New Feature Coming - Targeting Heroes

Tony_Foot

They have to look for additional revenue streams, especially after supports seem to have been ignored. Where I am in the game TBH the dilution or getting covers doesn't bother me. If I'm close I try a bit harder for a 4* to get to 10 covers but I don't care if I don't make it. I also don't have an issue getting the 5*s I want to 13 covers with the method I play, so I wouldn't be putting money into this system anyway.

What we need is a better system for 3-4 transition mainly, if this is it and it costs to catch up I'm fine with that.

I would have been fine with tweaking the BH rate and 4* drop rate in heroics. Adding more covers into daily reward. VIP giving double days or double rewards.

DyingLegend

Can we just add a feature to the game that doesn't cost an arm and a leg.....

bluewolf

@Tony_Foot

I don't know exactly how this will work but the fact is that dilution has been making it harder to catch up, and making people pay for slow but gradual cover progress is unlikely to be a winner in terms of making people spend.  Maybe you could pay to get faster progress somehow but I don't think the basic access will be pay-gated.  (Just like bonus heroes are not pay-gated now.)

It is already true that with dilution, spending on bundles is almost a necessity if your goal is to have a workable 4* roster.  And every Friday we get another 4* cover bundle, which I am sure makes them some money.  Costumes have become a pretty regular feature and usually require spending some money (sometimes just HP).  Also, bundles in general are less generous than they were last year.

Even the rewards in game are stable - not going up to address dilution and sheer volume of covers to collect.  Effectively if progress is harder, then the game is continually creating an environment where spending makes more sense.

Obviously as you point out, long term vets who are willing to hoard, aren't chasing top placement and don't need to complete characters quickly don't feel much need to spend as a result.  However......if that is already someone's mindset, how would fractional progress on a character materially change that calculation? 

Oh... Why not increase the bonus rate?  Maybe because they decided that more RNG variability isn't as good as some measurable progress to keep people engaged.  Especially since they have no plan to stop or slow the character release schedule and therefore every new person who starts is farther behind everyone else every 2 weeks.

Ares76

I hope this feature let's you target a specific color. I am transitioning to 5-star land right now having already champed four of them. But a lot of my 5-stars that still need covers to champ them are already sitting on 5 covers in one or two colors - like 5/1/5 with already saved covers. As I only get a 5-star bonus-hero aproximately every  4 months I would never bonus-hero someone with such an uneven distribution. Getting a 6th cover only to save it would let me feel like the last 4 months were a total waste. 

shardwick

Tony_Foot said:

They have to look for additional revenue streams, especially after supports seem to have been ignored. Where I am in the game TBH the dilution or getting covers doesn't bother me. If I'm close I try a bit harder for a 4* to get to 10 covers but I don't care if I don't make it. I also don't have an issue getting the 5*s I want to 13 covers with the method I play, so I wouldn't be putting money into this system anyway.

What we need is a better system for 3-4 transition mainly, if this is it and it costs to catch up I'm fine with that.

I would have been fine with tweaking the BH rate and 4* drop rate in heroics. Adding more covers into daily reward. VIP giving double days or double rewards.

It could be something like getting experience from packs that helps towards getting a specific cover for your targeted hero. 10 and 40 packs would give more experience and would help to encourage more spending.

jp1

I think the whole system needs tweaking. I’ve been a spender from the onset of my play. Now the resources have become so minimal from a stark that it just doesn’t feel like it’s worth it any longer. 

The vets or top echelon of players earn rewards at such a rate that spending is almost pointless for them as well. This represents a small minority of the customer base and the system is somehow set up to cater to this section of people. It makes little sense from a financial standpoint.

on the lower end of play you have people trying to fight their way up Mount Everest in a game they can’t be sure will even stick around long enough for them to see the top. I’d be little incentivized if I were in their shoes to spend too much simply because of that, but dilution makes it so much worse. If you play for two to three years and you feel like there is little hope of catching up with the 4* tier alone, much less gaining the coveted 5* status, how likely are you to stick it out? Assuming you love the game enough to stay, how likely are you to spend? A stark today is worth so much less than it was even two years ago. That level of inflation is not sustainable and the only people in the end who will be able to stay afloat are the ones who are already at the top of the game. It’s like an accelerated form of capitalism right until the brink of collapse with no efforts to mitigate the damage being done.

I hope this new feature looks to be something useful enough to bring hope of progress to those who need it and encourage those who feel left behind to start supporting the game financially again. If it is a once a year or once every 10k dollars spent cover, it certainly won’t help enough to fix the issue.

bluewolf

blankcanvas said:

I'm hoping it's a build your own legends store to spend cp on.

I mean....there's no way it's that.

People need to seriously temper their expectations, I think.

jp1

bluewolf said:

blankcanvas said:

I'm hoping it's a build your own legends store to spend cp on.

I mean....there's no way it's that.

People need to seriously temper their expectations, I think.

Agreed, this is not possible. They can’t plan an ROI on something as random as that. Resources went in, there has to be a clear path for revenue.

tupacboy

when do you guys think this is going to be implemented?   they said soon... just hope its not scl10 soon....really excited about this

JHawkInc

blankcanvas said:

tupacboy said:

when do you guys think this is going to be implemented?   they said soon... just hope its not scl10 soon....really excited about this

I would expect it may take a few weeks yet. Possibly to coincide with Christmas celebrations. It's exciting either way as people's imagination runs wild until we get cold hard facts.

I'm hopeful for a Christmas-ish implementation as well. Could be done November or early December as well, so it's fully in the game before Christmas stuff rolls around (instead of us going through the "live playtest" phase with Christmas celebrations).

But it's definitely not "SCL10" Soon. As said on the first page of this thread:

IceIX said:

Codex said:

IceIX said:

By working with this new coming soon feature

By coming soon do you mean like how scl 10 is coming soon?

This one is *not* coming on Valve time. I don't have a date to give right this second, but it's being QAed right now.

shardwick

I'm thinking that it could be implemented with the start of next season. If they're adding something new to collect which is involved in how you get more covers, like some type of shard system which has been brought up, then it would make sense to start it then so they can update the rewards if they need to.

purplemur

I think its purple because its a 5star- like how the tokens are, I gather the 4* is gold , 3 silver and 2* aint need none

I want to thank them for giving us a super advanced teaser for this new feature. Start the hype early! I will really be looking forward to Christmas celebrations in a way I have never anticipated Anniversary- anni rewards well vs xmas is fun. This will be a good thing, I have faith in them for this. Saved covers were yuge! Bonus heroes have been clutch. Supports are totally rad but they have just been handled poorly- the point is these major upgrades are usually great additions to the gameplay that have kept me playin. 

I would also like to ask the forum to be aware that we have been saying we want more communication; they have obliged and we should respect the design and release process. I am glad they let us know what kind of powers the new releases are before we get final numbers and well, names. Forum discussion of ?arnag5 interactions w kitty has been a great thread. This heads up does let us make the roster priorities and strategic BH choices that we have been saying we can handle. I wonder if a mini hoard isn’t a good idear to have when this rolls out and I’m glad they gave us that sneak peek so I can start.

I look forward to more updates on this topic, my 3/0/3 H5 can use any help they offering. Especially if Cap is “working”

Ptahhotep

This could work like Deadpool points. Use the associated character once per day to get points. When you have enough points you get a cover for the targeted character. Higher tier characters will cost more points. You would be able to target a new character each time, but changing mid-stream would cost points.
 I expect that you won’t be able to select the colour of the cover, but you may be guaranteed to get the colour you have least of. So a 4 4 4 character would get a random cover but a 4 4 3 character would get the cover there are only three of.

tupacboy

Hoard till Christmas in hopes of this opening by then.  Double winning

jamesh

It will be interesting if the new system requires you to use the character you want covers for.  I mostly ignore the undercovered characters in my roster.  But if there are more reasons to use them, I wonder if it will result in more enemy variation in PVP tournaments?

shardwick

I hope not. I don't want to be forced to use my low cover Talos or Namor in competitive pvp and pve, for who knows how long, just so I can eventually get one cover for that character. I hope it's some other metric that feels more organic. I mean hell just using Deadpool everyday to get whale points is a drag.

sambrookjm

shardwick said:

I mean hell just using Deadpool everyday to get whale points is a drag.

You realize if you don't want the points you don't actually *have* to use Deadpool unless he's a required chracter, right?

I think the idea of the Targeted character using a Deadpool Points style event to get point is probably the best idea so far in the boards.  If you want the character to gain experience (covers) then you need to use them.  Maybe it will be a one-time only thing, like the Deadpool points.  Maybe it will be X points, depending on the difficulty of the node that you're going into.  One of the easy clear nodes in a PvE might be one point, while the maxed out SCL9 node might be 10.  Sure, using your 1/0/0 character is going to be annoying in the higher level nodes, but sometimes we're required to do that anyway.

If you can choose the cover, the first five stars I go for will be my 5/5/2 Daredevil to champ him, followed by my 5/0/1 Prof X.

skittledaddy

Perhaps in addiction to earning "experience points" by using a char on offense, you could also earn said points by beating that char each time they are the opponent?
Reward the 6x/7x grinding in PvE a little more (especially in non-goon events) and perhaps encouraging some more diversity in PvP.

bluewolf

Simplicity is best.

Adding a new feature with as few new things as possible is the most logical choice.  Especially in a game where the code is 6 years old (new engine notwithstanding).

There has never been a need in the game to track each player's use of a character, nor how often you beat someone etc.  (Other than just the Deadpool points seeing if you use him in a 24 hour period).

If I were going to create a new feature that has new moving parts, I would tie it to existing metrics or activity as much as possible.

It would be neat if using a character earned you covers; on the other hand that would mean that to, say, earn a cover for your 10 cover Doom you would need to run him which would mean you were using sub optimal characters in PVE (slow clears) or PVP (target!) and I'm sure competitive players would be crying foul.  

Chipster22

skittledaddy said:

Perhaps in addiction to earning "experience points" 

Addiction seems like a Freudian slip.