Earning Command Points with IAPs - a concern

SunCrusher

To preface my concern, I'm thinking about previous concerns regarding balancing gameplay in regards to the introduction of Alliances and how the advent of Alliances contributed to causing a greater rift between player groups. More specifically, rifts between all the strong people who band together and everyone else.

People in strong Alliances are able to - in essence - double dip during Events. Not only do they get their own Rewards, they also get the Rewards of their Alliance placement as well. If people are not in a strong top whatever Alliance, they will miss out on those Rewards.

So, with the new advent of Command Points - Command Points which can also be earned through IAPs which also earns the Command Points for everyone else in the Alliance, I'm concerned with how this might affect that same rift between player groups.

* When someone purchases certain bundles of Hero Points or Iso-8 (Logan’s Loonies, Asgard Treasure, Stark Salary, Hidden Stash, Rich Deposit, or Mother Lode), some Command Points are awarded to them and everyone else in their alliance. (If they’re not in an alliance, they’ll still get the bonus.)

Literally, we have a situation where the paying players are now going to be able to earn Command Points and the Legendaries (not necessarily a problem in and of itself) faster... and THEN some because not only will the paying players earn Command Points, their ENTIRE Alliance will earn them, too, and if other members of their Alliance are also paying, there's more rounds of Command Points to go around... which could continue ad nauseum (here's the potential problem).

Am I the only one concerned about seeing an AP-feeder-like problem here?

slidecage

SunCrusher wrote:

To preface my concern, I'm thinking about previous concerns regarding balancing gameplay in regards to the introduction of Alliances and how the advent of Alliances contributed to causing a greater rift between player groups. More specifically, rifts between all the strong people who band together and everyone else.

People in strong Alliances are able to - in essence - double dip during Events. Not only do they get their own Rewards, they also get the Rewards of their Alliance placement as well. If people are not in a strong top whatever Alliance, they will miss out on those Rewards.

So, with the new advent of Command Points - Command Points which can also be earned through IAPs which also earns the Command Points for everyone else in the Alliance, I'm concerned with how this might affect that same rift between player groups.

* When someone purchases certain bundles of Hero Points or Iso-8 (Logan’s Loonies, Asgard Treasure, Stark Salary, Hidden Stash, Rich Deposit, or Mother Lode), some Command Points are awarded to them and everyone else in their alliance. (If they’re not in an alliance, they’ll still get the bonus.)

Literally, we have a situation where the paying players are now going to be able to earn Command Points and the Legendaries (not necessarily a problem in and of itself) faster... and THEN some because not only will the paying players earn Command Points, their ENTIRE Alliance will earn them, too, and if other members of their Alliance are also paying, there's more rounds of Command Points to go around... which could continue ad nauseum (here's the potential problem).

Am I the only one concerned about seeing an AP-feeder-like problem here?

takes like 720 pts to buy a 5 star so i would not really worry about it. Who know its might be 1,2,3,4, and 5 pts depending on what they buy reward to everyone else.

either way i would not worry about it.

edit looks like

20 packs give 1
50 packs give 3
100 packs give 7

so still very low numbers and really not worried

BearVenger

Think we might see some CS complaints or board gripes from whale-ish alliance members who felt pressured to purchase a Treasure and then got dropped before the event spoils get distributed?

"But they promised in third-party chat!"

Just a bit of spitballing...

Mawtful

On one hand, we've already got top alliances where whales are supporting whales. When 1 or 2 people already have a character maxed out before they're released it's more likely that their alliance will place higher (particularly in the PvP event) and that gets more covers into the rosters of those that didn't whale this time. So this doesn't create an issue but does amplify an existing phenomena.

On the other hand, the game is now certifiably pay to win. So I guess that's a thing.

firethorne

So, how long before they start selling items to double ISO won for the day?

Sherlock1

You should be happy of that because

1/ lots of people buy ISO/HP, they don t necessary belong to a whale alliance: so many many players will be able to get "free" cp thanks to them
2/ It can motivate people who are not in an alliance to join one; it can also motivate players to go to a stronger alliance with more "buyers" (originally, it was already a good idea to help your alliance to improve itself or go into a stronger one to get more rewards)
3/ Those who bought big Stark Salaries don t need legendary tokens for 4* as they whale them (except if one 4* is just coming out) They need LT mainly for the 5*: considering the odds, it will need a lot of cp to fullfill the 5* (720cp per LT, with 3% earning a 5*, and adding the specific covering required at a certain moment)


So , you shouldn t worry at all about that, and be quite happy with such improvement

Polares

So if you are in a 'whale' alliance where everyone buys a stark every month then you get 140 CPs every month !

If they buy two, they will get 280!

So every 3 months they get one 5 cover, or they buy 33 tokens (so they have good chances of getting two 5 covers and A LOT of 4s).

I think we should be worried...

The idea of CPs is great, but I think they should not be buyable.

Unknown

This is the second case of d3's "non-whaleable" being whaleable with a huge cash bag. Are people surprised? I have no idea why.

Unknown

When they announced 'new gameplay feature' i was super excited.
Then you find out it is just another payment method.

brisashi

I'm ok with that.

Shouldn't being in a top alliance and spending money on the game come with advantages?

SunCrusher

To preface my following comment, I AM a paying player as I have somehow regularly paid into the game to expand my roster to allow me to collect as I play. If I were to join some CP-earning Alliance aside from my own which - at this point in time - is mostly just me, I'd be chipping in and helping out my Alliance every so often. Additionally, I started playing this game before Alliances figured into the picture. As such, my commentary is not a typical 'free players' versus 'whale players' one.

Personally, given how Alliances ALREADY work, joining a strong Alliance much less a strong Alliance with paying players who keep their rosters and the competition up on their toes, is ALREADY a 'benefit' as you double dip with rewards. You not only get your own rewards, but you get the Alliance perks as well.

If being in strong Alliances - with most of these strong Alliances made up of paying players (and again, I'm one myself!) - weren't ALREADY a great benefit, then we wouldn't be having these 'Mercenaries Need to Stop!' and related threads cropping up so frequently. If strong Alliances weren't so important and REWARDING then why was there such a mad scramble to get into a strong Alliance during the Anniversary? Why are there so many brother and sister Alliances everywhere to trade players back and forth to maximize earning/Reward potential?

If there already wasn't something already very rewarding about the situation, Alliances wouldn't be so critical in the first place to 'normal-paced' progression.

CLEARLY it's already a rewarding experience and all that said, it's STILL not enough? It's still not enough that people already reap the implicit and indirect rewards of having strong paying players already banded together?

Weren't the devs JUST expressing interest not so long ago about keeping the game balanced for everyone and NOT just the 1% at the top and the bulk majority of which are heavy spenders?

We already had the issue where all the best players all grouped together to form Alliances and of course, naturally, they all vaulted their way to the progression fast lane even faster than they were going before while everyone else just kind of lagged behind.

The devs removed the pay wall when it came to Alliance formation likely because of this exact problem - because while the paying players literally reaped all the benefits (and since you had to pay for Alliance slots, this was the pay wall and the pay-to-win-more feature) everyone else struggled to even open up Alliance slots.

And NOW, instead of paid Alliance slots, we have, essentially, Pay-for-Alliance-CP. Except it's worse. Why? Because it can just keep going and going and going with no end in sight.

We discuss character nerfs and how characters who are AP feeders and batteries and stuff are too powerful. This is no different. Except what the Pay-for-Alliance-CP feature does is pump in CP into the entire Alliance to churn out Legendary-tier redeemables.

I understand that this was a feature likely rolled out in response to frustration over covering 4*s and such, but this is like rolling back to the time when Alliance roster slots had to be paid and that's why I don't like it.

Hastening the progression experience sounds like a fine idea... but with 1% of the playing population climbing CP-earned progression at a rapidfire pace compared to the rest of the population, 6* and 7* characters will have to be on the horizon for these players while everyone else gets to -finally- climb to 4*, 5*.

It isn't that I dislike the idea of rewarding paying players; I dislike the fact that we're returning back to something we turned away from and I also dislike the fact that I can easily see a gap between groups of players that's only going to get bigger and instead of turning MPQ into a more inclusive experience, it's doing just the opposite and it's putting the emphasis once again on:

Eventually, you need to be in a strong and PAYING Alliance to keep up with the Progression status quo that is being set by these Alliances and their players.

Quite frankly, I WAS perfectly happy to be a paying player WITHOUT this... but now, what's the purpose of paying if - by virtue of not being in a paying Alliance and participating in a Pay-for-Alliance-CP round robin - what CP I earn dollar for dollar that I spend is going to be automatically less?

JOIN A HIGH RANKING PAYING ALLIANCE! JOIN A HIGH RANKING PAYING ALLIANCE! JOIN A HIGH RANKING PAYING ALLIANCE!

Well ****, I ALREADY knew that was what was being pushed, thanks!

... Oh, by the way, JOIN A HIGH RANKING PAYING ALLIANCE!

... Nevermind.

Quebbster

You too can buy a five-star cover for everyone in your alliance for the low, low cost of 103 Stark Salaries!
...as a F2P player, I have no issue with this. If people want to spend that kind of money on the game, more power to them. They pay for the servers and the wages that keep the game running. I don't. I just have a game to play for free.

Unknown

brisashi wrote:

I'm ok with that.

Shouldn't being in a top alliance and spending money on the game come with advantages?

They alredy have the top spots on pvp events in both individual and alliance ranks plus season ranks. Just to the sell those 8 3/4* covers they got.

brisashi

ShionSinX wrote:

brisashi wrote:

I'm ok with that.

Shouldn't being in a top alliance and spending money on the game come with advantages?

They alredy have the top spots on pvp events in both individual and alliance ranks plus season ranks. Just to the sell those 8 3/4* covers they got.

And they've earned it. They play harder and spend more than other alliances.

puppychow

To be honest, I think this CP system will generate a ton of CS tickets. But Ice already posted yesterday that support will not deal w/ "missing" CPs. So you do this at your own risk.

Unknown

Suncrusher summed it up quite well.

I logged in today for the first time in about a week, hoping that the 'new thing' would rekindle my interest...and it's another chance for the people at the top to get even farther ahead.

The devs just show us over and over that they have no idea what makes (or rather made) the game fun. Hint: It's not opportunities to open our wallets.

On a side note, this is the only game where I've seen people actually cheering on the players who pay to win. That's generally reviled everywhere else.

Orion

Penarvon wrote:

On a side note, this is the only game where I've seen people actually cheering on the players who pay to win. That's generally reviled everywhere else.

Apparently people everywhere else aren't smart enough to realize that the whales keep the game free for the rest of us.

GrumpySmurf1002

Mawtful wrote:

On the other hand, the game is now certifiably pay to win. So I guess that's a thing.

To win what though? With bracketing and slices, there are plenty of people 'winning' PvP right now that aren't anywhere near whale status.

Yeah, you're not finishing in first if you're locked in with these guys, but you weren't now either without spending significant money to shield.

Biggest thing is they become invincible...which if you've watched super-high end PvP lately, will end up helping people score more.

JamieMadrox

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

Mawtful wrote:

On the other hand, the game is now certifiably pay to win. So I guess that's a thing.

To win what though? With bracketing and slices, there are plenty of people 'winning' PvP right now that aren't anywhere near whale status.

Yeah, you're not finishing in first if you're locked in with these guys, but you weren't now either without spending significant money to shield.

Biggest thing is they become invincible...which if you've watched super-high end PvP lately, will end up helping people score more.

I'm going to chime in with my $0.02 here. I know I've been absent from the forums for a while as an active contributor, but real life is really busy and I barely have time to mod let alone contribute.

So here's the thing. The guys that have spent big money to get maxed out 5* aren't really winning anything. I play in a slice with one of them. I don't think he's taken first yet. As far as I know, the other players that have done the same aren't winning their brackets consistently either. Could they? Sure. But they're not.

Think about that for a bit.

GrimSkald

We have numbers - 1 CP for a $20, 3 for a $50, and 7 for a $100. The cost to raise a 5* one cover is 720 - so the math is relatively easy. Every $10,300 gets you one cover for your whole alliance (with 1 cp remaining,) let's split that out evenly between the alliance, so we're talking a mere $515 each. Of course, each person who buys in will also get a ton of hero points, so they can buy 40 packs - each buy in will get you 9.2 and an average of just under 1 5* in the lot. Of course, that $515 buy in only gets you one cover...

Spending the 720 CP on Legendary Tokens instead will get you 28.8. That's about 3 5* covers (and a whole ton of 4*s, but we'll assume that's not the point at this stage,) so for those people looking to finish off their 5*s, the CP buy will probably be worth it, since there's no garuntee that those 5* covers will be the ones you need...

The point is, this system will definitely make the acquisition of 5*s faster, but I suspect not a lot faster, and it's already pretty slow to begin with. It does encourage people to spend money on the game - I'm okay with this as that's how the game keeps going. I still don't think we're going to see much in the way of fully-covered 5*s anytime soon. Sure, there are some in the game now, but I garuntee you those people spent thousands of dollars on them - if they're willing to do that I'll give them that edge. Me, I'd rather buy a new (used) car or something...

kalex716

Orion wrote:

Penarvon wrote:

On a side note, this is the only game where I've seen people actually cheering on the players who pay to win. That's generally reviled everywhere else.

Apparently people everywhere else aren't smart enough to realize that the whales keep the game free for the rest of us.

I don't want it to be this way though. I wan't to be included in their business plan as well. I want them to Take My Money too! I wan't to be able to spend a modest amount of money (15 bucks a month or so) and get what I would consider to be something valuable back in return. Currently, the way this product monetizes, it doesn't make sense to spend any money at all unless you are comfortable being a whale. The way they design their features tends to make it non-optimal to be a regular but modest spender. Its all or nothing.