FREE Roster Slots (Or Reduced Pricing)

Unknown

Given the recent accelerated rate of releasing new characters lately, how would everyone feel if D3P reduces the cost of roster slots (or give out free roster slots)?

This would be similar to what happened to with the all new alliances will have 20 slots for free (followed by D3P backtracking and apologizing and then finally caving into public pressure and reimbursing HP).

What does everyone think? Will you vets feel complain that the newbies get reduced roster slot pricing? Would you ask for a refund?

Unknown

This came up recently somewhere, but I suppose it's deserving of it's own thread.

I would personally not want/care about a refund of existing roster slots. If D3 decided everyone should have 100 characters tomorrow, and you only pay for over 100, I wouldn't need any refunds. If they decided roster slots capped out at 500 I wouldn't need a refund. I have gotten a lot of use out of my existing roster and roster slots, so I feel they are well spent.

Unlike the Alliance slots thing, roster slots are A) cheaper and 2) of personal benefit immediately. Anyone can go join an alliance, it takes a lot of time and effort and to build an alliance that could ultimately fail and be worth 0 benefit. Basically if you didn't crack the top 100 with your alliance you weren't doing yourself any favors for the 19,500 a 20 man roster cost you. For substantially less (anywhere from free to "buy your own slot") you could just be part of another alliance, so the benefit to the 19,500 wasn't always clear or even achieved. This is why Alliance refunds were warranted.

Even tho I may have spent that much on roster slots, I did receive the advertised benefit for my , and a change in pricing model doesn't change the benefit I received.

Moon Roach

There are a couple of threads in the Suggestions and Feedback forum.

http://www.d3pforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=19102

http://www.d3pforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=19289

I suggested everyone gets half as many free roster slots as there are characters in the game, with a free slot every second character release.

Unknown

That... Is a pretty good idea actually. Although hard to implement, you would need to track purchases separate from "free" slots, or else the freebees suddenly skyrocket your slot purchase costs, which then sums out to "I still can't buy the needed slots".

Moon Roach

Lerysh wrote:

That... Is a pretty good idea actually. Although hard to implement, you would need to track purchases separate from "free" slots, or else the freebees suddenly skyrocket your slot purchase costs, which then sums out to "I still can't buy the needed slots".

What I suggested (in the forum no-one reads) was:

How about we get INT(n/2) free roster slots, where n = total number of characters. Every second character that's released triggers everyone getting a new roster slot, whether or not they get the cover.

If they can make all alliances 20 strong they can give everyone free slots to a total of 30 (or whatever). If they have fewer, that is.

I don't even want a refund for the roster slots I've already bought (though it would be nice). Just adjust the cost of the next slot downwards to reflect how many "not free" slots I already have.

Unknown

I think they should increase the number of 3 slots from 5 to 10. Then also cap the costs at 500 as well.

Unknown

And if they can't give out more at least up the initial set to 15 or 20. Retroactive for everyone

nimvin

I think from a business standpoint they probably need to get customers used to buying roster slots pretty quickly so I doubt they would up the free spots. A capped cost for individual cards and a cost as is for duplicates might be viable. I posted elsewhere that the $5 purchase is 600 hp so that seems reasonable. 500 is also a reasonable number. But if you want to hit that little star for your second sentry at 103 characters its gonna cost you 1700(?) or whatever the actual price is right now. That way the guys that want all the dupes know they are getting an unfair advantage over us non-whales and us non-whales can still be semi competitive and up to date with the new shinies.

Edit: typos

NighteyesGrisu

I'm all for cheaper slot. Never mind if I 'lose' my HP investment so far...I'd just like cheaper slots from now on.

Unknown

Free roster slots = NO! They cannot just make them free out of the blue when people already have 100+.

Reduce prices = YES PLEASE! Not only reduce them, offer bundles too. Instead of purchasing 1 by 1, I want to buy 3 for a reduced price. Many say that 500 HP should be the cap for the roster slots. I say this is still too much. They should be somewhere around 300-400.

I would also suggest a discount if you buy more than 1 roster slots. Let the user select the amount of slots he wants and make proper discounts:
2-5 slots = 10% Discount of total price.
6-10 slots = 15% Discount of total price.

Honestly, this issue has been mentioned too much lately. I hope they don't take the same amount of time as they did with end times to find a solution.

Chrono_Tata

Also disagree with free roster slots. It would be the "increase all alliances to 20 slots" kittystorm all over again.

On the other hand, cheaper roster slots is severely needed at the rate this game is currently cranking out new characters. Expensive extra slots should be a barrier to people building multiple repeat characters, not punishment for people who just want to collect new characters. If I remember correctly, roster slots prices had already gone down once, but over 10 new characters have been released since then and it's a good time for it to go down again.

Unknown

500 is the high end point imo. As soon as it got to 600 for me I started resenting the cost and started considering ditching (and actually ditching) 1* and 2* to make room.

At 500 I'd probably continue increasing my slots at a reasonable level (one a month, maybe two) and I'd almost certainly buy in multiples of 3 for 1000.

Lystrata

Okin107 wrote:

Free roster slots = NO! They cannot just make them free out of the blue when people already have 100+.

For someone who left the game, you're surprisingly vocal in the forums...

And... why can't they? (See following.)

Chrono_Tata wrote:

Also disagree with free roster slots. It would be the "increase all alliances to 20 slots" kittystorm all over again.

I'd be surprised if that were the case. I'm at 37 roster slots, I've sold off a number of characters along the way because I couldn't buy the slots, caved and bought 200 HP now and then when I only needed a little more for the next slot, etc etc etc. All the same stuff anyone else has done, I suspect. I wouldn't have a meltdown over slots suddenly being free. The difference here is I got continual, clear, rewarding use out of having all those slots - while many alliance leaders spent thousands upon thousands of HP that they never saw a return on.

If I got valued use out of something that later becomes free, so be it. I've got no beef with that.


Having said that, I doubt it's a viable option for D3P to make slots free - they are a really, really good incentive for buying HP. But I think that's only when it's at a reasonable rate. Such as a couple of hundred here and there when I feel it's valuable. But there's no way in hell I'm suddenly going to up and buy 2000-2500 HP because they decide to throw 4 new characters in my face over the course of 2 or 3 weeks. I'll happily delete the hell out of Beast, Doc O., Iron Man... whatever other useless ones I have.. to make room for the 'new guy' to see if they're any good, before I get forced into buying thousands of HP for the privilege of gaining a few single covers.

... what was this thread about again?

Ah, right. Reduced costs. Yes. That would be a good idea. Capped costs as well, for that matter. I'm not an idiot, and other players are not idiots - pumping out new chars to force us into buying HP is not F2P, and despite them claiming the rush on characters is because 'they're awesome', I think it's fairly clear what the real logic behind it is.

Unknown

Lystrata wrote:

Okin107 wrote:

Free roster slots = NO! They cannot just make them free out of the blue when people already have 100+.

For someone who left the game, you're surprisingly vocal in the forums...

I have not left. I have stepped back my game to casual and quit my old alliance and joined a new semi-competing one. This game is too addicting to leave.

Unknown

Adding couple free slots would be nice, though it would just quick patch-up rather than proper fix (then again, we're having character rotations now so...). What I would love to see is 'small' and 'large' slots. Small can hold and , large can hold and . Small ones cost half what big ones does and both are on their own independent increasing price line.

See, the cost problem for me is because I need/want to keep new 3*, but I can't get rid of my 2* which are my engine. I already minimized them to 7/8 (oBW, Ares, Thor, Wolv, Daken, Storm, MNM, half Hakweye) and I have no 1* in my roster. Yet Devs mentioned that we still could use 'a few more' heroes in 2* range. Who exactly those new chars would be useful for? New players? No way you can manage enough HP to make diverse roster of 2s without trashing most of 3* you manage to pull out. Transitioners? I have big roster already, even if I wanted to make it more diverse, the cost is too steep, I have enough problems getting space for 3s, no way I would find space for torchic, smarvel, bagstone or any other new 2* they would add. Vets? Only for competitions maybe.

Adding them up wouldn't mess up 'what I payed for' either. New players start with 5 roster slots now, yeah? Well, now they would get 5 large and 5 small ones, and every existing player would just get added 5 small ones.

Just an idea. But if something like that won't change, I'll never feel how 'satisfying is to steal xforce recovery tile with Moonstone'.

MarvelMan

To me it speaks volumes that they want to encourage variety.....then massively hike the price up while releasing more and more chars. When it was a char every month to month and a half I could keep up. Ive started selling chars (sorry Moonstone, Bagman, OBW copy and others) and Im considering selling more, including 3* (Beast, Doc Oct, ???). Definitely doesnt make a deep roster as attractive.




A few months ago I suggested that at set spots in the daily reward they could gift out roster slots (maybe the HP, but i prefer roster slots). Not quite enough to keep up with new chars, so maybe every other or 3 for every 5 released. That would further encourage people to log in every day, and if you got behind you could pay to catch up, and then be in the same pattern as everyone else.

The bottom line is they need to walk the walk, by doing SOMETHING, if they actually want that diversity they say they do.

SnowcaTT

If slots are immediately capped (say at 500), I will be glad further slots won't cost so much (I have 57 currently (55 total characters as of now), 750 cost for next). I won't be complaining, as it's a number I've been begging for with no restrictions.

I like the alternative suggestions of giving free slots, say for every-other character. Harder to implement later on, easy to implement at first: everyone gets 28 slots for future use when Groot comes out (half of the 58 characters). This actually helps the newbies (lots of initial free slots) AND the vets (since those slots are more pricy currently).

Unknown

The ever so skyrocketing cost to add roster slots puts a dagger in my heart for each new slot added. Unfortunately, I like collecting covers, but it's not rewarded in anyway but by having more characters, and more dagger to the heart. With the acceleration in adding characters, it means dagger to the heart happens more frequently. Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! <--- those are incoming daggers to the heart. Please help reduce how much pain each hurtful dagger to the heart deals D3.

I don't want to have to delete characters, but it looks like I'll have to eventually. That's like an arrow to the knee. Please, don't let me take an arrow to the knee D3.

Anyway, much appreciation to be had for any conversation with those who can make a change to roster slot cost. Ouch!

Phaserhawk

The only purpose for having roster slots is to generate $. I cannot think of a single collectible game where I had to purchase roster slots. They wanted you to have the characters so you spend $ leveling them up.

Major Carnage

They should offer a monthly deal on roster slots that works similar to the daily deal for tokens. You would be able to purchase one slot per month at a reduced price and the deal would refresh on the first of every month.

IamTheDanger

3 things I'd like to say here.

1). I've said before that it might be good idea to add a "free roster slot" token to events that offer new characters, but only new character release events.

which leads to the 2nd thing......

2). People keep saying that free slots will make the price jump on the next one. Ok, that's correct, it will. So ...?
if my next 2 slots cost me 500 for one and 550 for the next after it, then I'll have to pay 1,050 Hp for the next 2 slots. But if I get one for free and pay 550 for the next one, then I'm getting the next 2 slots for 550 Hp instead of 1,050. How is this a bad thing? Whether I buy the next slot or get it for free, the price of slots after it still go up. This way, I at least get something. Given a choice of paying 500Hp for the next one or getting it for free, I'll take the free one. Either way, the one after it will still cost 550Hp.

3). Roster slots price cap is a good idea IMO, but it needs to be handled very delicately. No matter what D3/Demiurge does, someone will complain. viewtopic.php?f=8&t=19116&p=249840#p249840

edit,..... make that 4 things,
4). The bundle discount is a pretty good idea as well. The more slots you buy at once gives you a discount.