Shard QoL Tweaks. Please post all suggestions here.

bluewolf

@broll

Go to the character information page and use the upper-right "Favorite" icon/toggle to un-Fave 3Cap.

It's confusing but it works (just can't un-Fave in the "see my whole roster" view).

They need to fix that function to make it work better in this type of situation.

I'm pretty sure (?) that you can convert the shards to a cover and roster that?  But maybe not.

broll

bluewolf said:

@broll

Go to the character information page and use the upper-right "Favorite" icon/toggle to un-Fave 3Cap.

It's confusing but it works (just can't un-Fave in the "see my whole roster" view).

They need to fix that function to make it work better in this type of situation.

I'm pretty sure (?) that you can convert the shards to a cover and roster that?  But maybe not.

Yes that worked. 

I also found that there is a way to clone. Have to go to the second page.  The button on that page says recruit again then pops hip a picture of all 3 covers asking which to start with. 

I still think meter on the roster screen is a good idea though 

jp1

broll said:

I favorited 3* cap after I max capped him to try and speed duping him.  Well that was apparently a bad call.  Now I only have one 3* cap at 266 and 303/300 shards, which wouldn't be so bad, but when someone's at max shards you apparently cannot unfavorited them unless you use your shards.

Two big problems with that:
1.  In my case above I cannot use those shards until I get at least 1 more 3* cap recruited.  If I don't get one for months I'll be stuck getting shards for him that I may not once.  Such a thing would be many factors worse on a 4* or 5*...
2.  I can see use cases where even if someone has the shards, they choose to save them, but if they do that they can't unfavorite the character.  That's not a good idea.

Suggested improvement:
Don't have a separate icon when maxed, instead add a new meter onto the roster screen that shows everyone shards (which is a QOL change I want to see irregardless of this problem).

Example:


The placement isn't perfect and I'm not graphic artist, but you see the idea.

You can unfavorite them. Click the character cover and look to the top right.

shardwick

dingo said:

My suggestion is get rid of the "New" designation on new characters, allowing us to shard them right away. I have all 4*s champed except for Wolfsbane, and now M.O.D.O.K. I would like to be able to shard Wolfsbane, but can't yet... I have never hoarded, but this new feature is forcing me to save tokens until "New" goes away.

I always thought the New tag was dumb especially in cases where a new character doesn't go into tokens for another season. And even dumber because they say that you can get shards for characters that you don't even have. Oh so someone could get shards for Spider Ham? Well.... no. New characters? Well.... no. If they want to limit people to not being able to draw covers for new and limited characters from tokens or vaults or stores then fine but if we can throw cp at a new/limited character then we should also be able to target those characters with shards.

Arctic_One

Im sorry if this has been said already but i did not read through all of this thread.
Why are shards not a resource like iso, hp and cp? 

dingo

shardwick said:

dingo said:

My suggestion is get rid of the "New" designation on new characters, allowing us to shard them right away. I have all 4*s champed except for Wolfsbane, and now M.O.D.O.K. I would like to be able to shard Wolfsbane, but can't yet... I have never hoarded, but this new feature is forcing me to save tokens until "New" goes away.

I always thought the New tag was dumb especially in cases where a new character doesn't go into tokens for another season. And even dumber because they say that you can get shards for characters that you don't even have. Oh so someone could get shards for Spider Ham? Well.... no. New characters? Well.... no. If they want to limit people to not being able to draw covers for new and limited characters from tokens or vaults or stores then fine but if we can throw cp at a new/limited character then we should also be able to target those characters with shards.

The thing is, with shards, unlike bonus heroes, it's going to take time to get even 1 cover. With bonus heros you could get lucky and build characters pretty quick. New is just silly at this point.... I've only leveled up 1 4* since shards came out and I play PVE, PVP, and open tokens daily. Seems like a lower return than bonus heros, to me at least. In the span that a character is New, an average player could have gotten 2 covers,  that's not game breaking if that's going to be someone's argument.

spidyjedi84

The 5 star shard drop rate is insanely low, period. Fours are trickling as well, and if they don't remove those "new" designations and still require new characters as part of S.H.I.E.L.D. Training, I don't want to see the player revolt they're going to see in the next month when no one has a chance at getting one cover from the brand new release because of how slow it takes to rely on shards to add covers to a 4 star...

wymtime

my suggestion for shards 

1 update progression and placement rewards to give out shards.  Right now shards is a lateral at best to worse than bonus heroes.  The only benefit is you can choose the color.  If you are not going to add 5* shards to progression and placement rewards please increase 5* shards.  Right now getting those extra covers for 5* is still too low.

2 make shards universal instead of character specific for at least the 4* and 5* tier.  This means you could purchase covers with shards or add levels with shards.

3 make the animations simpler for collecting shards.  When opening tokens going through 2 animations that are significantly slower than before is not fun.  Most players just want to open all their tokens get through the process and get back to playing.

Reecoh

spidyjedi84 said:

The 5 star shard drop rate is insanely low, period.

If my math is right ... under bonus heroes - if you got the stated averages - you would get 12 bonus 5*s for every 1600 opened LL/CL tokens:

1600 tokens * 0.15 5* rate * 0.05 Bonus rate = 12

Under shards the same number of tokens will net you 9.6 extra covers:

1600 tokens * 3 shards per / 500 shards per cover = 9.6

That's the same as a 4% bonus hero rate rather than 5%, or a 20% reduction in extra 5*s.

(3* & 4* rates are lower too, but I'm not going to try to sort that mess out.)

Until such time as more shard drops are added to the economy we are absolutely getting fewer covers for our effort.

Is the ability to pick the color enough of an offset for the lower drop rate? That will depend on each user's point of view.

For me personally I think I'd rather have the additional covers. My 5* BH drop rate was never over 4% after 1915 pulls so this is a small improvement in a mathematical sense. However, my 4* BH rate was always between 15% - 17% so this is a significant reduction in 4s. And as someone who changes 3* & 4* bonus heroes frequently, it's more of a hassle so far.

HoundofShadow

People are missing an important point. Guaranteed things are always more expensive than things gained via RNG. Naturally, the rate will be lower than RNG. This is perfectly normal.

It's like entering into a lucky draw. If you want to get the prize without competing with other contestants, you buy whatever prize at their face value. What's happening is that you want to do away with luck and get the prize, but you expect the host to sell you the prize at RNG price.

Daredevil217

HoundofShadow said:

People are missing an important point. Guaranteed things are always more expensive than things gained via RNG. Naturally, the rate will be lower than RNG. This is perfectly normal.

It's like entering into a lucky draw. If you want to get the prize without competing with other contestants, you buy whatever prize at their face value. What's happening is that you want to do away with luck and get the prize, but you expect the host to sell you the prize at RNG price.

Nope. I’ll only speak for myself, but I want the old odds and would gladly pay the old prices to get them. I’d happily give up my colorless covers and any other “perks” they claim I’m getting in order to get BH back. For me and many others it was a better system.

shardwick

Daredevil217 said:

HoundofShadow said:

People are missing an important point. Guaranteed things are always more expensive than things gained via RNG. Naturally, the rate will be lower than RNG. This is perfectly normal.

It's like entering into a lucky draw. If you want to get the prize without competing with other contestants, you buy whatever prize at their face value. What's happening is that you want to do away with luck and get the prize, but you expect the host to sell you the prize at RNG price.

Nope. I’ll only speak for myself, but I want the old odds and would gladly pay the old prices to get them. I’d happily give up my colorless covers and any other “perks” they claim I’m getting in order to get BH back. For me and many others it was a better system.

Yeah, sign me up for the old system. When I came back from retirement I had to play a lot of catch up. I was able to do that with bonus heroes even if it meant that I got a saved cover now and then. With shards it just feels like a chore.

KGB

shardwick said:

Daredevil217 said:

HoundofShadow said:

People are missing an important point. Guaranteed things are always more expensive than things gained via RNG. Naturally, the rate will be lower than RNG. This is perfectly normal.

It's like entering into a lucky draw. If you want to get the prize without competing with other contestants, you buy whatever prize at their face value. What's happening is that you want to do away with luck and get the prize, but you expect the host to sell you the prize at RNG price.

Nope. I’ll only speak for myself, but I want the old odds and would gladly pay the old prices to get them. I’d happily give up my colorless covers and any other “perks” they claim I’m getting in order to get BH back. For me and many others it was a better system.

Yeah, sign me up for the old system. When I came back from retirement I had to play a lot of catch up. I was able to do that with bonus heroes even if it meant that I got a saved cover now and then. With shards it just feels like a chore.

Sign me up too. The longer you play or plan to play the better the old system is for you because you'll get more BH at every tier.

Those numbers matter too because in the course of a year it's probably 1 more max champed 3* on your farm by the time you factor in all the standard, elite and heroic tokens you open in a year (thousands of them). One more maxed 3* champ extra is a lot of resources. Then there is the extra 4* covers and so on.

Shards (and their colorless cover) really only matters at the 5* tier and even then only helps those who don't have fully covered 5*.

KGB

DAZ0273

So far I have bagged three 3* through shards but wasted some on my final Hood cover as I hadn't realised he was close to the 300 mark and he was Max Champed - sure I can start off a dupe at some point but that is such low priority it barely registers and I'm a bit grump those shards aren't put towards Angel. My fault sure but doesn't make me happier and I feel that this is slower progress than I would have expected for some RNG.

I am 3/4 of the way to a Juggernaut cover which I will at least be able to choose the colour of and have made tiny progress on a 5* Jessica Jones cover.

Will we get "neutral" shards for rewards ongoing? I would be very surprised but I guess we have to wait and see, otherwise I expect progress to be controlled by the game more than what I actually want to do for PvE and PvP shards. Ditto Mighty Tokens - will these be achievable to non elite rosters? If not, then no progress on 4* dilution will be made.

Overall I am all fine for keeping Shards for 5* as an additional thing but add me to the getting Bonus Heroes back otherwise crew.

Reecoh

HoundofShadow said:

People are missing an important point. Guaranteed things are always more expensive than things gained via RNG. Naturally, the rate will be lower than RNG. This is perfectly normal.

I don't think folks are missing this point. We see this all the time in the way the game monetizes the HFH and similar offers.

However, that doesn't necessarily make it a better system nor a more enjoyable/entertaining/fun-for-the-players system.

spidyjedi84

Reecoh said:

spidyjedi84 said:

The 5 star shard drop rate is insanely low, period.

If my math is right ... under bonus heroes - if you got the stated averages - you would get 12 bonus 5*s for every 1600 opened LL/CL tokens:

1600 tokens * 0.15 5* rate * 0.05 Bonus rate = 12

Under shards the same number of tokens will net you 9.6 extra covers:

1600 tokens * 3 shards per / 500 shards per cover = 9.6

That's the same as a 4% bonus hero rate rather than 5%, or a 20% reduction in extra 5*s.

(3* & 4* rates are lower too, but I'm not going to try to sort that mess out.)

Until such time as more shard drops are added to the economy we are absolutely getting fewer covers for our effort.

Is the ability to pick the color enough of an offset for the lower drop rate? That will depend on each user's point of view.

For me personally I think I'd rather have the additional covers. My 5* BH drop rate was never over 4% after 1915 pulls so this is a small improvement in a mathematical sense. However, my 4* BH rate was always between 15% - 17% so this is a significant reduction in 4s. And as someone who changes 3* & 4* bonus heroes frequently, it's more of a hassle so far.

I'm definitely noticing the shortfall of BH in my 4-star pulls. Drawing a 5 star, any 5 star was always a gamble, but my chance of nabbing a 4 star in either heroics or classics/latest was much higher than this guaranteed shards promises. I've had to resort to chasing Talos so I don't waste chasing shards until Rahne and M.O.D.O.K. enter latests, as I've got everyone else at 4-star level up to 13 covers. While I want more Prof X 5 and Iceman 5 covers, the chance of drawing Carnage 5 is becoming a deterrent in drawing from latests. At my draw rate, though, I may have a new Kitty cover of my choice by March, so progress? Maybe?
Having a guaranteed color cover of my choice was not worth the lower drop rate and never has been. I'm one of those people who'd be happy waiting for the cover to come organically, no matter how many draws it takes. 
I'll gladly take back BH as a system, especially if they're going to keep to the same release schedule, as there's going to be no way to get covers for 4 stars via shards in a timely fashion to get a character to 10 covers on relying on just draws alone without resorting to hoarding. This has been a step backwards in way too many ways.

ThaRoadWarrior

On the Shard Earn screen after you open a token, you are shown two little character icons for the characters you earned shards for, with the number of shards you have in the bank. These are clickable buttons, but they don't take you to the Level Up screen, they take you to the screen you'd be presented if you were looking at the character in a Vault or something. Basically you can page through all their info but not make any changes. This would be better if it just took you to the character you were working on so you could apply the sharded cover right then.