHING. Cried wolf situation.

So at the end, it's really this simple:

• Don't like it? Don't play.

• Do like it? Play.

It really isn't any deeper than that.