Designing a fair "free to play" system.

Hey guys once again coming to you with something I am actually trying to design.

I've been trying to create a system that's both fair to the player and make some sort of money.
Right now I am designing a CCG (Collectable card game) that obviously requires players to pay for packs but they can also earn in game money via playing the game.
I always thought Hearthstone had a pretty fair F2P system for a card game but I've recently found a LOT of people who refuse to play the game (people who enjoy card games) because of how there FTP system is set up. Same with games like league of legends and other mobas, I always assumed they were pretty fair but again a lot of players scream and shout about how it's unfair (Mainly pointing at DOTA which is frustrating.)

The obvious "fair" system is cosmetic based, but I have yet to see many studies or information releasing just how much cosmetics can make for a game, I worry a majority of players just aren't that interested in looking unique, again using the hearthstone example you very very rarely see anyone using one of the paid for skins.


So anyone handled this before or have any thoughts on the subject, how do you create a free to play system that won't annoy players or turn some players off while still being able to actually make some money from the content you produce? Any genres you have worked in or studies you have would be awesome to hear about too.

 

Faeria is a CCG that was selling the full collection for $50. They removed that option recently though.

The full collection was generally regarded very positively by reviewers/youtubers. It was also a differentiation to HS and the billion other CCGs currently releasing.
Some players complained that being able to buy the full collection for cheap was making the game "more pay2win".
I suppose they hope to earn more money by tightening the screws.

Smite, a third person MOBA, is selling all current and future champions for ~$25. They also sell cosmetics and seem to be doing fine.

With the CCG market currently flooding with both small and large new games, it'll be hard to get a player base. Especially, the whales.
Heck, with the current flood i wouldnt be surprised if a small indie CCG stays empty even if it's completely free.

I'd consider selling the whole collection for 20 bucks or so.
A whale who has sunk thousands of dollars and hours into HS will not easily switch to a game with a similar business model.

You could also think about letting players trade cards to differentiate. This kind of collides with the f2p model, but you could for example only have cards bought with money be tradable.
Players like trading so i think it'd be regarded positively but of course it also decreases the number of packs a whale has to buy before he is satisfied with his collection.

Finally, consider that HS is also selling adventures which give non-random rewards and are probably targetting a larger customer group than the packs for slot machine whales.

 

It really depends on the game. For a CCG, what really is there that can be unique? The backs of cards... That's all I can think of lol.

Progression accelerators are perfectly fair, so long as progression without the accelerator isn't so slow if feels like you have to pay. Basically, play for 10 hours and get to point B, or pay and get there in 5, is acceptable. At the end of the day, it's no different than someone who works long hours and plays 1 hour a day, and someone who doesn't have a job and plays 10 hours a day.

What you should NOT do is hide content or advantages behind the pay wall. At the end of the day, after dozens, hundreds, thousands of hours later, every player should be on par with everyone else, regardless of money spent.

 

Hmm I had not considered the idea of allowing players to trade cards with each other, that's a really solid way to make it stand out more so than just the theme and rules. though on thinking about it I'd probably want to set some sort of rarity banner to reduce abuse so a sort of "You can only trade a rare for a rare"

as for the selling the whole collection thing, it might work in Mobas cause there are additional things to buy (skins, icons etc) less so when it comes to CCG games, though right now in mine theres options to buy portraits, packs and card backs which is about even, I will research more in to how other CCG games have handled players being able to buy the whole collection just to see if it's worked out for them.

As for the market having a lot of new games in it, I understand that but other genres can have a massive amount of players and still all have a fairly active player base (the amount of "collection" games on android and IOS is pretty crazy all with player bases, same goes for match 3 games)

I agree there should be no way to buy power that no one can obtain without money, everything should have a free method to earn, even if it takes a bit longer. As I said before the unique things I will be selling are player portraits, card backs and if I can design it right I might even set up a way to buy boards you can play on, but that might take some extra thinking.

 

You know where F2P works really really well? In games without PvP. (Look at Fallout Shelter- game loved by hardcore that does everything that hardcore hates about casual) Once you introduce competitive multiplayer, it becomes incredibly hard to offer paid content that increases satisfaction with the product without alienating your F2P base- whom you need, because that's where your paid customers are supposed to convert from.

Here's a great podcast interview with Unity Evangelist Oscar Clark, who has some really fantastic insight on thinking about F2P monetization design and community building that everyone should hear.

There's some relevant observations of the design of Mechwarrior Online in a thread I made a while back about the interesting ways that they handle F2P and try to stay attractive to new players while also driving conversion. Unfortunately, after their 30 game introductory period where they grant a new player bonus rewards for every match, the Time Investment/Progress ratio became too costly for me to continue playing. Naturally, I think that's the point at which players are supposed to convert, but it's not a pay wall per se.

 

*Many* people are very proud of not paying any money for a F2P game.

You can make these people happy by designing a game for them, if you wish. Doing so will probably not be profitable.

Hearthstone is pretty decent, IMO. You can access all of the content without paying real money. You can even be fairly competitive, merely by playing a fair bit. Nothing stops you from hitting rank 1, seeing all the expansions, etc. It's hard to imagine a game being MORE accessible as F2P without abandoning making money as a goal. Other issues seem more troublesome, like the market space being full, as others mention.

 

I did watch the Extra Credits episode on this very subject (even as far as fallout shelter), but it's pretty hard to accept that only non-competitive games can be fairly free to play. I think you can make a competitive free to play game and a lot are very successful maybe due to there competitive nature (Hearthstone, league of legends, dota 2) it gets people watching it and if they want they can go "I can do that!" and just download the game at no risk. Even better in team based games because you can drag your friends on to the game without asking them to hand over £30

Something I was considering which both Mech warrior online and league of legends do is some sort of rotation system, maybe giving new players a high end deck (premade unable to edit or change) that they can run the deck changes every month or so. Keeps players able to keep up with the paying players and see what a high end deck might look like.

 

What is fair? As a young Indie, I spent a LOT of energy feeling embarrassed to charge for my products. I tried to make them free, I looked for ways to only use ads, and I released a few titles with the 'hat in hand' approach (pay if you want). It took me years to release that my embarrassment about charging was just naïveté. In time, I learned to flip the conversation. It's not about being fair, it's about providing value to both free players and the high-value customers. If I want players to purchase, then I have to provide something of value that they want to purchase! That means: a) building a great game and b) building monetization that adds value to their experience. Fair is an illusion.

Gigi

 

Free to play is not fair and cannot ever be fair. You are asking one portion of your player base to subsidise the costs of development for the rest of your player base. This means that for the same value of game, some players have to pay more then they would on a non free to play game.

Then to top it all off you have to use exploitive practices to entice those players in. Nobody picks up a free to play game thinking 'Gee, I'm going to drop a few hundred dollars on this'.

I'm not saying free to play is bad. Just that approaching it looking for fairness is insanity. You can never reconcile 'people should get stuff for giving me money' with 'everyone should be equal'.

TL;DR: Free to play isn't fair, but that's okay, life's not fair either.

 

Is there any asymmetric pvp f2p/p2w game that goes down that road full force, by exclusively pitting non-paying players against paying players in thematically fitting scenarios where numerically 5:1 or 10:1 engagements still would make sense? Like for example peasant uprising versus armored knights, Orks vs Necrons, Tyranids vs Space Marines in terminator armor, Zombies vs Humans, Cats vs Mice, Aliens VS Predators, etc..

 

Never seen one, but that could be a cool concept.

 

Great podcast, thanks for sharing!

Adding my two cents to the conversation, and trying to speak as a player and not as a developer, I usually try to avoid games that have contents that can be bought for money, especially when the game is PvP. I have only a couple of hours top to play every day with my friends and we usually buy complete games with no extra features, to be sure that no matter what we do, every match will start with equal odds for everyone to win. For example, we have spent more than a month last summer playing Red Faction Guerrilla, which is cheap, funny, and doesn't require any paid content or leveling to unlock stuff. All players start with the same equipment and have the same chances to win every time. We have tried several games in the past few years and just a bunch of them had this characteristics, if you really want to make a "fair" game, IMO this is the only way, whatever kind of earned content will always make the game unbalanced, whether if you make the players pay for it or just let them earn these contents by playing more. There will always be people with more time or more money to spend.

If you want to stick to your Idea of making a CCG, my suggestion is to look more at the real card games: create a game with a set of rules like munchkin, let people buy expansion decks and play together if they have the same cards, every match will be fun, have equal chances to win for everyone.

 

Be careful what you wish for.

Magic: The Gathering, the single most valuable card game franchise in the world, has been doing DLC and Pay to Win for a long time before the video game industry thought of it.

The concept of a card game where you buy the whole set at once is much more recent.

 

That's quite the opposite I'd say, most of the cards decks are made of a single set, and so they've been from the middle ages. The idea of having a trading card game that evolves is way more recent, and Magic is definitely the best example of it.

What I failed to explain is that I was thinking of a game where only one deck is used for every match, like UNO, Munchkin, or Voodoo for instance, once you have one deck you are ready to play with as many people as you want, and having expansion packs you can apply to the game only changes that single deck. Games like Yu-Gi-Oh or Magic instead are heavily influenced by how much money you invest in it, the best cards you can buy, the better the chances are. Moreover, they assume that you are capable of making your own deck, and the game experience is based on that and on your opponent's deck as well. Having one single deck makes every game even.

 

just follow this 2 simple rules:
- dont add premium only items, they should be all available by completing in game actions.
- spending money on the game should not provide advantages, it should only reduce delay or speed up waiting time.

 

True. But none of those games are even in the same league as Magic revenue wise.

The only othe big money card game that comes to mind is poker. And while that doesn't do DLC or IAP, it's got micro transactions embedded right into the core loop of the game.

 

I don't know what kind of revenue Magic generates (would be interesting though), but Dominion is pretty huge, and that isn't a CCG. It also copes with the "same set of cards"-issue pretty well, because each game you select a different set of cards that all the players can choose from during the game, and it has a ton of expansions.

 

While not being a CCG Path of Exile is a good example of a game where there is some PVP and competitions (races) and still F2P. In the shop you can buy mainly cosmetical things apart and additional stash box and character slots. And you start with 24 Character Slots and (in my opinion) decent amount of stash space, at least for a beginner. Altough people are arguing wether stash space is P2W or not ...

 

For a CCG, i cant think of any ways how you can incorporate microtransactions, like the way Path of Exile and Team Fortress 2 are setup. Both these games have everyone on the same playing ground, no boosting and no pay to win bs. The only things purchasable are cosmetics.

 

If you want to be fair, you need to sell players only things that don't affect gameplay in any way, they only affect graphics, sounds, etc. Ever wanted to place a card on table with BOOM?
But this way you won't attract many paying customers, expect pays to be able to pay for your site and server upkeep, not much more unless you somehow get very popular (which is unlikely with all other CCG out there. Oh, and initial name for that genre was Trading Card Game - TCG, wasn't it?)

So choose your evil: either you're fair in balance or get good profit or you mix them in some proportion.

 

I think there has to be some powerful incentives offered for players to spend money on or keep grinding away in hopes of earning themselves. If you make everything totally fair and balanced then you shouldn't be F2P. You should be charging for your game up front. There needs to be a carrot at the end of the stick worth getting when all is said and done.

Freeium games get a lot of flack from players who just like to complain I feel. And let's be honest, gamers love to complain about anything. When do you ever hear a gamer say thank you for giving them an amazing game they can play completely for free? Hardly never.

The big issue is when certain games are overly blatant about their pay to play approach. Either the loot that can be bought is soooo OP that the game becomes unplayable for those that haven't or when the game limits your ability to play with cool down timers or energy.

You are making a ccg so I assume you are familiar with MTG? Magic is a total pay to play game as having the best deck often depends on how much money you've spent to buy the best cards. Despite that, the game is wildly popular and even then, it still has built into it's gameplay ways for inexperienced, lucky, and even budget players to play, have fun, and win.

 

I hate F2P games. They very often try to attract you by screaming "FREE!!!!!!" and when you try them you quickly understand that without paying your experience will be crippled for months or forever. Example: Rift MMO is F2P. You start to play and very quickly run out of bag space for items. Each new bag slot costs 5 bucks, PER CHARACTER, not per account.

 

Games like this should be called F2S. Free to start.

 

I think part of your problem will be marketing any F2P games at this crowd. I am part of this crowd myself. I don't care how awesome a game is, or widely panned, or flaunted over. I simply will not touch a game that has even the smallest hint of F2P in it. Whether that is Angry Birds or the latest Dead Space. It rips me out of the game and reminds me I am playing a game instead of making money. I simply will never, ever, play a F2P game. No matter what it is, or how the F2P model is setup.

 

Not very constructive to be honest, it's like walking in to a thread about sports games and going "Yeah well I hate sports games if there is even the hint that it could be a sports game I won't play it" clearly you're not the market I am after (Or many F2P games are after) so I am a little lost on why you felt the need to comment on this thread.
I'll never play a voxel game because I dislike the style, hence why I don't comment on threads about how to design a voxel game, as no matter what the game I am just not interested.

But thanks to everyone else for the feedback so far, what I am getting from most people is that visuals are okay to sell (Skins, game boards, make your sword look more fancy that sort of thing) but paying for power is something most people dislike.
Which in a card game is hard just due to how things are set up, I'll have to have a long think on this one. Sadly the project in question was dropped and I am now working on a far more standard - You buy you get, game, which tend to be easier to design from a marketing point of view (Make it good, hope people buy)

 

Essentially your first post is asking how you can hook some people into sports that hate sports, but inventing or modifying an existing sport.

I am saying that the F2P era may be just that, an era. Simply inserting that there are a number of people, growing, that don't even bother with a game if it has the slightest whiff of F2P.

 

You might want to let the mobile market know that F2P is dead and unprofitable. I'm sure thousands of devs and millions of customers will walk away as soon as they hear the news.

 

Oh how I envy your optimism!

Path of Exile also has some "quality of life" purchases. Like your loot chest has 3 or 4 pages/tabs by default (iirc) and you can buy additional ones if you want more loot-hoarding space. It's something you don't need to enjoy the game and it doesn't give you an advantage over other players. I really hate f2p (I paid for the game to get into closed beta waaay back then) and never was bothered that there were such options.

For card games you should take a close look at what the ecosystem around Magic the gathering looks like. E.g. people use different kinds of protective sleeves to keep their cards safe, some of the more expensive ones have custom artwork on the back. There are collectors albums where people store their valuable cards. If you find equivalents for your game that have a "feel" to them as if they were real physical things in your game world, that can be interacted with, players might be inclined to make them more fancy. You could start with a rather shoddy old book and offer paths of grind or purchase to get a real fancy big book with golden metal decor and a lock on it, or something like that. Basically look at everything that UltraPro sells and see if you can find a sensible equivalent in your gameworld that can get a cosmetic upgrade:
http://www.ultrapro.com/product_list.php?cPath=69
Also you should absolutely read this entire GDC talk pdf:
http://media.steampowered.com/apps/valve/2014/gdc_2014_grimes_csgo_econ_content.pdf
I know guns and Counterstrike doesn't seem like the intuitive choice to look for guidance but imho they really did their homework on this one and share their discoveries on things they did find out but not anticipate. I'm certain there are aspects that can be easily transferred into any f2p cosmetics monetization, like trading, crafting multiple things into one better thing, the concept of "different vectors of luxury" (around page 81) blew my mind because it's so incredibly clever.
Cards can have different qualities and rarities as well, even if they are functionally the same from a gamedesign perspective. It will still matter to a player when they know their 1/1 goblin creature is a 1 in 10000 kind of rare sparkling foil card, that get's traded for ridiculous 200+ $ on the marketplace just because it's rare. Just be aware of all the nasty gambling S*** that cropped up around the Counterstrike weapon-skin economy.

 

Apart from league of legends being one of the most consistent popular games for the past 5 or so years, dota and hearthstone both being very large games right now, the whole mobile market is built off of F2P, the idea that it's just a fad is so uneducated honestly, I do try not to be rude on here but the idea that you think this will just pass is like going back to the days of DOOM and saying FPS would never catch on.

This is some awesome reading thank you! This sort of thing is just what I was after. I was about to say "People wouldn't care about unique or rare card arts or sleeves that much" then you bought up those prices on CS:GO skins and clearly that's not the case. Obviously they aren't quite the same but they are certainly in the same field. The idea of players not buying packs but maybe more cosmetic chests to unlock different LOOKING things (with a rarity scale just like in a traditional CCG) is a really interesting idea

 

Yeah, I agree with this. If you want to make money, then you have to accept the fact that the freebie players are going to have to ´suffer´ in some way.

I think hearthstone is the best example for a reason not mentioned.. the ranking system... which kinda works exponentially to encourage people to buy. You can play against the worst ranked players for free, and have a lot of success, but the higher you move in the rankings, the more pressure gets put on you to pay2compete... and every player will have their threshold of where they want to decide to buy. I´ve never spent money on hearthstone because I am more than happy to kick around with the bad players.

For other types of games, I like the way Dungeons and Dragons Online does their adventure packs. Basically you get enough free adventure packs to level from 1-28... but you may have to run the same quests more than one time, and if you want to start a new character, you are going to have to do the same quests yet again.. so you buy adventure packs that expand the game horizontally... so as you level up, now maybe you have 4 quests available and only have to do 3 of them, so you can skip one you´ve done often already. They also sell classes, which aren´t necessarily more powerful, but which does make many of the adventure packs/quests feel ´new´again because you are clearing them using different mechanisms.

 

In my day we played games we paid for so the game was designed purely for pleasure, not a bunch of weird artificial gates and horizontals and verticals. What a stinking mess it is now.

 

Absolutely. I still pay for games, even mobile. I would rather pay $15 or $50, depending on the game, then have to shell out money every hour or minute, or whatever. I want to be able to budget my game costs. I simply do not buy games that require me to buy stuff while playing the game.

I am fine though with some sorts of "pay" option if they fit the game and if they help people who don't have as much time to compete with others. I love games that let me play for a bit to see if I like the game before buying it. I also love episodic games where I pay for each chapter or expansion packs where I get a bunch of cool new stuff all at once.

Just don't like those ones that force you to pay to move forward over and over again.

 

You don't remember the arcades? Those were coin stealing machines if I ever saw one.

 

Yeah, but you played them when you were out with friends, spent your $5 in quarters, and then went off and did something else. I remember many a date standing their bored while the guy played arcade games. Yuck.

 

Well I think pay2win or severely gated free2play games are one thing and it is easy to spot them. But there are plenty of success stories that show how it can benefit devs and players. Dungeons and Dragons Online was dying, but saved itself by going free2play. As a player, you can get 100´s of quality hours out of the game and never once fill restricted by their cash-shop. But at the same time, the devs were able to keep a game going like 6 years now that probably would have been dead and they have a large enough dev team to constantly add new free and paid content.

SWTOR was the opposite, they went free2play and tried the method of almost making the free2play unbearable to force players to buy stuff.

Both sides can win with free2play, but the devs have to start out giving away a fun game and then finding ways to make money down the road. Like hearthstone.. if you are a casual player, it is free, but once you start feeling competitive, the itch starts. I don´t think you can start with a fun game, then take away parts that make it fun and hope players buy the fun back into the game.

 

They'd still have been better games without any f2p though.

 

Okay this makes no sense to me, I guess this might be that whole echo chamber thing that tends to happen on forums but I'm talking about a card game, which even REAL card games are P2W (pay to win, you gotta open a lot of packs to get the cards you need) like actual physical card games, that's what they've always been and what they will always be because some people enjoy that.

What about MOBAs, you think those would be able to upkeep themselves nearly as much if it was just drop $30 on it and then that's that? If you do think that I'd say go take a look at how smites (which offers a single buy of all the units) doing compared to league of legends (which doesn't)

What about MMORPGs heck those are P2P (Pay to play) subscription based games, because they need that money I'm no here talking about the terrible RPG games that ask you for 2 gems to make an attack, I'm talking about games that work very well because they have this constant money flow.

If you think F2P is bad you have no understanding of what it's able to create that just can't work with the standard monetisation model - Bigger community (free players) - more money for updates (small payments over a long time makes more money than one offs) - Constant support REQUIRED by the devs (unlike single buy games that die after a year because they've made there money and left)

The thing is you're probably thinking about SINGLE PLAYER GAMES which aren't even touched by this model, "back in the day" games didn't get patched or supported over a massively long period of time, and those that did were subscription based MMOs mostly, they were dropped off and done with. The rare times a game did get patched was because it was broken not to add new content.

Games that wouldn't be better with a pay once model:

Hearthstone
League of legends
DOTA 2
Any card game (Magic the gathering, duelyst, Hex, Shadowverse)
Warframe
Path of Exile
War Thunder
Most free to try MMOs that live or die based on people actually playing them (which they wouldn't if they stuck to traditional payment options)

The list goes on and on. Constant support (and the player based that F2P attracts) keeps multiplayer games alive and amazing, the idea that they can and should do that without any monetisation is just a broken trail of thought. But please tell me how they "would have been better without free to play". They wouldn't have been better, they would have been impossible.

If you dislike free to play why on earth would you walk in to a thread about it just to S*** on it, if you don't have anything constructive to say about the topic don't come to the thread, simple as that. You're not even being critical in a constructive way.

 

Free to try is really different from free to play. There are MMO F2P games and the money comes from purchases in an out-of-game store. There is no subscription at all.

There there are Free to Try where the players play free to a specific level and then they have to pay. While there still may be store purchases, these are optional and the players are still required to pay monthly to advance beyond the free levels.

Then there are games that are strictly subscription based. Pay to play or don't play at all.

As a player, I personally prefer the subscription based, with maybe a few weeks of trial period. I find the population to be more committed to the game, less trouble makers, etc.

However, as a developer, I like the Free to Try up to a certain level or with restrictions. I agree with you that trying the game is the best way to get paying customers.

You are right that some games need an influx of income to keep the servers up, add content, etc. While this is really not necessary for a single player game, it does seem to be the norm on many mobile games because players are used to not paying upfront. The market now has set expectations unfortunately.

I don't know for sure, but I really think folks here were addressing the games that call themselves F2P and then make you pay to play. That makes no sense to me.

I kind of wonder if the terms are just bad. A card game, where you play free but really can't advance much without buying more cards to me seems natural. My kids have spent so much money on Magic Cards, the real paper cards, not the virtual ones. So I imagine paying for cards is expected. I imagine games where you pay for each death match or whatever also are not really so bad.

But I would not call those F2P because you have to really pay to play. You just get a short trial period. My guess is much of the anger we see among consumers is the inherent dishonesty in calling a game Free when really only the demo is free.

 

No actually there would be far less games. A games method of monetization is not a sole indicator of quality of content.

 

i usually turn my gameplay of those games into "gaming" their system to get everything for free
screw those bastards! they dont deserve money!
... although i gotta say, their psych manipulation trash (which they should be executed for, no joke!) is fairly effective.. i mean, in my "gaming" their "gaming", iam playing their "game"...

I read a book once, that says "the way to get rich, is to make your goal about Not getting rich, when your goal is money, you will fail!"
... it was put better, but it had specifics, iam trying to be general...


how about selling a game and having a "donate" button in the game, and the donate gives the player NOTHING!
... theres SURE TONS of idiot gamers that when you try to "debate" if a game is pay2win or not, they will say "the game deserves my support!"
(i tend to think the opposite of those games LOL, those games make me vindictive as hell LOL)

 

Sorry, I skipped over A LOT of this thread because in typical fashion it went "How should X?" "X is stupid and wrong! I only Banana Moon Pie!"

ANYWAY, I'm not sure (heh) if this is much help but I'm a HUGE fan of HighRez and both Tribes and Smite had a great formula. They had a founder's pack that unlocks almost all of the gameplay content for ~$20, but also allowed you to sample everything with rentals, daily rotations, and unlocks. And if you got the pack they refunded everything you spent.

Then after that they had aesthetics that you could get from paying with normal currency, ones you could buy with premium currency, and ones that you could only get from events.

I played both games, got both packs, and never felt bad or ripped off about it one bit.



As far as your game goes, maybe you can get a "foot in the door" mechanic rather than a founder's pack.

How's this sound:

Right now players buy packs, right?

What if after the first purchase (no matter how small), packs come with one extra card from then on out AND all the packs purchased retroactively get one card each.

Then maybe do it again for $5, $10, $20, $40, and so on.

The longer people play the more valuable the purchase.

So, lets say some one has opened 100 packs.

They know if they buy $1 that it will give them 100 cards.

$5 would be 200 cards.

$10 would be 300 cards.

And so on.

But what ever you do, don't make cards that are objectionably better than others. That was one of the biggest SNAFU's Harthstone made and there was a LOT of backlash for it.

Also, consider monetizing by holding tournaments with a buy in.

 

I come to this as somebody generally skeptical of most dev's F2P implementations, but I think it is a model that works when done well.

I won't go into my reasoning for the suggestions, as I work backwards from "how much is this gonna cost me in dollars and hours to maintain." There are a whole spectrum of users from "I will never give money to a f2p" all the way to "shutup, take my money, and give me everything." You cannot and will not please this whole spectrum. I don't know how the CCG market spreads on this, but I would pick a narrow part of that spectrum and start there.

I do think that looking at f2p as "f2p in lieu of subscription" is a good place to start from. If I charged players X dollars a month for this suite of features, what could I carve out and serve ala carte that people would want to pay for.

For a card game, some thoughts are:
-Number of matches per day. Look at how many matches players play in one setting and set number just below that to start. If you are really competetive and want more, pay a small amount to raise the cap.
-Deck slots- You don't need more thanone or two, but it would require more time for organizing your deck. Quality of Life improvement to have more save slots.
-Higher-granularity match-making. free matchmaking could be almost any stranger. Pay to open up ranked matchmaking, or setting up special rule matches

From there, what could you then add as extensions beyond that?
-"puzzle matches" for exclusive cards? Here, you are not selling a competitive advantage. Rather, you are selling the chance to gain an competitive advantage. You still have to be able to play to earn it.
-Tournament play. have enough wales? Try pay-to-enter tournaments. Prize is some non-tradable thing so as to not run into trouble with online gambling laws.
-Improved audio or visuals. Audible taunts? Unexpected surprises when a card is played. This can be new cards with new art and audo that replicates "boring" cards from previous expansions.

A few thoughts. All flawed, but hey, this is brainstorming. We are all making this up as we go.