True Healing Discussion (Live 6/25)

Unknown

IceIX wrote:

Just as a note, so far we saw an increase in Health Pack purchases the day of and after the change went Live, likely due to people reacting to the change by "powering through it" instead of changing their gameplay patterns. Then sales dropped down slightly below "standard" for on Friday/Saturday. Now they have been stable for the past day and a half at the same general amount as before the healing change. As we expected, so far the change hasn't made any real bump or dip in Health Packs for the user base. Basically, we weren't expecting this change to make any huge impact financially in regards to Health Pack purchases. So far, it's been about a net zero. As stated before, it wasn't our intent and so far the change has had about the expected result in regards to changing player's play patterns away from Prologue Healing or reliance on similar strategies to extend play. We're still monitoring closely though, as we haven't even run a full PVE Event with the new changes in effect.

I get the cynical idea that the change was intended to simply line our pockets. It was never the reasoning on our end, and continues to be something that we did that hurts now for some players but we wholeheartedly believe is in the best interest of the game in the long run. I just wanted to throw out a bit of info on the actual financial aspects of the change to illustrate what has happened so far there, so that you all are better informed.

What scares me most is that you do not understand the main problem which will cause the death of this game. You do not foresee the expectations of your players/customers.

I remember Michael Eisner, Disney CEO who led the company to the best successes ever (climax was Lion King) and then to the downfall until he was fired. He was taking poor decisions over and over again when making money with Disney is sooooo easy.

The problem here is that D3P is a small company and your CEO (or whatever his status) is just proud to share his business experience over the Internet entitling his articles "on the way to the $1/day". So unless he is able to question his strategy, the game is doomed to failure.

You want to make MPQ a huge success that will make you rich when you want to sell your company to a bigger one (Whatsapp, Snapchat...) or go to the Stock Exchange (King) : you are nowhere near reaching any of these goals.

Now tell me something :

- The sales of Health Packs is not significant,
- You want Roster diversity in PvPs
- You have true intentions while instating True Healing

Understood.

So why don't you stop "Heal Cap to 5" ?

Guys will have a better life, they will play when they are available to play and they surely will invest in their roster.

What's the use of buying ISO and HP if you already have maxed 3 Top Tier characters out of 44 ?

If you accept our money, you are legally bound to your customers' satisfaction. You should not ignore that.

Unknown

Snikrot wrote:

Now that June's gone:

Month Avg. Players Gain % Gain Peak Players
June 2014 847.0 -47.9 -5.36% 1,733
May 2014 894.9 -30.7 -3.32% 1,634

http://steamcharts.com/app/234330

--

As for IceIX' reply - nothing new, same old ****.

I wonder if they are so truthful in RL as they are to the playerbase...

Can we get those charts on Android and iOs ?

Steam is not significant since you can't synchronise with your phone, so people leave for that reason, they can't play as much as players on iOs and Android.

Unknown

arktos1971 wrote:

If you accept our money, you are legally bound to your customers' satisfaction.

Come on now!

Unknown

IceIX wrote:

Just as a note, so far we saw an increase in Health Pack purchases the day of and after the change went Live, likely due to people reacting to the change by "powering through it" instead of changing their gameplay patterns. Then sales dropped down slightly below "standard" for on Friday/Saturday. Now they have been stable for the past day and a half at the same general amount as before the healing change. As we expected, so far the change hasn't made any real bump or dip in Health Packs for the user base. Basically, we weren't expecting this change to make any huge impact financially in regards to Health Pack purchases. So far, it's been about a net zero. As stated before, it wasn't our intent and so far the change has had about the expected result in regards to changing player's play patterns away from Prologue Healing or reliance on similar strategies to extend play. We're still monitoring closely though, as we haven't even run a full PVE Event with the new changes in effect.

I get the cynical idea that the change was intended to simply line our pockets. It was never the reasoning on our end, and continues to be something that we did that hurts now for some players but we wholeheartedly believe is in the best interest of the game in the long run. I just wanted to throw out a bit of info on the actual financial aspects of the change to illustrate what has happened so far there, so that you all are better informed.

So when is part 2 of that change coming? I mean, it's about diversifying rosters... So... How do I diversify? See, to me, "Diversify your 2* roster" means, in no uncertain terms, "Build a second, third, and fourth Ares, OBW, and Thor", with maybe a 5th or 6th OBW just in case. Maybe a second Daken as well. Because the list of viable 2*s almost much begins and ends with those three characters. 2* Wolvie is decent but thoroughly mediocre on offense and defense, C.Storm is horrendous on defense and only viable on offense with MNMags, Daken is really only remotely decent as a backup for OBW+Tank in the simulator or with M.Storm on desert (which apparently doesn't exist any more), MNMags exists exclusively to build blue AP for the single good blue attack in the 2* range (and sucks on defense), and literally every other 2* is simply not worth mentioning. They're that bad. I will never use Moonstone unless I absolutely have to. I will never use Cap unless I absolutely have to. I will never use Bullseye or Bagman, even if they're the only available characters in a heroic. Hawkeye has **** health and might get off a power once ever 10 games. That's what we have to work with in order to get 3* covers. There's no diversity because all but 3 characters are ****. See, if you guys took the 15 minutes it'd take to rebalance some of these guys, then we could talk about diversity! I do not exaggerate when I say that designing the tweaks for some of those listed here should take all of about 10 minutes, and testing them all of about 30. Here, I'll do it for you guys.

Moonstone - Gravity Warp lets you choose the color of the tile you warp; OR Gravity Warp does half damage on tile warp. Control Shift costs 12 black AP and lets you choose the tile you steal.
Cap - Star Spangled Avenger does somewhere between 1.2k and 2k at max level (just put the scaling more in line with, yanno, the other gold powers. 5.6x is ridiculous and so is 600 damage for 11 AP).
Bullseye - Deadly Aim costs 8 AP; OR Deadly Aim lets you choose where to place the tiles and costs 12AP

I think it's fair to say that with these changes, these characters still would be in the "meh" category, but they'd be marginally playable in PvP. Hell, with more Moonstone and Cap going around, you could actually make it so that Hawkeye goes off in less than the time it takes me to play a game of chess, as they'd provide better tile control. None of this would make them OP, and finer tweaks to put them in the "legitimately worthwhile" category could still be made. Obviously, Bagman is a mess, and will need work, but the point is that you guys could easily just tweak a few numbers and suddenly we'd have a few more 2* characters actually worth using. It'd take 15 minutes, and they'd still probably be on the weak side, but at least they would be something players could consider! Come on. I bet that with an introduction to whatever tools the devs are using, I could fix Moonstone and Captain America in 15 minutes. Please - diversity means more than "let's make it so that they need a 7th OBW in their roster!"

Unknown

Budget Player Cadet wrote:

So when is part 2 of that change coming? I mean, it's about diversifying rosters... So... How do I diversify? See, to me, "Diversify your 2* roster" means, in no uncertain terms, "Build a second, third, and fourth Ares, OBW, and Thor", with maybe a 5th or 6th OBW just in case. Because the list of viable 2*s almost much begins and ends with those three characters.

Just to expand on this... Even if you continued to nerf OBW, she's still one of the only viable characters in the 2* range. Why? Because there is nothing else that covers her colors and is any good. See, Thor, Ares, and to a lesser extent Wolverine are basically established as the best 2*s. Head and shoulders above everyone else in their class for what they do. And what they do is deal damage. Every two turns if I'm lucky, I'm dealing 1.2k damage with Ares. Thor can put a whole team on life support once he hits 12 yellow. Wolverine basically gets a "**** you" button at 12 red AP. Nobody else in the 2* roster can deal damage even remotely in line with these guys. With the exception of MNMags+CStorm, every successful 2* team will run Ares or Thor (and maaaaybe Wolverine). So the best damage-dealers (...also, a quick note - why do both of the people best at dishing out damage in the 2* range have 5k health? I get it, they're big dudes, but having them simultaneously have the most health and the best damage is just a bad idea) are all on RGY. Then you have what is presumably a loaner character... And then you still have 3 colors to tank. Black, Blue, and Purple.

Moonstone tanks Black and Purple, but she is, as said previously, pretty awful. MNMags tanks Blue and Purple, but his powers are mediocre unless you have a good outlet for that blue, and Iron Hammer ain't gonna cut it. Bullseye tanks Black and Purple... But he's awful. Hawkeye covers purple and blue, but his purple is passive and his other powers are awful. Bagman has... Who the **** cares, it's bagman, he'd be about as useful if he had no powers and was just a body. So... that leaves OBW. Who conveniently covers all the right colors and has two really great powers.

But if you buff Moonstone, all of a sudden we at least have some alternative to OBW that isn't ****. Bullseye... Similar. We're not stuck with only OBW as an option to carry along with our Thor and Ares. Make more characters viable, give more characters decent powers, and you'll see more variability. It's just... With the roster we have... Well, imma start leveling that extra Thor and Ares.

kensterr

Well hopefully the new 2* that they are planning covers OBW's colors to make someone else take over OBW.

Anyhoos it's not D3P that's proudly proclaiming $1/day - it's Demiurge. D3P isn't small - its' office is in USA and Japan, publishes a lot of games, and is owned by Namco Bandai. Namco as most gamers would know, make the very popular Tekken series of games for arcade and consoles (with many many more games under their belt).

Unknown

I really wonder if they are going to do something here!

We have seen what effect it has during the last events. Sure you are using more different characters, but then you find someone playing 3 maxed 3* characters or even maxed 4* characters (people claim they are useless, but still, try to play against a 4* maxed) and you try to find a better opponent and meanhwhile you lose 100 points because you lost 5 minutes looking around, spending 1000 ISO in order to be able to play with someone around your level.

When OBW was still OBW, I would face many of the strongest teams and succeed depending on the strategy. Now, facing stronger teams is a no go, because it would mean 3 to 4 hours waiting to play again. So we see diversity, but less playability

h4n1s

I have said it once, and I'll repeat it based on last week of play...

I welcome the healing change, really, suddenly I enjoy more playing the PvP (without need to invest single Dollar/Euro/CZK ...!). And whats the best? I suddenly keep on occupying top 20, which has not happened to me before the change very often. The rosters I encounter are really varying, and even-though there are still those famous combinations out there (such as THOR+ARES; OBW+THOR/ARES; MStorm+MMags) they're not that annoyingly often anymore!

I have to admit, that this True healing feature kind of affected my willingness to play PvE events, but frankly, the timezone (tourneys end at 6am here), length of the events and rubberbanding almost never allowed me to place decently in top50-100...

I am looking forward for the level shift as well, if it'll work as I understood it, I may already be able to utilize even my Xforce at current level in PvP once in a while (+40 level boost, hurrayyy!).

Now, gents, feel free to hate me

Vyshus

With the new R56 update the ratings on iTunes been reset.
Currently the game has 3 stars.
"24" 5 star votes
"19" 1 star votes

Unknown

h4n1s wrote:

Now, gents, feel free to hate me

Why should we hate you. Enjoy while it lasts. Now the field is shaken, many people just not play or experiment. Few tournaments and you'll get your MMR up meanwhile the new metagame forms and you'll be back seeing uniform opponents from the new winners not much else.

If you actually win end develop you'll see patch/ldaken teams and cry back whatever was before.

killerkoala

h4n1s wrote:

I have said it once, and I'll repeat it based on last week of play...

I welcome the healing change, really, suddenly I enjoy more playing the PvP (without need to invest single Dollar/Euro/CZK ...!). And whats the best? I suddenly keep on occupying top 20, which has not happened to me before the change very often. The rosters I encounter are really varying, and even-though there are still those famous combinations out there (such as THOR+ARES; OBW+THOR/ARES; MStorm+MMags) they're not that annoyingly often anymore!

I have to admit, that this True healing feature kind of affected my willingness to play PvE events, but frankly, the timezone (tourneys end at 6am here), length of the events and rubberbanding almost never allowed me to place decently in top50-100...

I am looking forward for the level shift as well, if it'll work as I understood it, I may already be able to utilize even my Xforce at current level in PvP once in a while (+40 level boost, hurrayyy!).

Now, gents, feel free to hate me

so what is your average score? you might even be in a cupcake bracket (where top ten is about 500) and not one of the infamous "death brackets"(over 1050-1100)? also the last few PvP events 3* prizes hasn't been as desired as say sentry or daken. so competition has been mostly for iso, hero points, and season 3 totals.

HailMary

pasa_ wrote:

Err, so you are the one person on these forums who believe it was meant to increase roster diversity just as stated? And that it is a relevant action for that goal?

I'm hardly the only one not opposed to the change, and I don't think it'll encourage much more roster diversity, but nice try. I think the impending level-bump change will do significantly more for roster diversity than "true healing." I'm essentially "meh" about "true healing" -- hardly the most supportive.

You should know that, though: you've actually commented on threads started by people more positive about the change than I am (and have seen comments here by such people). Feel free to play dumb if it gives you the warm & fuzzies, but know that you're not doing a very good job of hiding it.

arktos1971 wrote:

What's the use of buying ISO and HP if you already have maxed 3 Top Tier characters out of 44 ?

No use at all. This is why you stopped spending money once you got 3 top-tier 141s... oh, wait.

Kiamodo

Most people will diversify their rosters when you repair broken characters : Loki, DD, rags for example.

Unknown

IceIX wrote:

Just as a note, so far we saw an increase in Health Pack purchases the day of and after the change went Live, likely due to people reacting to the change by "powering through it" instead of changing their gameplay patterns. Then sales dropped down slightly below "standard" for on Friday/Saturday. Now they have been stable for the past day and a half at the same general amount as before the healing change. As we expected, so far the change hasn't made any real bump or dip in Health Packs for the user base. Basically, we weren't expecting this change to make any huge impact financially in regards to Health Pack purchases. So far, it's been about a net zero. As stated before, it wasn't our intent and so far the change has had about the expected result in regards to changing player's play patterns away from Prologue Healing or reliance on similar strategies to extend play. We're still monitoring closely though, as we haven't even run a full PVE Event with the new changes in

Why don't you want us to extend our play and play your game?

h4n1s

killerkoala wrote:

h4n1s wrote:

I have said it once, and I'll repeat it based on last week of play...

I welcome the healing change, really, suddenly I enjoy more playing the PvP (without need to invest single Dollar/Euro/CZK ...!). And whats the best? I suddenly keep on occupying top 20, which has not happened to me before the change very often. The rosters I encounter are really varying, and even-though there are still those famous combinations out there (such as THOR+ARES; OBW+THOR/ARES; MStorm+MMags) they're not that annoyingly often anymore!

I have to admit, that this True healing feature kind of affected my willingness to play PvE events, but frankly, the timezone (tourneys end at 6am here), length of the events and rubberbanding almost never allowed me to place decently in top50-100...

I am looking forward for the level shift as well, if it'll work as I understood it, I may already be able to utilize even my Xforce at current level in PvP once in a while (+40 level boost, hurrayyy!).

Now, gents, feel free to hate me

so what is your average score? you might even be in a cupcake bracket (where top ten is about 500) and not one of the infamous "death brackets"(over 1050-1100)? also the last few PvP events 3* prizes hasn't been as desired as say sentry or daken. so competition has been mostly for iso, hero points, and season 3 totals.

In the last tourney it was above 650 - top 10 scores were between 800 - 1100 (big gap between 1st and 10th), don't recall precise numbers though. Now I am about 550 , 18th spot, but it's still 1 day to go. The main thing is that it seems to me, that people do grind less and the variety of rosters I am experiencing as opponents is just more fun to play. And that's what I seek in a game, FUN.

Unknown

HailMary wrote:

pasa_ wrote:

Err, so you are the one person on these forums who believe it was meant to increase roster diversity just as stated? And that it is a relevant action for that goal?

I'm hardly the only one not opposed to the change, and I don't think it'll encourage much more roster diversity, but nice try. I think the impending level-bump change will do significantly more for roster diversity than "true healing." I'm essentially "meh" about "true healing" -- hardly the most supportive.

I wasn't talking about opposing the change. I was talking about what you just snipped from the quote:

HailMary wrote:

For all the general crowing about how "true healing" is merely a greedy cash grab and the devs are just lying through their teeth at every turn, I've seen literally zero actual evidence that this claim is at all realistic.

The devs vehemently denied the cash grab approach and explained the motivation along roster diversity. You state there's no evidence it is all a lie, so can I assume you just buy what they claim at face value really? (Whether one likes or dislikes the change itself or is a different story, the attached communication is.)

DD-The-Mighty

h4n1s wrote:

I have said it once, and I'll repeat it based on last week of play...
obvious bait is obvious.

Now, gents, feel free to hate me

Sorry. No thanks.

HailMary wrote:

pasa_ wrote:

Err, so you are the one person on these forums who believe it was meant to increase roster diversity just as stated? And that it is a relevant action for that goal?

I'm hardly the only one not opposed to the change, and I don't think it'll encourage much more roster diversity, but nice try. I think the impending level-bump change will do significantly more for roster diversity than "true healing." I'm essentially "meh" about "true healing" -- hardly the most supportive.

You should know that, though: you've actually commented on threads started by people more positive about the change than I am (and have seen comments here by such people). Feel free to play dumb if it gives you the warm & fuzzies, but know that you're not doing a very good job of hiding it.

arktos1971 wrote:

What's the use of buying ISO and HP if you already have maxed 3 Top Tier characters out of 44 ?

No use at all. This is why you stopped spending money once you got 3 top-tier 141s... oh, wait.

Speaking of playing dumb. As an avid poster you know full well that the new level cap is a mere placebo. Smoke and mirrors to make thew same outclassed characters seem more powerful than they actually are. All that mid to low level diversity experimentation stops when teams start getting bodied, running subpar pvp characters like Bullseye, Cap, and Moonstone.

simonsez

IceIX wrote:

As we expected, so far the change hasn't made any real bump or dip in Health Packs for the user base. Basically, we weren't expecting this change to make any huge impact financially in regards to Health Pack purchases. So far, it's been about a net zero.

If true, then change it back and treat us like grown-ups who are capable of deciding how they'd like to play the game.

HailMary

pasa_ wrote:

The devs vehemently denied the cash grab approach and explained the motivation along roster diversity. You state there's no evidence it is all a lie, so can I assume you just buy what they claim at face value really? (Whether one likes or dislikes the change itself or is a different story, the attached communication is.)

Ice first mentioned prologue healing as a motivation for the change (indeed, prologue healing was the context for his original hint about "true healing"), then talked about roster diversity.

With regard to roster diversity, it's too early to tell. OBW is still a top-tier 2*, and from where I stand, I don't think it'll encourage more people to use Moonstone or Bullseye, because they kinda suck. But, it just might encourage people to rotate through Ares, Thor, AWolv, Daken, CStorm + MN Mags more frequently. I'm hoping that the upcoming 2* will be a support character that could plausibly swap in for OBW. I also think a Moonstone buff would help a lot, but that's apparently not on their chronically delayed timeline.

DD-The-Mighty wrote:

Speaking of playing dumb. As an avid poster you know full well that the new level cap is a mere placebo. Smoke and mirrors to make thew same outclassed characters seem more powerful than they actually are. All that mid to low level diversity experimentation stops when teams start getting bodied, running subpar pvp characters like Bullseye, Cap, and Moonstone.

A placebo for... what? It doesn't really affect me, since I'm running maxed 3*s already, but I don't see how making 3*s usable with fewer covers is a bad thing. For example, I started running a 3x3* team right when I got enough covers in three good 3*s to hit a L102 soft cap. After the level bump, 3*s will outclass similar 2*s at a lower cover count than before (maybe 1-2 fewer covers?), and the same goes for 2*s vs. 1*s.

I don't think the devs bumped levels to make low-tier characters more wonderful. Rather, as someone whose original 1* team was max IM35 + max MBW + 1-cover XWolv, I can see how the level bumps would make rarer characters more usable with fewer covers. I can see it easing 1*-2* transition and 2*-3* transition, if only by a bit.

Unknown

HailMary wrote:

... but I don't see how making 3*s usable with fewer covers is a bad thing. For example, I started running a 3x3* team right when I got enough covers in three good 3*s to hit a L102 soft cap. After the level bump, 3*s will outclass similar 2*s at a lower cover count than before (maybe 1-2 fewer covers?), and the same goes for 2*s vs. 1*s.

That is exactly the smoke. If you actually look at numbers and tables they will show it not the case. It just provides good optics at the spot it counts: the * guy winning the *** cover and notice it's 40, same as top of his jugs and almost level with his IM35 and storm. Not puny 15 that is easy to sell instead of keeping with the trouble to buy the next PACK of roster slots on real money.

While I'm positive without looking that no 1-cover *** is anywhere near the power of a lvl40 *.

Most new characters, even lazy ones are pretty lame without last covers, the attributes gained from more levels are not so big.