New Feature in R191: Shards

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  • LavaManLee
    LavaManLee Posts: 1,295 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited November 2019
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    This just shows how the concept of Colored Covers comes back to bite this game in the a**.  Before you champion a character, cover colors matter 100%.  Once championed, cover colors matter 0%.  No other game out there operates like this, except for the other Puzzle Quest games.  Fix that, and you fix everything.  At least, IMHO.
  • DeNappa
    DeNappa Posts: 1,369 Chairperson of the Boards
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    IceIX said:
    DeNappa said:
    All those fancy calculations here, but those still don't address the issue that essentially your shards are wasted once you pull the 13nd cover for a character. Yes, once you fill up the shards bar for the character they can still be used for a champion level, but I don't think anybody is going to leave their 'finished' characters set as bonus hero unless they have finished them all. Making them essentially going to waste.

    I liked the idea that somebody mentioned in this thread (sorry cba to look for the specific post): shards should go into a general pool so you can spend them on any character of that tier, but limit the application of Shard rank ups by 1 or 2 per week.

    @IceIX any feedback on wasted shards in the new system?
    Actually, a *ton* of players keep characters fav'd past Championing them to gain additional Champion levels specifically to farm rewards. Another batch keep Champed characters up there to get them max champed. For example, the number of players with Thanos and Dr. Strange favorited at the 3-star tier after Championing them is huge, despite "needing" covers for another character. This scales up to players Champing Grocket, C4rol, Juggs, Chavez, etc. at the 4-star tier. So, yes, given that people are using the Bonus Hero system for exactly that, it's very likely that they'll continue to use Shards for exactly the same thing.

    The idea of some kind of Wildcard Shard isn't a bad one. As pointed out in the thread elsewhere though, it also comes with some balancing downsides, some of which could be alleviated with usage restrictions, sure. It's something to keep in mind, and an example of valuable feedback that's come from this thread.

    As for the above "wasted" Shards thought, as stated above, this doesn't match with player play experience in the majority of situations. Players want to keep building characters past Champion for a number of reasons. And for those players that like keeping their characters evenly leveled, those Shards never go away, so they're never really wasted.
    Thanks for taking the time to reply.

    While I can understand that there are players that use the bonus mechanics to actively chase levels for characters they already completed, I think there are also a lot of players (myself included) who use these systems to finish their roster/characters _in the first place_. Of course I have no numbers to back it up, but my feeling says the number of people who use it for the latter purpose may even be bigger, given the pace at which new characters are released and the amount of effort that is required to 'keep up'. 
  • Therealsmkspy
    Therealsmkspy Posts: 254 Mover and Shaker
    edited November 2019
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    For all the posts, the summary is the fact that this new system would have been so much more better received if it wasn't replacing BHs rather than supplementing them.

    As it stands, meet the new boss, slightly worse than the old boss.

    Also the continued gaslighting of no feeders has become comical at this point. Like press secretary funny.
  • Projectus2501
    Projectus2501 Posts: 218 Tile Toppler
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    No one was complaining about bh. Again a missed chance to add good game content.. 
  • Bryan Lambert
    Bryan Lambert Posts: 234 Tile Toppler
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    While I can understand that there are players that use the bonus mechanics to actively chase levels for characters they already completed, I think there are also a lot of players (myself included) who use these systems to finish their roster/characters _in the first place_. Of course I have no numbers to back it up, but my feeling says the number of people who use it for the latter purpose may even be bigger, given the pace at which new characters are released and the amount of effort that is required to 'keep up'. 
    Beyond that, every player does some of both depending on the tier. I faved a bunch of threes to get them to max champ before I started dupes. Aggregate data is tricksy.
  • Tony_Foot
    Tony_Foot Posts: 1,716 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Read up now, I’m onboard for this. This is a starting point and a decent one. Yeah I lose any chance of ever playing shield training anymore with how I play and hoard for 3 latest but not the end of the world. 

    I like this way much better and I’m sure as a starting point we will be net gain once the other ways are fed into the game, which as usual the veruca salts are demanding everything now. 

    If it’s still this slow in 6 months I’m prepared to say it’s worse but I have faith it’s not going to stay with the current numbers in comparison to the current way.

    Nice job and two fingers up to the people that say the game is dead I guess.
  • DyingLegend
    DyingLegend Posts: 1,192 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Personally, I think they should do a combination of bonus heroes and shards. That way you still have the excitement of the bonus hero when it procs, while having the fall back of the shards incase its a duplicate 
  • Dogface
    Dogface Posts: 977 Critical Contributor
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    Nice amount of HP there :smile:
  • Crowl
    Crowl Posts: 1,579 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Shame that a potentially good addition wasn't simply a buff rather than a slight reduction in exchange for more targeted acquisition. 

    One change I'd like to see would be the shards being generic stacks for each tier so we get a quicker turnaround on additional covers. 
  • Vins2
    Vins2 Posts: 183 Tile Toppler
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    Therealsmkspy said:
    For all the posts, the summary is the fact that this new system would have been so much more better received if it wasn't replacing BHs rather than supplementing them.

    As it stands, meet the new boss, slightly worse than the old boss.

    Also the continued gaslighting of no feeders has become comical at this point. Like press secretary funny.
    I'm holding onto my butt, I just know it'll be 5* feeder shards going forward.  Getting a WHOLE cover at 280, 300, etc now seems like asking a lot.  
  • shardwick
    shardwick Posts: 2,121 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Vins2 said:
    Therealsmkspy said:
    For all the posts, the summary is the fact that this new system would have been so much more better received if it wasn't replacing BHs rather than supplementing them.

    As it stands, meet the new boss, slightly worse than the old boss.

    Also the continued gaslighting of no feeders has become comical at this point. Like press secretary funny.
    I'm holding onto my butt, I just know it'll be 5* feeder shards going forward.  Getting a WHOLE cover at 280, 300, etc now seems like asking a lot.  
    And I'm thinking the same for any potential 5* shards in placement rewards, probably will need top placement in cl9 to get them. 
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
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    The good news for people harping about "wasted" shards is that the devs think that wildcard shards is a good idea. The bad news is these group of players will be targeted for monetizing.  Prepare to accumulate more wildcard shards compared to accumulating the amount of targeted shards needed for getting a cover.

    I'm surprised that after so many years, some still can't predict and prepare themselves for tradeoff and expect the devs to tilt things in your favour, instead of expecting them to balance both sides of the scale. 

    This reminds me of black-iso market in MCOC, where players can trade resources for other things. Unfortunately, players have to subscribe to VIP plan to access this. Are the players here fine with it?
  • Akroma
    Akroma Posts: 77 Match Maker
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    Hello guys, sorry to ask, but its 12 pages :( i want to ask about feeders. as i dont understand (maybe is lost in translation plus using not so common words on the official icex posts haha)

    he said new feeders will have to wait? or that all champ rewards on 4* that grant 5* covers are gone?
    thanks 
  • spidyjedi84
    spidyjedi84 Posts: 514 Critical Contributor
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    Akroma said:
    Hello guys, sorry to ask, but its 12 pages :( i want to ask about feeders. as i dont understand (maybe is lost in translation plus using not so common words on the official icex posts haha)

    he said new feeders will have to wait? or that all champ rewards on 4* that grant 5* covers are gone?
    thanks 
    New feeders are on hold until this new feature has rolled out. No current feeders are impacted. Just don't expect announcements of new feeders until after Christmas holiday at the soonest would be my guess.
  • Akroma
    Akroma Posts: 77 Match Maker
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    spidyjedi84 said:
    Akroma said:
    Hello guys, sorry to ask, but its 12 pages :( i want to ask about feeders. as i dont understand (maybe is lost in translation plus using not so common words on the official icex posts haha)

    he said new feeders will have to wait? or that all champ rewards on 4* that grant 5* covers are gone?
    thanks 
    New feeders are on hold until this new feature has rolled out. No current feeders are impacted. Just don't expect announcements of new feeders until after Christmas holiday at the soonest would be my guess.
    ohh thank you :D as i am about to open a hoard :( now that targeted is explained, and i was afraid something will happen to feeders. thanks
  • jtsings
    jtsings Posts: 278 Mover and Shaker
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       Is this new system going to be perfect for me? More than likely not but I have a little more of a somewhat positive let's wait and see attitude towards how it will affect my roster building.

      However, every survey I say that I could not recommend this game to someone because it's too time intensive and too RNG based to build a starting roster.  This new system may, somewhat at least, be a step in the right direction for new players and others that are working on filling out their 4* rosters.  I'm trying to place myself back to when I started, and this seems like it would have been a pretty decent system for getting me through at least the 3* transition fairly easily and start working towards getting well covered 4*s that would help with my transition there.

      Other benefits:  Whether it's seen as egregious by some, I think the shard process is a pretty good motivator for new to beyond new rosters to actually visually see their progress and help keep them working toward a goal of reaching their next bonus hero.  The old system you got a bonus hero, which was somewhat exciting, but you pretty much moved on and the payoff, I don't think, was as satisfying as this new system could be.  You never knew when your next bonus was going to come and with this you'll know exactly when your next one will come.  

      The new system is hidden behind a paywall.  I personally don't see this.  Their job is to come up with new ways for them to increase income but make sure it doesn't give a person spending so much of an advantage that it becomes a pay to compete game.  Honestly, if a new or more developed roster wants to spend some money to get HP to get the last cover for Dr. Strange 3* to champ him, I think it would be well worth the investment and it helps keep the game running.  Unless I'm missing something, I don't see how this new system is going to further separate the spenders and the non or occasional spenders.

       The one glaring negative about this new system, for me at least, is the losing of shards on a character, if you happen to be lucky enough to pull their last cover.  It would be nice, if maybe once a month, we would have an opportunity to move shards from one character to another; this would keep a swap shard system from being abused and there would at least  be a safeguard to losing shards on an already completed character.

       So in short:  this may not be a one size fits all improvement but it might actually be a decent system to get newer players more engaged in the game, which is obviously helpful for the health and longevity of the game.

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