Character slots

Unknown

I was asked by friends to write about this topic as they like my way of addressing issues.

The question here is for D3, not that they ever answer; why do we need to pay for slots and why does the cost go up as we have more characters; the more characters we have means the more we will need to spend on covers and leveling so the spending will come. It is obviously a question of making more money out of anything they can in the game, even though, per all customer service emails on various issues they insist that nothing in the game is driven by making more money; ya right. So make the slots free or just 10 or 20 hp regardless of how many characters you have. People are selling their characters, specially the weaker ones; to make room for new and stronger characters so in the long run D3 is losing as the cost to cover and level sold characters would really be higher than the cost of these slots. This requires a little bit of business sense which D3 clearly does not have as proven in various other matters where they attempt to make fast money and ignore the long run effect.

A relative example that people are writing about a lot these days is the increased difficulty of the game especially pve as pvp really depends on who you are facing. Now in pve you are facing over boosted characters that you need to spend so much on boosts and health packs. Yes it is making D3 more money today but people are frustrated and quitting on the game or on pve part of the game so in the long run that will cause the game to die. None payers will remain as they have nothing to lose but who is financing the game, it is the payers that are getting frustrated because they have to spend a lot. People are quitting no matter what some might say, I see that in the alliances chats I am part of, alliances continue to seek more players each season as more and more are giving up and going casual or even to other games that they are advertising on D3’s own forum.

Wake up D3 or stop saying you are not trying to make money out of the game. We are not that stupid

Dauthi

Samtoka83 wrote:

People are selling their characters, specially the weaker ones; to make room for new and stronger characters

Then they require the 2*s you sold to make room for other characters in essential PVE nodes.

A relative example that people are writing about a lot these days is the increased difficulty of the game especially pve as pvp really depends on who you are facing. Now in pve you are facing over boosted characters that you need to spend so much on boosts and health packs.

Let's assume you don't want to play D3's game and simply obtain the essential 2* before PVE starts. You then have to account for the fact that you are playing that node with just 2 characters, or in other words, with one hand tied behind your back.

SnowcaTT

Dauthi wrote:

Let's assume you don't want to play D3's game and simply obtain the essential 2* before PVE starts. You then have to account for the fact that you are playing that node with just 2 characters, or in other words, with one hand tied behind your back.

Ha ha ha!

Wait, were you serious? My one cover 2* is basically just as good as a fully leveled/covered 2* based on the scaling of these things anymore. The 2* likely won't cover any color or use any ability (sure, you can try to rainbow with them, but really?), you're already going in essentially with two characters in any node that requires 2* as essential and have high-level scaling. Your 3*'s die, your 2* isn't going to save you.

To OP: I fully agree and crusade for this. I've been putting it in a different form now: you need to give your FTP folks the ability to PLAY, not the ability to win. So limit health packs, limit 4*'s, fine. But once you insist that they have every 2*, 3*, and 4* and insist on raising roster slot prices indefinitely while also releasing characters at an incredible rate - something is wrong with this model. Rosters spots needed to be capped a year ago (viewtopic.php?t=15005&p=262692), and that has not changed.

Unknown

SnowcaTT wrote:

Dauthi wrote:

Rosters spots needed to be capped a year ago (viewtopic.php?t=15005&p=262692), and that has not changed.

This! A million times, this.

I'm fine with paying 'a little something' for roster spots, but this gouging is excessive. Every time I buy one, I feel like someone kicked me in my fellas...
...dirty pool, mister. Dirty pool.

puppychow

while I agree that slot cost should be capped, I could see the other side in support of making slot costs increase progressively. Take my personal situation as an example. I currently have 83 characters in my roster. The next slot will cost me 1,050 hp. Why do I have that many characters? It allows me to have every character in the game (including bagman, yelena, etc.), plus a second Hood/Patch/2*Wolf/Ares/Juggernaut, plus four mbws with 5 blues (to send to teammates as TUs) and a second OBW with 3 purple (same purpose).

The additional slots allow me to send difference maker TUs to alliance mates, plus give me bodies to throw at pve events. Having all characters in the game mean that I can fully participate in the essential nodes and DDQ nodes. This diverse roster gives me an edge in competitive pve events, and it is a major reason why I'm holding a top 5 placement in the carnage debut event.

But there is a price for that advantage in pve. And paying for slots is a necessary evil in order to field a roster for competitive pve gameplay. As to why make slot costs increase? To me, it's the same reason why the cost of leveling a character also increases---because the benefit at a higher level will increase substantially. This notion isn't unique to MPQ. If you ever play Dungeons & Dragons for example, the experience needed to level up a character goes up as the character level increases. D&D was published in 1974, so the concept of paying more for further advancement has been around for 40 years.

If you believe the cost of a slot should stay the same from one to the next, then you should be arguing for a steady cost of leveling characters as well.

Dauthi

SnowcaTT wrote:

Dauthi wrote:

Let's assume you don't want to play D3's game and simply obtain the essential 2* before PVE starts. You then have to account for the fact that you are playing that node with just 2 characters, or in other words, with one hand tied behind your back.

Ha ha ha!

Wait, were you serious? My one cover 2* is basically just as good as a fully leveled/covered 2* based on the scaling of these things anymore. The 2* likely won't cover any color or use any ability (sure, you can try to rainbow with them, but really?), you're already going in essentially with two characters in any node that requires 2* as essential and have high-level scaling. Your 3*'s die, your 2* isn't going to save you.

Your rude condescending tone aside, a buffed 2* can still put out at least some numbers vs none, especially heavy hitters like Thor or Ares. Let's put that aside though and take a look at characters that have abilities that contribute despite numbers, for example Magneto, Widow, Hawkeye, Moonstone, or even Bullseye.

Scaling is also subjective to the roster, so consider that a 3* transitional can gain an advantage by keeping 2*s and buying new roster slots.

Xenoberyll

puppychow wrote:

And paying for slots is a necessary evil in order to field a roster for competitive pve gameplay. As to why make slot costs increase? To me, it's the same reason why the cost of leveling a character also increases---because the benefit at a higher level will increase substantially. This notion isn't unique to MPQ. If you ever play Dungeons & Dragons for example, the experience needed to level up a character goes up as the character level increases. D&D was published in 1974, so the concept of paying more for further advancement has been around for 40 years.

In all my rpg experience i've never encountered a GM who forces me to level my character to keep playing adventures with him. Also i don't have to make a new character every week with character sheets coming at a substantial and ever increasing price. That's a terrible analogy really.

Vhailorx

puppychow wrote:

while I agree that slot cost should be capped, I could see the other side in support of making slot costs increase progressively. Take my personal situation as an example. I currently have 83 characters in my roster. The next slot will cost me 1,050 hp. Why do I have that many characters? It allows me to have every character in the game (including bagman, yelena, etc.), plus a second Hood/Patch/2*Wolf/Ares/Juggernaut, plus four mbws with 5 blues (to send to teammates as TUs) and a second OBW with 3 purple (same purpose).

The additional slots allow me to send difference maker TUs to alliance mates, plus give me bodies to throw at pve events. Having all characters in the game mean that I can fully participate in the essential nodes and DDQ nodes. This diverse roster gives me an edge in competitive pve events, and it is a major reason why I'm holding a top 5 placement in the carnage debut event.

But there is a price for that advantage in pve. And paying for slots is a necessary evil in order to field a roster for competitive pve gameplay. As to why make slot costs increase? To me, it's the same reason why the cost of leveling a character also increases---because the benefit at a higher level will increase substantially. This notion isn't unique to MPQ. If you ever play Dungeons & Dragons for example, the experience needed to level up a character goes up as the character level increases. D&D was published in 1974, so the concept of paying more for further advancement has been around for 40 years.

If you believe the cost of a slot should stay the same from one to the next, then you should be arguing for a steady cost of leveling characters as well.

So I guess there is someone who will defend anything!

But seriously, your analogy is a poor one. D&D have a separate player's handbook for each level, and charge more for each one in sequence. RPG leveling systems should not be transferred whole-sale to freemium games with micro-transactions. (also, while 1st and second edition AD&D do indeed have exponential leveling costs, 3rd edition didn't. All of those systems have their own strengths and weaknesses. There is no rule that exponential leveling costs are "right.")

Most people aren't objecting to idea that roster slots cost real money. It's that the cost raises fairly quickly (50 HP each 3 roster roster slots right?), and the devs are constantly releasing new characters (one every other week, plus a glut of 5 or 6 in a row whenever there is some multi-media tie-in imperative). And people did have the same complaints about the iso cost of leveling their characters pre-ddq. Go back and look up colog's post from november 2014 about how the character release rate was outstripping even his/her super-whale capacity to level characters.

Dauthi

Here is the problem:

By playing hardcore in a top 100 alliance I can barely keep up with the HP needed to fund roster slots for their new character releases.

So when I work hard for HP, the prize I am actually getting is the ability to play their game instead of using it for something fun like a 4*. Does this seem a little backwards?

SnowcaTT

Dauthi wrote:

Here is the problem:

By playing hardcore in a top 100 alliance I can barely keep up with the HP needed to fund roster slots for their new character releases.

So when I work hard for HP, the prize I am actually getting is the ability to play their game instead of using it for something fun like a 4*. Does this seem a little backwards?

That's where I'm at as well. Sure there is a cap. But when I was heavily playing every event I'd earn maybe 2500 HP a season, that is probably down to 2K now with more shielding required and less heavy PVE play due to scaling.

And they release about two characters per season: so you break even, maybe. I'm hopeful that the HP increase is sooner rather than later if they want to keep both the 1K roster slot cap and the really frequent character release schedule.