How and Why Duplicate Protection is NOT working for Caverns!

Bug Report
1

Duplicate protection has become really complicated with Caverns of Time (CoT). And I can assure you that it is not fully working!!! I think even the developers are confused about this, so I will write down in technical detail here why it is not working as intended and why. Please pass this to the developer and get this fixed.

As a starting note, the root cause of the problem is how reprints in CoT are treated compared to card in their original set, and they are treated inconsistently.
For another background explanation, there are two layers of duplicate protection. And right now only layer 1 is working, but layer 2 is NOT working.

  • Layer 1 of duplication protection: For a given rarity (e.g. common), if you have never fully owned (fully means 1 copy for legendary, 2 for other rarities; disenchanted before counts as owned) a card in all cosmetic categories combined (normal, golden, signature, diamond), when you open a card with such rarity, it will be drawn from the card pools you haven’t fully owned. Reprints in CoT are treated as the same card as in their original set at this layer. This layer of duplication protection is working.

  • Layer 2 of duplication protection: For a given rarity and a given cosmetic category (normal, golden, or signature), if you have never fully owned a card for such rarity and cosmetic category, when you open a card in such rarity and cosmetic category, it will be drawn from the card pools you haven’t fully owned (rarity+cosmetic combination). Reprints from CoT are treated as different card as in their original set at this layer. Duplicate protection is NOT working at this layer!!!

To give an example, rarity level will be common in this example.
You have fully owned all normal common reprint CoT cards from their original set (but not from CoT packs). When you get common cards from CoT, it will draw from the CoT-original cards until you get all of them (layer 1 of duplication protection is working).

Now say that you have owned all common cards from CoT-original, however, for “Rat Sensei” you have only 1 common card and 1 golden card. All other commons in CoT-original you have 2 copies of normal common.
Now if you get another normal common from CoT pack, layer 1 will indicate you have owned all cards, so it will move to layer 2. In layer 2, it will look at your missing normal commons. In principle, your missing common normal should be only 1 copy of “Rat Sensei” and that should be the card you are getting. Because the system treats reprints from different sets as different entities at this level, it will conclude you are also missing normal commons for the CoT-reprints (e.g. you own 2 copies of Legacy set non-golden Snipe, but 0 copy of CoT set non-golden Snipe, the system thinks you are missing CoT set non-golden Snipe), so it will give you a card from the pool of “Rat Sensei” + all other CoT-reprints that you haven’t fully owned two non-golden CoT copies. Therefore in the end, you can get offered “Snipe” instead of “Rat Sensei”.
However, if you have opened all other reprints (normal cosmetic) from CoT twice and you are still missing one copy of “Rat Sensei”, then the next normal common you get is guaranteed to be “Rat Sensei”. But that is too much to ask!

The loss for people can be huge for people who cares about golden cards (or if they just want normal cards) because layer 2 is not protecting them anymore.

I have no idea why the same cards are treated as belonging to different sets in the system. Nor how they coded things so that same cards from different sets are treated differently in layer 1 and layer 2 of duplication protection.
The easiest fix, I think, would simply be treating the same card as belonging to both sets. Or alternatively, remove the reprints from CoT set and hard-code which cards CoT packs can open (like the 15 lengendary signatures).
Right now, 2 versions of cards exist in the system (so you can have e.g. 5 copies of Legacy set Snipe, 3 copies of CoT Snipe: 8 total copies). Why can’t we just have 8 copies of Snipe when viewed from both the legacy set and the CoT sets? (Or remove it from CoT set completely and only let it be in Legacy set).

9 Likes
3

I’m posting it here because Blizzard is confused and they think their duplicate protection is working (and they said the players are confused, lol)

This is from their blue post in known issues:
“There are also a couple points of confusion that can be clarified.
Caverns of Time versions of cards are showing as “NEW” even if you have the original versions. This is not a bug; the client sees these as new versions because they are technically a different version, from a different set. Duplicate protection is still functioning with these cards–you will only get them once you have all Caverns of Time cards of that rarity.”

I don’t believe the way it currently works is what Blizzard envisioned it to be (I still believes in the good of Blizzard, pls don’t disappoint me), and I think they are just confused by how complicated things becomes.

I am trying to explain to Blizzard what went wrong, and hopefully Blizzard sees it and get it fixed!!! Treating the same card from different sets as different entities is really bad practice (which result in the Duels bugged where your original set cards can’t be used). I believe unifying the two versions into one is a much better practice.

8 Likes
4

Sorry, not your job
You don’t have to explain us what Blizzard did wrong or didn’t understand
You must not actually, you have no authority.

5

I am reporting bug to Blizzard. This is the “Bug Report” forum.

5 Likes
6

My bad I’m sorry, I understand what’s your point.

My point on the other hand:
You are reporting a bug: stick to that, just give the facts and let Blizzard fix the bug
Giving explanations and excuses is a bad strategy: “users are forgiving us, we don’t need to fix it right away, they don’t mind, they love us”

7

So mu question here would be if some reprints are treated as part od the COT collection and the other as part od normal collection then why C’thun is not treated as such? Now its 8 mana and part of the Old Gods collection and not COT. There is zero consistency in how things work and they should fix this, period…

I can definitely confirm that the system is not working, an example on common card Jade Behemoth. I had them 2x before and i opened it again in CoT pack and was treated as new, but the card is not visible in the CoT collection and i still have only 2 in the Gadgezan collection.

8

Before all this happened I had assumed that the reprints would work exactly like Classic used to, where if you had the Classic card you would automatically see the same card mirrored in Legacy. It might look different depending on where you looked at it, but it was really the same card rather than “technically different cards.” They may say the way they’ve done it this time isn’t a bug but they should change it anyway because it makes no sense.

9

This is an excellent explanation of what is happening. Or rather, of what you think is happening (and it seems to be consistent with other bug reports, so I believe you might be correct).

I disagree with Lorelei when they say you should remove this. This post can be a great help for Blizzard to quickly pinpoint the issue, and then fix it.

2 Likes
10

Yes, but why did they even do it like this? To be as greedy as possible with monetization? And they could have just made Wild into Wild Limited to make it even more simple?

So Lorelei does make a good point that if there is in fact a dumpster fire here, Blizzard brought this on themselves.

11

I will just add that Celestalon did acknowledge on this Reddit thread that layer 2 is not working: https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/166oa7w/comment/jylq5jf/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

His specific quote after I gave a similar example where I was getting 3rd copies of goldens before getting goldens I was missing was:

Ah yes, Goldens do not currently do what you’re asking but it’s something we’ve actively been discussing.

I’m not quite sure from his tone whether that means he acknowledges it’s a bug, or more just thinks of it as a “nice-to-have” that they’re considering adding.

But I would argue that it’s not acceptable when paying a lot more for a premium version of a product to not have the same protections in place as the non-premium version has and that every other similar premium product (i.e. golden packs for other sets) has. I believe it’s only fair that Blizzard offer some sort of compensation for those of us who purchased these very expensive premium products not functioning as customers should reasonably expect them to for such a high price. Some potential remuneration that could be fair IMO would be dust grants, or if the above issue with goldens is actually fixed awarding more golden packs after the fix. To put it simply, we did not get what we paid for with these expensive golden bundles.

1 Like
12

Sorry folks, I was drunk yesterday and I’m angry when I’m drunk.
The analysis of the bug was VERY good. I’m angry that this was not done by the company. Given the facts, it should have been done quite easily. There are many reports about this issue. Meaning: no testing has been done. Shame on you Blizzard.

1 Like
13

I would recommend everyone to hold off on opening anymore Caverns of Time packs. Very annoying to find I’m getting duplicate cards before I have all the brand new Caverns of Time common and rares. Thanks to the OP for explaining the different layers of duplicate protection. This issue wouldn’t have happened if they didn’t do reprints.

3 Likes
14

This part of the duplicate protection is working though. 20 packs is enough to get all new Commons and Rares.

What’s not working is multiple things including duplicate protection not working properly for Golden cards, and extras for Caverns of Time just disappearing.

15

That’s the thing. I’ve opened 15 packs so far and still don’t have all the new common and rare cards but I have duplicated reprints that I already own 2 or more copies of from the old expansion. For eg, I already owned 3 copies of Jade Spirit from MSOG but I opened 2 more in CoT packs in my first 5 packs while I’m still missing cards like Rat Sensei and Invigorate :frowning:

16

I got two signature legendaries and didn’t get the chance to reroll the original legendaries when I’m still missing legendaries from those respective sets. Also I opened one specific legendary but now can’t seem to find it/have it in the collection manager.

Caverns of Time so far for me has been a mess. Hopefully they sort everything out.

17

Here’s my story regarding duplicates not counting correctly:

So you have the GvG packs dropping Dr.Boom as a legendary. That’s great and all till you get one and realize that the Core set copy one (given for free) is dust proof (can’t be disenchanted) and the new copy pulled from GvG do not stack. Basically leaving you with a single copy of Dr. Boom, dust proof and the one pulled vanishes in the nether.

No automatic dust compensation on Core set pulls. Golden or regular. (can 100% verify the golden copy does not stack as well, I’ve pulled a Golden Malganis which is also dust proof for some reason, from his respective pack, ofc.) No option to dust on demand since the copies virtually vanish. (unless golden, they obv. show but are still dust proof) This basically uses gold/money and scams people of otherwise easy dust with which they can craft an epic or in the case of a golden core copy, a brand new legendary.

Blizzard, for the love of god, fix your layering or w.e causes this issue.

Thank you for reading this response and have a nice day.

18

Well in the case of cards that are also in Core, you won’t see both versions at the same time but you should be able to see the original one if you filter specifically to GVG. Once you do you could disenchant that one, but I would suggest you don’t. The one you pulled from a pack you’ll get to keep to play in Wild forever whereas once the one in Core leaves Core, it’s gone. Furthermore I’m not sure the Core one will be playable in Twist.

19

Celestalon finally gave an explanation which at least makes the rationale for how it’s implemented understandable (even if we likely don’t agree with the choice):

To be clear, Caverns does guarantee that a golden you get will be one you haven’t gotten before, just like every other set.

The new thing here is that this is the first time we’ve done reprints. Goldens are a cosmetic thing, not a functional thing, just like the reprint, so we counted them as tied in priority. We hear the feedback that you’d prefer it if golden trumped different set, and it’s something we’re discussing for the future.

(Full context here: https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/166oa7w/comment/jyrw87y/?context=3)

I made the argument that this still doesn’t translate to a reasonable interpretation of the messaging that was publicly made about Caverns packs’ duplicate protection. Even though they technically didn’t state how goldens would work, it was much more reasonable to make an extrapolation of what they did say about duplicate protection than assume there’s some completely different concept of variant priority that they never alluded to in any way, shape or form.

Anyway, it sounds like they’re at least strongly considering changing this in the future. And I sincerely hope they’ll do right by folks who already bought golden packs/bundles under what I personally considered false (or at least in effect heavily misleading) advertizing, but we can only wait and see. The thought also occurred to me that this whole thing may be a trial balloon for upcoming reprints in standard sets (otherwise it’s hard to imagine it being worth it dealing with all this complexity for a potentially one-time-only Wild-only set), but that fear’s a whole 'nother can of worms, haha.

1 Like
20

What I think is interesting is that the dup protection is varied among players. Some report that they get duplicates of the reprints right away.

Others report that the dup protection is working perfectly and they only get the new commons and rares.

It would make more sense if it either worked for everyone, or was bugged for everyone. But why is it only bugged for some and not others?

21

The likeliest explanation for that is the devs explaining after launch (would have been nice for them to give a heads-up before launch) that the system didn’t track cards disenchanted before duplicate protection launched in 2020. This means that if you disenchanted an old Mean Streets card before 2020, the system considers this equivalent to “you never owned this card”. In that case, you can get a reprint of that Mean Streets card in Caverns before you get a new Caverns-exclusive card.

1 Like