Transition solution : two-week seasons

SnowcaTT

Assuming here that all season progressions are cut in half, since there are half the PVP's. Would folks like this more than current season layout?

Upsides:
Easily obtainable 3* (progression) twice as often - speeding up 3* transition.
Relatively easily obtainable 10-pack twice as often - possibly speeding up 3* and 4* transition.
Doubles small amount of ISO/HP gained through Season/Sim progressions - somewhat helping with this problem.
Individual burn-out lessened, as "taking a season off" is only two weeks and not a month.
Fits in with D3 "two week" character plan, one character release every season sounds more reasonable (even though it's same rate).
Biggest upside : gets 4* covers out there twice as fast, vastly helping out with this problem (more below).

Downsides:
Less days to grind Sim? (This might be a D3 upside - more health packs needed)
Missing one event eliminates you from competition (almost already did for T100 alliances, should be moved to T150)



"The 4* transition problem" (written directly to Devs)

You're going onto 11 (sorry...XI) seasons, plus one anniversary event. That means 12 different 4* covers - out of 21 possible (7 four star characters). If you didn't introduce another 4* for nine months you would have enough covers to give out without a repeat - but are you really not going to give out another 4* character in the next nine months? I thought not.

If half of your players have started recently, they only have access to 3* covers in daily progressions (X-force and....not much else for awhile). Drop rate is so incredibly rare that it's hard for them to get more. I'll use my roster as an example: I started playing with the Crew for top 100 in Season 3. I -still- don't have either other color for Fury - if I wanted to buy them, I couldn't.

That is the problem - you need folks to have a chance at the covers if you want them to buy more: you are going to need to re-run cover give-out if you want folks to get the covers initially. With the next 4* release you'll be up to 24 covers - with two-week seasons you could get every cover out there once a year, and get folks started into the 4* transition (hey, after two years they'd be all the way up to 2/2/2, except they won't since more 4*'s would have been added). I don't think this is a negative in your bottom line but a positive: folks will be more tempted to buy covers if they have a start on them. People cannot buy covers if they don't have them to start with.

Unknown

Figure they will never put up Devil Dino on to regular Season rewards. So really the number of 4*s is 6 not 7. Also figure rewards will PROBABLY never repeat, as the release rate of new 4*s has climbed dramatically. That means with Star Lord, if they continue the 3 covers for 3 seasons rewards plan, they have rewards for out to season XV already. A new 4* character released in the next 150 days pushes that out farther, and lets face it, that is probably going to happen.

I am down with a 2 week season and cutting all progression rewards in half, both in the simulator and the regular rewards. I don't see this having a super negative impact on scores, since everything gets shortened scores will adjust for everyone and most top 50 alliances will remain top 50.

A better solution to your particular problem, and one I am amazed they haven't done already, is just allow the purchasing of 0 covers to 1 cover. An extra 2500 HP down the drain (per cover) and anyone that wants to vault themselves out of transition can do so with enough . Seems Win/Win right?

Steps have been taken to increase the number of 4* covers going out the door. Season rewards. 1000 point progression rewards. But it isn't enough. If 4* land is where the end game is, they need to stop being treated like shiny bauble prizes and start being actual character rewards. Have 4* PvPs with 4* rewards, even if it's off season. Nick Fury PvP with Elektra rewards for top 100 players. Stop handing out new covers to only 5% of your player base. Top 50 of 1000 is just stupid. Needs to be 150, just like any regular character would be. And finally, there needs to be PvE progression rewards of 4*s. I know a huge portion of players can attain 100% progression completion on any given PvE, but so what? Star Lord is featured, Star Lord should be the top progression, not Rocket and Groot. Otherwise, stop featuring 4*s as essentials.

SnowcaTT

Lerysh wrote:

A better solution to your particular problem, and one I am amazed they haven't done already, is just allow the purchasing of 0 covers to 1 cover. An extra 2500 HP down the drain (per cover) and anyone that wants to vault themselves out of transition can do so with enough . Seems Win/Win right?

Steps have been taken to increase the number of 4* covers going out the door. Season rewards. 1000 point progression rewards. But it isn't enough. If 4* land is where the end game is, they need to stop being treated like shiny bauble prizes and start being actual character rewards. Have 4* PvPs with 4* rewards, even if it's off season. Nick Fury PvP with Elektra rewards for top 100 players. Stop handing out new covers to only 5% of your player base. Top 50 of 1000 is just stupid. Needs to be 150, just like any regular character would be. And finally, there needs to be PvE progression rewards of 4*s. I know a huge portion of players can attain 100% progression completion on any given PvE, but so what? Star Lord is featured, Star Lord should be the top progression, not Rocket and Groot. Otherwise, stop featuring 4*s as essentials.

Sshh! I've suggested buying first cover before also, but whenever I have I mention it makes the game more pay-to-win than ever (ability to go to two 13 cover 4*'s day 1).

I'm over day 300 and it seems like 1000 point progression is still miles away, the only way to get it is already have a couple of 4*'s (which you can only get if you have 4*'s....vicious cycle). I like your idea of putting 4*'s in PVE progressions. I also think they should put 4*'s as the only covers that can be achieved after a year of play in daily rewards. No Cap, no Thor - no one really needs those, and those that have stuck with you for a year deserve better.

Unknown

I actually needed my Patch cover from daily rewards. It's rare but it happens. And as characters become more numerous and vaulting becomes more pronounced, who's to say that day 300 player even has a Thor, or doesn't need the red Thor cover? Plus as long as it doesn't slow down the 4* progression rewards (which it doesn't as far as I can tell) who cares if you get a 3* cover every once in a while? That's a guaranteed 500 iso from the random pull that would replace it, which I will totally take over a recruit token.

SnowcaTT

Lerysh wrote:

I actually needed my Patch cover from daily rewards. It's rare but it happens. And as characters become more numerous and vaulting becomes more pronounced, who's to say that day 300 player even has a Thor, or doesn't need the red Thor cover? Plus as long as it doesn't slow down the 4* progression rewards (which it doesn't as far as I can tell) who cares if you get a 3* cover every once in a while? That's a guaranteed 500 iso from the random pull that would replace it, which I will totally take over a recruit token.

I didn't need day 195 BP, day 235 IM, day 250 Psylock, Day 280 spidey, day 295 patch...already don't need Day 415 LThor or Day 445 Cap....just unlucky somewhat, I need other covers from some of those characters. Many of these characters were put in this order before rotations were started - so now certainly it's harder to get specific 3*'s due to that. There are 21 4* covers and 12 have been given out through 474 days, it's about one a month after day 310 which isn't bad. It will keep up with releases if 4*'s are released every three months or so. I don't know that it will catch up to current releases though, and shouldn't those that have played 400+ days get covers for these pretty quickly, rather than having to play another year to get them?

I didn't mention this "solution" in OP since it is a distant solution for most, at best. A solution that would be in the visible distance, that you could work for and get more quickly, would be two-week seasons.

Unknown

The downside to 2 week seasons: Vaulting. It's hard enough to get a character covered up before he's vaulted and not heard from for quite some time. If you shortened the potential time from 25ish days to 14 days you would basically have no chance in hell of actually covering a 3* unless they went multiple seasons unvaulted or were rewards for lots of events in a short period.

Raffoon

Lerysh wrote:

The downside to 2 week seasons: Vaulting. It's hard enough to get a character covered up before he's vaulted and not heard from for quite some time. If you shortened the potential time from 25ish days to 14 days you would basically have no chance in hell of actually covering a 3* unless they went multiple seasons unvaulted or were rewards for lots of events in a short period.

But then wouldn't that character rotate back in twice as fast?

Unknown

Raffoon wrote:

Lerysh wrote:

The downside to 2 week seasons: Vaulting. It's hard enough to get a character covered up before he's vaulted and not heard from for quite some time. If you shortened the potential time from 25ish days to 14 days you would basically have no chance in hell of actually covering a 3* unless they went multiple seasons unvaulted or were rewards for lots of events in a short period.

But then wouldn't that character rotate back in twice as fast?

They could always vault every other season... Love the idea snowcaTT would totally enjoy that if it were added in the game.

SnowcaTT

Raffoon wrote:

Lerysh wrote:

The downside to 2 week seasons: Vaulting. It's hard enough to get a character covered up before he's vaulted and not heard from for quite some time. If you shortened the potential time from 25ish days to 14 days you would basically have no chance in hell of actually covering a 3* unless they went multiple seasons unvaulted or were rewards for lots of events in a short period.

But then wouldn't that character rotate back in twice as fast?

Good points on Vaulting, hadn't thought about it. Would it be any different than now? If characters are vaulted now for 4 calendar months and 4 calendar months with 2x the number of seasons - still have the same no chance to cover, still runs the same number of PVP events (so probably not with vaulted characters).

If it vaults twice as often it would fix the problem that you can't get the character - you don't have to wait 4 months you'd have to wait 2. You'd be getting double the amount of 10-packs, so you could keep for a shorter amount of time until the character you are looking for is back.

SnowcaTT

Um....skipping Elektra covers to get in Starlord covers doesn't cut it. Now folks will be missing the third cover of Elektra - why?!? So you can sell more HP to have people open more slots for Starlord? If you need those slots opened, offer Starlord for more than T50 when he comes out!

Two week seasons and you can actually get all the covers out there to the players, the release schedule of 4*'s is making the season rewards fall behind. Give players a shot at all the covers so they can buy more if they want - and give them a shot again within a year for if they have only joined in the last three months!

Unknown

SnowcaTT wrote:

Um....skipping Elektra covers to get in Starlord covers doesn't cut it. Now folks will be missing the third cover of Elektra - why?!? So you can sell more HP to have people open more slots for Starlord? If you need those slots opened, offer Starlord for more than T50 when he comes out!

Two week seasons and you can actually get all the covers out there to the players, the release schedule of 4*'s is making the season rewards fall behind. Give players a shot at all the covers so they can buy more if they want - and give them a shot again within a year for if they have only joined in the last three months!

They have skipped a bunch. For 11 seasons we have had

3 Fury
3 Thor
2 Xforce
1 IW
1 Elektra
1 StarLord

SnowcaTT

papa07 wrote:

They have skipped a bunch. For 12 seasons we have had

3 Fury
3 Thor
2 Xforce
1 IW
1 Elektra
2 StarLord
0 Professor X
0 Kingpin

I updated that and bumped this as a 4* transition solution. It's similar to the "weekly deadpool" idea, but half as fast - and with the current release rate there is no way this idea is fast enough. Since writing this, we have three PX covers and now three Kingpin covers needed for season rewards.

So for those just starting - how are they supposed to get these covers? You now have 24 different 4* covers. Next season there will have been 13 of those covers handed out. Assuming players have done just over a year, they have X-force and IW covers, and assuming their alliance hit EVERY season reward they have 16 different covers, 19 total. Now let's assume they did each of the T50 releases and found an alliance that also did T50 - they have 10 more covers (29 total). Of 13 x 8 (104) needed. Yeah, they are getting there REAL fast.

And how, prey tell, is anyone who starts TODAY supposed to get any of these covers? Play for two years until they are in daily rewards? If someone could hit the 1K progression every other PVP they'd have 78 total covers - you still wouldn't have everything covered. And that's so far, if you have a new 4* every month (and I could predict two, if things keep going status quo) it will look like this: (Total # of characters/Total number of needed covers)
May: 9/117
June: 10/130
July: 11/143
August: 12/156
September: 13/169
October: 14/182
November: 15/195
December: 16/208

By December, you'd have 48 different 4* covers in PVP rotations. If you hit 1K for every one (three times a week), you'd have 156 of those 208 needed covers. A year of 1K progressions won't be enough to cover your 4*'s.

I'm not saying here you should be able to get every 4* fully covered and leveled, and certainly not for free. What I am saying is -something- needs to be done where not only are 4*'s rotated through (as they used to be in seasons, and are a long, long way into daily progressions), but rotated through multiple times so anyone who misses the rotation - or starts new - has a chance to get those covers again.

I've said it over and over: you have to get covers to the players initially to get the players to pay for more of those covers!

rednailz

SnowcaTT - I think you put more thought into this game than the developers do.

Unknown

While there's nothing "wrong" with saying "hey d3p give us more covers and iso" there really isn't a need for complex or system-changing solutions. At any point d3p could open the spigot simply by increasing iso rewards, token odds, or number of players that get 3* and 4* placement covers

Unknown

edit double post, sorry

Unknown

gamar wrote:

While there's nothing "wrong" with saying "hey d3p give us more covers and iso" there really isn't a need for complex or system-changing solutions. At any point d3p could open the spigot simply by increasing iso rewards, token odds, or number of players that get 3* and 4* placement covers

http://www.d3pforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=25222

225 upvotes on a a post that boils down to, "please open the spigot some"

Should be easy for D3 to increase the flow of 4*s but they haven't really done anything towards that yet. There have been heated discussion threads about wider rewards in PVE releases, weekly 4* suggestions, season progression 4*s, slowing down rate of new 4*s, increase token odds, two week seasons, etc.

All of these are the players trying to address one simple problem. They are adding new 4*s to the game faster than it is possible for anyone to earn them. Buying them is always an option, but as things are now buying may already be a ~requirement~ to finishing new 4*s. Which either means they don't actually expect us to ever get them, or 4*s are squarely P2W territory, or they are aware of the situation and working on something to address it. Possibly some combination of the three, but I haven't seen a red name comment on the topic in a long time.

We were told they were working on making the 4* transition smoother but haven't seen any evidence to back that up. And with the new round of nerfs and 4* release schedule it seems like they are actively making the 4* transition rockier instead.