Crazy Idea: Give out new character covers...to everyone

mjh

I've been playing this game since there were just as many 3*s as 2*s and only 2-4*s.

Right now it's expanded beyond what many are capable of keeping up with. Any person downloading this game for the first time has a huge mountain to climb, that they will most likely never reach.

Here is my suggestion:

When a new character is introduced, give everyone 1 cover.

Yes, give. Everyone. With a roster slot. Yes.

Is that so crazy? Here's some arguements to support this:

1. 1 cover is just as good as 0.

2. 1 cover allows players to compete in the next PVE which means more user / player engagement. (I stopped playing competitive PVE)

3. 1 cover means more incentive to buy (*gasp*) more covers with because you cannot buy any covers....if you have no covers. (another problem that needs addressing)

I can only see good things coming from this.

discuss

Unknown

I don't like the idea at all. Then the game becomes 100% play to win, at least with the present system (even with its flaws) it still requires some game play to advance your roster.

Lidolas

D3 doesn't want people to progress fast. They believe, and are most likely right, that they lose less players due to frustration at lack of progression than they would to players who grow bored with progressing too fast. I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but there have been a lot of studies in this subject.

ShadowX1984

MarCr wrote:

I don't like the idea at all. Then the game becomes 100% play to win, at least with the present system (even with its flaws) it still requires some game play to advance your roster.

What if the new cover was the highest progression reward rather than the top 150 placement award? That way everyone has a chance at the cover, but you still have to play a fair amount to earn it.

Malcrof

ShadowX1984 wrote:

MarCr wrote:

I don't like the idea at all. Then the game becomes 100% play to win, at least with the present system (even with its flaws) it still requires some game play to advance your roster.

What if the new cover was the highest progression reward rather than the top 150 placement award? That way everyone has a chance at the cover, but you still have to play a fair amount to earn it.

To make that fair, you would have to set it far above the 3* cover progression mark.. which at that point you would be t100 anyway... so... you got the cover anyway.

Marty17

I have a crazy idea (this is genuine not being spiteful) where they introduce max levelling. Have these (red maybe?) iso gems rare as where it'll level any character to it's max potential. You could use it for incomplete or fully built characters.

TxMoose

Malcrof wrote:

ShadowX1984 wrote:

MarCr wrote:

I don't like the idea at all. Then the game becomes 100% play to win, at least with the present system (even with its flaws) it still requires some game play to advance your roster.

What if the new cover was the highest progression reward rather than the top 150 placement award? That way everyone has a chance at the cover, but you still have to play a fair amount to earn it.

To make that fair, you would have to set it far above the 3* cover progression mark.. which at that point you would be t100 anyway... so... you got the cover anyway.

someone suggested having a **** progression every pve at twice the *** progression number. that is a lot but can be hit by optimal play and some minimal grind, or suboptimal play with more grind. i might grind some for that, especially in shorter events (7-days of grinding is unfun).

babinro

I've suggested this before and still believe it's a good thing for players and for business.

I'd implement this by making all 3 covers part of the PvE progression rewards during the character's launch event. It's extremely easy for any 3* transitioner to complete all progression rewards and so this effectively 'gives' out the first cover to all players.

D3 will then make more money from cover purchase (aka HP purchases) while admittedly losing some profits from token packs. I don't have the internal numbers to justify this move but as a player it seems like a win/win situation.

stochasticism

I think an even better idea is to make all the cover rewards cumulative. When the first carnage event happened and the reward was a and the was many people tanked to get a lower reward which is just absurd. Instead of having this mystical cutoff why not just have ever increasing rewards so there is no reason not to push for as high as you can go for ever increasing rewards.

This does two things. First, it lets people that place well get 3* and 4* covers which are still valuable to a lot of people. In some instances, like a new 2* skill or character, even the 2* covers are valuable to people. At worst you have just given people an extra 500 and 250 iso.

Second, in a world with 2* essentials and the essentials are the placement rewards from the previous pve, placing high will make it so that you are always guaranteed to have all of the essentials for the next pve. Again, from the first carnage pve, multiple people in my alliance tried desperately to get since he was essential but couldn't until his progression reward. They were handicapped until they got that single cover which is silly because many of them placed t10 or higher in the previous pve.

This would also help free up roster slots if you know you can always count on getting the essentials as rewards. You can simply dedciate one roster slot for the 2*s you don't want to keep for DDQ or other similar events and just rotate out the characters after every event.

Malcrof

TxMoose wrote:

Malcrof wrote:

ShadowX1984 wrote:

MarCr wrote:

I don't like the idea at all. Then the game becomes 100% play to win, at least with the present system (even with its flaws) it still requires some game play to advance your roster.

What if the new cover was the highest progression reward rather than the top 150 placement award? That way everyone has a chance at the cover, but you still have to play a fair amount to earn it.

To make that fair, you would have to set it far above the 3* cover progression mark.. which at that point you would be t100 anyway... so... you got the cover anyway.

someone suggested having a **** progression every pve at twice the *** progression number. that is a lot but can be hit by optimal play and some minimal grind, or suboptimal play with more grind. i might grind some for that, especially in shorter events (7-days of grinding is unfun).

For heroic's, this would be cake. For some where the 3* progression is like 50k+ .. not so much. But i like the idea.

LuciferianX

This'll be easy.

No on the 'present' covers; that's what placement is for, and I still like competition. I don't want the game to go directly to PTW. I do want whales (no offense to any here) to have to play to get the covers they want; I don't mind D3 making googleplexes of money on people buying cover packs; I mind that there are no longer guaranteed drops from them (I addressed that elsewhere).

Yes on "give the new thing to people who meet the threshold," and we'll make that threshhold, say, 2x the final bounty. So if the required 3* bounty level is 120k for the event, then the first cover of the new thing is 240k. That seems reasonable to me. It won't be easy. Or free. But it WILL ensure that you get it. Also.

While I'm spitballing on the topic. Please ensure that in this world where this happens (and it's a thought I had before, actually, so pretty easy for me to get behind it) that the cover provided is the one that is NOT in the 2 cover reward band. For example, New Character is R/G/Y. The max level reward is Yellow. So top 100 should be red, and top 50 should be R/G, thus, if you finish Top 50 (as I am likely to do since this week's roster doesn't play to my strengths) and you earned all rewards, you've got all three covers. Huzzah! I will now go buy HP to max those covers!

Huzzah! And I won't stop spending money for six months because I got torched trying to get those covers and drew 42 2* & 3*s -- FOUR TIMES IN A ROW ON A 6% DRAW RATE FOR A NEW LEGENDARY. Sorry.

Am I still bitter about that? Lemme check...

YES.

mjh

babinro wrote:

I'd implement this by making all 3 covers part of the PvE progression rewards during the character's launch event.

This is an even better idea

Unknown

mjh wrote:

I've been playing this game since there were just as many 3*s as 2*s and only 2-4*s.

Right now it's expanded beyond what many are capable of keeping up with. Any person downloading this game for the first time has a huge mountain to climb, that they will most likely never reach.

Here is my suggestion:

When a new character is introduced, give everyone 1 cover.

Yes, give. Everyone. With a roster slot. Yes.

Is that so crazy? Here's some arguements to support this:

1. 1 cover is just as good as 0.

2. 1 cover allows players to compete in the next PVE which means more user / player engagement. (I stopped playing competitive PVE)

3. 1 cover means more incentive to buy (*gasp*) more covers with because you cannot buy any covers....if you have no covers. (another problem that needs addressing)

I can only see good things coming from this.

discuss

they already tried that with guareenteed cover packs, they won't go back sadly

DFiPL

Lidolas wrote:

D3 doesn't want people to progress fast. They believe, and are most likely right, that they lose less players due to frustration at lack of progression than they would to players who grow bored with progressing too fast. I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but there have been a lot of studies in this subject.

fewer.

/Stannis

Unknown

LuciferianX wrote:

Huzzah! And I won't stop spending money for six months because I got torched trying to get those covers and drew 42 2* & 3*s -- FOUR TIMES IN A ROW ON A 6% DRAW RATE FOR A NEW LEGENDARY.

You actually bought FOUR 42-packs? Even after seeing the awful odds? And you kept buying after your first, second, AND third 42-pack yielded trash? No wonder the devs love their degenerate token system.

Unknown

gobstopper wrote:

LuciferianX wrote:

Huzzah! And I won't stop spending money for six months because I got torched trying to get those covers and drew 42 2* & 3*s -- FOUR TIMES IN A ROW ON A 6% DRAW RATE FOR A NEW LEGENDARY.

You actually bought FOUR 42-packs? Even after seeing the awful odds? And you kept buying after your first, second, AND third 42-pack yielded trash? No wonder the devs love their degenerate token system.

did u see the guy/gal who bought 3 42 packs to try and get carnage?

its pretty obvious why d3 like the system right now $$$$

Unknown

Lidolas wrote:

D3 doesn't want people to progress fast. They believe, and are most likely right, that they lose less players due to frustration at lack of progression than they would to players who grow bored with progressing too fast. I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but there have been a lot of studies in this subject.

I would love to see some actual numbers on this from reputable sources using statistically sound methodologies.

Sure, if you're comparing far-end outliers from each dichotomous statistical group, this could be arguably possible (I mean, telepathy is arguably possible), but it goes a fair bit beyond counter-intuitive. It is a bit more palatable if the comparison is made between "fast progressors" and say the median group. Overall though? Yeah, I'm going to need some real data.

Put simply, if we're comparing the feelings of data point "a" who finished the game inside of a week with another player, sure. But there are literally millions of data points between "too fast" and "for the love of God, does this grind ever end?"

DBC

TxMoose

Drummerboycroy wrote:

Sure, if you're comparing far-end outliers from each dichotomous statistical group...

what I'm just starting to realize is that the vast majority of forumites are actually those 'far-end outliers'. we are not the majority of the player base, but we probably have most all of the high-end elite players, most of the whales and a huge chunk of the upper middle-class. really I think they have to have 2 goals - keep the whales happy to keep the game going, and keep the newer low-tier players happy because that is what hooks them and eventually a few whale out. really the middle and the majority of the forumites are likely not high business priority other than the chatter on the boards. I'd like to think that they use forum feedback in their decision (and recent decisions point to that), but business-wise, we're down on the list of priorities. I'd be interested to see the data on the overall player base - what 'average' is. my guess is 'average' is probably a marginal ** roster. just taking event slice numbers into account, average means 500th in pve and 250th in pvp. but then there are noob brackets too, so taking those into account, overall average is like 600-700th in vet pve and 400th in vet pvp. kinda eye opening.

Unknown

TxMoose wrote:

Drummerboycroy wrote:

Sure, if you're comparing far-end outliers from each dichotomous statistical group...

what I'm just starting to realize is that the vast majority of forumites are actually those 'far-end outliers'. we are not the majority of the player base, but we probably have most all of the high-end elite players, most of the whales and a huge chunk of the upper middle-class. really I think they have to have 2 goals - keep the whales happy to keep the game going, and keep the newer low-tier players happy because that is what hooks them and eventually a few whale out. really the middle and the majority of the forumites are likely not high business priority other than the chatter on the boards. I'd like to think that they use forum feedback in their decision (and recent decisions point to that), but business-wise, we're down on the list of priorities. I'd be interested to see the data on the overall player base - what 'average' is. my guess is 'average' is probably a marginal ** roster. just taking event slice numbers into account, average means 500th in pve and 250th in pvp. but then there are noob brackets too, so taking those into account, overall average is like 600-700th in vet pve and 400th in vet pvp. kinda eye opening.

its a hard concept to grasp, but you're probably right.

As i've said many times before, Chandra Average may just do deadpool daily at this point, or even just go halfway thru events than stop.

It's free to play so there's gonna be alot of variance unless we're talking about the top 10-5%

Heartburn

LuciferianX wrote:

This'll be easy.

No on the 'present' covers; that's what placement is for, and I still like competition. I don't want the game to go directly to PTW. I do want whales (no offense to any here) to have to play to get the covers they want; I don't mind D3 making googleplexes of money on people buying cover packs; I mind that there are no longer guaranteed drops from them (I addressed that elsewhere).

Yes on "give the new thing to people who meet the threshold," and we'll make that threshhold, say, 2x the final bounty. So if the required 3* bounty level is 120k for the event, then the first cover of the new thing is 240k. That seems reasonable to me. It won't be easy. Or free. But it WILL ensure that you get it. Also.

While I'm spitballing on the topic. Please ensure that in this world where this happens (and it's a thought I had before, actually, so pretty easy for me to get behind it) that the cover provided is the one that is NOT in the 2 cover reward band. For example, New Character is R/G/Y. The max level reward is Yellow. So top 100 should be red, and top 50 should be R/G, thus, if you finish Top 50 (as I am likely to do since this week's roster doesn't play to my strengths) and you earned all rewards, you've got all three covers. Huzzah! I will now go buy HP to max those covers!

Huzzah! And I won't stop spending money for six months because I got torched trying to get those covers and drew 42 2* & 3*s -- FOUR TIMES IN A ROW ON A 6% DRAW RATE FOR A NEW LEGENDARY. Sorry.

Am I still bitter about that? Lemme check...

YES.

This will be easy.
Yes for progression covers, that is what story mode is for.

If you want competition that is what PvP is for.

First rule of mpq, do not buy cover packs.

Yes on the participation covers, I want to feel progress when I grind an event not be left with nothing after grinding in a super competitive group, why can't we all be potential winners instead of fighting over a handful of covers. X amount of points = x amount of covers. You put in effort you get reward. i have a life as well and do not want to spend half of it grinding either. You are not really a fan of winning solely based on luck (getting into an easy bracket) otherwise you wouldn't be so rattled over your unexpected results.

If I play a marvel game I want to play with my favorites and would want to max out them fairly quickly that I may pay to do it. this game is the first to make me think first about if they are any good because buying them out is so much of an investment. Then I realize what else I can spend my money on and go about my day.
Like your other points. Sorry about your bad luck.

GurlBYE

As one of the few people here who seems to not be deeply ingrained into 3 and 4 star territory and is just new, this seems like the best idea.

As someone who has a roster that can complete everything in this game everything may seem fine, but everything is slanted super heavily in you guys' favor.

Like starting the game and seeing pve aside from story still has competitive rewards is a really really odd decision.
Even going as far as to see people on the forums calling things like deadpools daily easy, when I'm imagining the average player not going to the forum can barely get a handle on some of the harder story nodes, let alone 4 waves of characters in the hundreds.

Like all progression based things theres a really funny balance between new players and vested ones. It's tough to balance players being stuck in the middle or the start with those at the end, but something like OP suggestion would technically benefit older/vested players as well, and have them less frustrated with new characters being released frequently, it gives a sort of head start, but at the same time, I also can see how vested players want their time or funds to give them an advantage over others, and they already have the means and alliances to place well enough to earn the 4 star covers as they come.

Competition between players in pve seems very silly especially when the game already has dedicated pvp. The only difference now is that in pve everyone can farm points for as long as their team/ resources allows, pvp just works on a more limited set of resources. and newer players/ players with less resources are even further discouraged from participating.