New Feature in R191: Shards

HoundofShadow

Players in this forum wanted communication and details in advance from the developers, but the developers have clearly explained the obstacles they face a few times over the years and also clearly told the players in this forum last year how they are going to handle communication or updates.

Last year, the devs already predicted that players in this forum will have problems handling partial information. They will be unhappy. True enough, you can see from the last couple of threads about this new feature is that they simply can't handle incomplete information and behave like it's the end of the world.  Yet, they want the developers to give partial update if they can't get full update in advance. 

I believe the developers have explained their rationale, reasons, and restriction for doing and not doing certain things such as: 5* feeders, updating 3* feeders, rebalancing. Because they are not doing things the way you want it to be, they are perceived to be walking away. 

DAZ0273

HoundofShadow said:

Last year, the devs already predicted that players in this forum will have problems handling partial information. They will be unhappy.

Possibly I am missing something but if this is true and they had this advanced foresight then why did they ignore this important piece of communication observation and go ahead and post an advance "hype" thread for shards? I mean no disrespect to the Dev's who I feel are trying their best but the logical answers are either a.) They ignored their own predictions or b.) They acted on the basis of updated data that suggested a different outcome than predicted before? Or I suppose c.) They were trolling the forum but quite honestly as amusing as that might be it isn't a reasonable or fair assumption.

HoundofShadow

If the dev didn't post any updates or the plans they have for the game, they get accused of ignoring the players' feedbacks, remaining silence, have poor communication skills, doing nothing to solve problems or repeating that the game is shutting down.

If the players here can't behave rationally and choose to behave like it's the end of the world, then I think it's much better for the developer to keep quiet and post only when they have the full details of updates to come, rather than giving partial updates.

I think it's a mentality and attitude issue.

DAZ0273

HoundofShadow said:

If the dev didn't post any updates or the plans they have for the game, they get accused of ignoring the players' feedbacks, remaining silence, have poor communication skills, doing nothing to solve problems or repeating that the game is shutting down.

If the players here can't behave rationally and choose to behave like it's the end of the world, then I think it's much better for the developer to keep quiet and post only when they have the full details of updates to come, rather than giving partial updates.

I think it's a mentality and attitude issue.

Maybe but that doesn't answer my point in any way or form? If the Developers know that certain behaviour by them will be received negatively on the forums and have this advance intel...why did they go completely against it? What result was expected other than the one that you say they had already predicted? Isn't there a quote out there about something to do with learning from the past?

tiomono

DAZ0273 said:

HoundofShadow said:

If the dev didn't post any updates or the plans they have for the game, they get accused of ignoring the players' feedbacks, remaining silence, have poor communication skills, doing nothing to solve problems or repeating that the game is shutting down.

If the players here can't behave rationally and choose to behave like it's the end of the world, then I think it's much better for the developer to keep quiet and post only when they have the full details of updates to come, rather than giving partial updates.

I think it's a mentality and attitude issue.

Maybe but that doesn't answer my point in any way or form? If the Developers know that certain behaviour by them will be received negatively on the forums and have this advance intel...why did they go completely against it? What result was expected other than the one that you say they had already predicted? Isn't there a quote out there about something to do with learning from the past?

Maybe they wanted to go ahead and do something they dont do often in the good faith that it would build excitement?

Chameleon

I'm concerned by the repeated use of "the players" as though we can all be lumped into one pile.  Also, I don't personally view anything in this game as "end of the world".  I am giving feedback.  If it were the end of the world then I certainly wouldn't care about a mobile game.  I'm perfectly able to walk away from MPQ.

captainheath

The rockett said:

abenness said

MPQ has changed. Now it uses shards.  Please can we be a bit patient as the rest of this is rolled out, and we see how shards get integrated into other parts of the game?

I have an issue with this statement, and this is why. 

Supports had potential, yet they walked away from them. 

Support Circuit has potential, yet they walked away from it.  

Alliance Rush events had potential, yet they walked away from it. 

5* Feeders had HUGE potential, yet they walked away from it. 

Updating feeders in 3/4* tiers, yet they walk away from it. 

Rebalancing broken characters OR buffing  older ones, yet they  they walked away from it. 

Boss Rush had potential, yet they walk away from it. 

Gauntlet was a fan favorite, yet they walk away from it.

Bonus Hero’s was a huge release when they brought it out, now they change it to shards in part to make money on it. 

Costumes to be “earnable”, but they walked away from it. 

Costumes in VIP, yet they walked away form it. 

Updating Lighting Rounds from 3+ years ago, yet they walk away from it. 

Saakar Lighting Round event got a huge response, yet they walk away from it. 

Making the Anniversary and huge and special event, yet they walk away from it. 
 

Please explain to me why I should put blind trust into the Dev team when they in no way layout a full game plan for where they are going to introduce shards into the game?  This isn’t negative, this is the truth and their history, not ours. 

This is a good list for the devs to contemplate.  I've been a VIP for a long time, but when it is not fun players quit eventually.

tiomono

Chameleon said:

I'm concerned by the repeated use of "the players" as though we can all be lumped into one pile.  Also, I don't personally view anything in this game as "end of the world".  I am giving feedback.  If it were the end of the world then I certainly wouldn't care about a mobile game.  I'm perfectly able to walk away from MPQ.

We are all lumped in one pile. We are all interested enough in this game to play it and post about it on an online forum.

Beyond that there are a ton of differing opinions and variety of player desires on how to change or improve the game. Which I'm sure is the same with the people making this game. But we always lump them into one entity of the devs.

DAZ0273

tiomono said:

DAZ0273 said:

HoundofShadow said:

If the dev didn't post any updates or the plans they have for the game, they get accused of ignoring the players' feedbacks, remaining silence, have poor communication skills, doing nothing to solve problems or repeating that the game is shutting down.

If the players here can't behave rationally and choose to behave like it's the end of the world, then I think it's much better for the developer to keep quiet and post only when they have the full details of updates to come, rather than giving partial updates.

I think it's a mentality and attitude issue.

Maybe but that doesn't answer my point in any way or form? If the Developers know that certain behaviour by them will be received negatively on the forums and have this advance intel...why did they go completely against it? What result was expected other than the one that you say they had already predicted? Isn't there a quote out there about something to do with learning from the past?

Maybe they wanted to go ahead and do something they dont do often in the good faith that it would build excitement?

Maybe. Please bear in mind that it is Hound who is putting forward the notion that the Developers know how people on the Forum react in given situations. Note in my post above that I stated possibly they had "acted on the basis of updated data that suggested a different outcome than predicted before". I was just wondering why any Developer would deliberately ignore their own customer information if he is correct. Your suggestion is entirely possible.

Chameleon

tiomono said:

Chameleon said:

I'm concerned by the repeated use of "the players" as though we can all be lumped into one pile.  Also, I don't personally view anything in this game as "end of the world".  I am giving feedback.  If it were the end of the world then I certainly wouldn't care about a mobile game.  I'm perfectly able to walk away from MPQ.

We are all lumped in one pile. We are all interested enough in this game to play it and post about it on an online forum.

Beyond that there are a ton of differing opinions and variety of player desires on how to change or improve the game. Which I'm sure is the same with the people making this game. But we always lump them into one entity of the devs.

Here is but one direct example of what I was referring to when I voiced my concern:
"... the players here can't behave rationally".

There are many more examples of this but I'm far too tired to go seeking them all to copy here.

tiomono

Chameleon said:

tiomono said:

Chameleon said:

I'm concerned by the repeated use of "the players" as though we can all be lumped into one pile.  Also, I don't personally view anything in this game as "end of the world".  I am giving feedback.  If it were the end of the world then I certainly wouldn't care about a mobile game.  I'm perfectly able to walk away from MPQ.

We are all lumped in one pile. We are all interested enough in this game to play it and post about it on an online forum.

Beyond that there are a ton of differing opinions and variety of player desires on how to change or improve the game. Which I'm sure is the same with the people making this game. But we always lump them into one entity of the devs.

Here is but one direct example of what I was referring to when I voiced my concern:
"... the players here can't behave rationally".

There are many more examples of this but I'm far too tired to go seeking them all to copy here.

I know what you are talking about. I see it plenty. Not all people on the forums will put a "some, many, few, several, etc" before they say players. People who do not use terms to narrow down numbers in things on an internet forum most likely do not mean "all" in every case. Instead of being concerned about it, maybe ask for clarification?

bluewolf

1.  The devs (probably) posted about a month ahead of this going live because they knew people were both disappointed in the Anniversary (the worst PVP run in my time in the game; feeders?  Anyone?) and were getting attention spillover from the Anniversary when a good number of players come back/ramp up play since there's double iso, and the big  vault, and everything else.  So putting communication out then was good timing to keep the interest chain going.

2.  I find it amusing that we are debating the devs' willingness to post incomplete information when this very post has this piece:

"Past that, we will be updating several other places in the game to include Shards. Places like Event Rewards, S.H.I.E.L.D. Clearance Levels, Champion Rewards, and more will be seeing these additional ways to gain characters getting updates. We’re still finalizing a lot of these various rewards and we’ll be sharing that information with you as it comes on line."

It is simply a good business practice in the game development industry to keep people interested in your product by teasing what's coming up.  It's often been a character hint around here since the features are few and far between.  (Game engine development notwithstanding, they simply do not launch new features very often.  I think it is a function of a small development team and a necessary focus on the immediate revenue generators to keep the game in business.)  So communication is important and essential when it's around certain things.

Look, this thread has 34,000 views or so.  Yes there are a lot of comments, but if you looked at the number of users who post complaints you probably end up with maybe 100ish people, maybe 200, who post and complain.  Out of a player base in the neighborhood of (probably) 100K or so?

We all need to stop pretending that our comments have an outsized influence on what the developers do.

Why do they not communicate more?  They are a small team with each person having many responsibilities.  It's probably as simple as that.  And at the end of the day communication generates no direct revenue, and the vast majority players log in and play every day without ever visiting the forum.

DAZ0273

We all need to stop pretending that our comments have an outsized influence on what the developers do.

I would normally agree with this 100%, the only thing that makes me think that the Developers do use this forum for enhanced customer feedback was the end of "Tapping". I couldn't even have told you what tapping was without the forum and I have been playing this game nigh on 4 years. I mean if the Forum represents a tiny percentage of active players then the percentage affected by tapping must be barely a blip. Yet it was addressed. Maybe this was on their radar anyway, dunno but there was a fairly active and regular campaign on here against it.

tiomono

I find it kind of humorous that before shards we had some players saying it was impossible to organically cover a character due to dillution. Now we have some players saying they are upset that shards will be wasted because they are going to organically cover the targeted character before they gain enough shards.

I feel sorry for the devs.

tiomono

OJSP said:

tiomono said:

I find it kind of humorous that before shards we had some players saying it was impossible to organically cover a character due to dillution. Now we have some players saying they are upset that shards will be wasted because they are going to organically cover the targeted character before they gain enough shards.

I feel sorry for the devs.

I'm quite sure they're different players. It's impossible to keep everyone happy, short of giving everything out for free. Then the developers don't get any money, then the game shuts down and nobody will be happy.

Yeah. I wonder if there is not some overlap though. A lot of players were very vocal on dillution being horrible. It still illustrates the difficulty that the devs face. 

"Virtual comforting hug to the dev team" keep at it devs this is still a great game.

bluewolf

I've probably made this point already, but here it is:

"Hanging Shards" are a feature, not a bug.

The OCD folks will get the cover and have a few left over.  Then they think about whether to keep the person bonused, or split their favorites, or come back later to that person (maybe it helps get a dupe started/finished).  Oh!  Maybe they spend some money on shards to try to avoid leaving shards on a person.  It drives engagement.  I already find myself looking to open as many tokens as possible to get more shards.

Most other players will just move on since the vast majority of players have many, many characters in various partial stages of completion, and what's the real difference between some shards sitting on a person vs needing millions of iso?  They might even be happy that they are partway to another cover when they need one.

I was interested in what happens when you select 2 3's and open a bunch (49) of Standards, so I did that.  And then I finished one of them and forgot to take Favorites off of them and now I have 3 3's in various stages of Shard Actualization.  And yes it is making me want to finish them......

AND!  Once they roll them into rewards....what do you think the odds are that they will ALL be shards that are rewarded as "wildcards" that go towards your favorites?  Or....much more likely....you will get shards for some random person just like the rewards are now? Where you don't really care about more covers for, say, 4SL but there they are so you take them.  So I imagine that you will have vast numbers of character who are Partially Sharded before you know it.

Dogface

I've adjusted my tactics from BH to TH by targeting a 3* cover earlier, so instead of lvl 256 waiting for the LT on lvl 257, i'm targeting 3* at 253/254, hoping to get to lvl with a combination of shards and normal pulls with minimum 'waste'.

ThaRoadWarrior

I wonder if Shards hadn't gone live across a 2-day sub in front of an event consisting entirely of 2-day subs, if the more regular flow of resources would have contributed to a better sense of earn rate?

It took me 3-days of pulling as I go, progression only to get my first 3* to to 300 shards. With Shield Training live today, and a 1-day sub, i'm already halfway to another one one day later. I'm curious to see what my shard rate will ultimately average out to be over time.

I'm still not halfway to my first 4*, and I have 24/500 for Okoye with an accidental 3/500 to lumbercap from a mis-click on the roster screen.

bluewolf

ThaRoadWarrior said:

I wonder if Shards hadn't gone live across a 2-day sub in front of an event consisting entirely of 2-day subs, if the more regular flow of resources would have contributed to a better sense of earn rate?

It took me 3-days of pulling as I go, progression only to get my first 3* to to 300 shards. With Shield Training live today, and a 1-day sub, i'm already halfway to another one one day later. I'm curious to see what my shard rate will ultimately average out to be over time.

I'm still not halfway to my first 4*, and I have 24/500 for Okoye with an accidental 3/500 to lumbercap from a mis-click on the roster screen.

Luckily, they are selling the Mighty Bundle to make up for the gap in earnable tokens.

pheregas

tiomono said:

I find it kind of humorous that before shards we had some players saying it was impossible to organically cover a character due to dillution. Now we have some players saying they are upset that shards will be wasted because they are going to organically cover the targeted character before they gain enough shards.

I feel sorry for the devs.

A tale of two organics...

3*...  Organics probable (not rage inducing)
4*...  Organics Rare, but still possible (could be annoying in some rare instances, but not likely).
5*...  Organics almost impossible, depending on Feeder status.  The real crime with this tier will be unannounced feeders hitting.  Give a month notice COOL!  Give two days notice NOT COOL.