An Idea on coexistence between Veteran and New players

Clintman

First let me thank Shamusyeah and Hairydave (who claims to like Loki... /shudder) as well as the other contributors to the Idea for avoiding burnout thread.

I do not claim all of these ideas as my own, I have read different suggestions and this is what I feel would be a good direction.

This post is based on the following premise: Veteran players are not satisfied with being given the same rewards as new players.

This is not a new concept, that is why there are different leagues, minor and major, or any other comparison of different brackets that exist in every other established competitive game, be it real sports or video games. Michael Jordan made a lot more money as a pro than he did when he started out. I make more money now in my career job than I did when I worked at Subway as a teenager. When I played WOW, I had access to rewards that could only be obtained by being max level and defeating hard objectives with my guild.

Michael Jordan most likely would not have played at the same level or as long if he were making the same at the top of his career as he did when he started. I certainly would not do the job I currently do at Subway wages. I certainly never would have stopped killing level 1 Kobolds in WOW if I had the same chance of getting an Epic Mount as I had by killing the Lich King on heroic.

What is not working: Bracketing without increasing rewards to match the increase of difficulty.

You took away my level 1 Kobolds and left me with only Heroic Lich King. Sure I have a chance at the Epic Mount but I had to kill Heroic Lich King to get that chance at the mount. And my buddy who just rolled a character got the Epic Mount off of a level 1 Kobold.

What could work: Create simultaneous events that you can only join one of but not both.
Heavy Metal Normal: You get rewards needed to bring your roster up to heroic level. 2-5th place get Punisher +2 heroic packs.
-Normal Payout per fight
-increased chance of the cover drops.

Heavy Metal Heroic: You get much more ISO and more frequent new characters, so HT covers instead of the Heavy Metal Normal packs Punisher covers.
-Double Payout per fight

Let the players bracket themselves based on their decisions of risk vs reward. If bob takes his 2* roster into Heavy Metal Heroic and gets creamed by 3* rosters he is not going to be overly surprised and will want to juice up his roster to compete at the higher level.

Keep Season fights, but don't make every event season. Leave the season fights totally unregulated brackets. Let alliances compete in the full and open battlefield. An alliance of 1*'s should not be expecting to take first, and the developers should not try to make it so that they can.

What this would accomplish in my opinion Veterans can rightly feel like the badasses they are. They have put in the time/money to get where they are and they can go after the juicy prizes. New players have events they can compete in relatively unscathed, plus they have the carrot to look at longingly of the heroic modes that they can work to.

Unknown

Yeah, the separate difficulties with different rewards is a good idea as long as you can choose just one, otherwise you just get veterans trying to win both. It's like the normal and hard modes in PvE, but without missing the whole point.

For the season, I've been thinking that it would be cool if the season could last longer but just have "official" season events at a fixed schedule once a week at a time that could work more or less for everyone. (Friday to mid-Sunday or Thursday to mid-Saturday or whatever). You'd have the buildup for the season event during the week and people would need to just go all out once a week if they don't need the covers from the other events. So a Season would be like 2 months with 8 events or something like that.

farlus

I think you would also need a disincentive from a point standpoint if you have these choosable brackets for season events so that 3x141s that don't need the additional rewards from heroic don't jump into the normal bracket so that they can mop up newbs and inflate their season scores.

Overall I like the idea though. I'm just not sure the devs will pay attention because it's unclear how this move would increase profit (apart from indirectly through player happiness levels).

Clintman

farlus wrote:

I think you would also need a disincentive from a point standpoint if you have these choosable brackets for season events so that 3x141s that don't need the additional rewards from heroic don't jump into the normal bracket so that they can mop up newbs and inflate their season scores.

Overall I like the idea though. I'm just not sure the devs will pay attention because it's unclear how this move would increase profit (apart from indirectly through player happiness levels).

I thought about that, but disincentives aren't that necessary when you have incentives that outweigh them. I can tell you for sure I will not join a normal mode over a heroic mode if heroic mode pays me double the ISO per win. I would have a serious conversation in my head "Do I need that Punisher cover enough to give up the cash I need to level up my ginormous stable of characters?"

mohio

If the veteran group (i.e. heroic or hard or whatever they'd call it) is always playing for newer characters I'd imagine they will, on the whole, have to spend much more in shields to stay near the top of their bracket due to the increased difficulty.

trey9

With this idea, the middle tier people would be sort of stuck still. Instead of having such small rewards for the low tier class, I think it would be great if they had a normal mode (like you said) where the bracketing was just as it used to be (time based), so mid tier people can usually get two or three covers for each pvp. This would help immensely. And then make a heroic type mode (again, like you said) have some pretty substantial rewards. Like maybe any color of any cover (or covers) of your choice and a good chunk of iso for the top rewards. And if really high level guys want to take an event easy, they could just play in the normal tier event. There are a few problems with this though, the main problem I see would be the alliance scoring algorithms would have to get tweaked somehow or else you might have fighting within alliances having people say they need the normal tier rewards, while others will go for the high tier rewards. Of course, all of our ideas are pure fantasy, so you can probably throw all of this out the window as the devs won't be giving out any more rewards than they already are. They can't break their current money making scheme, but at the cost of losing players? Seems counter-productive in the long run. It's baffling to think they can't look towards the future at all, considering all of these "it's working as intended" responses. They need to change things quickly before they start losing even more players. And once they lose the veterans, they will be left will lots of new players and max 2 star players. They will all be competing as the top players are now, and then the two star players will start to quit as they see no reason to progress. Eventually they will be stuck with only new players, which could be the death of this game.

Clintman

mohio wrote:

If the veteran group (i.e. heroic or hard or whatever they'd call it) is always playing for newer characters I'd imagine they will, on the whole, have to spend much more in shields to stay near the top of their bracket due to the increased difficulty.

Arguably that would be a win for both the veteran players and the developers who enjoy the cash influx from veterans boosting to get the shineys. Increased ISO reward would make me feel better about grinding harder teams, and make the need to shield hop more frequently easier to bear.

Clintman

trey9 wrote:

With this idea, the middle tier people would be sort of stuck still. Instead of having such small rewards for the low tier class, I think it would be great if they had a normal mode (like you said) where the bracketing was just as it used to be (time based), so mid tier people can usually get two or three covers for each pvp. This would help immensely. And then make a heroic type mode (again, like you said) have some pretty substantial rewards. Like maybe any color of any cover (or covers) of your choice and a good chunk of iso for the top rewards. And if really high level guys want to take an event easy, they could just play in the normal tier event. There are a few problems with this though, the main problem I see would be the alliance scoring algorithms would have to get tweaked somehow or else you might have fighting within alliances having people say they need the normal tier rewards, while others will go for the high tier rewards. Of course, all of our ideas are pure fantasy, so you can probably throw all of this out the window as the devs won't be giving out any more rewards than they already are. They can't break their current money making scheme, but at the cost of losing players? Seems counter-productive in the long run. It's baffling to think they can't look towards the future at all, considering all of these "it's working as intended" responses. They need to change things quickly before they start losing even more players. And once they lose the veterans, they will be left will lots of new players and max 2 star players. They will all be competing as the top players are now, and then the two star players will start to quit as they see no reason to progress. Eventually they will be stuck with only new players, which could be the death of this game.

I would argue that only two events would be necessary under the assumption that you are either building your roster, or competing for top prizes with your roster. Normal mode would have the new players mixed in with the intermediate players. They would still have to work for their prizes, but they would not have the grind or the incentives that the veteran players would have.

Unknown

As a self proclaimed mid level player the 3*s have dried up harshly recently. I used to be able to expect to pull at least one or two covers per event if not all 3 but being able to flex mid level muscles in a normal tournament for a single cover I need would be a great improvement over the punishment being endured currently.

scottee

I think only being able to choose one would need to come with CLEAR instructions that your choice is final and what the incentives and downsides of each are.

Another options is, and I suggested this somewhere else, run the 2 simultaneous events, where the main event is the same as it currently is now. Then run a "lite" version that is limited to 2* and lower only. Both vets and new players can compete in both, but it gives the new players more even ground, as you only face 85's at most. New players can also try to grind and get lucky in the main event. Vets can then play in the lower one if they want, but don't really have an incentive to, and they also have no advantage of a mid-tier player, so most probably wouldn't want to. And I'd be fine if the rewards in both were the same, though I think it's also fine if they're differentiated by a little bit.

Colognoisseur

tl;dr Despite what the forum might lead you to believe the "Veterans" are a tiny minority of the overall active player population.

There aren't that many "Veterans" for this to be viable.
If we accept that there are bout 100,000 active participants in an event which seems right to me based on the final numbers we've seen on the results.
I would say that there are no more than 4,000 players which fit the definition of "Veteran". The worldview of the forum is skewed because this is where a high percentage of this minority hang out and communicate.
The other 96,000 players are where the future of the game lies and catering to the small minority of "Veterans" would have a minimal effect especially because the nature of these "Veterans" is they are likely hardcore promiscuous gamers who will eventually become entranced with a new shiny object sooner than later.
This is why the devs will do nothing because the ways to keep the "Veterans" engaged are, and should not be, a priority.

Unknown

Aren't they ostensibly trying to do this through MMR? Now a 'veteran' player is pretty easily able to get 900-1400 points in PVP, while the new player hits a wall around 600 and a mid-level player hits a wall around 900.

In PvE, they try to create special nodes/buffed characters that a higher level player is more likely to benefit from because they are more likely to have that character in a useable state. So, they get easier points allowing them to remain at the top more easily than the newer player.

They also knew with alliances that 'veterans' were more likely to band together, thus insuring that they would get higher payouts in each and every event even though they are still earning the same 'reward' as the new players on a match per match basis.

user311

Sorry - but perhaps someone could define veteran for me, because I dont agree with the premise "Veteran players are not satisfied with being given the same rewards as new players." As a 99% F2P player on day 195+, there are a lot of covers which I don't have. I don't mind playing for the Rags and IM40s. I have earn hoards of OBW covers but rarely do I get some of these others. But the way scaling is there are new players that are finishing higher in the brackets that I am and actually are able to earn better rewards than me. That is what I not satisfied with. Its not the carrot.

LordWill

trey9 wrote:

With this idea, the middle tier people would be sort of stuck still. Instead of having such small rewards for the low tier class, I think it would be great if they had a normal mode (like you said) where the bracketing was just as it used to be (time based), so mid tier people can usually get two or three covers for each pvp. This would help immensely. And then make a heroic type mode (again, like you said) have some pretty substantial rewards. Like maybe any color of any cover (or covers) of your choice and a good chunk of iso for the top rewards. And if really high level guys want to take an event easy, they could just play in the normal tier event. There are a few problems with this though, the main problem I see would be the alliance scoring algorithms would have to get tweaked somehow or else you might have fighting within alliances having people say they need the normal tier rewards, while others will go for the high tier rewards. Of course, all of our ideas are pure fantasy, so you can probably throw all of this out the window as the devs won't be giving out any more rewards than they already are. They can't break their current money making scheme, but at the cost of losing players? Seems counter-productive in the long run. It's baffling to think they can't look towards the future at all, considering all of these "it's working as intended" responses. They need to change things quickly before they start losing even more players. And once they lose the veterans, they will be left will lots of new players and max 2 star players. They will all be competing as the top players are now, and then the two star players will start to quit as they see no reason to progress. Eventually they will be stuck with only new players, which could be the death of this game.

This is already happening, hence their move to give out covers to players instead of iso rewards. They basically did a bandaid than actually fix the underlying issues as usual. Right now they are just doing the shuffle game of trying to do as little as possible to appease current players and as much as possible to gain new ones. Eventually it will all fall down like a house of cards and what you said will come to pass. More newer players are coming to the forums and seeing exactly what is going on and are voicing their frustration. I could go on and on but I will stop, just frustrates me...

Clintman

Colognoisseur wrote:

tl;dr Despite what the forum might lead you to believe the "Veterans" are a tiny minority of the overall active player population.

There aren't that many "Veterans" for this to be viable.
If we accept that there are bout 100,000 active participants in an event which seems right to me based on the final numbers we've seen on the results.
I would say that there are no more than 4,000 players which fit the definition of "Veteran". The worldview of the forum is skewed because this is where a high percentage of this minority hang out and communicate.
The other 96,000 players are where the future of the game lies and catering to the small minority of "Veterans" would have a minimal effect especially because the nature of these "Veterans" is they are likely hardcore promiscuous gamers who will eventually become entranced with a new shiny object sooner than later.
This is why the devs will do nothing because the ways to keep the "Veterans" engaged are, and should not be, a priority.

while your reasoning is clear I cannot agree with your conclusions. The future of the game is going to lie in breaking the code for the endgame, keeping people engaged and spending money. New players and casuals will not dig in and invest in a game where the veteran population leaves in droves. In order for people to feel secure to invest money they will want to see the game community alive and well. I base this expectation on failed MMOs like DAOC and Rift where the endgame fell flat. The incentive to invest in a game with a blatant shelf life of fun is low. This game demands you to dedicate a lot of time playing to build your rosters. If you see that the people who jumped on the treadmill ahead of you got bored and quit then you are less likely to dedicate the time and money that D3 is looking for.

Would you have invested the kind of money into your roster and characters if you felt like it wasn't going to last, or did you invest in something you hope to be long term?

Clintman

user311 wrote:

Sorry - but perhaps someone could define veteran for me, because I dont agree with the premise "Veteran players are not satisfied with being given the same rewards as new players." As a 99% F2P player on day 195+, there are a lot of covers which I don't have. I don't mind playing for the Rags and IM40s. I have earn hoards of OBW covers but rarely do I get some of these others. But the way scaling is there are new players that are finishing higher in the brackets that I am and actually are able to earn better rewards than me. That is what I not satisfied with. Its not the carrot.

For the purposes of this post I am defining veterans as the people with established rosters of 141's, the collectors, the people who take the game far to seriously

That is why I was suggesting creating two events, you choose which one you enter. The heroic/harder one has higher rewards and you go against stronger competition. This would leave long time players who do not have deep 141 heavy rosters to pick the normal mode and compete for the covers they can still use.

Unknown

So simple and so effective, Clint. Now the real challenge: getting them to listen to you.

The real truth, sadly, is that they probably just don't care about veterans because, by and large, they don't buy HP and/or ISO at the same rate as new players do.

Clintman

wathombe wrote:

So simple and so effective, Clint. Now the real challenge: getting them to listen to you.

The real truth, sadly, is that they probably just don't care about veterans because, by and large, they don't buy HP and/or ISO at the same rate as new players do.

I don't know about that, after I blow my HP load on MoDaken I am going to buy more HP at the next sale.

LordWill

Clintman wrote:

user311 wrote:

Sorry - but perhaps someone could define veteran for me, because I dont agree with the premise "Veteran players are not satisfied with being given the same rewards as new players." As a 99% F2P player on day 195+, there are a lot of covers which I don't have. I don't mind playing for the Rags and IM40s. I have earn hoards of OBW covers but rarely do I get some of these others. But the way scaling is there are new players that are finishing higher in the brackets that I am and actually are able to earn better rewards than me. That is what I not satisfied with. Its not the carrot.

For the purposes of this post I am defining veterans as the people with established rosters of 141's, the collectors, the people who take the game far to seriously

That is why I was suggesting creating two events, you choose which one you enter. The heroic/harder one has higher rewards and you go against stronger competition. This would leave long time players who do not have deep 141 heavy rosters to pick the normal mode and compete for the covers they can still use.

I think this would be a great step in the right direction. I suggested something like this in one of my threads way back and it seemed that they listened because shortly after they had 2 PvE events, one normal, one heroic. Now if they can just apply the same type of system to PvP with rewards equal to the risk, I think they would be in better shape.

I think they need to take notice because as time goes by, the number of Veteran players increases and will be faced with the problems we have now later on.

Clintman

LordWill wrote:

Clintman wrote:

user311 wrote:

Sorry - but perhaps someone could define veteran for me, because I dont agree with the premise "Veteran players are not satisfied with being given the same rewards as new players." As a 99% F2P player on day 195+, there are a lot of covers which I don't have. I don't mind playing for the Rags and IM40s. I have earn hoards of OBW covers but rarely do I get some of these others. But the way scaling is there are new players that are finishing higher in the brackets that I am and actually are able to earn better rewards than me. That is what I not satisfied with. Its not the carrot.

For the purposes of this post I am defining veterans as the people with established rosters of 141's, the collectors, the people who take the game far to seriously

That is why I was suggesting creating two events, you choose which one you enter. The heroic/harder one has higher rewards and you go against stronger competition. This would leave long time players who do not have deep 141 heavy rosters to pick the normal mode and compete for the covers they can still use.

I think this would be a great step in the right direction. I suggested something like this in one of my threads way back and it seemed that they listened because shortly after they had 2 PvE events, one normal, one heroic. Now if they can just apply the same type of system to PvP with rewards equal to the risk, I think they would be in better shape.

I think they need to take notice because as time goes by, the number of Veteran players increases and will be faced with the problems we have now later on.

ROFL, anyone else immediately think of the Social Security System?

I think you keyed into one of my underlying thoughts. This game is maturing, and I want to play it for a good long time. I want Deadpool to come out and when he does I am going to buy his covers (After I see what he looks like when Colognoisseur maxes him out the day after he gets released I also want to play with Colossus, and will throw money at a 3* Juggernaut.

They have already keyed in on one of the aspects of Mudflation, and that is making it easier for the new players to catch up to the Veterans by throwing 2* covers at them. They just need to fix risk vs reward and much of the angst will dry up in my own opinion.

Unknown

Having separate difficulty bracket would never work without a drastic change in the reward structure. Unless the easy bracket has #1 getting say 3 heroic tokens, it won't work because the weakest player of the hard bracket is likely at least as good as the best player of the easy bracket assuming you actually got a system where correctly assigns the brackets, so that means your hard bracket should have 3 3* + 1 4* cover for finishing last, because otherwise the last place guy on the hard bracket should've just signed up for the easy bracket instead. Of course that'd be rather ridiculous reward structure for the hard bracket and can't possibly work. Even if you give bonus HP or bonus iso8 or whatever, it'd only affect guys who already have all the covers, and those guys you're talking more of a burnout issue that's a personal question. After all if you don't need any covers you're almost certainly doing fine on any personal/alliance event, so any pressure that person feels is just a personal thing and not something D3 can solve for him.