Updates Arriving With Champion Levels *Updated

Dauthi

simonsez wrote:

Stax the Foyer wrote:

It's possible that they mean cover levels, and not level levels.

I doubt it... in all the writeups, "max" is used to refer to level levels. "Low", "medium" and "max" would be really awkward ways to refer to # of covers.

That would be a ridiculous update, so it either is going in due to upcoming changes to PVE scaling or it is just more miscommunication. It could mean levels for champions only, for instance 167 - 266.

"David wrote:

Moore"]

Related to Champions, we’ve updated power, health and match damage for all of our characters:

3 and 4-Star Hero powers have been adjusted.

Powers are stronger at lower levels, slightly weaker at medium levels and unchanged at Max Level.
2-Star Characters have had their health adjusted above level 94 to better balance them against each other.
As part of the championing balance changes 2, 3 and 4-star characters will see a slight difference in match damage and health."

An observation on D3s perspective for the sudden HP change: They definitely want to make 4*s insanely harder to whale, if D3 announced the HP change a month ago a lot of players would have dumped a lot more money in the game contradicting the new direction they would like to go now. I don't agree with the decision, as it isn't fair to all non-forum users.

CNash

Slowing down the 4* transition would be fine if the devs were not exclusively creating more 4* and 5* characters. They create new things for us to play with, then make it hard for us to do so effectively. "You can win this awesome new character!" translates in everybody's heads to "a few people will buy and max this awesome new character and we can fight against them; meanwhile I can look forward to using them in about six months".

Unknown

"David wrote:

Moore"]As part of the championing balance changes 2, 3 and 4-star characters will see a slight difference in match damage and health."

I wonder if this is an across-the-board change, or if they are applying the 5* "archetypes" system to the lower tiers to create differences in match damage within each tier?

Dauthi

CNash wrote:

Slowing down the 4* transition would be fine if the devs were not exclusively creating more 4* and 5* characters. They create new things for us to play with, then make it hard for us to do so effectively. "You can win this awesome new character!" translates in everybody's heads to "a few people will buy and max this awesome new character and we can fight against them; meanwhile I can look forward to using them in about six months".

The bolded was always a problem in my opinion, and it sounds like you dislike it too. Now, the "few" you refer to will turn into the "rare". As free to play players this puts us on better footing with whales, except for the ultra elite super whales we never had a chance to compete with from the beginning.

I feel it is a great change to keep the game more competitive and less pay to win.

Electrovirus

Observations:
They are trying to slow the rate of maxing 4*
This game right now is tipped heavily towards p2w
There are a handful of players winning everything and this domination is resulting in a few haves and a bunch of have nots
People on this forum like to moan and complain a lot

evil panda

This doesn't make sense. The way to get freemium game players to spend is to give p2w people a distinct advantage. Last time I checked, D3 is a for-profit company.

Unless there are other changes coming that make it less senseless. This is really where full and clear communication could really make a difference

Bryan Lambert

Electrovirus wrote:

Observations:
They are trying to slow the rate of maxing 4*
This game right now is tipped heavily towards p2w
There are a handful of players winning everything and this domination is resulting in a few haves and a bunch of have nots
People on this forum like to moan and complain a lot

While this change won't affect me negatively, and while I'll certainly be happy if this results in a world where I don't have to fight L270 4*'s a week after they're released, the way they did this is another data point in a consistent pattern of doing business in the dickiest way possible.

This certainly isn't the first time they've let people spend lots of omney in anticipation of things staying the way they are, or changing in one particular announced way, and then last-minute announcing info that would have dramatically affected spending decisions had it been known. Remember how the 2nd Anniversary details didn't come out until after an HP sale ended?

Stax the Foyer

Dauthi wrote:

CNash wrote:

Slowing down the 4* transition would be fine if the devs were not exclusively creating more 4* and 5* characters. They create new things for us to play with, then make it hard for us to do so effectively. "You can win this awesome new character!" translates in everybody's heads to "a few people will buy and max this awesome new character and we can fight against them; meanwhile I can look forward to using them in about six months".

The bolded was always a problem in my opinion, and it sounds like you dislike it too. Now, the "few" you refer to will turn into the "rare". As free to play players this puts us on better footing with whales, except for the ultra elite super whales we never had a chance to compete with from the beginning.

I feel it is a great change to keep the game more competitive and less pay to win.

If they want to make a change like that, that's something you do at the beginning of a tier. What they've done with this is pulled up the rope after a whole bunch of people built their 4* rosters.

I'm one of the players who benefits from this, in that I have a robust 4* roster that I'll be able to compete with as long as the tier is viable. Making it harder for other people to work their way into this tier and compete is ****-backwards.

If you want to have a randomized tier, do it like the 5* one where it's that way from the beginning. It's still a profoundly stupid idea at the drop rates they have, but at least everyone is equally dependent on luck.

udonomefoo

The crazy tinykittybackward thing for me in all this is that I'm seriously tempted to buy a stark to whale up bobbygollum while I still can. Wish I could just buy HP from one of these players talking about getting refunds.

CNash

Dauthi wrote:

CNash wrote:

Slowing down the 4* transition would be fine if the devs were not exclusively creating more 4* and 5* characters. They create new things for us to play with, then make it hard for us to do so effectively. "You can win this awesome new character!" translates in everybody's heads to "a few people will buy and max this awesome new character and we can fight against them; meanwhile I can look forward to using them in about six months".

The bolded was always a problem in my opinion, and it sounds like you dislike it too. Now, the "few" you refer to will turn into the "rare". As free to play players this puts us on better footing with whales, except for the ultra elite super whales we never had a chance to compete with from the beginning.

I feel it is a great change to keep the game more competitive and less pay to win.

I'm indifferent towards the whales. They're playing the game how they want to, and they have the means to do so, so I don't begrudge them that.

My point really was that most of Demiurge's creative output is going towards creating new 4* characters and hyping them up via posts on this forum and Marvel.com, in-game announcements and special events, while simultaneously ensuring that the majority of their userbase cannot effectively use the new character for a long period of time. This latest change makes it harder for both "camps" - the committed whales and the more casual moderate- or non-spenders - to use 4*s at their full potential, at the time that they are actually released.

A major part of the problem is that 4* characters are not as usable as 3* characters at the same level, something which they've tried to correct with the 5* tier to mixed results. The problem is balance - they don't want 4*s to completely eclipse 3*s without at least some investment, or else the game becomes too difficult. At the same time, I think they really do want people to be using 4*s more regularly, but run into the problem that they're not powerful enough until you have 8-10 covers and have invested the ISO to soft-cap them. Then there's the other problem, that it takes so long to gather ISO for them that building a 4* roster with the same depth of your tried-and-true 3* roster is exponentially more difficult.

Going back to their creative focus: continually releasing only 4* and 5* characters, knowing that they suffer from this problem, means that they are not catering to their primary user base, who are still firmly in the 3* range (and thanks to DDQ, may have a pretty deep roster by this point). Without giving these users anything that appears reasonably achievable, this user base starts to get bored with the game and starts to drop away. Hence, we see moves like the Championing feature, which is designed to reinvigorate the 3* players and draw them back into the game... but crucially, without any new 3* characters to hold their interest.

Rock, meet hard place.

Unknown

evil panda wrote:

This doesn't make sense. The way to get freemium game players to spend is to give p2w people a distinct advantage. Last time I checked, D3 is a for-profit company.

Unless there are other changes coming that make it less senseless. This is really where full and clear communication could really make a difference

They may have some internal numbers on just how many covers are bought with HP, versus cover packs, shields, boosts, and roster slots.

I THINK most HP purchases are along the lines of "You need to buy some roster slots to slot in these new characters you have before they expire. (Also, why the 2 week cover expiration limit is so important to them)

I think what they're trying to do is more things that makes things nicer and easier for the people from 1-3* range (20 CP feels way more usable for a 3* cover then 1250 HP.... especially since said HP is better used for roster slots, and Championing seems to be a good way to make some good progress on 2*s as they get to near-3* levels)

I'm not sure how this breaks down exactly for 4* and up players. I like the idea of using CP on covers WAY more then HP on covers, but that's mainly because "why should I buy a cover when I can buy roster slots". CP on covers makes me feel like I am not wasting good resources on a relatively minor good, because I'd probably rather have the cover then the random token draw, and those are the only two things CP is good for right now.

But well... I hope they are either pretty confident in their numbers on how many people spend money whaling covers compared to how much money is spent getting Dem Roster Slots at lower levels, because it sounds like a pretty significant part of the forumbase prefers to whale to covers here...

Lystrata

This shift away from HP isn't, in and of itself, a bad thing. Particularly if they're going to reward CP as part of levelling up championed characters (and one might hope they add CP into other areas).

The problem here is - as always seems to be the case with this company/game - timing. Directly after a sale, with one day's notice, and nothing announced in game about the change... they drastically alter a significant purpose of HP. What the actual hell?

Changing currency in game isn't an issue I take umbrage with. The manner in which it's done, with absolutely no regard for the people who spent real-world money on a product, is my issue. And it's the way in which this company (and I say company, because I seriously doubt it's the devs making these decisions - even though they're the ones who get the brunt of our anger) treats the players that stopped me from spending any more money on MPQ. If I hadn't already, I certainly would stop after this.

Baffles me how anyone can think this is good business practice.

(EDIT: To clarify, I do wish I could spend money on this game. I bought the $5 sale HP because it was incredibly cheap, and didn't make me want to stab myself in the head. But this sort of practice is precisely why I don't otherwise spend real money on this game. I cannot bring myself to invest in a product that so routinely gets changed around with such minimal notice / makes my purchases redundant.)

firethorne

Lystrata wrote:

This shift away from HP isn't, in and of itself, a bad thing. Particularly if they're going to reward CP as part of levelling up championed characters (and one might hope they add CP into other areas).

The problem here is - as always seems to be the case with this company/game - timing. Directly after a sale, with one day's notice, and nothing announced in game about the change... they drastically alter a significant purpose of HP. What the actual hell?

Changing currency in game isn't an issue I take umbrage with. The manner in which it's done, with absolutely no regard for the people who spent real-world money on a product, is my issue. And it's the way in which this company (and I say company, because I seriously doubt it's the devs making these decisions - even though they're the ones who get the brunt of our anger) treats the players that stopped me from spending any more money on MPQ. If I hadn't already, I certainly would stop after this.

Baffles me how anyone can think this is good business practice.

Yep, that was my thoughts. I mean, I've stopped spending money on this game because I've been burned enough to know better now. But, I admit that $5 sale has me darn close to suckering me. Very glad I didn't. To see them put on a huge sale for currency, then turn around and remove one of the very few uses for the currency with one day's notice, well that's just a real dirtbag thing to do.

Jonny1Punch

So what CAN our stockpiled HP do now?!? I know I have a ton saved from the sale and if we can convert it to CP or use it to gain CP then that's not too bad. Hopefully it has a new function to smoothly and fairy transition to CP as our new currency.

But if it's solely for roster spots and shields now then this is a huge,gigantic issue and refunds are deserved if you purchased HP recently as many of us have. Hoping for more clarification soon from any dev.

fmftint

Jonny1Punch wrote:

So what CAN our stockpiled HP do now?!? I know I have a ton saved from the sale and if we can convert it to CP or use it to gain CP then that's not too bad. Hopefully it has a new function to smoothly and fairy transition to CP as our new currency.

But if it's solely for roster spots and shields now then this is a huge,gigantic issue and refunds are deserved if you purchased HP recently as many of us have. Hoping for more clarification soon from any dev.

new character slots

Dauthi

CNash wrote:

Dauthi wrote:

CNash wrote:

Slowing down the 4* transition would be fine if the devs were not exclusively creating more 4* and 5* characters. They create new things for us to play with, then make it hard for us to do so effectively. "You can win this awesome new character!" translates in everybody's heads to "a few people will buy and max this awesome new character and we can fight against them; meanwhile I can look forward to using them in about six months".

The bolded was always a problem in my opinion, and it sounds like you dislike it too. Now, the "few" you refer to will turn into the "rare". As free to play players this puts us on better footing with whales, except for the ultra elite super whales we never had a chance to compete with from the beginning.

I feel it is a great change to keep the game more competitive and less pay to win.

This latest change makes it harder for both "camps" - the committed whales and the more casual moderate- or non-spenders - to use 4*s at their full potential, at the time that they are actually released.

How does it affect both camps? I see it only hindering whales. I have been barely able to tread water since I started hitting close to the 1k hp per roster cap and constant 4* releases. I imagine most free to play players should feel about the same.

Going back to their creative focus: continually releasing only 4* and 5* characters, knowing that they suffer from this problem, means that they are not catering to their primary user base, who are still firmly in the 3* range (and thanks to DDQ, may have a pretty deep roster by this point). Without giving these users anything that appears reasonably achievable, this user base starts to get bored with the game and starts to drop away. Hence, we see moves like the Championing feature, which is designed to reinvigorate the 3* players and draw them back into the game... but crucially, without any new 3* characters to hold their interest.

Rock, meet hard place.

Each tier has a higher amount of characters than the one before it, so to make more 3*s they would have to make more 2*s, then more 1*s. This means they would have to stop creating more end game content. It may be great for the 3* crowd and under, but everyone else isn't going to stand around and wait.

Fixing the problem by upping level caps through a progression system is clever, and offering prizes for doing so can balance out HP/ISO/CP issues everyone is currently having. If they ever go back and buff/debuff characters again they just might have a fairly balanced system now.

Stax the Foyer wrote:

If they want to make a change like that, that's something you do at the beginning of a tier. What they've done with this is pulled up the rope after a whole bunch of people built their 4* rosters.

I'm one of the players who benefits from this, in that I have a robust 4* roster that I'll be able to compete with as long as the tier is viable. Making it harder for other people to work their way into this tier and compete is ****-backwards.

If you want to have a randomized tier, do it like the 5* one where it's that way from the beginning. It's still a profoundly stupid idea at the drop rates they have, but at least everyone is equally dependent on luck.

All current whales can't complain because they got to use the system up until now, so they have a leg up on everyone permanently thanks to it.

This doesn't bother free 2 play players either though. I may not have liked it, but I played anyways with no intention of spending big money on the game. All this means now is that future whales can't do it too. It's better than letting it continue.

dudethtsawesome

"David wrote:

Moore"]Hi folks,

3 and 4-Star Hero powers have been adjusted. Powers are stronger at lower levels, slightly weaker at medium levels and unchanged at Max Level.

I assume this is so everyone will stop soft capping and to make everyone want to max out their characters.

UNC_Samurai

Also in this update: the devs will sneak into your house, knock all your books off the shelf, dog-ear your comics, erase everything on the DVR, leave the milk out on the counter, kick your puppy, and pee on your rug.

DrDoMe

The HP change makes sense as a way of limiting pay to win.
The lack of advance notice makes sense to limit last-minute panic purchases.
But 120 cp is not a realistic price. This move on its own just limits player choice and puts us even more at the whim if random numbers. If there's a plan to increase the rate of cp income, then announce it and I for one will hail these changes as helping reduce whaliness and improve competition between people with realistic spending priorities.

If CP doesn't become a lot easier to gain, 120 for a cover is a big middle finger.

Dayv

colwag wrote:

But well... I hope they are either pretty confident in their numbers on how many people spend money whaling covers compared to how much money is spent getting Dem Roster Slots at lower levels, because it sounds like a pretty significant part of the forumbase prefers to whale to covers here...

The forum base is largely a self-selected group of players committed and nerdy enough to play this game way more obsessively than the average player. Our reactions (and our play styles) are probably very different from the majority of players.