New Feature in R191: Shards

PiMacleod

Borstock said:

As a player firmly entrenched in 5* land, I really don't understand why a cover of your choice is beneficial to me, especially since saved covers are a thing. I still have to hoard for a realistic chance at covering the latest 3. And everything below the 5* tier gets covered eventually and then never played with.

For me, if I get more covers, great. If I get fewer covers, I don't like it. None of the other potential side benefits do anything for me.

I wish i had your luck then.  Want my Valkyrie thats still unchamped to this day?  Maybe i could lend it to you so you could finish it off.

Although, there is truth in the whole thought process of "never to be used again" deal.  The day i need my champed Talos (besides essentials) is the day that they actually rebalance characters.... And we know thats a bit too tall of an order at this point.

y4747

as someone who's had **** luck with 5* BH (both is sheer amount and color coverage), i'll gladly pay the decreased chances for the lack of rng - so overall i think this is a positive change. many players have been asking for colorless covers for years, and this is a step in that direction.

that being said, there are a couple of points others have raised that i totally agree with:

a. you could have left the pulls-per-bonus-cover the same. it really wouldn't have broken anything, and would have gone a long way to make it more palatable.

b. not being able to change mid-way is going to hurt; i forsee having quite a lot of effectively wasted shards on my roster. hell, just having "leftover" shards before changing toons is going to drive me crazy. i think it will be a great idea to allow changing shards between characters up to the cost of a cover - that way you solve that and won't have the issue of people hoarding shards forever and shifting to the new shiny when it comes out. so if a random pull finished that 5* who had 400 shards, you can shift those 400 to a new toon, but if you can't shift more than 500.

Daredevil217

HoundofShadow said:

I think people are focusing too much on the number of covers potentially gained in a perfect BH system vs the number of usable covers gained. 

This system addresses two main complains for most of the players:

1) bad coverage of characters like 5/10/0
2) A clear path to the characters that they want to cover.

While Saved Covers helped somewhat, I suppose many players aren't keen in switching 5 dups for 1 colour of their choices.

I think this works really well for casual players who don't hoard and aren't concerned with staying on the top.

The other thing is nothing runs perfectly. Stop living in perfection and you will be happier. So what if you opened X tokens and you got the characters before you hit the required shards? This is life. Nothing falls into place perfectly the way you envisioned it to be.

No, the main complaint of players is that dilution is a real problem. Rather than give us more ways to earn covers in a steady growing pool of characters, they gave us a different way to earn characters in a steady growing pool of characters. They simply replaced a system that was working with one they could monetize.

The math showing that we come out behind and they are giving out less covers overall just adds to players frustrations, though many have pointed out that this may be rectified if the developers are generous with the reward implementation (I have to point this out since you often paint every player other than yourself as negative, anti-dev people who don’t know how to manage life). 

ThaRoadWarrior

DeNappa said:

[...]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. [...]

^ That just isn't really the case. I see SO many 370 4ockets, Bishops, and Medusas in PVP that surely people are committing to a character beyond 13. Or like myself, who have chosen to forego staying current in Shield Training to chase 5*s via champion rewards, the mechanism I currently have at my disposal for growing my upper-tier roster on purpose. 

I know we all look at the game through our own experience, but we only see what it shows us in terms of other players through our own pool of 20 alliance members and whoever is in our PVP MMR, which is a carefully curated list of poeple with reasonably similar to our own shaped rosters. 

ThaRoadWarrior

Daredevil217 said:

HoundofShadow said:

I think people are focusing too much on the number of covers potentially gained in a perfect BH system vs the number of usable covers gained. [...]

[...]
The math showing that we come out behind and they are giving out less covers overall just adds to players frustrations, though many have pointed out that this may be rectified if the developers are generous with the reward implementation (I have to point this out since you often paint every player other than yourself as negative, anti-dev people who don’t know how to manage life). 

The math I and most others have supplied isn't from a perfect BH system, rather it's from our actual, historical pull data we have been tracking over time. So most of us have shown it is at best comparable, and at worst demonstrably not as good over time as currently revealed to us. Though most of us have left in the caveat "we don't know where else the shards will come from, and in what amounts, which could change everything."

ThaRoadWarrior

I am a little curious why Shards needed to be character-specific, rather than just a 5th currency alongside Iso-8, Red Iso-8, Hero Points, and Command Points that you could spend into the character you please.

It strikes me that having your "favorited character" just turn up more in organic pulls while you accrue this new currency spendable on the character you want would truly be a way to combat dilution. That confuses somewhat the Latest Legends 5* odds if you choose to bonus a classic, so maybe that's why it isn't like that?

The math of 3/500 makes it so you certainly are going to end up with "leftover" shards per bonus, so this probably incentivizes us to leave it parked on the same character I guess?

RickOShay

Specific character shards makes lots of sense. 
However, as others have clearly stated, tier-based shards should ALSO be implemented. Call them omni-shards or something. 

I'm a general fan of this new system (in theory) so far. It will be helpful for those building up characters in each tier, but mostly during the 13 cover acquisition time frame.

As you get a character close to being finished, it becomes a real gamble if you can perfectly use shards to apply their 13th cover. 
I too would save up Heroics so that I could inch forward 3 shards at a time when getting close to 400. 
There's certainty that I'll get something like 25+ shards from some event placement etc that 'go over' the shards needed on someone specific, essentially becoming wasted. 

Spending shards for a simple Champ level will feel like a complete waste if you could have targeted these coveted 4* shards toward someone else's 13th cover. 

The 6th Anniversary of the game was huge for my roster, I finally champed all Classic 5* characters. 
The BH system was absolutely essential toward driving that goal. In a certain way though..
BSSM was at 4/6/1, so I just could NOT risk setting him as my 5* BH. I set the 4* IW Spidey feeder as my 4* BH for something like 47 levels! 

This new system would have eased the progress toward the BSSM purple I needed. Honestly I could have had him done 6 months sooner!! 
During that time I had my champ Okoye set as BH though, so obviously nothing was 'hurt' there over the long run, besides my patience.

Dangue

HoundofShadow said:

I think people are focusing too much on the number of covers potentially gained in a perfect BH system vs the number of usable covers gained. 

This system addresses two main complains for most of the players:

1) bad coverage of characters like 5/10/0
2) A clear path to the characters that they want to cover.

While Saved Covers helped somewhat, I suppose many players aren't keen in switching 5 dups for 1 colour of their choices.

I think this works really well for casual players who don't hoard and aren't concerned with staying on the top.

The other thing is nothing runs perfectly. Stop living in perfection and you will be happier. So what if you opened X tokens and you got the characters before you hit the required shards? This is life. Nothing falls into place perfectly the way you envisioned it to be.

The simplest solution to problem #1 would have been to allow people to select the cover color of bonus hero rewards. As for #2, yes, we have a clear path, it’s now just much longer because we’ll be earning fewer covers. Hard to believe that’s a win. 

Bryan Lambert

The wasted shards are the really killer here since it’s replacing BH.

I don’t know if it’s intentional or just ignorance, but as with most major systems changes to the game for the past couple of years, the devs seem to be aiming for as little net change to the game economy as possible, but basing it on a set of values that are off from what players actually value.

I mean, they did the math the same way we did the math, and I’m betting that whatever rewards are added will come up short when people run the numbers against the old BH system, but the question is, did they factor in the loss of control / wasted shard issue vs. BH and see it as a way to secretly pull rewards out of the economy and boost purchases (well, I only need 100 more shards for this champ level I don’t really need, I guess I’ll put HP into daily deals) or did they just not consider it at all? Hypothetical question, of course - not the kind of thing that ever gets answered.

FWIW, lateral moves with secret hidden drawbacks regardless of motive don’t make me regret giving up VIP.

Therealsmkspy

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.

brontag1

Here's hoping that any 'future' implementation of rewards featuring shards will give out shards for the characters we have marked as favorites and not just random characters that are featured for the week, otherwise expect a bunch of shards to start accumulating on characters you don't care about and which will never/rarely reach the 500/400/300 magic mark.

jackstar0

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.

This is my issue as well. RNG is only going to punish so much more.

Right now, I can BH all my 4*s on a 9 and just let them come knowing any one will be an LL or 5* cover I can use. Now if I left them all marked, I'm almost certain I'd pull them before the shards add up in a useful way.

Fully agree that characters should be character neutral.

HoundofShadow

I think I need to qualify what I meant by perfect BH system. It means using in-game data of BH rate theoretically and compare it against the new feature. While there are players whose BH rates have beaten the odds based on their tracking records, there are also players with poor BH rates that falls below the average rate.

In the past, players asked for colourless covers. Today, they've gotten it.
Now, players are asking for characterless covers. They might get it somewhere in the future.
What does the future after that future hold? 

RickOShay

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.

It doesn't solve your roster problem, but it doesn't hurt it either. 
The current BH system is too risky for you to set either as BH, so you set Cap's feeder as the 4* BH, and Cable waits for a feeder or a special store. 

With the new system, it's almost exactly the same. 
It doesn't really help you much at all and that stinks. But it's no real drawback. 
You'll continue to set the Cap 4* feeder as the Targeted hero, and Cable waits. 

However, now you --could-- take a gamble and set Cable as your 5* TH (Targeted Hero), and there would be no risk that you'd get an unusable cover --- eventually. That would be a long road and I too would Not do it without an existing hoard. But you could.

Now, if you had 167 LT draws saved up. This new system guarantees you could get Cable done without waiting for a feeder or a special store. That's valuable.
The traditional BH system would NOT solve this safely.

Kojubat

While I would prefer it, I can see why shards are not character agnostic. It would be too easy to accrue a sizable amount of generic currency to instantly build a new character at will, while playing the game the same way it is played today and forgoing random bonus heroes.

Considering new characters are the bread and butter of their bottom line (assumed, since that is the only consistent "new" thing), side-stepping the monetization and engagement they see when a new character enters the game does not fit the historical context of the companies involved.

The sunk cost of "I am 83.48% of the way to the single cover I want, and now I just got lucky in a random token" is probably desirable from their perspective.

DAZ0273

brontag1 said:

Here's hoping that any 'future' implementation of rewards featuring shards will give out shards for the characters we have marked as favorites and not just random characters that are featured for the week, otherwise expect a bunch of shards to start accumulating on characters you don't care about and which will never/rarely reach the 500/400/300 magic mark.

One of the most obvious ways to do this is by featured characters.  3* Daken PvP? 3* Daken shards will be now in the rewards structure for that event.

RickOShay

Kojubat said:

While I would prefer it, I can see why shards are not character agnostic. It would be too easy to accrue a sizable amount of generic currency to instantly build a new character at will, while playing the game the same way it is played today and forgoing random bonus heroes.

Considering new characters are the bread and butter of their bottom line (assumed, since that is the only consistent "new" thing), side-stepping the monetization and engagement they see when a new character enters the game does not fit the historical context of the companies involved.

The sunk cost of "I am 83.48% of the way to the single cover I want, and now I just got lucky in a random token" is probably desirable from their perspective.

It would be very smart for the Dev's to have a HP spend method to move character specific shards to a different character within the same tier. 
They would over-value this, but it would be useful, efficient, and a money maker. 
  

Warbringa

Looking at the lesser tokens:

So for vets like myself, I see shards being better for 5* bonus heroes.  The less discussed issue is what about the impact on 3* and 4* bonus heroes.  I am looking at it from a veteran roster perspective.  I think newer players building out a 3 and 4* roster will have a different impact. For me since I am farming 3* (or anyone who is simply using the 3* bonus hero for champ levels), the color of the 3* cover doesn't matter to me, so one of the big bonuses in targeting is lost for this tier for me.  In addition, I generally am more tactical in my 3* and 4* bonus hero than 5* (where I generally leave it until I finish off the 5* or get into a bad mix like 2/5/5 etc under the old system).  I generally choose my 3* bonus hero based on the 4* I want to feed, so right now I have 3* DP picked to feed 4* DP.  The new shard system doesn't allow flexibility as stated by many before, so for 3* and 4* bonus heroes this is a net loss in tactical benefits. 

For my own play style, 3* bonus heroes aren't extremely important in the sense that I don't measure roster progress when I get them like I do a 4* or 5*.  I am sitting on 200+ standard and 200+ elite tokens and 75+ heroics right now.  Looking at whether I should pull them all now vs. wait (looking at individual tokens, not packs):

Standard Tokens:  Pull now instead of waiting for shards.  My 3* bonus heroes from standard tokens will go down to 1:50 instead of the current rate of 1:43.  Now eventually with ways to earn more shards in other avenues this may equal out to the old system but with my current tokens, I am by the odds, better to pull them now than wait if I am willing to take the risk of RNG with the stated averages.  Since the only important thing to me is the number of 3* bonus covers and the stakes are low (3* bonus covers) I believe pulling all my standards now makes sense.

Elite Tokens: Pull now instead of waiting for shards.  Bonus hero chance is 1:20 under current system, and goes to about 1:23 in the new shard system.  Once again RNG can impact that 1:20 vs. the static 1:23, but once again low stakes being 3* bonus heroes.

Heroic Tokens: Wait to pull and hoard as needed.  Math is a bit more complex here since you have the chance to get both 3* and 4* bonus heroes, and they give you a 1:20 but that is combined for both.  As I have noticed, the chance of getting 4* bonus heroes is slim since your chance for 4* cover is only 1:16 to begin with.  Compare that to a 5* in LL which is 1:7 (yes I know heroic tokens are easier to come by etc) but the 4* BH from individual heroic tokens is still fairly rare.  Since 4* bonus heroes are important to me due to their champ rewards and/or needing specific covers, I place slightly more weight on this even though the rate of 4* shards from these tokens is small. I am thinking while the trend may be a worse average pull ratio like the other two tokens, it may be valuable to keep a pile of instant 4* shards if I need just a few more to finish off a 4* bonus hero.  In this case, I am willing to take perhaps slightly lower pull average to have the flexibility of having tokens I can pull to get me that extra 30 shards etc I need for a 4* bonus hero.  Since I hoard LL/CP, most of my 4* bonus heroes progress will be determined by legendary tokens when I open a hoard. I don't plan on heroics being a main source of 4* shards so I hoard them for a reserve until I need to finish off a 4* target in a certain period of time or the hoard gets to large and I decide to open them just for the sake of feeding the 2*/3* farms.  

Kojubat

RickOShay said:

Kojubat said:

While I would prefer it, I can see why shards are not character agnostic. It would be too easy to accrue a sizable amount of generic currency to instantly build a new character at will, while playing the game the same way it is played today and forgoing random bonus heroes.

Considering new characters are the bread and butter of their bottom line (assumed, since that is the only consistent "new" thing), side-stepping the monetization and engagement they see when a new character enters the game does not fit the historical context of the companies involved.

The sunk cost of "I am 83.48% of the way to the single cover I want, and now I just got lucky in a random token" is probably desirable from their perspective.

It would be very smart for the Dev's to have a HP spend method to move character specific shards to a different character within the same tier. 
They would over-value this, but it would be useful, efficient, and a money maker. 
  

I don't necessarily disagree that it would be nice to have, but now you're talking interface development, database transactions and cheating protection, all costs that have to be front-loaded.

Note that there hasn't been anything in the game interface to convert one character's cover into another character's cover at any point, regardless of cost, and I think you have their answer to that idea.

If someone considers shards more as a currency instead of a fractional cover, there really isn't a direct conversion for existing currency, either. It generally exists as a side effect of some other mechanic or purchase. (Getting ISO from a vault, buying a cover that gives a champion reward, etc.)

LHammer

I'll wait and see how this plays out but let's face it, we all know that MPQ is built on "you've gotta be tinykitty kidding me" mechanics (like how one move away from death is when the AI gets three jackpot cascades that charge and fire all their powers).  You're going to be about ten shards away from getting your thirteenth cover for a character when the RNG will give it to you from a pull thus converting all those shards into a worthless champion cover instead of progress towards one of your other 12 cover characters.