R192: Champion Rewards Updates

shadow2999

KGB,

No that isnt fair in any sense of the word. 

1.  Its impractical, and an undue burden to the CS team as well as the individual players for having to go through and correctly identify everything in their roster.  Too error prone.

2.  As stated, the precident was set for years.  Anytime someone comes into a game later, they are likely have missed items along the way.  Look at Kickstarters.  They often get rewards that are not available post launch, but they get them because they were there at the beginning and contributed early (and with cash).

3.  I get that new players might feel bad about it now, but the inevietable next wave of feeder updates or reward updates in general, they would then get their opportunity to "double" dip though that isnt really a fair description.  The company changes the rules and structure of their rewards its only fair to give said rewards IN FULL to those who would have earned them. 

While i respect that you disagree, I do believe its wrong and the current system is a complete reversal on how the company handled things in the past, how they outlined this update and a complete failure to honest communication with their customers.  They need to fix this soon, not two or three months from now, and they know its the right thing to do, I just wonder if they will actually do it.

ThaRoadWarrior

There was a solution to the flood of 5* covers, and it was to assign 5* feeders to newish-release 4*s that (relatively) nobody has yet at high levels. That even happened for some, by tying Hela to Magik etc. It was a choice to make them older 4*s and then to try and nerf the payout on top of it. Also tying desirable 5s to openly undesirable 4s (kitty to Frost) we've even seen done before, with Psylocke->Peggy the last time 3* champ rewards got an update. There are no shortage of 4* characters in the game, there'll certainly be 1 or 2 more before the hubub of all this dies down even.

Doing that is the most fair option I can think of to make it so the answer to succeeding in this game isn't "go back in time to 2015 and play for 3hrs a day."

DarthDeVo

KGB said:

whitecat31 said:

KGB said:

DarthDeVo said:

All weekend I told anyone in any of my alliance families: pull as many tokens as you can now. Get as many rewards as you can now, and then get the retroactive rewards on top when the update comes. That's what I'm doing. 

Why? 

Because that's the precedent that had been set in the past. Why should we expect much different otherwise? 

Thousands (probably tens of thousands across all our alliances) of Standards, Elites, Heroic, and Latest tokens were pulled.

I think this is the exact reason why they did what they did. An incredible number of players attempting to double dip rewards across all tiers (3, 4 and 5). On top of that it's at a lot more champion reward spots since shards replaced multiple rewards instead of just a single reward (ie 3 shard award slots in 4* champ rewards to get 1 cover instead of just a single award for a cover at 300, 320 etc).

Clearly they should have given more than 12 hrs notice and a better breakdown but it's understandable they didn't want to shower vets with tons of extra resources that other newer players weren't going to be getting.

KGB

KGB,
The veterans feel they "earned" these rewards based on dozens upon dozens of historical precedents.
Why do you reinforce a message that veterans did not "earn" these rewards that you called double dips?  

What exactly do you have against veterans, that you don't think they should get "paid" for their time served?
 
The veterans have loved this game, and trusted this game to recruit constantly for this game.
They showed their friends this game. 
They introduced their friends to the LINE and Discord communities. 
Many have hundreds if not thousands of Facebook friends because of this game and have introduced this game to hundreds of thousands of people.

I have nothing against veterans at all.

As I stated in the other big post, I fully 100% believe you should get ALL those 5* shards/covers.

But I also believe you (me, everyone) should have to give back all the double dip rewards. So for a Max 370,  you should have to give back 6 LTs and 60 cp. Otherwise, you earned MORE than what I would for doing the exact same thing (max champing a 4*).

Hence I suggested D3 allow a 1 time customer service request (as they did when they ended cover swaps and allowed dup 5* to be broken into saved covers) from each player for anything they want addressed and then you agree to give back the double dip rewards in return for the 5* shards (or 4* or 3* etc whatever you want to address).

That's fair to the entire player base. Everyone. You, me (a long time player with a fully champed 4* roster player in the 280-300 range), newer players in the 3* and below range and so on. That's all I am asking for, fairness across the board (note, I am fine with the extra 100 shard bonus for vets per 20 levels as a vet bonus).

KGB

I'm curious, have you started the 4* or 5* transition yet? If so, was the bulk of it before or after saved covers went live? 

There are vets who had to make that transition without saved covers who have had to ditch dozens (probably hundreds, maybe even thousands) of 4* and 5* covers before saved covers went live. Or they sacrificed other parts of their rosters to get the resources they needed in time in order to save covers. 

I'm fairly fortunate in that I had barely started the 5* transition when saved covers went live, so I didn't have to burn too many of those for ISO. But I did have to sell off some 4*s, despite trying to strategically hoard as best I could. 

My point is this: If you're casually saving 4* and 5* covers that will eventually be realized as champ levels, you're potentially getting more realized rewards for some characters than vets for less effort and opportunity cost. 

If a vet back in 2015 busted a mini-hoard of 100 LTs, but 10 of those ended up being dupe covers they couldn't use, then those were 10 "wasted" LTs/CP that only produced 1K or 2K ISO, which doesn't come close to comparing to a useful 4* or 5* cover. 

You could do 100 pulls right now and all of them could be dupes you can't use right now, but guess what? Just save the covers, and eventually they do become useful champ rewards. No wasted LTs/CP at all. 

So in light of that, is it really such a crime that longtime players get to "double dip" on some rewards? In some cases, the initial reward may have been very low value anyways. 

Crowl

KGB said:

DarthDeVo said:

All weekend I told anyone in any of my alliance families: pull as many tokens as you can now. Get as many rewards as you can now, and then get the retroactive rewards on top when the update comes. That's what I'm doing. 

Why? 

Because that's the precedent that had been set in the past. Why should we expect much different otherwise? 

Thousands (probably tens of thousands across all our alliances) of Standards, Elites, Heroic, and Latest tokens were pulled.

I think this is the exact reason why they did what they did. An incredible number of players attempting to double dip rewards across all tiers (3, 4 and 5). On top of that it's at a lot more champion reward spots since shards replaced multiple rewards instead of just a single reward (ie 3 shard award slots in 4* champ rewards to get 1 cover instead of just a single award for a cover at 300, 320 etc).

Clearly they should have given more than 12 hrs notice and a better breakdown but it's understandable they didn't want to shower vets with tons of extra resources that other newer players weren't going to be getting.

KGB

Many have called it double-dipping and that simply isn't true, it is more like 1.15x dipping when you consider the increased value of a cover or full set of shards compared with an LT and if they wanted to change their long-established practice when it came to adding feeders then they should have simply announced that we wouldn't be getting 1:1 but would instead be getting 85% of the shards to account for the previous LT they had gained, instead they have decided that anyone who has passed those vital points in building a character can instead get a tiny fraction of what they would have got if they had simply been slower building their characters or hoarded their covers rather than levelling up their characters.

It is utterly asinine that they have gone out of their way to alienate their longer term (and almost certainly higher paying) players for the sake of some retroactive rewards that would mean little to their bottom-line and would have done a lot to offset the dissatisfaction that people were already feeling at the loss of useful resources in the switch over to shards. 

BoyWonder1914

KGB said:

But I also believe you (me, everyone) should have to give back all the double dip rewards. So for a Max 370,  you should have to give back 6 LTs and 60 cp. Otherwise, you earned MORE than what I would for doing the exact same thing (max champing a 4*).

Hence I suggested D3 allow a 1 time customer service request (as they did when they ended cover swaps and allowed dup 5* to be broken into saved covers) from each player for anything they want addressed and then you agree to give back the double dip rewards in return for the 5* shards (or 4* or 3* etc whatever you want to address).

That's fair to the entire player base. Everyone. You, me (a long time player with a fully champed 4* roster player in the 280-300 range), newer players in the 3* and below range and so on. That's all I am asking for, fairness across the board (note, I am fine with the extra 100 shard bonus for vets per 20 levels as a vet bonus).

KGB

The next time a feeder gets announced and its a character you've already passed those thresholds for, I'd love to see how "fair" you think it is when instead of getting the covers for those champ levels that you earned fair and square, you instead have to build a dupe and reach those thresholds again. Somehow I doubt you'd be too thrilled about having to duplicate work that took you several months to do, all because it isn't "fair" to someone who by no fault of your own, hasn't progressed as far in the game and doesn't have that character at the same level as you do. 

whitecat31

KGB said:

I have nothing against veterans at all.

As I stated in the other big post, I fully 100% believe you should get ALL those 5* shards/covers.

But I also believe you (me, everyone) should have to give back all the double dip rewards. So for a Max 370,  you should have to give back 6 LTs and 60 cp. Otherwise, you earned MORE than what I would for doing the exact same thing (max champing a 4*).

Hence I suggested D3 allow a 1 time customer service request (as they did when they ended cover swaps and allowed dup 5* to be broken into saved covers) from each player for anything they want addressed and then you agree to give back the double dip rewards in return for the 5* shards (or 4* or 3* etc whatever you want to address).

That's fair to the entire player base. Everyone. You, me (a long time player with a fully champed 4* roster player in the 280-300 range), newer players in the 3* and below range and so on. That's all I am asking for, fairness across the board (note, I am fine with the extra 100 shard bonus for vets per 20 levels as a vet bonus).

KGB

Are you aware of the logistics of that?  Also you might want to check your math on how much extra shard bonus us veterans should get, versus what we are expecting based on past precedents. It is not an extra 100 shard bonus for vets per 20 levels.

Let's talk about the logistical nightmare.

First you are expecting a player to be prepared for this catastrophe to actually have that many Legendary Tokens and Command Points on them. 
Second you are asking the players, before they contact customer service, to do a math check to see what they should request. This could take some players hours.
Now. I am going to tell you. I have those Legendary tokens and CP. To request that. Many veterans who hoard for that something special do. 
I would actually be on board with that request, because I actually understand the value of the 5 star covers that were lost versus this horrid shard randomness. 

Let's say I contact customer service.
First there would be the customer service job to recheck the math. That is going to be how much time on their side?  That is going to be over an hour.
Now this is the tricky part.
Customer service has no way to delete that command points and Legendary tokens in my account. They only have so much control server side.
So they would have to ask me to spend those Legendary Tokens and command points to make them go away. 
People who did the 5 star latest legendary cover exchange know about this. 
So are you than going to ask the players to delete everything they just earned from spending those command points and Latest Legendary tokens? 
Customer service has no way to fully track what is spent how it is spent and also how to handle the rewards I get from spending if I already have anything in my inventory and if I overspend. 
They would only know it was spent looking at before and after totals.
They also would not be able to track new Command Points Hero points and covers and shards gained without doing even more math.


Also nobody has the capability of deleting shards right now. 

All of this would cause customer service nightmares and huge backlogs.  I have worked for the video game industry and I understand how that type of customer service works. 
It would bog up customer service, which has limited resources and most likely wants their workers to have at least 25 -30 customer service replies an hour.  You would be surprised about how many cut and paste FAQ style answers can be sent out to simple problems.
But this is complicated.  I also highly doubt they have more than 6 to 8 people who reply to our customer service requests.  I am sure if I asked the player base, we could figure out how many people they have answering customer service requests, because they tend to sign their names for tracking.  I doubt the company would want us to know, because no matter the number, it would seem embarrassing, because it is never enough.  So I won't make this request. 
So in any case, if just 5000 players did what you think is "fair" it would cause customer service at least 7500 man hours to do it correctly. 
That would be about 150 thousand dollars based on a theory that it only cost them $20 an hour based on pay and overhead. I assure you this is an underestimate. 
Assuming they only have 8 workers, that would each have to do 937.5 hours each, while ignoring all other customer service needs. That would take them about 4 months. 
The customers want instant gratification, or at least a 2 day turnaround. They don't want to wait 4 days let alone 4 months.

So do you think your opinion of fairness, that you are maintaining is worth costing the company 150,000 dollars while slowing dolling out rewards over a 4 month period?

This would also ignore many of the player base who don't send an email to customer service, or don't have time to do the calculations, and just want to have fun.  Not everybody loves this type of math.


Or they could have the code written to give players the rewards they thought they had earned and restore their reputation as caring about their player base within a 2 day period. 

 

ThaRoadWarrior

I'd sent an in-game CS request the moment I thought there'd been a mistake on shard issuance for Rogue when the rewards hit, and I only just got back a reply saying "we're looking into it, in the meantime check the forums." To actually have a transaction play out for a meaningful number of players would be non-trivial. 

LLohm

Stating the obvious but one of the bosses probably thought they’re not making enough from the existing players and decided to mask the resource reduction with the introduction of shards and here we are!

Reduced HP and CP and hoping to exert a pressure on the current community to spend more for no incremental advantages or gains.

No genius to it.

Vote with your wallets and vote in your app and play store. I changed my vote to 1* as a protest.

If new players want to tell me they’re willing to pay more to be where we are. More power to you!

It is up to the players to let the devs know this is the line and we have been happy supporters of this game until this action.

Since this is a reaction and suggestion thread, I have a suggestion.

Please make more good quality characters for me to desire to spend more to chase.

Don’t try to make more money off me by releasing lousy designs and then hope that people will chase it. Not going to happen.

Bubba3210

My 1* review has been posted.

Why is everyone fighting against each other again? We are not the problem and should be united.  The recent promises and pulling the rug out from under us should be our focus.

shadow2999

Agreed.

KGB

In answer to all the replies I received above:

I am a late stage 4* player starting the 5* transition. I've played for roughly 5 years now so I went through the era of no saved covers (and had plenty expire). So what about it? The game was what it was then in the same manner as I once could smoke indoors at my job, drink and drive, spank my kids and many other things no longer allowed. In other words, things change and talking about the old times isn't relevant.

Also, I have zero problem giving back the extra LT's I got on the 5* covers I was awarded (I got 1 for each of the new feeders).

Whitecat,  you were supposed to get 100 extra shards per 20 levels on a 5*. That's what ICEIX post refers to when he says 100 shards for each place you would have received a 5* cover. That's why a max champ gets 500 shards. Those 500 are the 5 bonus points.

The problem the vets are having is that they are confusing the champion rewards update with a feeder announcement. What D3 did was a champion rewards update across all the tiers to integrate shards. At the same time they added in 4/5* feeders, changed existing feeders, added might tokens etc.

So when you want to double dip on the new shards for your 5*, then every other reward at every other tier (3 and 4) that got changed should be allowed to double dip too. Because essentially they replaced the L296 of 4 CP with 100 shards. How is that any different than replacing the 3* reward at L211 of 50 HP with 1 Mighty token? It's just a change of rewards. You are asking to be compensated twice (once when you reached there and once again now with the shards). So why should anyone who has reached 211 with a 3* not be treated the same?

In essence you want special compensation for specific reward changes because it happens to be 'a 5* feeder'. If D3 grants this, then they are giving special compensation for vet rosters. There will be an uproar from other player on why they weren't able to double dip on their changes on other tier rewards (you can see players asking about this in multiple posts).

I doubt D3 wants to 'make it rain' rewards in double dipping across all tiers because that would be unprecedented resource giveaway AND would heavily favor deep veteran roster.

I also doubt they want to treat some portion of the player base specially by only granting double dipping on 5* feeders.

Hence I suggested a fair compromise where players could request reward swaps they wanted but would have to give back what they had already earned at that particular level. It's obviously going to be a nightmare, never said it wasn't. But it would be fair and that's probably the best D3 can do.

KGB

Bubba3210

I’ll add that this does not matter if you are new or a veteran. If we don’t come together, this will keep happening. Let’s keep focus on what happened or it could happen to all of us at some point. 

jp1

Still can’t understand why you concern yourself with other folks compensation. It makes no sense.

KGB

jp1 said:

Still can’t understand why you concern yourself with other folks compensation. It makes no sense.

Because it affects me when they get stuff I don't. Getting an extra 6 LTS and 60 CP's per max champed 4* is a TON of extra resources I can't get. There are players who will get that for every new feeder which means they got hundreds more CP and 50+ more LT's that I get for doing the exact same thing! That's not fair.

It's especially relevant as I move into late 4* land and max champ all my 4* in the next year or so. Those lost resources work out to roughly 80+ more 4* covers than I get. That's not nothing.

KGB

BagPuss

jp1 said:

Still can’t understand why you concern yourself with other folks compensation. It makes no sense.

Because people take joy in the misery of others, It's current human nature. Realistically the status quo isn't going to change due to length of time +/or spend. Instead of protesting with each other we should all be directing our issues with the developers and let them answer the problems. 

Not read the entire thread, I'm only interested in one or two things. 

Devs - why did you change the retroactive rewards format?

Does your data show this would greatly change the game dynamics to the detriment of players or/(+) is this a business decision because it affects revenue models?

Straight answer would be appreciated, got no problems if its the latter. Just need to know. 

Pongie

whitecat31 said:

I would also like to point out the 3 star feeder math is flawed in that. It is better, in some cases to now sell your three star after the first Reward of 4 star at level 183. which takes 30 covers. You will earn a legendary token 100 hero points and 2 command points along that journey.

50 covers later a 4 star is earned as well as 100 hero points and now only 6 command points and no legendary token. 
They took away the 7 command points and 150 hero points to make the journey worth it.  (Also forced color scheme made it necessary before).
If somebody is specifically trying to level a particular 4 star with a 3 star feeder. It might be more advantageous to now sell it at level 183. 

Need to see how much iso you get back at 183 (closest I have is 181 showing 28,000iso and 75hp). Farming 3* used to cost ~22,000iso but flipping it early will definitely increase the loss. If post iso, then it doesn’t really matter.

it’s roughly 77,000 less iso and 425 less hp from selling (based on level 181), not to factor in the skipped rewards of 184-266 (roughly 46,000 iso and 850hp). The only thing you gain is the opportunity loss of selling those 82 covers for 41,000 iso. May be optimal to flip early but the iso loss will increase. 

BagPuss

KGB said:

jp1 said:

Still can’t understand why you concern yourself with other folks compensation. It makes no sense.

Because it affects me when they get stuff I don't. Getting an extra 6 LTS and 60 CP's per max champed 4* is a TON of extra resources I can't get. There are players who will get that for every new feeder which means they got hundreds more CP and 50+ more LT's that I get for doing the exact same thing! That's not fair.

KGB

You haven't done the same thing though.

You haven't spent as much, played as long or possible at higher level for as long.

Your progress is slightly quicker than people who started 6 years ago... Well it was until recently *shards*

This is not the same. 

If the complaint is that its difficult to catch up to this type then aim that at the developers, not your fellow gamers. 
Other games have better systems that allows people to catch up (fairly) 

jp1

KGB said:

jp1 said:

Still can’t understand why you concern yourself with other folks compensation. It makes no sense.

Because it affects me when they get stuff I don't. Getting an extra 6 LTS and 60 CP's per max champed 4* is a TON of extra resources I can't get. There are players who will get that for every new feeder which means they got hundreds more CP and 50+ more LT's that I get for doing the exact same thing! That's not fair.

It's especially relevant as I move into late 4* land and max champ all my 4* in the next year or so. Those lost resources work out to roughly 80+ more 4* covers than I get. That's not nothing.

KGB

It affects you how exactly? Just because you think it isn’t fair? 

Give an example of how your enjoyment of the game or your personal progress will be impeded because of someone getting the retroactive rewards they earned...if you don’t mind.

Banks give rich folks even more money while they charge everyone else fees. Try getting them to change that business model because you think it isn’t fair. They could hand it all out evenly despite consumer contribution. I think we have a name for that though.

justsing

KGB said:

jp1 said:

Still can’t understand why you concern yourself with other folks compensation. It makes no sense.

Because it affects me when they get stuff I don't. Getting an extra 6 LTS and 60 CP's per max champed 4* is a TON of extra resources I can't get. There are players who will get that for every new feeder which means they got hundreds more CP and 50+ more LT's that I get for doing the exact same thing! That's not fair.

It's especially relevant as I move into late 4* land and max champ all my 4* in the next year or so. Those lost resources work out to roughly 80+ more 4* covers than I get. That's not nothing.

KGB

lol. Sorry but other people getting extra stuff doesn't have any effect on your own roster. You're still getting what you get via your own efforts. Other people getting a little extra doesn't take away from that.

Also. Do you know how much time and money they put into the game to get those max champed 4*s, especially if they have multiple max champs? Do you know how many covers they've sold prior to Saved Covers? Seems fair to me that they get a little extra back for being long-time supporters of this game. 

As someone who had low 4* champs when the double dipping started, I was happy to see vets get rewarded. I looked forward to being able to double dip myself, which is why I focused on getting my 4*s to the specific milestones. You had every chance to do the same. 

BuzzedLightbeer

KGB said:

jp1 said:

Still can’t understand why you concern yourself with other folks compensation. It makes no sense.

Because it affects me when they get stuff I don't. Getting an extra 6 LTS and 60 CP's per max champed 4* is a TON of extra resources I can't get. There are players who will get that for every new feeder which means they got hundreds more CP and 50+ more LT's that I get for doing the exact same thing! That's not fair.

It's especially relevant as I move into late 4* land and max champ all my 4* in the next year or so. Those lost resources work out to roughly 80+ more 4* covers than I get. That's not nothing.

KGB

So I’ve seen several of your posts in this thread, and can appreciate your position.  I’m asking this, however, not to be facetious, but as a legitimate question.  From the things you have stated, it seems that you feel your position is purely based on what’s fair and nothing else.  Your quote here refers to you as a player “doing the exact same thing” in-game as another player, yet not receiving equal compensation.  With the new changes, there are players that have done the exact same thing as others are yet to do, but will not have been rewarded equally based upon the new structure (the players moving toward the second “shard threshold” for a 4* character will receive more compensation than a player that has already passed said threshold for instance, and on and on).  Are you also concerned with the fairness in this?  

Truly not trying to argue with you, just trying to illustrate some of the frustration from the other side as well and possibly offer another perspective.  The end result for all seems to be that this just doesn’t seem to have been a fully thought out plan, or at least not one that aimed to balance fairness for all as closely as they could.  I agree that it affects other tiers as well, not just the 5* tier.