Change for the better!

bknfoodie

This post will hopefully start a discussion on how to improve the game for all players alike especially the new/transitional players as well as increase revenue for D3.

1) Stop vaulting characters.
Right now, it is pretty discouraging for a new/transitioning player to collect enough covers to successfully transition to 3* land. (more on this in #2) All a new player can get is a handful of characters. Mostly this character pool is garbage, with a couple of exceptions. All the new characters that have been introduced have been pretty pitiful. Besides Blade, I don't really see any new 3* released in the past 3 months being very reliable.

2) Increase rate of drop on 3* covers.
This goes hand in hand with point #1. New/transitional players need more 3* covers. Even being in a T100 alliance, placing in T100 personally, a new transitional player may take 3-4 seasons to cover max a character with the constant vaulting of characters. What makes MPQ fun is the collecting aspect IMO, the carrot on the stick if you will. As a player with top tier maxed characters, I don't see how any transitioning player could ever catch up to me even if they put in more effort than me.
At this stage of the game, 3* have become the norm. The 166 wall that players speak of is very frustrating. I have friends who are quitting because they feel they don't progress at all after maxing all their 2*.

I also want to add that with increased cover distribution, this will increase revenue as players will have to buy roster slots or delete characters.

3) Give players more ISO.
The game's meta right now is save ISO for top tier characters. If D3 truly wants diversity, then ISO generation needs to go up a smidge. Anniversary ISO generation (2x normal) seems about right. This needs to be balanced with cover drops as well. I do agree that players should need to make a choice on which character to level. In the future, I think ISO has to become the paywall. But if cover packs drop more covers, I can see people spending $ on those as well. I'm sure your anniversary event shows the uptick in $ spent on cover packs.

4) Shield hopping needs a nerf, why?
I'm in a T25 alliance and have never, I mean never, coordinated shield hopping yet still score high because of the T10 alliances. If progression rewards needs tweaking, move the 1300 cover to say 1500.

Feel free to add to the discussion and critique my ideas. I had to write this up because of the growing frustration and misplaced anger of the community. End times are not to blame. In reality, the player pool has been growing yet rewards are smaller and smaller. This game feels like a giant grind with no progression. This is coming from a player that has a well developed roster. But I want to see the new players have fun too and be able to catch up and be competitive.

CNash

More ISO distribution is a good point. One way to improve this would be to change the 20 ISO "consolation prize" for repeating a node - make it 50 ISO instead. Another could be to increase the alliance daily reward value from 25 ISO to 50 ISO. A 20-man alliance thus generates a potential 1000 ISO every day for its members - I don't think this is disproportionate at all, considering the number of available characters now.

Phaserhawk

the fact that they are fixing characters while vaulted makes it worth the few months they are out of rotation.

FaustianDeal

Phaserhawk wrote:

the fact that they are fixing characters while vaulted makes it worth the few months they are out of rotation.

If they actually retool characters for the better while they are up on the blocks; that's great. But they have already started throwing unchanged characters back into the pool (Patch), and they are still tweaking guys while they are in active rotation (Sentry/Hood).

Given the lack of correlation between 'vaulting' and 'fixing/changing'; it still seems like artificially creating scarcity to sell tokens/covers is the more plausible explanation for vaulting. (that and an unwillingness to reduce the drop rate of 2* covers so there is room in the tokens for more, better covers.)

san

FaustianDeal wrote:

...Given the lack of correlation between 'vaulting' and 'fixing/changing'; it still seems like artificially creating scarcity to sell tokens/covers is the more plausible explanation for vaulting. (that and an unwillingness to reduce the drop rate of 2* covers so there is room in the tokens for more, better covers.)

Disney has been doing this for years, with great success. I think D3 may be trying to emulate this model. The one drawback to the model, however, is that you have to put out a quality product and improve upon it each time (which Disney does, through digitalizing and making their movies into HD). This is the only way to make such a model sustainable.

wirius

Just because they didn't change patch, doesn't mean they didn't look at him and test some changes while he was out. I'm quite sure they're re-examining all characters rotated out.

bknfoodie

Bumping for more discussion

Dayv

bknfoodie wrote:

Bumping for more discussion

Add something to the discussion, then. "Bump" posts are the worst.

FaustianDeal

wirius wrote:

Just because they didn't change patch, doesn't mean they didn't look at him and test some changes while he was out. I'm quite sure they're re-examining all characters rotated out.

Patch coming out of the vault unchanged isn't the only place where vaulting/changing aren't well correlated... remember Hood and Sentry were both adjusted when they were out of the vault and still in the active rotation.

Characters go in and out unchanged, and characters are changed without being vaulted. They can work on characters without vaulting them. Sentry and Hood are examples of active characters getting adjustments - and changes to vaulted characters aren't visible to the broader community till they make them so.

The 'changes during vaulting' are a nice way to justify vaulting, but "keeping 3* drop rates from dropping too low in the tokens" was also a listed explanation for vaulting when it was introduced.

They can work on guys without vaulting them If you want to Add Luke Cage to the token mix and not have the broader 3* drop rate plunge - then reduce the drop rate on Moonstone or Bullseye; I doubt tears would be shed if Moonstone became less frequent in the heroic tokens.

Lystrata

DayvBang wrote:

bknfoodie wrote:

Bumping for more discussion

Add something to the discussion, then. "Bump" posts are the worst.

Posts complaining about bump posts don't bring much to the conversation either.

@ OP -

#1 - Agree. No idea why it's still in place. It's clearly not so they can 'work on characters', and it clearly doesn't help transitioning / beginning players, many of whom have been verrry inconvenienced by the ones removed so far. It may have been a good initial band-aid concept, but it's not a long-term solution. Cash grab for getting people to buy covers is all I see it as now.

#2 - Definitely needs to happen, and the fact it doesn't is probably a part of why over half their players are new, with older players more likely to quit when they realise what a hamster wheel this really is.

#3 - Eh, never really had much of a problem with iso. Of course it'd be nice to instantly level characters up as you get their covers, but to me the iso gain isn't too bad. 1* and 2* characters drop like candy, LRs throw away iso, and playing normally generates quite a bit.

#4 - I think the fact people started hitting scores of 6,000+ with shield hopping shows it's a pretty broken system that needed a change. I don't agree with the 8 hour cooldown on a 3 hour shield, but otherwise... don't have too many problems with that.

In reality a lot of problems would be less annoying if they just widened the reward tiers. 3* covers for more people, more iso for more people, shield hopping (or whatever it will morph into this season) will still be fine for higher players, but as the game goes on, a stable number of 'lower' players will still be able to reach 3* characters, etc.

bknfoodie

With the devs attempting to alleviate HP/ISO issue, it sure looks like I can predict the future. You all will see in 6 months that covers/vaulting are a huge issue/barrier for new and transitional players, especially as more 4* are introduced. It's just such a shame that the devs don't have foresight and just adjust the game as problems get past a certain tipping point before it's addressed. I still like the expansion of placement rewards for PVP and PVE, possibly even more token rewards or higher drop rates.

Since a new character is released every 2 weeks, in 6 months, vaulting and desired character acquisition will be an issue. Characters will be vaulted longer as the pool is bigger. Possible solution could be to not vault characters and offset the dilution of the pool by increasing drop rates.

Arondite

bknfoodie wrote:

This post will hopefully start a discussion on how to improve the game for all players alike especially the new/transitional players as well as increase revenue for D3.

1) Stop vaulting characters.
Right now, it is pretty discouraging for a new/transitioning player to collect enough covers to successfully transition to 3* land. (more on this in #2) All a new player can get is a handful of characters. Mostly this character pool is garbage, with a couple of exceptions. All the new characters that have been introduced have been pretty pitiful. Besides Blade, I don't really see any new 3* released in the past 3 months being very reliable.

Vaulting is necessary to give the devs an opportunity to work on rebalances. It also gives them a chance to actually offer all te characters that are in rotation as prizes, rather than having to exclude some.

Also, none of the 3* recently released are reliable? What about Luke Cage, who levels as being one of the best 3* in the whole game. R&G are a manageable pair themselves. And Squirrel Girl, while unappealing and bad on defense, is actually a workable character.

2) Increase rate of drop on 3* covers.
This goes hand in hand with point #1. New/transitional players need more 3* covers. Even being in a T100 alliance, placing in T100 personally, a new transitional player may take 3-4 seasons to cover max a character with the constant vaulting of characters. What makes MPQ fun is the collecting aspect IMO, the carrot on the stick if you will. As a player with top tier maxed characters, I don't see how any transitioning player could ever catch up to me even if they put in more effort than me.
At this stage of the game, 3* have become the norm. The 166 wall that players speak of is very frustrating. I have friends who are quitting because they feel they don't progress at all after maxing all their 2*.

Conceded.

I also want to add that with increased cover distribution, this will increase revenue as players will have to buy roster slots or delete characters.

3) Give players more ISO.
The game's meta right now is save ISO for top tier characters. If D3 truly wants diversity, then ISO generation needs to go up a smidge. Anniversary ISO generation (2x normal) seems about right. This needs to be balanced with cover drops as well. I do agree that players should need to make a choice on which character to level. In the future, I think ISO has to become the paywall. But if cover packs drop more covers, I can see people spending $ on those as well. I'm sure your anniversary event shows the uptick in $ spent on cover packs.

Conceded.

4) Shield hopping needs a nerf, why?
I'm in a T25 alliance and have never, I mean never, coordinated shield hopping yet still score high because of the T10 alliances. If progression rewards needs tweaking, move the 1300 cover to say 1500.

Feel free to add to the discussion and critique my ideas. I had to write this up because of the growing frustration and misplaced anger of the community. End times are not to blame. In reality, the player pool has been growing yet rewards are smaller and smaller. This game feels like a giant grind with no progression. This is coming from a player that has a well developed roster. But I want to see the new players have fun too and be able to catch up and be competitive.

why should hopping be nerfed and WHY would we position progression rewards Further out?

dider152

I think the iso problem would be alleviated, if not fixed, if they raised all iso8 prize levels by a factor of 2. The 2x iso8 promotions are good, but it needs to be permanent.

KrazyKeylime

that 3* progression reward is way to high up in the list and should be a 500 pt reward. it benefits people very little who can actual climb up there with maxed 3* or 4*. At the lower level it is beneficial to the people who need them most. I have been playing for 316 days and i have never once made it high enough to get it. i have just been able to make it past 700 pts 1/2 of the time these last few months.

CrookedKnight

I'm certain there's a mandate from corporate (though I'm not sure who that would be in their hierarchy - someone in Demiurge or a person higher up the food chain) that since token sales are the game's main revenue stream their prices and odds are absolutely not to be altered, certainly not for anything as crass as game balance. Which doesn't mean it's a bad idea by any means, but persuasion isn't going to get something changed when the people you're persuading aren't allowed to change it.

That's my theory, not inside info, but IceIX and Miles did confirm when they were unveiling the vault strategy that changing the percentages for 2* tokens was never on the table.

bknfoodie

CrookedKnight wrote:

I'm certain there's a mandate from corporate (though I'm not sure who that would be in their hierarchy - someone in Demiurge or a person higher up the food chain) that since token sales are the game's main revenue stream their prices and odds are absolutely not to be altered, certainly not for anything as crass as game balance. Which doesn't mean it's a bad idea by any means, but persuasion isn't going to get something changed when the people you're persuading aren't allowed to change it.

That's my theory, not inside info, but IceIX and Miles did confirm when they were unveiling the vault strategy that changing the percentages for 2* tokens was never on the table.

Interesting take. I love thinking about the behind the scenes stuff.

Here's my response to them if this is true:

They need to change their thinking now. Using their model now of vaulting characters + new character every 2 weeks, people aren't filling their glasses to the top anyways with juice. They fill a glass, maybe halfway , then it gets stored in the freezer to take out six months later.

Giving people access to the entire character pool dilutes it, sure. But, increasing the drop rates levels off this dilution. I think the numbers show that players who buy packs love the randomness aspect of it. (Hence the change to not guarantee characters anymore) Also, this gives the game a "collect them all" feel to it.

The vaulting of characters really makes players feel like they hit a wall. Gain some covers, character gets vaulted before player can cover max, ****? How long will said character be vaulted? No one knows, not even the devs. How is this model sustainable at all going forward? Half the 3* characters will be vaulted soon. I'm actually really surprised people think this is OK.

Edit: Want to add that most players are not forumites. Vaulting makes character packs extremely confusing since there are no announcements of rotations anywhere but the forum. The info tab changes in game, but you're expecting people to check who's in the packs. They also don't have a clue to why characters are getting rotated out/in. ****? why can't I get x character?