Puzzle Warriors 3 Interview: Bonus Heroes

JeffCascadian

Since there doesn't seem to be a thread already discussing the interview the PW3 guys did with Anthony & Dave from Demiurge, I'm starting my own. If you haven't listened to it already, I think you should go do so. There's lots of great information about Bonus Heroes, the changes to Deadpool's Daily Quest, Agent Coulson, and more. The episode is available from the usual podcast sources and their website, http://www.puzzlewarriors3.com.

--I'm a little disappointed that the Bonus Heroes don't trigger on Vault pulls, too. Maybe that'll happen in an update.
--I'm loving receiving a Bonus Hero EVERY time I gain a 3-star from a Standard token.
--Making the choice of non-favorite 3-stars more limited helped me finish my Thanos very quickly. When/if (wink, wink) another 3-star is added, I'll be appreciating the odds of pulling them being 1 in 20 instead of 1 in 43. (44? I've lost track.)
--The limiting of 4-star characters to a dozen is helping me better cover those covers already. This also means I'm not gaining covers for 4-stars that are already Champions; I'd rather have covers for characters that aren't fully covered yet. As of this typing, I've gained one 4-star as a Bonus Hero, a cover for my Thing.
--I'm only missing one character, 5-star Black Panther, so he's my "favorite" at that rarity. I don't actually care too much about using him but I'm a collector so I want at least one of his covers on my roster.
--I have about a dozen 4-star Champions now. I love the Behemoth Burrito being there to help me gain the Command Points that in turn help me gain covers.
--I, for one, would like to see Bag-Man as one of the required characters for the Behemoth Burrito. (Howard and Devil Dinosaur, too.) This would reward those of us who DO collect all the characters no matter how "bad" (a relative term) they may be.
--I only have a few covers on Coulson so far but I loved "borrowing" the fully-cover'd version for his PVP. Wow, he's good.
--I haven't had any problems with SHIELD Intercepts. It seems like I've had far fewer opportunities to share with Facebook friends, though.
--Auto-selling a cover on the vine that expires? Yes, please!
--Intellectually, I know that all three powers for any given character have the same rarity. Emotionally, I may scream the next time I draw a red Carnage cover.
--For me, The Gauntlet is a relaxing week. I know I can beat it, especially now that character restrictions have been listed. (Suck it, Craig.) As suggested, I have more time for PVP that week.
--I'd love to see representation from Demiurge and/or D3 at one of the Portland, Oregon comicbook conventions.
--Thank you once again, Puzzle Warriors, for a great show.
--Thank you, Anthony and Dave, for being terrific guests.

Jaedenkaal

JeffCascadian wrote:

--For me, The Gauntlet is a relaxing week. I know I can beat it, especially now that character restrictions have been listed. (Suck it, Craig.)

Several of the stories even flat out say "Wait, that wasn't Magneto, that was Mystique/a Super Skrull" and yet Magneto was still locked out. So it already didn't make 100% sense. I'm all for this change. I'm sure it made scheduling events and required characters WAY easier for Demiurge, too.

Vhailorx

Interviews are good! It's always interesting for demi to articulate the reasoning behind its decisions.

Obviously it's not the purpose of these interviewd to grill demi or ask them all the hard questions. But it was still frustrating to hear demi say, effectively, "on the one hand, 5% bonus heroes!" and "on the other hand, bye bye ~75% of current 4*s from LT," and not hear anyone point out that those two things are extremely different in size! There is a massive hole in demi's stated logic about the effects of the bonus hero change (namely the net result is that players will get many many more covers for new characters and many fewer covers for older characters). Demi didn't address this issue; instead they suggested that bonus covers for older characters will offset the LT pool change (despite the obvious disparity in volume). And since no one asked them about it, i still have no idea what demi thinks about this issue.

But a fun episode to listen to all the same. Thanks for the content pw3!

JeffCascadian

A note to the Puzzle Warriors directly:

I went to the website so I could click though your banner to go to Amazon before placing an order but it wasn't there. I've encountered this before when attempting to click though a podcast's website's banner so they'd receive credit for my purchase. It seems to be a hiccup with my specific set up (an iMac running Safari with ad blockers). Instead, I'm using my iPad. It's still an Apple product and the browser is Safari with an ad blocker but it's different enough that it works.

whycantwesyncpc

Vhailorx wrote:

Interviews are good! It's always interesting for demi to articulate the reasoning behind its decisions.

Obviously it's not the purpose of these interviewd to grill demi or ask them all the hard questions. But it was still frustrating to hear demi say, effectively, "on the one hand, 5% bonus heroes!" and "on the other hand, bye bye ~75% of current 4*s from LT," and not hear anyone point out that those two things are extremely different in size! There is a massi e hole in demi's stated logic about the effects of the bonus hero change (namely the net result is that players will get many many more covers for new characters and many fewer covers for older characters). Demi didn't address this issue; instead they suggested that bonus covers for older characters will offset the LT pool change (despite the obvious disparity in volume). And since no one asked them about it, i still have no idea what demi thinks about this issue.

But a fun episode to listen to all the same. Thanks for the content pw3!

Everyone can ask if they want, impression I'm getting is they have absolutely no interest in answering it. Wouldn't be surprised if it was made clear that was off limits before the interview. I contacted someone directly at demiurge and when it got to that subject the person didn't want to talk anymore.

Starsaber

whycantwesyncpc wrote:

Vhailorx wrote:

Interviews are good! It's always interesting for demi to articulate the reasoning behind its decisions.

Obviously it's not the purpose of these interviewd to grill demi or ask them all the hard questions. But it was still frustrating to hear demi say, effectively, "on the one hand, 5% bonus heroes!" and "on the other hand, bye bye ~75% of current 4*s from LT," and not hear anyone point out that those two things are extremely different in size! There is a massi e hole in demi's stated logic about the effects of the bonus hero change (namely the net result is that players will get many many more covers for new characters and many fewer covers for older characters). Demi didn't address this issue; instead they suggested that bonus covers for older characters will offset the LT pool change (despite the obvious disparity in volume). And since no one asked them about it, i still have no idea what demi thinks about this issue.

But a fun episode to listen to all the same. Thanks for the content pw3!

Everyone can ask if they want, impression I'm getting is they have absolutely no interest in answering it. Wouldn't be surprised if it was made clear that was off limits before the interview. I contacted someone directly at demiurge and when it got to that subject the person didn't want to talk anymore.

From what I recall, they were recording at a different time than they usually do, so the announcement might not have been made public yet when they actually recorded the interview.

Vhailorx

Starsaber,

This was taped ~week before the system went live judging by the comments made during the interview (mid feb things had already gone live, but bonus heroes was still targeted for first week of march).

That doesnt really change my comments. The logical fallacy was obvious from a description of the system. Taking 62ish% of possible LT pulls (the 31 vaulted 4*s) and cramming them into bonus tokens that proc 5% of the time will inevitably have a significant impact on roster progression.