Sustainability: Need trading/market

Unknown

The current system for buying covers doesn't work. At least, it doesn't work entirely because it's missing an element.

When a buyer goes to buy anything in a game, he needs to know that he's getting something specific, even if that thing is random. Let me explain: you can either get something specific, or you get something random that you can then change into something specific. That change requires a form of trading, or a market to sell items.

The way this game is set up, you pay money for random covers (or you use tokens, same thing). You might get a great cover, but that's all you have: one cover. This means you don't have access to the other 2 abilities that hero has. So what are your options? There are only two. Either you spend more money/tokens on buying more random covers in the hopes you will receive that same exact hero again (very low chance of occurrence), or you sell the cover for pocket change.

The game is obviously set up initially like a trading card game, except it's missing the trading element. Trading card players know that you can buy a random booster pack and it's okay, whatever you get is random but you can always trade those cards for other cards. You can't do that in MPQ.

The solution for a viable market, and the longevity of this game, is to have the counterpart to the randomness of covers and the reliance on covers to even unlock a power (you can't even buy an unlock, you have to randomly find it first, then you can pay to level it all you want). I'm saying this not only as a player who enjoys the mechanics of the game and the theme, but also as someone who does this for a living. I design and create financial structures for games. I understand what people want, and what a game needs for survival. The bottom line is that this approach is not optimal for the survival of this game, and I'd like to see the game survive because I enjoy the core of it; the way you obtain covers does not work, though. The solution is open trading, or a market.

Thanks for reading.

Unknown

I think if this sort of thing is not present at launch, it probably shouldn't be added, though it would be fun to be able to auction off extra covers for ISO/HP

mischiefmaker

I'm wary of the side effects, too. If you had open trading, I suspect folks would complete their collections too fast (unless you limited trades to only facebook friends, in which case people with active/lots of facebook friends have an excessive advantage). If you had an open market, you'd have a rich-get-richer problem, even more so than you have now -- people who have maxed Ragnaroks already mine the Lightning Rounds for hero points; can you imagine if they could also sell the Ragnarok covers on an open market?

If we accept the contention that the player needs to get a reward that's either specific or can be turned into something specific (and I'm not totally sure that I do, there are plenty of successful/fun games where you get random rewards), trading/market isn't the only way to accomplish that. For instance, you could have a standing set of PvE missions where the rewards are specific 3* covers, but to play them you need to pay any 3* cover. Not necessarily advocating that as an idea, but it would satisfy the requirement.

Unknown

I mentioned something similar to this in a post I...posted today. I agree that there should be SOME way to unlock covers that you need besides the random tokens. This became very apparent to me after The Hulk event. I got a Gamma Bomb or Powered up token for almost every quest, side quest, whatever and only ended up with 3 *** covers. I'm not sure the exact number of tokens I got but I'm pretty sure it was over 50. That's about a 6% chance to get a *** cover (though I may just have terrible luck) and I honestly put a lot of time into the events for very little rewards cover wise. The ISO is great, but if you don't have the covers you need it doesn't help as much.

Additionally, I think the increase in *** characters is making a bigger gap between those who pay hundreds of dollars to increase skills and those who don't. It's getting more challenging to pull covers you need since the pool is getting larger. While the idea of a market and/or trading covers seems good I could see how it could break the mechanics and make drawing good cards even lower.

Here are a few solutions I have thought of:
1. Let people save their tokens and use them to unlock higher skill slots. For example, I could have saved 20 of my Gamma/Powered up tokens to move from Spiderman Blue level 2 to Blue Level three. It would work like HP but with tokens instead. With this solution people would have different options to unlock their skills. They could pay a hundred dollars to boost their character (I saw a thread before where the guy figured out the costs), take their chances at random pulls, or save their coins to boost a particular character they want. Whenever you got a token you could think "should I take the chance or save it for what I REALLY want." A nice risk vs patience metagame Plus, it wouldn't give people who pay a huge advantage.
2. To build on on Mischief's idea have a rare(ish) coin that is JUST for *** characters. Maybe make it a reward for some of the harder Hulk missions and have it purchasable in the store. This way you could spend money on it like you can heroic coins or win it. It would still be random in who you got but at least you could know you are getting a good character.
3. Make more coins like the IM40 coins (and I thik there was a Spiderman coin too) but for different characters. It would be great to see a coin devoted just to BWG or Hulk etc. Again, these could be given out less frequently.

I feel like none of these options would "flood" the market with *** but it would give people a little bit more of a chance. I am sure the devs are aware of this since it does seem like the top players (and those who pay) are going to get further and further ahead leaving the rest of the people unable to catch up.

Nemek

I think being able to trade covers would almost completely destroy the game.

Progression would increase 100 fold, which might sound like the greatest thing ever for low level players, but it will ultimately bore everybody. We are already seeing a bunch of high level players leaving the game because there is so very little to play for once you have all the covers.

DD-The-Mighty

In addition to alot of these suggestions, perhaps doing away with matching abilites and allowing the player to match any cover that shared the same character. Ie a 3 star logan could match witrh a 1star logan for 1 point/star akak 1starx3= 3star x1. basically meter the abilites and turn covers into a currency. and as it is now if you dont have matching characters or wish to keep the cover to play with, you can liquidate it for crystals.

I also would love to see a locked-in developer controlled cover trade/value system. Ive seen too too many free markets get cursed with greedy cash shop hoarders and unreasonable sellar/buyer assestmens of what is "valuabe" or "rare".

Spoit

They do, you get 100/125/150+25 to trade them in, and you can buy covers at 500 HP for 2*s and 1250 for 3*s

Unknown

Spoit wrote:

They do, you get 100/125/150+25 to trade them in, and you can buy covers at 500 HP for 2*s and 1250 for 3*s

You are correct that this currently is the system but I think what the other posters were saying was they would like to see feature added where you can put an large supply of unneeded covers to good use... For example now you have to turn in 5 1* to get purchase a recruit token. The current risk vs reward for such an action don't make it truly viable solution. And how many people are going to turn in 20 3* characters to get a chance at a heroic token? Or 50 3* to get a 3* skill. What others were saying is they would like to see SOME way to turn a whole bunch of unusable covers into something that is guaranteed to be better. As it is, the probability of getting something worse for what you are turning in is far more likely then getting something better then what you have. Turning in 2*s for ISO and buying a recruit ticket is like turning in 100 dollars for a chance to win 10 dollars.... With a SLIGHT chance to get your money back or make a little more. How many people want to take THAT bet? *** maybe a slight exaggeration to make a point** but the truth is ISO is far more valuable for leveling then for a chance at something worse.

Unknown

Nemek wrote:

I think being able to trade covers would almost completely destroy the game.

Progrqession would increase 100 fold, which might sound like the greatest thing ever for low level players, but it will ultimately bore everybody. We are already seeing a bunch of high level players leaving the game because there is so very little to play for once you have all the covers.

This. Plus, they have to make money for the game to continue. Why would anyone buy covers if they could trade for them?