Trade ISO for Coins, else reconsider coin costs

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I've been playing this game since it came out. I play it EVERY day (almost) without fail. Very fun, and I dig it, a lot.

One frustration I've had is with upgrading some of the higher starred characters. The drop rates in packs is EXTREMELY low, and even if you buy the larger packs (which cost between 2000 and 3800 coins on "sale" for a 5-10x pack, or ~$13-26 based on the Logan's Loonies coin cost rate), the rates for the higher (3-4) starred characters are still in the sub 1% range in most cases.

So, the expectation is to shell out an average of $20 for a 5-10x pack, or $108 (!!!) for a 42x pack with still sub 1% drop rates for the higher starred characters. Seems a little absurd, no?

Although coins can be earned, they're earned at 25-50 here and there (and I typically rank high in events), and earning them to get the higher ranks needed takes a tremendous amount of time playing the game. At those rates, even if you were able to somehow swing earning 50 coins a day, every day, it would take 76 straight days of earning 50 a day get a single 10x pack of ONE class. Again with sub 1% drop rates for the higher starred characters.

Again, seems a little absurd, no?

I'm no "I expect everything to be free" player. I fully understand you get what you pay for. I also fully understand the concept of Freemium games. Personally I've spent somewhere in the $80-200 range (not sure exactly) on the game over time to support the developers, because I do enjoy it and play it a lot. I've never spent that much on a game. Ever. And my collection is substantial.

However, when it costs that much (in time and/or money) to get a less than 1% chance of getting a character you're trying to upgrade, or when it costs $8.50 to upgrade a 3 star character's power ONE LEVEL, or $17.25 (!!!) to upgrade a 4 star character's power ONE LEVEL... that just seems a little exploitative, doesn't it? Honestly, I'd personally, happily dump $20 (or maybe even $30) if I could pay to fully upgrade a favorite character, but paying that much just to gain a single level on a single power on a single character, that is otherwise near statistically impossible to obtain? To upgrade a four-star character fully after receiving it the first time (one power), it would cost $207 (!!!) at the current rates. Someone is out of their mind.


So, we've established that the current coin costs and dollar-to-coin ratios are more than a bit absurd.

Currently, you can buy 2900 coins, or 13200 ISO for $19.99. Why not allow players to trade ISO for coins, at par? Given that ISO is earned much more easily than coins, even if ISO trades were at 2x (26400) or 3x (39600) the equivalent cost, this would still allow dedicated players the option of having a more-than-almost-nothing or costs-an-arm-and-a-leg chance of upgrading their favorite characters. Players that aren't patient enough to earn the 14 or 25 or 40k ISO for a trade still have the option to buy the coins if desired.

If the concern is that allowing easier access to (still almost statistically nil) drops of higher starred characters might throw off the balance of Versus matches and other events, why not scale single player events to the levels of the player's characters, and tier/restrict versus events based on players that have the similar types of character levels? That is, for a given event, you can enter an "up to three star character" pool or "up to four star character pool", etc., to keep it simple. Same event, but you get to choose which tier you want to join.

A skewing of player balance may not even happen at all, as we're still restricted by the number of characters we can have in our collection (and need to buy additional slots at increasing rates). Characters still need to retain a balance of 1-4 star characters if they want to compete in the most number of events. It might not be wise to fill your roster with nothing but 3-4 stars (3-4 star characters aren't necessarily better anyway, some 2 star characters kick serious **** in the right combinations).

Thoughts?

TL;DR: Current coin-to-dollar costs compared to costs of packs and upgrades in the game are astronomically absurd. Introduce ability to trade collected ISO for coins at par, or even 2x or 3x par if par seems "too easy". Introduce difficulty scaling for single player and tiered versus events to retain balance after potentially higher number of upgraded higher starred characters (which may not even happen) in player pool. Potentially allow single purchase to fully upgrade a given character at lower than the cost of a car payment.

KrazyKeylime

i agree i made a recent post about it in another thread. the pricing is way out of whack and currently any way to get it to be set at a reasonable is game breaking. it is a tough cookie to crack my best suggestion so far is to lower hp cost to 1/2 to 1/4 of what they are now but also limit how many covers can be bought for each hero. the rest of the covers need to be obtain by other means