New Feature in R191: Shards

Mayo

I joined this game 765 days ago and I see how the devs bosses have turned this game from fun to stressing. If they want players supporting the game add features that do not unbalance the game further.
Who benefits from moneterizing the game? Big whales that will level up the meta game to extremes where Middle and beginner players will Just leave the game out of frustration. 
It is short sighted to think this Big whales will support the game in the long run, they will eventually get bored of using their meta teams fully leveled crushing the vast mayority of players who probably pay vip and one or another pack but do not think this game is a secondary job and leave the game.

Great income comes from scale economy, the game developer bosses should open their mind and add customer satisfaction to the equation and will get better results:
1. Modify bh to give colorless covers instead of eliminating it. Shield training will Just be a waste of time and mock for actual players who need one or two covers to participate on it. 
2. Implement neutral shards to unchamped heros only - I see no need to use shards after champing heroes other than create more game inbalance and killing the game in the long run. 
3. Bring back the support system at all Its levels including events to get them wirhin reason.
4. Work on feeders and other systems to help the mayority of players to stand up the meta game of paying / older players or at least champ it adrressing the dilution problem.

I am well over level 100 and my sugestions are not selfishly centered of what is better for my game at the moment but for what I have experienced all this time playing this game. 

Btw, most people play games to relax themselves however if the game stresess them too much guess what normally happens? 

Thanks for reading.

Cheers! 

ErikPeter

Thanks for all the replies, @IceIX . 

Here's my hopeful face

Chameleon

bluewolf said:

For all those who asked:  If you have shards in a person that you get a cover for, those shards remain stuck in that character forever until you eventually add enough shards to convert them to a cover.

No switching shards to a new character or anything like that.

At least they can become a champ level?  Which is of dubious help if you are in the purgatory of trying to cover the 4 tier, obviously.

This was answered on Discord.......  ducks

@bluewolf who said this?

ThaRoadWarrior

I’m not really sure I’m on the same page with all of y’all upset about shards being “trapped” after you get your character. Surely we’re talking about >20 shards here? What exactly is the scenario you’re all worried about?

If you round up the 166.667 pulls it takes to get a cover to 167, you’ll have a single extra shard “wasted” per cover on a 5* unless I’m missing it?

Chameleon

helix72 said:

Let me preface this by saying this is intentionally a selfish look from just my perspective as a 4* player with all but three 4*s fully covered and all but 14 champed but not a single meta 5* anywhere near 13 covers...

2) This allows you to target the color of the cover you want. This is a huge strategic advantage in addition to accelerating covering characters in full.

Also, and perhaps even more importantly: it will be much more likely you can get the coverage you want without having to champ a character. I was staring at my 1/1/3 Kitty and was thinking I'll be forced to champ her and jump into 5*-land to get the ideal cover combo. But now I can shard my way to her at 5/5/3. So I'll have a level 255 5/5/3 Kitty, instead of a level 450 5/5/3 Kitty, and this will protect my MMR while helping my game tremendously.

Not if you pull another red Kitty cover along the way!

Chameleon

PiMacleod said:

I dont have such a negative outlook as others on this.  Most people are quoting lower chances, because it would take X pulls to get a cover.  

But its a cover of your choice.

But i think a new feeling of satisfaction will emerge from watching the bar completely build towards the thing AND COLOR you actually want.

What happens to that feeling of satisfaction when you pull that colour organically and no longer need any covers for that character in order to champ them?  Those shards just sitting there will be soooo satisfying.  /sarcasm

Chameleon

Bowgentle said:

PiMacleod said:

Im not going to do the math.  Im not THAT invested (despite my daily login count).  But i dont see all the doom and gloom.  Yeah, the high five from getting a 3* from standard tokens will be missed... But i think a new feeling of satisfaction will emerge from watching the bar completely build towards the thing AND COLOR you actually want.

Imagine pulling the cover you were working towards to on draw 165 organically.

So you wasted 165 legendary pulls working on a char that will at the worst case get you ONE champ level.

Still sounds awesome?

Bingo

Chameleon

PiMacleod said:

Bowgentle said:

PiMacleod said:

Im not going to do the math.  Im not THAT invested (despite my daily login count).  But i dont see all the doom and gloom.  Yeah, the high five from getting a 3* from standard tokens will be missed... But i think a new feeling of satisfaction will emerge from watching the bar completely build towards the thing AND COLOR you actually want.

Imagine pulling the cover you were working towards to on draw 165 organically.

So you wasted 165 legendary pulls working on a char that will at the worst case get you ONE champ level.

Still sounds awesome?

Yep.  One champ level is a LT.

Or i already have them champed and im doing it for the champed levels.

Not seeing the issue.

If you have 2 5* characters at 5/2/5 and you choose to save up shards for the first of the two then organically draw that first of the two will you not regret not saving shards towards the other character?   Under the Bonus Hero system you get the character you want and then get to immediately BH the second character without anything wasted.  Was there a possibility of drawing the exact cover you wanted then getting the same cover immediately as the bonus hero but that was an *extremely* slim possibility.  Under this new system you will not be able to transfer those shards to the new character.  At least, not unless they change something from the first post announcement in this thread.

Chameleon

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?

Ding, ding, ding!

Chameleon

Therealsmkspy said:

Here's my problem with this system.

Going off my own roster here.

I have a 5/5/2 FA Cap (4 saved covers) and 2/5/5 Cable (5 saved covers). I will be able to specifically target them, but what if I rack up 300 points for one then pull that needed cover in a release vault or Cable gets a feeder? I'm not going to keep sharding that now champed character. Wasted shards now. 

This system needs to be 100% non-character specific and classic feeders need a complete roll out. And the way it stands now, the only thing the devs have done appears to be the monetization of BHs.

Well said!!!

Haithere

Boy, I was super excited for this when I thought it would be in addition to the bonus hero feature. Now less so. Seems like a lateral step. 

HoundofShadow

And now players are talking as if they will get that perfect cover with every BH pull...

If your character is 5/2/5, and you get a bonus hero, you have a 1/3 chance of champing that character. But chances are, you are going to get another unusable cover that won't allow you to champ that character.

With this system, it's a guarantee that you will be able to champ your character.

What if it will take you the third bonus hero cover before you can champ your character?  This happens so often and one of the biggest things that players dislike. 

The reason why BH isn't colourless is probably due to this causing their sales to drop potentially. I hope it's not a shocking revelation.

Chameleon

HoundofShadow said:

And now players are talking as if they will get that perfect cover with every BH pull...

If your character is 5/2/5, and you get a bonus hero, you have a 1/3 chance of champing that character. But chances are, you are going to get another unusable cover that won't allow you to champ that character.

With this system, it's a guarantee that you will be able to champ your character.

What if it will take you the third bonus hero cover before you can champ your character?  This happens so often and one of the biggest things that players dislike. 

The reason why BH isn't colourless is probably due to this causing their sales to drop potentially. I hope it's not shocking.

I'm not.  In fact, I've said otherwise above.

I'll repeat it here:
If you have 2 5* characters at 5/2/5 and you choose to save up shards for the first of the two then organically draw that first of the two will you not regret not saving shards towards the other character?

Chameleon

Bryan Lambert said:

Thinking about this - the best strategic move for developed 5* players is to pull latest tokens and target classics, or target latest and pull classics, depending on what you need. Since the pools are completely separate (only place in the game where this is true) you’ll never pull a 5* you’re collecting shards on, so no wasted shards.

Nice, in theory.  Doesn't check out, though, since those latest then move on to classics.

Chrynos1989

JHawkInc said:

Chrynos1989 said:

@IceIX

This might have been asked before, but I’m too lazy to read through 11 pages of comments, it’s 11pm where I live and I’m a jerk, but could you please tell me (and all the other guys), will shards only come from classic and latest legendary stores or also from special 5* stores and release stores?

I asked this and got a response on Page 4. Here's a copy/paste so you don't have to hunt for it. (as a side-note, it might not hurt to have a dedicated post to edit and update and collect questions and answers for something like this, so it's all in one easy to find place)

IceIX said:

JHawkInc said:

My question to add to the pile would be about special LT stores, release stores, these special ones that come around for costumes, Fan Favorites, etc. Presumably they'd have Shards the same way Latest and Classic Legends tokens?

No reason those bundles or stores couldn't have Shards, no.

Projectus2501 said:

No one was complaining about bh. Again a missed chance to add good game content.. 

People have complained that bonus heroes didn't come with a streak-breaker mechanic since April 2017. And you can find comments about colorless covers as far back as September 2015.

Shards accomplishes both. I think addressing multiple years-old complaints is a solid example of "good game content."

Thx for your answer👍

Yeah, a dedicated post would be nice👌

Projectus2501

I think that there's still some bad communication from the developers part. You can't put a new feature like shards (more of an alteration that that it was fully explained) in the same post with a what seems good interface revamp. No feedback (positive or negative) will be given by the players on this. It deserves a dedicated thread

HoundofShadow

That's the worst case scenario. The worst case scenario is your character is 5/2/5 and you got that champable cover but you are 100 shards away from getting that extra cover. It's not a waste because in the future, you will be able to complete the shards through other means. It could be classified as a waste if you are one level away from max champing them.

However, probability says that you are 66.67% more likely to get an unusable cover. That's why there are many posts talking about those specific colours elude them. If you get an unusable cover, chances are you going to continue to BH them until you can champ them.

If your 5* is 5/2/5 and it ends up as 6/2/8, will you regret continuing to BHing them?

Chameleon

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.

@IceIX
I am astonished by this.  No, that doesn't mean that I think you are lying.  I am just seriously surprised that a "*ton*" of players choose to use Bonus Heroes for increasing champ levels.  What I wonder is if these players are doing it for the champ rewards, rather than to just max out the character.

I'd much prefer that shards be allocated to tiers rather than characters.  I appreciate the attempt to remove the concern over getting a colour you can't immediately use.  I just dread regretting who I choose to apply these shards to because of the likelihood of drawing that cover organically in the time it takes to get those shards.  If I could choose to move the shards to another character (even colour-specific) upon pulling the cover I have marked then I'd be much happier!!  It would remove the sudden depression of "wasting" those shards.  Currently there is delight upon pulling a bonus hero.  To implement a new system which can cause the opposite feels wrong.

Chameleon

KGB said:

HoundofShadow said:

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?

All day, every day.

All it's doing is speeding up what you could do eventually as F2P. That's exactly what VIP should be doing.

I personally hate shards for 3/4* characters because I tend to not bonus any of them (unless I need a new character to 209 for ST). Now if I don't micromanage to select something my 3/4* shards will get randomly dropped on some character so instead of the fun of getting a BH out of standard/elite/heroic tokens on a fairly regular basis I will go months and months until one randomly fills up. I don't want to micromanage my roster more so wildcards would be awesome even if it requires VIP (which I get now for the costume when they offer that).

KGB

Ditto.  I am in no way speaking for other players but I would expect to need to use more shards to get this in. 

Chameleon

ThaRoadWarrior said:

I’m not really sure I’m on the same page with all of y’all upset about shards being “trapped” after you get your character. Surely we’re talking about >20 shards here? What exactly is the scenario you’re all worried about?

If you round up the 166.667 pulls it takes to get a cover to 167, you’ll have a single extra shard “wasted” per cover on a 5* unless I’m missing it?

It's more about naturally pulling the characters you want before the shards add up to get that cover.