The odd priorities of d3

Nightglider1

Crnch73 wrote:

Straycat wrote:

I also don't think its fair to tell them they can't make changes that nobody is asking for.

it has an air about it that says "we will tell you what you want, we will tell you what is best".

Like when they told us that getting a guaranteed cover in a 10-pack "wasn't fun for the players"?

Straycat

firethorne wrote:

Changes that no one asked for is one thing, changes that have clear detrimental effects is another level. And it is absolutely fair for a customer to offer their opinion on a product to a company. In fact, most companies value the feedback of customers.

Of course its fair for us to offer opinions. I just think its hubristic to say they shouldn't make changes no one is complaining about. And I agree that this change is so out of the blue that they should have provided a better explanation. All we know is they want to be consistent.

Crnch73 wrote:

It doesn't take an MBA to know that angering customers is not good for business. It is, indeed, a very delicate balancing act between making people happy and not giving away the farm. Obviously, they need to make money and keep us interested. But let's just imagine we have 10 good ideas that we want changed or implemented. Not ideas that may "break" the game, such as colorless covers. But genuinely good ideas that wouldn't hurt their bottom line... if none of them get implemented, but instead random changes that no one ever wanted... it has an air about it that says "we will tell you what you want, we will tell you what is best".

Hey, it looks like they might be using some of our suggestions for deadpool daily, so thats something

Warbringa

I've always maintained they could make a lot more money if 1.) they actually acted on more player input on what players are actually requesting vs. what they actually spend resources on and 2.) they had someone who understood basic economics to rework the game economy and rewards system

I can only believe that making more money is not a priority.....

Btw what are Shield Intercepts? oh yeah Steam player here forgot that whole thing even existed! Now I remember why I haven't spent a penny on the game since they decided to ignore a portion of their player base.

ErikPeter

smkspy wrote:

We are quickly reaching a point where the number of 5 stars doesnt vibe with their rarity. What happens when we reach 20 5 stars and the only way to get them is still through rng? Some method of aquiring needs to set up that allows a reasonable method of building these characters yet also doesn't break gameplay when it comes to other tiers. Offering one 5 star month through gameplay would not break the system imo.

I agree; I think having one specific 5-cover at 8000 or maybe 10000 in PvP season progression would be a good start. I rarely get that high but I would push for 900 in every pvp if it was enough.

Azoth658

I understand that people get frustrated with the economies in the game but I've said it before and I'll say it again.

If you suddenly were able to earn more ISO and max your roster what would be the point in playing?

I'm a low paying player and with all the changes post creating the champion system I'm firmly in the four star tier and getting that next character to champ and working on earning ISO to do it is fun. Whilst the huge ISO boost with shield levels came in was desperately needed it wasn't particularly satisfying splurge millions of ISO in one go.

5* transition is similar. It's fun when you luck into a purple cover but that's because I'm not actively seeking to create a top tier team that leaves the rest of my roster behind.

I mean if it wasn't forced upon me I wouldn't play with one, two or three stars now. So I really don't want five stars to be the goal. I want a huge fun roster of four stars that get balanced so I can play with all of them. I mean cost rider feels a lot like three star punisher these days as even with most of his covers he's pretty useless compared with others. Even Reed is better than him now lol

Dauthi

Pope Belligerent wrote:

I think it comes down to this: the team-up tile change was likely a fairly simple bit of code, easy to develop and implement. All of the changes you list, while generally longed-for and promising a great leap forward in QOL, are large-scale changes that affect the entire game and would require significant recoding and QA testing. I honestly think it's as simple as that.

Since this was a blanket effect, this is probably the truth of the situation. I have dabbled in coding, and likely this was as easy as changing definition code X to X. You can target specific wording and blanket change it easily in some cases. This probably wasn't about priorities since it took them very little time to change.

Alsmir

Warbringa wrote:

I've always maintained they could make a lot more money if 1.) they actually acted on more player input on what players are actually requesting vs. what they actually spend resources on and 2.) they had someone who understood basic economics to rework the game economy and rewards system

I can only believe that making more money is not a priority.....

Btw what are Shield Intercepts? oh yeah Steam player here forgot that whole thing even existed! Now I remember why I haven't spent a penny on the game since they decided to ignore a portion of their player base.

But that would require some work. It's easier to just drop an ISO/HP sale every now and then, if there are enough suckers that will fall for it.

I'm in similar postion. After introduction os intercepts, I haven't spent anything on MPQ, even though I used to buy both VIP and some HP points from time to time. Unfortunatelly profits from mobile adds will make up for it.

We might come up with soulutions that will benefit both sides, but at the end of the day some lazy guy will choose an option that will mean minimal work for him, rather then re-working the game.

AlphaNik

We know for sure some changes are on they're way, at the very least something's gonna happen in DDQ.

Seems to me this all team-ups-are-not-basic-tiles thing is something thay HAD to do now, in order for other things we'll see in the future to work. Maybe they just decided to play a bit with new characters BEFORE releasing in game and some of the new guys coming would really have been OP without this change.

Or maybe, like some other people said, it was just a minor change, a dev had half a day with no higher priorities and here we go.


One way or another my Scarlet Witch and my Jean Grey are really considering taking some time off from they're relationship.

Borstock

Their priority is to make money. They're a business. All of the people complaining on these forums are still playing the game.

Punisher5784

Borstock wrote:

Their priority is to make money. They're a business. All of the people complaining on these forums are still playing the game.

Actually we're not playing.. that's one of the things we're complaining about.. stupid Gauntlet

Warbringa

Borstock wrote:

Their priority is to make money. They're a business. All of the people complaining on these forums are still playing the game.

Well, actually I really only play DDQ and team alliance events anymore. Don't even touch PvP and only sometime, maybe once every other month, play a random PvE. I also haven't spent a penny since Shield intercepts, a decision that I made due to a poor business decision I felt on D3/Demiurge part. Just because one might still play the game, that doesn't necessarily mean profits for a business in a F2P application.

alaeth

OneLastGambit wrote:

The change to many characters regarding team up tiles (in not arguing their merits here there's a thread for that) which I have never seen or heard anyone complain about ever (this forum sure would have complained if it was an issue) has been prioritised above....

I'm willing to bet this is 100% driven by a new character mechanic or change that affects only TU tiles. They need to "clean house" first and make sure the distinction between "normal" tiles and "TU tiles" is very clear...

OneLastGambit wrote:

The shield delay issue - been complained about by many many people ever since I started playing well over a year ago.

I'm not sure what you're referring to... I think PvP? delay in how retaliation, visibility, and attacks work? In my opinion, they have addressed this very well... have you not noticed that now, you get the progression rewards, and are hit back down after that point? Far better than the behavior a year ago where you lose points before climbing. I agree, there's likely still room for improvement here, but it's a fine line between balance and a system that opens itself to abuse

OneLastGambit wrote:

The game crashing issue - which for me is intermittent but for many is a regular occurance.

Game crashing SUCKS. No argument here. But as a member of a team in software development, they can be EXTREMELY difficult to reproduce. The phrase "It works on my machine" from the developers irks me to no end. I used to be a QC Analyst... narrowing down the cause and fine-tuning the predictability and re-producability is CRITICAL to solving the bug. It may sound stupid, but if it's happening to you more than once in a long while, start documenting EVERYTHING about the match. If the dev team can't replicate it, they can't solve it... it's as simple as that unfortunately.

OneLastGambit wrote:

The crippling way that having 1 champed 5* renders your entire 4* and below roster unusable and your scaling becomes something nightmarish.

Another challenging fix... but I think the tiny step approach is preferable to massive swings. I doubt this affects you personally (as you're 4* per-event boosted will out-rank your 5's... unless I'm mistaken). The group this completely screws over is the 2-3 and 1-2 transitioners (and 3-4 to a lesser extent). I don't think this is a trivial problem to solve because how do they make it fair for everyone? If then bench 5s in PvE everyone (like yourself) that has very healthy 5s already would be outraged (rightly so!)... I honestly don't know what the solution here would be...

OneLastGambit wrote:

The RNG nature of 5* cover aquisition which makes the 5* transition wholly unenjoyable and very very slow.

RNG... she is a cruel mistress... I fully agree with you here.

OneLastGambit wrote:

The very long delay for releasing cl9 and 10.

I think the concern is with how poorly cl8 is working... a lot of folks rather drop back to cl7 for the (barely noticeable) reduction in rewards and easier time at placement. I think it's clear to the community that Shield Rank didn't turn out how they wanted, so "something" needs to change before they add in 9 and 10.

Crnch73

alaeth wrote:

OneLastGambit wrote:

The shield delay issue - been complained about by many many people ever since I started playing well over a year ago.

I'm not sure what you're referring to... I think PvP? delay in how retaliation, visibility, and attacks work? In my opinion, they have addressed this very well... have you not noticed that now, you get the progression rewards, and are hit back down after that point? Far better than the behavior a year ago where you lose points before climbing. I agree, there's likely still room for improvement here, but it's a fine line between balance and a system that opens itself to abuse

it does what now? I have yet to experience this. Every time I throw a shield up, if someone is attacking me obviously the shield can't protect me from that. But in my experience, the shielding (and PVP losses in general) have become slower, and I don't get the rewards.

Let's say I have 860 points. I win a match worth 45 points, but I also lose a match on defense... the loss coming mere seconds after the win. I never get the 4* cover reward. The score updates very fast on the progress bar. However, until I manually check the leader board, my score still shows 905 with no 4* reward. If I then check the leaderboard, I see I was attacked and lost X amount of points. So in my gameplay, I have never gotten the progression reward first before being knocked down.

TLCstormz

revskip wrote:

Punisher5784 wrote:

OneLastGambit wrote:

But I think you should stop making minor changes to things that nobody is complaining.

Or make minor changes that players will complain about

Honestly people will complain no matter what. Take the free stuff they gave on for Valentine's Day for the twitter promo. Saw plenty of complaints that the top rewards were unrealistically tiered so no one could hit them. People literally complained about getting free stuff but not enough of it.

Then they gave out an extra cover in that promo and I saw a smattering of complaints that it was the wrong color 4Cyke for their individual roster. Again, complaining about a completely free thing.

There are definitely some valid criticisms about the game, but when the user base complains about everything it makes it much harder to figure out which complaints are valid and which are just the usual grumbling of the forever unpleased.

Extremely poor rationales.

First of all, EVERYONE complains about EVERYTHING. For the most part. And that's just life. The internet just let's more people complain in hiding. Who cares?

Secondly, the Valentine's Day stuff WAS ridiculously stacked against us. Wasn't it something like TRIPLE the actual userbase worth of mentions / hashtags???? That's just juvenile and bizarrely out of touch with reality.

And finally....yes....it's reasonable that people would complain for each and every one of those covers that were given away to be a total waste, if you had, for example 0 in Cyke Yellow, zero in Cyke Blue, and FIVE in Cyke Red. Like I did. So, instead of complaining about OTHER PEOPLE COMPLAINING about how the infrastructure of this game continues biting a lot of us in the butt, why on earth wouldn't the devs OR people like you just FIX these things that people have complained about for years / have empathy for your fellow players?

Smh.

fmftint

How about this, they push the new DDQ art early, leave it all weekend, then patch it out the night before it goes live

Wetzilla

Crnch73 wrote:

Pope Belligerent wrote:

I think it comes down to this: the team-up tile change was likely a fairly simple bit of code, easy to develop and implement. All of the changes you list, while generally longed-for and promising a great leap forward in QOL, are large-scale changes that affect the entire game and would require significant recoding and QA testing. I honestly think it's as simple as that.

I agree with this idea. But that is a shame. Take the easy way out that offers no positive change (or maybe even a negative change), rather than try to work harder and get bigger results... 'Murica

Oh come on, really? Just because they change one thing that's easy doesn't mean they aren't working on the other changes. It's not like the entire studio stopped to work on this one minor change, it can be done at the same time as these other issues are being worked on. This is ridiculous.

This comment is more 'Murica than this situation is. Trashing someone over an issue you have little understanding of because the thing you wanted wasn't immediately given to you.

Borstock

Warbringa wrote:

Borstock wrote:

Their priority is to make money. They're a business. All of the people complaining on these forums are still playing the game.

Well, actually I really only play DDQ and team alliance events anymore. Don't even touch PvP and only sometime, maybe once every other month, play a random PvE. I also haven't spent a penny since Shield intercepts, a decision that I made due to a poor business decision I felt on D3/Demiurge part. Just because one might still play the game, that doesn't necessarily mean profits for a business in a F2P application.

Do you have access to their financial data? They do.

Borstock

Punisher5784 wrote:

Borstock wrote:

Their priority is to make money. They're a business. All of the people complaining on these forums are still playing the game.

Actually we're not playing.. that's one of the things we're complaining about.. stupid Gauntlet

Really? What's your daily streak at? 1? 2?

Brigby

Hey Everyone. I'm starting to notice tension starting to flare up, so please keep the conversation topic civil and refrain from attacking anyone. Thank you.

WelcomeDeath

OneLastGambit wrote:

Interesting points there. I can agree with some.

I think the issue regarding 5* is that we are encouraged to go bananas trying to acquire all the cp to get those characters and then...ah actually. You're playing for nothing really. You're playing for hope. Hope that luck might smile upon you and Grant you the exact 13 covers you need. Should that transition be slow ? That's debatable. As a 4* player with little to no interest in jumping to 5 yet I'm happy with it being slow but I'm (hopefully) speaking for those who covered Oml and Phoenix back when they were the only two and are now stuck using them in every fight in every game mode because they're unable to cover anyone else.

The game will get stale for them...fast. I don't think having one 5* cover up for grabs per week is gonna break the game in anyway. What makes it worse for them is knowing that your skill level does not determine your progress it's all down to luck.

As for 5* making 4* irrelevant there is a way to fix that which is the way they should have been designed in the first place...

Keep 5* power levels as they are (inc match damage) but give them health like riri and xfw. Then they are still holy tinykitty powerful but they are not unbeatable to a 4* and thus both tiers are relevant and concurrently useful.

The scaling issue is a much bigger one and I feel the only way to resolve this would be to completely scrap the scaling equation and create a new one considering new factors. Some have suggested tying scaling to cl level but that will just end up with players gaming the cl system....

Hmmm actually....2 birds one stone here. Make a 5* cover the prog prize for cl10 and placement for cl9 and those high end players will not WANT to game the cl system and will also have targeted and somewhat player controlled progress.

Ok....so, heres some issues.

1. Not quoted here, but in OP. Having a single 5* when you already have several 4* does almost nothing to pve scaling. Bumps it a bit, but not much. Going from 1 to 2 or 2 or 3, on the other hand, is a massive jump.

2. You want 5* to have low health....why? As it is, their powers are not much better than a boosted 4*. In fact, with enough champ levels, boosted 4s have a much higher damage output than a champed 5* (and higher health, depending on who it is.) So....is this just for your personal benefit because you only have 4*? Furthermore, why would anyone bother to work towards getting a 5* if a 4* is just as good?

3. A 5* in progression for cl9 and cl10? Hahahahahahaha. Never going to happen. They barely want to give out 3* in pvp (top 50 only in the highest available CL) or 4* in either game mode. Getting a 5* from progression or placement is just never, ever going to happen (unless you happen to pull them from cp earned from progression!)

4. Scaling. This is something we agree on! Sure, levels for pve compared to roster stay pretty similar from the 4* to 5* transition, but damage output from powers for 5s compared to level 4xx pve enemies isnt even close. As a current example, my top 3 average 455. Node 38 in the gauntlet is *only* level 437 for me!....except carol does 40,000 damage on black. My highest damage output is Goblin if red is picked and all 3 CD go off, for about 30k. Or oml black fired twice after collecting 12 yellow ap as well....for about 30k and no more strikes. Level scaling is fine, the powers for pve just ramp up really really quick.