Heroes for Hire - Price Update (5/19/17)

Uthgarprime

This just rolls into the more bad news as part of the good news of getting more progression rewards.  Mind  you I knew they would choose the 3600 as the final price going forward.  I actually surprised they haven't raised the price to 5000 hp.  I had the 2500 option and bought a couple of covers to finish a couple of vaulted 4*'s.  Not sure Its worth it to buy them at 3600.  That's a whole character slot plus more in expense.
I know D3 doesn't care, but had I had an actual choice, I would have still went with 2500 cause they other resources aren't worth it to me.

Vhailorx

Thanks for the update, but no thanks for the spin.  "Players prefer" should probably be replaced with "enough players purchased that we can justify the higher price point."

Also, nice timing with rolling out an hp direct buy for vintage 4*s right after vaulting.  Way to pump up demand for older 4* covers before testing demand.

Sorry to be a cynic, but when the game forces me to consider the $-value of each activity/transaction, then i sort of feel compelled to consider the financial motives behind each dev action too. . .

Daiches

I wish to know how I could show my preference when I only ever got the 3600 option with no preview as a choice.

Especially since I only ever bought the offer for the cover offered and would have preferred the cheaper option. The difference between 2500 and 3600 offer was not worth the extra HP.

Vhailorx

Daiches said:

I wish to know how I could show my preference when I only ever got the 3600 option with no preview as a choice.

Especially since I only ever bought the offer for the cover offered and would have preferred the cheaper option. The difference between 2500 and 3600 offer was not worth the extra HP.

Your option was buy or not buy.  By purchasing you endorsed the 3.6k pricepoint.  At least far as demi's metrics are concerned.

Qubort

broll said:

scottee said:

Why would they lie? If they wanted to just make an expensive package to "make more money", they wouldn't AB test. They'd make only the 3600 package. Forumites are such conspiracy theorists.

To give the illusion of caring about what we think is best.  It will probably work for some.

Clearly it worked for Scott

Benjmhart

As a player who occasionally spends money on the game (vip, + occasional HP buy)  h4h represented  great way to nab a needed cover for classic 4 stars.   Now that it costs more than a logan's loonies I'm waaaay less likely to buy - I can save cp  and nab my few remaining covers. 

Or is this why you guys raised the cp progression to 5 clears? 

I'm sure it will alienate plenty of monetized customers. 

Bishop

2500 hp was still to high for what you got. It should be 2500 hp for the 3600 hp loot bag. That looks better to me. I don't know what it is with this game but the outcome is always a eyebrow raise.

Magic

1. Take away intercepts and put the rewards behind the pay wall.
2. Increase the grind to 5 (or rather 6) clears for slightly increased rewards 
3. Hero4Hire - the only way to buy specific cover (and not a very efficient one) goes with the higher price. 

Three slaps in such a short time. Impressive even for D3/demi standards.

*Removed inappropriate language - Ducky

veny

Pff, i was not asked what price i would find acceptable... no one was.
Your ways of "gathering feedback" is flawed...

But i get it, if 10% of players is willing to buy stuff for 3600HP, and 13% of players is willing to buy stuff for 2500HP, its better to choose 3600HP option.
Well, i would MAYBE buy pack for 2500HP, but i did not get the chance... and i wont so yeah, at least i save some HPs

TheDobot

How could they run a real test when only a handful of characters covers were made available?

For TRUE results wouldn't you have to run every 4* character at one price point and then run the all again at the second price point.  Then compare who bought what?

 They could have forced the results by placing more desired vaulted covers on the price point they want.  There is no way they could have collected any reliable results and it is insulting they even implied that they collected enough reasonable data.


No one in their right minds would want to spend a roster spot worth of hp for 10K iso more.  

I was looking forward to filling in a few final covers at 2500, but I wont spend almost 4 rosters spots on one.   

talleman

I only had the 3600 hp offer and for me its way to expensive. If i had the 2500 hp offer i probably wouldve taken the bait. But since i only want the 4* cover i rather pay 1500 hp for just the cover. Oh well..

Warbringa

Well there goes my strategy to cover a few older 4* with HfH.  I had the 2500 offer and bought it a few times for a select number of 4* heroes (maybe 3 I think).  I was only buying it for the 4* not the other stuff.  Therefore, for me, the price just jumped about 50% as I would only still be buying it for the 4* cover, not the other stuff.  Guess I will just have to hope my 4* bonus hero draws return to the mean through RNG now as I won't be buying HfH at 3600 HP. This is another example of the economics being messed up with the game and the devs/D3 overvaluing the rewards what can be purchased with in-game resources.  You guys are 1 for 3.  The intercept changes made a lot of sense from many different angles.  The PvE progression changes had some good but imo, more bad, requiring more clears for final progression and CP (the number one reward for PROGRESSION!).  This one though is simply a bad and greedy decision.  No debate about this one.

firethorne

Here's a crazy idea: Why not just make a system that presents both, and let each player individually choose what they think is better?

Is that too hard?

astrp3

Like many, I don't see why people would prefer the 3600 offer to the 2500 one, but IF significantly more people (on a per capita basis) bought the 3600 offer and IF the two groups' preferences were the same (two big ifs), it seems that it DOES indicate a preference for the 3600 price.

Those arguing that it doesn't because they didn't give players a choice seem to be missing the boat and misunderstanding the math (or maybe it's me that's doing so).

Claiming that people bought the 3600 offer only because they had no choice may explain whey they bought the 3600 offer but it does not explain why significantly MORE players with the 3600 offer chose to purchase it than did those in the 2500 group (assuming that this was actually the case).

If it really were the case that more people preferred the 2500 option, why would more of them choose NOT make the purchase when they were only given the 2500 offer?

Let's assume that there are four groups of players who would purchase HfH:

1) those that prefer the 2500 price but would take the 3600 offer if that's the only choice they had
2) those that prefer the 3600 price but would take the 2500 offer if that's the only choice they had
3) those that would only pay the 2500 price, regardless of whether or not they had a choice
4) those that would only pay the 3600 price, regardless of whether or not they had a choice

Now assume we split them into two groups, each of which has the same number of players overall and the same number in each of the four groups, and give group A the 3600 offer and group B the 2500 offer. 

Players in groups 1 and 2 would buy no matter which group they were in so the number of purchasers in each group would be the same and this would be a wash in terms of A/B testing.

Players in group 3 would only buy if they were in group B, in which case there would more purchasers in group B.

Players in group 4 would only buy if they were in group A, in which case there win ould be more purchasers in group A.

So it seems that the only way that a greater number of people in group A would choose to purchase HfH is if there were more people in group 4 (since 1 and 2 are a wash and 3 would have the opposite effect).

If you disagree, please provide a scenario, with numbers, in which more people prefer the 2500 offer given a choice and the two groups have the same preferences BUT a greater percentage of those in group A actually make the purchase.

And even if the groups are not the  same size, as long as the percentage of players with each preference is the same, then it wouldn't change the math (as long as you looked at the percentage that accepted each offer and not the total number). 

There are probably other groups of players too (like players who might accept either offer depending on the character) but they wouldn't affect the math either.

max5esq

I never had the option for anythin but 3600...I bought one cover cuz it was peggy and I had 12, If I could have bought just the cover for less HP I would have. If it was any othere charecter I would no have even made any purchase.

fmftint

My data shows I've never bought H4H and I never will. 

Had the 3600 no look ahead price point

smkspy

Had 3600 HP offer, participated by not purchasing it. Eagerly awaiting my 300 HP for my participation...




Yes, I know I'm not.getting 300 HP. But that was my only two options, spend 3600 or.not spend 3600. I would have probably bought a cover for 2500...maybe....definitely 95% more likely than 3600 HP, which I won't buy as I would just spend the 120 cp at this point.

Big thanks to cover saturation in the latest 12 to display just how quickly I save that cp for specific covers.

Warbringa

If you disagree, please provide a scenario, with numbers, in which more people prefer the 2500 offer given a choice and the two groups have the same preferences BUT a greater percentage of those in group A actually make the purchase.

And even if the groups are not the  same size, as long as the percentage of players with each preference is the same, then it wouldn't change the math (as long as you looked at the percentage that accepted each offer and not the total number). 

There are probably other groups of players too (like players who might accept either offer depending on the character) but they wouldn't affect the math either.

Let's assume, I believe rationally, that only developed rosters are the main purchasers of HfH.  I don't imagine that there are too many newer players investing that much HP into them when roster slots are the most important resource for new players.  (PSA - If you are a new player btw SAVE YOUR HP FOR ROSTER SLOTS)  You are assuming that the resources for group A and B are the same.  There could be significant statistical differences in the amount of resources (in this case HP and/or cover needs) between group A and B. Even developed rosters have significant differences in resources.  I for example, a day 880 player, don't have any issues with iso but covers are my lacking resource and to a lesser extent HP.  Many developed rosters are iso starved but HP is not an issue for them.  From a totally out of left field hunch too, we do not know that group A and B are the same size.  Knowing the developers track record and motivations, they probably went with the largest real outcome which could have been easily skewed from a  number of factors.  For all we know, there were simply 25 more buys of 3600 than 2500 but 1000 more people offered the 3600 deal than 2500 deal etc.  2.5% may be significant to the developers but we don't know level that is.  

The fact that the results don't appear very intuitive to many players doesn't mean that they aren't true however, how and why the results were obtained as they were very likely may not have accurately represented the actual true preference of the majority of players.

astrp3

Warbringa said:

You are assuming that the resources for group A and B are the same.  

You are right. I AM assuming that the resources are the same because if the groups were randomly and properly sampled and of sufficient size, they generally would be (the odds of them being skewed enough to substantially affect results, are increasingly small as the sample size increases, to the point of being negligible).

Even if they weren't, however, it would not affect, my main point, which was the counter those who seem to be saying that D3's A/B test (assuming they did one) is invalid simply because they didn't offer everyone a choice, even if it was done properly and proper controls were in place. My point is that, with a properly conducted test, you don't need to offer everyone both choices to determine that one choice was preferred.

turbomoose

Thanks for the points though I think they should have given anyone who purchased at 3600 price the difference between the 2 I myself had an oops moment and purchased the very first deal thinking I was getting the five 4* heroes listed , though I had only had an hours sleep at the time ! 

As for the now set price , add 100k ISO and I'll think about it!