It's still sticking there in my mind...

Raffoon

So, today I was thinking about how I'd really like to just whale up and completely buy either Deadpool or Carnage to max covers. I know it's a colossal waste of money, but I haven't spent any money on this game in at least half a year and they both seem like fun, powerful, flavorful characters.

I've really enjoyed spending money on the game in the past. Sure, I never felt like I got enough in-game return on the money, but that was made up for since I felt like I was supporting the developers. I liked the game and wanted to see it continue. So, maybe a 4* cover wasn't worth $12.50, but a $12.50 contribution to the developers with a 4* cover on top seemed good to me.

The thing is, I still can't get over the Xforce/Thor nerfs. Everything about them, from:

the magnitude (huge),
to the timing, (directly after an HP sale was being trumpeted)
to the communication to the players,
all the way down to the refund options (they increased the price of selling a fully covered and maxed Thor to 2500 HP. Oh joy!)

was just terrible. And everyone let them know it was terrible. And they just went right on ahead with it all, then had the gall to tell us they were "listening to our feedback".

Given the current 4* playing field, the size of the nerfs makes even less sense. If Xforce had 500-800 more damage on his green and Thor had 2 more charged tiles somewhere across her ability set, they'd still be considerably less powerful than some of the top tier options that are currently available.

So, that was the turning point for me. Until something is done to partially revert those nerfs I'll continue to not spend any money on the game.

How about other people? Why do you or don't you spend money on the game?

killerkoala

Raffoon wrote:

So, today I was thinking about how I'd really like to just whale up and completely buy either Deadpool or Carnage to max covers. I know it's a colossal waste of money, but I haven't spent any money on this game in at least half a year and they both seem like fun, powerful, flavorful characters.

I've really enjoyed spending money on the game in the past. Sure, I never felt like I got enough in-game return on the money, but that was made up for since I felt like I was supporting the developers. I liked the game and wanted to see it continue. So, maybe a 4* cover wasn't worth $12.50, but a $12.50 contribution to the developers with a 4* cover on top seemed good to me.

The thing is, I still can't get over the Xforce/Thor nerfs. Everything about them, from:

the magnitude (huge),
to the timing, (directly after an HP sale was being trumpeted)
to the communication to the players,
all the way down to the refund options (they increased the price of selling a fully covered and maxed Thor to 2500 HP. Oh joy!)

was just terrible. And everyone let them know it was terrible. And they just went right on ahead with it all, then had the gall to tell us they were "listening to our feedback".

Given the current 4* playing field, the size of the nerfs makes even less sense. If Xforce had 500-800 more damage on his green and Thor had 2 more charged tiles somewhere across her ability set, they'd still be considerably less powerful than some of the top tier options that are currently available.

So, that was the turning point for me. Until something is done to partially revert those nerfs I'll continue to not spend any money on the game.

How about other people? Why do you or don't you spend money on the game?

Haven't spent money on hero points since "True Healing" was instituted. so my grudge is almost a year and half long. and as a side note i was extra peeved when they close the "true healing" discussion thread because it kept on regenerating.

GrumpySmurf1002

I bought 4 PX covers because it looked like too much fun and Steam had a sale. I bought the 5th IMHB red because it's too big a game changer.

The XForce/GT nerfs mean little to me, mostly because they're both still quite useful, but also because their previous incarnations would still be ridiculous. IMHB might keep up, but that's about it.

All that said, I don't expect anyone to tell me how to spend my money, so don't really care to tell other people what to do. If you're F2P, good for you. If you want to whale up, good for you too.

Me, I'll keep selectively buying what I need because I enjoy the game and 1.5 years of entertainment is worth the $129 I'm up to now. If that means buying a bunch of XDP covers for Christmas, or whoever the next flavor of the month is, then I'll do it. And everything that's happened in the past of this game won't affect the decision one iota.

Unknown

They really do need to go back and give boosts to Thor and X-Force Wolverine.

The main problem with X-Force is that he is the "capstone" six month reward for the game. I have a friend, the guy that introduced me to MPQ, recently hit his six month rewards and quit. He was a casual player. It was just something fun to play and he had formerly enjoyed the original Puzzle Quest games. He took maybe eight months of real time to get the six month reward. He did not read forums or news about the game. He has no idea that the X-Force he played was a "nerfed" character. His roster was a firmly developed 2 star, he had almost all 2 stars at level 94. He had a wide selection of 3 stars, but most were not very well covered or leveled. He had maybe one or two copies of 3/4s of the four stars. He did know that getting four star characters was nearly impossible, and that outside of DPD, he found getting three stars difficult.

The X-Force he had was covered 3/1/2. He leveled up to as high as he could. And... the experience totally disappointed him. He could easily see that the green and yellow abilities would be bad even at higher cover levels. He felt that his experience with X-Force Wolve was going to be representative of every other experience of high level characters, and he stopped playing.

Was d3 going to ever convert this player to a heavy spender? Probably not. Should Wolverine at least be good enough to keep casual players around and feeding the occasional $20 into the game for roster slots? I guess they figure that isn't a priority for them.

Omega Red

I bought covers to finish my X-Force as soon as he got the buff and I bought Thora covers about a month after her release. Both of them helped me build my roster and accelerated my transition. I invested in these characters and I am satisfied with the returns I got. I also bought some covers for Professor X and I don't regret it one bit. He's quite fun to play with though admittedly he hasn't been as useful as I expected him to be, I still need some yellow covers to have him at his full potential.

Then we had the nerfs. I wasn't that pissed myself since I have played this game since the beginning and I have lived through every nerf (actually, I hold a bigger grudge over the Ragnarok nerf, I only got to play with him like, two weeks). By the time I bought my Thora covers I did it knowing she would be nerfed eventually. I hold no serious grudges over nerfs. All the money I have invested in this game has seen good returns, except for the infamous Ragnarok case.

And still, I feel no desire to spend any more money. If the X-force/Thora nerfs hadn't happened I would have bought Hulkbuster covers, I didn't for fear of another nerf. I would love to buy some Jean covers but again, the underlying uncertainty revolving changes and the future of the game inhibits me from doing so. When you buy a product with real money you usually receive a guarante for a fixed period of time. If we got such a guarantee that characters will be left untouched for a certain period of time I would consider spending money again. Devs have said often that nerfs and revisions are not planned in the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, their word doesn't hold enough credibility for me.

Omega Red

Sorry, double post.

Lee T

I spent money on the game at the beginning to buy roster slots. It didn't felt good doing it at all. Kinda like the game did a nerve pinch on my collector muscle. But roster slot at least are an absolute, can't really nerf them and you keep'em when you sell the character.

Nowadays I earn enough HP for my roster needs (70+ roster slots and sitting on 5k HP) and I've stopped spending money on the game neither do I want to. Here are the reasons in no clear order :

- I still have a bad taste in my mouth from the early days.

- I'm not a gambler so booster pack are out of the way, I learned my lesson with Magic years ago.

- the real life price for a single cover is completely crazy

- when a power is tempting enough it probably also mean it's on the nerf watchlist

- I'm a collector more than a competitor, the more cover I have the less I play. Why would I pay to accelerate my endgame. I'd rather enjoy the ride.

- i currently have no desire to "thank" the dev team. I already paid more than I owuld a AAA title and this is not a AAA game by far. Since I've started to play, almost a year ago, I've yet to see the actual game, the ouzzle questy part, being improved. Coming from the world of CCG, boardgame and miniature wargaming, I'm very much underwhelmed by what I see. NB I have absolutely no idea how much time it takes to do the stuff that are actually in the game, I have absolutely no idea how much time/money constraint can impede creative development, it's not a judgement on the dev's skills which I can't evaluate, but it's my feeling on the result. As I've sayed above "the more cover I have the less I play" which means that the game itself, without the rewards, is not enough interesting for me to play it on it's own.

GurlBYE

I'm surprised the cover costs are still so high with so many choices per tier at this point.
a hundred bucks should be 2-3 4 stars, not 8 covers for 1 lol.
But i guess since the only people who can access the ability to buy higher covers have to have the higher covers to begin with so they may be more willing to pay.


But anyway op, let all wait and collectively see what their new 4 star plan is.

Raffoon

I think the worst part of it for me was the fact that the Thor nerfs were announced less than 2 weeks after I spent HP bought with money to go from 4 covers to 12 covers on her.

I purposefully waited for a few months to see if she was going to get a nerf, too. After seeing them take something like 9 months to pull their heads out of their collective kitty-holes to nerf Sentry though, I figured the glacial pace for balance would continue.

Then, bam! Nerf announced! But what's that? They didn't tell the players in-game? Oh no. It took another week or 2 for the news to be available in game. They were too busy having a pop-up every time you entered the game trumpeting their HP sale. The last grab of money to sucker people into buying more covers for her.

It's OK though, right? I mean, they increased the buyback amount for her to make up for it, in case you were disappointed with your purchase! They increased the buyback from 1250 HP to 2500 HP for a fully covered Thor. Totally reasonable! This thing that I spent money on can now be returned for 1/13th the price.

So, yeah. I keep wanting to spend money on the game, but I keep remembering that experience. Until they fix that experience by partially reverting those nerfs to a more reasonable level, I'm always going to be reminded why I shouldn't spend money on the game any more.

Rodolfo78

So I don't have a horse in this race- I'm a 3* player, several approaching 166, but Carnage is my only useable 4*. I've never seriously used XFW or 4hor, either pre- or post-nerf. I have a more general game design question, though, that probably fits in this thread.

Would those of you that have invested significant time/money in this game, and in nerf-able characters in particular, feel crummy about regular incremental adjustments? If I ran a game like this one, I'd be inclined to use character usage information to constantly tweak the available rosters. Something like at the end of each season, evaluate the characters whose utilization was way above/below average, and do tiny nerfs to the most popular and tiny bumps to the least popular. Rinse and repeat, and you end up letting the community tell you which characters are broken in either direction. Tweaks could even be targeted at the least utilized skills, to eventually shake up the single-optimal-build dynamic that some chars suffer from. The result could be a richer, more diverse playing landscape, and a lower-stress development environment thanks to the collective safety net. You could even work the concept into the story somehow- some random meta-mutation, or unstable magical stone, or some other crazy comic book shizz.

I know some people would be frustrated by the lack of certainty from month to month, but I think we'd come to enjoy the constant emergence of new styles of play without the necessity of new characters.

simonsez

Rodolfo78 wrote:

I think we'd come to enjoy the constant emergence of new styles of play without the necessity of new characters.

I think this is what the weekly boosts are doing, but without the downside of saddling us with constant tweaking of the characters' base abilities.

Colognoisseur

I was going to say that it seems to me that they have abandoned nerfs in lieu of making counter characters. It is interesting in the gsbw pvp how much a jean grey keeps the event from being overrun with px sw gsbw teams. I look at that as a victory for design over nerf.

Then I notice yesterday's update stealth nerfed Jean Grey as they removed her ability to take out all special tiles. She still does take care of most of the types you care about 95% of the time but she no longer will remove Ultron Bombs or any other tiles like that coming in the future. So the nerf bat is still there and it swings in the middle of the night. Which sort of invalidates what I said in the first paragraph.

Malcrof

Colognoisseur wrote:

I was going to say that it seems to me that they have abandoned nerfs in lieu of making counter characters. It is interesting in the gsbw pvp how much a jean grey keeps the event from being overrun with px sw gsbw teams. I look at that as a victory for design over nerf.

Then I notice yesterday's update stealth nerfed Jean Grey as they removed her ability to take out all special tiles. She still does take care of most of the types you care about 95% of the time but she no longer will remove Ultron Bombs or any other tiles like that coming in the future. So the nerf bat is still there and it swings in the middle of the night. Which sort of invalidates what I said in the first paragraph.

I thought it was mentioned that JG shouldn't have been able to take out QS's locked tiles or Ultron bombs by Ice a while back.. is this what they fixed?

Colognoisseur

They spell out explicitly which tiles her purple takes out. I did not see Ice IX say her purple would not take out Ultron Bombs or were not meant to. Having not faced a qs or iw with jg I didn't know if it would remove locked tiles or not. Based on the previous wording I would've expected the answer to be yes.
If it was mentioned by Ice IX then I feel a little better about it although an announcement even in the patch notes that this change was coming would have been appreciated.

simonsez

Malcrof wrote:

I thought it was mentioned that JG shouldn't have been able to take out QS's locked tiles or Ultron bombs by Ice a while back.. is this what they fixed?

Locked tiles don't really imply ownership, so I can see them not being considered an "enemy tile", but disqualifying bombs from her purple is just a downright **** move.

SnowcaTT

I think it was worth whaling (if that was what you wanted to do) when you could get the best of the small bunch - XF/GT. Now there are tons of 4*'s, whaling isn't going to do it for you - you are going to have to mega-whale, where you have most of the 4*'s highly leveled so you can run the two that are featured. Also, ways to get them will be increased soon - just be patient for the 4* or you'll have spent money for covers you'll get soon anyway.

Honestly if you are thinking about whaling, just wait for the 5*'s. They are almost certainly coming - why waste your money on 4*'s that are about equal to other 4*'s? Just wait for the 5*'s, and whale up to buy the first ones of those. It will be like the old XF/GT days, those who want to buy the 5*'s early on will be clearly ahead of the pack.

Malcrof

simonsez wrote:

Malcrof wrote:

I thought it was mentioned that JG shouldn't have been able to take out QS's locked tiles or Ultron bombs by Ice a while back.. is this what they fixed?

Locked tiles don't really imply ownership, so I can see them not being considered an "enemy tile", but disqualifying bombs from her purple is just a downright **** move.

So we are back to only IW able to keep Ultron bombs from dropping then. Was really hoping 3* BE would be able to target them someday.

Unknown

Raffoon wrote:

How about other people? Why do you or don't you spend money on the game?

Almost wrote this thread off as your monthly "post xforce/4hor nerf whine" thread you always seem to post but your last line intrigued me as it was actually constructive!

I spend my money knowing that tomorrow... this game/the character/the powers/etc can change and could possibly not even exist. I guess it's similar to leasing a car or paying rent to an extent.
It's not going towards something you'll ever own and the only return on investment you're getting is personal enjoyment which for me is exactly what I'm seeking.

Was it worth it for me to buy the remaining 9 covers I needed to max out Jean Grey after pulling 4 covers of hers in the first 3 days of her release?

Absolutely. And if they release another of my favorite characters who isn't trash I will most likely do the same thing again.

I was going to write a lot more but I got distracted by free doughnuts in the office so I'm out.

Unknown

Raffoon wrote:

So, today I was thinking about how I'd really like to just whale up and completely buy either Deadpool or Carnage to max covers. I know it's a colossal waste of money, but I haven't spent any money on this game in at least half a year and they both seem like fun, powerful, flavorful characters.

I've really enjoyed spending money on the game in the past. Sure, I never felt like I got enough in-game return on the money, but that was made up for since I felt like I was supporting the developers. I liked the game and wanted to see it continue. So, maybe a 4* cover wasn't worth $12.50, but a $12.50 contribution to the developers with a 4* cover on top seemed good to me.

The thing is, I still can't get over the Xforce/Thor nerfs. Everything about them, from:

the magnitude (huge),
to the timing, (directly after an HP sale was being trumpeted)
to the communication to the players,
all the way down to the refund options (they increased the price of selling a fully covered and maxed Thor to 2500 HP. Oh joy!)

was just terrible. And everyone let them know it was terrible. And they just went right on ahead with it all, then had the gall to tell us they were "listening to our feedback".

Given the current 4* playing field, the size of the nerfs makes even less sense. If Xforce had 500-800 more damage on his green and Thor had 2 more charged tiles somewhere across her ability set, they'd still be considerably less powerful than some of the top tier options that are currently available.

So, that was the turning point for me. Until something is done to partially revert those nerfs I'll continue to not spend any money on the game.

How about other people? Why do you or don't you spend money on the game?

I've spent about $1,000 on the game so far. 4* Wolverine was one of the characters I've spent a lot of money on... 2 weeks before the nerf. I was quite disappointed. I took another chance and spent money on HB when he was released. So far I haven't been disappointed, HB hasn't failed me yet, but that could happen anytime. I don't think I will spend a lot of money on characters anymore since my roster is quite developed with 4* now, but I will probably spend money on HP for shields.

Spending money on characters is always a risk, but this is especially true for this game since it has happened multiple times.

Edit: Unless you really like Carnage, I would advise on avoid building him. Every time I find a Carnage in a queue, I always attack them, Carnage makes my matches really fast, and speed up my hops, sometimes adding an additional match in there, and usually they are worth a lot of points. Health Packs aren't really an issue since you can only hop a few times. You could very well lose a lot of points if someone attacks your team while you are not shielded. Then again I would imagine your matches would also be quite fast.

Linkster79

killerkoala wrote:

Haven't spent money on hero points since "True Healing" was instituted. so my grudge is almost a year and half long. and as a side note i was extra peeved when they close the "true healing" discussion thread because it kept on regenerating.

I came close to spending money when true healing was announced then vowed I never would. That one change screamed cash grab more than any other nerf/sell back event. Then to close threads on the subject just to ensure that "This too shall pass" really made my mind up.

Raffoon

mango_sentinel wrote:

Raffoon wrote:

How about other people? Why do you or don't you spend money on the game?

Almost wrote this thread off as your monthly "post xforce/4hor nerf whine" thread you always seem to post but your last line intrigued me as it was actually constructive!

I spend my money knowing that tomorrow... this game/the character/the powers/etc can change and could possibly not even exist. I guess it's similar to leasing a car or paying rent to an extent.
It's not going towards something you'll ever own and the only return on investment you're getting is personal enjoyment which for me is exactly what I'm seeking.

Was it worth it for me to buy the remaining 9 covers I needed to max out Jean Grey after pulling 4 covers of hers in the first 3 days of her release?

Absolutely. And if they release another of my favorite characters who isn't trash I will most likely do the same thing again.

I was going to write a lot more but I got distracted by free doughnuts in the office so I'm out.

Sorry if you've thought that my previous posts haven't been constructive. I'll admit that I've often posted complaints in the past, but I've always sought to offer an answer that would alleviate them as well. For me, this continues to be an issue at the top of my mind, and so I continue to discuss it. I don't forget these types of things easily.

I'm glad that you did find this one more constructive, though It is certainly something I'm interested in personally: how people decide for or against a purchase.

I'm glad that JG has been treating you well. Hope she continues to shine and be fun after the weekly buffs wear off.

It's funny, you know, when I spent money on Thor I figured "well you know what, even if they did nerf her, at least I'd get some time out of her at full power and I'd be happy to support the company". It was certainly a consideration for me. The thing is, when they nerfed her so soon after I spent money, even after assuring myself that I'd be rational, it still stunk.

The thing isn't that she got nerfed, though. She and Xforce were powerful enough together that they invalidated pretty much all other options. I understand balancing is necessary. It's all the details about the nerf.

If they'd done it in a reasonable way, I'd still be a paying customer. For me, that's the difference. Both before and after the nerfs the fun-loving part of me wants to play around with the shiny new toys. The problem is after they way they handled the nerfs, I no longer want to support the developer. And I want to avoid supporting the developer more than the fun-loving part of me wants to buy shiny new toys.

I suppose maybe some day the shiny new toy instinct will outweigh my negative feelings towards the developers, but it hasn't happened since then.