The current pink elephant in the room. 5 star boosted Gambit from ill-gotten gains.

Avalancher

I just hope it leads you to a less invested attitude to the game.

When it doesnt matter much, it is so much more enjoyable.

Compared to when I was trying to hit top 10 etc, Im having a great time.  I hope more people can find a balance that leads to a similar effect for them.

Wonderful point.  When I was tooth and nail in PvP things got way too intense. Then came SCL9 PvE and the game blossomed for me again.

I hope everyone can find the joy, this game is really fun when you don't grip so tightly.

maguirenumber6

corytutor said:

Its like talking to a tree

I AM GROOT

westnyy2

Vhailorx said:

Westnyy2:

How can you dismiss the gambit boost as a factor, but then cite an example in which your 460 5*s lost to a 550 gambit in 6 turns?  

The leveling power curve is not linear.  It ticks up sharply after 350 or so.  That means 550s are immensely powerful.  They have about twice the health, power damage, and match damage of 450s.  

Your A team of 2x 460s + a champed GR is strong.  But it's totally outclassed by any team with a good 550 character (and whether gambit is broken or not we can all agree that he is top tier).  Would you have much sympathy for some with a 2* roster complaining about how hard it was to fight champed, boosted 4*s?  That's the kind of disparity that 450 v. 550 translates to at the lower tiers.

@Vhailorx

I get what you're saying and that is correct. I didn't necessarily go into the match thinking I'd certainly win but the quickness of me losing is absurd. I fight 550 teams on occasion and win some and lose probably more. The difference is that in most of those matches I have an honest shot of winning. In this one I did not.

Also, when I do face those teams, it's after I've passed the 1100 score mark. I am queuing these 550 Gambit teams from 300. It's the same theory on why I can't queue double 4 teams until after 900ish.

Conversely, I've faced many Gambit teams in the new Lightning Rounds and have had success but that was mainly because 4hor is boosted and brings a stun and a big hammer.

Every other character released is beatable with many teams from my roster. Gambit boosted or not does not fall into that same category.

bluewolf

Unlike prior cheats (I will use that word for simplicity), which have involved adding resources you did not buy, or attempting to manipulate the draws to get the desired result, this is "purchase bug" where the programmers made a big error which greatly advantaged users who could take advantage of it.  As such, the penalty has been moderated.  And as many have stated, it is a matter of getting what you were promised at the time of purchase.  (I cannot comment on people who somehow made purchases after the fix, but again, they purchased virtual goods. Purchases with real money.)

If there is an expectation that the purchases would be reversed and the resources removed, there is a big issue I see:

The money is not in the hands of the people who would issue the refund anymore.  (I assume.)

This is a digital business.  Money goes through your store of choice (Apple, Android, etc) who takes a cut.  Then the money goes to the publisher.  Then they need to pay (I assume) a huge chunk to Marvel for allowing them to continue using one of the most valuable licenses on the planet to sell digital goods to people who enjoy playing the game.  Then they pay the salaries of the employees, overhead (rent, server costs, etc) and see what's left.

If you pay attention, the publisher and programmers of this game are not large operations.  They operate at thin margins.  Many video game developers close, almost routinely, due to the difficulty in making a profit.  Marvel is probably where the majority of the money you spend on this game goes.  In the digital age, I assume that money moves very quickly and any money spent during this brief window is already in Marvel's coffers.  They aren't giving it back.

This is just one of many Marvel products and if it becomes a big problem or is not profitable, they will shut it down.  They've done it before.  

So, even if the developers decided that this is an issue that for the good of the game requires reversing the accounts of all who participated, it simply is probably not possible for them to execute that.

Managing your expectations is one of the keys to happiness in life.  In this case, I think it would help to try to have expectations match reality.

Stax the Foyer

Due to the nature of the error, the amount of money spent by exploiters is fairly trivial compared to regular buy club spending.   A single alliance could have gotten themselves 5000 CP each for less than $1500 total spent, less than if they had all bought a single stark, a regular occurance in buy clubs.

There would be a hit, but if regular big spenders stop because of this, that lost revenue is going to quickly overtake the amount at issue here.

Avalancher

Big spenders don’t even care about this. They won’t stop anything because of it. It made no difference to their game.

Stax the Foyer

Avalancher said:

Big spenders don’t even care about this. They won’t stop anything because of it. It made no difference to their game.

I mean, I'm an occasional spender who's done with non-VIP spending because of this.  Because of the small amount of money actually spent, it doesn't take too many people like me for this to become a net negative.

Vhailorx

Stax the Foyer said:

Avalancher said:

Big spenders don’t even care about this. They won’t stop anything because of it. It made no difference to their game.

I mean, I'm an occasional spender who's done with non-VIP spending because of this.  Because of the small amount of money actually spent, it doesn't take too many people like me for this to become a net negative.

Other than the $130 dollars i intend to spend on VIP this year, i am so upset about this issue that i will not spend a penny on this game!

???
I don't really think that stance will make much of an impression on demi/d3 stax. . .

corytutor

Well i wont be adding to my 7 grand anytime soon

Stax the Foyer

Vhailorx said:

Stax the Foyer said:

Avalancher said:

Big spenders don’t even care about this. They won’t stop anything because of it. It made no difference to their game.

I mean, I'm an occasional spender who's done with non-VIP spending because of this.  Because of the small amount of money actually spent, it doesn't take too many people like me for this to become a net negative.

Other than the $130 dollars i intend to spend on VIP this yeah, i am so upset about this issue that i will not spend a penny on this game!

???
I don't really think that stance will make much of an impression on demi/d3 stax. . .

Well, intercept spending, so probably more like $30.  It's a dropoff.

whitecat31

corytutor said:

Or you could just not read threads that bother you. 

Furthermore, Ive not really seen the op  complain about anything outside of this, very legitimate, gripe. 

I am sure I have complained about somethings (maybe a character nerf or 5 star rarity) , but in general, I am normally very positive about this game, and will continue to play it. I have used this forum for years, and I have gotten some great entertainment value and recruits for my alliances from it.

animaniactoo

Having read through all of this, I'd like to make several points.

1) Unless I am misunderstanding, most people who did this got the Gambit and very little else out of it because they likely spent all that CP as fast as the received it in order to get Gambit and/or cover him. If they leveled him by paying CP directly for the additional covers, it cost them 5,760 to do so. If they were covering him by additional pulls they have a leg up on some 4 stars and 5 stars but sans cover swaps and enough ISO to actually level them, they also have a whole lot of waste.

If the number of people who were actually able to do this AFTER the fix and participated in the hours long additional buys is in the range of 40 or so (2 alliances worth?), then it's not a big deal from one standpoint because a teeny tiny percentage of the playerbase have basically skipped a year's worth or so of the game. And because of laws around legality of purchase price etc. it's not something D3 can necessarily roll back that easily - so they've addressed it by creating a targeted penalty that mitigates some of the advantage that was received.

However, it is a HUGE problem that it happened at all, and particularly after several other bad code issues that have created an unintended advantage that people didn't have to go out of their way and do special tricks to receive.

So on both sides, it could be at once not that big a deal to pursue after the fact and at the same time a huge deal that it happened. And some of the devs might feel more annoyed than others at people who colluded to take advantage of the fact that the data push didn't fix everything.

2) I'm seeing a lot of judgmentalism about what people are spending their money on. Listen, if you have the money and you feel you're getting fair value for it, NOBODY is anybody to judge what somebody spends their money on as long as it's legal and not unethical.

I may think it's insane to spend that much money on a game, but at the same time - hey, thanks guys. Because you're paying the bills and keeping this game I like going.

And frankly, the same amounts of money could be spent on going to the movies, clubbing, eating out, knitting supplies, etc. over the course of a couple of years. A hobby is a hobby and people spend money on their hobbies and the things they enjoy. We're not going to talk about the 2000 books in my front hallway. At about $7 a book, that's $14,000 over the course of about 15 to 20 years (holy tinykitty I never did that math before). If I say it like that, it sounds insane.

If I was a knitter and a company put out a very limited edition will never make it this way again (color combo, whatever) and I paid a higher price because it was rare and being able to use it gave me pleasure, and I could do something unique with it that not a lot of other people could, you bet I would feel my prior purchase was devalued if they turned around 6 months later and said "Oops, we ran an accidental batch of it, we're selling it off at bulk price to get rid of it." A] Because I paid more for it, and B] because part of what I paid for was RARITY. An advantage. And I would be very upset with a company that didn't take that seriously and understand what it owed me as a customer in exchange for what I was willing to pay at the time that I did.

So let's cool it on telling people they shouldn't be upset about how their previous purchase has been devalued by all of these issues. They could have spent their money on another hobby. They coulda bought wine and then been upset when they found a spoiled bottle. They have a right to be upset about this.

3) I understand that D3/Demi are small companies. But they owe their playerbase - and in particular the most loyal and longstanding and PAYING ones better communication than this. They owe some explanations and some apologies and some sort of plan for how to prevent this kind of stuff from happening again going forward. 

corytutor

@animaniactoo

Very well put. Thank you

therightwaye

Has there been any official word on this?

corytutor

therightwaye said:

Has there been any official word on this?

Yeah. Oops. We're sorry.  

About it and likely all and if its all, im likely to quit and I'll be asking for a full refund

Avalancher

corytutor said:

I'll be asking for a full refund.

That's pretty funny, thanks for helping me start my day with a smile.

We did get 60 days worth of refunds from Marvel War of Heroes when the announcement was made to shut the game down.  In this case you got what you paid for and it's highly unlikely that Apple or Google would even consider this to be any sort of breach of contract whatsoever.

But it never hurts to try, good luck!

(Oh, and some of my alliance mates got back over $20,000 for just those two months.  Whale life never ceases to amaze me.)

corytutor

Anything better than nothing

TF1977

No word, yet. My spending (time and money) has been devalued to the point that it's harder to justify any more of either.

RemoDestroyer

I changed my mind about not caring that a few players getting 7 cp many times as a bonus on a bugle pittance. Stinks that i spend 50 times more for the same bonus. Not only did I and most players miss out on getting a lot of 5* covers but also so many more 4* covers. Some of the 4*s as they get closer to level 370 give a pretty big advantage in tje game. For a single stark buy i get 140 cp. At the same cost they get 7,000 cp. And let's not pretend they weren't spending more.

whitecat31

RemoDestroyer said:

I changed my mind about not caring that a few players getting 7 cp many times as a bonus on a bugle pittance. Stinks that i spend 50 times more for the same bonus. Not only did I and most players miss out on getting a lot of 5* covers but also so many more 4* covers. Some of the 4*s as they get closer to level 370 give a pretty big advantage in tje game. For a single stark buy i get 140 cp. At the same cost they get 7,000 cp. And let's not pretend they weren't spending more.

Welcome to the fold. This inequality issue was made by D3. They could and should fix this issue. They should display a product with integrity, by flagging accounts with multiple 2 dollar purchases and their alliance recipients and dealing with them.  Is it that hard to figure out that, if players know they can exploit or cheat with no significant repercussions, they will continue to do so?