All Alliances Increasing To 20 Member Slots

Unknown

Sandmaker wrote:

It's funny, the main reason for the backlash is that the free slots came too quickly. They were too generous too quick. They could've easily done something more gradual and got away scot-free.

For example, introduce "Alliance Slot" tokens as low end alliance rewards. Alliances that don't win a cover, gets a token (or half a token). It would've had the exact same effect as eventually giving everyone a 20 man alliance. However, people wouldn't feel like they got robbed, because their purchase becomes obsolete very slowly, and the smaller alliances still have to "earn" the new slots. Which is psychologically more acceptable.

It also leaves alliance slots opens as a monetization option for people who are too impatient to wait 15 tournaments to max out the alliance. So a win for the business too.

Instead of 15 pages of people asking for refunds, they would've probably gotten a couple threads thanking them for throwing the little guys a bone.

Although it's popular to make the analogy of how you can cook a frog by slowly increasing the temperature, this doensn't actually work (the frog will eventually notice the water is too hot) and it doesn't work on humans either. People at some point is going to realize that the money they spent on alliances is rapidly devalued, not to mention rolling out the solution piecemeal just means you're likely to get more haters each step. There's also the problem that the previous alliance structure likely hurts the bottom line as players may perceive the game being unfairly biased toward those who spent HP on alliances and just quit altogether. In the end, you reap what you sow. It was never a good idea to tie success in game to P2W elements that aren't even related to progression. That is, if we have Platinum Sentry that'd be P2W but at least you can say it's an ongoing character progression, but it's hard to justify how having a bigger alliance is some kind of character progression. They have to pay up for their mistakes at some point and it was never going to be pretty when the time of reckoning comes.

Unknown

The more that I think about it the more that I like the solution that came up earlier, for those slots that have not gotten a refund, convert that amount to an alliance improvement fund. these points could also be bought for an amount of HP.

This fund could do things such as:
Buy additional ranks. (above the 2 that are normal)
Increase the daily Iso reward.
Add additional rewards to the daily play (such as a boost)
Increase the amount of teamups able to send
Reduce the time the teamups are away
etc...

This could be a win/win It would bring back the good will of those that were affected, and allow for customization of the alliances.

Granted, there would probably be the top alliances that max out their options, but that is the case anyway.

Unknown

dragma wrote:

The more that I think about it the more that I like the solution that came up earlier, for those slots that have not gotten a refund, convert that amount to an alliance improvement fund. these points could also be bought for an amount of HP.

This fund could do things such as:
Buy additional ranks. (above the 2 that are normal)
Increase the daily Iso reward.
Add additional rewards to the daily play (such as a boost)
Increase the amount of teamups able to send
Reduce the time the teamups are away
etc...

This could be a win/win It would bring back the good will of those that were affected, and allow for customization of the alliances.

Granted, there would probably be the top alliances that max out their options, but that is the case anyway.

But that'd require there to be plans to expand the alliance system in the first place.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

dragma wrote:

The more that I think about it the more that I like the solution that came up earlier, for those slots that have not gotten a refund, convert that amount to an alliance improvement fund. these points could also be bought for an amount of HP.

This fund could do things such as:
Buy additional ranks. (above the 2 that are normal)
Increase the daily Iso reward.
Add additional rewards to the daily play (such as a boost)
Increase the amount of teamups able to send
Reduce the time the teamups are away
etc...

This could be a win/win It would bring back the good will of those that were affected, and allow for customization of the alliances.

Granted, there would probably be the top alliances that max out their options, but that is the case anyway.

But that'd require there to be plans to expand the alliance system in the first place.

One can always hope.

Pwuz_

Phantron wrote:

dragma wrote:

The more that I think about it the more that I like the solution that came up earlier, for those slots that have not gotten a refund, convert that amount to an alliance improvement fund. these points could also be bought for an amount of HP.

This fund could do things such as:
Buy additional ranks. (above the 2 that are normal)
Increase the daily Iso reward.
Add additional rewards to the daily play (such as a boost)
Increase the amount of teamups able to send
Reduce the time the teamups are away
etc...

This could be a win/win It would bring back the good will of those that were affected, and allow for customization of the alliances.

Granted, there would probably be the top alliances that max out their options, but that is the case anyway.

But that'd require there to be plans to expand the alliance system in the first place.

What? Like F2P games ever have enough ways to spend in game currency that can be slowly earned or bought in bulk for Real world money?

I have been noticing a distinct lack of customizable cosmetic hats for my characters in MPQ.

Phumade

jzahm wrote:

received this response today:

D3PA Customer Support wrote:

Thank you for contacting D3P Customer Support.

We are sorry to see that you are frustrated and upset. However, please be aware that continuing to use profanity or insults can lead to your ticket being closed without a response.

That being said, we are currently in the middle of addressing this issue as we can see the MPQ playing community finds it rather discomforting. Please be patient and we will eventually release an update on the situation.

If you have any further questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us again.

Best Regards,
D3Publisher Customer Support Team (AJG)

i guess this is a step in the right direction, but i'm not holding my breath.

I just had to laugh when I read the "MPQ playing community finds it rather discomforting." LOL I work at a ski school and I"m gonna try and work that line in when I deal with angry parents

Deathclaw

dragma wrote:

Phantron wrote:

dragma wrote:

The more that I think about it the more that I like the solution that came up earlier, for those slots that have not gotten a refund, convert that amount to an alliance improvement fund. these points could also be bought for an amount of HP.

This fund could do things such as:
Buy additional ranks. (above the 2 that are normal)
Increase the daily Iso reward.
Add additional rewards to the daily play (such as a boost)
Increase the amount of teamups able to send
Reduce the time the teamups are away
etc...

This could be a win/win It would bring back the good will of those that were affected, and allow for customization of the alliances.

Granted, there would probably be the top alliances that max out their options, but that is the case anyway.

But that'd require there to be plans to expand the alliance system in the first place.

One can always hope.

See, this is the problem. I don't hope that at all. If there is one thing this has taught me, its that I shouldn't invest any money in anything for the community or for my alliance as a whole, I should just hope someone else spends the money or that the improvements will eventually be extended to everyone free of charge. My ultimate reward for fostering a community and getting my friends into an alliance was the warm fuzzy feeling of throwing my HP into a black hole. Why would I ever want to spend HP on things that don't simply directly benefit me ever again?

absolut821

Got another email back.

Thank you for your email in regards to the recent change in Alliance slots.

D3 is investigating the issue and they will reach a decision regarding compensation soon.

Until then please keep an eye on the D3 Forums for further updates:

http://www.d3pforums.com/

If you have any further questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us again.

Best Regards,
D3Publisher Customer Support Team (AJG)

I like that they got a plug for the forums in there. I say keep it up. Keep letting the Devs know that this frustrates most people.

esoxnepa

absolut821 wrote:

Got another email back.
Thank you for your email in regards to the recent change in Alliance slots.
D3 is investigating the issue and they will reach a decision regarding compensation soon.
...
I like that they got a plug for the forums in there. I say keep it up. Keep letting the Devs know that this frustrates most people.

Nice to see you got a better email back. I got the "you've received plenty of rewards for your slot expansion," even while I know I never saw anything close to payback on the 5 slots I bought. Heck, I abandoned that alliance after seeing that expanding the 5 wasn't ever going to pay back, and joined a 20 man (Top 250) alliance. Even in the top 250, I don't think I earned enough bonus HP to yet pay off those 5 slots.

I don't think it would bother me so much if they apologized as opposed to using terrible math. Sure top 100s paid off, but I don't think its paid off for the rest.

Unknown

Well, now this thread has been unlocked, interesting.

I hope they are not hopeing that the issue will die, of maybe this is because they have an announcement incoming.

GiantKiller2p

I'm not really sure which thread on the subject the devs might actually read so I'll put this multiple places. Refunding HP to alliance commanders who spent it on alliance slots isn't a matter of return on investment. It's a matter of keeping up good will with a significant number of players who spent money on HP to help build their alliance communities, and now they see the same thing they spent HP on being given away for nothing. Unsurprisingly, that's left a lot of players feeling screwed.

Why's it important to keep up good will with paying alliance commanders? Chances are, these are the type of people who will spend more money on the game in the future if you keep them happy and involved. But if they feel like you're just holding them upside down and shaking as many coins as you can out of their pockets, they're much less likely to spend. Taking a look at the poll in the other thread, I don't see many commanders asking for a refund of the money they spent to buy the HP they used to expand the alliance. For the most part, it seems like they'd just like to be able to spend that HP on something else - covers, tokens, roster space - anything D3P isn't giving away to other people for free.

Right or wrong, justified or not, leaving alliance commanders feeling like they got screwed by spending HP on alliance slots is sure to drive paying players away.

"Don't drive away paying customers" seems like an important goal from a business standpoint.

-GK

Vohnkar

dragma wrote:

Well, now this thread has been unlocked, interesting.

I hope they are not hopeing that the issue will die, of maybe this is because they have an announcement incoming.

I suppose they though this post would be a post of "thank you", "this is great", etc, because of course they didn't think about the people who spend a lot of money to get nothing. The thing is that I like to have alliances at 20 for everyone, but its a kick in the *** to see how they don't value their paying customers.

I still hope that they rethink this and compensate us somehow.

absolut821

"David wrote:

Moore"]Hello everyone,

There's been a good deal of healthy discussion this week about the recent expanding of Alliance sizes for everyone and we wanted to provide you with an update.

An Explanation And Apology

Firstly, we apologize that the change came about with only a few days notice. Honestly, we were a bit surprised by some of the more negative reactions to the announcement. It's our belief that expanding the default Alliance size to 20 for all players is a positive improvement and ultimately benefits all Marvel Puzzle Quest players. The default member size of 20 also opens up possibilities for fun gameplay in the future. We failed to mention this as part of our reasoning behind the change and for that too, we apologize. We'll do our best to communicate with you better as we move forward.

Hero Point Refunds

As we stated previously, for folks who expanded their Alliances (beyond 5 slots) at any time during the month of October, 2014 - we will be returning any Hero Points they spent on expanding Alliance roster slots.

Additionally, we will be expanding the Hero Point refund to include ALL players who opened additional Alliance member slots (beyond 5) since we began offering the feature.

We hope to be able to begin offering the Hero Point refunds late next week. There's some back-end tech involved in making this happen that we're still getting in place. You won’t need to submit a ticket to Customer Service, you’ll simply see the refunds in-game. We'll make an announcement here in the forums when we begin issuing the Hero Point refunds.

Thanks very much for your passion, loyalty and support. It means a lot to us!

If I'm reading that correctly they will be doing the right thing and refunding all HP spent on increasing the roster. Well done community and thank you for listening Devs.

Unknown

was about to do what you did there, looks like the unstickying was for an announcement.