New Feature: Bonus Heroes! *Updated (3/1/17)

CNash

Adding a new category of token for a 15 CP cost would force them to limit the amount of CP given out. They've just introduced Behemoth Burrito to increase that rate...

Khanwulf

CNash wrote:

Adding a new category of token for a 15 CP cost would force them to limit the amount of CP given out. They've just introduced Behemoth Burrito to increase that rate...

It would put pressure to increase the rate of CP again. Here's why: CP are provided in order to up the chance of distributing 5* covers. (Bear with me, because yes it does other things.) If CP are going to purchases of just 4* heroes, then that is CP not being "rolled" for a chance at 5*, and the overall 5* transition rate in the community goes down.

In actuality there are many players who do not even *want* 5* characters because of the added roster cost, their minimal utility until covered and leveled, and the effects on scaling having them rostered brings. A 10/15 CP option for 4*-only pulls would only ensure no "extra" 5* are included and thus would be an attractive alternative (as well as cheaper!).

But!

D3 doesn't do guaranteed rewards much for anything except progression. It's much more likely that we could have a CP or token pull that draws from a 3*/4* mix, much as Elite tokens draw from only 2*/3*. Depending on percentages that would represent a good 10/15 CP investment, or could serve as a reward tier for SCL 9 and 10.

--Khanwulf

Punter1

Just listened to the Puzzle Warriors interview on the bonus heroes.

What I think is more telling is the small discussion around 5* in Vaults. They don't quite know how to put the 5* into vaults as they don't know how to price the vaults from the economics of the game as it stands. I think they're in the same boat with the vaulting.

Everything in the game has a value that's relative to other things. This is stating the obvious.

Right now, the economics of a Classic vs Latest token are that you pay a 5CP premium to get a chance at the latest 5*. The 4* pool available for 20CP was essentially consistent underneath that premium as you had the same pool in both.

They're attempting to keep that same rule in place in the current tokens. The 20CP (ignoring the 5CP latest 5* premium) you pay gets you a chance at the same pool of 4* regardless of which token you buy. As soon as that's changed then the value proposition of the 20CP is modified. If you change it to allow picking of certain 4* as has been suggested, should you be paying an additional premium CP? If you change the pool of 4*, should there be a discount on the older 4*, or should there be another premium on the latest 4*, turning a LL token into 30CP?

Playing Devils Advocate a little with this as I'm not suggesting a different solution, just posing the thoughts as to exactly why it's not as simple for them in the wider economics of the game to have a different pool of 4* offered for that flat 20CP.

Jaedenkaal

Punter1 wrote:

Just listened to the Puzzle Warriors interview on the bonus heroes.

What I think is more telling is the small discussion around 5* in Vaults. They don't quite know how to put the 5* into vaults as they don't know how to price the vaults from the economics of the game as it stands. I think they're in the same boat with the vaulting.

Everything in the game has a value that's relative to other things. This is stating the obvious.

Right now, the economics of a Classic vs Latest token are that you pay a 5CP premium to get a chance at the latest 5*. The 4* pool available for 20CP was essentially consistent underneath that premium as you had the same pool in both.

They're attempting to keep that same rule in place in the current tokens. The 20CP (ignoring the 5CP latest 5* premium) you pay gets you a chance at the same pool of 4* regardless of which token you buy. As soon as that's changed then the value proposition of the 20CP is modified. If you change it to allow picking of certain 4* as has been suggested, should you be paying an additional premium CP? If you change the pool of 4*, should there be a discount on the older 4*, or should there be another premium on the latest 4*, turning a LL token into 30CP?

Playing Devils Advocate a little with this as I'm not suggesting a different solution, just posing the thoughts as to exactly why it's not as simple for them in the wider economics of the game to have a different pool of 4* offered for that flat 20CP.

Given how much players seem to really want that pool of old 4* characters in tokens it could even make sense to raise the value of a classic token back up to 25cp.

Crowl

Jaedenkaal wrote:

Given how much players seem to really want that pool of old 4* characters in tokens it could even make sense to raise the value of a classic token back up to 25cp.

If you think that vaulting was badly received, just wait until you saw the response they would get if their fix to the issue would be to return to the previous token and increase the price by 25%.

Rick_OShay

Jaedenkaal wrote:

Given how much players seem to really want that pool of old 4* characters in tokens it could even make sense to raise the value of a classic token back up to 25cp.

In case you weren't sure, your comment there happened to be out loud.


Every other comment you have made in this thread has been great btw

Stax the Foyer

Punter1 wrote:

Just listened to the Puzzle Warriors interview on the bonus heroes.

What I think is more telling is the small discussion around 5* in Vaults. They don't quite know how to put the 5* into vaults as they don't know how to price the vaults from the economics of the game as it stands. I think they're in the same boat with the vaulting.

Everything in the game has a value that's relative to other things. This is stating the obvious.

Right now, the economics of a Classic vs Latest token are that you pay a 5CP premium to get a chance at the latest 5*. The 4* pool available for 20CP was essentially consistent underneath that premium as you had the same pool in both.

They're attempting to keep that same rule in place in the current tokens. The 20CP (ignoring the 5CP latest 5* premium) you pay gets you a chance at the same pool of 4* regardless of which token you buy. As soon as that's changed then the value proposition of the 20CP is modified. If you change it to allow picking of certain 4* as has been suggested, should you be paying an additional premium CP? If you change the pool of 4*, should there be a discount on the older 4*, or should there be another premium on the latest 4*, turning a LL token into 30CP?

Playing Devils Advocate a little with this as I'm not suggesting a different solution, just posing the thoughts as to exactly why it's not as simple for them in the wider economics of the game to have a different pool of 4* offered for that flat 20CP.

One reason that the economics in the game are getting out of whack is due to the release rate of 4*s in a 5* world. From the perspective of heroic tokens and ranking rewards, 4*s are essentially being treated as though they were as valuable as they were before the release of 5*s. There have been some changes, but not anywhere near the sea change that we saw with 3*s a long time ago with the DDQ release and other changes. (Incidentally, ISO costs reflect that skewed priority as well).

That's why 4* dilution is such a big problem. Because the game structure (both rewards and ISO costs) hasn't kept up with the massive increase in 4*s, or with their relative decrease in importance. This vaulting change is a band-aid fix for the underlying issue, which is the constant release of 4* characters without supporting 4* content, treating the 4* tier like it's the top tier when everyone is looking to move past it to 5*s.

The fix to dilution should have been a significant increase in overall 4* rates, from both tokens and rewards. A big jump would be disruptive in the moment, but it would just be catching up to the present state of the game. That still needs to happen. Open up the floodgates for 4* covers the way they did with 3*s more than two years ago and let the game evolve.

Jaedenkaal

Rick OShay wrote:

Jaedenkaal wrote:

Given how much players seem to really want that pool of old 4* characters in tokens it could even make sense to raise the value of a classic token back up to 25cp.

In case you weren't sure, your comment there happened to be out loud.


Every other comment you have made in this thread has been great btw

Well thank you. I didn't say that was my opinion. I said it could make sense.

firethorne

Stax the Foyer wrote:

One reason that the economics in the game are getting out of whack is due to the release rate of 4*s in a 5* world. From the perspective of heroic tokens and ranking rewards, 4*s are essentially being treated as though they were as valuable as they were before the release of 5*s. There have been some changes, but not anywhere near the sea change that we saw with 3*s a long time ago with the DDQ release and other changes. (Incidentally, ISO costs reflect that skewed priority as well).

That's why 4* dilution is such a big problem. Because the game structure (both rewards and ISO costs) hasn't kept up with the massive increase in 4*s, or with their relative decrease in importance. This vaulting change is a band-aid fix for the underlying issue, which is the constant release of 4* characters without supporting 4* content, treating the 4* tier like it's the top tier when everyone is looking to move past it to 5*s.

The fix to dilution should have been a significant increase in overall 4* rates, from both tokens and rewards. A big jump would be disruptive in the moment, but it would just be catching up to the present state of the game. That still needs to happen. Open up the floodgates for 4* covers the way they did with 3*s more than two years ago and let the game evolve.

I couldn't agree more. What you have witnessed is the system collapsing under its own weight. Its the unsustainable new character release rate turning around to bite them in the hind end. With every additional character added, the chance of getting any specific one kept getting smaller and smaller. Dilution paired with the problems of unusable covers could make it feel like you could go months without any upward mobility. But, of course the solution isn't to chop off all of the old characters and hope nobody notices. We need a true 4* ddq. We need the missing token tier of guaranteed 3*, chance at 4*.

GurlBYE

Is it time for Thanos' daily quest to make a permanent return and have a 4 only token?

Stax the Foyer wrote:

One reason that the economics in the game are getting out of whack is due to the release rate of 4*s in a 5* world. From the perspective of heroic tokens and ranking rewards, 4*s are essentially being treated as though they were as valuable as they were before the release of 5*s. There have been some changes, but not anywhere near the sea change that we saw with 3*s a long time ago with the DDQ release and other changes. (Incidentally, ISO costs reflect that skewed priority as well).

That's why 4* dilution is such a big problem. Because the game structure (both rewards and ISO costs) hasn't kept up with the massive increase in 4*s, or with their relative decrease in importance. This vaulting change is a band-aid fix for the underlying issue, which is the constant release of 4* characters without supporting 4* content, treating the 4* tier like it's the top tier when everyone is looking to move past it to 5*s.

The fix to dilution should have been a significant increase in overall 4* rates, from both tokens and rewards. A big jump would be disruptive in the moment, but it would just be catching up to the present state of the game. That still needs to happen. Open up the floodgates for 4* covers the way they did with 3*s more than two years ago and let the game evolve.

Yeah the lack of increase in the 4 star rate is entirely ridiculous.

I'm imagining whales aren't even reacting to 4's in a huge way anymore thanks to 5's so I can't see why they'd not loosen up a little on 4's and tighten ship a bit on 5's.

A huge cause of frustration in things like not having colorless covers at this point is the fact that 4's are becoming the common but rare unicorn.

I get a duplicate 2 or 3 cover on the way to a farm?
I know I'll get the color I need in a few pulls, possibly the next week or so for 3's?

4's and better? You're damn right when I have to jump through hoops to make the one I want appear I'm going to want them to be a color I can actually use.

kidicarus

How about this:

keep tokens as they are. ie 12 newest 4*s and the curated 20 3*s

BUT change the way bonus heroes operate so that you still get a bonus chance for a favourite hero and also to include that hero as a possible non bonus draw.

So, if you wanted to favourite HB, you'd get the a 1:14 chance of pulling from 12+1=13 4*s and an additional bonus 1:20/1:12 chance of pulling HB.

Newbies get to razor focus on covering from a select pool of heroes as decided by D3

Vets get to "choose your own adventure" by choosing to dilute the pool by as many favourites as they want. Favourite an additional 28 heroes, you dilute your pool of 4*s so that you have an even chance of pulling 40 4*s and a slight bias of pulling your favourited 28 heroes as bonus pulls.

Best part is, you never have to pull another bag lady or non-agent venom if you don't want to. Personally I have 44/47 4* champs and would focus on covering new heroes at the start of the season and then diluting my pool of heroes once I have new heroes covered.

killercool

kidicarus wrote:

How about this:

keep tokens as they are. ie 12 newest 4*s and the curated 20 3*s

BUT change the way bonus heroes operate so that you still get a bonus chance for a favourite hero and also to include that hero as a possible non bonus draw.

So, if you wanted to favourite HB, you'd get the a 1:14 chance of pulling from 12+1=13 4*s and an additional bonus 1:20/1:12 chance of pulling HB.

Newbies get to razor focus on covering from a select pool of heroes as decided by D3

Vets get to "choose your own adventure" by choosing to dilute the pool by as many favourites as they want. Favourite an additional 28 heroes, you dilute your pool of 4*s so that you have an even chance of pulling 40 4*s and a slight bias of pulling your favourited 28 heroes as bonus pulls.

Best part is, you never have to pull another bag lady or non-agent venom if you don't want to. Personally I have 44/47 4* champs and would focus on covering new heroes at the start of the season and then diluting my pool of heroes once I have new heroes covered.

I think this ignores the biggest issue with vaulting, as it only works for one (or a very small number) of the vaulted 4*s. If you favorite all (or most) of the vaulted 4*s the chance of pulling one of the vaulted 4*s is vanishingly small compared to the latest 12. This largely invalidates the 4* champion system. It also means you get a flood of new 4* covers that people will not have sufficient ios-8 to level before they have to start selling off excess covers, whereas before there was a balance of older covers to feed your champs and new covers to diversify your roster.

I think that the majority of people are happy to allow D3 a significant amount of time to work out how to untangle the mess that has been created with the current vaulting model, but it would be nice if D3 were able to provide some sort of statement of intent in the mean time to let us know what their goals are.

NMANOZ

Stax the Foyer wrote:

Punter1 wrote:

Just listened to the Puzzle Warriors interview on the bonus heroes.

What I think is more telling is the small discussion around 5* in Vaults. They don't quite know how to put the 5* into vaults as they don't know how to price the vaults from the economics of the game as it stands. I think they're in the same boat with the vaulting.

Everything in the game has a value that's relative to other things. This is stating the obvious.

Right now, the economics of a Classic vs Latest token are that you pay a 5CP premium to get a chance at the latest 5*. The 4* pool available for 20CP was essentially consistent underneath that premium as you had the same pool in both.

They're attempting to keep that same rule in place in the current tokens. The 20CP (ignoring the 5CP latest 5* premium) you pay gets you a chance at the same pool of 4* regardless of which token you buy. As soon as that's changed then the value proposition of the 20CP is modified. If you change it to allow picking of certain 4* as has been suggested, should you be paying an additional premium CP? If you change the pool of 4*, should there be a discount on the older 4*, or should there be another premium on the latest 4*, turning a LL token into 30CP?

Playing Devils Advocate a little with this as I'm not suggesting a different solution, just posing the thoughts as to exactly why it's not as simple for them in the wider economics of the game to have a different pool of 4* offered for that flat 20CP.

One reason that the economics in the game are getting out of whack is due to the release rate of 4*s in a 5* world. From the perspective of heroic tokens and ranking rewards, 4*s are essentially being treated as though they were as valuable as they were before the release of 5*s. There have been some changes, but not anywhere near the sea change that we saw with 3*s a long time ago with the DDQ release and other changes. (Incidentally, ISO costs reflect that skewed priority as well).

That's why 4* dilution is such a big problem. Because the game structure (both rewards and ISO costs) hasn't kept up with the massive increase in 4*s, or with their relative decrease in importance. This vaulting change is a band-aid fix for the underlying issue, which is the constant release of 4* characters without supporting 4* content, treating the 4* tier like it's the top tier when everyone is looking to move past it to 5*s.

The fix to dilution should have been a significant increase in overall 4* rates, from both tokens and rewards. A big jump would be disruptive in the moment, but it would just be catching up to the present state of the game. That still needs to happen. Open up the floodgates for 4* covers the way they did with 3*s more than two years ago and let the game evolve.

They should do what they did last time, reduce the Iso Costs of leveling characters.

kidicarus

killercool wrote:

kidicarus wrote:

How about this:

keep tokens as they are. ie 12 newest 4*s and the curated 20 3*s

BUT change the way bonus heroes operate so that you still get a bonus chance for a favourite hero and also to include that hero as a possible non bonus draw.

So, if you wanted to favourite HB, you'd get the a 1:14 chance of pulling from 12+1=13 4*s and an additional bonus 1:20/1:12 chance of pulling HB.

Newbies get to razor focus on covering from a select pool of heroes as decided by D3

Vets get to "choose your own adventure" by choosing to dilute the pool by as many favourites as they want. Favourite an additional 28 heroes, you dilute your pool of 4*s so that you have an even chance of pulling 40 4*s and a slight bias of pulling your favourited 28 heroes as bonus pulls.

Best part is, you never have to pull another bag lady or non-agent venom if you don't want to. Personally I have 44/47 4* champs and would focus on covering new heroes at the start of the season and then diluting my pool of heroes once I have new heroes covered.

I think this ignores the biggest issue with vaulting, as it only works for one (or a very small number) of the vaulted 4*s. If you favorite all (or most) of the vaulted 4*s the chance of pulling one of the vaulted 4*s is vanishingly small compared to the latest 12. This largely invalidates the 4* champion system. It also means you get a flood of new 4* covers that people will not have sufficient ios-8 to level before they have to start selling off excess covers, whereas before there was a balance of older covers to feed your champs and new covers to diversify your roster.

I think that the majority of people are happy to allow D3 a significant amount of time to work out how to untangle the mess that has been created with the current vaulting model, but it would be nice if D3 were able to provide some sort of statement of intent in the mean time to let us know what their goals are.

One of the biggest complaints I hear is the - oh great another 4* I can't use for another year. Getting new covers is a good thing. Not getting old covers is what most people are upset about.

Maybe you're not getting what I'm getting at but what I just suggested allows a player to affect his odds directly rather than just leaving it to the bonus draw.

With 45 heroes in the 4* pool, under the old system you have a 0.33% in heroics or 1.89% in legendary tokens of getting a 4* hero of your choice.

In the current implementation, new heroes have a flat rate of 1.25% in heroics or 7.08% chance in legendaries while you have 0% chance of getting your 4* classic hero in a regular draw and 100% in 5% of your 4* pulls which is 0.75% in heroics or 4.25% in legendary draws and it's is plain to see that you will be flooded with new heroes and if you only want 1 hero ever - which is no one - it's great odds for that favourited hero and bad odds for everyone else.

My suggestion with starring a hero(es) would result in the following bad math:-

For ONE ol' skool character, Heroics tokens (since pool is now 13 heroes) = 1.15% regular draw + additional 0.75% bonus draw, legendary tokens = 6.5% regular draw + 4.25% bonus draw -

For starring 33 ol' skool characters Heroic tokens (since pool is now 45 heroes) = 0.33% regular draw + additional 0.022% bonus draw, legendary tokens = 1.89% regular draw + (4.25%/33)=0.12% bonus draw. This is pretty similar to the old rates.

So if you do decide to star ol skool and new heroes - the only difference would be the diluted bonus draw. Therefore my suggestion would not result in a rush of new characters if every hero were starred.

Anyway there have been so many suggestions and mine is just one of many.

Magic

The complaint about not getting new covers fast enough was not really that big around the forum (prior to the change). People were all the time complaining only because some of the new ones (Peggy, Medusa, Carol) were gamechanging. Nobody was complaining about not getting enough Agent Venom covers.

Yet with slightly above average play (so top 50 for PvE, 900 points in PvP, top10-50 in new releases) i have covered the current "new" 12 very decently. To such a degree that I already have to sell covers for them as I lack ISO to level them. So my hoarding is in full swing. Even bloody Coulson (not yet in packs) is already at 6 covers and I didn't try very hard. No - getting new covers was never that much of an issue (even if it seemed like it on the surface).

The real problem is lack of ISO. Or the timer on the covers in the queue. Remove the timer and people will roll with you for another couple of years.

Ram51

Jaedenkaal wrote:

Given how much players seem to really want that pool of old 4* characters in tokens it could even make sense to raise the value of a classic token back up to 25cp.

I'm all up for increasing the price of classic LTs to 25cp if they also introduce a vault for old 4*. Like, one season you have only the first 13 4* characters available, then next season the 2nd batch of 13 4*. Then have it alternate every season.

nickaraxnos

I have read lot of solutions and problems can come with each.
Tried to see the problem from both sides. As a player and as a dev.
This is what i came up with.

1) Legendary Token with the latest covers and Bonus Heroes as is now but with 10% chance. Make that at a price of 30 cp. Why? Because with the new ddq old players with big rosters can get extra 2cp every day so they can afford the extra 5cp plus they won;t hoard too much. They obviously can be happy with the extra chance of getting a Bonus Hero of their choice plus the extra cost will separate them from other players

2) Classic Token with everything else WITHOUT Bonus Hero. Make that at price of 15-18 cp. Why? Because new players find it difficult to collect cp. It will be a good way to make the transition from 3* to 4* characters. Transitioning is more important than having new heroes. Old ones are capable to compete with new ones and they will still be a step behind older players. Think its fair.

3) Make a ddq once a week with only 4* required characters that will give as a reward a colorless cover. Now old players that will be getting a lot of duplicates can be happy and the devs won't give too much

4) About the iso problem. An easy fix is to give us the opportunity to reset every week the prologue stories. Let's say we pay 300hp and get a reset. Easy and fast iso, some hp and few 2* for more hp from farming

5) After the introduction of elite tokens, heroic is no more heroic. I can get 3* from elite easier than i can get them from heroic. So remove 2* from heroic. Leave the Bonus Hero for everyone at the same percentage as now (5%). With no 2* this actually get bigger than now and give the opportunity to those who buy only classics to have every now ant then some free covers and for those who buy latest to have even more chances

Crowl

Please can people stop making suggestions for a token that excludes the latest 12 4*, that is a horrible plan as even people who might prefer to prioritise the older ones still need to collect the newer ones too.

Magic

Crowl wrote:

Please can people stop making suggestions for a token that excludes the latest 12 4*, that is a horrible plan as even people who might prefer to prioritise the older ones still need to collect the newer ones too.

I wholeheartedly agree with you. The idea to remove the latest 4* from the Classical LT pulls might sound appealing to devs and was voiced by many. I don't like it as well.

nickaraxnos

Crowl wrote:

Please can people stop making suggestions for a token that excludes the latest 12 4*, that is a horrible plan as even people who might prefer to prioritise the older ones still need to collect the newer ones too.

You will be able to have them when they ll stop being new. We cant have everything. If you want them from the start you gonna pay more with increase chances to get free covers. Where is the problem?