High-Rollers Event --

FaustianDeal

Every casino has a special room set aside for high-rollers; big spenders who place big bets. These rooms cater to those players by having better amenities, nicer tables, and higher-quality comps (oh yeah, and the rewards are better too).

Let's get a new flavor of buy-in PVP event for 'high-rollers'. Buy-in would be higher (more risk), but the prizes should be better (more reward). I am not just talking about the rewards for winning - those should be nice too (Like at least Anniversary Week Lightning Round good or typical Buy-in event good). But to match the improved comps of the High-Rollers tables - the rewards dropped after each fight should be better as well...

After each fight in the PVP the reward drops should improve to:
Main reward: ISO (250, 500) or Random Cover (3* only). If the buy in is high enough the main reward could include 1000ISO, 25HP (dare I say 50HP), heck even a random 4* Cover could drop
Dropped boosts should have a higher chance of being rainbows. (restrict them to use in high-roller events only if you want to cheap out, but please don't)

3-star cover drops seem crazy, but there are many rationales for raising them: if they are meant to be equivalently valued to the ISO drops, raising those means covers have to improve; lots of people with 'HP to burn' already have a well-covered stable of 3-stars so its really more like throwing around ISO to them, and lastly if the rewards are really good people will gladly pay the entry price, and would be willing to do it again if given the opportunity.

If there are HP in the mix getting dropped by fights then the final prizes might not need to be lights-out awesome. (If I am going to get something like my money's worth from the fight rewards then I won't be as concerned by placements - but the truth is the placement prizes are probably what will sell the tickets the first time.)

san

sarcasm on

Heck yeah!

Let's give people who already don't need 3* covers... more 3* covers! In fact, let's do it every single time they win a match.

Let's continue widening the gap, because, after all, we live in a capitalist world, and games should be just as "fair" - the rich should definitely get richer, and the poor... ah heck, forget them!

Let's make it even harder for new players to transition, because everyone has 50HP just lying around - this is immensely easy to get!

Let's make the game that is already unbalanced by the P2W structure, even more unbalanced.

Yes, high roller rooms at casinos make me feel good. Why should they spend the hundreds of thousands of dollars helping those in need, when of course, they earned that money fair and square?

sarcasm off

Now, where was I... Oh yeah... no.

MojoWild

san-mpq wrote:

sarcasm on

Heck yeah!

Let's give people who already don't need 3* covers... more 3* covers! In fact, let's do it every single time they win a match.

Let's continue widening the gap, because, after all, we live in a capitalist world, and games should be just as "fair" - the rich should definitely get richer, and the poor... ah heck, forget them!

Let's make it even harder for new players to transition, because everyone has 50HP just lying around - this is immensely easy to get!

Let's make the game that is already unbalanced by the P2W structure, even more unbalanced.

Yes, high roller rooms at casinos make me feel good. Why should they spend the hundreds of thousands of dollars helping those in need, when of course, they earned that money fair and square?

sarcasm off

Now, where was I... Oh yeah... no.

Lol, my thoughts too! Except expressed more succinctly.

I think this event already exists, it's called PVP...

FaustianDeal

I will see your sarcasm by attempting to answer it with an extension of my original thought:
If you gave these players (whales and established vets) a different class of event to compete in maybe they would start playing over there instead of constantly dominating PVP.

If you are tired of having them pound you to a fine pink mist in PVP; your options seem limited:
1 - give in to the dark side, open your wallet, and join them (not my preference)
2 - wait for them to get tired of dominating PVP and quit (I've been waiting a long time - that doesn't seem to be happening)
3 - give them a different place to play.

The truth of the matter is this: there is only 1 PVP and 1 PVE running at a time. This forces the P2W players into the same pool with the established veterans, transition players, and newbies. There need to be more tools in the toolbelt than MMR in PVP and scaling in PVE at their disposal to provide a game that can be played and enjoyed by people of different experience levels and wallet exposure.

Segmenting the player base, and doing it in a way that isn't punitive to established players, is a valid concept.

Sharding them all into a single PVP bracket and letting them murder each other fighting for the same rewards given to a crop of 90-day players is not a valid segmentation strategy. Advocating that is like saying you want the game to eventually become so punishingly mean to you that it forces you to quit.

san

I will see your (flawed) logic and double it...

Giving the whales an extra class of event to compete in does one thing, and one thing only... gives them another class to dominate in. These guys already spend plenty of money on HP and shields - they will surely just take this as an added opportunity to win yet another event, and nothing more.

While I am tired of having my rear end handed to me consistently once I hit the wall (or more like the wall hits me), I am used to it and accept it until it is fixed.

Your logic of segmenting is flawed in the first place. The whales exist. We cannot pretend they don't. They exist, however, due to the prohibitive costs associated with MPQ. If you see my post here (http://www.d3pforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=20136) it will explain why. We need to deal with the overall cost of MPQ, not just hand out more covers. By your logic, the solution to helping a poor person who cannot play the $25 entry poker in a casino is to have the rich one simply gamble elsewhere. This is not the case. You forget that the poor person has no $25 in the first place. We need to lower the entry point for EVERYONE by doing one of the many things that wonderful forumites have suggested, including, but not limited to:

1) removing the dual system of covers/iso for levelling
2) decreasing overall cost of everything (I mean the real money cost)
3) handing out more covers, and potentially altering the cover system to have more 3* covers
4) providing access (other than through prohibitively priced HP) to old covers/characters
5) speeding up the rotation times so that transitioners don't have to wait 2-3 months to actually complete a character *ahem* Patch, Pun, HT *ahem*
6) or see 90% of posts in the suggestion forum....

Your move. River.

FaustianDeal

If your hope is that I will argue in favor of installing the high-roller suite ahead of several other, much-needed changes to the game - I am not going to do that. I want to see a lot the issues you mention fixed as well.

san-mpq wrote:

Giving the whales an extra class of event to compete in does one thing, and one thing only... gives them another class to dominate in. These guys already spend plenty of money on HP and shields - they will surely just take this as an added opportunity to win yet another event, and nothing more.

I have, on other occasions, suggested that there should be different tiers of events concurrently running, and that players be forced to pick only 1 (not like the events where there is a 'hard' mode, but people can still play in both). The harder version of the event should have better prizes because the player is taking on additional risk by choosing that branch. The prizes for the harder difficulties have to be worthwhile though - to induce people to pick the harder one. If the 2 flavors give the same, or largely similar prizes, then you are no better off than we are now; the established players will just swamp the lower difficulty event because they can win with less risk. It doesn't even have to be a buy-in affair.. but having different variants of an event with different risks and rewards could be good for everyone. An important component of attempting to segment the player-base into different difficulty tiers is that the player choose between the tiers; they shouldn't necessarily be able to compete in multiple tiers simultaneously. (Or if they want to compete in multiple tiers the lower tiers are "for love of the game" and not for placement awards. I would love additional opportunities to play this game other than 'story mode'.)

san-mpq wrote:

1) removing the dual system of covers/iso for levelling

I don't enjoy the dual system, but I can appreciate what they trying to achieve. I'm not 100% on board with this suggestion, but I can understand why you make the argument. Hopefully there is an 'agree to disagree' détente we can come to on this point of your 6 - because you make valid points.

san-mpq wrote:

2) decreasing overall cost of everything (I mean the real money cost)

This - I 100% agree with. The price of additional roster spots is the single worst example of this. The cost of roster spots should be de minimus up to the point that you are buying more spots than characters available. Duplicates should be expensive; adding a 1st copy of a brand new character shouldn't cost you $5 - especially when the newly added character (with only 1 cover) isn't remotely usable until you manage to get 10-12 more covers for that character. I have posted to this effect several times as well. If I could use Magic: the Gathering as a meatspace metaphor (which maps to P2W games like this one pretty well) - a person can have thousands of cards, but its only the 60 they make deck-space for that matter. We should be able to hold on to a deep reservoir of cards, but not actually have them take up roster space until we are ready to commit them as a playable character (which maybe we don't do until we get something playable) - not saying that's the best solution either, but telling me I need to drop $5 to make room for 4* Thor, and have her take up that space until I get get a dozen more covers (which will take months) that's crummy. And roster spots is just the most egregious example of how the real-world cost of things in this game is completely wrong.

san-mpq wrote:

3) handing out more covers, and potentially altering the cover system to have more 3* covers

I can get behind this idea as well. I would love for a token type to exist that guaranteed a 3* or better cover. I would love to go back to the days when an event 10-pack included 1-guaranteed copy of the featured character. When you look at the cover-drops from PVP and the existing token drop rates it feels like the system is rigged to get players into the 2* space very quickly but then lock them into the 2-3* transition window indefinitely. That flat sucks for new people. (They make it rain 2* covers, but good luck progressing beyond the 2* level.) Once you get to 2* land you get to either burn 3* covers for characters you don't have roster space for, or keep buying roster spaces for 3* characters who will be undercovered and unusable for months (assuming they ever become usable before you get discouraged and quit).

san-mpq wrote:

4) providing access (other than through prohibitively priced HP) to old covers/characters

I totally agree with this too. I would, for example, love to see lightning rounds next season that *only* feature vaulted characters. The tokens given out in lightning rounds should only have vaulted characters in them (but not bag-man). If you suggested we bar the door and don't let people compete in those rounds if they have finished all of the featured characters that might make me sad since I have managed to finish most - but I would understand completely why you would want to do that. That would be another example of segmenting the player base; but it again punishes established players by locking them out of an event. If there was an alternate event going on at the same time - then, yes, lock them out.

san-mpq wrote:

5) speeding up the rotation times so that transitioners don't have to wait 2-3 months to actually complete a character *ahem* Patch, Pun, HT *ahem*

I disagree with you here again, but only insofar as I actually think the vaulting process is utter ****. It shouldn't be sped up; it should never have been introduced in the first place. The only reason why we are forced to have rotations is because they have pinned Heroics to have a roughly 85% of the drops be a 2* character (which is the same thing I can randomly win just by completing a match in PVP). Why more than 5/6 Heroic tokens need to be a 2* character is a complete mystery to me. Why can't they reduce the probability of the 2* lineup - period. That could be used to make room for all the new 3* characters and improve the drop rates for all 3* characters in general. The vaulting process has (what I hope is an unintended) effect of further entrenching players in the 2-3* transition.

san-mpq wrote:

6) or see 90% of posts in the suggestion forum....

is the misunderstanding here that I am implying this change should be made ahead of any of these other changes we are discussing? I am not implying that. I have made a lot of other suggestions here; at least half a dozen others that I would prioritize ahead of this one. And there are dozens more made by other people (several that you mention here) that should get worked on first. Not arguing that.

Did I play in one of the 200-HP short-format buy-in events? Sure. Did I get my butt kicked, yes. Would I do it again? Maybe, because everyone who bought in (even the guy who came in last place) got a heroic token... which was the going price for a heroic token - so it was equivalently priced to a daily deal token, but I got to play in an event first. It depends on if I will ever have 200HP in the tank again that I am not tightly guarding in order to buy a roster spot for the next 3* they release.

I also enjoyed Anniversary week. Prizes were substantially more generous than they had been before or since. (I would say prizes were closer to where they should normally be.) But I only see them being that generous on vanishingly rare occasions unless they can monetize it somehow.

Does your revulsion at the idea of a separate space diminish somewhat if choosing to play there means they are not involved in the competition or prize pool for the regular event?

san

Alas, you make some valid points as well. As we are in general agreement over my first 4 points (and I like your idea on point 2), I will address point 5 and 6. In terms of 5, you make a solid argument, though in reality, I don't think they will go back to the no-vault system. In terms of number 6, clearly you see that there are many ideas that ought to be implemented before this high roller lounge is even considered. I ask you to also consider whether the high roller lounge would need to be implemented in the first place if those first several ideas were implementer?

I am still not in agreement with segregation, even if it is done so that the high rollers cannot play in the regular pool. The issue I have with that is that they still would continue to receive better prizes, and should they decide that the competition is too high in the high roller events, there is nothing to stop them from moving into the regular events.

If you were to make something like that work, it would have to take into account average stats of your roster (i.e. total stars, average level, etc), and NOT give the player a choice which shard they play in. This is pretty much the function of MMR already, so I don't see them changing it or adding it.

I think that they have gone at least a few steps in the right direction with the latest ban on shield hopping, though there is still a long way to go. I believe that leveling the playing field by altering the real world money structure they use would actually be much more beneficial than any high roller event, and provide moderate/casual/transitioning players the opportunity to compete (rather than continue to chew the bones when all the lions have eaten the meat).

FaustianDeal

For every time we say "rich get richer" those guys already have everything the game has to give them... that's the hard part. The Whales already have a capped/maxed Goddess - giving them a new room to play in isn't going to change that element of the game.

This anecdote doesn't help, but maybe it can contextualize why I threw out such a ridiculous idea:
I hoarded tokens for 2 weeks waiting for the new token drops to come (came last night)...
I opened 50 heroic and 120 standard tokens - even with new characters in them I got 1 trainable card.
In the 120 standard tokens there were more Juggernaut cards than there were 2* & 3* cards combined.
In the 50 heroic tokens there were more Moonstones than there were 3* and 4* cards combined.

Another M:tG metaphor: they treat 2* cards like basic lands and 3* cards like mythic rares. There is no in-between and its a little ridiculous.

To be honest, the whole "high roller" idea was me trying to find a way for them to monetize a token that didn't suck, or an event that would drop a decent reward. I'm not a fan of the idea, but I was groping for any way to advance my own roster. The format stymies progress at all stages of the game. It is not the best way to solve the problem I am having rounding out my roster though... and lots of other changes should happen first.

Of all the suggestions I have made; this one was easily the silliest and most selfish.

san

FaustianDeal wrote:

For every time we say "rich get richer" those guys already have everything the game has to give them... that's the hard part. The Whales already have a capped/maxed Goddess - giving them a new room to play in isn't going to change that element of the game.

This anecdote doesn't help, but maybe it can contextualize why I threw out such a ridiculous idea:
I hoarded tokens for 2 weeks waiting for the new token drops to come (came last night)...
I opened 50 heroic and 120 standard tokens - even with new characters in them I got 1 trainable card.
In the 120 standard tokens there were more Juggernaut cards than there were 2* & 3* cards combined.
In the 50 heroic tokens there were more Moonstones than there were 3* and 4* cards combined.

Another M:tG metaphor: they treat 2* cards like basic lands and 3* cards like mythic rares. There is no in-between and its a little ridiculous.

To be honest, the whole "high roller" idea was me trying to find a way for them to monetize a token that didn't suck, or an event that would drop a decent reward. I'm not a fan of the idea, but I was groping for any way to advance my own roster. The format stymies progress at all stages of the game. It is not the best way to solve the problem I am having rounding out my roster though... and lots of other changes should happen first.

Of all the suggestions I have made; this one was easily the silliest and most selfish.

Actually, I would have no issue with this part if the HP cost to buy the remaining covers once one is obtained were to be substantially lowered. I wrote in another post that it takes $62.50 real world money (at least in Canada) to get a 3* to max level with the 3 covers already in hand. If this cost were to be, say $5, it would make it much easier to swallow, and I'd definitely put a bit more money into it. Anything more than $5 is a rip off. Games that are of much higher quality provide add-on content that is cheaper than this, and I feel that D3 should too.

FaustianDeal

There is an oddly inflated valuation placed on individual characters. When I think about the last Marvel-themed console game I played it was probably Ultimate Alliance: that team-based battler. When they added extra characters to that game the characters cost on the order of a few dollars. They had to be played to gain experience, and as they gained levels they had powers that you would level up. Both means of improving the character were brought about through play *with that character*.

In the model we currently play in (and your math holds)... they aren't asking you to pay the small add-on price for new content; they are essentially asking you to pay the full price of a brand-new game to finish a new character. That's definitely unrealistic. The alternative is to try to get there organically - but they have made half a dozen different changes to the game that make grooming a new character a slower, less predictable process. If you aren't in a top-100 alliance and capable of regular top-25 individual placements I shudder to imagine how long it takes to finish a character in the game we are playing now.

Here is a funny notion (as I was reading your last post it struck me):
what if - instead of saying you had to win the first 3 cards and then pay $5 to get the remaining covers... what if they flipped that script a little? What if they gave you the ability to buy the first 3 covers for a character for $5? Winning them through battle and time is still an option, but for someone who just wants to get started playing with Blade they could drop $5 and get handed a 1/1/1 blade? Or let the first card for each color cost $2? What kind of game would that look like if you could buy the 'foot in the door' covers and then you were forced to earn the other 10? That maps closer to the console format I am familiar with for DLC, it lowers the total-cost-of-owner ship, and it (somewhat) diminishes the purchasing power of a P2W player? This is purely a hypothetical - and maybe warrants a separate thread since we are well and truly off my original topic by this point...

san

The console format still wins out (I played Marvel UA, and loved it). For $5 I expect the character in its entirety - fully covered but not leveled. This would rival console releases. $62.50 is not just a new game, it is a brand new game for one of the premier consoles, which takes years to build and thousands of man hours. This is a 2D Puzzle Quest game, built on an already existing platform. Sure, there are some tweaks, but largely this is a simple game overall. No add-on content in this game should even begin to rival the console add-ons, let alone trump them entirely.

The HP/ISO system is a way to disguise the amount of money someone really spends. Points have been used to disguise money by retailers for decades. It is a way to trick the public, not much more. I dare D3 to instead of selling ISO/HP show exactly how much real world money someone uses when they buy a shield or level a character...

Accident-eLe

The real problem you guys aren't addressing is that this is a freemium game. This gives d3 the option to hide behind lossy drop rates, rarely update stories, and provide horrible customer service. The 2-3 star transition is meant to be impossible without spending money or being incredibly lucky. The luck aspect actually works in favor of d3 as it provides other players that togeh 2 can achieve with enough hard work. I know plenty of people who are f2p except for roster slots. They buy the initial few because otherwise this game blows.

FaustianDeal

Accident-eLe wrote:

The real problem you guys aren't addressing is that this is a freemium game. This gives d3 the option to hide behind lossy drop rates, rarely update stories, and provide horrible customer service. The 2-3 star transition is meant to be impossible without spending money or being incredibly lucky. The luck aspect actually works in favor of d3 as it provides other players that togeh 2 can achieve with enough hard work. I know plenty of people who are f2p except for roster slots. They buy the initial few because otherwise this game blows.

There are a host of suggestions on the board... I don't think either of us are saying we are presenting an exhaustive list of the changes that could be made in order to improve the game.

With the pace that new characters are being dropped the initial investment for roster spots to get over the "this game blows" hump is going to grow.

There are changes that need to be made at multiple levels of the game in order to address playability and player satisfaction for people at multiple levels in the progression (fresh starters, transitioners, and established vets).

Accident-eLe

No comment at all on my purposed theory?

FaustianDeal

Is the argument that "because its a freemium game they can choose to do nothing" when it comes to content, drop rates, and customer support? Or that we should remember it is a 'free game' and stop placing the same expectations on them that we would put on a console video game? Or is the concern going back to the original notion of a 'high roller' event being introduced into a free game?

I'm not trying to avoid your theory; can you restate your position and we can hash it out?

Accident-eLe

Good point.
I guess my theory is that we need to view things within the lense of freemium. I don't like it but if seems the only suggestions we make should in zone way directly relate to marketing. Proposals need to explain why the changes are better than the status quo not for the players but d3 themselves. I don't really see people leaving the game over the game modes as much as the rate of character release and difficulty to transition. I think the High Rollers area promotes a more widespread distribution of resources, the question is why does d3 want that? People getting frustrated over limited covers only really works out in 2 ways. They either quit or buy covers. If you aren't going to buy covers it doesn't really impact d3 if you quit. The 1-2* transition is fast on purpose. The idea is to hook you on the game and the feeling of success when you receive usable covers. In order to replicate that feeling you then have to spend money to move at a reasonable pace. If we are going to propose game changes we should factor in not only what we want but what d3 wants as well.

Unknown

Thing is people are already spending tons of money
so they'll hide and not adress the situation
62 and change to fully lvl lol youd have to be tinykitty to even knock 20 bucks off that
(From a dev standpoint) say they do tho. It'll be a big fiasco because every chuckle head that dropped coin 2 months before said change is now going to be flipping out ( and rightly so )
Id love it cheaper tho
I said I was done paying d3 but, whats another 2 cents

FaustianDeal

Accident-eLe wrote:

If we are going to propose game changes we should factor in not only what we want but what d3 wants as well.

The original thought was based around the belief that they were trying to capture my money. I am not wild about buying covers, but I could be coerced into meeting them halfway and buying a ticket to the event that dropped better rewards. The flaw in my logic is that they probably don't need to meet me halfway since there are countless other players dropping the full price of covers.

I keep feeling like there has to be a point on the curve where they could collect a lower price from a larger number of players and still come out ahead in the deal. I have a hard time believing the pricing we are seeing is the sweet spot - but what do I know? The last time I bought a cover was probably 8 months ago. But the last time I bought a token was the anniversary daily deals because they weren't complete garbage (which is meant they were substantially better than normal tokens, but still not that awesome).

If there are enough players dropping the big dollars to cap new characters then I guess I will just quietly keep playing my version of the game. I am established enough (after nearly 400 days) that I can usually get a 3* character fully covered within a few seasons without resorting to buying covers. Though the number and overwhelming power of the new 4* characters (G. Thor) might destabilize my ability to do that somewhat. Time will tell, I guess.

FaustianDeal

The more I've thought about it, since you mentioned 'freemium', the more sense that makes. Its almost staggering in its obviousness.

I got my foot in the door early in the game's evolution and didn't properly recognize the changes for what they were. They weren't simply "attempts to get more HP"... they are evolutionary steps down the path of refining the freemium aspects of the game.

I am ashamed I didn't recognize it for what it was sooner... it hadn't properly managed to sink its teeth into me until I properly contemplated the shield nerf. From where I am, PVE was becoming increasingly frustrating - its not a reliable source for new cards for me any more... but I still had PVP and its (relatively) direct means of adding new cards to top characters through progression. I think those days may also be coming to a close once shields are broken.

By this time next month; 'luck' (in token draws) might be all I have left to advance my roster - short of direct cash infusion.

The peril is that they will need to make it easier for me to get my hands on the first cards for a new character. If they slam the door on me too tightly in PVE and PVP then tokens are all I have left - and I think I would quit before I resort to tokens as a way to open the door to a new character...

_RiO_

Accident-eLe wrote:

I guess my theory is that we need to view things within the lense of freemium.

Marvel Heroes is an extremely accessible freemium game where you can purchase entire usable characters for the low price $5 to $10, or just grind it out and collect an ingame currency to collect them. A special ingame currency that is on a guaranteed drop timer, I might add...

This game pales in comparison. Infact; peel back the Marvel-branded veneer and the roze-tinted Puzzle Quest glasses and you're left with a coldly calculated soulless money-milking machine.

san

_RiO_ wrote:

Accident-eLe wrote:

I guess my theory is that we need to view things within the lense of freemium.

Marvel Heroes is an extremely accessible freemium game where you can purchase entire usable characters for the low price $5 to $10, or just grind it out and collect an ingame currency to collect them. A special ingame currency that is on a guaranteed drop timer, I might add...

This game pales in comparison. Infact; peel back the Marvel-branded veneer and the roze-tinted Puzzle Quest glasses and you're left with a coldly calculated soulless money-milking machine.

I saw that game on the marketplace, but now I'm going to try it. Thanks for the suggestion.

To be honest, I'm a fairly loyal gamer. When I like a game, I like to play it and keep playing it. However, when that game is so far out of reach, either due to obscene amounts of money required to compete, or the difficulty level, then I abandon it and never come back. I imagine a great deal of others out there are in the 2-3* land thinking along these same lines. It would be a shame for D3 to lose this population. As someone pointed out in another thread, while the whales may be big spenders, they are only a small chunk of the overall MPQ population. Losing the rest of the 99%