Vintage Heroic Packs (3/30/17)

astrp3

smkspy wrote:

You megawhale conspiracy guys have to make up your minds. Either they (the whales) are reason for vaulting because they no longer needed the vaulted characters or they are the cash cow behind trying to sell vaulted characters back in this new token.

Plus, if the megawhales already have all the 5*s max-champed (which they supposedly do) and can easily crush any 4* team (which they supposedly can), why would they care about what the peons do with their 4*s.

And if they already have all the old 4*s max-champed OR don't care about them at all, they certainly won't be spending any money to get them.

bigsmooth

fmftint wrote:

Brigby wrote:

Hi Everyone. I want to inform you all that this is not necessarily the final iteration nor is it necessarily the only solution that will be presented.

Data evaluation is needed in order to determine how the store affects the entirety of the game and its players before being able to make adjustments, or even presenting an entirely new idea. We know it's not something that can be immediately ascertained, and I apologize for the delay, but it really is something that the developers will monitor and factor into whatever the eventual permanent solution may be.

How is a new token with 68% 2 stars a solution to ANYTHING? Even as a 1st draft this is ridiculous

QFT. This feels like the devs put a piece of delicious cake behind a solid brick wall and are now poking dime-sized holes in it, expecting us to be happy simply because the cake is now visible in the distance.

The cake is a lie.

Crowl

pheregas wrote:

It's nonsense like this that led me to not renew my VIP.

All you guys had to do was rotate the vaulted characters into tokens every season. 50% newest, 50% vintage. That's it, 24 4*s in each pack. Dilution addressed, problem solved. Everybody happy.

Again this is another solution that could work really well and indeed addresses the dilution issue too, without simply leaving it up to the players to choose whether they wanted old or new as in most suggestions so the devs should like the solution too since they would still control who was in and out of the tokens.

Crowl

mexus wrote:

Wouldn't it be an idea if we tried this out before judging it as a bad move? I mean, it's not even released yet...

The biggest issue with vaulting is that they removed 3/4 of all 4* covers from tokens, the main place people get 4* covers from are LTs rather than heroics, so any plan that includes the words new heroic token is fundamentally flawed from the outset so why should we wait until they go live to point out they are a useless change?

Address the vaulting issue in LTs and most people would be quite happy to have event and heroic tokens being limited to the latest 12, on those rare times we got a 4* rather than a 2* out of them, it would slightly increase the speed at which newer 4*s got covered.

bbigler

I'm confused by all this chatter, does this mean the existing Classic Legendary Tokens are going to change by only containing the vaulted 4*s during the off season???
OR
Does it mean that they will create a new Classic Legendary Token (that cannot be purchased with CP) that contains all vaulted 4*s, but you can only obtain it buy purchasing a 40x pack for 11,200 HP!!??

bigsmooth

bbigler wrote:

I'm confused by all this chatter, does this mean the existing Classic Legendary Tokens are going to change by only containing the vaulted 4*s during the off season???
OR
Does it mean that they will create a new Classic Legendary Token (that cannot be purchased with CP) that contains all vaulted 4*s, but you can only obtain it buy purchasing a 40x pack for 11,200 HP!!??

The Classic Legendary Token is simply a token that is equivalent to a 20 pull.
The Classic Legends store itself where you use the token will not change (12 latest 4* plus the older 5*).

IlDuderino

notamutant wrote:

Basically, paying is the only way to get vaulted characters now, since the 9 tokens you get from the 3 PvP events run during off-season is not enough to get any real number of 4 stars. And you can only do it once a month for a week. This is no different than claiming bonus heroes makes up for the vaulting.

Bonus heroes is better than this *%#+ and I was already annoyed

MissChinch

Doubt this will be read, posting mostly for personal amusement...

Create feature vaults that cost 25CP to pull from switch em out every week, have 3 5* covers available at 14% and all 4*s... like:

The black collection: Black Panther, Black Bolt, Black Suit Spiderman (plus all 4*s, or a subset IDC just not only the latest 12)
The stabby vault: OML, BP, BW?
Bad guys vault: GG, Thanos, ?
2 girls and a surfer vault...

you get the idea (I'm not creative), throw a random one of those up every week, I'd prefer if they don't mess with vaulting 4*s in there as they already have an option to draw only the latest 4*s that the majority of the forum seems pissed at...

The have a track record of throwing up these featured character vaults which I dislike for the most part, this would be in the similar vein, and every so often you would get a combo of 3 5*s that would would work for peoples rosters and they could draw knowing that the heros they're after would cycle back in (so they don't have to hoard for 300+ pulls)

and: Thanks Brigby, I'm now wondering if you did something to piss of the devs, cause they wouldn't make someone they like show this turd off in the forums.

Straycat

Well, to give credit where it is due, thanks for announcing this a few days in advance.

But why is this all they decided to do? They are halfway there; they made a new token that has the vaulted characters. Just do that for legendary tokens too.

GurlBYE

MissChinch wrote:

Doubt this will be read, posting mostly for personal amusement...

Create feature vaults that cost 25CP to pull from switch em out every week, have 3 5* covers available at 14% and all 4*s... like:

The black collection: Black Panther, Black Bolt, Black Suit Spiderman (plus all 4*s, or a subset IDC just not only the latest 12)
The stabby vault: OML, BP, BW?
Bad guys vault: GG, Thanos, ?
2 girls and a surfer vault...

you get the idea (I'm not creative), throw a random one of those up every week, I'd prefer if they don't mess with vaulting 4*s in there as they already have an option to draw only the latest 4*s that the majority of the forum seems pissed at...

The have a track record of throwing up these featured character vaults which I dislike for the most part, this would be in the similar vein, and every so often you would get a combo of 3 5*s that would would work for peoples rosters and they could draw knowing that the heros they're after would cycle back in (so they don't have to hoard for 300+ pulls)

and: Thanks Brigby, I'm now wondering if you did something to piss of the devs, cause they wouldn't make someone they like show this turd off in the forums.

This is where the divide comes from.

No one thinks the idea of having the newest 12 available is bad.
Its the fact thats there's no way to go after everyone else.

The 12 latest is a net gain to everyone.
The lack of anyway to reliably also cover oldies, or cover them in an optional way is the issue.

kyo28

Brigby, I appreciate you keeping us informed, but I hope you understand that we, the players, are not idiots. Here's the situation:

1. VAULTING: Mega-whales were unhappy because of dilution. They used their direct line to the devs. Devs set up vaulting so Mega-whales can spend their resources on the latest 4*s-5*s as they already have the older ones champed twice over. Problem solved, Mega-whales are happy and revenue stream from them is secured or even increased.

2. Vintage Heroic Packs: Vaulting causes a **** storm on the forums because other players are pissed they can't access the older 4*s anymore. Devs start to think how they can turn that want/need for older 4*s into extra revenue: enter vintage heroic packs. Not only do they create a sense of urgency by making the store only available during the off season, they make the odds of pulling a 4* so iffy-iffy-tiny that it turn into a huge paywall. "Want older 4*s? Pay up!", is the message

But I think they made two critical mistakes:
1. they didn't think this would be sooo transparent that players would catch on to it and see it for what it is: squeezing the small player so he drops his last penny in their game
2. they thought regular players can be milked like Mega-whales but on a smaller scale. This is the biggest mistake. Because a regular player thinks differently: they want to spend money on the game but only a limited amount and they want their progress to be mostly because of playing, not by paying. And that is the big mistake they made ... when you take money grubbing too far, you start alienating your customers.

In my case at the very least, I'd say mission accomplished. I'm thoroughly alienated and any chance of me ever spending money on this game again has now been washed down the drain. Good job!

I could offer pages upon pages of possible solutions but won't bother with it as it clearly doesn't interest the developers.

bbigler

Brigby already pointed out that this is a test run and they will decide whether to keep this or not based on the numbers. So, if you don't like this (which I think is almost everyone) then stop complaining and "vote" by not buying even 1 pack. They'll get the picture.

Unfortunately, the amount of people on this forum is probably around 5% of the total player base. So, try to hope that everyone sees that this is a bad deal and doesn't buy into it.

MissChinch

GurlBYE wrote:

This is where the divide comes from.

No one thinks the idea of having the newest 12 available is bad.
Its the fact thats there's no way to go after everyone else.

The 12 latest is a net gain to everyone.
The lack of anyway to reliably also cover oldies, or cover them in an optional way is the issue.

Its the combination of having the most efficient way to cover 5*s forcing you to only have the latest 12 4*s to choose from that's the issue for me and other hoarders in my line groups focused on pulling from Latest Legends. Its why simply opening up classics to have all the 4*s in them doesn't fix the issue...

5*s are very difficult to get covered if you're going after classics, and the pool keeps getting diluted. Pulling from latest legends is a far more CP/LT efficient way of getting decently covered 5*s, to increase that even more people hoard so they can drop a ton of pulls on the same set of 3 5*s.

If they offer a token to get all the 4* covers (perhaps in classics) but don't have this advantage to pulling concentrated 5*s that we have in LLs its going to be a moot point for everyone that has realized the need to pull from LLs (and usually in bulk aka hoards) to make 5* progress.

For all other transitions 2->3, 3->4 you could work on the next tier while still filling out your roster on the current tier. Now, unless they come up with a way to pull 5*s concentrated per hero on par with latest legends or new 5* vaults (~14% chance spread across 3 or 1 in 21, and 10% spread across one, respectively) that allows for the acquisition of 4*s without the vaulting restriction, at best you'll be forced to abandon meaningful progress of your 5*s or your 4*s to cover the other tier. I'm disregarding the case of people able to keep up with all the new characters and have them all championed, they clearly do well regardless of vaulting.

It boils down to CP/LTs being too valuable to use in any way other than the most efficient means of covering 5* heroes well. With vaulting they changed the most optimal way to cover 5*s to include pulling from 12 4*s you wont have championed by the time you've hoarded enough tokens/CP to pull. Net result being you need to hoard more iso for more 4*s you will have to level when you pull your stash... But its even worse than that, you have to stop leveling 4*s you slowly get through heroic tokens and rewards as they will not help defray the massive amount of iso you need when you pull, so you now stagnate while hoarding. Unless you're cool with burning 100+ 4* covers for iso.

So just a way to obtain the retired 4* characters with CP wont fix the problem, it has to be a way to continue to make reasonable progress with 5*s while preserving the ability to obtain retired 4*, cause that's what they broke with vaulting.

Forbush

So when the new Bonus Hero/vaulting system came out, I was initially incensed. I had just, finally, gotten my roster to the point where nearly every LT pull would be beneficial, even without a single champed 4*, with forced selloffs at a minimum, and with enough HP flow to keep up with new releases. Basically: I was at the point where I thought, "Now I can REALLY start playing!" This change pretty much wrecked everything I'd been building to for a year and a half. But I thought about it and realized that some big revision like this had to happen, ever since it became clear that the rate of new characters wasn't going to change. Even though I thought the implementation of this new system was way out of proportion, I kept in mind how they've done great revisions in the past (the champion system, the working and reworking of PvEs, and a lot of smaller things that I've very much appreciated), and gave them the benefit of the doubt that they'd find a way to make this work with the playerbase.

This? This Vintage Heroic "solution"? This is insulting. They've taken every possible pain to make the vaulted characters as unavailable as possible. It actually feels like they're trying harder to drive up participation in the post-season PvPs than they are trying to address the vaulting issue. I'm still feeling astonished at how meager this attempt at appeasement is - they could have made any one aspect more generous, and I would have thought they were at least trying. (Remove the 2*, widen the time window, give us more ways of getting the new token - not all these things, just ONE.)

I suppose what really gets me is there just seemed like so many solutions to create both revenue opportunities for them and some relief for the entire middle class of people invested in the game. I'm sure I'm not the only person whose long and short term plans were stopped dead in their tracks. I mean, one of the very base appeals of this game is collecting things, something that works even if you don't give a damn about Marvel properties - they've cut out so much of that appeal, while still leaving all these systems that depend on collection in place. This, on top of all the bugs that have been showing up with greater and greater frequency (and not being solved) has really eroded my open-mindedness and benefit of doubt.

I'm no regular donor - I have given them money a few times, all during sales coinciding with feelings of goodwill. When I started out, short of two years ago, I rated their recommendation likelihood a 1 or 2, writing in that "eh, it's a niche match-3, not many people would be into it"; not that long ago, it climbed up to a 6, as I felt D3 had really made the game much friendlier and more interesting than ever. I know I'm just a drop in the bucket, and my money, my ratings, and my comments here don't matter much, but I'd just like to state for the record that until this whole system is changed, I will never give another cent, I'll put in 0 for recommends, and if enough time passes without seeing an increase in responsiveness to the player base and baseline technical stability, I'm quitting.

Killians8

So pretty much we're Charlie Brown, the football is vaulted three and four stars, D3 is Lucy, maybe the paper is our feedback (Lucy should just burn it or tear it up if so though) and their action of pulling the ball away is some kind of cruel action. Anybody have any other fun interpretations here?

Brigby's response from the devs can be translated: "If 1% of the players spend enough money on this new vault, we'll call it successful." What they're missing the large amount of people who will leave this game, thus reducing the amount of revenue they get from ad runs on Shield Intercepts. I'm no longer a free to play player if I'm generating them money through those ads.

Killians8

Mr_Aziz wrote:

hahahahhahhhahahah
you people really tinykitty up your business model. no no no this isn't how you do it, what genius thought up THIS tinykitty? y'all need to fire that person

Khanwulf

DFiPL wrote:

My response consists of three letters. As that is not enough for the forum software, you may venture a guess.

I'd use four letters, personally.

This is an actively insulting gesture toward the community's concerns. Heroic tokens have a vanishingly small chance (7%) of yielding 4*, and there will be six tries available? Unless, of course, we throw giant wads of cash at the problem?

No.

This may be enough to skip VIP next cycle. Really, really tone-deaf. Well done!

--Khanwulf

firethorne

bbigler wrote:

Brigby already pointed out that this is a test run and they will decide whether to keep this or not based on the numbers. So, if you don't like this (which I think is almost everyone) then stop complaining and "vote" by not buying even 1 pack. They'll get the picture.

Unfortunately, the amount of people on this forum is probably around 5% of the total player base. So, try to hope that everyone sees that this is a bad deal and doesn't buy into it.

Agreed. Not buying in is the appropriate next step. But, I think the issue now is as much the question of, "How did they think this would work?" and how to deal with the overall direction from the devs. They made a bad situation with vaulting. And, I don't fully understand how they thought that was acceptable. But, there was at least a problem that you could see in dilution, and you could give them the benefit of the doubt that it was a misguided attempt at doing something good.

But, now, they try and layer a cash grab over the top of it. This either shows a) a huge amount of disrespect or b) that they are inconceivably out of touch. Probably a bit of both.

Killians8

bbigler wrote:

Brigby already pointed out that this is a test run and they will decide whether to keep this or not based on the numbers. So, if you don't like this (which I think is almost everyone) then stop complaining and "vote" by not buying even 1 pack. They'll get the picture.

Unfortunately, the amount of people on this forum is probably around 5% of the total player base. So, try to hope that everyone sees that this is a bad deal and doesn't buy into it.

The problem with this is they will slowly inch back toward what we want and stop the moment it become profitable enough. They don't understand the emotional part of dealing with humans and how anger causes people to change. If this slow fix is their approach, they will lose a large % of the player database who won't let themselves be treated poorly. It's like any relationship. When abuse and neglect is a part of it, those will enough self-esteem leave that relationship because they know staying is colluding with the abuse or neglect and unhealthy.

Business people who think it's all about the numbers miss the logic that all humans experience emotion so empathy must be factored into business decisions. Expecting people not to be human is itself irrational.

carrion_pigeons

The idea that people won't buy packs is ridiculous. Of course they will. They're people's best shot to farm characters they actively want covers for. The fact is that they're the best available source for vaulted characters, and that's going to make them a significant source of profit.

That fact that it's an unfair and condescending source doesn't change that. The fact that it harms gameplay doesn't change that. People will still buy them because there isn't a better deal available.