So close, yet so far. 5*s, Luck, and Monetization

babinro

Raffoon wrote:

To put it simply, monetization completely ruined the system. Now, a select few get to run around with untouchable characters. What are your options to compete

I respectfully disagree.

Regarding Monetization:

D3 is a business and they need to do what they can to maintain/improve revenue streams given the chosen model. 5*'s needed to monetized and frankly I'm impressed how tame the monetization has been thus far. Aside from those 5-10 players whose spending $10,000-$30,000 on megawhaling asap you have very few people buying the odd 42 pack in hopes of a single cover. Buying starks/motherloads helps the alliance and I personally think that this was a positive way to promote monetization because the rewards of HP are far more satisfying than that of a slot machine of cover pulls.

Regarding Luck:

Monetization model or not this random cover pull system was destined to be a problem regardless. I happen to be among the few who got crazy lucky without spending a dime. I now have a 1/5/1 OML which is arguably as ideal as it gets in this current meta for 7 covers on a 5*. Even if you were lucky enough to get 7x Silver Surver or 7x Phoenix covers I can basically guarantee you that you'll be far worse off than my OML.

Does this make me feel good? Well yeah, kinda... but it doesn't feel earned or remotely deserved. There are people in my alliance and truces whose earned more legendary tokens and have as little as zero 5*'s. More commonly, others have a few 5*'s distributed among all 3 releases but that tier of play is effectively useless to them.

IMO they should have made this entire tier into a crafting system using Command Points. You can still monetize CP and influence the rate of gains as they have but now you have a long term goal which doesn't rely luck to move forward. You simply craft the covers you want as you get to them. Allow 3* and 4* covers to break down for low sums of CP and you continue to incentivize token pack purchases. Adjust the 725 cp cost accordingly so that D3 gives out the desired flow of 5* covers to players.

evil panda

That might work

Raffoon

babinro wrote:

Raffoon wrote:

To put it simply, monetization completely ruined the system. Now, a select few get to run around with untouchable characters. What are your options to compete

I respectfully disagree.

Regarding Monetization:

D3 is a business and they need to do what they can to maintain/improve revenue streams given the chosen model. 5*'s needed to monetized and frankly I'm impressed how tame the monetization has been thus far. Aside from those 5-10 players whose spending $10,000-$30,000 on megawhaling asap you have very few people buying the odd 42 pack in hopes of a single cover. Buying starks/motherloads helps the alliance and I personally think that this was a positive way to promote monetization because the rewards of HP are far more satisfying than that of a slot machine of cover pulls.

Regarding Luck:

Monetization model or not this random cover pull system was destined to be a problem regardless. I happen to be among the few who got crazy lucky without spending a dime. I now have a 1/5/1 OML which is arguably as ideal as it gets in this current meta for 7 covers on a 5*. Even if you were lucky enough to get 7x Silver Surver or 7x Phoenix covers I can basically guarantee you that you'll be far worse off than my OML.

Does this make me feel good? Well yeah, kinda... but it doesn't feel earned or remotely deserved. There are people in my alliance and truces whose earned more legendary tokens and have as little as zero 5*'s. More commonly, others have a few 5*'s distributed among all 3 releases but that tier of play is effectively useless to them.

IMO they should have made this entire tier into a crafting system using Command Points. You can still monetize CP and influence the rate of gains as they have but now you have a long term goal which doesn't rely luck to move forward. You simply craft the covers you want as you get to them. Allow 3* and 4* covers to break down for low sums of CP and you continue to incentivize token pack purchases. Adjust the 725 cp cost accordingly so that D3 gives out the desired flow of 5* covers to players.

I don't begrudge them for monetizing things, but I do think that leaving an avenue to directly buy 5*s with money, no matter how high the cost, was a bad decision. If people were encouraged to spend money in order to better earn the 5* rewards through play, I think that would be a better system.

However, if they insist on monetizing 5*s directly, then doing so in conjunction with a purely luck based system of distribution leads to some pretty terrible outcomes, such as:
-People who spend tons of money and still don't get the covers they wanted
-People who don't spend any money and get luckier than average, but still don't feel good about it because they don't have a sense of earning their covers
-People who don't spend any money and get luckier than average, but still don't feel good about it because they can't beat the super-whales, despite their best efforts and a lot of luck

I think I agree with you that a crafting system based on CP would be great. In fact, I think such a system should have been the main way of distributing the 5* covers. If they wanted to throw in a very small percentage chance of drawing a 5* in other places on top of a main system to consistently get 5*s, that would have been alright. A random draw being the main way of obtaining them has really proven to have a lot of downsides.