Y'Dun Goofed!: A Monologue on Accountability/Compensation

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Regardless of how you feel about the overall game, nerfs, boost, or PvE decisions... setting up an event that for the majority of your player base relies on characters you just provided incentive to them to sell off (as a gesture of supposed goodwill, no less) is staggeringly bad PR and carries a less-than-implicit subtext.

It is discouraging that there doesn't seem to be anyone at D3 that would stop the devs/programmers and say, "Hey, guys, uh, maybe this doesn't send the best message to our customers."

I work professionally in PR and even the dullest of interns could figure the above out.

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abuelo wrote:

It's weird, I sit here literally begging for reasons to spend money on the game. I'm a money player, I'm not ashamed of it but with the value spectrum being as far away from acceptable as it is it's the little things mentioned in the OP that talk me out of dropping that £69.99 on the game.

I'm not a money player in F2Ps, but this game often makes it downright hard to spend money given its cover design. For example, if you need a Daredevil for the Heroic Oscorp, it's like $30 for one cover, $12 per level of that skill, another $50 for ISO to level it, oh, and maybe another $1-200 to random roll into his other skills. In what universe is that a realistic cost of entry?

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Dunkelgrau wrote:

abuelo wrote:

It's weird, I sit here literally begging for reasons to spend money on the game. I'm a money player, I'm not ashamed of it but with the value spectrum being as far away from acceptable as it is it's the little things mentioned in the OP that talk me out of dropping that £69.99 on the game.

I'm not a money player in F2Ps, but this game often makes it downright hard to spend money given its cover design. For example, if you need a Daredevil for the Heroic Oscorp, it's like $30 for one cover, $12 per level of that skill, another $50 for ISO to level it, oh, and maybe another $1-200 to random roll into his other skills. In what universe is that a realistic cost of entry?

that is realistic! in the dev's eye. we want ur money!! we won't giving any consolation prize for our stupid purposedly mistake. we won't refund any of ur money if possible. we want stop the cheaters, it's too much of a hassle. so in conclusion: just shut up, play , and pay us!

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Dunkelgrau wrote:

abuelo wrote:

It's weird, I sit here literally begging for reasons to spend money on the game. I'm a money player, I'm not ashamed of it but with the value spectrum being as far away from acceptable as it is it's the little things mentioned in the OP that talk me out of dropping that £69.99 on the game.

I'm not a money player in F2Ps, but this game often makes it downright hard to spend money given its cover design. For example, if you need a Daredevil for the Heroic Oscorp, it's like $30 for one cover, $12 per level of that skill, another $50 for ISO to level it, oh, and maybe another $1-200 to random roll into his other skills. In what universe is that a realistic cost of entry?

Yeah, I have no idea.

I'm happy to spend, and I'm pretty careless with my money. I tip well. I have a taste for Scotch. I've been known to burn a pay cheque at the strip club once or twice. And if I can add a shrimp skewer to a meal for a little extra, by God I'll add that shrimp. But the amount of value you get for your dollar in this game on everything outside of roster space is absolutely insane. There is no way, in any reality or fantasy I can construe, that a single level of a single power is worth $12.50. If it was like, $2 and the ISO to get up to my new max was another $5 or so, I could easily see my impatience taking over and me dropping some real money on this game. But these prices are simply out of touch.

It's such a shame too, because this game has so much going for it's business model. If buying skills and ISO were affordable the game could still avoid the P2W trap since we can only play 3 characters at a time. And they would be selling us the iconic childhood heroes we've grown up loving. All this **** with shields, boosts for HP and higher damage necessitating medkits is only turning players off, while the perfect product is built in to the game from the first word of the title.

I want this game to add Cyclops soon. I want him to have 3 cool powers, like a red one that knocks out 6-9 squares in a diagonal line, a blue power that generates AP some how and a yellow power that makes defence tiles. I want to fight my a** off to grab one of each cover, and then I want to spend some cash bringing him up to a usable spot in my roster as fast as I possibly can. And when D3 announces Cyclops as "coming soon" on the forums I want to post that meme of Fry from Futurama that says "Shut up and take my money!" But I want all that to happen without necessitating a new line of credit with my bank, you know?

uuddlrlr

You can get Hero Points as rewards, though, so it's not like you HAD to pay real money for all the items you mentioned.

On topic: I have the impression that PR is not their forte. I assume they would have more people assigned to it if they thought it was important, or if the game actually relied on its social features. As it is, they're probably putting all their resources into building patches, examining the numbers to make future balancing plans, with little time/resource left to handle user-facing customer service. I do appreciate IceX's interventions, but I think he is volunteering his time (AFAIK, he's not the forum/community manager; it would seem they actually DON'T have any!)

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uuddlrlr wrote:

You can get Hero Points as rewards, though, so it's not like you HAD to pay real money for all the items you mentioned.

On topic: I have the impression that PR is not their forte. I assume they would have more people assigned to it if they thought it was important, or if the game actually relied on its social features. As it is, they're probably putting all their resources into building patches, examining the numbers to make future balancing plans, with little time/resource left to handle user-facing customer service. I do appreciate IceX's interventions, but I think he is volunteering his time (AFAIK, he's not the forum/community manager; it would seem they actually DON'T have any!)

Agree completely. I also think the devs are working hard with the programming side of the game, but have been terrible with the PR side. They need to communicate a lot more with the community regarding their thoughts and intentions.

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Eidolone wrote:

uuddlrlr wrote:

You can get Hero Points as rewards, though, so it's not like you HAD to pay real money for all the items you mentioned.

On topic: I have the impression that PR is not their forte. I assume they would have more people assigned to it if they thought it was important, or if the game actually relied on its social features. As it is, they're probably putting all their resources into building patches, examining the numbers to make future balancing plans, with little time/resource left to handle user-facing customer service. I do appreciate IceX's interventions, but I think he is volunteering his time (AFAIK, he's not the forum/community manager; it would seem they actually DON'T have any!)

Agree completely. I also think the devs are working hard with the programming side of the game, but have been terrible with the PR side. They need to communicate a lot more with the community regarding their thoughts and intentions.

What fascinates me is how little D3 seems to have done with the community. It makes me wonder if this is one of the first online/multiplayer games they've done. I mean, they have a solid track record of games over all (pretty long list honestly), but I can't help but notice the lack of a need for true CS/PR in most of them.

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uuddlrlr wrote:

You can get Hero Points as rewards, though, so it's not like you HAD to pay real money for all the items you mentioned.

On topic: I have the impression that PR is not their forte. I assume they would have more people assigned to it if they thought it was important, or if the game actually relied on its social features. As it is, they're probably putting all their resources into building patches, examining the numbers to make future balancing plans, with little time/resource left to handle user-facing customer service. I do appreciate IceX's interventions, but I think he is volunteering his time (AFAIK, he's not the forum/community manager; it would seem they actually DON'T have any!)

You don't really get enough hero points for everything though. I mean, I got 150 from progression rewards and placement in the Wolvie tourney, but spent 400 on the shield I needed to finish high. That's not the point though.

Whether it's my money or the HP they give me, $12.50 is too much for a single power level. 2100 ISO is like 1 high level, 50 health and 1 damage per tile. That's not worth $5 out of my pocket, that's not worth $5 worth of rewards, that's not worth $5 that I found laying on the street. I'd sooner give $5 away then buy 1 single level, because as charity it's actually worth something to someone. 1 level is nothing. And I have so many characters I want to level, but the value for my dollar just isn't there.

This game is generous with the hero points, and that's a really smart move. They had me spending their in game currency from day 1, and it's so much easier to top up and add to the money I have then to buy in from zero. But there just aren't any justifiable purchases.

I'll give you an example: I have Patch at 3/5/3. My ideal build is 3/5/5. I thought I'd get there during Thick as Thieves, but due to scaling issues beyond anyone's control that event didn't pan out the way I hoped. Right now though I have 2 green covers in my hands. If I could drop $5 and get those last 2 yellow covers I'd do it in a heart beat and build him the way I want. But there is no way in hell I'd spend $25, or 2500 hp. So I don't get my preferred build and D3 doesn't get my money.

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RockMonster wrote:

uuddlrlr wrote:

You can get Hero Points as rewards, though, so it's not like you HAD to pay real money for all the items you mentioned.

On topic: I have the impression that PR is not their forte. I assume they would have more people assigned to it if they thought it was important, or if the game actually relied on its social features. As it is, they're probably putting all their resources into building patches, examining the numbers to make future balancing plans, with little time/resource left to handle user-facing customer service. I do appreciate IceX's interventions, but I think he is volunteering his time (AFAIK, he's not the forum/community manager; it would seem they actually DON'T have any!)

You don't really get enough hero points for everything though. I mean, I got 150 from progression rewards and placement in the Wolvie tourney, but spent 400 on the shield I needed to finish high. That's not the point though.

Whether it's my money or the HP they give me, $12.50 is too much for a single power level. 2100 ISO is like 1 high level, 50 health and 1 damage per tile. That's not worth $5 out of my pocket, that's not worth $5 worth of rewards, that's not worth $5 that I found laying on the street. I'd sooner give $5 away then buy 1 single level, because as charity it's actually worth something to someone. 1 level is nothing. And I have so many characters I want to level, but the value for my dollar just isn't there.

This game is generous with the hero points, and that's a really smart move. They had me spending their in game currency from day 1, and it's so much easier to top up and add to the money I have then to buy in from zero. But there just aren't any justifiable purchases.

I'll give you an example: I have Patch at 3/5/3. My ideal build is 3/5/5. I thought I'd get there during Thick as Thieves, but due to scaling issues beyond anyone's control that event didn't pan out the way I hoped. Right now though I have 2 green covers in my hands. If I could drop $5 and get those last 2 yellow covers I'd do it in a heart beat and build him the way I want. But there is no way in hell I'd spend $25, or 2500 hp. So I don't get my preferred build and D3 doesn't get my money.

Good post. I especially liked the part where you implied that the Devs could do nothing to fix their own broken PvE, lol!

But seriously, hasn't there been studies on freemium/microtrans business models that show that halving prices = doubling sales or something to that extent? Maybe the limiting factor is size of paying playerbase, but based on the bracketing system it seems like this game has a ton of active players.

Unknown

Why is everyone asking for Daredevil? Dude sucks bigtime. Everyone should get 5 covers of every thor power as well as the iso to completely upgrade him to max.

Unknown

RockMonster is right in everything he says.

I have money, I spend money but I'll be damned before I'll let them bend me over and go in dry when I have a world of options outside of the game.

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abuelo wrote:

RockMonster is right in everything he says.

I have money, I spend money but I'll be damned before I'll let them bend me over and go in dry when I have a world of options outside of the game.

Yeah i remember when i first started each power had 10 levels instead of 6. I used some money to get 4 levels that way with ironman 35. Then they patched it so that the max level for any power was 5 instead of 10. I could've maxed out ironmans red power but instead 4/10 = 2/5. I completely wasted real money on a stupid patch that was not needed. I think this game should never have seen the light of day.

No in house testing of powers. No balance testing between existing heroes and new heroes. No idea of level progression. Game has become buggy as all hell.

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RockMonster wrote:

Nah, the F2P Marvel Heroes made one mistake after another since the day it launched (3 days late, at that) and they're still going.

But when they do screw up, they offer apologies and a little currency, or a bonus on XP and item find, or something to make it up to the players. It goes a long way.

The Gazillion one? I play that intermittently when my loot pinata itch flares up. Didn't see it in its earliest days, but have heard the horror stories. I was actually really impressed with it. Still has that work-in-progress feel and I think they're still slowly picking through the interminable character reviews that move power progression to level 52 (ha, New 52 - and I only just thought of that), but the core game works well, has a few vaguely novel ideas as far as that stolid old genre goes, and they're communicative almost to the point of overkill about where they're going. Those guys post dissertations discussing every major patch or rework.

Unknown

Veracity wrote:

RockMonster wrote:

Nah, the F2P Marvel Heroes made one mistake after another since the day it launched (3 days late, at that) and they're still going.

But when they do screw up, they offer apologies and a little currency, or a bonus on XP and item find, or something to make it up to the players. It goes a long way.

The Gazillion one? I play that intermittently when my loot pinata itch flares up. Didn't see it in its earliest days, but have heard the horror stories. I was actually really impressed with it. Still has that work-in-progress feel and I think they're still slowly picking through the interminable character reviews that move power progression to level 52 (ha, New 52 - and I only just thought of that), but the core game works well, has a few vaguely novel ideas as far as that stolid old genre goes, and they're communicative almost to the point of overkill about where they're going. Those guys post dissertations discussing every major patch or rework.

Yeah, that's the one.

Aside from exhaustive patch notes, they respond to a lot of forum posts, and the lead director has done some AMAs in the wee hours of the morning. I thought Blizzard was pretty good at communicating with their player base, at least the last time I was playing WoW (which was a long time ago) but Gazillion really has set a new standard.

Unknown

Yes they dunn' goofed.

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mechgouki wrote:

Step 1: Offer 2 OP characters and make people fight to get them.

Step 2: Nerf the characters. Make them impotent.

Step 3: Offer a huge incentive to sell off these characters.

Step 4: Create new tourneys featuring these characters.

Step 5: Do the Nelson Laugh.

This!

Unknown

Thanks for the responses, everyone!

As for those that bring up my Mobage bullet point: I know that they basically ruin every game they put their hands on eventually. I played War of Heroes and got hit with the Co-Op X controversy head on (and since moved out out of the consideration of my wallet and sanity). However, my point is that even they know when to own up to their mistakes and apologize. If you have some things to learn from Mobage, well... you know y'dun goofed.

I'd love for this thread to last through the weekend so that the developers have no reason to respond to my points. But then again, all they do is answer the softball questions and comment on my pictures of Judy Blume books instead of answering the more pertinent issues (although they've gotten better with that as of late):

Demiurge_Will wrote:

Oversoul wrote:

The title of this thread reminded me of this:

I love that book!

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RockMonster wrote:

You don't really get enough hero points for everything though. I mean, I got 150 from progression rewards and placement in the Wolvie tourney, but spent 400 on the shield I needed to finish high. That's not the point though.

Whether it's my money or the HP they give me, $12.50 is too much for a single power level. 2100 ISO is like 1 high level, 50 health and 1 damage per tile. That's not worth $5 out of my pocket, that's not worth $5 worth of rewards, that's not worth $5 that I found laying on the street. I'd sooner give $5 away then buy 1 single level, because as charity it's actually worth something to someone. 1 level is nothing. And I have so many characters I want to level, but the value for my dollar just isn't there.

This game is generous with the hero points, and that's a really smart move. They had me spending their in game currency from day 1, and it's so much easier to top up and add to the money I have then to buy in from zero. But there just aren't any justifiable purchases.

I'll give you an example: I have Patch at 3/5/3. My ideal build is 3/5/5. I thought I'd get there during Thick as Thieves, but due to scaling issues beyond anyone's control that event didn't pan out the way I hoped. Right now though I have 2 green covers in my hands. If I could drop $5 and get those last 2 yellow covers I'd do it in a heart beat and build him the way I want. But there is no way in hell I'd spend $25, or 2500 hp. So I don't get my preferred build and D3 doesn't get my money.

I fully agree that "value" for dollar in this game is hugely skewed. I've spent hundreds on F2P games I loved but in this game when even $100 only gets you maybe ~30 levels for ONE hero I definitely have to hold back.

If they offered something like "Premium Account" where you get 50% more ISO from everything, and charged like $10/month for it they would have my wallet in an instant.

That and fixing their completely broken "scaling" system, of course.

Unknown

Eidolone wrote:

I fully agree that "value" for dollar in this game is hugely skewed. I've spent hundreds on F2P games I loved but in this game when even $100 only gets you maybe ~30 levels for ONE hero I definitely have to hold back.

If they offered something like "Premium Account" where you get 50% more ISO from everything, and charged like $10/month for it they would have my wallet in an instant.

That and fixing their completely broken "scaling" system, of course.

They know it doesn't work. Angry as people are getting - probably especially if they spent recently, or a lot - I think it more or less goes without saying that they don't get more than one or two more chances from most of us to get it right before either they pull it or we give up and amuse ourselves elsewhere.

I like your ISO booster idea, though I'd rather see it as a purchasable consumable than a straight-up subscription fee, so I can stop playing if I have a busy week and not feel I'm paying for nowt. Practically every loot'n'exp grinder has something of the sort. Amusingly, even if it ended up amounting to a similar cash/ISO exchange rate to the exorbitant one you get buying it outright, I'd probably still be more willing to pay for day or week-long multipliers. Maybe buy them with HP? Would create another one of these HP sinks they apparently need so badly, give people with HP to burn who resort to LR grinding for ISO a conversion path, and people who want to buy it could just buy the HP, assuming the cost's reasonable.

Unknown

I'd spend HP or a few bucks here and there for an ISO doubler. Give it a time duration or make it applicable inside an event for the duration of that event. A coin doubler is my favorite type of IAP in mobile games - it's usually reasonably priced and a good way to support the developers while gaining real in-game benefit.

Another thing I'd love to see is something like an ISO-gauntlet replayable mode, like a pared down version of the Prologue with an entry fee - spend say 50-100 HP for a one-time run at a line of escalating enemy encounters with its own ladder of prog rewards with a heavy emphasis on substantial ISO and some tokens.

If the enemies were consistently scaled, but the actual opponent match-ups (hammer/maggia/DAs/etc.) were procedurally generated, it would ensure variety, encourage people to play with different characters to counter the different match-ups, and give people something meaningful to do to build their roster when the other events prove too tough or don't have rewards you need/want. Plus it would provide additional avenues to the devs to drain HP from the economy - win/win.