The Hulk was my most favorite event, but....

Puritas

minus the "super"

kensterr

Not sure about everyone else but scaling for me this time around is more manageable. Not sure if I can say the same thing this evening when I go for second round before the sub closes.

Initial verdict: Not as bad as TaT and Simulator for me. Can't say about what others are facing.

Unknown

remylebeau wrote:

Nobody can laugh if they can't even see the erection to begin with.

*ba-dum tish*

I think the reason everyone calls you out as a whine-oceros is because, well, the vast vast majority of posts you make are complaints, whinges, tanties. Other people may raise complaints, but they are well balanced by positive contribution or thoughful posts (for example, not to pick anybody out at random, but I see posts from Jozier where he(?) does his concerns, but is also a very active member who contributes to the forum community)

I think if you're calling people out as 'Internet Superheroes' for constructive discussion of the game, then its a fair assumption that you would fall under 'Internet Supervillian', no?

If I were an internet supervillian I would most assuredly have a lolz cat as an armrest.

Unknown

He's a flamer. The only contributions I see from him is racing to be the first person to make the discussion thread.

Constructive Discussion? Are you delusional? The only thing I ever see from him is flames and random comments.

He is an Internet Superhero because he has taken it upon himself to act like the mighty police and enforcer of this place, depicting what posts should be on this forum, telling people how to behave.

Did you also conveniently left out the part where I quoted his complaints? He obviously thinks himself as someone with special rights, and no one else has the right to complain.

Internet Supervillain? Whatever.

Look, there are people who have called me out on my complaints. It's not as if I won't tone it down if they talk about it calmly with me first.

Unknown

pasa_ wrote:

In 2 hour time levels went up by 3. Without me doing anything.

Consider yourself lucky. Mine roughly doubled over night, going from around 100 to around 200. So, no change to scaling, it's the same sorry roadkill we got the previous four events. Everybody feel free to come and gawk at the bloody wreckage in case you didn't get mauled, free popcorn for laughing out loud.

Want to buy timezone that doesn't put me at such an obvious disadvantage.

Unknown

Moghwyn wrote:

pasa_ wrote:

In 2 hour time levels went up by 3. Without me doing anything.

Consider yourself lucky. Mine roughly doubled over night, going from around 100 to around 200. So, no change to scaling, it's the same sorry roadkill we got the previous four events. Everybody feel free to come and gawk at the bloody wreckage in case you didn't get mauled, free popcorn for laughing out loud.

Want to buy timezone that doesn't put me at such an obvious disadvantage.

Do you mind me asking how big is your roster and what are the levels of your top 3?

Would be nice if we somehow know the exact mechanics and could react to it accordingly....

KaioShinDE

I'm just waiting for the **** who keep saying it's all cool and fine with their 5 blue spideys to choke and eat their own words once Spidey has been nerfed and the scaling is still in place. It will be SO delicious to watch.

Unknown

Some people have been saying that it is possible to defeat 230 Villains (not minions) without Spidey. I have no idea how though.

I assumed they used the buffed chars. Didn't last very long in my case.

KaioShinDE

You can beat them with a little luck sure, but only once or twice, then you need health packs or you are done. You can't reliable grind 230 missions without spidey. You can do goon only missions with CMags but as soon as the enemies strike back with abilities, kthxbye.

Unknown

Fortunately I have both Mags and Spidey.

Still, I can't count the number of Insta-gibs I got. Headbutt, Onslaught, Sunder, and even Summon Demons.

Unknown

gahudahu wrote:

I may be wrong, but to survive and be profitable, MPQ must cater to new player, and retain them, since *I think* most of the players will not put in any substantial amount of money in the game until they have a good handle of it (say one month for example, at least that was the case for me). Today's new players are going to improve their rosters over time, and ultimately face the same problem as we are facing now. So they may get upset with the game, and leave.

I think the current scaling system is good to lure new players in (good placement in tournament), but not to keep them (see mechgouki and others). So if they want to keep the revenue, they must satisfy seasoned player, and be attractive to new ones. They are not very far from it, this is a matter of parameters tweaking (less 230 for high rosters, and probably increase a bit the difficulty for low rosters).

Then again, i have no data to back that up, that's just my opinion.

Edit: On second thought, i think i understand your point better: yeah, maybe they are getting some cash for roster slots increase. But the game has the potential to retain people (i do not even dare to check at my steam time-counter ), that would be really short-sighted to "upset" a large part of their regular customers for quick money.

They need people willing to spend money. Problem is that veterans are exceedingly unlikely to do that, they've got enough roster slots, they've got most of the covers, they've got quite a few heroes maxed, they've got enough HP saved up. A few veterans might buy ISO to quickly level up the overpowered Hero of the Week, ISO/money rate is just pretty unattractive, so most will pass.

Which leaves new players as source of income. There's another problem here, MPQ is all competition, zero teamwork. A classic MMORPG will get people to spend money to better achieve things together, like clearing that new dungeon with guild members. It's a huge spending incentive, you don't want to be the guy with permanent reserve bench assignment because your equipment is too bad to offer any real contribution to the party. Veterans encourage people to spend more just by being around.

Now, in the competitive MPQ setting it's really the other way round, veterans scare new players away. They keep you from the one thing this game is centered on, earning coveted covers, unless you spend enough money to catch up to several hundred hours of play time. Given the current pricing model that's at least a four digit number, with the leftmost digit likely higher than the number of stars on any cover currently available. Not an option, so you have to throw those new players a bone. Make them able to compete against the veterans by scaling things to their advantage, give the impression of being able to achieve something with just a little extra effort. They'll buy roster slots, maybe even a few cover packs or direct hero upgrades. Sure, they'll eventually hit the brick wall, but at this point they've exhausted most of their spending power. And if they decide to leave, that's one less veteran (who won't pay any more) scaring away quite a few new players (who might pay).

Yeah, I know, conspiracy theories and such. This is purely hypothetical, no ties to real life at all. Just saying that if I owned the company and wanted to maximize profits, this would be my approach. There's no reason at all to hang on to veteran players, they consume resources and hurt revenue.

Unknown

@Mog

Not sure I like what you're saying, but I agree. I guess that in looking out for the best interest of their business, the paying players have to stay, the non-paying ones have to go.

And by late in the game when a player is capable of sustaining himself, he no longer has to pay any amount to stay afloat in the game.

From a business standpoint, I can understand the devs' actions. But from a player's standpoint, I can't agree with what they have done.

However, this is based on the premise that new players would be willing to pay money. You gave them the incentive to play the game. How are you going to convince them to spend the money?

Also, is there any possibility that the game itself has amassed more players than it can possibly hope to maintain and sustain in the long run? Basically, is it possible, that they attracted too many players, but too little paying ones?

KaioShinDE

But remember all the guys who spent 100 bucks on Ragnarok covers to be able to compete in events for top places? Those weren't beginners or new players. They played long enough to figure out how the game works and wanted to maximize their chances. That type of player can drop a lot of money too.

Unknown

mechgouki wrote:

Do you mind me asking how big is your roster and what are the levels of your top 3?

Would be nice if we somehow know the exact mechanics and could react to it accordingly....

Used to have two at level 100, rest at level 85 and below. One of each hero in roster, most of them incomplete. Really struggled through Oscorp Heroic and Simulator, unable to clear about half the missions, even heavily boosted. Hit the brick wall right at the beginning of Brotherhood and figured that if I get max difficulty out of the box I might as well level up, can't get more painful. Max chars currently at 141, 120 and 95, rest at 85 and below. Spent HP to get Spidey to blue 5, increased my success rate from 20% to 95%.

Personal scaling actually seems to be quite okay this time, it's community scaling that's way out of hand. Some of the popular missions went up a hundred levels, the restricted missions (e.g. the Hulk one requiring Punisher) even dropped down about 30 levels for me. Given that others only see minor adjustments I must be getting a huge multiplier to to community scaling, which really hurts because I often can't participate right at the start. Maybe it factors in my overall play time, that's way over 500 hours.

Unknown

KaioShinDE wrote:

But remember all the guys who spent 100 bucks on Ragnarok covers to be able to compete in events for top places? Those weren't beginners or new players. They played long enough to figure out how the game works and wanted to maximize their chances. That type of player can drop a lot of money too.

That's the "Overpowered Hero of the Week" part, except that it lasted for well more than a month. And it wasn't really difficult to figure out how overpowered Rag was, all you had to do was meet him once in the Lightning Rounds. Taught me to check for covers on low level heroes, nasty surprise.

Unknown

mechgouki wrote:

However, this is based on the premise that new players would be willing to pay money. You gave them the incentive to play the game. How are you going to convince them to spend the money?

For me it would be cover slots, seeing a rare cover expire makes me die a little. Unlocking missions that require a special character (guaranteed within the currently featured cover pack) is also kind of attractive.

mechgouki wrote:

Also, is there any possibility that the game itself has amassed more players than it can possibly hope to maintain and sustain in the long run? Basically, is it possible, that they attracted too many players, but too little paying ones?

Unlikely. The player footprint seems to be fairly small, so no huge storage requirements. Processing seems to happen mostly on client side, so no huge server requirements. No direct interaction between players, so synchronization also shouldn't be an issue. Not sure how their cheat detection factors in, I suspect it's not as sophisticated as looking at the complete replay of matches. From resource perspective MPQ really is a gem, they achieve very much with very little, should scale exceedingly well.

kensterr

Spoke too soon. Missions in Canada with Goons and Hulk solo has gone up to 220-230. ****.

As for overcoming 230 villains... either luck or major boosts, with C.Storm or Spidey to stun, or OBW to steal AP.

Unknown

@Mog

In my honest opinion, it is not really that hard to earn the players' money. It is my sincere belief, that D3 is simply doing it wrong.

For instance. Rare covers. For the Lightning Round tokens. Each random cover is priced at 1100 HP. Equivalent value of $11 US bucks.

Would you pay $11 for a random 3* cover? Would a rich player pay $11 for a random 3* cover? Maybe. But I honestly doubt it.

Same case for the event packs. Would you pay 3800 HP (equivalent of 38 US bucks), for 9 random 2 star covers and 1 featured 3* cover? I've heard responses from people who did. None of them said it was a good choice.

For levelling up specific covers. Would you pay 1250 HP ($12.50 US) to spend on a particular cover you want? Maybe, if you're desperate, tired of waiting. But would you do it again if you absolutely didn't have to?

Let's face it. Prices are steep. Steep prices won't necessarily generate greater profits. You have to give customers what they want. If you charge them exorbitant prices, they'll probably pay for things one time, and then never again.

And in contrast. If 3 Star covers suddenly drop all the way to 5 Bucks. (And 2 Stars maybe to 2 Bucks.) I have a feeling they would see much greater sales.

And we're talking about virtual products here. Not physical products with cost price and storage space. Profit margin doesn't have to be high, just sales amount.

The staff somehow believes that if they want to earn more money, all they have to do is jack up the prices. Double prices of Shields. Double prices of Heroic Packs. I don't know about the others, but jacking up prices is a huge incentive. TO NOT BUY!

Anyway, that's just my take on the situation. If they want money, they should probably do a price revision.

That would probably work better than giving the old timers the boot. Just saying.

Unknown

mechgouki wrote:

Anyway, that's just my take on the situation. If they want money, they should probably do a price revision.

Not sure about this. The game is about collecting covers, if they were a dime a dozen there would be no real incentive for playing. Feels like paying ten bucks to get a fully leveled and equipped MMORPG char, thanks for visiting. Keep covers as expensive as they are, maybe even make some much harder to obtain, something for the completionists among us to strive for. Gold characters come to mind, make them placement/progression only, no cover packs, no upgrading for HP, maybe drop the cover based level limit so they don't remain completely useless for a long time.

Offer other ways to spend money, mostly consumables to keep the money coming. How about some buffs that remain active for 24 hours? Like auto-revival to full health after combat? 10% increase to total health for all heroes? Boosting a selected hero to max level, full covers? Double ISO income? Anything that you would want to buy repeatedly to give you an additional edge until it expires. Add a mission of the day that offers interesting rewards and costs some HP to enter. Add new chapters to the prologue, pay to unlock. Add cosmetic stuff, like modified animations/sound effects for your heroes, visible also to the opponent on defense (e.g. Daredevil pointing at you and saying "ha ha" after you hit a red trap). Add your very own hero/villain hideout that you can pay to upgrade for various benefits (e.g. higher limit on boosts, higher boosts stacking, improved chance to find boosts, faster regeneration rate, higher probability at not getting the 20 ISO reward), possibly requiring you to beat some exceedingly tough built-in missions first to qualify for those upgrades.

There's really a lot of stuff people would shell out a minor amount of money for, and it adds up. Selling covers cheaply would be a pretty stupid move, it's a once in a lifetime sale, rather repeatedly sell ways that make it easier to obtain covers.

Unknown

Well I don't know about you, but I prefer to spend money on permanent assets than short-term boosts.

Granted, those boosts will attract a lot of people. But then it becomes too much of those pay-to-win games, and I can pick out a few Android Apps like those, with my eyes closed.

I think what you offered are excellant ideas though. Had D3 used ideas like these, they'll probably make more than Candy Crush Saga.

Not that I would actually still play this game had they done that.

But I disagree with you. Lower prices means more revenue. The thanks for stopping by thing? Doesn't matter as long as they paid something for it.