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

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Comments

  • orbitalint
    orbitalint Posts: 511 Critical Contributor
    edited June 2017
    @astrp3

    Those are all fair points. I do think the devs are out of touch with the needs of all players. I am sad if they are only thinking of the "Killer" Bartle type for every level of player. New players aren't all going to fit into the "I want to bash things with strong toys" - just like vets don't. It's why vaulting really disheartened me. 

    With vaulting, the explorer can't try out new/long standing combos because the characters aren't available (heck, even this game design doesn't really let you try out what a character actually does until about 10-11 covers). And the achiever can't collect all the characters or even their favorite characters in a measured way. And, the socializer uses these forums or Line for interaction, but the forum has been heavily changed in feel over the last 6 months with the overzealous modding.

    I'm a mix of explorer and achiever, btw  :).

    With the major changes in the last year, this is my not shocked face that the devs moves have really alienated three of the four traditional types of gamers.

    Personally, I find the outrage much more muted, tbh, but my hunch is that there aren't enough people left on the forums to be outraged. The OML nerf was raging much brighter and longer than this change and other "i quit" moments leaves few to be outraged at all. 

    @animaniactoo

    You actually brought up the first plausible reason for me - CS. Given how they weigh feedback in general, a large number of CS complaints about the issue would lead them to make this change.

    And so they treated the symptom, agreed. See my response here to Astrp3...their design is broken for most types of players. 
  • astrp3
    astrp3 Posts: 367 Mover and Shaker
    orbitalint said:

    Personally, I find the outrage much more muted, tbh, but my hunch is that there aren't enough people left on the forums to be outraged. The OML nerf was raging much brighter and longer than this change and other "i quit" moments leaves few to be outraged at all. 
    I agree that there has been less outrage about this in terms of number of responses. In terms of level of vitriol, I'm not so sure. As you say, this MAY be because there aren't enough players left to be outraged, but it may also be because not that many people bought HfH in the first place.
  • astrp3
    astrp3 Posts: 367 Mover and Shaker
    Warbringa said:
    Well that may be true astrp3 but there is some level of truth to all four points that you have outlined.  I
    I don't want to derail this topic too much, but I'm not sure there is any level of truth to 2-4, but maybe that's just me. There may be some truth. There may not. I think that 2) could just result from people misusing the term "money grab". 3) may be completely false for a given issue. As for 4), it may be the case that the devs don't understand the game. But I think it could also be the case that they understand the game (at least the business side of the game and what keeps it viable) more than the complainers. It may even be the case that they understand what is good for the long term health of the game better than the complainers. I'm not saying this is the case. Sometimes I also wonder if they understand the game or if they are making the right decisions. I'm just not arrogant enough to present my concerns as undisputed ascertained fact or to discount the possibility that I could be wrong. And I'm certainly not going to use my unproven, unsupported speculations as flawed premises in an invalid argument that proves the devs are fools, in cahoots with the whales, etc. etc. etc. 
  • MissChinch
    MissChinch Posts: 509 Critical Contributor
    twobites said:
    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.

    You know you could buy the cover for anyone on sale during the window...  the option to buy isn't a 24 hour thing, they were all available to be purchased with HP for about a week...  just click on any of the hero icons in the list and you could buy em you don't wait until they're about to leave the store...
  • MissChinch
    MissChinch Posts: 509 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...

    I think that's a common occurrence on these boards, people commenting about things they don't use or parts of the game they aren't actively experiencing now....


    Personally since the HfH store came out its been the only thing I've spent HP on (save for a few 8 hour shields)  Its far and away the best way to target specific covers for character, being able to rely on the ability to purchase any specific cover within a ~5 month timespan is an amazing boon for people looking to collect vaulted 4*s and get them championed (its out of my price range to make substantial champion level progress)  I'd say I've purchased somewhere between 7 and 15 heroes for hire.


    The heroes for sale in the current version of the store (for the next day) were able to be purchased for the entire duration they appeared there... something like 8 days per character...   you could easily just have the hero for the crash be one of those characters and accomplish the same thing...   maybe the 24 hour window was misleading people into thinking they only had 24 hours in which to buy a specific cover and didn't realize it could be bought as soon as they appeared on the bottom list of icons?

  • animaniactoo
    animaniactoo Posts: 486 Mover and Shaker
    Another potential theory - somebody took a big picture look, and saw the upcoming (now current) vintage heroic store, and realized that it was going to be hard to get people to spend on them because when you balance the cost for that and HFH out, HFH wins hands down any day and 2x on Sunday. Since even if you don't have the "coin" to spend on HFH, if you conclude that the other is a worse value even if it has a lower entry point, you're less likely to spend on it.

    But since the intention (at this point) is not to solve dilution by reflooding the game with access to the vaulted characters, instead of increasing the 3* & 4* percentage chances in the Vintage Heroics, they decided to pull back on the HFH as a long-term balance strategy.

    In which case, I would like to say that somebody is STILL out of their tinykitty minds to think that I'm going to spend HP for a 3-in-5 shot of getting a 2-star character and I think it's bad value for the resource for newer players as well.

    (Again, I'm just spitballing, I have no idea what factors actually went into this decision; I'm just looking at potential pd strategies since that's my world.)
  • nycjonny
    nycjonny Posts: 59 Match Maker
    Hmm what's the point of announcing on the forum the store is changing on Tuesday if it's already changed. I was about to go buy one last hero and all the options are gone. Is that how things roll around here? 
  • MissChinch
    MissChinch Posts: 509 Critical Contributor
    animaniactoo said:
    Another potential theory - somebody took a big picture look, and saw the upcoming (now current) vintage heroic store, and realized that it was going to be hard to get people to spend on them because when you balance the cost for that and HFH out, HFH wins hands down any day and 2x on Sunday. Since even if you don't have the "coin" to spend on HFH, if you conclude that the other is a worse value even if it has a lower entry point, you're less likely to spend on it.

    But since the intention (at this point) is not to solve dilution by reflooding the game with access to the vaulted characters, instead of increasing the 3* & 4* percentage chances in the Vintage Heroics, they decided to pull back on the HFH as a long-term balance strategy.

    In which case, I would like to say that somebody is STILL out of their tinykitty minds to think that I'm going to spend HP for a 3-in-5 shot of getting a 2-star character and I think it's bad value for the resource for newer players as well.

    (Again, I'm just spitballing, I have no idea what factors actually went into this decision; I'm just looking at potential pd strategies since that's my world.)

    Who knows...  but I threw all my HP into the HfH store and wasn't even motivated enough to get more than 2 tokens for the vintage thing in-between seasons, let alone spend HP on.
  • twobites
    twobites Posts: 16 Just Dropped In
    MissChinch said:

    You know you could buy the cover for anyone on sale during the window...  the option to buy isn't a 24 hour thing, they were all available to be purchased with HP for about a week...  just click on any of the hero icons in the list and you could buy em you don't wait until they're about to leave the store...
    Yes, but the current implementation ties the Heroes for Hire line-up with the Behemoth Burrito schedule for 4*s. To do what you are suggesting would mean they would have to make the required character for CoT the same as BB, which would really suck if you don't have that 4* at all. Or, completely redesign the line-up which even further complicates the change and would face the same or worse backlash than this change.
  • MissChinch
    MissChinch Posts: 509 Critical Contributor
    twobites said:
    MissChinch said:

    You know you could buy the cover for anyone on sale during the window...  the option to buy isn't a 24 hour thing, they were all available to be purchased with HP for about a week...  just click on any of the hero icons in the list and you could buy em you don't wait until they're about to leave the store...
    Yes, but the current implementation ties the Heroes for Hire line-up with the Behemoth Burrito schedule for 4*s. To do what you are suggesting would mean they would have to make the required character for CoT the same as BB, which would really suck if you don't have that 4* at all. Or, completely redesign the line-up which even further complicates the change and would face the same or worse backlash than this change.


    BB runs a different character every day...  if the BB and the CoT character lined up the same its still only one day, and in either scenario you would have the option to buy the character out of the HfH vault anyhow...


    Now you have an event that requires a 4* that changes daily (BB) and an event that requires a 4* that changes every 5 days (CoT) 

    The daily event (BB) has two other characters to assist the 4* and is a much easier fight than the CoT...  Its reasonable to expect a win when only having a single cover in the required character for the BB, its not for the CoT. 

    The current incarnation of the HfH store provides a cover for sale over a week or so , with a new cover being added each day.


    As an aside, I don't see how re-designing the lineup of the BB or CoT would likely face the dame or worse backlash than this...  but the forums can be a scary place for bad ideas, so who knows.

  • Felessa
    Felessa Posts: 161 Tile Toppler
    By the title, here I was optimistically thinking that they were re-evaluating the HfH store price and/or contents to something better for us... By the way, I bought it 4 times when they were testing the prices (2500hp), then, never more after the final price was increased.
  • Cranky
    Cranky Posts: 2 Just Dropped In
    For a company that puts out so many customer surveys, you'd think that they could have avoided this seemingly inane change. Exactly whom does this particular change benefit? Certainly none of the players--are we really supposed to believe THAT EXACT ONE COVER OF THE COLOR WE DON'T PICK is going to make all the difference in an otherwise unwinnable Crash of the Titans? "Oh, I can't play because I don't have a yellow Thing cover!" "Don't worry, we've got your back!!"
  • smkspy
    smkspy Posts: 2,024 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited June 2017
    In a way, it's a great idea to tie the crash person of the week as a hfh option. Yes, one cover can make the difference between winning a crash and continually losing it. In this case, I don't think the thing yellow accomplishes that other than allowing a person level him higher if bought.

    But overall, they threw the baby out with the bath water in providing player with of one the very options of aquiring vaulted 4 star characters.
  • sbnj2000
    sbnj2000 Posts: 1 Just Dropped In
    this appears to affect the whales the most, who I assume were using HFH more than CP to level up 4 stars and get champ rewards. For D3, that's lost money from buying clubs. Whales are the only ones with an abundance of HP where they don't need more HP for roster slots. I'm guessing the average player (both F2P and minimal pay-to-play) weren't using HFH store in high volume and this change obviously won't make them more likely to spend more. 

    that said, even though I wouldn't dream of using 3600 HP on ONE cover, I hate the lack of transparency here. it doesn't bode well for other changes that affect more casual players. 
  • astrp3
    astrp3 Posts: 367 Mover and Shaker
    smkspy said:
    In a way, it's a great idea to tie the crash person of the week as a hfh option. Yes, one cover can make the difference between winning a crash and continually losing it. In this case, I don't think the thing yellow accomplishes that other than allowing a person level him higher if bought.

    I agree that in some situations, having one extra cover can make a difference, though I think such situations are rare. There are situations where going from 4 to 5 covers in a skill can make the difference between winning and losing (e.g. Peggy's red or blue) - or at least between winning without expending a lot of health packs and boosts and winning while doing so. As mentioned, there's also the case of characters with invisibility who can win with a single cover (Professor X, Howard, Invisible Woman?)

    Speaking of Howard, is he still in the Crash rotation and if so, does this mean he will be offered as HfH when he is? If so, that's one HfH I can see even a few jaded forumites buying.


  • BoyWonder1914
    BoyWonder1914 Posts: 884 Critical Contributor
    edited June 2017
    Funny thing is that a daily Crash (which we've been asking for God knows how long now) would instantly make this all ok. Even with 50-ish characters, everyone would still rotate through every 2 months, give or take about a week. However we have no reason to believe that they're up to something like that, because why not announce it with this? They're not doing themselves any favors by being silent every time someone asks about the impetus behind a major decision like this. 
  • MissChinch
    MissChinch Posts: 509 Critical Contributor

    So they doubled down on making it worse...  


    Theres no longer any section at the bottom listing the characters available to buy, just the Thing screen expiring in 15 hours.


    So the part in the screenshot Brigby pasted, showing smaller icons of heroes available to buy (imhb and iw?), isn't even there anymore...   Either they actually managed to make it EVEN worse in the last two days, or they've reached a point where the bugs are actually deploying themselves...


    I'm not even mad, I'm impressed.

  • Jsh2014
    Jsh2014 Posts: 87 Match Maker
    MissChinch said:

    So they doubled down on making it worse...  


    Theres no longer any section at the bottom listing the characters available to buy, just the Thing screen expiring in 15 hours.


    So the part in the screenshot Brigby pasted, showing smaller icons of heroes available to buy (imhb and iw?), isn't even there anymore...   Either they actually managed to make it EVEN worse in the last two days, or they've reached a point where the bugs are actually deploying themselves...


    I'm not even mad, I'm impressed.

    Lol

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