Let's talk about roster slots

veneretio

-- deleted more appropriate response below, forgive my newbness --

veneretio

Weird my comment on this appears to have not posted... here goes again.

I've been playing for 66 days. Roster slots have become a huge deal. The last few weeks I'd say every other day I'm faced with the issue of which 3 star character to give up on. I don't see this issue going away anytime soon.

Here's why:

1. It's clear from my research here that you need a deep 2* lineup to progress in this game. I have one and it definitely works, but of course that means even less slots for 3*.

2. The cost doesn't feel right. I really enjoy this game. And I make a point of spending money on any free to play game that I enjoy because I think the developers have earned it. However, I have to feel like I'm getting something, not that I'm making a donation. 6 dollars for 2 roster slots is not fair compensation for me.

3. Cover balancing makes min-maxing impossible. In most games, I appreciate an effort my the developers to balance the game. I don't in this one because my limited roster features a number of 3* already that are considered weak or mid power level with numerous covers. So I'm faced with the ugly choice of cutting what is considered a strong 3* with 1 cover vs a weak 3* with 3 covers. (now if I suddenly had tons of roster slots, I'd be back to enjoying cover balancing again)

4. The random event requiring the use of a 1* cover. If this continues to be a trend then now I suddenly have to give up 1, realistically 2 slots for 1* characters. This one I especially can't opt out of because it represents the best opportunity a new player like me has to score high in the rankings as people with better lineups don't want to delete a character to make room for a 1*.

So... solutions?

Well obviously the HP cost of buying roster slots could go down. Personally, I think the best win-win situation to ensure developers get paid is add a 1 time payment option to buy roster slots for much, much cheaper. Like say, 10 roster slots for 5 dollars. Doing something like this you'd allow new players to immediately keep up with the game. Not to mention, I'm sure you'd get the majority of your serious long time players going "why not?" since then they could spend more of their gold on shields, health packs, etc

Anyway just a thought. Really enjoying the game. Figured I'd share a newbie perspective.

mjh

for all those that wanted an option lower than 500 there is an "other, commented below" option

Taganov

I voted cap at 500, but if the release pace and token dilution rates keep up, then I'd say 350-400.

dider152

I voted 600. In order to have this work out, you have to make it attractive for D3 as well. I think 600 sits at around the sweet spot. I think putting a cap on slots (and refunding the HP spent over the slot calculation when all is said and done) will go a long way to improving the outlook of players towards this game. It will make things more fair. It's also unrealistic to make people feel like they should decide who they want to keep and who needs to go. I think I actually read that a developer at D3 said this. If I was a collector I would be pissed, and if I was on the developer team and actually worked on that character, I would be pissed, as well.

esoxnepa

I think the frustration over roster slot prices is more over the very limited amount of HP you can earn in a week.

What HP cost to cap it at, I'm not sure, but for the first 30 or so roster slots, you should be able to earn enough HP in a week to open the slot. I also don't mean just the very top players. I believe the regular players should be able to feel they can, with some effort, earn a roster slot for a character within the 6 days they are on their bench.

So I'd say cap roster slots around the price of a 3* cover at 1250, but make sure people can earn that 1250 HP in 1-2 weeks. Also, by increasing the HP earning rate, new players will learn which characters are worth keeping before they start hitting the wall of hard choices, and established players will be able to purchase more covers for a variety of builds.

If they decide to cap roster slot prices, I bet it will be high.

Free to play is going to become a harder and harder choice. When they removed HP from the standard tokens and the ability to sell 3* covers for HP, a statement was made around how HP should be obtained.

One other aspect, is the design interconnection of players not keeping all characters, and therefore have enough ISo-8 to level the ones they choose to keep. I know I want to have all the characters at playable levels. The game is designed around this NOT being an option.

Unknown

Alors are way too expensive If we considered ththey add so much caractère. How can We follow ? ... Except paying more

JamieMadrox

This thread is TL so I DR, but here is my take:

• Make roster slots for characters that you don't already have free.
• Charge a significant amount of HP (500 - 1000) per slot for characters that you already have one copy of in your roster.
• Profit.

There would also need to be safeguards in place to prevent abuse of the system. The simplest being that the HP cost is charged when the character is recruited, not when the slot is opened. Also, those roster slots that are purchased for duplicate characters are permanently reserved for duplicate characters. So if you sell the character in it, but then recruit another character that is a duplicate of one already in your roster, you don't pay again.

Also, refund me all the HP I spent on roster slots please.

tanis3303

As of now, I have all 59 characters, because I'm an obsessive collector. I don't love the price of slots, but I didn't really mind paying it as I could generally keep up with the cost with hp earned by playing. Since the shield cooldown implementation however, hp is a much more precious commodity to me now, since I think instead of earning choice covers thru shield hops and such, my only real option is to flat out buy covers I need, especially 4*s. That's 2500 hp a pop, so looking at the 750 hp it's going to cost me to add squirrel girl looks a LOT less appealing now. That's almost 1/3 the cost of a precious blue 4 thor cover...

I'd have less of a problem giving up my Pokemon Master status and saying goodbye to a few unused 1* and 2* cards if events like Balance of Power, Combined Arms and various other one-off events didn't exist, not to mention heroic pve's. And what if they bring back the commons only pvp?? If we as players are "not supposed to collect every character" (which is just silly imo, why wouldn't you want people to want all of your characters?) then we need to get rid of the incentive to have these characters. I like Jamie's idea, free or at least drastically reduced prices for characters you don't already have, and a premium cost for adding a 2nd copy of a character to your squad. Especially if they're going to continue spewing characters out at this rate. Seriously devs, why aren't we supposed to want all of your characters? Doesn't that's kind of fly in the face of y'all making so many characters in the first place?

mjh

added more options. It deleted the previous results (500 was winning) but it doesn't matter because it's clear we want it cheaper than that

jackstar0

I said 200. That, to me, is a reasonable amount that someone can earn by playing, but you have to take is a bit seriously to get there.

babinro

Here's the major problem with this 'discussion'...

You might as well be asking what sort of cap should we be placing on your hourly earnings.
- $15.00 an hour
- Minimum wage
- Half of minimum wage
- Quarter of minimum wage
- Tenth of minimum wage

With all the shareholders voting to lower wages to improve their stock prices.

Roster slots are D3's main source or revenue. Asking the players to vote on what they should be capped at puts no consideration on the impact of D3's earnings or feasibility to even run this game.

In fact, I can absolutely guarantee you that a roster cap will lead to forced HP refunds since this is an issue that would impact substantially more players than the alliance cap did last year.

If you do indeed choose to cap roster slots at say 500hp (my assumed winner in this vote)...what then do you propose we change in game to ensure long term profitability in this free to play game?

I think the core problem with this issue is that we the players don't have the metrics or information to speak intelligently on this issue.

I can say that reducing the cap to 500 hp will reduce revenue from whales and increase revenue from the larger casual player base because the game is more accessible. This sounds all fine and good but for all I know the reality of this change would bankrupt D3 in 6 months...

Roswulf

I went with 200, although I feel that the very idea of paying for roster slots is incompatible with the rest of MPQ's design. The system is structured around providing a burst of satisfaction when the player wins a cover for a new rare character- especially with the golden glint of a token paying off- but because of the roster prices I actively dread opening new characters. That's the kind of discordant experience that drives people away.

But I went with 200, because that's the amount of Hero Points you get for a Bugle Pittance. I think there's a lot of money for d3 in putting the cost of a roster slot at such a appealing impulse buy level. Who could resist plunking down a couple bucks to retain a character?

El Satanno

babinro wrote:

Roster slots are D3's main source of revenue. Asking the players to vote on what they should be capped at puts no consideration on the impact of D3's earnings or feasibility to even run this game.

In fact, I can absolutely guarantee you that a roster cap will lead to forced HP refunds since this is an issue that would impact substantially more players than the alliance cap did last year.

If you do indeed choose to cap roster slots at say 500hp (my assumed winner in this vote)...what then do you propose we change in game to ensure long term profitability in this free to play game?

I think the core problem with this issue is that we the players don't have the metrics or information to speak intelligently on this issue.

This guy/girl has nailed it. We've heard from the devs that roster slots and cover tokens (inexplicably) are the primary source of revenue, by a friggin' mile. If anything is going to be done at all, it's going to have to be cleverly done to ensure people keep paying proper money for them. I voted for 600 because that's high enough that you won't be earning enough HP in-game to buy a slot in pace with the new releases without putting some real effort in. All signs point to that pace of release being here to stay, so there you go.

On another note, before we start worrying about D3's bottom line on the issue, let's not forget that they pulled a real **** move with roster slots already: bundled slots up to slot #10 or #15 or so. I have a good friend and alliance mate who started just before that bundle change, and it has hurt him so badly in terms of ditching covers that he almost quit several times over it. New players not only have the most to gain from new covers, they are simply inundated with characters they need and are the least likely to be able to earn HP to keep them. That bundle idea is a great big middle finger to your new players.

CNash

I'm at 44 slots and am actively avoiding recruiting new characters because the roster slot cost is so high - and I know that every new slot I buy just worsens the problem. I don't think that 1 cover in a new 3* is worth the outlay of more than 600 HP when it won't become useful for many months as I slowly grind away in events and build up my covers.

For example, I'd like Squirrel Girl, but I don't want her because I'll need a new slot for her, and I won't see any benefits to having her (aside from being able to complete essential PVE nodes) for a long while.

mjh

El Satanno wrote:

babinro wrote:

Roster slots are D3's main source of revenue. Asking the players to vote on what they should be capped at puts no consideration on the impact of D3's earnings or feasibility to even run this game.

In fact, I can absolutely guarantee you that a roster cap will lead to forced HP refunds since this is an issue that would impact substantially more players than the alliance cap did last year.

If you do indeed choose to cap roster slots at say 500hp (my assumed winner in this vote)...what then do you propose we change in game to ensure long term profitability in this free to play game?

I think the core problem with this issue is that we the players don't have the metrics or information to speak intelligently on this issue.

This guy/girl has nailed it. We've heard from the devs that roster slots and cover tokens (inexplicably) are the primary source of revenue, by a friggin' mile. If anything is going to be done at all, it's going to have to be cleverly done to ensure people keep paying proper money for them. I voted for 600 because that's high enough that you won't be earning enough HP in-game to buy a slot in pace with the new releases without putting some real effort in. All signs point to that pace of release being here to stay, so there you go.

On another note, before we start worrying about D3's bottom line on the issue, let's not forget that they pulled a real **** move with roster slots already: bundled slots up to slot #10 or #15 or so. I have a good friend and alliance mate who started just before that bundle change, and it has hurt him so badly in terms of ditching covers that he almost quit several times over it. New players not only have the most to gain from new covers, they are simply inundated with characters they need and are the least likely to be able to earn HP to keep them. That bundle idea is a great big middle finger to your new players.

while I can't disagree with those points, the underlying issue still remains. Exponentially rising roster slot costs are out of hand. They hinder roster diversity which lead to an overall bad gaming experience. With characters being released every 2 weeks the problem will only get worse as time goes on. There has to be another solution.

If a roster slot cap isn't the answer, please vote "other" and comment your suggestion

slidecage

CNash wrote:

I'm at 44 slots and am actively avoiding recruiting new characters because the roster slot cost is so high - and I know that every new slot I buy just worsens the problem. I don't think that 1 cover in a new 3* is worth the outlay of more than 600 HP when it won't become useful for many months as I slowly grind away in events and build up my covers.

For example, I'd like Squirrel Girl, but I don't want her because I'll need a new slot for her, and I won't see any benefits to having her (aside from being able to complete essential PVE nodes) for a long while.

that is what im doing now with 37 slots. Win the new person in the PVE and just keep them for the next PVE where its needed and then really think about keeping or dumping. Just playing pve say 6 nods per event each event is a week (so 4 events a month) 4 nods should get 25 coins (100 coins) 50 coins for rank at end. 100 coins for team rank at end 250 per week. would give me 1000 a month what means 2 would stay and 2 would leave, until i get up to the 700 pt range then it will be 1 says and 3 leaves .

right now thinking dumping flamie and i.women to open up 2 slots , S girl will remain in my slots since i have like 6 or 7 covers for them

mjh

this issue has only become worse with every new character release.

As much as I appreciate the video Q&A session, Deadpool Daily quest (as great as it is) is not the answer to roster slot prices. At all. It's a terrible answer to a terrible problem.

Fix this.

Unknown

Someone in another post had a great idea, to make the slot prices depending on the star rarity of the character.
1* 25 hp
2* 150 hp
3* 400 hp
4* 700 hp
Per slot

mjh

Yet again another character release on the horizon. This issue is not solved. DDQ is not the solution. It's barely a band-aid fix.