Cover Reward Changes

IamTheDanger

IReallyHatePVP wrote:

Nope. Changes are good.

It's not quite the 'Alliance Reward Bracketing' I called for, but with this, it is at least POSSIBLE to get one of each charcater's cover without being in a 20-slot alliance.

Thats the way it was. The only thing that changed was the alliance rewards. If you were not part of a top 100 alliance, then you would have not had anything change at all.

Unknown

IReallyHatePVP wrote:

Nope. Changes are good.

It's not quite the 'Alliance Reward Bracketing' I called for, but with this, it is at least POSSIBLE to get one of each charcater's cover without being in a 20-slot alliance.

Um... You could already earn one of each cover for a character before, even without an alliance, by placing top 5 individually. (Maybe you didn't pay attention to the rewards structure before? Understandable given your username) With this change, you could get one of each cover of a character even without an alliance by, wait for it, placing top 5 individually. What this change did is prevent people in top 100 alliances who cannot regularly place top 5 (like me) from getting one of each cover for a character.

IReallyHatePVP

finn1 & JCTthe3rd81, I just checked the board records to make sure my memories weren't gaffed, and yer both wrong(and I'm glad as I remember being VERY vocal about this when alliances first came to power).

Previously, Top 10 in PVP netted you 2 covers, then top 100 Allinace got you the third color cover. Go ahead and check 'IHatePVP's sig, it mentioned this for an earlier running of Hollowpoint Kiss. Or just search the posts for that previously used username and the relevant posts will come up.

Lastly, Pylgrim, I do hope U were trolling, because I would love for you to explain what the prizes for the story events are, if covers are only awarded in PVP?

Unknown

IReallyHatePVP wrote:

finn1 & JCTthe3rd81, I just checked the board records to make sure my memories weren't gaffed, and yer both wrong(and I'm glad as I remember being VERY vocal about this when alliances first came to power).

Previously, Top 10 in PVP netted you 2 covers, then top 100 Allinace got you the third color cover. Go ahead and check 'IHatePVP's sig, it mentioned this for an earlier running of Hollowpoint Kiss. Or just search the posts for that previously used username and the relevant posts will come up.

Lastly, Pylgrim, I do hope U were trolling, because I would love for you to explain what the prizes for the story events are, if covers are only awarded in PVP?

Yeah... did you take a break from the game? See this thread: viewtopic.php?f=20&t=9921
From that PVP until Trial by Combat (before this latest run of Doctor's Orders), that was the reward structure, which we were talking about.
That had been going on for more than 2 months, before this latest change in rewards structure, starting from Doctor's Orders.

IReallyHatePVP

Now I see. You were miffed about the alliance cover color shift(which, in all honesty, I missed untill U pointed it out. I tend to ignore the Alliances tab....). I had thought U refered to the cover amount award(who gets two covers, three covers, one cover, etc.)
Thanks for pointing out that change(which I guess was the whole point, huh? ). But ...I think it puts an interesting wrinkle in the system. Do U push hard for two of the same "good" covers, or take it easy and rely on your alliance yield because the Top 5 cover is the "garbage" cover?

There. That's my better informed opinion now. It trades the "Sure Thing" of alliance cover coverage with some flexibility on effort level for events. The truth is that the change is good or bad for You entirely depends on who you are.

BearVenger

A similar change I noticed in the Doom and Beast PvPs is that the event token doesn't have a secondary/tertiary featured 3*, just the tourney star featured.

Since both now have Nick Fury added to the payout odds, I couldn't tell if that's an overall gain or loss in the chance to get 3*/4* covers from tokens.

OnesOwnGrief

Back in my day, those of us who didn't have an alliance was effectively screwed out of 1 cover even with #1 placement. Boy did we complain about that... That is what I dealt with for a good while.

Dauthi

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

If you can finish top 25, three covers is three covers, so steady progress is not halted.
With these new characters, 2 covers in one color is going to help more than two spread out. You can soft cap higher and have one strong(ish) ability instead of two meh ones.
If you want the specific color so you can buy the others, then you probably got it during the initial release.

Being cover maxed in a specific color presents an issue, but then you make the decision whether it's important enough for you and/or your alliance to grind top 25 for one cover. I'm sure the max 3* roster guys aren't enthused when the Sentry they have maxed is offered, but they do what they have to for their teammates.

This is a meh change. The biggest issue with it is the macro issue of "Oh, hey here's a change we made, but didn't bother to tell you about."

This would be great if D3 didn't purposely target that character's best covers. Perhaps it is only for new characters, but beast's green is pretty important, and is suddenly being witheld from anyone but the top 5 and everyone is getting his healing yellow... Pretty harsh. Everyone will have a bunch of yellows, a few blues and 1 to no greens. Reminds me of when they handed over green hulk like crazy (another bad idea). Having lop-sided characters makes it boring and harder in any buffed event.

I don't like it, even distribution helped spur alliances to do better. This is one of the few times since the Spidey nerf I can say they are doing things wrong.

Unknown

IReallyHatePVP wrote:

Nope. Changes are good.

It's not quite the 'Alliance Reward Bracketing' I called for, but with this, it is at least POSSIBLE to get one of each charcater's cover without being in a 20-slot alliance.

It was before, too. They just changed what alliances got from the hardest to get one to the not-hardest-to-get one. It's why my Beast needs seven covers still but I'm going to be selling a Yellow because for some unfathomable reason they made it the alliance prize twice, and it's his worst skill.

Unknown

Ben Grimm wrote:

It's why my Beast needs seven covers still but I'm going to be selling a Yellow because for some unfathomable reason they made it the alliance prize twice, and it's his worst skill.

This is really to the point of why this is bad for us. Making one cover exclusive to those who place highly in the individual standings and then doubling up on the same power in both release events for a new character isn't an accident. I can't see this as anything but a new tactic to make certain covers rare to stimulate sales. The fact that the ability that they chose to shower us with is a really meh notsotrue healing power in this case is just insult to injury.

Unknown

IReallyHatePVP wrote:

Nope. Changes are good.

It's not quite the 'Alliance Reward Bracketing' I called for, but with this, it is at least POSSIBLE to get one of each charcater's cover without being in a 20-slot alliance.

You lost me.

If I were not in a top 100 alliance and incapable of finishing top 10 in Heroic, I would be stuck with Beast 1/1/0 at the end of Heroic PVE.

Finishing anywhere in the top 100 for Doctor's Orders PVP - an easy feat for a mid-max 2* player - makes Beast 1/1/1.

Players outside of 20-person, top 100 alliances would get each color for Beast regardless of the change.

What I did notice is that Beast blue is progress award in current PVE, and green is 1100 reward in current PVP. Hardworking players outside of top 100 alliances can be 2/2/2 at the end. This is a slightly more benign explanation for the change, but I cannot pretend to know their reasons.*. On the other hand, anyone who can obtain the 1100 PVP progress award should have no trouble joining a top 100 alliance.

In conclusion, arblgarbfarblexkyefdvijndvfejinffejwevnfifdvw.

*While stoned out of my gourd.

GrumpySmurf1002

Pylgrim wrote:

It is a pretty **** change and it is pretty **** that they didn't talk about it. PVP is the only way people have to acquire covers they don't have (so they cannot buy either). Being able to get all 3 colours from a top 25 placement + alliance reward was a godsend for transitioning players. There's seriously not a reason for this change other than to force people to attempt top 5 at the cost of shield-hopping.

Did they eliminate PvE and not tell anybody?

Unknown

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

Pylgrim wrote:

It is a pretty **** change and it is pretty **** that they didn't talk about it. PVP is the only way people have to acquire covers they don't have (so they cannot buy either). Being able to get all 3 colours from a top 25 placement + alliance reward was a godsend for transitioning players. There's seriously not a reason for this change other than to force people to attempt top 5 at the cost of shield-hopping.

Did they eliminate PvE and not tell anybody?

Wouldn't put it past them.

zeeke

This is just the latest move in a long series of cash grab tweaks.

With the old system with a top100 ally
5 people with 2/1/1
20 people with 1/1/1
80 people with 1/0/1

But now with the change
5 people with 1/1/2
20 people with 0/1/2
80 people with 0/0/2

This just don't makes sense for anything. The adoption of new characters will take longer since people will be less likely to play when missing powers. The transition for players from 2*-3* will be longer, especially for filling out 1 last cover if you are unlucky.

Again, I can't see how this makes sense other then some twisted idea that it will lead to more cover sales, which I doubt.

Edit, I missed the most obvious point. This new distribution will further distance the top players that can place top5 from the rest, with a less diverse game as a result.

D3, if you want to keep the number to top covers down, just give the best one as the Top25 reward. The worst one as the top100 ally award and the second best one as top5 reward.

Unknown

3 Loki purple for t10 individual and t100 alliance finish. Really?

Unknown

Come to think of it, the cover reward structure change was already implemented with the latest Dr. Doom rewards (before the PVP that rewarded Beast). I guess we just didn't notice it yet because Dr. Doom only has 2 covers, and we only realized the change in rewards when Beast covers were offered next PVP. Although, some people did notice the imbalance of 1 blue and 3 black Doom covers. The similar reward structure for Loki covers this time confirms it.

DD-The-Mighty

Thugpatrol wrote:

Ben Grimm wrote:

It's why my Beast needs seven covers still but I'm going to be selling a Yellow because for some unfathomable reason they made it the alliance prize twice, and it's his worst skill.

This is really to the point of why this is bad for us. Making one cover exclusive to those who place highly in the individual standings and then doubling up on the same power in both release events for a new character isn't an accident. I can't see this as anything but a new tactic to make certain covers rare to stimulate sales. The fact that the ability that they chose to shower us with is a really meh notsotrue healing power in this case is just insult to injury.

Sadly that's nothing new, they've been doing that for a while. Black panther Black, Psylocke red, Thor yellow/green, Captain America Blue/Red. Captain marvel Red/Black, She-hulk red. And lastly the ever elusive GSWidow Green, Hood Blue, and Hulk Black. just to name a few.

They've always stuck the pivotal colours in the upper tier of placement rewards. Now its just become more obvious.
Best to just archive these trends for future players to warn them of their inevitable progress brick wall when they are ready to start getting 3* characters built.

GrumpySmurf1002

zeeke wrote:

This just don't makes sence for anything. The adoption of new characters will take longer since people will be less likely to play when missing powers. The transition for players from 2*-3* will be longer, especially for filling out 1 last cover if you are unlucky.

Again, I can't see how this makes sence other then some twisted idea that it will lead to more cover sales, which I doubt.

With 1/1/1 distribution, a new player can buy 10 covers to bring to max.
With a 0/1/2 distrib, a new player can buy 7 covers to bring to max.

If cover sales were the goal, they wouldn't restrict the initial cover.

wymtime

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

zeeke wrote:

This just don't makes sence for anything. The adoption of new characters will take longer since people will be less likely to play when missing powers. The transition for players from 2*-3* will be longer, especially for filling out 1 last cover if you are unlucky.

Again, I can't see how this makes sence other then some twisted idea that it will lead to more cover sales, which I doubt.

With 1/1/1 distribution, a new player can buy 10 covers to bring to max.
With a 0/1/2 distrib, a new player can buy 7 covers to bring to max.

If cover sales were the goal, they wouldn't restrict the initial cover.

I think the Dev's are also looking to see if giving more people 2 of 1 cover will that character get leveled faster. When you get 2 of 1 color you can take the character to a higher level than if you get 1 of all 3. The dev's have preached roster diversity and if a player is able to get 1 color really high really quickly that character could become playable even with a missing color. Think about Deadpoop. If you had 5,0,3 you could play him because his red is now really strong. He might not be you #1 team, but in PVE you could play him and and if you are a transitioning player he could definalty help. The person this hurts is a seson vet who has a lot of 3* characters and is only looking for 1-2 covers to finish off a character. Now those players really have to hit top 5 to get that 1 cover or save enough HP to buy it.

Unknown

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

zeeke wrote:

This just don't makes sence for anything. The adoption of new characters will take longer since people will be less likely to play when missing powers. The transition for players from 2*-3* will be longer, especially for filling out 1 last cover if you are unlucky.

Again, I can't see how this makes sence other then some twisted idea that it will lead to more cover sales, which I doubt.

With 1/1/1 distribution, a new player can buy 10 covers to bring to max.
With a 0/1/2 distrib, a new player can buy 7 covers to bring to max.
If cover sales were the goal, they wouldn't restrict the initial cover.

You're neglecting to factor in pack sales, which is the only other place to get missing covers if you can't win them.