The message I'm getting from D3: Don't buy Hero Points

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Zifna
Zifna Posts: 170 Tile Toppler
edited November 2014 in MPQ General Discussion
Not everyone who has expanded their alliance is X-Men or S.H.I.E.L.D, and has recouped countless covers and thousands of hero points. Even if they were, every member of those alliances benefited equally but not every one paid equally.

What about alliances like mine, who stayed (barely) in top 100 for a month but found the stress to be too much and have become a "friendly" alliance? The few commanders haven't come close to making back their hero point investment. What about alliances who haven't made it to 20 slots yet, but have been slowly expanding for a while and are now at 17ish slots?

D3, Hero points are a digital good. There is nothing keeping you from giving us partial (or total!) recompense, and rewarding our investment in your game and company. I understand why you're giving everyone 20 slots, but your decision effectively punishes those who've invested in your game to reward those who've invested less.

How do you think my fellow commanders and I will react the next time you put something in the game to spend Hero Points on? Do you think we'll leap on-board? Or do you think we'll keep our money close and counsel others to do the same?

Take a page from the book of other game makers. When you take something from your players that they paid for (in this case, an exclusive advantage)... GIVE SOMETHING BACK.
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Comments

  • GuntherBlobel
    GuntherBlobel Posts: 987 Critical Contributor
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    Zifna wrote:
    D3, Hero points are a digital good. There is nothing keeping you from giving us partial (or total!) recompense, and rewarding our investment in your game and company. I understand why you're giving everyone 20 slots, but your decision effectively punishes those who've invested in your game to reward those who've invested less.

    I totally agree that Demiurge is a group of silly, silly business people to not give away freebies (of no real cost) that would keep their customers happy. It's obvious, right?

    I think of my MPQ purchases the same way I think about my NPR and Wikipedia donations: payment for past enjoyment and future availability; that's all. I really suggest that people see all these P2W purchases for what they are: bait and switch gimmicks.

    Not you, but other players, talk of "investing" HP as if they are purchasing a resalable commodity, or some sort of stock with a predictable rate of return and dividend. They seem to not understand that by design, HP purchases quickly devalue to maintain demand (by adding more powerful characters, etc). Alliances slots and winnings are no different.
  • Pwuz_
    Pwuz_ Posts: 1,213 Chairperson of the Boards
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    I made this suggestion in the thread announcing the change, but I think it deserves to be repeated.

    Make the purchased Alliance slots bonuses. I know that doesn't make any sense, but bare with me.

    New Alliance of 20 members, for X amount of HP, a commander can upgrade a single slot into a bonus slot. On the daily reward, if this player played that day, they dish out bonus Iso! So if you upgrade to have a single Bonus Slot, and all 20 members play, 19 players all provide 10 Iso at the Daily Reward, but the upgraded player provides 20 Iso. This can be upgraded to a maximum of all 20 members, thus paying out 400 Iso per day rather than 200.

    Now, for all old Alliances formed prior to the update, we automatically get as many Bonus Slots as we had unlocked previously! So a 20 man alliance automatically is fully upgraded and dishes out double Iso to all members at the Daily Reward.

    This would be easy to implement (I think), and offer a clear benefit to those of us who spent our hard earned HP to upgrade our Alliances. It would even incentivize players to upgrade their Alliances beyond what they currently have. Why can't we upgrade our alliances even further to triple or even quadruple Iso pay outs? There should be a limit of course, but I think we can all agree that once you are into 3* territory, Iso becomes a valuable commodity and any extra source of it is very welcome.
  • _RiO_
    _RiO_ Posts: 1,047 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Love the idea that Pwuz_ suggested.

    It doesn't completely devalue the HP invested into an alliance by switching over purchased slots into bonus multipliers.
    Meanwhile said multipliers provide a nice, but not game-breaking, bonus.
  • IReallyHatePVP
    IReallyHatePVP Posts: 254
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    I think you might have meant "Don't spend your Hero Points".

    D3 ALWAYS wants us to by spideycoin.png , but to those who spent imcoin.png on slots... icon_e_confused.gif
  • IlDuderino
    IlDuderino Posts: 427 Mover and Shaker
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    Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

    I won't be spending any more on this game.
  • IamTheDanger
    IamTheDanger Posts: 1,093 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Best suggestion I heard so far was a slots for slots kind of deal. For every 5 alliance slots a player purchased, they should get 1 free roster slot.
  • BearVenger
    BearVenger Posts: 453 Mover and Shaker
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    I'm sure it's discussed in another thread already, but D3 knows exactly who spent how many HP on which alliance slots.

    There's no reason they can't pick an arbitrary date and refund any alliance slot purchase from that date on. There's no approximation needed on this one.
  • madsalad
    madsalad Posts: 815 Critical Contributor
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    I came to the board and signed up specifically to ask about vetting my Hero points back for all the slots I bought and the alliance I started.

    I gave up numerous new character slots in order to build this alliance and now it was all wasted. I would like my Hero points back now please.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
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    BearVenger wrote:
    I'm sure it's discussed in another thread already, but D3 knows exactly who spent how many HP on which alliance slots.

    There's no reason they can't pick an arbitrary date and refund any alliance slot purchase from that date on. There's no approximation needed on this one.

    This.

    No reason why they can't credit us back the HP for slots purchased. I'm not asking for money back, just HP.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
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    madsalad wrote:
    I came to the board and signed up specifically to ask about vetting my Hero points back for all the slots I bought and the alliance I started.

    I gave up numerous new character slots in order to build this alliance and now it was all wasted. I would like my Hero points back now please.
    Yep I joined this board to ask the exact same thing. Its bad enough to have saved up Hero Points to have increased slots, which many of us did; but some actually spent MONEY on Hero Points just to increase slots and now it was basically all for nothing. There needs to be some method for compensation. Either give people their Hero Points back, or give them some bonus for the amount of slots they purchased, similar to Pwuz_'s suggestion.
  • GuntherBlobel
    GuntherBlobel Posts: 987 Critical Contributor
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    Does anyone remember what amount of Iso used to be awarded to each player in an Alliance as the daily award when Alliances were first introduced? I want to say it was 50, and then once people started buying up to 20 slots it was quickly brought down to just 10.

    This isn't the first time people got the old bait and switch after buying Alliance slots, is it? Did Demiurge acknowledge that change or compensate players?

    I'm sorry if I'm just fanning the flames here, but I'm curious.
  • _RiO_
    _RiO_ Posts: 1,047 Chairperson of the Boards
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    GuntherBlobel wrote:
    Does anyone remember what amount of Iso used to be awarded to each player in an Alliance as the daily award when Alliances were first introduced? I want to say it was 50, and then once people started buying up to 20 slots it was quickly brought down to just 10.

    This isn't the first time people got the old bait and switch after buying Alliance slots, is it? Did Demiurge acknowledge that change or compensate players?

    I'm sorry if I'm just fanning the flames here, but I'm curious.

    In the entirity of the game's existence, the playerbase at large has received compensation once and only once; a paltry sum of HP that wouldn't even buy an established roster a single roster slot. And that was to compensate for over 3 weeks of continued down time, bursts of intermittent service interruption, progression and placement scores 'sticking' and not updating correctly, event rewards not being handed out correctly (or at all), and god knows what other issues due to the game's servers being powered by hamsters in wheels.

    Stingy is the word here.
  • Pwuz_
    Pwuz_ Posts: 1,213 Chairperson of the Boards
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    GuntherBlobel wrote:
    Does anyone remember what amount of Iso used to be awarded to each player in an Alliance as the daily award when Alliances were first introduced? I want to say it was 50, and then once people started buying up to 20 slots it was quickly brought down to just 10.

    Zero, when I started my Alliance, we were awarded ZERO Iso for your alliance mates playing each day. I think it came fairly quickly after, definitely by April 11th. I remember since it was the only way I could track if my Alliance mates had played that day, and I was out of town that weekend and thought I wouldn't be able to play (still found some time to squeeze in a couple matches.)
  • GuntherBlobel
    GuntherBlobel Posts: 987 Critical Contributor
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    Pwuz_ wrote:
    GuntherBlobel wrote:
    Does anyone remember what amount of Iso used to be awarded to each player in an Alliance as the daily award when Alliances were first introduced? I want to say it was 50, and then once people started buying up to 20 slots it was quickly brought down to just 10.

    Zero, when I started my Alliance, we were awarded ZERO Iso for your alliance mates playing each day. I think it came fairly quickly after, definitely by April 11th. I remember since it was the only way I could track if my Alliance mates had played that day, and I was out of town that weekend and thought I wouldn't be able to play (still found some time to squeeze in a couple matches.)
    Ah, ok! I wonder what I was thinking... In any case, at least they managed expectations well with that one.
  • Raffoon
    Raffoon Posts: 884
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    Yup, I'll be voting with my wallet. Until people who've spent money on D3's beta test of the alliance system get something back in return, I won't be spending another penny on this game.

    P.S. I never spent money on alliance slots myself.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
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    Zifna wrote:
    What about alliances who haven't made it to 20 slots yet, but have been slowly expanding for a while and are now at 17ish slots?

    D3, Hero points are a digital good. There is nothing keeping you from giving us partial (or total!) recompense, and rewarding our investment in your game and company. I understand why you're giving everyone 20 slots, but your decision effectively punishes those who've invested in your game to reward those who've invested less.

    When you take something from your players that they paid for (in this case, an exclusive advantage)... GIVE SOMETHING BACK.


    THIS!
  • turborunner
    turborunner Posts: 12
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    It would be fair if they gave those that purchased alliance slots 1 roster slot for every alliance slot purchased as roster slots cost alot less than alliance slots.

    This is more a feasible solution as it doesn't require modifying the game for those bonus slots.

    and it should be done automatically than commanders having to submit a ticket. With a note stating think you for purchasing alliance slots in the past as an appreciation here are # roster slots for the alliance slots you have purchased. we hope you invest in the many features of this game in the future....
  • Unknown
    Unknown
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    The message should be that spending money on this game is a waste.... unless you enjoy the feeling of being ripped off. The alliance change doesn't effect me, but I'd be pissed as all hell if I threw down money to open an alliance. Decisions like this are why I put the game down for 2-3 months. MPQ is laughing all the way to the bank.
  • Pwuz_
    Pwuz_ Posts: 1,213 Chairperson of the Boards
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    turborunner wrote:
    It would be fair if they gave those that purchased alliance slots 1 roster slot for every alliance slot purchased as roster slots cost alot less than alliance slots.

    This is more a feasible solution as it doesn't require modifying the game for those bonus slots.

    and it should be done automatically than commanders having to submit a ticket. With a note stating think you for purchasing alliance slots in the past as an appreciation here are # roster slots for the alliance slots you have purchased. we hope you invest in the many features of this game in the future....

    I like that idea A LOT!!! Since I was avoiding buying roster slots, that is exactly what I used my compensation HP for. 8 slots (Ok, I actually only got half of that, but I had been nearly at 2000 HP for my final Alliance slot when this announcement was made,) is good, but I would have much preferred 14!
  • Zifna
    Zifna Posts: 170 Tile Toppler
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    I submitted a ticket anyway, although we are far beyond the 1-week deadline, as did one of my co-commanders. While I believe my ticket is still open, he received a response that I found truly upsetting.

    In essence it said, "You've had the slot for a while so you've probably made back the hero points you spent."

    Ridiculous! Even if he has "made back" the hero points, he put DOLLARS into the game to buy those hero points. He didn't intentionally put dollars in to go zero-sum on hero points, and neither did I or anyone else who put cash into this game. I put cash into this game for what appeared to be a sustained advantage not acquirable any other way. I didn't just trade cash for hero points for no reason...!

    The ridiculousness of this response is superbly disingenuous and frustrating.

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