Update to Heroes for Hire (6/23/17) *Updated (6/26/17)

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Comments

  • BlackWidower
    BlackWidower Posts: 250 Mover and Shaker
    I only found out about this because the character I was saving up for suddenly said it was ending on Tuesday and then I noticed all of them did.

    So of course I went to check the forum and found that you have once again made HFH worse than it ever was.

    After the 3600 HP grab and a string of disappointing pulls in LTs, this was the final nail in the coffin to make my decision to stop supporting this company in any way.  
  • BigRussian
    BigRussian Posts: 166 Tile Toppler
    Brigby said:
    Hi Everyone,

    Starting next Tuesday (6/27), the contents of the Heroes for Hire bundles will be changing.

    Heroes for Hire will now give all players the opportunity to purchase a store offering of a 4-Star character. In addition, the character will follow the Crash of the Titans mission rotation, and is available for the full 5-day duration of the mission. The actual price and bundle contents will not be changing.

    Detail Summary:
    • The bundle character will be the same character that's featured in Deadpool's Daily Quest mission, Crash of the Titans
      • A preview of the next featured 4-Star character will also be visible
    • All players will have the opportunity to purchase this bundle
      • Players that originally saw the 3-Star bundle will now see the 4-Star bundle instead.
    • The price and bundle contents have not changed.
    Dislike. Definitely not a fan. The previous iteration actually incented me to buy a HfH (Cap Marvel 4) for the one cover I didn't have. As a player for over 1100 days, this feels like another very negative change. Please Ensure our feedback is provided to whoever made this decision. 
  • Coubii
    Coubii Posts: 133 Tile Toppler
    What if instead of one predefined color to sell you could end up choosing your color ?
  • WEBGAS
    WEBGAS Posts: 474 Mover and Shaker
    Dear devs, You can try to pull the rope out of your devote players
    (it's your choice)
    ....until it will break  >:)
  • Zalasta
    Zalasta Posts: 285 Mover and Shaker
    Another decision by the dev team that reduces player choice and further restricts vaulted characters. I've bought HFH and had plans to buy some upcoming heroes to fill gaps in my vaulted roster, but apparently no longer. Keep these decisions coming, it will make it that much easier to reallocate my time to other pursuits (have already started doing so). Will not be renewing VIP next week when it expires.
  • GrimSkald
    GrimSkald Posts: 2,581 Chairperson of the Boards
    The reaction to this change seems rather extreme - I don't know how many of you out there have ever used Heroes for Hire, but I suspect it's a fairly small percentage of the people responding.  The cost is high and the reward is so-so.  I suspect that's true across the board, If HfH isn't used very much, then clearly the devs decided to make a change to it to see if they could make it utilized more.

    I think the reason behind the change is to give those people without the 4* in "Crash" a chance to purchase it, simple as that.  Will this end up with HfH being actually used more?  No, I doubt it highly, but I certainly don't attribute malice to the decision.

    Speaking for myself, I don't have trouble with 4* covers for the most part, so I have never actually used HfH.  I considered spending on HfH when it was 2500, but when it went to 3600 I decided I would rather spend loose HP on random tokens - that's 36 pulls from the daily deal on heroics and vault tokens after all.
  • Frustrated1
    Frustrated1 Posts: 68 Match Maker
    It's not even totally about HfH; it just shows how little the devs care about what players want. 
  • GrimSkald
    GrimSkald Posts: 2,581 Chairperson of the Boards
    Frustrated1 said:
    It's not even totally about HfH; it just shows how little the devs care about what players want.

    Here's the thing, though, there are four different things at play. 

    1) What you (that is to say, any particular individual) want

    2) What the majority of people on the forums want

    3) What the majority of people who play the game want

    4) What is actually good for the long term health of the game.

    People frequently think that these four things are the same, but sometimes they're radically different.  Heck, the difference between 2 and 3 is probably pretty large in many cases - you have to remember that the forums only make up a small percentage of the people who play the game. 

    This may not be a good example as I really don't think 4 applies here, but it is something you have to be mindful of.  As I said, I bet that HfH sees almost no use, so the devs are trying to make it more appealing.  I think it's going to have the opposite effect (as do most of the people here,) but you can't blame them for making a change to something that clearly isn't doing much.

    What I'm saying is many people here see this as an possibly intentional slap in the face.  I see it as them trying to monkey with something that is largely unused.  Someone else may say "Oh thank goodness they changed this!"  Okay, so the last isn't going to happen here, but it's still possible. :)

  • ZootSax
    ZootSax Posts: 1,819 Chairperson of the Boards
    GrimSkald said:
    The reaction to this change seems rather extreme - I don't know how many of you out there have ever used Heroes for Hire, but I suspect it's a fairly small percentage of the people responding.  The cost is high and the reward is so-so.  I suspect that's true across the board, If HfH isn't used very much, then clearly the devs decided to make a change to it to see if they could make it utilized more..
    Honestly, I'm a little surprised how extreme the reaction is, too.  I've used HfH 3 or 4 times to help champ 3 vaulted 4*'s that I otherwise would have needed to drop 120CP on (thus missing out on 6 current 4*'s; for me).  I was planning on doing HfH again on either Jean or Peggy in 30-35 days.  Under the new system, that's now 130-160 days, assuming no new characters get inserted in that time. While on one hand, I should easily have 7,200 HP by that time so I can do both without having to decide between them, it seems kind of annoying that my ability to cover the vaulted characters has basically changed from weeks to months for basically no reason and with no in-game prompt to mention this to players.  Hopefully they have a better idea to provide access to vaulted characters, as HfH really wasn't a good one, but until they roll out the next idea I do find this change annoying...
  • orbitalint
    orbitalint Posts: 511 Critical Contributor
    GrimSkald said:
    The reaction to this change seems rather extreme - I don't know how many of you out there have ever used Heroes for Hire, but I suspect it's a fairly small percentage of the people responding.  The cost is high and the reward is so-so.  I suspect that's true across the board, If HfH isn't used very much, then clearly the devs decided to make a change to it to see if they could make it utilized more.

    I think the reason behind the change is to give those people without the 4* in "Crash" a chance to purchase it, simple as that.  Will this end up with HfH being actually used more?  No, I doubt it highly, but I certainly don't attribute malice to the decision.
    Reasonable response, Grim but if usage wasn't that high, why did they feel the need to reduce the rotation by 5 fold? Even would be day 1 whales would need to wait 3 months to get every color through HfH before even starting on their journey to 13 covers via CP usage, BH, or tokens.

    Also, what Crash can you complete with one 4* cover besides maybe Prof X purple? The model they used previously made some sense despite how awful it was too. You could get by with just having the require 4* if you had champed 2*/3* for the combo team. Access to 1 cover is useless in Crash and with vaulted characters, that means maybe 5 years before you can take a stab at it using this method alone? 

    I still haven't seen a plausible theory besides artificially preserving cover scarcity for all SCLs because they didn't like the dollar conversation rate for 4*'s in the previous HfH store and/or the lack of HfH buying from SCL6+. 

  • smkspy
    smkspy Posts: 2,024 Chairperson of the Boards
    This change made me break my rule of not buying a hfh. Bought myself that yellow quake since I never get her through vaults taking her up to 12 covers. 
  • BlackWidower
    BlackWidower Posts: 250 Mover and Shaker
    OMG - Look at the new update - all the covers are missing!

    it was just updated and now you can't even get the other covers that were there.  you can only get one!
    I was saving up for a cover that was supposed to be there until the 29th and then it was supposed to be there for another 18 hours and now you have gotten rid of them completely.

    seriously?  are you trying to repel people, this "work' is the equivalent of a 7-11 parking lot DJ.

    This is beyond words. 
  • astrp3
    astrp3 Posts: 367 Mover and Shaker
    edited June 2017
    orbitalint said:
    Reasonable response, Grim but if usage wasn't that high, why did they feel the need to reduce the rotation by 5 fold?

    One possible reason might be that they wanted to make HfH available for the entire length of the crash and thought that having the Behemoth Burrito characters in there as well would be too confusing.

    I agree, however, that this seems implausible to me because having one cover is very rarely going to allow you to beat the Crash. Adding one cover to the ones you already have might allow you to level up a character enough to win, though this also seems like it would be rare.

    Speculating about why the devs implement the changes they do seems kind of pointless given the lack of communication - so I'll do it anyway.

    Perhaps the devs think that they only reason players need to buy vaulted heroes is to finish off characters that are near championing. They kind of hinted at as much in one of their rare responses to the issue. Perhaps they don't think any new players need or want to build up older characters from scratch when they can champion new ones. Maybe they think no one is really interested in older characters and that all you need to succeed in the game is a handful of 4* champs.

    If so, some might see that as showing how out of touch they are with how people actually play the game. Some players just want to champion all the 4*s to scratch their collector itch. I can maybe understand them not wanting to cater to these players but having the 4*s champed has a lot of benefits besides just collecting - perhaps the biggest being having access to two boosted 4*s every week.  Another issue is that having every 4* rostered (even with a single cover) does provide tangible benefits even for relative newbies - though I don't think they're as crucial as many seem to.

    Having said all that, I also find the reaction overblown (I don't like the change, but find it more of a minor annoyance than a Greek tragedy), but that's par for the course to me. I've come to expect that any change they announce will be met by 1) announcements of players stopping their support of the game or threatening to quit - and the desire to tell us all about it (like we all sit around just dying to know whether or not MPQStud is still supporting the game) 2) claims that "It's all a money grab" (or IAAMG as I call it), 3) irrational (and often, I think, a bit arrogant) claims that all or most players hate the change,  which thus 4) proves either a) the devs are totally incompetent, b) the devs are worthless, evil scum, c) the devs make all of their changes solely because they hate the players and deliberately want to slap them in the face. 




  • twobites
    twobites Posts: 16 Just Dropped In
    Looks like I'm in the minority, but I like this change. It makes Heroes for Hire less of a money grab as its not trying to force a new cover on you every day. By aligning with the Crash of the Titans, it gives everyone a chance to get that cover they may need to beat the Crash of the Titans and earn the LT.

    To me, while a big part of the game is flushing out your roster and champing characters, a bigger part is the challenge of placing well in PvE/PvP and beating the Crash of the Titans every rotation. This makes the latter even more likely. 

    While I still think a better solution is needed to help those obtain covers for characters that aren't in the normal packs, Heroes for Hire was not intended to be that solution.
  • Warbringa
    Warbringa Posts: 1,299 Chairperson of the Boards
    BlackWidower said:
    OMG - Look at the new update - all the covers are missing!

    it was just updated and now you can't even get the other covers that were there.  you can only get one!
    I was saving up for a cover that was supposed to be there until the 29th and then it was supposed to be there for another 18 hours and now you have gotten rid of them completely.

    seriously?  are you trying to repel people, this "work' is the equivalent of a 7-11 parking lot DJ.

    This is beyond words. 
    To be fair, they did say until Tuesday the 27th.  That is because Hulkbuster crash starts tomorrow and they want to start the new system then.  It will be interesting to see if they start with Hulkbuster's 3rd cover or back with his first.  I agree with the general angst of your post though BlackWidower as there really is no reason to be fair to the devs for this bad decision.
  • Warbringa
    Warbringa Posts: 1,299 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited June 2017
    astrp3 said:

    Having said all that, I also find the reaction overblown (I don't like the change, but find it more of a minor annoyance than a Greek tragedy), but that's par for the course to me. I've come to expect that any change they announce will be met by 1) announcements of players stopping their support of the game or threatening to quit - and the desire to tell us all about it (like we all sit around just dying to know whether or not MPQStud is still supporting the game) 2) claims that "It's all a money grab" (or IAAMG as I call it), 3) irrational (and often, I think, a bit arrogant) claims that all or most players hate the change,  which thus 4) proves either a) the devs are totally incompetent, b) the devs are worthless, evil scum, c) the devs make all of their changes solely because they hate the players and deliberately want to slap them in the face. 

    Well that may be true astrp3 but there is some level of truth to all four points that you have outlined.  
  • animaniactoo
    animaniactoo Posts: 486 Mover and Shaker
    orbitalint said:
    GrimSkald said:
    The reaction to this change seems rather extreme - I don't know how many of you out there have ever used Heroes for Hire, but I suspect it's a fairly small percentage of the people responding.  The cost is high and the reward is so-so.  I suspect that's true across the board, If HfH isn't used very much, then clearly the devs decided to make a change to it to see if they could make it utilized more.

    I think the reason behind the change is to give those people without the 4* in "Crash" a chance to purchase it, simple as that.  Will this end up with HfH being actually used more?  No, I doubt it highly, but I certainly don't attribute malice to the decision.
    Reasonable response, Grim but if usage wasn't that high, why did they feel the need to reduce the rotation by 5 fold? Even would be day 1 whales would need to wait 3 months to get every color through HfH before even starting on their journey to 13 covers via CP usage, BH, or tokens.

    Also, what Crash can you complete with one 4* cover besides maybe Prof X purple? The model they used previously made some sense despite how awful it was too. You could get by with just having the require 4* if you had champed 2*/3* for the combo team. Access to 1 cover is useless in Crash and with vaulted characters, that means maybe 5 years before you can take a stab at it using this method alone? 

    I still haven't seen a plausible theory besides artificially preserving cover scarcity for all SCLs because they didn't like the dollar conversation rate for 4*'s in the previous HfH store and/or the lack of HfH buying from SCL6+. 

    Here's another possibility - CS was getting a lot of complaints about not having access to the 4* in the store, only the 3*. Recognizing that it's a lot easier to accumulate 3*s than 4*s, they decided to pull the 3* level. However, they don't want newer players buying the game, OR deal with another level of complaints they have likely been getting and expect to increase with the change - that they are money hungry and the store is too expensive and why is it so much HP when people need HP for roster slots, etc.

    So now they're left with locking the lower level rosters out of a store that's intended to give them access to vaulted characters so they'll have them for essentials... or making it more reasonable in terms of how much HP can possibly be spent. Solution: Reduce the amount of covers that *can* be bought this way.

    Because they decided the stress test of the game is going to mean that it's better for lower level players to continue to have access, than for higher level players to be able to champ more quickly, etc.

    Note that I'm just spitballing here, but as I said before, I work in PD and this would be a fairly typical way to try to handle a situation that was spinning out of control.

    Personally, I think that in this case it's treating a symptom* (complaints about HFH store) rather than a root issue (longterm effects of vaulting). But hey, that's just me.

    *Like when you go to the doctor because you have allergies, and they give you an anti-histamine, but now you have dry mouth, so you get a medication for that too, and then you're starting to have problems sleeping, so you get a medication for that too, but now you're having some minor anxiety, and soon you're taking an entire medicine cabinet full of pills instead of going back to the start and trying a different allergy med. Until you switch doctors, and the new doctor takes a look at the big picture of all the meds you're on, and says "Let's pull back and take you off everything for 2 weeks and see what we're dealing with when you don't have all of this in your system".
  • fanghoul
    fanghoul Posts: 311 Mover and Shaker
    Well this stinks on a number of levels. I was planning on buying a Drax cover if a better option didn't come up, but now that's not available. I haven't been frequenting the forums regularly, so I had no way to know that this was coming, and that I should have snatched that cover up right away. And it's not even Tuesday yet!

    I also hate this change in a more general sense too. I liked having more rapid turnover in the characters and covers that I could choose from. Now it may literally be half a year until my preferred character comes up. 

    I'm not sure what the point here is, since I had a reason to be regularly spending hero points before, and now I don't.

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