The flaw in the Rewards Structure

Zen808

The problem is that, with the way the current rewards structure is laid out, if you can't place within the Top 20%, there's literally no reason to play.

Take PVP for example. Top 100 out of 500 gets you at least one 3* cover and some HP, which is a desireable reward. The second tier of the reward structure, positions 101 - 250, gives you an assigned 2* cover and some iso-8. For anybody except a noobie, this is a meaningless reward, because you either have that 2* character fully spec'ed, or you don't want them. The end result is that once you realize that you're out of the running for the Top 100, you stop playing.

This is painfully obvious since Season 4 started. For most of Season 3, the status quo was that about 400 points will get you Top 100. And 600 points is the line in the sand where most people plateau, at which point defensive losses cancel out any offensive gains. In our casual alliance, we'd have an average of about 6-8 people within this 400-600 range.
With Season 4, I don't know what changed, but everyone in the alliance was reporting that you pretty much needed 600 points to even make Top 100. So for the first event, we had our usual 6-8 people in that 400-600 pt range; and everybody was grumbling that they couldn't place high enough to get their 3*. The next event, only 1 person bothered. Everyone else pretty much got their 300pts for the event token, and stopped. Didn't care that they fell out of the second tier of rewards. Just stopped playing.

I've mentioned it on another thread, but in my situation, the 2 standard tokens were actually MORE useful than the 2* Wolvie, because they at least carried the potential, however small, to turn into a 3* reward.

That second tier, Top 101-250 slot needs to mean something. At least give out an event token, maybe even toss in some HP rewards. It's not good business to ensure that 80% of your players don't have an incentive to play.

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EDIT FOR CLARITY:
I'm not advocating expanding how many people get the Tier 1 3* rewards. 20% is actually a good number for that level of reward, in my opinion.

But the fact remains that your prime mission in MPQ is to build your 3* army.

And what I'm saying is that for most of the players, the Tier 2 Rewards, from 101-250, are no better at accomplishing that mission than the Tier 3 rewards, from 251-500. And the Tier 2 rewards are realistically not better, towards that mission, than what you'd get for not playing the game at all.

From a business standpoint, you don't want 80% of your player base thinking that they got exactly zippo their efforts.

Unknown

Necroing an old suggestion of mine

http://www.d3pforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=8467

Observation :
A consistently top 100 alliance will receive a 3* cover as an alliance reward nearly every event : 20 events, 20 covers
A sometimes top 100 alliance will receive a 3* cover some of the time: ~ 20 events, 10 covers
An alliance not competitive enough to reach top 100 will never see these covers, ever: 500 events, 0 covers


Suggestion :
Alliance only season progression replacing event alliance cover rewards.
There can be a list of 3* covers and it may take the top 10 alliances 1 event to get the first one maybe even part of the way towards the second, and might take a rank 300 alliance 3 whole events to get the first one and they may only get a small handful the entire season but they would get *something* for their effort and those at the top would still pull in a highly respectable haul of covers.

Top alliances would still get 18-22? Covers for the 20 events
Mid alliances may still get 8-12 covers for their 20 events
lower ranked alliances may only get 3-4 covers for 20 events (which is still much more rewarding than zero)
even tiny 5 man alliance could work there way up to one or two 3* rewards.

Putting in time and effort into a game makes you want to feel like it is worth it, that you will get something good out of it if you keep at it. As it stands now if an alliance cannot reach a set level of competition there is no chance at these rewards. Giving everyone a chance to work towards goals like this would do wonders for morale, camaraderie within alliances, and straight up enjoyment of the game.

This was an alliance specific suggestion but it could be adapted to solo players as well. So, Season Progression awards but ones that actually provide incentives for people to always have a goal to work towards. And by that I mean periodic 3* covers, and not just one mid way through and a handful of tokens, but the devs would never just add in the extras they would likely have to pull something from the individual rewards to repurpose in this way. But even that can be designed as a net positive for everyone.

simonsez

Lower level players already have the benefit of easier brackets and easier opponents in PvP, and a scaling advantage in PvE. My experience as a newer player was that you basically just needed to put in the effort and understand the proper way to play the events to get decent rewards.

Unknown

and even so there are the other 80% who don't get those rewards, i suppose they just need to play harder before they are worthy of getting anything good out of their time spent.

Zen808

Oh kitty deity, I realize that the more I try to edit this, the more it sounds like a capitalist teatise extolling the virtues of a thriving middle class. I'd better stop.

simonsez

I guess we should just turn this into Little League where everyone gets a trophy

Unknown

I'm wondering how many casual players are going to have a full roster of maxed out 2* and just upgrading their 3*. It seems mostly like people who used to play semi hard core and then realized that they wanted to have a life outside MPQ.

I think that the argument of this thread was true before, when people had maxed out 1*'s and you only got thrown an occasional 2* here and there. Before that once you reached a certain point, the rewards for a casual player just weren't there. All you got was old 1* covers. Now that they give you 2* covers for random pvp each match you play seems like a small contribution to leveling up your 2*s.

I don't know how many casuals fall into the 2-3* transition, nor how much money this group spends.

I think the middle class is thriving. If you have enough leveled 2* and are willing to work (and/or pay) at it you probably can win the next 3* in pvp. Otherwise, you have to get it through pve. You can get both Red and Blue Rogers covers in the current event.

Disclaimer. I'm in the 1-3* transition phase, with only 1 maxed 2*.

Unknown

Why would some people earning a few rewards for some work and others earning more rewards for more work be 'giving everyone a trophy' ?

Hey Boss I finished 15 of those reports today
So sorry, Jim finished 21 so you don't get paid today, better luck tomorrow!
Ok I did 21 today seriously am I getting paid or not?
Well it resets every day and Carla managed 23, so no. Here have a token good for a free bagman.
Tinykitty, ok tomorrow I am only doing one and be sleeping at my desk the rest of the day, is that cool?
Well you will be earning roughly the same amount so go for it!

Unknown

That analogy is broken.

You do get rewards for playing casually. A lot of times all you can do is go up to 300, get your recruit token and call it a day, hoping to get lucky in the draft. It's like everyone got paid, but Carla got extra recognition. It's sheer entitlement to say you automatically deserve a 3* just cause you worked hard that day. If you're getting paid, sometimes you have to work hard; that's your job.

If MPQ feels like a job and you don't feel you're getting rewarded, quit. This isn't in either mine nor MPQ's interest, because honestly it's nicer to have weaker players in the brackets to make it easier to rank.

Unknown

daibar wrote:

That analogy is broken.

You do get rewards for playing casually. A lot of times all you can do is go up to 300, get your recruit token and call it a day, hoping to get lucky in the draft. It's like everyone got paid, but Carla got extra recognition. It's sheer entitlement to say you automatically deserve a 3* just cause you worked hard that day. If you're getting paid, sometimes you have to work hard; that's your job.

If MPQ feels like a job and you don't feel you're getting rewarded, quit. This isn't in either mine nor MPQ's interest, because honestly it's nicer to have weaker players in the brackets to make it easier to rank.

With the number of 2*s being handed out liberally and at random they have next to no value, same with tokens. If you have been playing a while it becomes a certainty that you no longer need one or two stars and 3*s are the only rewards worth still playing for. Tokens are like getting paid in bottle caps, and 3*s actually have a value worth the effort. I like this game a lot, I want to keep working on filling out my roster enjoying the game at my own pace and maybe enjoy my time spent doing so.

I put forth a suggestion that would likely make everyone at every level more involved in the game with consistently applied rewards to work towards and I get told to quit because you want weaker players to beat up on?

user311

For the players that cannot break the top 100 ceiling - I would suspect that they are unable to do so because of weak rosters. When your best team is OBW/Thor and all you see is OBW/Thor its hard to gain points. But its not impossible. Its just might mean that players need to play longer or shield. I think the mechanics of this game are designed so that the top 100 fruit is there but you've almost always have to pay for at least one shield to get it. I doubt they will change it. This is a P2W game in disguise but can be F2P if players manage HP earned effectively. When its said that "you don't want 80% of your player base thinking that they got exactly zippo their efforts" - I think the devs do want their players to think that way but expect that a large portion of that 80% will buy a shield next time if they want better rewards.

I do agree with many that the the 100-250 rewards suck. They should be, in my opinion, Heroic Tokens. I laugh when I see A.Wolv there and I know I will get at least 2 in the course of the PVP.

Zen808

daibar wrote:

That analogy is broken.

You do get rewards for playing casually. A lot of times all you can do is go up to 300, get your recruit token and call it a day, hoping to get lucky in the draft. It's like everyone got paid, but Carla got extra recognition. It's sheer entitlement to say you automatically deserve a 3* just cause you worked hard that day. If you're getting paid, sometimes you have to work hard; that's your job.

If MPQ feels like a job and you don't feel you're getting rewarded, quit. This isn't in either mine nor MPQ's interest, because honestly it's nicer to have weaker players in the brackets to make it easier to rank.

Actually, I'd like to speculate that having such a big clump of people playing to 300 and calling it a day makes your job harder. My reasoning is this: I look at all the guys complaining about not having enough high value targets to hit. Well, that's what happens when the vast majority of the players play to 300 and stop. By giving a mid-tier reward that people find worth their time to pursue, you can increase scores on the low end, which ripples upwards. Again, that's pure speculation and I could be wrong. But what do you all think?

Unknown

808SpicyToro wrote:

Actually, I'd like to speculate that having such a big clump of people playing to 300 and calling it a day makes your job harder. My reasoning is this: I look at all the guys complaining about not having enough high value targets to hit. Well, that's what happens when the vast majority of the players play to 300 and stop. By giving a mid-tier reward that people find worth their time to pursue, you can increase scores on the low end, which ripples upwards. Again, that's pure speculation and I could be wrong. But what do you all think?

Since the reward structure rework, 500 is probably what you are looking for as a mid-tier score. Pushing up to 500 is a guarenteed 2* and then another 2* or higher from 300. Then that score may or may not be enough for Top 100. Probably enough for Top 250. So you at least get thre 2* or higher per event.

simonsez

Cryptobrancus wrote:

Why would some people earning a few rewards for some work and others earning more rewards for more work be 'giving everyone a trophy'

Why would I be arguing against that? That's how it already is. The complaint seems to be that 80% of the people don't get the same rewards the top 20% do. And I don't see why they should.

Unknown

And the suggestion following the complaint was for a system where bottom tier players can still get a few worthwhile rewards*, middle tier players can get some, high level players can get many, and elite players can get lots.
The complaint is not that the 80% don't get the same rewards as the 20+% its that the 80% gets almost none in comparison. If you cannot break into that 3* cover reward tier you have to rely on the few attainable progression rewards, and tokens. And the 20% is still getting even more progression and more tokens on top of the placement reward covers.

In no way do I want everyone to get the same rewards. That is crazy talk, I want people to get rewards at a rate proportional to their input into the game so you always have a benefit to putting more into the game.

* by worthwhile I mean 3* covers, after a point nothing else matters, 1-2* sold for iso, hp used to buy 3* covers or shields for placement to earn 3* covers, iso is only useful if you have the characters to pump it into, tokens are iso until proven gold, and 4*s are functionally trophies.

simonsez

Cryptobrancus wrote:

In no way do I want everyone to get the same rewards. That is crazy talk

At least we agree on that.
I still don't see how the current structure doesn't meet your requirements of proportional rewards. Top 20 gets 3 covers, Top 50 get 3, Top 100 get 1, rest get none. The response to the OP was a call for proportional rewards which sure seemed to be "everyone gets a cover" to me.
Sorry, but unless you're a sleeping euro, I don't see how anyone who tries can't finish in the top 100. All you need to do is show up once a day, and for the final 2 hours. It's not much of a commitment.

Unknown

The problem is not with any single event, it is the average effect. If your play style lets you consistently hit the 50th percentile, you are putting in a constant level of involvement but will never ever get any 3* placement rewards. There is no such thing as 1/2 or 1/3 or 1/10th of a 3* cover but a system could be set up so that bottom 10% guy can still earn one measly 3* cover every 10 events, in the same time span the top players in top alliances will have earned 40 3* covers. I have no problem with the rewards the top earns, it just bothers me that those at the bottom will forever earn 0+0+0+0+0+0+0 equaling 0, why not allow fractions. So even if you are going at a slow pace it will eventually add up to something, instead of nothing. And maybe if that bottom 10% guys sees how he could do a little more and go for 2 covers in a month would that not make him try a little harder?

Also, I hate the mentality of 'its only a few hours at a specific time, its not that hard to commit to getting a good placement.' I wholeheartedly encourage people to put the game down if anything more important is going on. And I include, friends, family, eating, going outside, working, books, and maybe even sleep as things that rank as more important the MPQ

Punter1

I would say that the issue isn't that the rewards structure is "broken" it's just that the perceived value of the rewards has shifted, while the chance of the rewards hasn't.

Prior to 2*s being handed out like candy, getting your 2* reward from an event was actually useful as you were building your roster. 3*s were great and rarer if you could pull off a top 100 finish but almost hindered you as you then needed to spend HP on roster slots if you didn't want to lose the cover.

Now, as has been pointed out, maxing 2*s is too easy, almost easier than 1*s to some extent once you've completed the prologue. You get 2*s more often than standard tokens if you're playing PVP. So their perceived value has dropped, especially guaranteed ones that you know you don't need when placing outside the top 100.

Also the player base has now adjusted to be mostly made of max 2*s, so it naturally bumps up the challenge and the scores as competition for the top 100 has increased. Everyone wants the 3* guaranteed, even those who are already in 3* territory.

Yes your "punished" for mediocre play with no way of winning a 3* but should you be rewarded too? There are progression awards in season play that will net you a 3* with a little bit of effort (3k for patch this time around is reachable even at 300 pts a PVP, albeit 10 PVPs for one 3* isn't a great return). Top 100 is reachable with a modicum of effort, 600+ points gets you that plus some handy HP, and boom a 3* cover. If you want move on in the game is it too much to ask that you play it?

One simple solution would be to give out more regular Heroic Tokens, sprinkle them in as rewards for PVP wins and maybe top 200 get a 2* cover and a Heroic Token - at least then the chance of 3*s is a bit more frequent then the constant deluge of 2*s.

squirrel1120

The true flaw in the rewards system that I believe was trying to be pointed out is that the transition from 2->3* characters *used* to be long, and has been made a lot longer.

Alright, great... If you can make top 100 (granted, should be fairly easy), you surely can get that single cover. Then you only need about 10 more for a semi-viable character just slightly better than what you've been using... for ages. How many 3*'s are there in the rotation to chase now? 23? Not including deadpool being released shortly. That is a ton of covers to be chasing, being handed out to the 2* player one at a time, at times 2-3 during a pve, and on tokens with extremely low rates for golds. How long is that going to take?

The 2* player can't even just 'play harder' to get up into the next bracket anymore to place top 25 it seems. Not without shielding, so you are either dropping real money, or spending the only currency available to expand the roster. Even if I wanted to start shielding, its not going to be to 'hop', but just purely to preserve the points I did manage to get from being bled away. Why? Because after crossing over that magical point barrier, viable matches are no longer given anymore. Pre-TH, that magical barrier was up over the 800 mark, because I used to hit it consistently. It has gotten a lot lower to the point where I'm still sitting below top 25, but only get matches vs max level teams. Perhaps other 2* teams have landed in easier brackets, but that has not been my experience at all. I currently feel that with all the artificial limits put into the game (healing, health packs, healing rates, bracket point thresholds, alliance members competing for covers they don't need in events they don't want to play, etc.), getting one cover per pvp event is about the new limit. The tiny trickle of HP this earns is barely enough to continue saving new characters, and only because I have good will-power about not opening tokens until I have free space. As large as the character pool is, that is not a good feeling.

Don't let yourself get burnt out on the game... BUT, you will be playing the same pool of 8-10ish characters for a LONG time Mr. Squirrel1120. I hope you like them, because we at D3 want you to be playing with deep rosters, but good luck getting a roster deep enough to get a deeper roster.

At just about 4 months played, I don't yet even have every 3* saved to my roster. Most of that progress was actually pre-True Healing. Most of those saved are 1-2 covers. As 'luck' would have it, I do have one with 6 covers leveled to a whopping level 91. Daredevil! I was so excited to draw a few of his tokens off randoms... until I used him in his featured event and found out how terrible he's designed. I wish I could get back the iso I put into him... Bagdevil doesn't even get to come out and play when the fight isn't even hard. When I was just nearing the point of maxing my 2* roster, I was starting to place top 10. I would rotate my R/G/Y guys through with OBW after winning a match or two with wolvie/daken and/or cstorm/ mnmags as possible. Then the True Healing turd came through. Top 25 at best. More changes, more drop in position. The real fight now is to just be top 50 and stay there through event end for 50 HP instead of 25. Pre- True Healing, 800 pts over several runs was a given. Post TH, a couple random cascade matches that wipe or cripple you can mean not even touching 600 for a moment long enough to earn that progression reward.

Anyway, I digress. The point above being that players used to be able to make a 3* transition in 4-6 months with a competitive effort. I think that number is probably doubled, if not tripled, dependent on how someone's luck runs with draws on the random token element in the game.

A 2* reward being handed out to a 2* player has almost no value (iso only). A 1* player should be able to chase 2* covers and see progress. Other than actually expanding the roster quick enough to save all the characters, that's become very easy. A 2* player should be able to do the same for their 3*'s, and right now that progress is even slower than the 'slow' it used to be.

It is easy for someone who has 3* characters to not see this as an issue. Just as easy for someone who has the expendable income to throw at the game to also not see it as a problem. But for those of us facing the situation head on down here in 2* land, it is. It's not the first time it's come up, and if it truly weren't an issue, communication with official channels like IceX would not have said (to paraphrase), 'we're aware of this, but we are trying to consider ways to address the issue while not making them trivially easy to obtain either'.