On Retroactive Rewards

DarthDeVo

y4747 said:

*snip*
If i were building my 4*s now, i'd probably get 4* carnage to 270 and then start saving covers, expecting him to become a feeder for 5* carnage at some point. maybe i'd do that to other toons that are possible feeders for him, too. you do not want your players holding back roster development.
*snip*

Sorry, just wanted to point out 4* Carnage already feeds 5* Doc Ock. You might have remembered if you'd gotten some shards for him today. 😋

For what it's worth, my money is on Brock Venom, or possibly Agent Venom, feeding 5* Carnage. I eagerly await my one cover and couple hundred shards. 

ilikecake

Mainly addressed at the folks who seem to think that the old rewards were an adequate replacement for the missing retroactive shards - 

At level 300 (which likely affected the most people), for example, previously we were given 8CP and a LT. Versus now the 500 shards (equivalent to one 5* cover). 

That is in no way, shape, or form, as valuable as a specific, guaranteed 5* cover.

The only reasonable solution is to grant shard or cover rewards, in line with what has been done previously. Otherwise, older players are penalised for having already levelled their characters. 

DyingLegend

I was happy with the rewards. They didn't have to give us anything. 

Djc777

It’s horrible that some players had many saved covers that completely go away. It’s obvious that this game is geared entirely on financial gain now, not the player experience. I understand that this is a business for you. However you don’t have to rub our noses in it. Hope everyone at d3 made tons of money this year Merry Christmas. 

New_Doug

A lot of people have been building multiple dupe characters either because they feed a desired character (3 to 4) or they might feed one (4 to 5). Roster spots aren’t free. I’ve got almost 400 roster spots. Each time a new character is released or I am compelled to build a dupe that’s 2000 HP per slot. 10% of a Stark just to roster someone. Before 5 feeders became a thing I had no problem selling off my 370 4’s when another was ready to be champed. Of those I sold were a Medusa, a Kingpin and an XFW. I missed out on 18 5 star covers because I went that route. I wasn’t going to make that mistake again so I’ve been building and hoarding on to dupe 4’s ever since at a steep cost.

The devs/d3/whoever set a standard of how they handled 5 feeders and I adjusted my gameplay and spending accordingly. They’ve gotten the equivalent of $10 for every dupe I’ve built and held on to (not to mention costs 360,000 iso to champ a 4). I stopped counting at 50 dupe 4’s and I wasn’t even past the dupes that were 370. I only built them and held onto them because of the feeder system they put in place and now that they’ve got mine and a lot of player’s money they trash that system.

If I don’t completely stop playing this game (and that is a HUGE IF) and they don’t reimplement the old feeder system and give the players the rewards they EARNED then this game will never see another dime from me or many players like me. With all these dupes of 3, 4, and 5 characters that I have and can now sell without any worry that I will be missing out on something I’ll never have to buy another roster spot again AND get a couple Stark’s out of it in return. Sounds nice but I’d rather have the rewards that I EARNED.

To be even more frank is doesn’t help that you guys exactly built up a lot of good will and trust. Whether it’s the OML nerf, the castration of Gambit and now this your track record isn’t exactly great. It’s hard to commit yourself to this never ending rat race for covers, CP LT’s and ISO when at any given moment you guys will take a break from giving us marvelous toons like 5 Carnage and Talos to destroy toons we do like and wreck a system we were all happy with.

Warbringa

Glad to hear they are at least looking at it.  I do agree that the main issue was expectation management in this situation and lack of communication.  They should have set forth, not long after the initial announcement, here is what the retroactive reward schedule will be for each type of character tier.  Then give about a week for players to adapt and decide their best option to adapt their roster.  The lack of setting expectations and the secret 1 AM post less than 12 hours before rollout was over 75% of the issue.  The other 25% is that what we were told would happen was not exactly what occurred.  

Overall, a poor PR choice in my opinion.  Shards already are very divisive among players as to their true net benefit/net cost overall.  This was an opportunity to help smooth over some of that negative impact as a one-time event.  I have seen many companies do this, try to save a few bucks and end up costing more in the long-run by hurting their consumer base. I don't blame the decision makers for trying to find more ways to monetize their game, I get it.  The game needs to earn money to survive.  I do blame them though when they can make decisions that help offset the monetizing drawbacks but refuse to take that opportunity.  This may drive away players which hurts the game long-term.  

I am not blaming IceIX for the communication itself, I know that comes from orders from much higher up

JRYUART

Remember the Gambit debacle a few years back that was so game breaking that you guys decided to nerf him....twice and then (graciously) offered a great incentive to sell him for 5* cover tokens? Well I sold mine at that time and since then, I've only been able to get him back up to a measly 1/3/1 in that long duration.

Based on the historical precedents established by Demi, I often put my BH hero as Rogue when there was not an immediate xx9 or CP reward cover so that one day, almost 1.5 years after selling Gambit, I could perhaps luck out if Rogue was Gambit's feeder and be able to finally re-cover him.  

In this time period I was able to get a Max lvl 370 rogue and a 320+ dupe rogue which would have given me all the needed covers .  

After today's retroactive feeder rewards update, my long term plan, while never set in stone but had a high likliehood of coming to fruition, went up in smoke. And it's highly unlikely that I will cover Gambit anytime soon.  

Talk about a losing hand.  I fold.

Kingart813

Your supposed to change the rewards for the better.  Not make it less valuable and 4 times as long needed to acquire the equivalent value!!

dramatist

The thing that hurts me the most is being penalized for playing the game. I recently got three covers for 4* Iceman. I was happy to add champ levels and get him to level 302. 

I would have been better off selling the covers for Iso 8. That’s just wrong. 

monsieurmojo

It strikes me that the subset of players who are hurt the most by this nerf in the way retroactive rewards were handed out are the ones near to championing a 5* character, but lost out on the cover(s) they needed to do so.  If a player had the 5* in question championed and missed out on the covers, not as much: there's functionally no difference between a 451 5* and a 457 one: nobody is scared of either in PvP, and the difference would make no perceptible difference in PvE either. Somebody with a 0/1/1 5* and got six covers (the best case scenario) is still likely to never get there without hoarding or doing a ton of grinding.  It's the ones on in the middle that I feel the worst for.

Ice is right, though; anybody feeling feisty about this change shouldn't be bombarding the forums, or Discord, or Line, or Customer Service.  Go leave reviews on the Apple Store or Google Play.

BuzzedLightbeer

smiley22 said:

My situation - as a multi-year VIP paying customer - which echoes someone in a previous post:

My 5* Prof X sits at 5-0-5 with 7 saved covers (after 360 LT pulls, HORRIBLE luck).  These feeders and shards are supposed to be the solution for this nightmare scenario.  Frankly when I pulled those a few weeks ago I was right at the verge of quitting.

Then shards are announced - skeptical, but hey, maybe this is a path to resolve my problem!  Rollout occurs, less than stellar as expected...

So here we are, new feeders!!  There’s a light at the end of the tunnel!  My 4* Prof X is level 305, that means at least I’ll get the retroactive covers at 280 and 300 and get that progress on a purple cover that has inexplicably evaded me!  Rollout occurs, what.the.eff.  

My 5* Prof X has ANOTHER saved cover and STILL sits at 5-0-5, with a measly 100 shards to show for it.  Worst of all, had my 4* been 297 I’d only be a few pulls away, now I’m 15 pulls from any progress at all.  I’m left with an awful experience on something that should have been exciting.

Long story short, no more VIP or any spending unless they give the retro rewards as anticipated.  Ultimately it won’t be much more for me, but it’s the impression that it leaves.  I couldn’t care less if some whale with maxed 370s gets 6 covers - good for them they earned it.

Wow, your situation really does mimic mine closely.  I’m the one that posted earlier about my 5/1/5 5* Prof X, and I also have several saved covers (six now, after the additional one I received today).  I even spent the 500 command points for the one purple cover I have, something I’ve never done but felt was possibly worthwhile due to the fact that even after pulling fifteen covers I still had zero purple.  That’s a sign of just how much I’ve prioritized chasing Prof X.  You hit the nail on the head when you said how just simply receiving what we THOUGHT we were going to receive really wouldn’t have been all that much more in terms of rewards; it’s the impression of feeling somehow shortchanged that lingers.  Seeing the 500 shards with green check marks listed as rewards I’ve supposedly received on my 4* Prof X character page now is what I think frustrates me the most.  It’s as if the game itself is telling me I should have received those shards.  I agree MPQ, I agree...

I have to think there are most likely more players in situations like ours with the multiple low-300 level 4* characters than there are with tons of max champed 5* characters, and in our situations in particular this just seems to have missed the mark.  Had we simply put in a little less effort over time with regard to our 4*s, we likely would have benefitted far greater today.  I just can’t understand how this belief is something that game developers would ever want occurring with parts of their player base.  Like you, I have no problem with the idea of the multiple maxed 5* character players making out either though.  That really wouldn’t bother me at all, as I just don’t see how it negatively impacts me.  

AlMacD

froggerjohn said:

Several points, and apologies if most of them have been made before.

1. Every time characters are added to MPQ, resources are spread thinner, to a wider base. We needed a resource boost just to maintain the same relative progress as what the norm was years ago. You don't need to take stuff away from us to "pay for" the elements you add.

2. Feeders are a critical element of being able to complete older 5*s. Many players have been awaiting feeders for a long time. So when you update those feeders, but nerf them into obscurity, you've crippled the ability to complete those characters. Maybe permanently (short of rostering a duplicate 4*). I imagine most players above a certain level would prefer no feeder, with the hope one will still come someday, compared to turning their long-time hopes into a small fraction of their expectations.

3. The higher level characters a player has, the more they have been penalized by this update. Some players likely spent money and/or resources preparing for this update, and find themselves in a worse position than had they done nothing. These are really disastrous side-effects, that beg reconsideration.

4. There's now incentive to not champ a character that doesn't yet feed another, just to not lose its potential 5* progress.

5. Players have an emotional investment in this game. By your design. So it shouldn't be a surprise to have an emotional response to policy choices that negatively impact their experience.

6. There have been a lot of good steps recently in MPQ. All of these had the potential to be very positive outcomes, and yet, many of them had quite the opposite response from large numbers of players. And sadly, the reason why they had a negative response is almost exclusively the same factor -- taking something away from us. So I refer back to point #1 above. When you go to all the effort to make things better for us, and we really do appreciate that, please try to reconsider whether such elements really need to be "balanced" by a negative effect that almost certainly evokes player backlash. 

Enthusiastic Dittos.

So much so, I'm considering getting this as my first tattoo.

jamesh

When not even @HoundofShadow will defend you, it must be bad.

abenness

I'm disappointed for my alliance mates and game friends who did not receive the same level of generosity for this bulk feeder implementation as had previously been awarded for rare single feeders in the past.
It doesn't affect me, as my feeder 4* are all level 290 or below, and I'm receiving equivalent retroactive rewards which is a nice bonus for my roster. But I do compete against everyone whose roster would have been significantly boosted if they'd been given out at the higher levels, so I am mildly relieved that isn't the case.

One way people had built their 4* Professor X (for example) was when dilution was much less of a problem, and he was vaulted or BH'd even to max-champ level.  This path was never available to me - I came in when dilution was already an issue and vaulting was ending.  My main 4* target (Grocket), is only level 301 even after being favourited for many months, including pulling 2 mini-hoards.  And I still need Grocket more than Bishop, which is who I would like to have bigger.  The 4* covers I earn are spread very thinly over the entire 4* roster.

What is fair is that from this point in time, I will be earning or capable of earning these newly fed 5* covers at the same rate as every other person playing the game, from the new covers we earn of 4* Iceman, ProfX etc.  I'm glad that they will help me build out my coverage of 5* characters, and help me eventually champion some of the classic 5's.

Jormagund

Thanks for the thread.  I personally don't think I've got anything new or insightful to add but would like to add my opinion to the overall results.

1: New four star feeders for five stars.

My roster wasn't affected with only 2 280 plus champs and this has been covered to death here and in other threads.  I agree the communication was not clear or timely and that the user base would appreciate a lot more openness.  As a newer player watching feeders be announced, it was a bit galling to know I'd never be able to double dip rewards more established players received, but there was still knowledge that my roster would get there someday and I may be lucky on future feeder announcements.  Agree completely that due to dilution sticking to the old pattern and rewarding up to 6 covers for a max champ would not have made a huge difference to players with multiple high level four star champs and presumably multiple five star champs.

2: 3 star character rewards.

For players in the four to five star game you issue retrospective rewards for new feeders.  Why should the same not apply here for lower level players.  I believe I've read these measures are intended to combat dilution (apologies if this is based on player comments rather than official announcements).  Surely issuing these rewards would not impact the in game economy.  Higher level players won't notice a champ level on their fours but to engage lower level players it would show Demi values and rewards them rather than just vets/whales.

3: Mighty tokens

It's great that these were introduced as they've been requested for ages but so far the role out hasn't been handled well.  Would it have hurt to give everyone a free token or a handful even when they were introduced to promote excitement?  Mighty tokens are an improvement on heroics just as five star covers are an improvement on latest.  Why not follow the same process and issue these to people who have passed these reward levels?  Again it would be a bonanza of three star covers and a smaller number of four stars but will not massively alter the in game economy.

4: Reward reduction

Dilution is making it harder and take longer to roster and champ everyone.  I'm a year and a half in and play quite heavily in a 250-500 Alliance.  I expect it to take at least another year before I have champed most of the four stars.  Champing one a week and with new releases added at the current rate it will be over a year and a half.  That is incredibly daunting for new starters and now you remove some of the in game resources for lower level champ rewards.  This will severely impact new players starting now and presumably affect retention.

5: Future reward changes

I understand from the shards thread that it is planned to roll out Mighty tokens and shards in placement and/or progression rewards and maybe even vaults.  Please take notice of the feedback received in the threads here and that I see in game in my Alliance and stop taking with one hand as you give with the other.

6: Dilution

Most of my arguments come back to dilution.  It is harder and harder to chase a specific cover and recruit everyone.  Your changes with bonus heroes to champ rewards have reduced our headline rate.  The changes to champ rewards have reduced the resources to buy slots, open classics/latest and level up characters.  Now with the retrospective awards we will have to wait until we manage to flip any given character and reach the same level.  Daunting at three star level and hardly worth considering at four star level.

Considering the state of dilution and the fact the in game rewards have remained static there is no need to take something away when implementing new changes.  Introducing new features and rewards on top of the existing ones to tackle perceived issues with the game would have earned much more positive feedback across the board and a large amount of goodwill.

7: Goodwill vs Economic Practice

A lot of people trying to rationalise or defend the changes mention the fact this game is a business.  While I'm sure everyone understands this you have a line to walk between creating new income and maintaining current spend.  To maintain the latter you need to keep the customer engaged in the game and keep their goodwill.  The lack of goodwill has caused multiple people on the forums to state they'll be withholding money from the game and ranking it lower online.  The reduced spend might not come about or be significant but surely the negative reviews and scores are going to make it harder to attract new players.

In my opinion from reading the forums dilution and the relentless release schedule seem to be tiring some players out and reducing engagement; to counter this we may need a real term increase in resources/cover acquisition rates.

A lot of the changes particularly with the retrospective rewards seem to be largely negative and have caused alienation rather than goodwill (gouging players for money at every turn rather than really balancing any changes).

It seems to me you are missing on both aspects of keeping established customers.  Although I only have access to the forums and my Alliance, the information I read here indicates similar opinions on Discord and Facebook.  Although we don't have access to your financial information and statistics surely if there is this much dissatisfaction in the public spaces devoted to the game this needs to be reviewed.

Marvel is a great intellectual property, the game and characters are well designed.  Please don't kill the goose that laid the golden egg by prioritising monetisation excessively over the game play experience.

8: Monetisation

Getting slightly off topic here but as the changes seem to be driven by encouraging spend in new/more areas why not review some of your current methods?  Two things jump immediately to mind.

The ISO store is ridiculously overpriced.  £80 = two console games, a week of groceries, a weekend break... or 78,000 ISO.  I'd love to see how many people actually buy ISO and if anyone does it regularly.  Would it make more sense to massively drop the price, so it falls as an impulse buy?  Maybe pay £3 or £4 to level up a character now for their event/shield training or to champ them, rather than waiting a week until they're no longer essential.  As a low value impulse buy I'd be interested to see if selling multiple volumes at smaller price points would net you more money in the long term.

Similarly many people on the forums have requested costumes at low price points.  They're normally in bundles and sometimes beyond people's budgets (actual or self-imposed).  I've seen plenty of comments that the prices are too high or that not everyone wants the other items in the bundle.  Surely it would be worth selling some covers on their own at an impulse buy level price point.  Maybe add intercepts as with other purchases and price somewhere between Bugle Pittance and VIP and see what uptake you get?

With a whole team working on the game and multiple methods of direct customer engagement surely you could find other novel ways to make the game profitable without alienating your player base to this extent?

I hope you do take mine and other comments on board and if so thanks for reading; I hope this is useful.

HoundofShadow

This is my take and as usual, I'm expecting to get flagged into smithereen, but I think this need to be said.

On communication

1) If there is any major subsequent update to a thread or if the post is long, the team might want to start a new thread. For example, "Shards Update Part 2". This might help to reach a wider audience and bring more attention to the update.

2) I think the team might want to get a lawyer or logician to vet your update or post. Even though I've been here for only 2 years, but the reactions from here are really predictable.

We have been through a number of mini-sagas where players in here nitpick the words being used by the team. If the team is not going to define those words, the players in here will define it for you and once they define it, you have to stick with their definitions. When that happens, whatever subsequent explanations by you will be dismissed as excuses. Please remember many players in here live in only a black and white world. 

In the future, define words where you think players in here will use their own definitions. If necessary, use a Venn Diagram or Logic tree to make the idea clearer. The post won't look as sexy as in the past, but when you are posting in a forum filled with lawyers, they are simply not interested in sexy stuff.

On Generosity and Goodwill
I said this last year but I'll say this again: It doesn't pay to be generous. In a normal world, generosity or goodwill are appreciated and remembered. People won't expect you to extend goodwill forever or expect you to one-up your previous generosity, but this place does.

Think about the reactions towards the rewards given in the new alliance event (I think it was Sinister 600) after Palaces of Power ended, or the subsequent reactions after a few feeders were announced. Think about what the reactions were when Customer Service decided to stop cover swapping. You took their cover swapping service away, even though it didn't belong to them in the first place.

Let's say if the team decided to extend goodwill or generosity in the future again, please let them know that whatever generosity or goodwill extended is not a measuring yardstick for future cases. 

Review-Bombing
I'm against review bombing because it's not a true representation of the game as a whole but it's an emotional outburst towards game developers. The team is going to set a terrible precedent if the devs decided to give in fully to the players' demands. 

Compensations
Let's say the team decided to compensate the 5 extra covers for 370 4* characters, it does not mean that these players will start spending money again or they will amend their reviews. Generally, they have short term memory regarding all the good stuff that you have done for them, but when it comes to negative stuff, they will remember it for life. I can't believe there are players still sour about whatever happened between you and them in the past, dating back probably 3-5 years ago.

Future Challenges
We are not done yet with shards and Mighty Tokens rollout into other parts of the game. Since the team mentioned that rewards will be replaced when shards and Mighty Tokens are added into the game, I'm expecting players to stop spending money, quit the game or review bomb the game again when you roll out these changes. The players simply hate tradeoffs, unless it involves trading 1 HP or 1 iso-8 for 1 Mighty Token.

Good luck, and I hope the game can make it to the 10th anniversary after this saga.

KGB

marshall said:

@KGB A LT is but 15% of a 5* cover, so about 75 shards each, plus 3 per pull. So considering classic pulls on those 60 cps, that's a grand total of 78 * 9 or 702 shards at best. Most of which would be applied on undesirable characters like Banner.

Besides as a 1600+ day veteran I've missed out on heaps of later benefits, like saved covers. I'd have full 4*d if I were to get back all my wasted covers.

Don't really see how you're the victim here?

Everyone who doesn't have a champed L370 character is the victim here if they award 2500 shards and 1 LT (instead of the 500 and 1 LT they currently awarded). That's because everyone who has the 370 gets 6 extra LT's and 60 extra CP from someone like me who later max champs their 4*.

As I said, I am sympathetic to everyone here who feels cheated. But at the same time, if D3 does award 2500 shards and 1 LT for a max champ 4* then I (and many others) will feel cheated because I can't get that extra 6 LT's and 60 CPs they got (that's per character too so multiply by 10+ for the number of new feeders).

In the past I already didn't like that players were able to double dipping when feeders were occasionally announced (they should have had players pay back 1 LT per cover). Now they are suddenly adding 10+ feeders and changing more than just 6 LT rewards. They are changing 16 due to the sharding system.  You guys are asking for fairness in being awarded extra shards. So I'm also asking for fairness for the rest of us. Either you have to pay for them by giving back the already earned rewards at those levels OR Demi has to give everyone else the extra rewards at those levels that we are going to miss out on.

It can be easily done via a customer service request where you email in what you missed out on and they review your roster at the time and tell you how much you owe back in terms of LT/CP. If you agree, then you get the shards and they take from you the LT/CP. If not, then you accept what rewards you got.

KGB

spidyjedi84

cpeyton3535 said:

What happened to 3* new feeder rewards?

Seems like all the focus was on 4* feeders into 5* rewards.  I'm sure many players, particularly newer players, are wondering where the 3* feeder into 4* rewards went.  Players with a more advanced roster would have benefited as well, obviously, but honestly it feels like the rewards that would most benefit newer players were ignored.  

This. I'm about where I should be on 5 stars with my baby 4 star champs roster, but there is several 3 star and even 2-star shard rewards I should have seen. I'm afraid to sell my 2-star champed Storm and Thor until this is all cleared up.

jtmagee

Also, not contacting CS and leaving our thoughts in here are EXACTLY what @Colognoisseur mentioned years ago: we are the beta testers.

mega ghost

I have not yet had a chance to review the tables to see what I have gotten / will get versus what I would have gotten, but I can share my two immediate reactions:

1) Delight, at logging in to see any update to champion rewards at all, and 21 rewards waiting for me, including several 5* covers. This felt like an actual Christmas gift, which all Christmases post-Crash of the Mad Titan have been lacking, so thanks for that!
2) Disappointment, at realizing that we didn't get retroactive 3* rewards. I'm on Day 1,902. I have all 3*s max champed except 5 (who are nearly max champed) and I have 10 more dupes who are between lvls 190 and 230. It's taken me a long time to get here. Selling a max champed 3* that I worked so long to max is out of the question, and creating dupes of all of them is also out of the question. It's too many roster slots and too much of a resource hog. 3* farming is extremely slow. My point is that if we aren't retroactively given the new rewards we've already passed, most of us that have been around for years now will likely never see them. So please, give us the retroactive 3* rewards and consider a feature that lets us reset our champ rewards cycle without losing our max levels and stats.
3) Confused delight, just now, upon re-reading the original post and now getting the impression that we will in fact be getting retroactive rewards for 3* and 2* characters. Are those rolling out later? 

Thanks!