Ability Upgrade Cost Reduction (2/22/19)

Brigby

Hi Everyone,

Starting today for a limited time, both 4-Star and 5-Star characters will have a reduction in Command Point cost for purchasing ability upgrades directly. Check out the details below:

Ability Upgrade Cost Reduction

• Start: After 2/22 Daily Patch
• End: After 2/25 Daily Patch
• 5-Star Characters: 720 -> 600 Command Points each
• 4-Star Characters: 120 -> 100 Command Points each

  

Vhailorx

I see 600cp for 5* powers and 100cp for 4*s (on Android).

Is it all out war on cp hoards, or is this A/B testing?

What is coming that Demi is trying this hard to bleed cp out of the game?

Edit: for clarity, there is an in-game news splash screen indicating that the reduced price is effective for a limited time.  And since I didn't say it earlier, I don't think those reduced prices are at all compelling.

Bowgentle

There's an official news in the game, no testing.

Vhailorx

Bowgentle said:

There's an official news in the game, no testing.

I got the news splash screen.  Have they never split those splash screens across A/B testing?

Bruinsfan17

Ya there was an in game alert but it also says it’s for a limited time and it wasn’t announced here, I don’t believe. Certainly an odd change.

ThaRoadWarrior

I wish it was a reduced iso cost to level up personally lol

Vhailorx

ThaRoadWarrior said:

I wish it was a reduced iso cost to level up personally lol

That would be great.  As would the reduced roster slot price sale from this time last year.

But the cp prices for direct buying powers are so ridiculously high that a ~17% price drop is not at all tempting.

wymtime

I think they finally realized people are not direct buying 4* and 5* becuase the cost is just way to expensive.  As a 5* player I would not buy a direct cover for a 5* even if it was a classic that would let me champion them.  I would rather bonus hero them and wait for a feeder before giving up 600 CP.  that’s 24 pulls in the latest store where you will get a lot of champ rewards and potential 5*’s

Daredevil217

I hope a temporary reduced iso cost is next. I’m trying to save up 1.7 million for when Endgame enters tokens. I’m already up to 1.3. I’d likely spend all of it leveling up as many fives as I could and just start the hoard over. Problem is they seem to be wanting us to spend CP more than anything else. 

HoundofShadow

Buying directly to get a guaranteed cover and a colour of your choice (provided that the power has been unlocked) without dealing with RNG is naturally expensive. 

Anyway, most players rather get angry with bad RNG than to spend a great number of CPs to buy guaranteed cover with colour of their choice.  

Vhailorx

HoundofShadow said:

Buying directly to get a guaranteed cover and a colour of your choice (provided that the power has been unlocked) without dealing with RNG is naturally expensive. 

Anyway, most players rather get angry with bad RNG than to spend a great number of CPs to buy guaranteed cover with colour of their choice.  

Obviously, direct buy cannot be 25 or even 50 cp, since that would render LTs largely obsolete for 5* progression. 

But setting a single 5* rank (1/13 of a character) at a price 36x greater than a classic token and almost 29x the codt of a latest token, was always laughable.  Go back and look at the community response to the original announcement.

Basically the only circumstance where such an exorbitant price makes sense would be to buy a 13th cover for a launch-gambit-level character when you have a bad build (I.e. 2/5/5 AND the "2" is in the most important power) and you know that no HfH cover will be available for many months.  In every other circumstance, you are just better off saving the co because no single power rank will have a sufficient marginal impact on your play experience to justify the cost.

Richyyy

Bruinsfan17 said:

Ya there was an in game alert but it also says it’s for a limited time and it wasn’t announced here, I don’t believe. Certainly an odd change.

Standard Operating Procedure would suggest they'll 'announce' it here several hours after it's already in the game.

(which continues to be pretty damn ridiculous)

KGB

I too was thinking it was reduced ISO costs to level a character.

The 4* price of 100 is not that unreasonable (give up 4 latest or 5 classic pulls to get cover of choice) for a 3* player who is transitioning to 4* land and wants to get one of the 4* meta characters finished or you need 1 more cover for Shield Clearance training.

But the 5* price even at 600 is crazy high esp given that can often be gotten for 250 when the character is a required in PvE (yes, need some luck on which color is offered).


Back to the reason for this reduction plus the fan favorites store. My speculation is that Demi is wanting to push more players into 5* endgame land so they can finally introduce CL10. The best way is to entice the massive number of late 4* players like myself who lack any of the meta 5*s by offering the fan favorites store because without at least 1 meta character there is no way we are coming up into 5* land.

KGB

ThaRoadWarrior

KGB said:

But the 5* price even at 600 is crazy high esp given that can often be gotten for 250 when the character is a required in PvE (yes, need some luck on which color is offered).

It's only the "classic" legends that are 250cp in HFH, Latest Legends are 500 when they come around. So this direct-buy price has to still be less desirable than buying out of HFH for a Latest. I don't know if it makes sense to have any non-latest 5* be 300 or 350, and leave Latests at 600, but it makes no kind of sense to spend 600 when you could wait for a 250.

Brigby

*Merged threads with same topic together

pheregas

Rather than release feeders, they do this.

No thanks.

Vhailorx

KGB said:

I too was thinking it was reduced ISO costs to level a character.

The 4* price of 100 is not that unreasonable (give up 4 latest or 5 classic pulls to get cover of choice) for a 3* player who is transitioning to 4* land and wants to get one of the 4* meta characters finished or you need 1 more cover for Shield Clearance training.

But the 5* price even at 600 is crazy high esp given that can often be gotten for 250 when the character is a required in PvE (yes, need some luck on which color is offered).


Back to the reason for this reduction plus the fan favorites store. My speculation is that Demi is wanting to push more players into 5* endgame land so they can finally introduce CL10. The best way is to entice the massive number of late 4* players like myself who lack any of the meta 5*s by offering the fan favorites store because without at least 1 meta character there is no way we are coming up into 5* land.

KGB

I disagree on 4* prices.  100cp may *only* be 5 or 5 LT pulls, but 4* covers are more available than ever, even with dilution.  There is very rarely any need to acquire a single, particular cover for any given 4* these days. 

I am very interested in Demi/d3's thinking for this offer, but if they want to push players into 5* land, this is a terrible way to do it.  The only players who can afford to buy 5* covers at even this reduced price are already in 5* land. 

If Demi wants more 5* players, they have to make it easier to get many more 5* covers, not slightly reduce the huge cost of buying 1 particular cover.  Do they really think there are vast hoards of players with 12/13 covered 5*s and vast hoards of cp, but were just holding out for a 17% price reduction on direct buy? Not to mention the absurdity that someone can show the patience to hoard hundreds or thousands of course, but then won't do the math and realize that waiting (even if it's a long wait) for HfH is probably a better idea.

JHawkInc

ThaRoadWarrior said:

KGB said:

But the 5* price even at 600 is crazy high esp given that can often be gotten for 250 when the character is a required in PvE (yes, need some luck on which color is offered).

It's only the "classic" legends that are 250cp in HFH, Latest Legends are 500 when they come around. So this direct-buy price has to still be less desirable than buying out of HFH for a Latest. I don't know if it makes sense to have any non-latest 5* be 300 or 350, and leave Latests at 600, but it makes no kind of sense to spend 600 when you could wait for a 250.

It's also worth noting how long the cycle is getting. The current set started in October, and it'll be late July (maybe even into August) before we see all of the classic characters (up to Okoye) will be featured. And then it starts again, adding Wasp, Loki, and Kitty, as well as every other 5 that moves to Classics by the end of August (which will most likely include Cable, Kingpin, Doom, AND the new Carol that isn't out yet), which makes the next cycle even longer. The first one was 5 months, the second was 7, current one is looking to be about 9 and a half, etc.

I would say that calling it something that can "often be gotten for 250 CP" is flat wrong. It is an option, but when you're talking 600 CP now, or 250 CP 5 months from now (or maybe over a year if you have to wait on a certain color), the 600 CP deal isn't that bad. Especially when you consider you can likely re-earn the 600 CP before the 250 deal comes around again.

pheregas said:

Rather than release feeders, they do this.

No thanks.

Why do people always jump to the false conclusion that a thing we're getting came at the cost of something else? Do you really think they had a feeder planned for this week, and canceled it to give us a brief cost discount instead? That they chose to give us a discount and deny us a feeder instead?

That nonsense is like the flat earth of MPQ theories.

pheregas

pheregas said:

Rather than release feeders, they do this.

No thanks.

Why do people always jump to the false conclusion that a thing we're getting came at the cost of something else? Do you really think they had a feeder planned for this week, and canceled it to give us a brief cost discount instead? That they chose to give us a discount and deny us a feeder instead?

That nonsense is like the flat earth of MPQ theories.

Please remind me of the last time we had a feeder.  I'm not being facetious, or ironic.  I honestly do not remember.

gentgeen

Only available for 3 days, and no warning about it coming?  Is there really THAT many people that have over 600CP hoarded away already?  If this is some kind of test/evaluation of a new cost, it seems to me like it is doomed to fail.

Brigby

pheregas said:

Please remind me of the last time we had a feeder.  I'm not being facetious, or ironic.  I honestly do not remember.

Mr. Fantastic had his champion rewards updated to include Silver Surfer on January 11th, 2019.