Confessions of a Self-Appointed Sandboxer

Unknown

You know... I dont like cheating, I can spare some cash from time to time for a game i like.
Still... that sandboxing sounds so sweet... I hate competition, necessity of 20ppl alliances are taxing...
I only wish this game was more single player friendly. At least there is always that cheater-heaven in the end.

Polares

I think that the best solution for you and some others (no the ones that only want to win no matter what) would be to have more single player episodes so you could play there and win some iso, without the competition element.

I would love to have more single player. Sometimes I don't want to play against others and I just want to relax, but when there are new and exiting rewards (new covers f.ex) I can't do it, I really want to win, so I can't relax. As I said before It would be great to have all the episodes we have played so far without the PvE rewards, just the node rewards and the iso for first completion, so anybody could casually play for a while when you don't need new covers or you don't feel to compete.

Unknown

What an interesting post.

I wonder if d3 would ever consider a small charge, in dollars not HP to let people voluntarily put themselves into their own sandbox without any nefariousness involved.

Call it casual mode, charge $15 bucks give 14 warnings that it is permanent and irreversible.

D3 gets some income off people extra casuals get to go play in the sandbox and those on the fence about cheating have another option to consider.

Probably would never happen but not terrible in concept

Unknown

So I assume when you sandbox, there is no getting out of the sandbox. These people dont go in, get all the rewards, then leave?

Unknown

abuelo wrote:

I can see the appeal certainly.

I pretty much regret levelling my characters above 100...there is absolutely no reward for doing so and now every tournament is a huge slog. I barely play anymore.

Lol. You don't know what you're doing if you find the game harder with level 100+ 3*s.

Unknown

IceIX wrote:

Bugpop wrote:

Willfull sandboxing is still cheating. I dont think Demiurge intended for sandboxing to be a feature for players to select.

Certainly not. But banning anyone from the forums that we find cheating, from experience, just creates a situation where people decide to try and vandalize the forums in retaliation. It's an arms race that's not worth entering as it can't end well.

Why ban them? Just put them in a different usergroup where the only posts they see are announcements (and/or home improvement spam) and their posts are invisible to everyone else.

Unknown

The OP said he deliberately cheated to get put in the sandbox, but how long was he playing normally and depriving others of rewards till he got sandboxed? A day, a week?
How do you even know you've been put in the sandbox if it looks like a normal game. The op states he's happy now as theres no pressure and just plays normally without cheating building his roster cover by cover from events, he might as well have stayed in the real game if he doesnt cheat anymore.

Unknown

Madjam wrote:

The OP said he deliberately cheated to get put in the sandbox, but how long was he playing normally and depriving others of rewards till he got sandboxed? A day, a week?

And would he have cheated if there wasn't a sandbox?

JamieMadrox

Madjam wrote:

How do you even know you've been put in the sandbox if it looks like a normal game.

1. You can't join an alliance/are kicked form one if you're in it
2. All events (PVP & PVE) show the number of users as 1001

Unknown

Madjam wrote:

The OP said he deliberately cheated to get put in the sandbox, but how long was he playing normally and depriving others of rewards till he got sandboxed? A day, a week?
How do you even know you've been put in the sandbox if it looks like a normal game. The op states he's happy now as theres no pressure and just plays normally without cheating building his roster cover by cover from events, he might as well have stayed in the real game if he doesnt cheat anymore.

I don't know how hard it is to get yourself flagged and sandboxed but it sounds to me he did something to get himself flagged, and then continued playing normally I take normally to mean, not with a max lazy thor, shield bro and HT but with his normal roster he leveled up legitimately. IF that is the case then he is not depriving anyone of anything. And in the sandbox there are no retaliations which admittedly sound rather glorious. Otherwise he is playing the game and earning covers one at a time which for him is the fun way to do it.

Maybe I have odd values but I really have no objections at all to what this guy has done. The cheaters who buy alliances...the ripples of that are felt by many and I have problems with that. This guy, not even a little.

Unknown

Madjam wrote:

The OP said he deliberately cheated to get put in the sandbox, but how long was he playing normally and depriving others of rewards till he got sandboxed? A day, a week?
How do you even know you've been put in the sandbox if it looks like a normal game. The op states he's happy now as theres no pressure and just plays normally without cheating building his roster cover by cover from events, he might as well have stayed in the real game if he doesnt cheat anymore.

These are fair questions and I have no problem answering them.

First I must let you know where I was in my progression. I was currently building my 3* team. Here is a list:

Punisher 141; thanks to the last Hulk event.
Patch 102; just needed iso
Psylock 86; just needed another blue cover and iso
C Mags 82; needed iso
Spiderman 80; needed blue covers and iso
Dr. Doom 80; needed iso
Black Panther 76; needed 2 yellow covers and iso
Hulk 60; needed red and black covers and iso
Lazy Thor 55; needed covers and iso
Black Widow 55 (grey) 55; needed covers and iso
Hood 30; needed blue and iso
Daredevil 28; need iso had all covers from previous tournaments
Loki and Rags both at 15; needed everything

This was in addition to my fairly full 2* roster. I had a total of 32 covers. All of the 1* and 2* were either maxed or sold for roster spots.

I also won 2 4* Wolverines (by placing in the top 200 of Hulk and placing 1st in a PVP after the Hulk).

All of those rewards were paid with a time investment for the past 100 or so days. I grinded a lot.

I was Sandboxed within a day after buffing my roster and I was immediately taken off the Thor tournament leaderboard. I didn't use the buffed characters in the tournament at all and I was fairly high with my normal roster as it was.

To answer your last question: I didn't want to grind anymore. It is as simple as that.

firethorne

Thanks for the post. Aside from no alliances, this sandbox actually sounds like the game I wish MPQ was.

I don't like the slog of competing for even the so called PvE (even though you're in an obvious competition with other players)events. I like the concept behind the game, but want to play it in a far more casual way without hitting impassable opponents. You don't get attacked? I'm tempted to say sign me up. Let's get rid of the slog and grind.

MarvelMan

firethorne wrote:

Aside from no alliances, this sandbox actually sounds like the game I wish MPQ was.

It saddened me to read this, and generally agree with it. I like the play, and even welcome retaliations, but sometimes I feel like you have to be one of the min/maxers to get anywhere. Adding more single player content, a la Polares's post, would seem to go a long way towards that.

Unknown

Sandbox actually sounds like a pleasant way to play the game. Much more casual player friendly.

Unknown

I wish this game was more casual, I get so sick of the constant grind/competition. I'd gladly pay for some premium content that was single play only.

Unknown

Microtom wrote:

Madjam wrote:

The OP said he deliberately cheated to get put in the sandbox, but how long was he playing normally and depriving others of rewards till he got sandboxed? A day, a week?

And would he have cheated if there wasn't a sandbox?

Nope. I probably would have stopped playing altogehter and found another game to play. I was gettig tired of the grind.

Unknown

jozier wrote:

abuelo wrote:

I can see the appeal certainly.

I pretty much regret levelling my characters above 100...there is absolutely no reward for doing so and now every tournament is a huge slog. I barely play anymore.

Lol. You don't know what you're doing if you find the game harder with level 100+ 3*s.

I didn't say it was harder, I said it was much more of a grind. Which it is.

Unknown

I approach this game the same way I do any 'city-building' or Animal Crossing-type game. You log in for an hour or so a day and add a little bit more to your city/house. Do some repetitive task for awhile to gain resources, then use those resources to incrementally grow your 'town'. Then a month later you see the progress all these little efforts have provided.

It's that delayed gratification that is more fulfilling than an instantaneous one. At least, I've been conditioned to feel that way. I can see how some others might be wired in a different way.

Unknown

I think it's not a bad idea if you can toggle a switch where you have infinite HP/iso and automatically sandbox yourself, and whenever you switch off it'd switch your roster/iso/HP back to whatever it was before. It's no worse than what people already doing (cheat and get sandboxed), and maybe those guys will eventually come back.

If you're sandboxed, you're still looking at real PvE scores though, right? As in, whoever is in your bracket will still have their normal PvE scores for you to compete against? I can see how in PvP you'll pretty much always finish 1st, but I think that's far less certain for PvE.

Unknown

I don't know if I like the fact that there is a sandboxed mode at all, but perhaps it's the easiest way for developers to deal with cheaters, whatever their reason for cheating.

I still would love an 'off-line' mode for something to do when you're out of range of the internet. Whether it's a completely different version of mpq or a mode within then game, I think that would be something a ton of people would like. Could even call it sandbox mode