Latest Token or Classic Token needs to give more shards

thedarkphoenix

The amount given now is abysmal, I'd gladly take The BH back over what I have now, and this is between 5/4/ and 3's.

That or it needs to be hidden (which wouldn't make sense) because its pretty demoralizing to see just how many 5 shards you need and know it will be MONTHS before you get that one cover.

I prefer not knowing and being pleasantly surprised.

HoundofShadow

What's the minimum amount of shards  you think they should give for 4* and 5*?

broll

I don’t know. I find pulling hundreds with no progress more demoralizing. Here you at least get shards you keep every single time.  I wouldn’t complain if they added more, but I definitely prefer this to the randomness. 

spatenfloot

HoundofShadow said:

What's the minimum amount of shards  you think they should give for 4* and 5*?

400/500

shardwick

I'd like an option to turn off notifications on them whenever you pull tokens. Or at least give an option to change it to every 100 shards gives a notification.

jamesh

HoundofShadow said:

What's the minimum amount of shards  you think they should give for 4* and 5*?

At least parity with the long term average bonus hero rate. I realise that we can choose the cover colour now, but that is only relevant for a small number of covers I'd be hoping to acquire for a character (i.e. not champed, and 5 covers in at least one colour). Combine this with the reduced flexibility and the fact that you'll probably have some shards sitting around doing nothing, it's not at all clear the rate reduction is justified.

For legendary tokens, this would correspond to 3.75 epic shards, and 17 legendary shards. Alternatively, drop the number of shards required for legendary characters to 350, and epic characters to 400.

ThaRoadWarrior

I think the earned shards should be graduated with the rarity of the pull, especially when 5*s are involved. Ideally for me, applying some multiple of the shards whenever you earn a higher tier reward from a given store would be desirable.
Classically pulling a 3* out of Standard was a bonus hero straight up, and now it's the same 6 shards you'd have earned pulling a 1*. It would be great if it meant something again to pull the "good" reward. 
I've suggested it elsewhere, but it would be nice if organically pulling a 5* from a legendary store would flip the earned shards so that you got 13 5* shards and 3 4* shards (I mean, i'd prefer more than that, but it's an easy thing to suggest)

tiomono

ThaRoadWarrior said:

I think the earned shards should be graduated with the rarity of the pull, especially when 5*s are involved. Ideally for me, applying some multiple of the shards whenever you earn a higher tier reward from a given store would be desirable.
Classically pulling a 3* out of Standard was a bonus hero straight up, and now it's the same 6 shards you'd have earned pulling a 1*. It would be great if it meant something again to pull the "good" reward. 
I've suggested it elsewhere, but it would be nice if organically pulling a 5* from a legendary store would flip the earned shards so that you got 13 5* shards and 3 4* shards (I mean, i'd prefer more than that, but it's an easy thing to suggest)

Or you could consider that you are getting the "good" reward more often. You pull a 1* from a standard and still get progress towards a chosen 3*. You pull a 2* from a heroic and get progress towards a 4*. More often than not you get the "good" reward.

If they did flip the rewards when you pulled a 5* you would have more people complaining that they are not getting the 1 in 7 pull rate so they are not getting as many "bonus" shards as other players.

HoundofShadow

I think it's not possible to be on equal or close to equal with previous rate. 

It's 140 pulls vs 167 pulls for 5* BH and 23 vs 27 for 4* BH.

If we increase the shards gain to 4 for 5*, it will be 125 pulls, which will be lower than BH rate.

Since 5* value is 6 times of 4*, 

24 pulls of 4* = 144 pulls of 5*
25 pulls = 150
26 pulls = 156

The number needed will be really odd.

As for flipping using 1:7 odds,
For every 7 pulls, you will earn 6*3 + 15 = 33 shards. 
500 / 33 * 7 =106 pulls
The number of pulls needed will be even lower than BH.

I think random bonus shards system has a higher probability of being implemented.

ThaRoadWarrior

tiomono said:

ThaRoadWarrior said:

[...]
I've suggested it elsewhere, but it would be nice if organically pulling a 5* from a legendary store would flip the earned shards so that you got 13 5* shards and 3 4* shards (I mean, i'd prefer more than that, but it's an easy thing to suggest)

Or you could consider that you are getting the "good" reward more often. You pull a 1* from a standard and still get progress towards a chosen 3*. You pull a 2* from a heroic and get progress towards a 4*. More often than not you get the "good" reward.

If they did flip the rewards when you pulled a 5* you would have more people complaining that they are not getting the 1 in 7 pull rate so they are not getting as many "bonus" shards as other players.

Right now the complaint is that targeted heroes don't "feel" as good as bonus heroes did (well, A complaint is that; there are other ones to do with wasted shards and lack of flexibility etc. for this conversation i'm assuming we're stuck with the current system as a foundation). Whether or not the reality is that you're getting them faster/more often, you could add a little spice to the sauce by introducing a little bumpiness to the acquisition rate. Whether that takes the form of additional "bonus" shards occasionally, or it takes the form of a progressive drop rate, I think it would put some of the fun back into opening tokens.

ThaRoadWarrior

HoundofShadow said:

[...]

As for flipping using 1:7 odds,
For every 7 pulls, you will earn 6*3 + 15 = 33 shards. 
500 / 33 * 7 =106 pulls
The number of pulls needed will be even lower than BH.

I think random bonus shards system has a higher probability of being implemented.

The reality is that you won't be getting a 5* every 7 pulls, it'll be much lumpier than that. And depending on your earn rate for cp/tokens, those 7 pulls might be spread WAAAAAY out on the actual real life calendar. I've been tracking my pulls since 6/18, and even though I'm at 16% 5* across that time, i've gone many times well over 20 pulls "dry." The shard system as implemented right now feels very mechanical. You are filling up a bucket one drip at a time, and eventually it tips over and you start again. If somebody occasionally tossed a water balloon in there it would really add a thrill to the process is all I'm suggesting.

tiomono

ThaRoadWarrior said:

tiomono said:

ThaRoadWarrior said:

[...]
I've suggested it elsewhere, but it would be nice if organically pulling a 5* from a legendary store would flip the earned shards so that you got 13 5* shards and 3 4* shards (I mean, i'd prefer more than that, but it's an easy thing to suggest)

Or you could consider that you are getting the "good" reward more often. You pull a 1* from a standard and still get progress towards a chosen 3*. You pull a 2* from a heroic and get progress towards a 4*. More often than not you get the "good" reward.

If they did flip the rewards when you pulled a 5* you would have more people complaining that they are not getting the 1 in 7 pull rate so they are not getting as many "bonus" shards as other players.

Right now the complaint is that targeted heroes don't "feel" as good as bonus heroes did (well, A complaint is that; there are other ones to do with wasted shards and lack of flexibility etc. for this conversation i'm assuming we're stuck with the current system as a foundation). Whether or not the reality is that you're getting them faster/more often, you could add a little spice to the sauce by introducing a little bumpiness to the acquisition rate. Whether that takes the form of additional "bonus" shards occasionally, or it takes the form of a progressive drop rate, I think it would put some of the fun back into opening tokens.

I understand that the thrill is not there with shards.

I feel like the 2 largest complaints many high level players had/have with this game were/are dillution and rng progress. Shards addresses rng progress way better than bonus heros in my opinion. I will gladly trade the thrill of a bonus hero of a color I cannot choose that may or may not happen for long stretches of pulls for steady visible progress with a reward I choose at the end.

Back to the OP. I feel classics do give more shards than latests because they are 5 cp cheaper. Pull 100 cp worth of tokens in latests and you get 60 4* shards and 12 5* shards. Compared to spending that cp in classics where you will get 75 4* shards and 15 5* shards.

Godzillafan67

ThaRoadWarrior said:

HoundofShadow said:

[...]

As for flipping using 1:7 odds,
For every 7 pulls, you will earn 6*3 + 15 = 33 shards. 
500 / 33 * 7 =106 pulls
The number of pulls needed will be even lower than BH.

I think random bonus shards system has a higher probability of being implemented.

The reality is that you won't be getting a 5* every 7 pulls, it'll be much lumpier than that. And depending on your earn rate for cp/tokens, those 7 pulls might be spread WAAAAAY out on the actual real life calendar. I've been tracking my pulls since 6/18, and even though I'm at 16% 5* across that time, i've gone many times well over 20 pulls "dry." The shard system as implemented right now feels very mechanical. You are filling up a bucket one drip at a time, and eventually it tips over and you start again. If somebody occasionally tossed a water balloon in there it would really add a thrill to the process is all I'm suggesting.

Though I don't track my pulls, I noted that I had only picked up one 5* since shards went into effect. Since Carnage is my only 5* TH, it was easy to see that I had gotten one 5* out of thirty-four pulls of legends (combo of latest & classic, though weighted towards classics as that's what I spend my CP on). Today, I opened the three latest tokens that I had recently accumulated and numbers 2 & 3 were both Carnage black. So, after also cracking two classics, I'm now at three 5* out of thirty-nine pulls, but I'm hoping that there are many more 5* to come to bring me more in-line with that sweet 1:7 spot.

ThaRoadWarrior

It would really be op if you got a slug of shards = to the amount of pulls since your last 5* draw all at once when you finally hit one.

tiomono

ThaRoadWarrior said:

It would really be op if you got a slug of shards = to the amount of pulls since your last 5* draw all at once when you finally hit one.

Now that I could get behind. If shards would guarantee you stayed on the 1 in 7 rate that would be amazing.

HoundofShadow

The pull rate definitely won't always be 1:7. In the long run or looking at the players' pull rates as a whole, it will average out to 106 pulls. If we were to keep the argument against shards or for BH similar, I thought this would be a fair comparison.

The argument for BH is that the rate is better than TH, even though there would be dry runs of BH or drawing 5*. However, 140 pulls is still being used as the reference point.

jamesh

HoundofShadow said:

I think it's not possible to be on equal or close to equal with previous rate. 

It's 140 pulls vs 167 pulls for 5* BH and 23 vs 27 for 4* BH.

If we increase the shards gain to 4 for 5*, it will be 125 pulls, which will be lower than BH rate.

As I said in my previous post, they've got an extra knob to adjust here: the number of shards needed to redeem a cover.

If it only took 400 shards to earn a 5* cover, then 3 shards per LT would be pretty much spot on for the old bonus hero rate.  There's no reason why one arbitrary number is sacred while the other isn't.

HoundofShadow

That's not how tradeoff works. That would be an improvement.

jamesh

So you believe that there are no downsides to shards other than the lower rate of cover acquisition? That's not at all clear to me.  With equal rates, I think the positives and negatives would balance out pretty well:

• positive: Choice of colour for the at most three covers it matters for out of 13 to champ a character (or 113 to max-champ them).
  
• positive: predictable rate of cover acquisition in the short term
  
• negative: hero targeting decisions need to be made well in advance of receiving covers.
• negative: if you do change targeting decisions before redeeming a cover, those shards on the first character will provide no benefit until you switch back.
  

Ed_Dragonrider

HoundofShadow said:

That's not how tradeoff works. That would be an improvement.

I'm so glad you said this, because this exactly is the base problem of the TH system. And I think everyone here understands this whether it's said outright or not. 

Dilution is a huge problem (at more than just the 5* lvl), and with a new character every other week, it's only getting worse. We have complained about this (endlessly) and the devs said they're aware and working on it. It's a delicate matter so it's no surprise they can't  just "solve" the problem in one go, but surely improving it, even if only step by step is the whole point! For both the players,  and the devs.

But instead of an improvement we got a tradeoff... do we understand that is what happened? Yes we do, you can stop defending the devs any time now. Are we happy with said tradeoff? No we're not.
We not only want, but actually need an improvement. Tradeoffs are insufficient and will not do.

Now, before you start lecturing me, I am aware that we aren't done yet. That there will be many, many more steps before we can say they have finished implementing this new system and reshaping the game economy around it. That doesn't mean we have to sit quietly until they're done. 

HoundofShadow

The downsides of shards are pretty much established. As for the pull rate, it was mentioned in the beginning of the year that getting something guaranteed will involve increasing the number of token pulls needed.

Assuming that the cap system would want to have the same overall pull rate you would have to lower the base pull rate to do that. What you're advocating is simply raising drop rates overall, which is another discussion altogether. Not a poor discussion to have, but outside the bounds of this thread.

I think that continuing to ask for shard system to deliver the same base rate as BH based on pulling tokens alone is a futile effort. It's not going to happen. Even in the real world, the cost of getting guaranteed stuff (such as direct purchase) is higher than those gotten via luck (such as claw crane).

Given that majority of the players don't change their chosen characters for BH or they choose to stick with the same characters for BH, I think advance planning are needed for those who like to maximise or micromanage when and what resources they want to get. Based on data provided by the devs, they are not in the majority.