Stop letting people merge accounts

babinro

For those who aren't aware there are conditions where D3 will allow people to merge two accounts together using one of the following two options in the spoiler below:

Option 1) We transfer all, to-date, in-game currency purchases of Iso-8 and Hero Points from one account to the one chosen for play.

or...

Option 2) We transfer all current Roster Character Comic Covers, the Iso-8 used to level them, Hero Points used to purchase Roster Slots, as well as any unused Iso-8 and Hero Points from one account to the one chosen for play.

From what I've seen Option 2 is being abused by veteran players to slingshot their progression into the 5* endgame.

People are using this to go from having a couple of 5* covers to having championed 5*'s in using a tiny fraction of the money needed to make this happen from legitimate play. In addition to the covers they get the lifetime amount of ISO and HP to instantly champion pretty much all of their remaining 4*s and 3*'s.

Does earning 20 five star covers, 4 million ISO and 100,000 HP cost them $15,000.00? Of course not. Accounts go for maybe $500.00. Mind you the bargain isn't really what's important here. It's the fact that this is even allowed to happen.

EVERYONE but the mergers are hurt by this.

- People who have supported D3 with thousands of dollars instantly have a weaker roster than the merged player who got there by supporting a complete stranger.
- The merged player who has likely supported D3 quite a bit in the last 1 or 2 years now has almost no reason to ever make another legit in game purchase because of their gains in ISO, HP and covers putting them in the top 1% of the game in terms of roster strength.
- Awareness of this policy has clearly driven others to merge leading to even less support for the developers.

This practice actively costs D3 revenue while greatly devaluing the purchases made by supporters.

I've spent $500.00 on MPQ in the last 2 years essentially buying 5 starks. I'm not only jealous of the vets who have successfully merged but I feel ripped off for choosing to give money to the developers of this game. Instead of 10,000 HP I could have all my 5*'s championed several levels and have a completely championed 4* roster nearing the level 290 range now. But no. I was stupid and gave my hard earned money to the devs. Guess I'll just have to take easy hits from those merged accounts and lose pvp placement to them for my decision.

You have daily buy clubs being formed to benefit from alliance CP rewards. Some of these clubs have minimum requirements several stark purchases and yet regulars in these buy clubs are WAY WAY behind the progress of a single merged account. I have a hard time believing they'd be cool with this practice.

I realize this is more of a butt-hurt rant than anything truly constructive and I'm sorry.

I also recognize that there are less exploitative reasons to merge accounts. Some people play this game on a mobile device while also playing on PC. After doing this for a few months they might request to merge the accounts. While this situation is certainly a lot more genuine it still serves to slingshot progression because of a deliberate decision the player chose to make. Just being able to do 2x ddq's a day should quickly show how it impacts the progression of ISO and cover gains.

I feel as though the reason people aren't more upset or outspoken about this is because it's been kept relatively quiet. I really hope to see people speak up on this issue even if they are in favour if keeping merged accounts.

Orangecrush

I also agree that this is a problem

Phumade

And your post will get locked and buried in

3, 2, 1....

TLCstormz

Phumade wrote:

And your post will get locked and buried in

3, 2, 1....

lmao.

Anyways, aren't there instances where this WOULD BE acceptable, though?

Like, a phone or computer dying? Etc?

Sleepy72

Hell yeah i probably spent 700 at least if i could merge an account and go instant 5* i would buy someones account for sure and never spend another cent on the game

rkd80

I agree 100% with babinro, why is this being allowed? Unless this is truly the same individual this practice needs to stop. Exchange of accounts is a perfectly fine practice, people are entitled to buy/sell what they please - but this seemingly arbitrary merging by CS is bordering on cronyism.

Stanley71

Option 1) We transfer all, to-date, in-game currency purchases of Iso-8 and Hero Points from one account to the one chosen for play.

or...

Option 2) We transfer all current Roster Character Comic Covers, the Iso-8 used to level them, Hero Points used to purchase Roster Slots, as well as any unused Iso-8 and Hero Points from one account to the one chosen for play.



Which dev posting did I miss?
Since when it is possible to merge together 2 acccounts?

Dayv

Moving this post to Suggestions/Feedback for the devs to see it.

Also, upvoting it, because it is accurate as hell.

udonomefoo

Wow, I had no idea this was a thing. I knew of the existence of merging, but my assumption was that it would only be allowed if one account was essentially a "beginner" level account. Not merging two "vet" accounts together. Like if I thought about starting an alt account and decided after a few weeks that it wasn't worth the time, I could merge them. Still could be abused, but if it's really at the level you are citing and I have no reason not to believe it is then, well, that's pretty terrible.

Every time I think I can't be surprised by this game, something else comes out. From re-rolling to cupcaking to merging, these guys just have zero control over their own game.

mjh

I don't understand how anyone is using 2 accounts at the same time?

Wouldn't one account be a new account doing the 1/2* to 3* transition? What do they gain from that account besides some measly ISO8?

Phumade

mjh wrote:

I don't understand how anyone is using 2 accounts at the same time?

Wouldn't one account be a new account doing the 1/2* to 3* transition? What do they gain from that account besides some measly ISO8?

act 1 is your normal acct.

act 2 is a surplurs account.

Originally, the scenario might be: 1 acct was started on Iphone, 2nd acct was started on Ipad (There are syncing issues with playing the same account on both phone and tablet. This has been mostly addressed, but you can look through the bug forum for details)

But the issue the OP is really addressing is:
acct 1: is your normal acct
acct 2: is a extra account that you purchased from wherever. This extra account has the 5*s, or whatever treat your trying to merge into your normal acct.

Selvokaz

Wait a second, what about people who have sandboxed accounts, and non sandboxed accounts. Could they get their two accounts merged so that the new isn't sandboxed like the later, and have all that rigged stuff in a single account? This is the scariest possibility to me.

puppychow

mjh wrote:

I don't understand how anyone is using 2 accounts at the same time?

Wouldn't one account be a new account doing the 1/2* to 3* transition? What do they gain from that account besides some measly ISO8?

I was doing some alliance hopping after a pve merc gig, and came across one group (this month) where the chat talked about 2 guys having SEVEN accounts between themselves. These weren't like **** 1/2* accounts either, but rather some high level 200+ 4s. Thankfully, their focus was only on pvp, because 24 hours a day isn't enough time to grind seven accounts competitively for pve.

avs962

Selvokaz wrote:

Wait a second, what about people who have sandboxed accounts, and non sandboxed accounts. Could they get their two accounts merged so that the new isn't sandboxed like the later, and have all that rigged stuff in a single account? This is the scariest possibility to me.

The merging has to be approved by CS, from what I understand. So no, this will not happen. Rest easy

puppychow

Personally, I don't think the issue occurs frequently enough (player looking to merge several high level rosters into one) to make a huge difference in pvp play. If there are more than 100 players involved in this, I would be REALLY surprised.

And you would think players had to spend money on multiple accounts to begin with. If the owners of those accounts want to merge their accounts, that's better (from CS perspective) than having the players go to google, Apple, Steam and try to get refunds. So I think D3 is allowing the requested mergers in order to avoid those refunds.

simonsez

puppychow wrote:

Personally, I don't think the issue occurs frequently enough (player looking to merge several high level rosters into one) to make a huge difference in pvp play. If there are more than 100 players involved in this, I would be REALLY surprised.

Makes a difference to me if half of them are in my bracket and make it prohibitively difficult to hit T50.

This thread was an eye-opener. I finally have the answer to the constant question, "How did so-and-so improve their roster so quickly? Makes no sense". Now, it does...

simonsez

Phumade wrote:

And your post will get locked and buried in

3, 2, 1....

Maybe not locked, but definitely buried. The OP shouldn't have phrased it as a suggestion. The mods are even pickier about verbiage than Alex Trebek.

Unknown

puppychow wrote:

Personally, I don't think the issue occurs frequently enough (player looking to merge several high level rosters into one) to make a huge difference in pvp play. If there are more than 100 players involved in this, I would be REALLY surprised.

And you would think players had to spend money on multiple accounts to begin with. If the owners of those accounts want to merge their accounts, that's better (from CS perspective) than having the players go to google, Apple, Steam and try to get refunds. So I think D3 is allowing the requested mergers in order to avoid those refunds.

Add one more 0 in that and you can get somewhere closer to the number. Its actually pretty common despite people not talking much about it because, you know, the secondary accounts are being bought from someone else and technically D3 only does that if you own both accounts (they ask for some proof). Buying accounts itself is alredy against the ToS but we know its done, so spreading the word publically isnt exactly what people seek when they are doing this.

But then again, you have to send a ticket to D3, they CS will take a close look in a case-by-case basis and do it or not. So even if you do buy a second account the CS can deny this. Also, can only be done once per account.

Ive done it a long time ago, I had two phones and didnt even knew I could share same acount just by using FB as backup. Obviously all I got were some 3*s as the best thing, some iso and hp (hp spent on slots). I was so naive, not long after I saw people buying vet accounts and I though "wow, I could have done that" but my lifetime merge was done by then, no turn back.

Phumade

simonsez wrote:

Phumade wrote:

And your post will get locked and buried in

3, 2, 1....

Maybe not locked, but definitely buried. The OP shouldn't have phrased it as a suggestion. The mods are even pickier about verbiage than Alex Trebek.

yep... this is a new way to stop discussion on the main board. It will slide off the 1st page by the end of the night and then that will be the end of the discussion.

Phumade

simonsez wrote:

puppychow wrote:

Personally, I don't think the issue occurs frequently enough (player looking to merge several high level rosters into one) to make a huge difference in pvp play. If there are more than 100 players involved in this, I would be REALLY surprised.

Makes a difference to me if half of them are in my bracket and make it prohibitively difficult to hit T50.

This thread was an eye-opener. I finally have the answer to the constant question, "How did so-and-so improve their roster so quickly? Makes no sense". Now, it does...

Don't forget about the various token hoardings that have occurred both prior to Championing and post championing.

Its become pretty obvious that iso is the real roadblock and a not insignificant portion of the top 100 have stopped opening tokens in order to avoid having to sell duplicates.

But honestly with line coordination, roster strength becomes irrelevant.

D3 may have set the reward tier at 1k and 1.3k, but the users have effectively reset the reward tier to 850pts. After that point, its actually quite trivial to make 1300.

Other high level players should feel free to comment, but the real danger zone is 500-850.

Pwuz_

I'm appalled this has been happening. I had no idea there was a black market for vet accounts.

I wonder how much my account would be worth?