I'm happy with one improvement

MissChinch

Vhailorx said:

Daiches:

You say "it's fine to be casual as long you are ok with casual rewards."

Thanks for giving everyone permission to be casual!    But you are sort of ignoring the fact that casual rewards just got worse.  So while it's ok to be casual, it is it also ok for demi to pull the rug out fron under casual players?  'Cos that's what just happened.

(Disclaimer: cp and iso are the most prized resources for me, so i generally played the minimum amount of pve to get max prog.  I also played pvp to 900 because i can't stand the shield cooldown mechanic and don't want to bother with the hassle of 1.2k anymore.  Going from 4/6 to 5/6 will add a non-trivial amount of time, but is hardly an insurmountable hurdle for me.  Take that bias/perspective fwiw.)

Casuals, new and vets, have been getting the worse end of the changes recently, not even close...

- change in intercepts - net gain for paying players, net lost for non-paying

- change in progression rewards - net gain for players playing hours a day, net loss for casuals.

- nerf to OML: one of the three 5*s a casual vet is likely to have more than ~2-3 covers in and a useful tool for clearing nodes.

- vaulting - likely able to cover all new 4*s if you pull more than one 4* every other day, or else assures you wont be getting any competitive 4*s via pulling anymore.

I play more than "casual", but its disconcerting because I've definitely taken singular events off and played casually, and will likely migrate to that style of play soon...  this direction will make me just shelf the game instead of trying to play casually and get increasingly screwed.

Daiches

Vhailorx said:

Daiches:

You say "it's fine to be casual as long you are ok with casual rewards."

Thanks for giving everyone permission to be casual!    But you are sort of ignoring the fact that casual rewards just got worse.  So while it's ok to be casual, it is it also ok for demi to pull the rug out fron under casual players?  'Cos that's what just happened.

(Disclaimer: cp and iso are the most prized resources for me, so i generally played the minimum amount of pve to get max prog.  I also played pvp to 900 because i can't stand the shield cooldown mechanic and don't want to bother with the hassle of 1.2k anymore.  Going from 4/6 to 5/6 will add a non-trivial amount of time, but is hardly an insurmountable hurdle for me.  Take that bias/perspective fwiw.)

Did you willfully ignore that I lamented your loss if you truly absolutely can not spend the extra 15 minutes over the course of 24h? Yes, it sucks for those people that under no circumstances what so ever can play more.

A spread out cp over the course of progression would have made it much fairer, but look at it from a design perspective. If you don't put the big reward at the end, you don't entice people to play. And that's the whole reason. Entice people to play. Get them hooked, get them playing. 

Remember we came from a time with 3:36 minute intervals between clears to 8h between clears to the current system. And we used to do it all for 1 4star cover for first place. 

It used to be a struggle to get 100k ISO per week, now 500k is possible.

There's never been a more rewarding period for resources in the game. Even for those that play the bare minimum.

Beer40

Daiches said:

Ha.. They made 2 changes where we get more resources for doing the exact same thing as we would normally do. If that doesn't say renew VIP, I don't know what does.

Only negative change since last VIP was HFH store price, but since I already had the 3600 price point (but no preview), it actually got a bit better (because of the preview now). Still wish I had gotten the unfair price advantage others had with the 1100 discount, but it's a store option, so not that bad.

Daiches said:

Vhailorx said:

Daiches said:

Ha.. They made 2 changes where we get more resources for doing the exact same thing as we would normally do. If that doesn't say renew VIP, I don't know what does.

Only negative change since last VIP was HFH store price, but since I already had the 3600 price point (but no preview), it actually got a bit better (because of the preview now). Still wish I had gotten the unfair price advantage others had with the 1100 discount, but it's a store option, so not that bad.

This misses the point.  More rewards for those who grind 6/6 already is great.  Long overdue.

The problem is that demi also made grinding 2-4/6 substantially less rewarding that it was previously.  Once again demi takes a step forward and one (or two depending on perspective) big steps backwards.  You cant just ignore the negative changes and praise the positive ones.

Hence why I said "more for what we normally do". I grind every single PVE from the start to dust. I get more now. I'm buying VIP for ME, not for every casual out there. If they want to feel the same way as I do about the change, let them take out 15 more minutes in 24h to do that fifth clear (or better 5-6-7 on the trivials and essential. Probably same effect as doing 5 on all depending on the event).
If you can't do it, I genuinely feel for you as going from 25cp to 8cp is quite rough, and it must really suck. But it's not as if they suddenly require you to perform a Herculean task. People who are missing an essential have it worse than 4cclearmaximum players, but those can't fix it by spending a few more minutes. It's fine to be casual as long as you are ok with casual rewards. If you aren't, you will never be happy.

I felt your first quoted post was a little misleading (probably not intentional) and was going to comment on it but then I saw the 2nd one I quoted and it seemed like you cleared it up. I combined the 2 because that might save you having to justify the first one over and over again   

Hotnfresh

MissChinch said:

Hotnfresh said:

So far it is NOT a gain to paying players. The resource increases are a LOSS compared to intercepts. Being a paying player, I see 2-5 daily bonus' now compared to over double that previously. Also, so far, most are 500 ISO or 10 HP. Before, I'd see 2000 ISO and 25/100 HP fairly often. VIP is now pointless, unsubbing.

I think the idea is that:

(new paid node reward system) < (old intercept rewards) 

HOWEVER:

((new paid node reward system) + (increased amount in DDQ)) > (old intercept rewards)

I asked for specific limits/distribution for both systems in the announcement thread, without it we'll never really know. (I'm very much NOT expecting a response in that thread, or at all for that matter)

You're right. Will have to crunch some numbers to truly see. But my spidey senses tell me the two are still less than intercepts. When's the last time they changed something to be in the players' favor?-- never.

Fightmastermpq

Hotnfresh said:

MissChinch said:

Hotnfresh said:

So far it is NOT a gain to paying players. The resource increases are a LOSS compared to intercepts. Being a paying player, I see 2-5 daily bonus' now compared to over double that previously. Also, so far, most are 500 ISO or 10 HP. Before, I'd see 2000 ISO and 25/100 HP fairly often. VIP is now pointless, unsubbing.

I think the idea is that:

(new paid node reward system) < (old intercept rewards) 

HOWEVER:

((new paid node reward system) + (increased amount in DDQ)) > (old intercept rewards)

I asked for specific limits/distribution for both systems in the announcement thread, without it we'll never really know. (I'm very much NOT expecting a response in that thread, or at all for that matter)

You're right. Will have to crunch some numbers to truly see. But my spidey senses tell me the two are still less than intercepts. When's the last time they changed something to be in the players' favor?-- never.

This is just ignorant.  They benefit from happy players that play and spend regularly, so the intent is for ALL changes to be in the players' favor.

Also, remember when they launched shield ranks and everyone got a massive influx of ISO?

Hotnfresh

Fightmastermpq said:

Hotnfresh said:

MissChinch said:

Hotnfresh said:

So far it is NOT a gain to paying players. The resource increases are a LOSS compared to intercepts. Being a paying player, I see 2-5 daily bonus' now compared to over double that previously. Also, so far, most are 500 ISO or 10 HP. Before, I'd see 2000 ISO and 25/100 HP fairly often. VIP is now pointless, unsubbing.

I think the idea is that:

(new paid node reward system) < (old intercept rewards) 

HOWEVER:

((new paid node reward system) + (increased amount in DDQ)) > (old intercept rewards)

I asked for specific limits/distribution for both systems in the announcement thread, without it we'll never really know. (I'm very much NOT expecting a response in that thread, or at all for that matter)

You're right. Will have to crunch some numbers to truly see. But my spidey senses tell me the two are still less than intercepts. When's the last time they changed something to be in the players' favor?-- never.

This is just ignorant.  They benefit from happy players that play and spend regularly, so the intent is for ALL changes to be in the players' favor.

Also, remember when they launched shield ranks and everyone got a massive influx of ISO?

Coming from you Fightmaster, I'll consider that a compliment. Yes, I remember. Do you understand they only did that to fill a continuous ISO shortage they conveniently adopted as a meta to their game?... that without the ranks, the player would be so far behind they would see the hill as too steep to climb? Think about it buddy. The intent is to make money and PACIFY us, to give us just enough so we come back for more. If all changes were in the players' favor, they lose a lot of cash. Do you see them making new pve or pvp content, new storylines, etc to make us happy? I suppose our definitions of MPQ happiness are vastly different. Now had they made real improvements to the game, I wouldn't make comments like that. But every change they make is for THEIR benefit, not yours. You apparently enjoy being nickel and dimed more than I do.

Fightmastermpq

You don't understand.  Every change they make is for THEIR benefit.....AND yours.  At least in intent.  You can't please all the people all the time, but the more they do to please as many players as possible the more money they make.

Hotnfresh

"At least in intent"... see, even YOU are catching my drift. What you're saying is partially true, but as you said 'ignorant'. They create demand by creating the shortage. So these wonderful changes you clamour on about are simply fixing their mistakes and poor planning. 

Crnch73

I agree with Fightmaster, that their intent is to always make stuff better. Unfortunately, they have done nothing but fail (or move laterally) for months now. This may be a foggy memory, but has their been anything that was received well by the majority since SCL7? Here are the list of good (or great) changes I can remember:

- DDQ
- champion levels
- shield ranking (and the influx of ISO that came with it)
- SCL's, especially those that allowed us to earn 4's through progression
- the new events, like Coulson/GotG one-shots, Strange Sights, thanos daily at xmas time
- intercepts were great when they worked

So I guess those new events are currently happening (hopefully they never stop), but other than that? It's been a while since I have felt their attempts at good changes were even remotely good. SCL7 was the last truly good thing I remember. Since then, we have mediocre attempts:

- vaulting (terrible outcome)
- more 4's being released extremely fast, but they are still hard to acquire overall (more of the same)
- bonus heroes having ridiculously low drop rates (lateral move)
- SCL8 being a joke (borderline insulting)
- HfH store, showing that they still overvalue the 4 star tier (actually insulting)
- ISO "canyon" only getting deeper (more of the same)
- 5 clears to hit max progression. Why?

that doesn't even mention the bugs! This game is unfortunately trending in the wrong direction. I beg of the development team, please make something good for us! Test it out, and make sure it works! I don't want to lose interest, I am hanging on but I am fading fast.

Fightmastermpq

Crnch73 said:

I agree with Fightmaster, that their intent is to always make stuff better. Unfortunately, they have done nothing but fail (or move laterally) for months now. This may be a foggy memory, but has their been anything that was received well by the majority since SCL7? Here are the list of good (or great) changes I can remember:

- DDQ
- champion levels
- shield ranking (and the influx of ISO that came with it)
- SCL's, especially those that allowed us to earn 4's through progression
- the new events, like Coulson/GotG one-shots, Strange Sights, thanos daily at xmas time
- intercepts were great when they worked

So I guess those new events are currently happening (hopefully they never stop), but other than that? It's been a while since I have felt their attempts at good changes were even remotely good. SCL7 was the last truly good thing I remember. Since then, we have mediocre attempts:

- vaulting (terrible outcome)
- more 4's being released extremely fast, but they are still hard to acquire overall (more of the same)
- bonus heroes having ridiculously low drop rates (lateral move)
- SCL8 being a joke (borderline insulting)
- HfH store, showing that they still overvalue the 4 star tier (actually insulting)
- ISO "canyon" only getting deeper (more of the same)
- 5 clears to hit max progression. Why?

that doesn't even mention the bugs! This game is unfortunately trending in the wrong direction. I beg of the development team, please make something good for us! Test it out, and make sure it works! I don't want to lose interest, I am hanging on but I am fading fast.

You just plain aren't being fair.  You are so jaded about some perceived "slap in the face" that you  just aren't giving them a fair shake.  I get that just about everyone but me hates vaulting because they don't understand why they can't continue to get every character while also getting rid of dilution, but that's fine - hate it, call it a miss from the devs - no problem.  

But to call BH a lateral move is ****.  It's a flat 5% more covers than you were getting previously.  Period.  It's not lateral.  Lateral would be 0%.  It's certainly a positive move - and you can even quantify it at 5%.  No to mention you can pick your BH so it removes a lot of RNG from the system that we have been complaining about since the dawn of time.  

Same for HfH - it's a new token that awards known 4* covers for HP with some ISO and CP.  If you don't like it don't buy it - making it lateral at worst, positive for those who purchase them.

The ISO "canyon" has DRASTICALLY shrunk.  All those garbage tier vaulted 4*s now require ZERO ISO.  If you still feel as if you must champ them all.......well then you did before as well - so again, lateral at worst.

Finally 5 clears to hit "progression" is misleading as the final progression reward has increased substantially.  This can be either negative or positive depending on your playstyle.  Personally I try to get as many green checks as I can so this change for me just means more rewards for the exact same effort, but I get how it could be perceived as a negative for others.  Still from a dev perspective this rewards people for playing more and is meant to be a positive change.

Vhailorx

I mostly agree with you fight (shock!).

Obviously you continue to be wrong about vaulting.   (We could have both better individual character odds for every character and solve dilution.  Demi just chose not to implement a solution that does both.)

But BH is a pure positive system for players.  And while the higher price point sucks, h4h is still a good addition to the game as better ways to direct buy 4* covers have been desperately needed for many months.  And iso rates have gone up substantially since september 2016, which is good for players.  And more rewRds for more grinding in pve is also good.

So lots of good stuff from the devs.  But that doesnt make the bad stuff go away.  And the only thing with the nee pve progs that is close to a "slap in the face" is that demi made 2-4/6 grinding less rewarding than under the old system.  Thatcs just telling us that we need to play more, and since 4/6 already requires 1-2 hours per day depending on roster, it's a bit **** of demi to tell players that it's not "enough."

Fightmastermpq

Vhailorx said:

I mostly agree with you fight (shock!).

Obviously you continue to be wrong about vaulting.   (We could have both better individual character odds for every character and solve dilution.  Demi just chose not to implement a solution that does both.)

You actually can't, not without altering the game economy and flooding it with 4*s.  And this is the biggest problem with vaulting that people don't get.  They want a solution to dilution that retains dilution (i.e. the ability to get every character).  That's dilution.  Say you get 48 pulls a month and there are 48 characters.  If you want them all then you get 1 for each per month on average.  That's slow.  That's dilution.  But if you can split those 48 pulls up among say....12 characters then all of a sudden you have 4 each for those 12 and none for the others.  The only way to increase the individual character odds for every character is to grow the 48 pulls you get to some larger number, and D3 just isn't going to do that.  They aren't just going to give away more covers.

To put it another way.  Imagine D3 came to you and said, "you get 48 covers this month, what 48 do you want?"  I think the VAST majority of us would do one of two things - either apply all 48 to 1 or a handful of our best characters, or use them max cover as many characters as possible - take 3 characters from 0 to 13, and use all 9 of the rest on a 4th character or as champ levels to the first 3.  What hardly anyone would do is say "yeah, give me 1 for each character."  Because we all recognize that slowly adding covers across the board is slow and doesn't make us very competitive.  Recognizing this they implementing vaulting as we know it.  Basically choosing the newest 12 for us and creating a system where we are constantly making meaningful progress on those newest 12 characters over time.  Obviously they could have let us all pick exactly what covers we wanted, but that's not good for the diversity and health of the game. 

Crnch73

BH is only a positive system for players that are able to reap those benefits. That is why I say it was lateral at best. I have been tracking my pulls for quite some time now, and my odds have actually slightly decreased (albeit by a fraction of a percent point). I submit that if my odds were closer to the 5%, then I would be thrilled! Personally, my 4's are at 1.98%, and the specific character I have favorited has fallen into my lap less than it used to.

Now, I am fully aware that my personal experiences do not mean this is true for everyone. I also know that it can cloud my judgement, I am willing to admit that my outlook is jaded. I also know that probability in theory rarely matches actual results. I am just saying that for me, bonus heroes hasn't really helped. I wish it had, because my roster would be better and I would feel less jaded. For me, it's not a debate over the validity of the idea, it's that my personal experiences have been overwhelmingly negative for what-should-be a positive change.

Beer40

Crnch73 said:

- bonus heroes having ridiculously low drop rates (lateral move)

Fightmastermpq said:
But to call BH a lateral move is tinykitty.  It's a flat 5% more covers than you were getting previously.  Period.  It's not lateral.  Lateral would be 0%.  It's certainly a positive move - and you can even quantify it at 5%.  No to mention you can pick your BH so it removes a lot of RNG from the system that we have been complaining about since the dawn of time.  

Vhailorx said:

But BH is a pure positive system for players.

All these opinions of BH! I think if it were actually a flat 5% for everyone (it is NOT) then people would view it as less of a negative. If you're guaranteed 1 BH every 20 covers then it is what it is. Still a low rate, in my opinion, but guaranteed is always better than chance. 

The problem in BH is that there are too many people that aren't getting 5% (they've said, I can't confirm) which also means there are too many people getting more than 5%. 

And no one is going to like a system with already low odds when they are on the wrong side of that %. Because they "know" someone in their PVE or PVP bracket is on the other side of those odds.

I'm neutral on BH mostly. I have never gotten a 5*, only recently pulled my first 4*, and "feel" like I'm probably around the 5% of 3*...but I could totally be above or below it.

Is getting covers for free great? Yes. Is getting 1 cover for free while your competition gets 5 covers for free great? No.

That is why people don't like BH. Its another layer of RNG that seems not in their favor.

Beer40

Fightmastermpq said:

The only way to increase the individual character odds for every character is to grow the 48 pulls you get to some larger number, and D3 just isn't going to do that.  They aren't just going to give away more covers.

To put it another way.  Imagine D3 came to you and said, "you get 48 covers this month, what 48 do you want?"  I think the VAST majority of us would do one of two things - either apply all 48 to 1 or a handful of our best characters, or use them max cover as many characters as possible - take 3 characters from 0 to 13, and use all 9 of the rest on a 4th character or as champ levels to the first 3.  What hardly anyone would do is say "yeah, give me 1 for each character."  Because we all recognize that slowly adding covers across the board is slow and doesn't make us very competitive.  Recognizing this they implementing vaulting as we know it.  Basically choosing the newest 12 for us and creating a system where we are constantly making meaningful progress on those newest 12 characters over time.  Obviously they could have let us all pick exactly what covers we wanted, but that's not good for the diversity and health of the game. 

I totally agree with you that D3 will NOT just give away more covers. I think you might be surprised about what people would do with 48 covers though. I think people, like us, that spend time on the forums commenting and debating with each other WOULD probably use them in a good way to cover their best characters. I think there would be a little minor variance in that, due to "favorite characters" and personal opinion...but it would be fairly small. 

However, I believe a large portion of the player base is not on these forums. That's huge. Because those people don't necessarily have access to the wealth of character info these forums provide. They may not pay too close attention to synergy or power levels. I believe there is a VERY good chance there would be a bunch more roster diversity created by allowing people to pick their 12. You'll have people that grab Miles Morales (4* Spider Man, yay!), Venom (oooh, a villain to use against all these hero teams!), X-Force Wolverine (I can't get 5* Wolvie, but I can have a 4*!), etc...

See what I mean? Popularity will dictate a lot of choices and not necessarily for the "best" for their rosters. I think they totally missed the mark on the choice aspect and I think it would create a bunch more diversity than exists now.

MissChinch

Beer40 said:

Crnch73 said:

- bonus heroes having ridiculously low drop rates (lateral move)

Fightmastermpq said:
But to call BH a lateral move is tinykitty.  It's a flat 5% more covers than you were getting previously.  Period.  It's not lateral.  Lateral would be 0%.  It's certainly a positive move - and you can even quantify it at 5%.  No to mention you can pick your BH so it removes a lot of RNG from the system that we have been complaining about since the dawn of time.  

Vhailorx said:

But BH is a pure positive system for players.

All these opinions of BH! I think if it were actually a flat 5% for everyone (it is NOT) then people would view it as less of a negative. If you're guaranteed 1 BH every 20 covers then it is what it is. Still a low rate, in my opinion, but guaranteed is always better than chance. 

The problem in BH is that there are too many people that aren't getting 5% (they've said, I can't confirm) which also means there are too many people getting more than 5%. 

And no one is going to like a system with already low odds when they are on the wrong side of that %. Because they "know" someone in their PVE or PVP bracket is on the other side of those odds.

I'm neutral on BH mostly. I have never gotten a 5*, only recently pulled my first 4*, and "feel" like I'm probably around the 5% of 3*...but I could totally be above or below it.

Is getting covers for free great? Yes. Is getting 1 cover for free while your competition gets 5 covers for free great? No.

That is why people don't like BH. Its another layer of RNG that seems not in their favor.

Just out of curiosity, would you like a system for LT/CP pulls that guaranteed 6 4*s in a row then a 5* and for the 20th 4* you get your bonus, same goes with your 20th 5*...  on schedule, and being able to see where you were on that track like you can see in the daily resupply?  You just see that its a future 4* cover, not which one, same with the future 5* covers?

Randomness in what hero you pull, but not in distribution of *tier or BH... ?

It would do nothing in terms of giving players more resources or more heroes, it may be more psychologically acceptable though...

Beer40

MissChinch said:

Beer40 said:

Crnch73 said:

- bonus heroes having ridiculously low drop rates (lateral move)

Fightmastermpq said:
But to call BH a lateral move is tinykitty.  It's a flat 5% more covers than you were getting previously.  Period.  It's not lateral.  Lateral would be 0%.  It's certainly a positive move - and you can even quantify it at 5%.  No to mention you can pick your BH so it removes a lot of RNG from the system that we have been complaining about since the dawn of time.  

Vhailorx said:

But BH is a pure positive system for players.

All these opinions of BH! I think if it were actually a flat 5% for everyone (it is NOT) then people would view it as less of a negative. If you're guaranteed 1 BH every 20 covers then it is what it is. Still a low rate, in my opinion, but guaranteed is always better than chance. 

The problem in BH is that there are too many people that aren't getting 5% (they've said, I can't confirm) which also means there are too many people getting more than 5%. 

And no one is going to like a system with already low odds when they are on the wrong side of that %. Because they "know" someone in their PVE or PVP bracket is on the other side of those odds.

I'm neutral on BH mostly. I have never gotten a 5*, only recently pulled my first 4*, and "feel" like I'm probably around the 5% of 3*...but I could totally be above or below it.

Is getting covers for free great? Yes. Is getting 1 cover for free while your competition gets 5 covers for free great? No.

That is why people don't like BH. Its another layer of RNG that seems not in their favor.

Just out of curiosity, would you like a system for LT/CP pulls that guaranteed 6 4*s in a row then a 5* and for the 20th 4* you get your bonus, same goes with your 20th 5*...  on schedule, and being able to see where you were on that track like you can see in the daily resupply?  You just see that its a future 4* cover, not which one, same with the future 5* covers?

Randomness in what hero you pull, but not in distribution of *tier or BH... ?

It would do nothing in terms of giving players more resources or more heroes, it may be more psychologically acceptable though...

 it may be more psychologically acceptable though...

Me personally? I'd just like to see higher % odds for drawing a 4* and even higher for a 5* bonus hero. I'm fine with the 3* rate because they are much more easily obtainable. I enjoy the randomness of "what hero am I getting? what * tier will they be?". I think that's kind of fun.

On that note, I could use covers for every 4* and 5* there is (whether its to get someone to champion level or to add champion levels to them) so better % odds is what works best for me.

The idea you propose is ok too. I would rather not know if I'm getting a 4* or a 5* but my original point was just that a lot of people don't like that randomness and they'd rather have a system like you suggest, that feels a little more fair to everyone.

Its like you also point out too, though: 

MissChinch said:

It would do nothing in terms of giving players more resources or more heroes, it may be more psychologically acceptable though...

The people that play the hardest would still get the most covers, better chances at the best covers (due to having more chances) and that's a part that I think a lot of people forget. Or they realize that less draws + poor % = falling farther behind? Maybe they don't like that.

I'm not going to attack bonus heroes. I think I have in the past (?) but that was due to Vaulting and the two being basically linked together, not an actual dislike of BH. Like I said before, I'm mostly neutral on it. 

I did want to provide what I perceive the "anti-BH" groups rationale is (what I think it is) as a counter argument just to encourage more debate to possibly find an even better solution. Those people generally get trashed on the comments because in theory, BH IS great. Like other issues though, I can see where some people don't find that true, and I don't think they should just be dismissed.

Beer40

Felonius said:

I feel you, @Beer40...  Today my VIP came up for renewal, and for the first time since it's inception, I hesitated...  I haven't renewed.  I'm giving it a "cool down" period, to consider if I want to. 

On one hand... $10 bucks means little to me in the grand scheme of my life.  In a general sense, I do not have any issue with paying for a video game (why when I was a kid we had to pay $0.25 each time!), and I play MPQ a lot (damn you addiction!  lol), so I used to be happy to support the company. 

But these last couple months, issues have grown to make me take pause.  There's the handling of Vaulting (or in my opinion, lack thereof), OML Nerf, continued unaddressed bugs, etc.  And those are just the flat out Bad Things.

Even when they add positive features to the game, they're tarnishing it with negativity... Bonus Heroes were great, but Vaulting, ick!  HfH Store: Finally an option to Direct-Buy 4* covers, but IMHO I thought 2400 was too much, now 3600 takes it way to high to be of interest to me (YMMV, and that's fine)....   Add more rewards to DDQ, but that's because Shield Intercepts were taken away (well, honestly, I was getting SI for free w/VIP, so if I keep VIP, I'm actually getting a net positive on this, but the fact it was done because they fudged-up something again... well... just another blunder).  And now more PvE prizes, Yay!  But requires more work, Boo!  (...Well, ok, again, I usually do full six clears, so probably nothing but an improvement for me, but again, it's their way of thinking I don't like, ergo tarnished...)

So, I dunno... I expect I will renew VIP one more time, but it's no longer an easy thing to do.  If things continue being "bad", it will get more likely that I won't renew the next time, and so on, until I finally do stop.

I missed this one somehow. You never know when typing something if people actually understand the point you're trying to get across, but it appears this player is generally in the same situation as me. Its not the $10/month (I too paid 25 cents per game! Well, my parents did until I was able ) and its not that all changes have even affected me negatively. I see the changes tho, and form an opinion on the line of thinking that caused them, and see how they really do negatively affect people, and it gives me pause. 

I did go ahead and let my VIP expire, although its still there with a little pink "RENEW" beside it. If positive changes are made, I will renew it next month. If not, and I feel like $2 is worth the state of the game, then I will take another posters suggestion and go that route. If its neither, then I will be F2P, which is fine with me. 

Best of luck to you, and hopefully the game decisions improve enough to make you not question your decision to support the game.