Why is D3 making it harder to play the game and why are people for it?

ROY84
ROY84 Posts: 30 Just Dropped In
in MPQ General Discussion
They reduce the drop rate of 3, 4 and 5 star covers by removing bonus heroes and replace it with a fractional system that's fractionally applied. 

Now they're removing hero points and command points for a fractional gain of a single cover gained over time. Instead of just simply replacing the cover with 400 shards they spread it out so they can remove other things. 

My question is the title. What can be gained by making it harder for people to play the game? Did they not have a successful strategy by making it more accessible?

And 2, why are people defending it? 

If I take something good away and replace it with something incomplete and not as good, the normal reaction is dismay. 

Comments

  • jsmjsmjsm00
    jsmjsmjsm00 Posts: 268 Mover and Shaker
    People defend these changes probably because the math and data support that these are good changes. If you want to keep ignoring the positives to meet your own complaint agenda, don't expect to be very persuasive. 
  • Loosie
    Loosie Posts: 397 Mover and Shaker
    broll said:
    How exactly is the game harder for new players?  When I started there was:
    - No way to save covers (14 days and that's it)
    - No way to get additional covers (BHs or Shards)
    - No way to target specific characters (all RNG and event rotation)
    - No champ levels and rewards

    That was much harder than it is now.  Shards can be saved to a non-rostered character forever without ever spending the HP to roster them.  So a new player can now effectively build up a huge collection of unrostered but fully ready to go once you have the resources for them.  I probably threw away hundreds of 3* covers, fewer hundreds of 4*s, and 10s of 5*s just because there was no way to save them in 14 days (I also paid, quite a lot trying to save them or I'd have lost factors more).

    This change and the others listed are must stronger improvements then they are for vets.  Vets don't feel the rewards as hard because they're much closer to 'caught up' with the release treadmill and don't have to worry about losing covers much anymore.  They are far more focus on maximizing resources and percentages of high level characters.  Those are are vet level problems that a new player won't have to worry about for at least 2 years.
    Your middle paragraph nails shards right on the head.

    If you get a cover today and don’t have the HP to roster that cover it goes away. But with shards you can save it up until you have the HP to roster them.

    I’ve seen people sell of champ levels because they’re about to get a new character that they can’t roster yet. With shards that will happen less, or it will lessen the blow when you do get them.

    Yes we are losing HP and CP from champ levels rewards, that will impact different people in different ways.

    Some would be screaming if they replaced the ISO rewards. I’m glad the didn’t touch ISO because I need 13 million right now to level up what I have.

    That being said I recognize that there may come a time that I feel differently about that.

    The fact if the matter is they are making it easier to get more covers for more characters by making feeders for all the 5s save the new ones and almost all the 4s. Something people have been screaming for and aside from increasing the level of a max champ it means there is going to have to be some kind of sacrifice out there.
  • Crowl
    Crowl Posts: 1,580 Chairperson of the Boards
    Even with some resource reductions from these changes, they would tend towards lessening rng rather than increasing it and that will make them popular with plenty of people as people will tend to remember the rostered characters with a load of saved covers or the bad runs of no bonus heroes and find them the most frustrating parts of the game.
  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
    Loosie,

    The problem you identify is real. The roster crunch while transitioning into 4* land is huge and intentional.  The game is designed to overwhelm you with covers and incentivize HP purchases.

    But for all the reasons broll mentions, I think it's actually not so bad a problem nowadays at is was in 2016 and 2017 before cover saving, champing, 14 day queues, etc.  If you plan ahead, it is almost always possible to avoid covers expiring for lack of roster slots (save your tokens, plan when you know you will get a new character from placement rewards etc).

    So I think shards and colorless covers are more of a solution to bad rng cover distribution (i.e. 5/5/0 builds), which was a problem untouched by the QoL fixes I mentioned above.
  • jamesh
    jamesh Posts: 1,600 Chairperson of the Boards
    jsmjsmjsm00 said:
    People defend these changes probably because the math and data support that these are good changes. If you want to keep ignoring the positives to meet your own complaint agenda, don't expect to be very persuasive. 

    I think part of the reaction is due to the simple fact that all resources in the game reduce in value over time already. So it's not clear that making further cuts into those resources is warranted.

    Consider the following goals an intermediate player might have:

    1. Gather enough HP to roster every character in the game.
    2. Gather enough legendary tokens (or CP equivalent) to fully cover a particular 4* character.
    3. Gather enough CP to roster all the old 5* characters by opening classic legends tokens
    4. Gather enough iso-8 so you can be sure you'll have two boosted 4* champs any given week.

    Now think about what the concrete numbers for each of these goals are today compared to what they were a year ago. People are annoyed because it feels like receiving a pay cut while feeling the squeeze from inflation.

  • Warbringa
    Warbringa Posts: 1,299 Chairperson of the Boards
    The main point that I would like to make is that that most players on the forums here are applying the new system to their own situation only, which is quite understandable as everyone's first thought is how does this impact me?

    The new system of shards will really help a portion of the player base, have little material impact on another portion, and be a negative for the remaining portion of the player base.  Where you fall on this spectrum depends on where you are with your current roster, your play style, your game goals and your willingness to spend money.  

    It isn't the worst thing ever and it isn't the best thing since sliced bread is about the most factual statement that I can make at this time on the system as a whole.  
  • ROY84
    ROY84 Posts: 30 Just Dropped In
    broll said:
    How exactly is the game harder for new players?  When I started there was:
    - No way to save covers (14 days and that's it)
    - No way to get additional covers (BHs or Shards)
    - No way to target specific characters (all RNG and event rotation)
    - No champ levels and rewards

    That was much harder than it is now.  Shards can be saved to a non-rostered character forever without ever spending the HP to roster them.  So a new player can now effectively build up a huge collection of unrostered but fully ready to go once you have the resources for them.  I probably threw away hundreds of 3* covers, fewer hundreds of 4*s, and 10s of 5*s just because there was no way to save them in 14 days (I also paid, quite a lot trying to save them or I'd have lost factors more).

    This change and the others listed are must stronger improvements then they are for vets.  Vets don't feel the rewards as hard because they're much closer to 'caught up' with the release treadmill and don't have to worry about losing covers much anymore.  They are far more focus on maximizing resources and percentages of high level characters.  Those are are vet level problems that a new player won't have to worry about for at least 2 years.

    I never said anything about saved covers. That was a universally positive addition. That's why I didn't include it in my criticisms. I'm sure based on D3s present initiative they regret implementing it.

    But imagine they got rid of that in place of a fractional system as well. Instead of saving FULL covers you get 1/300th of a cover that can applied to anyone of that tier. Is that an equal trade from your perspective? 
  • PiMacleod
    PiMacleod Posts: 1,786 Chairperson of the Boards
    Imma just gonna say i that i like Broll's statement, and accept it as my own.
  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
    ROY84 said:

    I never said anything about saved covers. That was a universally positive addition. That's why I didn't include it in my criticisms. I'm sure based on D3s present initiative they regret implementing it.


    I think saved covers rolled out with the end of CS swaps.  So at least for those in 5* land, it was the same, now-standard some-steps-forward-and-some-steps-back change, because losing 1:1 swap efficiency made it noticeably harder to hoard and cover all 3 5*s in a given latest tokens.
  • Pongie
    Pongie Posts: 1,412 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited December 2019
    All the people complaining about this coming update should check out what happened with Disney Sorcerer’s Arena. A great hero collection game with real time strategic battle. Then 8.0 update dropped a couple of days ago, and the battle system got revamped to turn based, much alike the hundreds of other games out there (not many are real time at all). To make matters worst, the required materials to craft gears increased multiple folds and the cost to purchase these materials also increased multiple folds. The grind basically went from a couple of days to months if not years. Battles that used to be me under 1-2 mins are now over 3mins long. Many characters removed from the prize pool (limited to special events). 

    The game was still in beta (limited release, only available to several countries. Australia, New Zealand etc.), but the majority of the player base are abandoning it. Alliances are all shattered and trying to regroup. 

    PS: an example of gear crafting, it used to take 1x A material + 2x B material to craft 1x C gear. Now it’s 5x A material + 10x B material to craft C gear. The cost for 1x A material was maybe 5000 gold, and now 5x A material is over 6 digits. Basically can’t afford to buy any material and hope they randomly drop. 

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