Please comment on the decision to backload pve cp progression rewards.

135

Comments

  • TheDobot
    TheDobot Posts: 61 Match Maker
    They made it seem as this was a buff to rewards, but in reality they nerfed the reward structure.

    I personally don't like the change at all.  Having the cp spread out previously meant I could earn a 20cp token just about everyday with the 5cp award, DDP, farming and node clears.  Now it takes the whole event time to earn 8 cp and if you want to final reward you have to give up 3+ hours of your day to the game.

    Mind you not just any 3+ hours either, but the time has to be tied to the node closing and opening otherwise you can't place for rewards and you are wasting your time.

    When they announced a change to rewards I was so excited, but after playing the event Im not excited at all anymore.  This just means you have to play even more now for less rewards and no real end game.  
  • optimus2861
    optimus2861 Posts: 1,233 Chairperson of the Boards
    Backloading the CP was bad enough, but having played some of the Hunt now, I find the removal of that first, easy 5 CP to be the real slap in the face. I skipped the first day, most of the second. Real life and all that. So now I've played some, got all the 3* rewards, and look at what's ahead of me in the progression table -- and it's several thousand points of junk before I even hit the Gamora cover. Then there's the 8 CP beyond even that.

    Just .. ugh. What an awful move this was.
  • Crnch73
    Crnch73 Posts: 504 Critical Contributor
    MissChinch said:


    I don't think the developers are unaware of this, I think they use different metrics to judge the game than you do, its as simple as that.


    I'd imagine they, (and I'd strongly suggest they are obligated to) develop the game in a manner that makes the most money for the owners and/or investors while minimizing their risk.  This is likely NOT going to mean the game is developed in a way the extremely small and extremely non-representative sample of forumites would want it. 


    I think the best we can hope for is more transparent feedback that doesn't try to avoid that issue entirely, because when they do it comes off as either ignorant, dismissive or condescending.

    I agree. I don't think they are sitting around like kids with magnifying glasses while we are the ants. I do believe they think their choices are what is best for the game. I do not believe they are being cruel on purpose. But following the already-set pattern that we are all beta testers, I just always hope they see how bad some of those choices are. Most people fall into one of the following categories when it comes to coping with the new changes:

    Group 1 : "I actually like these changes, but only because it helps me specifically. I can understand how it could negatively affect others, though"

    Group 2: "I dislike these changes. It hurts my progress, and I feel bad for those who are hurt even worse"

    Group 3: "These changes are terrible"

    Now there is also a fourth group that love certain changes, as there always will be. But I would imagine that they make up less than the majority. To me, this means people are merely "OK" with stuff because causation vs. correlation (meaning, it worked for them, so they are a fan only because of that without actually thinking things through). When I stop to think about it rationally, as I said earlier, I can see that the changes were made (mostly) in an attempt to make the game better, last longer, or be more fun in certain ways. However, these attempts haven't really accomplished their goals. The game for some, including myself, has become more mundane, less fun, and more time consuming for little reward. Could this have happened without the changes? Of course. I just want to stress that this game, in the past 3-4 months, has become less and less fun with every change they make... for me at least.
  • MissChinch
    MissChinch Posts: 509 Critical Contributor
    Crnch73 said:
    MissChinch said:


    I don't think the developers are unaware of this, I think they use different metrics to judge the game than you do, its as simple as that.


    I'd imagine they, (and I'd strongly suggest they are obligated to) develop the game in a manner that makes the most money for the owners and/or investors while minimizing their risk.  This is likely NOT going to mean the game is developed in a way the extremely small and extremely non-representative sample of forumites would want it. 


    I think the best we can hope for is more transparent feedback that doesn't try to avoid that issue entirely, because when they do it comes off as either ignorant, dismissive or condescending.

    I agree. I don't think they are sitting around like kids with magnifying glasses while we are the ants. I do believe they think their choices are what is best for the game. I do not believe they are being cruel on purpose. But following the already-set pattern that we are all beta testers, I just always hope they see how bad some of those choices are. Most people fall into one of the following categories when it comes to coping with the new changes:

    Group 1 : "I actually like these changes, but only because it helps me specifically. I can understand how it could negatively affect others, though"

    Group 2: "I dislike these changes. It hurts my progress, and I feel bad for those who are hurt even worse"

    Group 3: "These changes are terrible"

    Now there is also a fourth group that love certain changes, as there always will be. But I would imagine that they make up less than the majority. To me, this means people are merely "OK" with stuff because causation vs. correlation (meaning, it worked for them, so they are a fan only because of that without actually thinking things through). When I stop to think about it rationally, as I said earlier, I can see that the changes were made (mostly) in an attempt to make the game better, last longer, or be more fun in certain ways. However, these attempts haven't really accomplished their goals. The game for some, including myself, has become more mundane, less fun, and more time consuming for little reward. Could this have happened without the changes? Of course. I just want to stress that this game, in the past 3-4 months, has become less and less fun with every change they make... for me at least.


    I agree with most of what you're saying, except for the part where you stipulate they haven't really accomplished their goals...  I don't think we can say that one way or the other without looking at the revenue coming in...   I can say definitively that these changes have made the game less fun for me and that these changes have resulted in me contributing less money to the game, but I just don't know how it impacts the set of all people playing...


    To be clear, I'm with you on the point of these changes flat out sucking...  I also think they could implement changes that I believe could both increase current sales, future sales and make it more fun for my niche...

  • Milk Jugz
    Milk Jugz Posts: 1,122 Chairperson of the Boards
    The one thing that I'm not sure is stated, but I don't think it is, is this:

    What motivation does D3 have to cater to the casual or F2P players? They spend little (casual) to no money (F2P), so why does D3 need to cater to them? This clearly caters to the players that spend money and/or are fully engaged, and as a business owner myself it makes sense to cater to the people that are paying you and your bills.

    Not the ones that are just coasting.....
  • MissChinch
    MissChinch Posts: 509 Critical Contributor
    Milk Jugz said:
    The one thing that I'm not sure is stated, but I don't think it is, is this:

    What motivation does D3 have to cater to the casual or F2P players? They spend little (casual) to no money (F2P), so why does D3 need to cater to them? This clearly caters to the players that spend money and/or are fully engaged, and as a business owner myself it makes sense to cater to the people that are paying you and your bills.

    Not the ones that are just coasting.....


    It could be that the overwhelming majority of their revenue comes from casual who don't play enough to amass HP, but feel compelled to buy it to roster a hero they like instead of selling one...   just $5-$10 at a time...   


    Casual != free


    I just don't think we have any way of knowing where the money is coming from, and therefore no way of knowing where they actually SHOULD be focusing their design efforts...   It sounds way more impressive when a famous whale buys 100 starks than when 8% more new accounts buy HP in the first 60 days of account creation, but depending on the numbers it could amount to a massive difference...

  • Skrofa
    Skrofa Posts: 388 Mover and Shaker
    Milk Jugz said:
    The one thing that I'm not sure is stated, but I don't think it is, is this:

    What motivation does D3 have to cater to the casual or F2P players? They spend little (casual) to no money (F2P), so why does D3 need to cater to them? This clearly caters to the players that spend money and/or are fully engaged, and as a business owner myself it makes sense to cater to the people that are paying you and your bills.

    Not the ones that are just coasting.....
    You always need the f2p people. They are the majority in the game and most of the time, in a pvp environment, they are the "fodder" for the p2w people. Can you imagine pvp if it was only the whales?

    It would be a wasteland
  • MissChinch
    MissChinch Posts: 509 Critical Contributor
    Skrofa said:
    Milk Jugz said:
    The one thing that I'm not sure is stated, but I don't think it is, is this:

    What motivation does D3 have to cater to the casual or F2P players? They spend little (casual) to no money (F2P), so why does D3 need to cater to them? This clearly caters to the players that spend money and/or are fully engaged, and as a business owner myself it makes sense to cater to the people that are paying you and your bills.

    Not the ones that are just coasting.....
    You always need the f2p people. They are the majority in the game and most of the time, in a pvp environment, they are the "fodder" for the p2w people. Can you imagine pvp if it was only the whales?

    It would be a wasteland


    You can easily sim players in this model...  they could dump hundreds of thousands of fake players and we wouldn't be able to tell, you never see a human v human in PvP.


    I agree some games need it, but this model where AIs control accounts can easily be filled so it looks like theres 1000x more active players than there actually are with surprisingly little overhead.

  • badsaj
    badsaj Posts: 73 Match Maker

    The goal of this change was increased engagement. They are calculating that those that were playing to the 4th clear and stopping will now play 25% longer and play to the 5th clear. I'm sure that their calculations show that the 25% increase from some players will offset those that will either play less or even quit because of the change. Under this scenario the only way to make sure players play extra is to put all of the awards worth getting later in the progression. I think the only way this decision gets revised is if those calculations are wrong, and that this change results in less total engagement.

  • Khanwulf
    Khanwulf Posts: 103 Tile Toppler
    Crnch73 said:
    I want to believe in this game. I want to keep playing. It has just become SO incredibly hard to do it. I feel like the devs are taking their ball and going home, and we are just sitting here waiting for them to come back.
    Pretty much. I'm reminding myself that the 4* cover is sitting at 3 clears and may be a more reasonable goal. 

    Everything that's happened in the past few months feels like someplace locked in the Demiurge vault is a Master Plan -- probably shaped like a gauntlet -- that they're following. Unfortunately since no one has bothered to communicate the plan, all we get is the finger.

    --Khanwulf
  • Tee
    Tee Posts: 231 Tile Toppler
    edited May 2017
    MissChinch said:

    It could be that the overwhelming majority of their revenue comes from casual who don't play enough to amass HP, but feel compelled to buy it to roster a hero they like instead of selling one...   just $5-$10 at a time...   


     With the backloading of the Hero Points as well it does seem like this is the case.
  • AXP_isme
    AXP_isme Posts: 809 Critical Contributor
    On balance i don't like the change. I like that there is more ISO. I like that there is more CP. I like that there are two 3*s in the same reward. I like that there are more progression rewards. I don't like the way the structure has been changed. 

    From a personal perspective I used to play as far as the 4* cover. Then they feed a second 4* in the 7 day events so I had to push a bit higher and I was ok with that. Having seen how much work was involved I decided to push on a bit more and see how easy or hard it was to get top progression. I've recently got into the habit of getting top progression though it feels like a lot of work especially when compared to how much I was doing before. Having got to top progression in the hunt it felt even worse again. I don't think I can be bothered to put in all that work on a regular basis it doesn't feel like fun to me. 

    I think all all the good arguments have already been made and this is just my opinion. I feel disappointed that I will get less CP but that's my choice. If I want to enjoy the game I can't play as much as is required to hit top progression. 
  • Beer40
    Beer40 Posts: 826 Critical Contributor
    badsaj said:

    The goal of this change was increased engagement. They are calculating that those that were playing to the 4th clear and stopping will now play 25% longer and play to the 5th clear. I'm sure that their calculations show that the 25% increase from some players will offset those that will either play less or even quit because of the change. Under this scenario the only way to make sure players play extra is to put all of the awards worth getting later in the progression. I think the only way this decision gets revised is if those calculations are wrong, and that this change results in less total engagement.

    If its really all about engagement, then your suggestion would imply that engagement is falling, hence the need to push it. The forum may represent a small portion of the player base but there has definitely been talk of people not liking changes and scaling back. Maybe although we're a small portion of players...they might want to listen to our suggestions, thus improving engagement? We may be a vocal minority but that doesn't mean we don't speak for a majority.

    But anyway, I think you're wrong so it doesn't matter  :D
  • Pogo
    Pogo Posts: 185 Tile Toppler
    Milk Jugz said:
    The one thing that I'm not sure is stated, but I don't think it is, is this:

    What motivation does D3 have to cater to the casual or F2P players? They spend little (casual) to no money (F2P), so why does D3 need to cater to them? This clearly caters to the players that spend money and/or are fully engaged, and as a business owner myself it makes sense to cater to the people that are paying you and your bills.

    Not the ones that are just coasting.....
    Everybody technically starts out free, even if they make a purchase later on day one. I'm guessing that most paying players had to get hooked before they started shelling out, whether it's emergency HP on rare occasions or a scheduled Stark every month. Driving away free players is tantamount to driving away future paying players.
  • MissChinch
    MissChinch Posts: 509 Critical Contributor
    Tee said:
    MissChinch said:

    It could be that the overwhelming majority of their revenue comes from casual who don't play enough to amass HP, but feel compelled to buy it to roster a hero they like instead of selling one...   just $5-$10 at a time...   


     With the backloading of the Hero Points as well it does seem like this is the case.

    I don't know any better than anyone else not affiliated with D3/Demi, but it seems like its easy to forget that there could be masses of customers dumping in small amounts of money that trivialize the purchases of whales...  its just that hearing about a whale buy club and how much money is involved sounds dramatic.  Its easy to try to spin all the changes as some way to keep whales happy, when they really might be targeting a different market responsible for far more revenue.
  • rawfsu
    rawfsu Posts: 291 Mover and Shaker
    I think it's a bunch of garbage. I actually got a little excited about the extra CP, but should've known better. I'm already have over a million ISO thanks to vaulting, now I'm going to get less CP due to this change. Not very happy right now and definitely feeling myself less motivated to play PvE. Very frustrated overall.
  • badsaj
    badsaj Posts: 73 Match Maker
    Beer40 said:
    badsaj said:

    The goal of this change was increased engagement. They are calculating that those that were playing to the 4th clear and stopping will now play 25% longer and play to the 5th clear. I'm sure that their calculations show that the 25% increase from some players will offset those that will either play less or even quit because of the change. Under this scenario the only way to make sure players play extra is to put all of the awards worth getting later in the progression. I think the only way this decision gets revised is if those calculations are wrong, and that this change results in less total engagement.

    If its really all about engagement, then your suggestion would imply that engagement is falling, hence the need to push it. The forum may represent a small portion of the player base but there has definitely been talk of people not liking changes and scaling back. Maybe although we're a small portion of players...they might want to listen to our suggestions, thus improving engagement? We may be a vocal minority but that doesn't mean we don't speak for a majority.

    But anyway, I think you're wrong so it doesn't matter  :D

    I just tried to look back through the three different threads on this topic, and I couldn't find it, but I'm sure I read a post from @brigby or one of the mods or someone that specifically said that the developer's reason for this change was to increase engagement.

    The fact that they are trying to increase engagement doesn't necessarily mean engagement is falling. One of the goals of a business is almost always to try and grow the business, right?

    I'm not saying I think this change was a good idea. I'm just explaining why I think they did it. I personally hope they listen to the overwhelming majority of their most loyal player base here on the forums and scale the rewards back to where the previous level of play gets you the previous amount of rewards, and the new rewards are added beyond the 4th clear. I just think the only way this will happen is if the total engagement does go down.

  • optimus2861
    optimus2861 Posts: 1,233 Chairperson of the Boards
    MissChinch said:

    I don't know any better than anyone else not affiliated with D3/Demi, but it seems like its easy to forget that there could be masses of customers dumping in small amounts of money that trivialize the purchases of whales...
    Highly unlikely. The revenue models of "freemium" games like this have been studied several times. It's usually something like ~60% of revenue coming from as little as ~0.25% of the total active players.
  • babinro
    babinro Posts: 771 Critical Contributor
    To promote 'proper' play is the obvious answer.

    There is an entire community built around late joining PvE in order to maximize rewards and minimize play.  This change promotes players to join events the day they open and play throughout.

    Those who late join now get a potential placement advantage but they lose out on 25 CP which is a BIG deal.

    It's a smart move by D3 in my opinion.  They are promoting certain styles of play without outright preventing players from playing the way they want.


  • alphabeta
    alphabeta Posts: 469 Mover and Shaker
    Skrofa said:

    You always need the f2p people. They are the majority in the game and most of the time, in a pvp environment, they are the "fodder" for the p2w people. Can you imagine pvp if it was only the whales?

    It would be a wasteland

    Do you have any idea what MMR is?  PVP is paying player vs paying players - trust me that's all we see 98% of the time - other 5* rosters of similar strength and investment. SMH


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