Refunding for duplicates
Model a refund system that converts duplicate cards into a crafting resource. This is sometimes called a “dusting” or “shard” system.
Loot box systems often compensate the player when they collect items they already own (i.e. Duplicate items). This is sometimes called a “dusting” or “shard” system.
In Hearthstone, the player is compensated with Arcane Dust, which they can use to craft cards of their choosing.
To model this, we need to automatically destroy (i.e. Disenchant) any excess cards the player collects, and transform them into Arcane Dust. This can be done using a Converter.
Disenchanting Common cards produces five Dust. In other words, for every 1 card that’s consumed by the Converter, 5 Dust should be created.
Note: if we expect the player to earn more than one Duplicate card in a single card pack, we should allow the Disenchant Converter to perform Multiple conversions.
To actually Craft new cards, we need a second set of Converters. These will consume Dust to produce a single card.
After applying this setup to each rarity, hit Play and observe what happens.
Notice that almost only Common cards are being crafted: our modeled player isn’t behaving like a real player.
In the next section, we will introduce simple player behavior into the model to resolve this issue.