On Retroactive Rewards

DAZ0273

Chrynos1989 said:

HoundofShadow said:

I think they did say rewards will be handled differently.

They actually did

They did. Not in the initial post though. It was out of office hours post when a lot of America was asleep and buried as an edit in an existing post instead of a new thread. But they did.

TriggerTime

DAZ0273 said:

Chrynos1989 said:

HoundofShadow said:

I think they did say rewards will be handled differently.

They actually did

They did. Not in the initial post though. It was out of office hours post when a lot of America was asleep and buried as an edit in an existing post instead of a new thread. But they did.

I have no issue about the update being in the same thread, but they should have had that info in the thread from the beginning. If they weren't ready to release the full info, they shouldn't have said anything about it at all.

Ice even replied to someone about max level champs, saying they still need to be rostered. He didn't say they're going to be handling the retroactive rewards differently this time. As far as I can tell, there were no subsequent replies clarifying this, up until the last minute update. 

As a personal example, I recently sold all my max 3* champs to fund shards for my 13th Thor cover, which I had been waiting weeks to show up in my store. After the tease announcement,  first I was gutted that I had sold my champs, then Thor actually showed up in the store but I didn't buy any shards because I didn't think I would need to (figured I'd get them from Valkyrie) and ended up blowing my HP on useless Carnage 40 packs. Now that the update's come and gone I have no extra shards/covers, I've wasted my HP and am back to square one. 

In my opinion, D3 has every right to manage the game and its rewards however they see fit, but I hope they will learn from this experience and give us the complete picture at the outset rather than vague bits of information. 

Freelancer

My big issue with the reduced Retroactive Rewards is that it seems to be more punishing the higher level a character is. A level 299 4* seems to be the optimal point, with the prospects dropping for every 300/320/340/350/360 milestone passed. I understand that I have 'double dipped', but the combined rewards from this 'dipping' are nowhere near equal to a specific character 5* cover...
Based on the standard operating procedure set by the devs that a new 4* Feeder would eventually provide a player with a 2/2/2 build 5*, I made it my goal to get at least enough covers for a Latest 5* so that a Feeder would allow me to champion them somewhere down the line.
Under this new system of skipping the Retroactive Rewards of covers for levels 300/320/340/350/360 not only means I've lost the cover that I would have got under the old established system, it also means that I have lost the opportunity to earn the new shard rewards as my 4* are levelled too high. My 1/3/3 Rescue that I would have been able to eventually champ after levelling up my level 326 Hulkbuster under the old system, but now, as my 300 and 320 set of shards can't be earned, my Rescue will be limited to 11 covers and stranded in the abyss that is Classic Token Specific 5* character draw rate...

turbomoose

When I read the original release by Icelx I got the impression that we’d be getting rewards backdated that were not there previously 

mighty tokens for example, shown as ticked in the level slots but we certainly didn’t get them 

what probably should have happened is a slow rollout of each star level starting with 2*s 

it took me a long time to find all the extra characters I received because they all went in together so I had to check each character individually 

anyway, hope you guys can come up with a suitable solution 

thanks for listening to our feedback 

DAZ0273

TriggerTime said:

DAZ0273 said:

Chrynos1989 said:

HoundofShadow said:

I think they did say rewards will be handled differently.

They actually did

They did. Not in the initial post though. It was out of office hours post when a lot of America was asleep and buried as an edit in an existing post instead of a new thread. But they did.

I have no issue about the update being in the same thread, but they should have had that info in the thread from the beginning. If they weren't ready to release the full info, they shouldn't have said anything about it at all.

Ice even replied to someone about max level champs, saying they still need to be rostered. He didn't say they're going to be handling the retroactive rewards differently this time. As far as I can tell, there were no subsequent replies clarifying this, up until the last minute update. 

As a personal example, I recently sold all my max 3* champs to fund shards for my 13th Thor cover, which I had been waiting weeks to show up in my store. After the tease announcement,  first I was gutted that I had sold my champs, then Thor actually showed up in the store but I didn't buy any shards because I didn't think I would need to (figured I'd get them from Valkyrie) and ended up blowing my HP on useless Carnage 40 packs. Now that the update's come and gone I have no extra shards/covers, I've wasted my HP and am back to square one. 

In my opinion, D3 has every right to manage the game and its rewards however they see fit, but I hope they will learn from this experience and give us the complete picture at the outset rather than vague bits of information. 

Yes. The information on handling the 4* rewards differently was in the second/amended post which really should have been a headliner thread of its own. I'm not sure exactly what time it was posted but it was early morning in the UK something like 7am so middle of the night for East Coast USA - I was online when I saw Ice's name pop up as having posted. As soon as somebody else posted it was not at all obvious that an important update was made and there was a relative lack of reaction/response from the board - again presumably because of the time.

The Communication was strange but then we have no idea what instructions IceXI was under and I am sure that in retrospect if they could roll back how this was communicated they would because from a cynical point of view it looks like the timing and vagueness were all designed to bury the bad news.

I'm going to be optimistic and decide that this was just poorly communicated as to what the real intentions/rewards to be given were and it all just went pear-shaped. The Devs are humans too (allegedly!) and mistakes happen.

The question as to how "fair" anything is I'll leave to others to debate.

TriggerTime

DAZ0273 said:
...

The Communication was strange but then we have no idea what instructions IceXI was under and I am sure that in retrospect if they could roll back how this was communicated they would because from a cynical point of view it looks like the timing and vagueness were all designed to bury the bad news.

I'm going to be optimistic and decide that this was just poorly communicated as to what the real intentions/rewards to be given were and it all just went pear-shaped. The Devs are humans too (allegedly!) and mistakes happen.

...

Just to be clear; I am in no way implying any of this is Ice's fault or there was any malicious intent on anyone's part. 

I'm simply saying there's a lesson to be learned from this. 

DAZ0273

TriggerTime said:

DAZ0273 said:
...

The Communication was strange but then we have no idea what instructions IceXI was under and I am sure that in retrospect if they could roll back how this was communicated they would because from a cynical point of view it looks like the timing and vagueness were all designed to bury the bad news.

I'm going to be optimistic and decide that this was just poorly communicated as to what the real intentions/rewards to be given were and it all just went pear-shaped. The Devs are humans too (allegedly!) and mistakes happen.

...

Just to be clear; I am in no way implying any of this is Ice's fault or there was any malicious intent on anyone's part. 

I'm simply saying there's a lesson to be learned from this. 

Agreed.

Forums right now be

But hopefully in a few days it will be

And then it will be

Sm0keyJ0e

I've read through most of the posts here and really don't have anything to add that hasn't already been eloquently stated by the player base. Outside of the one or two regular white knights, who I still can't tell whether they are unintentional trolls or work for D3/Demi, I think it's very encouraging to see the vast majority of players side with each other. I recently passed my 4 year mark of in-game play, and this is the first time I can recall where 99% of the players were on the same side. Not even the OML nerf, addition of CP, champ rewards, shield ranking, Gambit nerf, etc. rallied the players to one side quite like this. 

It warms my heart to see us all come together.

DrNitroman

Thanks @IceIX for asking our feedbacks. Many have already expressed my opinion so I'm sorry for the repetition

I am OK with the way old feeders were handled. I already got covers with those feeders, I wasn't expecting anything with the update. For new feeders however I was honestly expecting to get retroactively all the covers corresponding to the completed levels of my characters.

For example I have a level 360 Hulkbuster. With the update, I was expecting 1 Rescue cover + 2500 shards (the equivalent of 6 covers in total) but instead I got 1 cover and 500 shards.

For each milestone above 280, I received 100 shards which correspond to 20% of a cover. In the past I already got 1 LT for each milestone but a LT corresponds to 15% of a random cover. Even if I integrate those old rewards, I got less than 1 cover per milestone and I feel that treatment wasn't fair compared to players with less developed characters who will have the opportunity to get a full cover per milestone

I'll add that if I have a high level Hulkbuster that's because that's one of the oldest 4* character and because I am a loyal MPQ player for nearly 6 years now. I invested a significant time playing the game to level this character and I don't imagine starting again this character from the ground, that's simply not realistic.

I can understand you are concerned about balancing the game between older and newer player but feeling punished for being an old player is just sad.

Best regards

xKOBALTx

Freelancer said:

Based on the standard operating procedure set by the devs that a new 4* Feeder would eventually provide a player with a 2/2/2 build 5*, I made it my goal to get at least enough covers for a Latest 5* so that a Feeder would allow me to champion them somewhere down the line.
Under this new system of skipping the Retroactive Rewards of covers for levels 300/320/340/350/360 not only means I've lost the cover that I would have got under the old established system, it also means that I have lost the opportunity to earn the new shard rewards as my 4* are levelled too high. My 1/3/3 Rescue that I would have been able to eventually champ after levelling up my level 326 Hulkbuster under the old system, but now, as my 300 and 320 set of shards can't be earned, my Rescue will be limited to 11 covers and stranded in the abyss that is Classic Token Specific 5* character draw rate...

This right here is where I'm sitting. I'm a six-year 5* player that prefers completion over high levels. I am very patient and like to max my champ reward returns. I've built my pull strategy entirely around using CP for Classics to boost 4* rewards, LT's for getting all Latest into a finishable state and finally the mechanics expected from the previous retro rewards (on 26 characters over two years) in the tier to complete them.

Now? Now I've got a lot of high level 4* characters that I rarely use and that won't come anywhere close to helping me fill the holes in the tier I compete in. They might actually be hindering me. I've also got four 5* characters now stranded in Classic purgatory. These stranded characters combined with the future of reduced retro rewards, reduced CP and reduced HP (along with 2k roster slots around the corner), and I just don't see why I should bother. 

Very discouraged.

McThunderpants

I concur with the overwhelming majority that however you may call this debacle (poor communication/lack of transparency, etc.), this turn of events has had had a significant negative impact to the life blood of any online game - it’s player base and community. At this point, the proverbial beaten horse is not hopping up and running in the Kentucky Derby. The bottom line is, as with any other business misstep impacting it’s customers, the business needs to acknowledge the breakdown and attempt to rebuild customer trust. The rewards that were originally posted (and in turn expected by the player base due to the limited clarification) should be provided (the last minute clarification a few hours before implementation should not count, as purchasing decisions for some were made prior). These aren’t rare earth metals that we are asking for, we are talking about code here. The distribution of these non-physically tangible rewards will not cause the bankruptcy of D3, as the unending treadmill of dilution/new releases (not to mention the questionable addiction the player base has to the game that keeps folks coming back) guarantees the money flow will not end if restitution is made. The ball is now in their court. They could apologize and rectify the situation, and they will see things go back to normal. Staying radio silent and hoping this blows over may be the final “intervention” moment that causes folks (including me) to walk away for good.

Razuhlui

IceIX said:

The Champion Reward updates will update rewards for 2-Stars, 3-Stars, and 4-Stars, update the characters that are rewarded for 3-Stars and 4-Stars, and will give you retroactive rewards if you have already earned the Champion Rewards. That’s a lot to chew through, so let’s dive in!

And again, that's not how the update was rolled out.
Where are my maxed Champion 2*  and 3*rewards.

Bryan Lambert

DAZ0273 said:

Chrynos1989 said:

HoundofShadow said:

I think they did say rewards will be handled differently.

They actually did

They did. Not in the initial post though. It was out of office hours post when a lot of America was asleep and buried as an edit in an existing post instead of a new thread. But they did.

In a locked filing cabinet with a sign that says “ Beware Of The Leopard”.

jkzl

So this morning, I'm applying some covers, and I noticed that my spreadsheet tracker (that was updated for the new rewards) didn't match what I saw in game.  Assuming it was a mistake on my part, I went back to @IceIX 's post on the new reward structure, and it appears to not have been correct, which may further compound issues, but I'm hoping that Ice will see this so it can be updated (wherever it needs to be)

https://imgur.com/wEVht8X

https://i.imgur.com/WugAV1b

Chitown

I'm in agreement with the majority that the champion reward change to shards was handled poorly.

I'm adjusting my game rating to 1*.  To reflect my disappointment in the change.

ThaRoadWarrior

*cross posted from @Daredevil217's why everyone is sad thread, because this seems like the official place to put it*

I guess I should define my Player Persona so whoever reads this can assign the correct level of weight to it:
Day: 1406
Shield Rank: 151
Monetary Status: 100% F2P for the life of my play
Alliance Commander in a casual, largely young roster alliance with people who do spend here and there in it
Overall player category: 5* Transitioner

Roster state: 
Everyone above 1* on roster save Beta Ray Bill
5* Champs: 5 (none meta)
4* Champs: all but 16
3*s: I've turned over most of the tier once, no dupes on roster, some of those early flips are getting close to a second round
2*s: farming since forever, on my second champ bagman
1*s: just Sp1der-Man at lvl 40/50 for ddq

I do PVE to progression in SCL 9
PVP I play to 900 when I can

Spending habits: spend as I go, cp/lt into latest exclusively

I've actually come around on shards. I've spent all of 2019 trying to bonus hero my America Chavez from 285->350 so I can finish Jessica Jones, and I finally did that the day this reward overhaul went live. The thing about shards though is that I can now accurately and reliably predict my 4* earn rate: 1/week. My 5* earn rate appears to be 1 every 2 months. So now I can look at my roster, then look at a calendar, and tell you what fraction of my lifespan it's going to take to get one of these characters over. I have little to no agency to speed that up meaningfully short of burning HP in the shard store, but at least I can correctly weigh the time cost of chasing any given character this way. The reason I'm chasing 4* characters at this point is specifically to feed over my classic 5*s that can be fed to completion, in order of how long it will take to get them there. I have to chase 5*s now, because i"m stuck with 5* MMR. The timescale it takes to put together a usable 5* roster after you get that first one is SO long, that you just get desperate for more warm bodies on the bench to alleviate the pain of getting stomped out in vs mode.

This brings us to the Shardpocalypse:
I wasn't expecting to earn any shards from my America Chavez towards Jessica Jones, but I did expect to receive the consistent level of retroactive reward that we've been seeing since 5*s were added to champion rewards back in 2017 for any newly assigned feeders. Because why would i not? At that time, I had no 4* characters even close to 280, but this time I had loads over 280 and 5-6 above 300.

At the 5* tier, I was only "stung" by losing out on the Level 300 Gambit cover, since my Rogue just happens to be at level 306. This wasn't going to make my Gambit usable, he's been sitting at 1/3/2 since he left latest, and now he's 2/3/2 + 100 shards. 3/3/2 wouldn't have turned the knob into making him usable or anything, but losing out on that cover at 300 means it would take me 14 weeks of focused shargeting to get to the next one (if i wanted to do that).  

Rogue has been in the game since 9/27/2017, and I've never set her as my bonus hero. RNGeezus has just been kind enough to decide she needed to really be on my roster. So it has taken me 2 human years to organically get this character to accidentally be 7 levels higher than she should have been to take advantage of this situation.

All the other new feeders landed on my 280-299 crew, so I lucked out and got 1 cover + 250 shards like you'd want for quite a few 5*s, which is a great feeling, so thanks for that.

Where I was most let down was actually in the complete disregard for the additional rewards at the 2 and 3* tier. I can see both sides of the equation here - if you were to flood a bunch of 2-3-4* transitioners with covers for half the next tier up, maybe you'd have a similar but bigger outrage about "Ugh, where will i get the HP???" from them, which could have caused them to leave in droves, or maybe it would have driven some to spend...I couldn't really say. But for me, what i had in my head we were going to see were all the additional Mighty Tokens, and possibly the secondary feeder additions. I was hyped for those tokens because I wanted shard progress on IM40->Hulkbuster->Rescue, who I had at 5/2/6 (6/2/6 now). I was actually excited for the potential Sabretooth cover as well - I have him at 4/3/5 lvl 250, and that last cover would have had him champable which would have been a huge quality of life improvement for me. With the wide gulf between "good," "decent," and "terrible" characters in the 5* tier, not having a functional Kitty or Gladiathor means I really need tools to combat the opponents I'm matched up against with champ Kitty/370 Rockets in pvp, and Sabretooth is arguably the best at it right now even as a baby champ. Sure, I could shard him, and my Patch Wolverine is about to flip, so I'll get back around to that cover before too long, but the point is that we weren't told it wasn't happening and i thought it had a high probability of happening. It would have been better to just say "you will get this, this, and this, but not this" right up front rather than giving out a vague update that made it out to be better than it was.

And that was just the short term disappointment. The loss of the midrange CP and HP out of the 3* champion rewards during the switch to shards and double feeders seems exactly targeted at players like myself to keep us from treading water F2P. Maybe it is, and maybe that's fine in the end, but it isn't a great feeling on this end of the equation. I play the game in a way that is presented within the game as possible, I don't game the system, I don't cheat, and I resist recruitment drives from people in higher performing alliances partly out of a sense of obligation to the newer players in my alliance who could use the bootstrapping. At any rate, that's the story of why I was disappointed in this "free stuff."

jp1

Are we really supposed to pretend like the team didn’t have any idea how this would be perceived by paying customers and long term vets? That’s just insulting.

Since the inception of this “update” things have been needlessly complicated in an effort to confuse and misdirect the inevitable backlash of purposefully making the game far more difficult from a progression standpoint. You devalued existing resources, removed others completely, and created a micro transaction ecosystem to try and nickel and dime people even further than before. All the while pretending these changes were to our benefit.

For the most part people haven’t been foolish enough to be blinded by these ridiculous attempts at “marketing” which must be frustrating as you perpetuate what could loosely be referred to as a scam (it really isn’t much of a stretch). Then want us to dance like monkeys at the zoo so you can figure out how many bananas it will take to calm us down. No thanks.

Make it square or don’t. The player base will react accordingly. I know I’m through with this dice game until the odds are squared...Check my spending if you think that’s insignificant. Then multiply it by 10 or 100 or 1000 or more and keep pressing your luck.

nikkoekinox

Hello there, not used to participate in forums usually (excuse my english, i'm french).
I've played MPQ for a year now, and i'm a Pay2play person (usually VIP + 30-40 a month).

Since the official announcement, and then the BIG reveal, i wanted to share my point a view a little...

I'm SLC 88, rosterd all 2* - 3* - most 4* - some 5* Championned all 2* - 3* - and four 4*
So not a huge roster like some nice dudes here
I got for all the time it takes to champ all 3* (and iso and hp) : nothing
I got 3*100 shards for the 2* as anticipated.

I don't care for mighty token, what angered me most was the absence of secondary feeder shards for 3*>4* given.
I want thoses shard, since i'm diggin my way on 4* territory, but alas my only option to get enough shards to get a cover 4* is to sell thoses 3* and rebuild from scratch.

How is it even fair?

I've read many times that we're complaining for something free, i don't agree at all : Those secondary shards in 3* territory are locked for me (i count that as a loss): If only we have the option to "de-champ" some caracters...

Thanks for reading, i hope some nice folks at D3go take some time to consider the "new but not so new" players (i'm sure i'm not the only one entering 4* champ territory !).
From now on, not a single € on anything, if no second wave of compensation.

CAttitude

The issue is not about shards or communication or fairness. 

My only question is, “Is MPQ worth it to me?”  At this point, the primary fun of the game is making 5 star characters playable - which is basically when they are championed - and messing around with them.  Even weak 5s, not worth explicit investment, can be made interesting with the right teams.  When too much time passes without this reward, the game’s constant grinds get miserable.  When loot boxes or the wrong color covers or other social engineering schemes obfuscate this goal for too long, and waste my time, I disengage financially initially and then completely.  

Feeders have been a necessary rebalancing of the game to make me care about getting covers for 4s and 3s with the mainstreaming of 5s.  I, like others, had been annoyed by your slow walking of the rollout of 5 feeders, but still rewarded by each 4 milestone reached for its promise of future 5s.  Clearly, to retroactively turn these past 4 accomplishments into giant mistakes is just one of the significant problems I have with your current approach.

At the end of the day, I can’t tell if MPQ is more like a fun computer game to look forward to, invest in, and share with friends, or a dirty little habit more akin to smoking to privately get out nervous energy until something better comes along.  

shadow2999

To the Developers,

I recognize that this is feedback that has been said by a lot of people, but I feel that understanding the scope of the player base that has felt lied to and has significant ill will towards the information leading up and implementation of this system needs to be accounted for before you blow-off the feedback and choose rather to ride the wave.

1.  For the record, been playing for at least 4 yrs.  Spent a fair amount of money on the game, which says that I was one of the actual customers helping to pay the bills.  Given the recent update debacle, until and unless resolved, no more money will be going to this company.  I have a stack of HP I will burn through over time, but as of right now, you lost a paying customer.  Should the company make things right, then so be it.

2.  The understanding of the word retroactive isnt that hard and yet, you purposely misled the community by choosing to parse things out in a very ambigous manner.  Giving the vet the rewards earned by their rosters would have cost the company nothing, garnered them a huge amount of good will and warm feelings from the community and encouraged people to keep pushing forward.  Instead, you took a cool idea and raise expectations, and then disregarded common sense in the implementation.  The fact that no one on your team didnt speak up and address this internally astounds me.

3.  What i read in the forum was the the 2 and 3 star rewards were supposed to be retroactive, yet NONE were given, esp true for all the new feeders.  This means your official communication was deceptive.

Look, at the end of the day you made a choice, and I think given the reaction is was a poor one.  Its a lost art in this world to admit you made a mistake, correct it, and allow all of us to start over with a clean slate.  However, that is exactly what you need to do, because its the RIGHT thing to do.  Forget about the revenue stream you will lose if you wait too long to do anything.  This isnt something you can afford to sit on.  You say you are looking into this, but the community deserves more than an empty promise and placations.  It deserves an actual dialogue, and actual informative updates with a sense of urgency this actually warrants.  You changed the rules of the game (ie how feeder updates where handled over the entire life of the game I have been playing) and it appears you did it without any consideration for the community.  If you can come out and CLEARLY articulated what was going to happen, how it would work,and WHY you were doing it differently, then maybe the community would have been ok with it.  But the approach hurt you and your credibility.  Its up to you to earn it back.  I hope you do, but I havent seen anything in the last 24hrs that shows me that you understand the magnitude of the mistake and the need to make it right, not in a month, but soon.