I think this is the event D3 wanted

Purty_Hawkeye

So I haven't played since last Friday when the Heroic PvE event started and I was faced with a set of three lvl 230 goons. In reading the forums it looks like there are teams with very low level heroes doing well over those who have been here for awhile.
The assumption is that this is screwed up and maybe it is but there might be another explanation.
This is exactly the event the devs wanted to show the new players they can compete with those with high level rosters. Imagine if you are someone on the top of a leaderboard looking at a roster a few thousand behind you with a bunch of triple digit 3*'s and you're beating them. Think that might be motivational? Think that might get that player to spend some money once they hit a leveling wall in this event?
I think that is what the devs are looking at. If there was a lot of activity by the bottom 50% over the weekend and a high percentage of buying iso and HP to level up so they can keep their runs going; that's a successful event for them.
So you say they are not serving the other players who worked hard to make their high level rosters and they will say the PvP event was where you were supposed to have your funbalanced time.
The lack of response makes me think this has all gone according to plan and those of us who have been the support in the beginning are not considered enough of a cash cow anymore to be concerned what we think.
Sure its tin foil hat time but in a vacuum of response it has its own sort of internal logic.
I'll be checking back in on Friday to see whether these devs actually care about what I want from the game or they got my money and I'm the sucker.
The next set of decisions by them will tell the tale.

Unknown

The problem is that the basis of your theory "in a vacuum of response it has its own sort of internal logic" - it's not been a vacuum! They admitted it was broken, tried to band-aid with a patch that quasi-worked but really didn't, and one presumes they spent most of their morning in a meeting trying to figure out what's gone sideways, while combating sports event related hangovers.

Unknown

starsrift wrote:

The problem is that the basis of your theory "in a vacuum of response it has its own sort of internal logic" - it's not been a vacuum! They admitted it was broken, tried to band-aid with a patch that quasi-worked but really didn't, and one presumes they spent most of their morning in a meeting trying to figure out what's gone sideways, while combating sports event related hangovers.

Well, they would not say to our face that we go play elsewhere. They would tell some sort of vague reply, like they did, and then let the forum rage go down by itself while they rack up dollars from new players.

Unknown

No.

New players don't come in to a game expecting to beat the most established players, so they aren't going to be put off by a low finish. As a recently new player, I was poking my head in to events to grab recruit tokens and ISO, and that was it.

Plus, if a guy who started a week ago and never spent a dime is racking up wins, is he going to buy ISO or roster space? You spend that money to speed up your progress or push yourself over a hump. If there's no more humps and you've progressed to the top, then there's no benefit to spending.

When you're trying to explain something like this event, remember Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity. There's no grand conspiracy here, just a screw up.

Unknown

Yeah, a big screw up is the simplest solution, so it probably is the right one.

Unknown

I'd guess you're half right. According my crystal ball, their vaunted analytics are telling them they're developing a problem with retention or spending patterns or both, and they're trying to do something about it. Folks here are always asking for all manner of things and Demiurge has often responded in a more or less timely manner, but I must've missed the 30 threads complaining that we clearly need dynamic difficulty scaling or the game will die. I doubt locking heavily invested players out of two major events in a row was part of the plan, though. I'm sure they're the guys most likely to decide "what the heck, it's only a few bucks and Ima need shields for this upcoming tourney".

My crystal ball's been wrong before, mind. Could just be 100% triple-distilled ****-up and they don't really know what to do about it.

Unknown

Veracity wrote:

Could just be 100% triple-distilled ****-up and they don't really know what to do about it.

"Sorry, here's 2000 free ISO." would be a good start.

Unknown

bahukma wrote:

Veracity wrote:

Could just be 100% triple-distilled ****-up and they don't really know what to do about it.

"Sorry, here's 2000 free ISO." would be a good start.

It's weird they never seem to do that. The only other mobile game I play regularly is a Quiz RPG where they hand out a free crystal to all players (the game's equivalent of HP) every time they mess anything up, even if it only affected a handful of people (e.g. they misdescribe the rewards from an event, fix it after an hour, but give everyone a crystal whether they entered the event during that time or not). The only time I can remember they didn't hand out to everyone was recently when there was a bug preventing people passing a certain level for a couple of days, and they only handed out to people who were actually up to that level.

Because they've realised that it is FREE for them to hand out these crystals but creates goodwill. And a single crystal here and there is unlikely to cause that whale to not purchase that batch of 30 or 50 crystals tomorrow... the equivalent here would probably be handing out 200HP or something like that.

Twysta

Brodie wrote:

You fkers think just because a guy reads comics he can't start some sh.....?

Unknown

These days half of the people who are 1* and 2* are cheaters. Have you not checked the top 10 leadboard profiles yet?

Twysta

I don't think it's the people that's the problem.
It's the game engine which makes it easier for the lowers levels to compete.

Unknown

Twysta wrote:

I don't think it's the people that's the problem.
It's the game engine which makes it easier for the lowers levels to compete.

That was the original problem, the added problem is
now the1* and2* cheater teams have millioms of hp and iso. They can buy a lifetime supply of shields and healthpacks, and still have eaiser opponents.

Unknown

Zhirrzh wrote:

bahukma wrote:

Veracity wrote:

Could just be 100% triple-distilled ****-up and they don't really know what to do about it.

"Sorry, here's 2000 free ISO." would be a good start.

It's weird they never seem to do that. The only other mobile game I play regularly is a Quiz RPG where they hand out a free crystal to all players (the game's equivalent of HP) every time they mess anything up, even if it only affected a handful of people (e.g. they misdescribe the rewards from an event, fix it after an hour, but give everyone a crystal whether they entered the event during that time or not). The only time I can remember they didn't hand out to everyone was recently when there was a bug preventing people passing a certain level for a couple of days, and they only handed out to people who were actually up to that level.

Because they've realised that it is FREE for them to hand out these crystals but creates goodwill. And a single crystal here and there is unlikely to cause that whale to not purchase that batch of 30 or 50 crystals tomorrow... the equivalent here would probably be handing out 200HP or something like that.

When Marvel Heroes, another F2P with the same licence, screws up and creates a mess or a lot of unexpected downtime, they increase XP gains by half for the following weekend. You might have been upset over the mistakes they made, but faster leveling is hard to pass up, and before you know it you're playing all weekend long and you've forgotten what went wrong in the first place. It's a nice bonus for sticking with them through a hiccup, or an enticement to come back and see the problems are solved.

Unknown

Zhirrzh wrote:

bahukma wrote:

Veracity wrote:

Could just be 100% triple-distilled ****-up and they don't really know what to do about it.

"Sorry, here's 2000 free ISO." would be a good start.

It's weird they never seem to do that. The only other mobile game I play regularly is a Quiz RPG where they hand out a free crystal to all players (the game's equivalent of HP) every time they mess anything up, even if it only affected a handful of people (e.g. they misdescribe the rewards from an event, fix it after an hour, but give everyone a crystal whether they entered the event during that time or not). The only time I can remember they didn't hand out to everyone was recently when there was a bug preventing people passing a certain level for a couple of days, and they only handed out to people who were actually up to that level.

Because they've realised that it is FREE for them to hand out these crystals but creates goodwill. And a single crystal here and there is unlikely to cause that whale to not purchase that batch of 30 or 50 crystals tomorrow... the equivalent here would probably be handing out 200HP or something like that.

You would have thought this would have dawned on the developers but apparently not. Makes me wonder what kind of spaghetti code is running behind the scenes.

Unknown

Zhirrzh wrote:

bahukma wrote:

Veracity wrote:

Could just be 100% triple-distilled ****-up and they don't really know what to do about it.

"Sorry, here's 2000 free ISO." would be a good start.

It's weird they never seem to do that. The only other mobile game I play regularly is a Quiz RPG where they hand out a free crystal to all players (the game's equivalent of HP) every time they mess anything up, even if it only affected a handful of people (e.g. they misdescribe the rewards from an event, fix it after an hour, but give everyone a crystal whether they entered the event during that time or not). The only time I can remember they didn't hand out to everyone was recently when there was a bug preventing people passing a certain level for a couple of days, and they only handed out to people who were actually up to that level.

Because they've realised that it is FREE for them to hand out these crystals but creates goodwill. And a single crystal here and there is unlikely to cause that whale to not purchase that batch of 30 or 50 crystals tomorrow... the equivalent here would probably be handing out 200HP or something like that.

2000 iso is literally nothing. I just started hitting level 100+ and it takes 1500 iso to level up. Giving just a single free level that increases all my damage by a mere 6 points is diddle squat. Really it should be in the amount of around 50000 iso. That should be enough to level 2 characters out of 30.

kensterr

Zhirrzh wrote:

It's weird they never seem to do that. The only other mobile game I play regularly is a Quiz RPG where they hand out a free crystal to all players (the game's equivalent of HP) every time they mess anything up, even if it only affected a handful of people (e.g. they misdescribe the rewards from an event, fix it after an hour, but give everyone a crystal whether they entered the event during that time or not). The only time I can remember they didn't hand out to everyone was recently when there was a bug preventing people passing a certain level for a couple of days, and they only handed out to people who were actually up to that level.

Because they've realised that it is FREE for them to hand out these crystals but creates goodwill. And a single crystal here and there is unlikely to cause that whale to not purchase that batch of 30 or 50 crystals tomorrow... the equivalent here would probably be handing out 200HP or something like that.

+1

Unknown

pulis wrote:

Zhirrzh wrote:

bahukma wrote:

Veracity wrote:

Could just be 100% triple-distilled ****-up and they don't really know what to do about it.

"Sorry, here's 2000 free ISO." would be a good start.

It's weird they never seem to do that. The only other mobile game I play regularly is a Quiz RPG where they hand out a free crystal to all players (the game's equivalent of HP) every time they mess anything up, even if it only affected a handful of people (e.g. they misdescribe the rewards from an event, fix it after an hour, but give everyone a crystal whether they entered the event during that time or not). The only time I can remember they didn't hand out to everyone was recently when there was a bug preventing people passing a certain level for a couple of days, and they only handed out to people who were actually up to that level.

Because they've realised that it is FREE for them to hand out these crystals but creates goodwill. And a single crystal here and there is unlikely to cause that whale to not purchase that batch of 30 or 50 crystals tomorrow... the equivalent here would probably be handing out 200HP or something like that.

2000 iso is literally nothing. I just started hitting level 100+ and it takes 1500 iso to level up. Giving just a single free level that increases all my damage by a mere 6 points is diddle squat. Really it should be in the amount of around 50000 iso. That should be enough to level 2 characters out of 30.

While it would be awesome, 50k ISO is completely unrealistic.

Unknown

RockMonster wrote:

There's no grand conspiracy here, just a screw up.

What I find kind of worrying is that the persons responsible seem to have gone into hiding. Doesn't really bode well for the future of the game if they can't even be bothered to post a three liner explaining what went wrong and how they plan to cope.