Retroactive Rewards Update

purplemur

Well done!!
im telling ya’ll : Do like a 48hr midweek flash sale and bring back the hp sale.
watch what goodwill and an influx of motivation(partial covers)does.

keep up the good work

BriMan2222

ThaRoadWarrior

This definitely feels like it was the correct Minimum Viable Solution to the rewards overhaul. I too am very curious where the lost mid-core hp/cp is going to come from now (if anywhere) over the long term. 

I also think that determining the best way to to roll out future feeders needs to be carefully considered. I would propose that new 4* feeders be released already feeding, rather than having to do all this again. Figure out what the right time interval is for a 5* to languish in Classic before they deserve one, and then just release a new character with the built in feed structure at that time.

Count me in the group that would absolutely love a post-mortem on what led to this moment and why splitting covers out across 3 levels at the expense of game currency was decided on.

randomhero1090

ThaRoadWarrior said:

This definitely feels like it was the correct Minimum Viable Solution to the rewards overhaul. I too am very curious where the lost mid-core hp/cp is going to come from now (if anywhere) over the long term. 

I also think that determining the best way to to roll out future feeders needs to be carefully considered. I would propose that new 4* feeders be released already feeding, rather than having to do all this again. Figure out what the right time interval is for a 5* to languish in Classic before they deserve one, and then just release a new character with the built in feed structure at that time.

Count me in the group that would absolutely love a post-mortem on what led to this moment and why splitting covers out across 3 levels at the expense of game currency was decided on.

To D3/Demi/Ice & team.  First, thanks for listening and communicating.  Second, thanks for taking quick action.

@ThaRoadWarrior -   I'm with you on this one.  What was said to me in discord regarding this topic is that we will be gaining "shards from multiple income sources."  I am not seeing that yet.  Not taking the pitchfork out, just don't see it, YET.  Maybe shards are going to be added to play rewards.  Maybe we see some revamp in season rewards.  I have NO idea, but right now, the CP change on the 4s seems like a loss.

I realize we have some feeder changes to the 3s and will feed the 4s.  But not sure if it makes it faster.

One of the ways to get shards is to buy them from the store.  But that requires HP and that has been reduced.

So, not quite sold on the explanation, but again, maybe there is more coming so i'll be a little patient on this one.

ThaRoadWarrior

@IceIX - quick question about the retroactive rewards for Shardmas 2 that I don't think has come up:
when you say "progress to that point," do you mean based on a snapshot of your roster at the moment Shardmas 1 happened? Like if I hypothetically had a max champ 3* at that time, and sold it in the last day or so, will pepperidge farm remember it was there, or have I made a horrible life choice? 

Just asking, that isn't my personal situation, but I imagine it is somebody's.

Vhailorx

ThaRoadWarrior said:

This definitely feels like it was the correct Minimum Viable Solution to the rewards overhaul. I too am very curious where the lost mid-core hp/cp is going to come from now (if anywhere) over the long term. 

I also think that determining the best way to to roll out future feeders needs to be carefully considered. I would propose that new 4* feeders be released already feeding, rather than having to do all this again. Figure out what the right time interval is for a 5* to languish in Classic before they deserve one, and then just release a new character with the built in feed structure at that time.

Count me in the group that would absolutely love a post-mortem on what led to this moment and why splitting covers out across 3 levels at the expense of game currency was decided on.

As has been discussed ad nauseum in the "It is/isn't FAIR!!!!" debates of the last several days, the relative value of a single LT relative to a fixed 5* cover is quite minimal. Even 6x LTs is ~2% of what it takes to reliably champ 3x 5*s.  so even across three dozen feeder 4*s, that still just 72% of a viable level 450 hoard (and all those doubled up LTs would only be available to those players who had already collected ~3700 covers for the 36 feeder 4*!).

So why can't Demi/d3 just make all feeder updates additive.  That way vetrs get the retroactive rewards that keep them building their rosters without concern for future updates, AND newer players don't get grumpy about missing out on better rewards.

there is, no doubt, some inflection point beyond which increasing rewards will decrease player engagement (because players will feel that they have acquired everything they might want from the game).  But MPQ is SO FAR away from that point.  Veteran players, by default, plan on hoarding resources for months at a time because it is far and away the most efficient strategy.  5* progress is extraordinarily slow, with 5*s transitioners regularly using the same handful of characters for months or even years.  4* dilution is so bad that fixed cover rewards for each vintage 4* rotates up less than once a year.  An injection of resources is long overdue.  Hell, even the updated retroactive champ rewards will make little impact on the gameplay experience of vets like me. 

Instead of using shards to obscure a tune down of resource acquisition rates, Demi/d3 should be increasing the rate of rewards (in combination with offering new monetization streams if they must).  Demi/d3 (and the white knights) always q say things like "those rewards have to come from somewhere!"  But do they really?  I have heard a lot of devs say things like that over the years, right up until they cranked up the reward flow rate and actually made their games more popular/successful. 

fmftint

There's a old saying,  pay me now or pay me later. This will be balanced out somewhere else in the game

wymtime

I will Say thank you for the retroactive change.

 I will also reinforce my disappointment with the Devs that this was not the way things rolled out initially.  Overall with Shards they are good for the game allowing for coverless covers.  My personal disappointment is it has come with a cost to the players.  Shards drop at a set amount which is lower than the percentage of bonus heroes.  The added shards to champ rewards comes at a cost of CP, HP and ISO. When the reality is it could have come at 0 cost to the players.  The shards from token pulls could have been calculated to 1% better than bonus heroes, and the CP and HP could have been left in the champ rewards and the full retroactive rewards could have been given the first time. The fact that as a development team they felt removing these rewards was the best way to proceed is what is really disappointing.

furbear00000

ThaRoadWarrior said:

@IceIX - quick question about the retroactive rewards for Shardmas 2 that I don't think has come up:
when you say "progress to that point," do you mean based on a snapshot of your roster at the moment Shardmas 1 happened? Like if I hypothetically had a max champ 3* at that time, and sold it in the last day or so, will pepperidge farm remember it was there, or have I made a horrible life choice? 

Just asking, that isn't my personal situation, but I imagine it is somebody's.

I did this. I don’t expect to get anything from what I sold. 

AdamMagus

Thanks for the update, good news indeed!

Jzinaz

Christmas miracle, 

Thank you devs and team...

maltyo9

I know many have already said it, but I think anyone that has given feedback on this needs to as well.

Thank you to the team for making this change, it is greatly appreciated.

shardwick

Guys, with my upcoming shards I'm putting in a pool!

maltyo9

shardwick said:

Guys, with my upcoming shards I'm putting in a pool!

Just out of curiosity, was your original name "BonusHerowick?"

whitecat31

IceIX said:

As part of the roll out of Shards, Champion rewards for 2-Stars, 3-Stars, and 4-Stars were updated to include Shards. This amounted to updating over a hundred characters across these three tiers. This represents one of the largest changes to the game that we have made. As part of this release, players received Shards and covers depending on the progress their characters had made to that point.

We received feedback from the community that the recent rewards that were received did not hit the mark. We took this to heart and have spent the last couple of days figuring out what can be done and plan on how to execute it.

Well, we have good news! We are planning to initiate a second round of “retroactive rewards” for the daily patch on Monday-Tuesday (as long as it passes QA). These rewards will include any character that had their Champion Rewards updated to add a character or update an existing character. This also includes any secondary Shards that you would have received.

This is great news. @IceIX
But it leaves one question left unanswered. Now we would like to trust you guys to continue this practice which we felt was set in stone by past precedents and previous announcements. Like https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/comment/749081#Comment_749081
"Any future 4-Star characters that have their Champion Rewards changed to offer 5-Star covers, will also retroactively credit those covers to players that had already achieved those levels."

But it was not actually confirmed this practice will continue and some of us are finding trust not readily returning. The wording of your announcement uses a past tense. 
Because of this tense, this current announcement is seen by some of us as just a corrective action due to our feedback, and not an act of benevolence. 

So to the unanswered question. 

There are currently 4 star characters that are not Feeders.
Many of us would like to champion and level them normally and put this extremely ugly incident behind us.
When we champion a character that later becomes a feeder, leveling it up will be found to be punitive toward those very important 5 star shards, if this 20% of shards earned instead of 100% of shards policy is in place.
So we ask.

Which policy will be put in place? The 100% of shards earned get credited or the 20% of shards earned get credited? 
If it is 100% we can enjoy those characters to their fullest.
If it is 20%, it makes more sense for us to just collect those 4 star characters covers and champion the characters only after they become feeders. 

Thank you for the answer to this question in advance. 

jackstar0

Look, I only liked the OP because I was 69th.

DarthDeVo

I've had my fair share of criticisms (and snark) both here and on Line the past several days.

So on the flip side, gotta give credit where it's due. Thank you for listening to our complaints and understanding just why this caused such an uproar.

Thank you for taking the steps towards making the retroactive rewards whole. 

Having said that, it is slightly troubling the initial drought of shards was decided to be adequate in the first place. I'm not trying to point fingers at any one person, or even a group of people.

I imagine when the discussion was held amongst your team, there were different people arguing and debating over what the correct amount of shards to reward retroactively would be. Maybe some of you were arguing to be more generous. Maybe not. I really don't know. What is evident is that ultimately a decision was made that differed widely from the way retroactive rewards had been handled in the past and in a way we players had become conditioned to expect. 

Maybe everyone agreed that this was a good, or at least acceptable, decision. Maybe it was a thin majority. Maybe it came down to a few key decision makers and the change was implemented grudgingly. I have no idea. 

Hopefully those who signed off on this change will understand that sometimes it's better to error on the side of generosity and keep your loyal customers satisfied and enthusiastic about the game rather than trying to walk back a PR disaster and try to build back trust with players who felt tricked or deceived. 

However it went down, I hope everything that followed will be a valuable learning experience moving forward. That is how we improve as human beings, after all. 

That also goes for the manner in which the "bad news" update was handled as well. Both the timing of it (waiting until an HP sale was fully complete so people potentially upset by the news had already been parted from their money; and coming late at night/early in the morning for most of the U.S., where I imagine a good portion of your players reside, about 8 or 9 hours before the update went live) and the way the update itself was written, which was difficult to understand.

We were arguing about how many shards to expect all the way up to the point they actually rolled out in the game. And after they were distributed, we *still* didn't understand in some cases why we got the shards we did in the amounts we did. That's not the sort of response you're looking for when it comes to communicating a change, especially one as significant as this. Just my two cents. 

fitfestus

Keep the shards in place
BUT...
give us back our BONUS heroes!

This will help counter the stupid idea of removing the CP's and Hp's from champ progression rewards 

The bonus hero draw was a huge part of my token hoarding strategy! 

Bzhai

fitfestus said:

Keep the shards in place
BUT...
give us back our BONUS heroes!

This will help counter the stupid idea of removing the CP's and Hp's from champ progression rewards 

The bonus hero draw was a huge part of my token hoarding strategy! 

At the very least bring back bonus heroes but reward shards or something if you feel that a complete cover is too generous (pst, it's not). You could even implement a lucky draw mechanic that rewards 1x, 2x or 3x shards. 

Mike4003

This is great news.  Thank you for reconsidering the initial update which felt inequitable to long-term players.  I appreciate that you listened to the feedback of the loyal player base.  👏