Handicaping the high end player

franckynight

im on day 523 and i went through the thick and thin in this game going from casual playing to hardcore playing, from hp efficient spending to "whatever spending is needed "(yeah im a whale ), from the public alliance to top 10 alliance.. i really had fun with this game and still hope to have some (no, its not a farewell thread).. what worries me and make me openly venting is the heavy trend i noticed lately in the way d3 handled the high end player.. i feel like being the evil guy who need to be phased out.. in the last 6 months i had to face multiple tweaks that is intended directly to high scoring players.. Where to begin?

- gentle nudge"that forced good players into death brackets
- shield cooldown : no need to develop here
- 3-4* transition aborted: that has been discussed ad nauseam elsewehere
- boosts nerfing: now you cant speed up your matchs anymore
- mmr tweaking: as soon as you have a high score you can be targeted by everybody nerfing shield hoping for good (waiting 2h30 to make 2 quick matchs is not my definition of fun
I discount all the multiple characters nerf we all had to go through from rag/spidey/Cmag/loki to girl thor..

As evidenced, all is done to prevent ppl from scoring high and cater the game to the average Joe.. I understand the need to make the game more reachable to the masses but still what are we playing for now?
Be creative d3.. You want separate world.. Go further.. Make distinct events.. One for the hardcore.. One for the noobs.. For example.. Many suggestions have been offered throughout the forum.. But stop this constant beating of high scoring players that has made already quit so many valuable vets.. We ve helped you to make the game grown and we deserve some respect in that regard.. Cause at this rate next tweak is i have to begin with an half lifed team each time i met an inferior one to balance the odds..

GrumpySmurf1002

franckynight wrote:

As evidenced, all is done to prevent ppl from scoring high and cater the game to the average Joe.. I understand the need to make the game more reachable to the masses but still what are we playing for now?

The only changes (to date) that have had a visible impact on season scores have been the Sentry nerf and the shield cooldowns. (data here: viewtopic.php?f=20&t=20396#p314300) Season 12 isn't in that data, but it reads pretty darn close to the season 11 numbers. Even with those changes, the gap between top 10, top 25, and top 50 has remained virtually unscathed. Where the change is most evident is the gap between the 50th and 100th alliances has been reduced to virtually nothing (30-40 points per event)

Now, 4Thor nerf combined with MMR change combined with boost nerf is a helluva triple whammy, but while the absolute scores at the top end likely diminish again, it's doubtful this will be enough to shake up the top 25 very much.

wirius

I'm not sure how you think D3 is picking on the hardcore player in particular, when to win the top cover, you need to be hardcore. Changes have been made to prevent abuse, or correct a few power skews that distorted the game, but I can't really see anything else.

Unknown

Well, I see francky's point while I am happy with most of the recent changes.

I'd rephrase what he said more simply :

"give us a playground where we can have fun, playing the way we want to, spending the way we want to, not bothering others if they were bothered".

Would you attach an athlete with a rubberband because he is running much faster than a noob or someone who is not trained ?
Would you add some dead weight to a competitive swimmer for the same reason ?

Probably not.

Some games (once again, Magic the Gathering as an example), created "Pro" areas. Some guys became pretty popular and are Gods in the game, because they play so well. They give the noobs something to dream of.

That being said, francky, how long would it take you to get bored to play 1000s of matches with :

boost/XF/GT ? Just the way Sentry/Hood was overabused some months ago ?

So, D3, there can be a compromise between :

more new released characters changing the PvP metagame
a playground for the High End players

Give it some thought, more people will be happy.

Unknown

Wholeheartedly agree there need to be tiers for events.

We need a hard mode, PVPs where 4*s are featured and rewards mimic those seen in a 4* release. Turn on double iso for hard mode. Make this run concurrently to a normal event and only let players compete in one.

Run this as a matchmaking test and see what happens.

Unknown

wirius wrote:

I'm not sure how you think D3 is picking on the hardcore player in particular, when to win the top cover, you need to be hardcore. Changes have been made to prevent abuse, or correct a few power skews that distorted the game, but I can't really see anything else.

What is the 'abuse' you mention? And can I ask what your roster is like please?

puppychow

I really think D3 should bring back those pay-to-enter pvp events (I believe it was called "No Holds Bar"?), where interested players would pay 200 hp to enter a 50 player bracket and fight each other during a 12 hours period (could be adjusted). This is the sort of "elite" playground where bragging rights can be claimed for placing first. Make the first place prize something enticing even to veterans, like a reward for 5,000 hp or 1 or more heroic 10 pack. this would satisfy the hardcore players craving for an elite event, while generating more revenue for the publisher via entry fees and boosts and shields.

Unknown

If I recall those events the worst case was you'd at least win a Heroic token for just competing, so you pretty much got your money back in, but if you got first place it was a huge reward. Especially the first 2 of the events they did. One was like 10000 HP for 1st place and one was one of every cover or something insane.

Then I remember they did some shorter, cheaper ones with less top end prizes, but you are right I haven't seen those in a while.

I wouldn't mind seeing them back though, they were fun to try and place in.

puppychow

franckynight wrote:

As evidenced, all is done to prevent ppl from scoring high and cater the game to the average Joe.. I understand the need to make the game more reachable to the masses but still what are we playing for now?

You answered your own question. Clearly, D3 is looking to expand the game to a more "casual" player base, and to some extent the high scorers prevent this from taking place. I think D3 made a business decision, perhaps based on metrics, that the veterans in general (not referring to whales) are less likely to spend more money compared to newer players. If you look at the situation prior to goddess nerf, for example, veterans who already had a max goddess/xfw team had no need to spend more money to field a competitive pvp team. Basically, if you have your goddess/xf team you were set as a pvp player and didn't need to buy covers or more slots. That's not a good business model for D3 because that means less revenue that D3 can squeeze out of you.

What about buying shields and boosts during pvp events you ask? Well, if you look at the cost, that is really peanuts compared to the cost of a slot or a 10 cover pack. In the end, money talks and D3 is acting in a way that ensures more revenue going forward. If that means making changes that result in veteran players rage quitting, then so be it.

KrazyKeylime

i spent 2000HP shield hopping in 3 of the past events not breaking 1000, i think you might under valuing shields and boost buying, haven't played pve in while so save 1000HP in roster slots and i gained a spot and HP selling rags.

Unknown

I actually like the boost nerf as it keeps character truer to their intended speed and ability and this affects both the shield hopper and any 'snipers' equally. The real big loss is doing multiple fights and taking more damage.

The issue I see with MMR is more of a problem with rewards. There should be a tiered reward system if developed rosters aren't competing against the entire player base anymore. Do you really believe someone who just starts the game should be able to compete immediately for end game content? What other game on this planet has this system? The progression of score is justifiable in that weak teams peak out at 300, average teams maybe 600-800 and top teams 1k and beyond. If you want to redo awards and say people have to pick a difficulty bracket with different awards then this MMR change makes sense. There's absolutely 0 logic however unless the one and only goal you care about is the bottom line dollars. Yay new money, lets entice them by fast tracking them to end game material. Veterans who have already shelled out money? Well they probably won't donate a lot more to fund our beta testing. Lets push them out

If you're going to have pvp, it should open up to anyone can play anyone like a typical tournament. Start off with the 1 seed vs a 16 seed, winner moves on, loser stays in the easy bracket. And so on. Our round progression was fine so I don't see why the 16 seed should start in the final four without earning their way there. (Basketball analogy for any non americans)

In short, if you remove the carrot or the goal of developing your roster. If by developing your roster, you are always worse off than before. Why play??

Unknown

LoreNYC wrote:

I actually like the boost nerf as it keeps character truer to their intended speed and ability and this affects both the shield hopper and any 'snipers' equally. The real big loss is doing multiple fights and taking more damage.

The issue I see with MMR is more of a problem with rewards. There should be a tiered reward system if developed rosters aren't competing against the entire player base anymore. Do you really believe someone who just starts the game should be able to compete immediately for end game content? What other game on this planet has this system? The progression of score is justifiable in that weak teams peak out at 300, average teams maybe 600-800 and top teams 1k and beyond. If you want to redo awards and say people have to pick a difficulty bracket with different awards then this MMR change makes sense. There's absolutely 0 logic however unless the one and only goal you care about is the bottom line dollars. Yay new money, lets entice them by fast tracking them to end game material. Veterans who have already shelled out money? Well they probably won't donate a lot more to fund our beta testing. Lets push them out

If you're going to have pvp, it should open up to anyone can play anyone like a typical tournament. Start off with the 1 seed vs a 16 seed, winner moves on, loser stays in the easy bracket. And so on. Our round progression was fine so I don't see why the 16 seed should start in the final four without earning their way there. (Basketball analogy for any non americans)

In short, if you remove the carrot or the goal of developing your roster. If by developing your roster, you are always worse off than before. Why play??

The problem is that strength of roster in this game is fairly nonexistent. Would you say someone who can beat you 60% of the time is a weak player? In MPQ that's actually pretty darn weak, but how is any ranking system supposed to figure out that someone who can beat you more often than not is nowhere as good as you? But if you eliminated the unreasonable offense advantages then you need a lot more than 2.5 days for any kind of PvP ranking to sort itself out, and if you extend the length of the PvP events you end up with way less covers awarded per same amount of time unless you got some other content to make up for it, which seems very unlikely looking at the pace of development. Ranking players is supposed to take a while. There's a reason why professional sports play a very long regular season before the playoffs begin because you need that kind of time to sort out the best from the rest. In MPQ it'd be like every event is a playoff with rigged rules in favor of one team (the offense), and of course the result you get rarely makes any sense.

Kiamodo

Cryptobrancus wrote:

Wholeheartedly agree there need to be tiers for events.

We need a hard mode, PVPs where 4*s are featured and rewards mimic those seen in a 4* release. Turn on double iso for hard mode. Make this run concurrently to a normal event and only let players compete in one.

Run this as a matchmaking test and see what happens.

Don't give me too much hope! Just the thought of this change makes me excited.

Unknown

puppychow wrote:

franckynight wrote:

As evidenced, all is done to prevent ppl from scoring high and cater the game to the average Joe.. I understand the need to make the game more reachable to the masses but still what are we playing for now?

You answered your own question. Clearly, D3 is looking to expand the game to a more "casual" player base, and to some extent the high scorers prevent this from taking place. I think D3 made a business decision, perhaps based on metrics, that the veterans in general (not referring to whales) are less likely to spend more money compared to newer players. If you look at the situation prior to goddess nerf, for example, veterans who already had a max goddess/xfw team had no need to spend more money to field a competitive pvp team. Basically, if you have your goddess/xf team you were set as a pvp player and didn't need to buy covers or more slots. That's not a good business model for D3 because that means less revenue that D3 can squeeze out of you.

What about buying shields and boosts during pvp events you ask? Well, if you look at the cost, that is really peanuts compared to the cost of a slot or a 10 cover pack. In the end, money talks and D3 is acting in a way that ensures more revenue going forward. If that means making changes that result in veteran players rage quitting, then so be it.

How exactly do you think those veterans obtained a max goddess/xf? They bought overs. You say players that already have them don't need to spend money to be competitive...but they've already spent money to be competitive. I'm in a T10 alliance, and everybody in my alliance had GT by the time the nerf hit, and not a single person got 13 covers for free. Only one of our members is a whale, but we all dropped some cash on 4hor. If you're suggesting that their business model should involve brushing us aside once they have our money...that's a vicious cycle.

Unknown

SaintofKi11ers wrote:

How exactly do you think those veterans obtained a max goddess/xf? They bought overs. You say players that already have them don't need to spend money to be competitive...but they've already spent money to be competitive. I'm in a T10 alliance, and everybody in my alliance had GT by the time the nerf hit, and not a single person got 13 covers for free. Only one of our members is a whale, but we all dropped some cash on 4hor. If you're suggesting that their business model should involve brushing us aside once they have our money...that's a vicious cycle.

I bought 3 of my Xforce covers and won or pulled all 13 of my Thor covers (I got the last one a couple of days after the nerf ) so its possible, I did spend a fair bit on shields but I preferred to win them than buy them, whatever the cost. The ability to win 13/13 four star covers has just become a lot harder. Once all of these transioners that are happy about the more readily available three stars try to move on to four star, they'll find that the ladder has been pulled up on them.

SnagglePuss

Not a VET but in other competitive games there are tiers/divisions to make it better for everyone. If you take FPS games for example you don't have the elite running along with public players as there is absolutely no competition for either group.

Bragging rights in one tier
3/4* transitioners in a tier
2-3* transition in some tier
1-2 in another tier

Further sub groups as the game expands
Then give people the option what group they want to play and limit their roster accordingly.
This opens it up to everyone and gives people a choice.

This might seem a bit much for a match 3 game, especially one that is played on mobile systems but one size fits all doesn't work for anything where competition is involved.

Unknown

Hi Francky I'm impressed you're still here......

I can recommend starting at the bottom in another game, the thrill is in the chase after all

D3 seemed to conclude long ago that they preferred whales to quit rather than trying to keep them. C'est la vie

udonomefoo

The problem with tiers is that this game involves very little skill. I know I just hurt some feelings, but it's true. The only way you are "better" than anyone else is by either being here longer or spending more money.

SnagglePuss

udonomefoo wrote:

The problem with tiers is that this game involves very little skill. I know I just hurt some feelings, but it's true. The only way you are "better" than anyone else is by either being here longer or spending more money.

This is unfortunately true, especially compared to other games where it's not based on what you have (pokemon/WOW/RPGs) but on what you can do. At least in relevant tiers you're limiting the gap between the have and the have nots.

Tiers/Divisions are not a magic solution but invariably across competitive games there is some separation based on ability/wealth/influence.
There are some exceptions, like when there are a small pool of players but the current playerbase has outgrown that. This is the usual next step, especially if looking to grow a business/player base. With the current system it just continues and if anything exacerbates this gap.

DDQ at least tried to address this a little.

SnowcaTT

Hasn't the company said in the past most of their money is made by players in the first 30 days or so? It seems like that's all they care about: sell those first few roster spots.

Get more early players more characters quickly (ie: put them in easier brackets) and they'll have to pay that much more for roster spots before they earn any HP.