The New Player

Unknown

TheUnwiseOne wrote:

ZenBrillig wrote:

P.S. You're not "earning" HP - D3 is giving them to you, for free, for playing the game. And you're complaining that it's not enough. Are you seriously unable to see how you sound like an ungrateful entitled child?

Can you please make one post without been snarky and insulting others? I for one and i'm sure others, really get fed up seeing your posts bashing others. Thanks.

Absolutely. But snark is called for when people repeatedly bash the game without having the simple maturity to decide that the game is no longer for them and pursuing other hobbies.

Personally, I'm fed up with seeing people bash the game who couldn't, in a million years, do anywhere near as well. So if you could get them to stop, then I wouldn't need to rebut.

Unknown

UncleSam wrote:

It hurts new players because those groupings are right around the place where a f2p player needs the slots to hold those shiny 3* chars they're getting but aren't strong enough to win reliably to complete them, so they'll likely end up having to sell more 3* covers early thus slowing their already dismal progression.

I have no doubt that they chose those groupings at those points for a specific reason, and probably similar to why you're saying it. From the developers point of view, it's the point when a player transitions from a casual experimenter into someone willing to put a few bucks in. If a player has stuck around long enough to get that many roster slots, then they've already blown all the HP they're going to get from the prologue, and they've started placing well in a few events, getting them a bit of HP that way. Getting them to make the decision to invest financially will get them even more invested in the game. Or it might drive them off. Player stickiness is also a driving factor in these games.

Mind you, I'm just being the devil's advocate. My account is already well passed the point where this would affect me. I'm just questioning for the sake of driving conversation.

And let's be honest, someone around here has to try and understand and present the dev's point of view - odds are they'll be pretty tight-lipped on these topics.

Unknown

Psykopathic wrote:

You can still play it for free. If you don't want to spend $5 on a bundle if cover slots then you can sacrifice a character you don't like for the 1 you do want.

As someone who has dropped low triple digits on the game, I just sold my 5/5 Bullseye in favor of Fury so that I'd have enough HP left to buy another cover for Fury. Proof that even paying players have to make this choice (of course, I did this with the expectation that I'd be getting Sentry in a few days as well).

HailMary

Riggy wrote:

What you're saying echoes exactly what Ice said - that they're expecting to see a small hit financially from this. F2P live by micro-transactions, so changing it to a macro transaction makes it sound like they'll lose money. The micro-transactions are for those who like to throw $5 or $10 at an experimental game - something like the cost of a fast food meal or a movie ticket. Get a few hours enjoyment from a game, and it's the same as going out for food or a movie.

It'd be interesting to see how the numbers play out. I'm puzzled as to why they didn't offer roster slot bundles on top of individual slot purchasing. It could be that an added level of player indecision would discourage more players from the game as a whole, but otherwise, I don't see the downside of having both options instead of completely eliminating the "one slot at at time" expansion method.

ZenBrillig wrote:

Personally, I'm fed up with seeing people bash the game who couldn't, in a million years, do anywhere near as well. So if you could get them to stop, then I wouldn't need to rebut.

So, anyone who isn't a F2P game developer him/herself is being a cheap, ungrateful, entitled child if they criticize the game. Okey-dokey. As Psykopathic demonstrates, one can neatly gift-wrap an ironclad rebuttal without snarky condescension.

Unknown

Psykopathic wrote:

Point being. If you aren't paying for the game you don't really have any basis of saying the amount of free currency is a rip off. They are providing you a *free* game. 0 up front cost. 0 times do they ever say pay now or you can never play the game again. If they don't entice people to spend money on certain things then a ton of people never spend anything. Then the game dies and nobody plays.

There is a difference between enticing and forcing.

Enticing is hats in TF2, skins or whatever in MOBAs, weapon skins in CSGO. In this game it would be the 4*s I guess.
Forcing, or what Devs refer to as a "gentle push", is making it such that in order to keep 3* covers (which have become infinitely more valuable of late), you have to spend $. Or to win PvPs, you have to spend $ on shields. In other words, P2W.

Money is money, and the difference boils down to just design choice. It's not like MPQ is the first game that has gone down the path of F2P -> P2W. But I think people have the right to complain about the sugarcoating of the true intentions behind the changes

Unknown

Just want to chime in here and probably get flamed for it. But I really don't care... This is my view of the subject.

For those of you that are defending D3's change in Roster Slot Purchases, please consider this...

In recent weeks, D3 has added A LOT of new token drops. A LOT. They are now in PVP, alliance rewards, progression rewards, daily rewards, PVE rewards, etc.

Basically they are handed out like candy at Halloween now. I have received more tokens in the last 2-3 week then in previous 2 months of the game. So by changing the roster set up to force you to buy in bulk, which most new players will not be able to obtain enough HP through the prologue (Story) in time to save ANY of these cards with out spending the money on a HP pack to buy a set of roster spots. Because the choice to save just 1 token and let the rest go is now moot.

This IS purely a money grab situation. And while it will run some people off, they are betting (or at least hoping) on more people staying and spending the $5. Because the $2 pack just isn't making them enough money. At the very least, they are hoping to break even.

[snark] They ARE in fact now sticking it to the new players as well. Not just the mid-tier to veteran players anymore. Congrats to D3 on finding a way to balance that out so the rest of us don't feel so alone anymore. [/snark]

Unknown

Riggy wrote:

And let's be honest, someone around here has to try and understand and present the dev's point of view - odds are they'll be pretty tight-lipped on these topics.

I understand the devs point of view. Games are a business and need to make money to stay in business. The more fun a game is the more likely it will attract players and earn money. For profitability and longevity it needs to retain players while attracting new players and be able to entice all players to pay money.

Other then new content in the form of new characters/alliances/seasons/PvE eps/etc. most of the changes recently have aggravated the player base if the forums are any indication of player sentiment. Many of the changes are seen to increase profit at the expense of fun factor. That's not good for long term outlook of the game if players start to leave and word of mouth spreads that the game just isn't fun anymore or at least not as fun as it was a couple months ago and all the devs care about is profit.

I don't envy the challenge the devs undertook making this uber competitive game. Having to balance the game to all levels of play and play style is no easy task. In my opinion, the game has shifted away from casual play to cater more to competitive play, which is probably their bread and butter anyway. That's fine. There are plenty of other competitive games out there that don't require 4hrs a day to play and still be rewarding and fun.

Unknown

gobstopper wrote:

Psykopathic wrote:

Point being. If you aren't paying for the game you don't really have any basis of saying the amount of free currency is a rip off. They are providing you a *free* game. 0 up front cost. 0 times do they ever say pay now or you can never play the game again. If they don't entice people to spend money on certain things then a ton of people never spend anything. Then the game dies and nobody plays.

There is a difference between enticing and forcing.

Enticing is hats in TF2, skins or whatever in MOBAs, weapon skins in CSGO. In this game it would be the 4*s I guess.
Forcing, or what Devs refer to as a "gentle push", is making it such that in order to keep 3* covers (which have become infinitely more valuable of late), you have to spend $. Or to win PvPs, you have to spend $ on shields. In other words, P2W.

Money is money, and the difference boils down to just design choice. It's not like MPQ is the first game that has gone down the path of F2P -> P2W. But I think people have the right to complain about the sugarcoating of the true intentions behind the changes

Yeah, people have the right to voice their opinions, and I don't disagree that they pry at the wallet a bit too much at times. I mainly just wanted to put things in a different perspective for those who think spending* on F2P is evil or those that think they should have anything and everything in the game for no cost and minimal effort.

Unknown

ZenBrillig wrote:

Why do you think you should be able to play games completely free? You still have the choice to play this game however you want, you're just whining because some of the choices cost money, which you're too cheap to pay out.

P.S. You're not "earning" HP - D3 is giving them to you, for free, for playing the game. And you're complaining that it's not enough. Are you seriously unable to see how you sound like an ungrateful entitled child?

Cause when Steam show me this game it said FREE to play. So if devs decide its FREE I should be able to play completely free. So stop acting like you know better than D3, Demiurge, Valve. I wasnt complaining its not enough (if it wasnt enough I couldnt play this game so if Im still playing it means..YES, its enough!), I wasnt complaining about spending money, you clearly dont understand this thread. So maybe just learn reading with understanding first.

Anyway youre trolling probably so I think theres no sense discussing with you.

Unknown

Psykopathic wrote:

I mainly just wanted to put things in a different perspective for those who think speeding on F2P is evil or those that think they should have anything and everything in the game for no cost and minimal effort.

Time = money.

In most F2P games if you put in the time you can accomplish the same things as someone dropping money in the game. This is fine as the f2p player goes in understanding that someone else will progress faster by paying. With enough time the f2p player will catch up to the one paying at least with regards to older content.

This holds true for MPQ. However, the scales have been tipping away from the f2p player. It's requiring a lot more time and effort to progress (i.e. get new covers and level chars) than it used to. One could argue that it was out of balance before making it too easy for the f2p player to progress. The devs aren't known for making good predictions when it comes to numbers I just don't want to see this game go too far in the pay to play direction, which is what some of the changes with bracketing and lower % token rewards are taking us. If recruit tokens are going to be the only way for non hardcore players to progress then this is not the game I want to keep spending time on and the occasional purchase to keep my more casual son and wife up to speed.

Unknown

Riggy wrote:

UncleSam wrote:

It hurts new players because those groupings are right around the place where a f2p player needs the slots to hold those shiny 3* chars they're getting but aren't strong enough to win reliably to complete them, so they'll likely end up having to sell more 3* covers early thus slowing their already dismal progression.

I have no doubt that they chose those groupings at those points for a specific reason, and probably similar to why you're saying it. From the developers point of view, it's the point when a player transitions from a casual experimenter into someone willing to put a few bucks in. If a player has stuck around long enough to get that many roster slots, then they've already blown all the HP they're going to get from the prologue, and they've started placing well in a few events, getting them a bit of HP that way. Getting them to make the decision to invest financially will get them even more invested in the game. Or it might drive them off. Player stickiness is also a driving factor in these games.

Mind you, I'm just being the devil's advocate. My account is already well passed the point where this would affect me. I'm just questioning for the sake of driving conversation.

And let's be honest, someone around here has to try and understand and present the dev's point of view - odds are they'll be pretty tight-lipped on these topics.

Except instead of putting in a mechanism that forces you to commit to buying money or hate the game, they could find another way to convert someone into a paying player. Forcing their hands is not the way to go. You could put in one time deals right when they hit that point. Like a special bundle that has multiple roster slots for slightly cheaper or a roster slot token bundle.

Instead this feels like terrible. If you don't pay, you get hamstrung. This is especially apparent because the option that doesn't tinykitty you exists. The closest example I can think of is the MMO space. Most FtP MMOs entice you with skins or increased progression, but Star War: the Old Republic instead decides that you can't sprint until level 15 unless you pay money. This is what these cover bundles feel like to me.

On my current account, at the end of Krakadoom, I picked up my first Psylocke cover. At the same time, I picked up Punisher from the Hero Packs I got from Season 1, and Spider-man from a lucky regular recruit token. I'm at 16 slots. At the time I had 275 HP. Getting to 750 HP before the week was over is possible since I haven't finished the Prologue yet. Getting to 1000 HP? Impossible. Granted, the number of rares I have is a bit crazy considering this account hasn't hit 30 days yet.

This doesn't make me want to put money into the game, though I'm sure it will for others.

Unknown

Derethus wrote:

Except instead of putting in a mechanism that forces you to commit to buying money or hate the game, they could find another way to convert someone into a paying player. Forcing their hands is not the way to go. You could put in one time deals right when they hit that point. Like a special bundle that has multiple roster slots for slightly cheaper or a roster slot token bundle.

Instead this feels like terrible. If you don't pay, you get hamstrung. This is especially apparent because the option that doesn't tinykitty you exists. The closest example I can think of is the MMO space. Most FtP MMOs entice you with skins or increased progression, but Star War: the Old Republic instead decides that you can't sprint until level 15 unless you pay money. This is what these cover bundles feel like to me.

On my current account, at the end of Krakadoom, I picked up my first Psylocke cover. At the same time, I picked up Punisher from the Hero Packs I got from Season 1, and Spider-man from a lucky regular recruit token. I'm at 16 slots. At the time I had 275 HP. Getting to 750 HP before the week was over is possible since I haven't finished the Prologue yet. Getting to 1000 HP? Impossible. Granted, the number of rares I have is a bit crazy considering this account hasn't hit 30 days yet.

This doesn't make me want to put money into the game, though I'm sure it will for others.

The idea of a game capping your progress unless you pay is nothing new, and is a lot more fair than other available options (such as limiting event placement). But this isn't capping your progress, it's capping your roster diversity. Instead of allowing you to keep all the heroes for free, you're forced to pick your favorites or sink money in to it. So I guess what I'm seeing is a difference in the word "progress". You can complete every bit of content available in the entire game but you can't collect every hero possible. Given that those heroes are unusable for you for what will likely be a lot longer than 30 days, I'm not seeing you being limited at all. Dedicate one slot in your roster to the hero of the week and dump the ones you can't afford to keep up.

I get that many players prefer honey to vinegar, carrots to sticks, or whatever analogy floats your boat. I think you're looking at it wrong. The honey that D3 uses? Shiny gold covers. That's your honey. That's your incentive to buy roster space. The bundling of roster spaces for the mid-tier player? That's actually another version of honey (from D3's point of view). You make the purchase and go from the angry red roster icon to the pleasant blue - look at all this space I have. Right or wrong, that's their definition of honey.

Unknown

Riggy wrote:

The idea of a game capping your progress unless you pay is nothing new, and is a lot more fair than other available options (such as limiting event placement). But this isn't capping your progress, it's capping your roster diversity. Instead of allowing you to keep all the heroes for free, you're forced to pick your favorites or sink money in to it. So I guess what I'm seeing is a difference in the word "progress". You can complete every bit of content available in the entire game but you can't collect every hero possible. Given that those heroes are unusable for you for what will likely be a lot longer than 30 days, I'm not seeing you being limited at all. Dedicate one slot in your roster to the hero of the week and dump the ones you can't afford to keep up.

If collecting heroes is not considered making progress in a CCG-type game, I'm not sure what is.

And dedicating one slot for "hero of the week" has been made completely unfeasible, because 3* covers have become extremely rare. Sell a set of 3* covers and a month might pass before you get them again. True, if you are in 1* and 2* land the random 3* covers you get will not be immediately usable. But you have to start somewhere right? If you use the logic of "This 3* isn't worth keeping because it'll be unusable for awhile" then you will never get a usable 3*

Unknown

gobstopper wrote:

If collecting heroes is not considered making progress in a CCG-type game, I'm not sure what is.

And dedicating one slot for "hero of the week" has been made completely unfeasible, because 3* covers have become extremely rare. Sell a set of 3* covers and a month might pass before you get them again. True, if you are in 1* and 2* land the random 3* covers you get will not be immediately usable. But you have to start somewhere right? If you use the logic of "This 3* isn't worth keeping because it'll be unusable for awhile" then you will never get a usable 3*

The net effect of the changes over the past few months has been to make the 1*->2* transition far faster and a good deal more predictable and stable. Adding the flood of random 2* covers to PvP nodes achieved that almost single-handedly. On the other hand, for multiple reasons, the 2*->3* transition is both much longer and much more directly controlled by the devs. The increasing number of 3* characters means that random 3* covers are less likely to cluster, which is a problem when you need about 10 covers of a given 3* character to make him viable in comparison to maxed 2*s. Also, if you have a solid, diverse roster of maxed 2*s, most of your 3* covers are going to come from placement and progression rewards, which are predetermined, not random. A (small?) minority of your 3* covers are going to come from randomly generated token draws.

Unknown

MikeHock wrote:

ZenBrillig wrote:

pasa_ wrote:

Actually the complaint was more around the **** "explanation" attached that tries to show the more-money-grab move as if it served the users' interest and was following their requests. But never mind reading it's enough to insert the smart comments.

Do you have any evidence that it doesn't serve the users' interests? No you don't, you just immediately go with the "money-grab" explanation. There are plenty of people here running their mouths to the detriment of their brains, but I'm not one of them.

Profitibility is the #1 goal of any business.

If you think they changed the guaranteed packs to now have a 2% chance of scoring the featured character for our amusement; I'd think you're on some serious drugs.

Yeah, but at the same time you can't just milk customers for all they've got and expect them to keep coming back to you in good will. They won't. They'll get tired of your **** and stop buying from you. In a F2P game, you can't act like that. Ideally, people will call **** and stop paying you. Ideally, because apparently the travesty that is Dungeon Keeper still exists, so...

Unknown

Budget Player Cadet wrote:

Yeah, but at the same time you can't just milk customers for all they've got and expect them to keep coming back to you in good will. They won't. They'll get tired of your tinykitty and stop buying from you. In a F2P game, you can't act like that. Ideally, people will call tinykitty and stop paying you. Ideally, because apparently the travesty that is Dungeon Keeper still exists, so...

Ideally, yes. In reality it looks not happening so this ****-ball is keep rolling and the metrics show in a good direction too. See how many people talk about quitting then next morning sits back and carry on with grinding ahead? Or go to the shop and buys some more of the $##@ offers.

over_clocked

Riggy wrote:

Psykopathic wrote:

You can still play it for free. If you don't want to spend $5 on a bundle if cover slots then you can sacrifice a character you don't like for the 1 you do want.

As someone who has dropped low triple digits on the game, I just sold my 5/5 Bullseye in favor of Fury so that I'd have enough HP left to buy another cover for Fury. Proof that even paying players have to make this choice (of course, I did this with the expectation that I'd be getting Sentry in a few days as well).

I must be stingy with my shielding or something - have enough to buy a couple of slots ahead, have everyone, am F2P. What day are you at, Riggy?
Edit: oh nvm, so I guess you can afford buying 4* covers this way. Figures!

Unknown

locked wrote:

Riggy wrote:

Psykopathic wrote:

You can still play it for free. If you don't want to spend $5 on a bundle if cover slots then you can sacrifice a character you don't like for the 1 you do want.

As someone who has dropped low triple digits on the game, I just sold my 5/5 Bullseye in favor of Fury so that I'd have enough HP left to buy another cover for Fury. Proof that even paying players have to make this choice (of course, I did this with the expectation that I'd be getting Sentry in a few days as well).

I must be stingy with my shielding or something - have enough to buy a couple of slots ahead, have everyone, am F2P. What day are you at, Riggy?
Edit: oh nvm, so I guess you can afford buying 4* covers this way. Figures!

Yup, I'm day 206 (though the first 50 were pretty casual). My reward to myself for surviving season 1 was to buy a Fury cover (0/0/2 and level 46, baby!).

For reference, I currently have a roster of 35, missing a few 1*'s (Yelena, Juggs, Hawkeye) and now 2x 2*'s (Bag-Man and Bullseye). I'm down to just under 400 HP, but I figure with sub rewards and Versus rewards, I'll have enough for Sentry before his event ends. But, I wouldn't have had the HP to have bought the extra slot and keep Bullseye until about a week after the Sentry event ends.

My point was that just b/c people spend money on the game, it doesn't mean that everything is automatically ours. The pricing is enough that those of us who spend about $10-$15 / month (about what an MMO or service like Netflix costs) still have to think about what we want.

Unknown

locked wrote:

I must be stingy with my shielding or something - have enough to buy a couple of slots ahead, have everyone, am F2P. What day are you at, Riggy?

You started when the game made more sense. I doubt you could do the same development without coughing up $ in similar timeframe to similar level. Or even a fraction of it.

Unknown

I feel sorry for the newer players that will suffer as a result of this change. It's hard enough winning 3* covers in tournaments now, especially for a new player in PvP, but to then find out that it will cost them more HP to buy a pack of cover slots when they only need one slot, it must be so frustrating. "Hey, congratulations that you finally managed to place high enough to get that 3* character you wanted. Shame you spent your HP shielding to actually win it. Now you've gotta spend real money to get HP, because there is no way you can win enough HP before that cover expires. And don't forget, we're doing this for your benefit!"