So who are Command Points for?

TCell

I don't post on the Forums often, but now that the Command Points have debuted and the initial burst of easy to acheive CPs are finished, I'm curious how the Developers foresee players achieving CPs? The current methods appear to be:

PVE:
- 2 nodes @ 1 CP each per sub.
- Top 10 sub placement.

PVP:
- Top 50 Placement

Daily Resupply:
- Every so often.

Spending $$:
-1 per Logan's Loonies
-3 per Asgard Treasure
-7 per Stark Salary

The way it's currently set up, above average players who don't spend money, can probably collect enough CPs for an LT a month. This seems great - Thanks!

However, and I realize I am stating the obvious, it appears the easiest way to collect CPs is to spend money. The top money spending alliances will have a huge leg up. (If everyone in an alliance buys a Stark, that's 140 CPs or 5.6 LTs) I'm not opposed to people spending money on the game having an advantage - I've spent some money on the game - but obviously, the divide between the have and have-not alliances is only going to grow more stark (pun intended) based on CPs being awarded for purchases.

Anyways, my question for the Developers, was this (rewarding $ players) the plan with Command Points?
Also, will you be revising how CPs are awarded going forward?

Thanks, TCell

amusingfoo1

Hoping they'll rethink decision for DDQ to have a point for only five days. It's a great way for casual players to be able to (slowly) see some progress in their teams.

And to answer your implied question, the resupply cp reward is every 30 days (other than day 696, apparently).

rollx

amusingfoo1 wrote:

Hoping they'll rethink decision for DDQ to have a point for only five days. It's a great way for casual players to be able to (slowly) see some progress in their teams.

And to answer your implied question, the resupply cp reward is every 30 days (other than day 696, apparently).

I completely agree. I hope they reconsider putting them back into the DDQ. That was a great way for a casual player to get legendary tokens without having to spend hours a day playing to get top ranking. And it encourages me to play daily to get my CP points (in the DDQ) so that I feel like I'm actually getting somewhere. As a 3*-4* transition player, I'm looking forward to getting at least one of every cover for a particular character before I drop money and HP to have them covered. I'm not going to do that unless I have at least one of every color for that character. The faster I can do that, the more money I will drop.

christyfsu

I am not sure how much the pve node drops even count, since one can keep playing them over and over and not get the cp. This is another example of something that was almost awesome. Please put the command points back in ddq.

Unknown

Another vote for re add to DDQ. Not everyone has every three star or maybe even most for that matter. A good bit don't roster a 1*. If you make it so that you accomplish 15,000 pts. a day, you get 1 CP. That's a LT a month for someone who has all or most of the characters. Not too bad when you can potentially earn 6 LTs a month from the nightmarish 4* DDQ node.

teknofyl

I think you are correct that the intent of CP is to make purchases more attractive.

I'm not trying to defend the developers here (I myself am F2P), but I think your paradigm is not the operative one for the developers.

You are thinking of players as two groups - those who spend money and those who do not. From that premise you ask, "which group are CPs intended to reward?" Of course, in this paradigm the answer is obvious: those who spend money. But rewarding a static group of players doesn't really achieve anything for D3.

My hunch is that the CP payout is intended to move players from the second group to the first. From that premise, your question misses the point entirely. The question is "which group of players are CPs intended to covert." I anticipate that the CP payout structure will be tuned based on this premise as new data comes in. If CPs turn out to be a mechanism by which they can get more of the player base to spend money, then that would be a very useful thing to D3.

CaptainFreaky

Agree.

PVP 4* Essential node & highest level node - ok, but requires stupid grinding if you're not lucky. Could mean doing node 6-7 times on average....not exactly fun.
Top 50 PVP - ok....for the higher end players
Top 10 PVE - yah right (it can happen, but you have to be VERY dedicated and/or lucky with your timing)
Daily Resupply - great, but no effort required other than playing every day.
Having others buy stuff.....sure.

If you look at the above, it's frankly stingy even for Demiurge/D3. It won't add much into the economy, and it might mean going more than a month before collecting 25 CP.

If DDQ was a 9/10 on the awesomeness scale, then CP is a 7/10 on potential and currently (after the initial week) a 3/10 on execution. I can only hope that after this week of analyzing trends post launch they will loosen the flow of CP a bit...but with our luck that kind of analysis might drag on for months.

Mawtful

TCell wrote:

However, and I realize I am stating the obvious, it appears the easiest way to collect CPs is to spend money. The top money spending alliances will have a huge leg up. (If everyone in an alliance buys a Stark, that's 140 CPs or 5.6 LTs) I'm not opposed to people spending money on the game having an advantage - I've spent some money on the game - but obviously, the divide between the have and have-not alliances is only going to grow more stark (pun intended) based on CPs being awarded for purchases.

Anyways, my question for the Developers, was this (rewarding $ players) the plan with Command Points?

Command Points aren't necessarily so much intended to reward spenders but to encourage whales to spend even more and to encourage non-spenders to start paying money. The whales were already spending money without CP, and doing so happily, so the bonus isn't doing anything to placate these players. However its obvious that MPQ isn't making ~enough~ money ("enough" is relative, I think they're making enough to pay staff and keep the lights on, but how much additional profit are they making after that?). Existing players will push back against increased pressure to spend money, since they didn't have to before, but new players don't know the old ways, so if they come to the game and they see that it's "normal" to make frequent purchases, they'll either bail early (which is good because the devs don't have to keep supporting them) or start paying (which is good because it's money). In freemium games, the first sell is the toughest, but once you get someone to spend, it'll be easier to convince them to spend again (sunk-cost fallacy). Not only are the bonus Command Points designed to soften that first sell, but they're only given out from the three most expensive packages, so they're designed to train people to make bigger purchases.

puppychow

teknofyl wrote:

If CPs turn out to be a mechanism by which they can get more of the player base to spend money, then that would be a very useful thing to D3.

With the rebate feature, where the entire alliance gets CPs from a member purchase of $20+, it's quite obvious D3 is hoping to convince players to spend more $$$.

On the flip side, would this rebate feature be installed if D3 had overwhelming sales during the anniversary? I think not.

puppychow

CaptainFreaky wrote:

Agree.

Top 10 PVE - yah right (it can happen, but you have to be VERY dedicated and/or lucky with your timing)

You're half right. You need to be VERY dedicated and organized/disciplined in logging in every 8 hours to fully clear. For this current Prodigal Sun event, which is the first pve with cps for sub placement, I have personally placed first in subs 1 through 4. Unfortunately, it takes me 2 1/2 -3 hours a night to grind right before expiration (I have the 11 pm est slice). So you're looking at 20 hours a week to get 14 CPs from pve sub placement. I can't afford to blow $200 on stark salaries, so 20 hours will have to do.

Also, I'm ignoring the 2 pve nodes rewarding cps in each sub from the equation because THAT depends on your luck; in some nodes, I've managed to get the CPs and in others I had zero luck.

rollx

On the flip side, my alliance members are more willing to spend money when they get close enough to 25 to get that leg token. That's going to happen less likely when the cp come in less often.

slidecage

CaptainFreaky wrote:

Agree.

PVP 4* Essential node & highest level node - ok, but requires stupid grinding if you're not lucky. Could mean doing node 6-7 times on average....not exactly fun.
Top 50 PVP - ok....for the higher end players
Top 10 PVE - yah right (it can happen, but you have to be VERY dedicated and/or lucky with your timing)
Daily Resupply - great, but no effort required other than playing every day.
Having others buy stuff.....sure.

If you look at the above, it's frankly stingy even for Demiurge/D3. It won't add much into the economy, and it might mean going more than a month before collecting 25 CP.

If DDQ was a 9/10 on the awesomeness scale, then CP is a 7/10 on potential and currently (after the initial week) a 3/10 on execution. I can only hope that after this week of analyzing trends post launch they will loosen the flow of CP a bit...but with our luck that kind of analysis might drag on for months.

i thought ICE said the avg player will get around 1 token per month. I would rather see them handed out at the end of the PVE even allaince rewards.

its just making the gap bigger and bigger simple as that

Pylgrim

As long as the main buy for CPs are Legendary Tokens, their targets are people finishing their 3* transition and/or just starting to transition to 4* land. Anyone higher than that will just keep being screwed by luck and drawing repeats of whatever few or many 4*s they already have covered. Unless, that is, they save them for half a year or so and buy a 5* cover.

CrookedKnight

TCell wrote:

The way it's currently set up, above average players who don't spend money, can probably collect enough CPs for an LT a month. This seems great - Thanks!

Hm? Just from PvE node rewards, you're looking at 60/month. add in the 10-15 monthly resupply (depending on time played) and it's three per month.

OneLastGambit

CrookedKnight wrote:

TCell wrote:

The way it's currently set up, above average players who don't spend money, can probably collect enough CPs for an LT a month. This seems great - Thanks!

Hm? Just from PvE node rewards, you're looking at 60/month. add in the 10-15 monthly resupply (depending on time played) and it's three per month.

There has been two on each sub in this 7-day event and 1 if you place t10 but that doesn't mean the same amount will be available in a 3 day event. In fact it's far more likely that in a 3-day event there will be less CP available to win, so 60 month is probably an optimistic estimate

simonsez

OneLastGambit wrote:

There has been two on each sub in this 7-day event and 1 if you place t10 but that doesn't mean the same amount will be available in a 3 day event. In fact it's far more likely that in a 3-day event there will be less CP available to win

They were awarded for each sub. As long as the 3-day event is comprised of 24 hr subs, I see no reason why it'd be different.

TxMoose

simonsez wrote:

OneLastGambit wrote:

There has been two on each sub in this 7-day event and 1 if you place t10 but that doesn't mean the same amount will be available in a 3 day event. In fact it's far more likely that in a 3-day event there will be less CP available to win

They were awarded for each sub. As long as the 3-day event is comprised of 24 hr subs, I see no reason why it'd be different.

if I'm playing optimally (which i don't worry with for 7-day events), i may only hit that node 5-6 times (i usually don't grind to 1 at the end - i usually run out of steam) which may not be enough to clear the cp. my guess is my normal playing for LT progression or releases will get me about 1-1.5/day from the pve nodes. i will likely pay that node more attn. now but still might not get the cp sometimes. the 4* node i can grind to dust usually with no problem because it is more reasonably scaled.