An Idea on coexistence between Veteran and New players

Unknown

I've basically been advocating this ever since I started posting here in February

gamar wrote:

Since I've started playing I've thought every event (PvP and PvE) should have two versions and you can only enter (and be seen in scaling/MMR pools for) one version [You choose which to enter and when you complete a node in one, you're locked out of the other]

For example

The "easy" version that gives out 2* covers, a 3* for first, and HP
The "hard" version that gives out 3* covers, a 4* for first, HP, and big ISO prizes

Colognoisseur

Clintman wrote:

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?

The fun of all these games is the strategic element and what MPQ needs to keep me coming back is to provide a challenge for me. To date they have done that. I don't want to just power over things I want to have levels that take some thought to get through. I loved playing the Lazy Daken node at the end of Heroic Oscorp. I played it 15 times at scaling which started at 274 and ended up in the mid 300s. It required thought it was a constant highwire act and there was a reward, because I could take on that level, I scored points others could not and as a result finished first.
From my point of view the game already provides lots of endgame content through scaling in PvE with the commensurate reward of being able to score on the tougher levels when others cannot. The content varies because the makeup of the big bad teams changes. This game will last with me as long as it continues to provide a strategic challenge. That is where I want the devs to be putting their efforts.
So far in my opinion I have been sufficiently challenged, entertained, and rewarded for the money I have spent on the game.
I don't need to be catered to with a special tier to be involved and I thoroughly disagree with the premise that it is a necessity for the long term health of the game.
Exhibit A to that is the long list of the early adopter veterans who left and the game continued to grow in leaps and bounds.
How many forum "veterans" have we lost over the last six months? How much of an impact has it had on you? For me it has had zero impact I respect their decision as correct for them, and only them. YMMV

emaker27

Some of these arguments dance around the issue but never say it. For any company, money is the driving force. If players that don't spend money want to leave, that doesn't affect business. D3P has the exact figures, so whatever changes/additions to the game are dictated by how people spend. It's not that they don't care about the players, it's just that if you want to see any change, the majority must affect their bottom line.

And yes, it behooves them the integrate some of the fans' requests in order to make more money; but again, they have the exact figures and have more insight than anyone on the outside. As more veterans have quit, there have been more server issues and delays. So that clearly points to a 'when 1 person leaves, there are 2 to replace them' situation.

Additionally, players get burned out from games all the time. This is basically Candy Crush with superheroes, or any match 3 game with superheroes. Those games have churned through many players and still continue, and this one will do the same.

Jathro

Cryptobrancus wrote:

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.

Agreed 100%. This is the same boat I'm in too. Having the option to grind hard in the "hard mode" pvp or be a big fish in a small pond in "normal mode" pvp would certainly be more enjoyable yhan beating my head against a wall at all times in the current state of pvp

Unknown

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.

I see what you mean, and I think that this is indeed the thought process of demiurge. or rather what I think is there thought process because they haven't been complete clear on it.

It sure seems like they are going after new players to expand their base which is fine, I agree this should be a priority for any game, so long as you dont do harm to the experience of your loyal players.

And although a lot of people think that since veterans are a tiny minority they pay on average a lot more money into the game than the rest of the player base. It's taken for granted that many of us buy stark salaries as a matter of course when each sale appears and many of us buy stark salaries in between sales as well. I dont have access to the numbers, but when you look at pure revenue, I'm sure veteran players are represented a lot more than the actual number of users that have 141 rosters.

I would also classify a veteran player as anyone that has at least 3 3*s that are over level 100. These are the players that are being negatively affected by the changes to PvE and the new bracket logic.

The end game is also important for new players because they need something to aspire to. If they get the feeling that the game will not be as good in the end game, then why play so hard?

daveomite

Clintman wrote:

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.

Great idea. I had suggested something sort of like this in another thread. What you mentioned about the separate events would help on allowing the 1/2*'s to continue to develop some before being thrown at the wolves. And, allows for both sides to have better, more focused reward structures.

Clintman

The challenge I think would come in figuring out how to deal with alliance rewards on split events. Since every PVP has an alliance reward, alliances would be borked if half their people joined the normal event, and the other half joined the heroic.

Unknown

The larger problem at hand here with this idea is giving the player the choice to pick a challenge instead of forcing them into a bracket. Why is player choice a big downfall of this idea? Because of Iso farming and/or reward farming.

I have seen several players that have max level 3* rosters. What's to stop them from entering easy mode, which would be quite literal for them, and just roflstomp the players who have no chance of fighting back?

Essentially, all this idea really does is pull those people out of the pool of players that we have now that don't have max cover/level 3*'s, and leaves those getting up to that point and those who have already achieved it all and are just stockpiling until the new shiny comes out.

While I agree that more challenge should equal better reward, this would not be the way the go, because of the path of least resistance.

Clintman

Skyedyne wrote:

The larger problem at hand here with this idea is giving the player the choice to pick a challenge instead of forcing them into a bracket. Why is player choice a big downfall of this idea? Because of Iso farming and/or reward farming.

I have seen several players that have max level 3* rosters. What's to stop them from entering easy mode, which would be quite literal for them, and just roflstomp the players who have no chance of fighting back?

Essentially, all this idea really does is pull those people out of the pool of players that we have now that don't have max cover/level 3*'s, and leaves those getting up to that point and those who have already achieved it all and are just stockpiling until the new shiny comes out.

While I agree that more challenge should equal better reward, this would not be the way the go, because of the path of least resistance.

I think the aspect of my initial post that you are missing is the introduction of double ISO rewards per fight on heroic/hard mode, ISO farming would be better there than in normal mode. The reality now is that people with max rosters are more interested in ISO than covers unless it's newer covers, they tank their MMR/focus on lightning rounds, whatever is the fastest/easiest ISO. Giving people an appropriate avenue for gaining ISO the the lower level teams become less attractive.

Unknown

I would like to start off by saying I see no reason why new players should expect to finish at the top. I think that is something you should have to work for, or pay for.

I think frustration has increased for new players as mid tier tournament rewards were gutted. I think this was a mistake. Now finishing out of the top 25 is seen as worthless. I was happy finishing top 50-100 when I was starting out. I'm not sure I would have bothered if I could finish top 10 just starting out.

The biggest issue now is that every event is alliance driven and season driven. This really screws the mid tiers who can't compete with veterans but wind up constantly in insane brackets.

Was there something wrong with the formula that got us all hooked in the first place? Alliances are great for keeping us engaged but I think the focus there is too strong at the moment.

Unknown

it should go back to the way it was. there was absolutely no reason to change it and has made it harder for veterans.

i like the op, do not enjoy fighting a group of lich kings for a chance at the same rewards a first day player can get.

Blergh

Skyedyne wrote:

The larger problem at hand here with this idea is giving the player the choice to pick a challenge instead of forcing them into a bracket. Why is player choice a big downfall of this idea? Because of Iso farming and/or reward farming.

I have seen several players that have max level 3* rosters. What's to stop them from entering easy mode, which would be quite literal for them, and just roflstomp the players who have no chance of fighting back?

Essentially, all this idea really does is pull those people out of the pool of players that we have now that don't have max cover/level 3*'s, and leaves those getting up to that point and those who have already achieved it all and are just stockpiling until the new shiny comes out.

While I agree that more challenge should equal better reward, this would not be the way the go, because of the path of least resistance.

You could also level lock the categories. Say like, it takes the levels of your covers, adds them to make an over-all level, and there is a ceiling to how high this level can be. This would rule out fully levelled 3 star cards, as they'd be above the ceiling total... or something similar. Could even set it so the covers have to be below a certain level individually - less strategy and choice that way though.

Twysta

Skyedyne wrote:

The larger problem at hand here with this idea is giving the player the choice to pick a challenge instead of forcing them into a bracket. Why is player choice a big downfall of this idea? Because of Iso farming and/or reward farming.

I have seen several players that have max level 3* rosters. What's to stop them from entering easy mode, which would be quite literal for them, and just roflstomp the players who have no chance of fighting back?

Essentially, all this idea really does is pull those people out of the pool of players that we have now that don't have max cover/level 3*'s, and leaves those getting up to that point and those who have already achieved it all and are just stockpiling until the new shiny comes out.

While I agree that more challenge should equal better reward, this would not be the way the go, because of the path of least resistance.

People who choose to nub stomp essentially will lose out on increased gains in rewards. ISO, HP and potentially covers - given that with the ever increasing number of covers most players always have at least one character they're missing covers for.

Unknown

there should be no easy/hard mode. they should revert it to the way it was and just make the point value for people much lower than you worth very little so it's not even worth the time to fight them. if someone with maxed 3* rosters wants to nub stomp then so be it but they should make it that they are wasting their time that could be better spent getting points instead of something like 1-5 points for people outside their competition level.

Unknown

What about 3 choices with character levels capped at 50, 85 and Unlimited. That way you have one group for beginning 1-Stars & undeveloped 2-3 Stars. Another group for experienced 2-Stars. And a final group for advanced 3-Star characters. And the level of rewards could increase with the difficult. 1 & 2 Star covers in the first group, 2 & 3 star covers in the middle group, and 3 & 4 Star covers in the last group.

With the level caps, you won't have anyone feeling overwhelmed. Even if an advanced player wanted to enter the easiest group, he won't be able to use his overpowered characters. And it will give experienced players a opportunity to go back and use their 1-Star characters again.

Clintman

TBDave wrote:

What about 3 choices with character levels capped at 50, 85 and Unlimited. That way you have one group for beginning 1-Stars & undeveloped 2-3 Stars. Another group for experienced 2-Stars. And a final group for advanced 3-Star characters. And the level of rewards could increase with the difficult. 1 & 2 Star covers in the first group, 2 & 3 star covers in the middle group, and 3 & 4 Star covers in the last group.

With the level caps, you won't have anyone feeling overwhelmed. Even if an advanced player wanted to enter the easiest group, he won't be able to use his overpowered characters. And it will give experienced players a opportunity to go back and use their 1-Star characters again.

Would you want to be able to join all 3? with different tiers of characters?

I can tell you for Lone Star tournaments with 1* max characters that all the people who have been playing forever bring in their max level 1*s that they haven't used and you run into a wall of maxed 1*s, not very appealing to a new player who probably has a level 25 IM, 20 Black Widow and 25 Modern Storm.

I can tell you that virtually everyone with a strong 3 star roster has a maxed 2 star roster as well, in which case intermediate players running their 46 Thor, 55 OBW and whatever else will run into a wall of 3x 85s.

Without adding a risk vs reward structure to the game there is no way you are going to stop max level rosters from preying on low level rosters.

To go back to my WOW analogies. The reason I stopped killing level 1 kobolds and moved on to harder targets is that the reward structure was there to make it worth my while to leave. Otherwise if I was making the same money and loot killing level 1 kobolds in 15 seconds as I got from raid level bosses that take 35 minutes, I would have never left the starting zone.

People have a variety of different reasons for playing, some like the challenge and go up against level 395 enemies in PVE so they can feel the sense of accomplishment while others have a shadow roster of mid level characters they can play PVE with so their scaling doesn't go crazy. Myself, I just want to get new covers and max them out. To do that I need ISO, to get ISO I will farm as effectively as I can. That means tanking MMR, doing lightning rounds, anything that will get me the most ISO with the least time investment. Difficulty is not so much of a factor to me as time is. I am all about beating the hell out of a hard fight for a 500 ISO payout.

If we had 3 events that limited roster size, and I could join each of them, I would figure out which was going to be the best time to ISO investment and try to dominate that event.

If we have 3 events that have limited roster size and tiered ISO rewards per fight for those events, and only allow me to join one of them, I will pick the highest level every single time. Doing something like this will create a safe harbor for newer player and for players developing their rosters to play without being preyed upon.

Unknown

Clintman wrote:

If we have 3 events that have limited roster size and tiered ISO rewards per fight for those events, and only allow me to join one of them, I will pick the highest level every single time. Doing something like this will create a safe harbor for newer player and for players developing their rosters to play without being preyed upon.

I agree. Players should be limited to one event. But they can choose the level of difficulty. By having 3 tiers, you make room for beginners, intermediate, and advanced players. With progressively higher rewards.

Clintman

Clintman wrote:

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.

Take a look at how many Maxed or near max DAKEN and say that veteran players don't spend money.

Edited to clarify my tone is not meant to be confrontational, more observational. look at all dem covered dakens