Roster cost issue

Lidolas

I think one of the points of DPDQ is to help players focus on collecting specific characters that they want. I know a lot of us have the Pokemon mentality that we need to collect them all, but really we don't. Players now have a guaranteed opportunity to collect a cover/month-ish of any/all characters they want. Prior to DPDQ, players felt compelled to keep every 3* they came across because you never know when you'll see them available again. Now, you can free up that roster slot holding a 1/0/1 or the 0/2/1 or whatever 3* covers your hording that you don't think will help you much in the future. You can save some hp and spend it more conservatively on the heroes you want.

sinnerjfl

Lidolas wrote:

I think one of the points of DPDQ is to help players focus on collecting specific characters that they want. I know a lot of us have the Pokemon mentality that we need to collect them all, but really we don't. Players now have a guaranteed opportunity to collect a cover/month-ish of any/all characters they want. Prior to DPDQ, players felt compelled to keep every 3* they came across because you never know when you'll see them available again. Now, you can free up that roster slot holding a 1/0/1 or the 0/2/1 or whatever 3* covers your hording that you don't think will help you much in the future. You can save some hp and spend it more conservatively on the heroes you want.

The problem is that if you don't collect every 3* character, you're gonna find yourself with essential nodes in PVE that you're locked out of. Just like the current run of the Gauntlet, people can't complete it because they didnt keep Squirrel Girl. Same thing with feature PVP's, having a loaner vs a underleveled but decently covered character is a big difference.

We don't really have a choice to collect everyone because of this.

Unknown

I have got this game for a couple of months and I love it.
I have spent about 30$ in the game, buying HP for roster slots, because, - like Shade_tree said - that is about the price that I'm ready to put in a casual video game and it felt normal to me to pay for something that I find enjoyable and that people put time and effort to design.

But, the more I read the forums, the more I have come to be critical about the way things are monetized in the game, in the sense that you can pay for your performance in so many possible ways... Not pay to play, but really pay to win.

OK you can stay on a free to play basis, but then you have to sacrifice speed of progression, characters wich might be required later, shields and so on.
A game, free or paying, should be somewhat fair for every participants, not sell shortcuts and competitive advantages to the wealthiest ones.
Especially when it's a super heroes game, who are supposed to carry moral values.

Pinko_McFly

The devs got to make money so until they figure out another way to get people to spend hp, I don't really see it changing. With that said, they did get rid of shield hopping and that seemed like a big hp market, though the real big spenders were probably not that high of a % of the playerbase.
Having played simpsons tapped out for 2 years, I can say the devs here are leaps and bounds ahead of that game in regards to how much premium currency they give out.

Ludaa

You may need to spend a little early on to keep everyone. At some point, if you play long enough and smart enough, the game gives you plenty of HP. You need to be able to hit all HP progression rewards and place well in a few subs now and then. I think ISO-8 Brotherhood is one of the cash cow PvE's. I'm at 58 slots now and not quite ready to cry foul. My reserve fluctuates up/down with the new releases, but always ends up positive. It does need to be capped around this cost, preferably lower of course.

Just by taking advantage of character changes this week I've made 600hp for free. Play smart, put in the time, drop a few bucks during a sale early on, and you'll be set.

MPQ has kept from buying 2 or 3 $60 video games in the last 400+ days, and I don't have to put up with 12 year-olds insulting my Mother when I place well. It's worth some dough.

slidecage

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

FWIW, we're on 74 tokens after today, so the expected return to this point is 962HP. (13HP per token)

That you only have 500 HP means you've been unlucky to date. Anyone who has hit the 1000HP is ahead of the curve, ditto anyone that's pulled 4+ of the 250HP.

Now, 962 is still < 1400+ needed for 2 characters a month, but it's possible to earn the rest from PvE/PvP/Daily rewards. That's where their idea that the DDQ helps alleviate some of the pressure comes from.

It's not a perfect solution, but it's certainly a (highly variable by user) boost to the economy.

i never draw any HP out of the tokens in matter of fact of all the tokens i cashed in i only got 2 3 stars ( cage red and flame green)

i was in the same boat as you around a month or two ago, Jump in every PVP, get a good team in PVE and play hard in PVE and you should get a lot of HP. I think i pulled down 2000 hp per month and that is with missing a few PVE rewards

the first 20 bucks i tossed into the game back in NOV went into SLOTS. I tell you this right now D3 IF you did lower the cost for SLOTS i would toss in more cash and buy more just to have them. I think i got like 12 or 13 slots for 20 bucks Or 1.xx per slot. With slots now costing 600 20 bucks would buy me what 4 slots or 5 slots That is 4 bucks per slot. That is way more then i would pay per slot.

2 bucks per slot is about the right price.

optimus2861

sinnerjfl wrote:

The problem is that if you don't collect every 3* character, you're gonna find yourself with essential nodes in PVE that you're locked out of. Just like the current run of the Gauntlet, people can't complete it because they didnt keep Squirrel Girl. Same thing with feature PVP's, having a loaner vs a underleveled but decently covered character is a big difference.

We don't really have a choice to collect everyone because of this.

Yeah. I threw out my SQ covers because she seemed like a silly character and not one I wanted to spend a valuable roster slot on (I currently have 'just' 31 slots). Then she's an essential. Drat. Ditto Ragnarok, back when I got him in the daily login. I couldn't afford to waste the slot on a single 3* vaulted toon. 500 ISO, and another essential branch denied me.

The release pace of characters is really dreadful from the POV of a 2* -> 3* transitioner, let me tell you. I can't yet hit 400 points in PVP. Like, at all. The only time I pulled it off was during Women of Marvel, with a boosted 2* Storm blowing everyone away. So there's even that meagre 25 HP per PVP I can't get. I've pulled just one 250HP token via DDQ, and can't run the full DDQ every day either (I did pick up Cage today!). That only leaves the resupply HP drops and the PVE progression rewards, which might add up to one slot a month. D3 seems to be releasing 2 characters or more per month these days. That's a problem.

Now I have spent money. This is my third or fourth freemium game and I told myself I wasn't going to get super-frustrated by trying to go full FTP this time, so I've chipped in $2, $5 here and there to unlock slots. And still, I don't even have enough slots for half the full roster, and I've probably sold at least 3-4 Sentry covers and at least that many Daredevil covers, as the two most frustrating examples.

I can easily see in another 3-6 months that the roster slot costs will drive me out. I don't seem to make it past a year with these kind of games before I hit the wall and suddenly quit.

ErickTheRed

When people say Deadpool Daily tokens are worth 13hp, I think that is a slight overestimate. First of all, the displayed percentages are rounded - they don't add to 100%. It might well be that there is a .25% chance of 1000hp, for 2.5 instead of 3. Also it's a little weird just averaging when the probability of an event is very low compared to the times you are rolling. Most people will not have gotten any 1000hp results, so that result hasn't been worth anything to them. On the other hand even 20 a day from two tokens adds up. Add in the daily resupply, some basic progression rewards from pvp and pve and it's easy to average over 50 a day in the long run. That gives you your 700 roster slot.

Of course if you are just starting out you won't catch up anytime soon, and that doesn't leave much to save up for buying the occasional cover or shield.

Unknown

optimus2861 wrote:

sinnerjfl wrote:

The problem is that if you don't collect every 3* character, you're gonna find yourself with essential nodes in PVE that you're locked out of. Just like the current run of the Gauntlet, people can't complete it because they didnt keep Squirrel Girl. Same thing with feature PVP's, having a loaner vs a underleveled but decently covered character is a big difference.

We don't really have a choice to collect everyone because of this.

Yeah. I threw out my SQ covers because she seemed like a silly character and not one I wanted to spend a valuable roster slot on (I currently have 'just' 31 slots). Then she's an essential. Drat. Ditto Ragnarok, back when I got him in the daily login. I couldn't afford to waste the slot on a single 3* vaulted toon. 500 ISO, and another essential branch denied me.

The release pace of characters is really dreadful from the POV of a 2* -> 3* transitioner, let me tell you. I can't yet hit 400 points in PVP. Like, at all. The only time I pulled it off was during Women of Marvel, with a boosted 2* Storm blowing everyone away. So there's even that meagre 25 HP per PVP I can't get. I've pulled just one 250HP token via DDQ, and can't run the full DDQ every day either (I did pick up Cage today!). That only leaves the resupply HP drops and the PVE progression rewards, which might add up to one slot a month. D3 seems to be releasing 2 characters or more per month these days. That's a problem.

Now I have spent money. This is my third or fourth freemium game and I told myself I wasn't going to get super-frustrated by trying to go full FTP this time, so I've chipped in $2, $5 here and there to unlock slots. And still, I don't even have enough slots for half the full roster, and I've probably sold at least 3-4 Sentry covers and at least that many Daredevil covers, as the two most frustrating examples.

I can easily see in another 3-6 months that the roster slot costs will drive me out. I don't seem to make it past a year with these kind of games before I hit the wall and suddenly quit.

Your post needs to be upvoted a 1,000 times so the devs can see what is really happening. That you've had to throw out so many 3*s is awful.

Unknown

Pinko McFly wrote:

The devs got to make money so until they figure out another way to get people to spend hp, I don't really see it changing. With that said, they did get rid of shield hopping and that seemed like a big hp market, though the real big spenders were probably not that high of a % of the playerbase.
Having played simpsons tapped out for 2 years, I can say the devs here are leaps and bounds ahead of that game in regards to how much premium currency they give out.

As a player I don't see the devs trying new ideas for how to make money, just pushing the same buttons over and over and expecting enough players to swipe their cards to keep the lights on. There are infinite ways to monetize things, and D3 wants us to keep buying the same stuff over and over. There is no joy given from buying a roster slot like there might be for a cover and I think that is why we resent being forced to pay ever increasing amounts for the right to keep a character when they would 100% of the time rather use those HP for IMPROVING a character, for shielding to a top finish or otherwise playing the game...

Lidolas

sinnerjfl wrote:

Lidolas wrote:

I think one of the points of DPDQ is to help players focus on collecting specific characters that they want. I know a lot of us have the Pokemon mentality that we need to collect them all, but really we don't. Players now have a guaranteed opportunity to collect a cover/month-ish of any/all characters they want. Prior to DPDQ, players felt compelled to keep every 3* they came across because you never know when you'll see them available again. Now, you can free up that roster slot holding a 1/0/1 or the 0/2/1 or whatever 3* covers your hording that you don't think will help you much in the future. You can save some hp and spend it more conservatively on the heroes you want.

The problem is that if you don't collect every 3* character, you're gonna find yourself with essential nodes in PVE that you're locked out of. Just like the current run of the Gauntlet, people can't complete it because they didnt keep Squirrel Girl. Same thing with feature PVP's, having a loaner vs a underleveled but decently covered character is a big difference.

We don't really have a choice to collect everyone because of this.

It's true that you won't have all the essentials. The problem with this is the thought that you need essential characters to play the game. You don't. You only need the essentials to be competitive. If you are a 2*-3* transitioner, you don't need to place in the top 100 in every event. The people on the forums, the ones who are trying to play at the top level, the ones responding to this thread, are not the ones that DPDQ is mainly aimed towards. The way I see it, it gives casual (not competitive) players something to do, something to accomplish every day. It's great for competitive players too, more hp and much more iso.

optimus2861

Lidolas wrote:

It's true that you won't have all the essentials. The problem with this is the thought that you need essential characters to play the game. You don't. You only need the essentials to be competitive. If you are a 2*-3* transitioner, you don't need to place in the top 100 in every event.

It's got nothing to do with rank. The issue with essentials in Gauntlet is that you can't hit all the Progression awards. I could sure have used the Daken cover (mine is a puny 1/0/1), but without both Daken & Ragnarok, you cannot accumulate enough points to get it.

Look, we all know what essentials are. They're a way for D3 to put pressure on those players who don't have them to hit the "Buy Tokens" button. It's monetization. It's not going anywhere.

grunth13

Lidolas wrote:

sinnerjfl wrote:

Lidolas wrote:

I think one of the points of DPDQ is to help players focus on collecting specific characters that they want. I know a lot of us have the Pokemon mentality that we need to collect them all, but really we don't. Players now have a guaranteed opportunity to collect a cover/month-ish of any/all characters they want. Prior to DPDQ, players felt compelled to keep every 3* they came across because you never know when you'll see them available again. Now, you can free up that roster slot holding a 1/0/1 or the 0/2/1 or whatever 3* covers your hording that you don't think will help you much in the future. You can save some hp and spend it more conservatively on the heroes you want.

The problem is that if you don't collect every 3* character, you're gonna find yourself with essential nodes in PVE that you're locked out of. Just like the current run of the Gauntlet, people can't complete it because they didnt keep Squirrel Girl. Same thing with feature PVP's, having a loaner vs a underleveled but decently covered character is a big difference.

We don't really have a choice to collect everyone because of this.

It's true that you won't have all the essentials. The problem with this is the thought that you need essential characters to play the game. You don't. You only need the essentials to be competitive. If you are a 2*-3* transitioner, you don't need to place in the top 100 in every event. The people on the forums, the ones who are trying to play at the top level, the ones responding to this thread, are not the ones that DPDQ is mainly aimed towards. The way I see it, it gives casual (not competitive) players something to do, something to accomplish every day. It's great for competitive players too, more hp and much more iso.

Actually the 2*-3* transitioner is the main person who needs to keep all the characters, because you never know which characters you are going to get from the random covers. If I had gone off of NP's list of characters, I would have thrown away all my gsbw and hulk covers as they were considered low powered, but I am glad that I kept them (I did pay money to get more slots and 40 packs at the beginning before finding the forum) because I was able to max them out way before anyone else (the next best covered was at 6). Thanks to those two I was able to get more covers for other characters. We also didn't have DPDQ at that time to help so what characters you got was based on random drops, daily rewards and pve (most transitioners should be able to get t100 since their scaling is not completely out of whack) and pvp (which most transitioners will not be able to get t100). This game is somewhat based on luck as to where your tokens take you. I have spent about $400 dollars to speed up my transition (have 57 characters which are all getting fleshed out for the most part) but I could have easily gotten squat for my 40 packs (my last pack I bought had 1 gold token which was when I stopped buying). So for the vets to say 2*-3* transitioners shouldn't place in all pve's and they can't place in the pvp's, then they will quit. I would really like to see what the vets would do then if they didn't have the noobs and transitioners to squash on the way up the pvp ladder before they start seeing max rosters. There would be an uproar. It would be cannibalism. Then the game would end because everyone would quit. I started playing clash of clans during my brief quit (now I am playing only dpq and occasional pvp's) and I have to say that I feel the difference is night and day. In MPQ, you either win or lose and don't progress. In CoC, even when I lose I can advance as the person who is attacking me can't take 100% of my resources. Every day I am advancing in CoC. Granted that it is a little boring just updating stuff...but I am updating, while in mpq a transitioner my not be able to update anything for weeks if they get a bad break. That's my 2 cents worth.

optimus2861

MikeHock wrote:

Your post needs to be upvoted a 1,000 times so the devs can see what is really happening. That you've had to throw out so many 3*s is awful.

And don't get me started on vaulting. All five of the to-be-vaulted toons for next season are in my roster, undercovered and not worth playing. Now they'll sit on the bench for at least a month with only DDQ helping them out. So that's essentially five more 'dead' slots in my less-than-half-full roster, plus I've got three more slots sitting with a single 3* (IF, Doom, Loki). But here come shiny new toons!

It is what it is I suppose. These freemium games all employ eerily similar psychological pressures to "persuade" you to part with your money.

Lidolas

optimus2861 wrote:

Lidolas wrote:

It's true that you won't have all the essentials. The problem with this is the thought that you need essential characters to play the game. You don't. You only need the essentials to be competitive. If you are a 2*-3* transitioner, you don't need to place in the top 100 in every event.

It's got nothing to do with rank. The issue with essentials in Gauntlet is that you can't hit all the Progression awards. I could sure have used the Daken cover (mine is a puny 1/0/1), but without both Daken & Ragnarok, you cannot accumulate enough points to get it.

Look, we all know what essentials are. They're a way for D3 to put pressure on those players who don't have them to hit the "Buy Tokens" button. It's monetization. It's not going anywhere.

I agree that the way this latest gauntlet progression rewards and essentials flowed was screwy, but it wasn't the standard. But even then, this event isn't offering anything that's new or even very exciting.

My main point still stands is that by losing the Pokemon mentality, the game can become much more enjoyable. Play for fun, to waste time, to see heroes in action. Don't play because you 'have' to. If you enjoy competition, that's great, compete, but please try not to get frustrated when others compete better than you.

grunth13

Lidolas wrote:

optimus2861 wrote:

Lidolas wrote:

It's true that you won't have all the essentials. The problem with this is the thought that you need essential characters to play the game. You don't. You only need the essentials to be competitive. If you are a 2*-3* transitioner, you don't need to place in the top 100 in every event.

It's got nothing to do with rank. The issue with essentials in Gauntlet is that you can't hit all the Progression awards. I could sure have used the Daken cover (mine is a puny 1/0/1), but without both Daken & Ragnarok, you cannot accumulate enough points to get it.

Look, we all know what essentials are. They're a way for D3 to put pressure on those players who don't have them to hit the "Buy Tokens" button. It's monetization. It's not going anywhere.

I agree that the way this latest gauntlet progression rewards and essentials flowed was screwy, but it wasn't the standard. But even then, this event isn't offering anything that's new or even very exciting.

My main point still stands is that by losing the Pokemon mentality, the game can become much more enjoyable. Play for fun, to waste time, to see heroes in action. Don't play because you 'have' to. If you enjoy competition, that's great, compete, but please try not to get frustrated when others compete better than you.

Again, it's not about competing better than someone else, it's competing luckier when you are a 2*-3* transitioning. You may have thrown away multiple 3* characters covers thinking it's not all that great, but those covers could have gotten your ideal characters fleshed out. The vets can choose which ones they want to keep and throw away because they have strong characters, but the transitioning player doesn't have the luxury to throw anything away until they have their ideal team which will help them in pvp and beyond.

Unknown

shade_tree wrote:

Kiwi7756 wrote:

The cost, ( and the price) in one case is more understandable than in the other.

To you perhaps, but I think the roster slot is worth far more than $7 in terms of MPQ play and my enjoyment of the game.

And again, no one is forced to spend real money on roster slots - there are more than enough opportunities to earn HP for two new slots each month if you're willing to put in the time to play. If your time is worth more than money, by all means, buy the slots, but don't then complain about the "value" of those slots - you've made that decision already.

I'm definitely jumping in mid-conversation, but why not complain about the value of the roster slots? The value changes as your roster increases.

rednailz

Ludaa wrote:

You may need to spend a little early on to keep everyone. At some point, if you play long enough and smart enough, the game gives you plenty of HP. You need to be able to hit all HP progression rewards and place well in a few subs now and then. I think ISO-8 Brotherhood is one of the cash cow PvE's. I'm at 58 slots now and not quite ready to cry foul. My reserve fluctuates up/down with the new releases, but always ends up positive. It does need to be capped around this cost, preferably lower of course.

Just by taking advantage of character changes this week I've made 600hp for free. Play smart, put in the time, drop a few bucks during a sale early on, and you'll be set.

MPQ has kept from buying 2 or 3 $60 video games in the last 400+ days, and I don't have to put up with 12 year-olds insulting my Mother when I place well. It's worth some dough.

hahaha....so true. god I hate most team speaks or group speak. It hurst twice as bad when that 12 year old kicked your butt too.

Unknown

MikeHock wrote:

I'm definitely jumping in mid-conversation, but why not complain about the value of the roster slots? The value changes as your roster increases.

The cost increases with roster size but the value is determined by the player. My point is that while I might choose to play more in order to earn HP to buy a slot and someone else might instead choose to purchase their HP with cash instead of time, in both cases we have decided that the new slot is valuable.

I think most vets, except those who strictly play PVP with just a couple of chars, will agree that a large roster is worth the time/money to get it, so complaining about what it costs doesn't make sense to me - either choose to expand the roster by whatever means works best for you or choose not to (and then please don't complain about how you don't have the essential after you make that decision).

Argon Flame

I am only at 400 HP per slot currently.

My 'income' rates Are around 50 HP per PvP and maybe 150 HP per PvE.
That means I might get 250 HP per week. Letting me buy a slot once every two weeks.

I have stopped opening my tokens now unless I have the HP to buy a slot for any uncovered characters I open. On top of that I have to plan for new characters and keep enough HP so that those covers do not expire!

I don't have a full 2* roster. I have considered triaging my 4* that have a single cover to provide space but that seems terrible in the long term