Debate on the value of shards

AXP_isme

Evidently I’ve opened 124 LTs since shards went live. At this rate it’ll take me approximately 70 days (almost certainly more since I was hoarding in anticipation of the announcement) to earn one cover of my 5* target. Getting five additional covers per year under this system (I’m excluding those that I ‘earn’ from 4* rewards) feels really slow. This may be the thing that finally drives me away. 

I really hope that shards get added into the progression and placement rewards structures soon so that I can get an idea of their distribution. As it stands I feel like the RNG hasn’t really been mitigated substantially because I earn target characters so infrequently so the majority of my progress comes from rewards and tokens anywhere. The slow filling of the progress bars, particularly on 5*s, feels more like penance than progress and even the monetisation has been gated behind more RNG. I’ve given it the benefit of the doubt and have decided that I don’t like this system as it stands. I’m not hopeful about the full implementation but I’ll hold final judgement until then. 

Edited to correct a few errors. 

tiomono

AXP_isme said:

Evidently I’ve opened 124 LTs since shards went live. At this rate it’ll take me approximately 70 days (almost certainly more since I was hoarding in anticipation of the announcement) to earn one cover of my 5* target. Getting five additional covers per year under this system (I’m excluding those that I ‘earn’ from 4* rewards) feels really slow. This may be the thing that finally drives me away. 

I really hope that shards get added into the progression and placement rewards structures soon so that I can get an idea of their distribution. As it stands I feel like the RNG hasn’t really been mitigated substantially because I earn target characters so infrequently so the majority of my progress comes from rewards and tokens anywhere. The slow filling of the progress bars, particularly on 5*s, feels more like penance than progress’s Dan even the monetisation has been hated behind more RNG. I’ve given it the benefit of the doubt and have decided that I don’t like this system. 

I do hope shards get added into progression and placement as well. At this point I feel that will likely toss some other reward out of progression and placement though. That will for sure give many players an even worse view of shards.

I made one comment in the other topic that didnt get moved over that I feel is important to me. I once had a character get up to 23 saved covers before I could champ them. (Granted it was my choice not to trade in covers to complete them but as people like to say "you will get them eventually"). It is situations like this that while very rare I feel it most certainly sticks in a players mind and sours a player to rng. 

So many people griped for a long time that rng based progression was the worst thing about this game. Some of them quit. The devs finally stepped in to do something about rng based progression and get roasted for it.

No system will ever be perfect for every player. It's literally impossible. But I for one am glad to see rng playing less of a role in my cover aquisition.

Scofie

Since shards came in I've had 1 5* cover from opening tokens. In the entire time BHs were in play I got three. Shards feel positively rapid. I didn't keep track of 4* pulls but I've been able to champ 4 characters with shards. No chance I'd have done that with BHs in that time. And that's not even counting the retrospective rewards.

HoundofShadow

The main problem is players hate tradeoff in any form. They categorise changes in the game as either "taking away things from them" or "adding things". As long as changes involve taking something away even though new things are added, they are going to minimize the effects of the positive and enlarge the negative effects.

The point is, they expect the devs to add in new (major) stuff/resources/changes without tradeoffs, which I think is unrealistic. The only tradeoff the dev can make is removing "negative" things. When Supports were made more available, there were similar reactions. 

These type of reactions were prevalent in the past, is prevalent now, and it will continue into the future. As long as the players refuse to acknowledge tradeoffs are necessary to balance the game or expect tradeoff to be minimal, they will continue to react like this. 

AXP_isme

I’m not sure I would say I’m roasting the devs for the decision to implement shards. YMMV, of course, but for me I don’t consider it a success. The argument ‘people complained about RNG, the devs took it out and people still complain’ looks like a strawman. 

The game contains layers and layers of unpredictability and randomness. I don’t think we should be rolling out the red carpet because one part of that randomness has been replaced with certainty on, what statistically at least appears to be, a less generous basis. 

From the perspective of the numbers I find this to be disappointing. From the perspective of the ‘progress’ bar and the psychological aspects I also find it disappointing. That’s my two-penneth, but it is only one opinion amongst many. 

tiomono

@AXP_isme

Only that first paragraph of my last post was directly to you. I think I may need to be more aware of how I use the quote button. And making it clear when I am speaking more broadly and not solely to the person I quoted.

Daredevil217

HoundofShadow said:

The main problem is players hate tradeoff in any form. They categorise changes in the game as either "taking away things from them" or "adding things". As long as changes involve taking something away even though new things are added, they are going to minimize the effects of the positive and enlarge the negative effects.

The point is, they expect the devs to add in new (major) stuff/resources/changes without tradeoffs, which I think is unrealistic. The only tradeoff the dev can make is removing "negative" things. When Supports were made more available, there were similar reactions. 

These type of reactions were prevalent in the past, is prevalent now, and it will continue into the future. As long as the players refuse to acknowledge tradeoffs are necessary to balance the game or expect tradeoff to be minimal, they will continue to react like this. 

Hound, you love to beat this drum and copy/paste this same argument in many threads. There are a few things I don’t think you are understanding. 

Every time another character is released, dilution becomes that much worse. It means more time, money, resources, etc. that a player invests.  This is really tough for new players. The amount players “owe” continually increases, but the amount we are “paid” remains the same. So essentially each new character represents a one-sided transaction in favor of the developers. No “trade-off”.

When this feature was first teased, many people felt we were finally being given something that would help with dilution. With each character release being pro-developer, this would be something pro-player. There was no mention of Bonus Heroes being replaced so many players thought we were being given something “in addition to”.  This in and of itself would have been a “trade-off” when looking at the big picture of the game. 

But the developers’ horrible job communicating just what this would be plus the pound of flesh they took to give us colorless covers left a very bad taste in many players’ mouths. Losing BH, getting overall lower drop rates, aggressive monetization, plus the removal of some major champ rewards was too big of a “trade-off” for many to swallow. I know I personally would happily go back to the old system because I see shards as a net negative. But YMMV. 

I do believe that the few vocal defenders of shards think more emotionally than logically. They remember those times RNG was unkind and it sticks in their brains. All the “stuff” they are losing isn’t something you see/notice on a day to day basis, so it doesn’t “feel” as bad. Which is fine since this is a game and feelings/emotions count for a lot. But I think those who just look at it logically realize this was a raw deal. That’s the backlash you’re seeing. It’s not just “players want free stuff” and boiling it down to that one point is super dismissive of actual concerns. 

Tony_Foot

The fact is I'm way down on 3* and 4*s to where I would have been as the rewards system currently stands. I don't care what's promised in the future, I care about now and I'm way way down on 3*s and 4*s. When I broke hoard I'm about where I would have been on 5*s.

This system should never have been implemented until the rewards were ready to do. Yes I could be even when it all shakes out but that doesn't help as the months roll by.

As I have said thousands of times already, with the old system I consistently got 10 cover on new releases BH the 4*, now I don't have a hope. I also got 3* BH at a far far faster rate than I'm getting with shards.

Not only am I way down on covers they are leading to less champ rewards from an already worse champ rewards re-work. I used to easily bank 10-12k per month excess HP and I'm also way down on that too. So I get less covers to get worse champ rewards.

Fantastic system!

tiomono

Daredevil217 said:

I do believe that the few vocal defenders of shards think more emotionally than logically. They remember those times RNG was unkind and it sticks in their brains. All the “stuff” they are losing isn’t something you see/notice on a day to day basis, so it doesn’t “feel” as bad. Which is fine since this is a game and feelings/emotions count for a lot. But I think those who just look at it logically realize this was a raw deal. That’s the backlash you’re seeing. It’s not just “players want free stuff” and boiling it down to that one point is super dismissive of actual concerns. 

I believe people with both points of view are being emotional over logical. I feel the tradeoff of frequency of covers and some hp and cp for guaranteed steady progress is worth it. That's my opinion. Is it logical or emotional? It's very much both.

Are players who feel it's a raw deal being logical or emotional? Probably both. 

Different players are ok with different things. Sometimes the developers will make you happy with their direction, sometimes they will irritate you. 

So this is where I feel the emotion comes in when the players who feel it's a bad deal will continually try to convince other players to agree so that if they can gain enough backing maybe the devs will take note. We all do this at one time or another. I myself like to gripe about a certain mullet wearing bully. Gripe is probably too light of a word.

But I guess my point is if we just ignore or try to devalue what people with other opinions think or feel we miss out on actually being to expand ourselves. I will never say "you should be ok with less rewards because we got colorless covers." I personally am, but that's just me and I totally get why that exchange is not worth it in other players eyes. I just will point out what I appreciate or enjoy based on my experience. Some people will agree others will not and that's fine.

Godzillafan67

@Daredevil217, apparently I can't "like" an "insightful" post, but you are spot on. I am 100% pro-shards in the abstract, but as you say, this net negative that's been given is the problem. What if shards were awarded covers just slightly above the BH rate? What if champion rewards didn't decrease when shards were added? Would all the haters still be hating?

To summarize, I'm pro shards, but the implementation has been awful. 

Vhailorx

Godzillafan67 said:

@Daredevil217, apparently I can't "like" an "insightful" post, but you are spot on. I am 100% pro-shards in the abstract, but as you say, this net negative that's been given is the problem. What if shards were awarded covers just slightly above the BH rate? What if champion rewards didn't decrease when shards were added? Would all the haters still be hating?

To summarize, I'm pro shards, but the implementation has been awful. 

This 1000%

Forget the "entitled players whining" **** from the white knights.  Shards in theory are ok (although colorless covers have much less appeal post saved-covers). But as implemented shards feel like a shiny, but not especially useful, object to distract me from the stuff being taken away.

fight4thedream

*Mod note: Please refrain from using the term "white knights" as it adds nothing to the discussion and shows a lack of respect for the experiences, ideas and concerns of others.

To be honest, I think the discussion has reached a plateau.

Where one falls on the issue depends on what one values: on one side you have those that want to maximize rewards, even if it involves going through rng, while on the other side you have those that detest rng and value certainty, even if it comes at the expense of the player base losing out on rewards. Both sides have valid points and preferences. Yes, this is a net loss of rewards for the player base as a whole. But for those who have experienced terrible luck with rng in this game, the new system is obviously the more appealing option. 

To put it simply, there wouldn't be a debate if shards did not come at the expense of losing rewards. Obviously, these changes were made to help incentivize player spending, which you can make of what you will.  The dev team has stated they plan on implementing shards into the rewards scheme of events which will add another layer to the discussion of their value. 

But as it stands now, I don't see either side reaching an agreement. So it's perhaps best to just agree to disagree and wait for what phase 2 of shards will bring.

froggerjohn

There's no question that shard rewards come at a slower pace than BHs. Over and above the raw numbers, there's those "orphaned shards" on characters where they're no longer useful (because you pulled the cover you needed naturally), and that further dilutes the already reduced reward rate.

I have hundreds of combined wasted shards on max-champ characters, that in all likelihood, will never get used. It's an incredibly long time before a dupe character would bubble back up to the top of the queue for the most useful favorite.

Even though shards feel like a positive move overall, I'm disappointed that they chose to reduce the reward rates when the existing rates were already insufficient due to dilution.

But that's not even the part that upsets me the most.

Due to the aforementioned wasted shards, I often move the TH away from my level 265 3*s, just so that I don't create more waste. And that's ABSURD. When one character is going to provide the most valuable reward, but there's risk of penalty for setting that character as TH, it's an indication that there's something wrong with the system.

Despite the reduced rewards, waste, loss of flexibility, and loss of excitement in opening covers, I've slowly accepted that we're still better off in many ways. Hopefully they can address some of the shortcomings, and make shards more of a 'win', and less of a 'tradeoff'.

Captain_Carlman

tiomono said:

I do hope shards get added into progression and placement as well. At this point I feel that will likely toss some other reward out of progression and placement though. That will for sure give many players an even worse view of shards.

I wouldn't be surprised if 3 and 4* covers were replaced by shards for those characters in progression at some point. 

 As a player trying to progress into 4* land for like, four years now, the day full covers get replaced completely by shards is probably the day I'm done with the game.

AXP_isme

Adding them to rewards could be a great opportunity to revamp the rewards and sprinkle shards for multiple characters, 3s, 4s and 5s throughout the rewards. That would create a lot of orphan shards and provide an incentive for people to spend across all the tiers where they only need a few here and there. The cynic in me believes they will just take the lazy route and replace the covers with shards, maybe removing some other resources along the way. The implementation could be really great but the track record is not promising and precedent is not on the side of the developers (maybe I should say it’s not on the side of the players, in fact).

Vhailorx

Captain_Carlman said:

tiomono said:

I do hope shards get added into progression and placement as well. At this point I feel that will likely toss some other reward out of progression and placement though. That will for sure give many players an even worse view of shards.

I wouldn't be surprised if 3 and 4* covers were replaced by shards for those characters in progression at some point. 

 As a player trying to progress into 4* land for like, four years now, the day full covers get replaced completely by shards is probably the day I'm done with the game.

No, the precedent has been set.  Single, 3* and 4* reward covers would be split up into multiple rewards, thus reducing the flow rate of other resources.

And fight4, I do not accept your framing of maximize rng rewards v. Maximize certainty. My entire concern with shard as implemented is that they result in a definite reduction of fixed rewards (HP, iso, etc), but their only benefit is pure rng.  A 5* cover and 500 5* shards are indistinguishable under almost all circumstances (they only matter if you have bad build luck, OR for those few characters where build matters even when inderleveled).  So shards are only ever a benefit to players in rare edge cases, and in order to pay for that rare, pure rng benefit, we have all been forced to lose a significant chunk of fixed, certain resources.

bluewolf

One (mostly unmentioned) value of shards is with fed characters.

I have decided to chase my last few unfinished Classic 5's as my next goal.  So I have a Phoenix who is now at a 5/3/3 build with, currently, 90 shards.  My Jubilee just got to 321 and has 38 shards.

OK, so.  Under the old feeder system I would have needed another 39 Jubilees (probably mostly coming from bonus covers) to get her to 360 to finish with a 5/4/4 and one saved cover.  That would probably be about 760 pulls, maybe a little less assuming I got some Jubilee covers along the way and maybe she's in rewards etc.  I could have bonused Phoenix but with a 5/3/3 build I would be taking a chance of just saving the extremely rare 5* bonus cover.

With shards and colorless covers I save 10 Jubilee covers or approx 200 pulls.  But!  I also get shards for Jubilee and Phoenix (if I want) for each pull, which I am doing, AND I get those partial covers along the way.  Now, it depends where your feeder is as to whether you can shortcut some pulls or not.  If you are close to getting 100 shards or 150 then you can get a full cover via a combination of a targeted 4 and 5 faster than if you just target one or the other.  However in my case, pulling another 167 (not quite since I have 90 Phoenix shards already, and another 167 would only get my Jubilee to about 334 ish and wouldn't quite give me partial shards, although I guess I could switch away from Phoenix once Jubilee is almost at 335 or if I get one from a random pull or something.

(You may notice that sharding the 5 is much faster than sharding the feeder 4, I need under 334 pulls to get enough shards to finish Phoenix vs about 750 to get Jubilee to 350.)

I am sure the above is confusing but the point is that when you can target a fed character and their feeder, you can sometimes complete someone faster, I think, than you might have done under the Bonus Hero system (assuming a flat rate vs lucky bonus streaks).  So another tradeoff in terms of HP, CP, iso can be a faster cover, which is not a trivial thing in the era of massive dilution everywhere.

Alfje17

Unfortuntely I haven't tracked my shards, but I have been tracking my pull rate for quite some time and I do see a difference post BH:

I got 7 5* BH out of 963 LTs, now I got 279 shards from 93 LTs.

Put in shards, then every LT in the BH era gave me 4 shards for a 5*, while the current shard rate is 3 per LT.

When I look at 4*, I get a similar picture: the 963 LTs gave me 40 BH, the 93 LTs gave me 1395 shards.

Converting this, LTs gave me 16.6 shards instead of the current 15.

Heroics paint an even worse picture: got 21 BH 4* out of 1019 pulls or just over 8.2 shards per pull (instead of 3 now)!

I'm not counting the shards you get from feeders, so maybe that levels things out, but it would surprise me.

Now the positive part: colorless covers are great!

helix72

Whether shards for 5*s are better or worse depends on your goals (just talking 5*s here, not 4* or below):

GOAL 1: If your goal is to get the most covers possible, regardless of color, either overall or for a specific character, then shards are worse than bonus heroes.

GOAL 2: If your goal is to get to any combination of 13 covers for a character as fast as possible (excluding saved covers), I expect shards overall will be faster on average. I have not yet tested this but believe the ability to pick your cover's color will show to more than offset the drop in the speed for cover acquisition.

GOAL 3: If your goal is to get to a specific distribution of 13 covers (e.g. 5/5/3 and not 5/3/5, 5/4/4, etc) then again, I suspect shards will be faster and even more so than in Goal 2.

My personal goal is goal 3, as I'm in no hurry to champ my 5*s but want to be able to use them. My level 300 Kitty was 2/3/3 when a Kitty special store was offered. Thanks to shards I got her to 5/5/3 with 2 saved covers and only spent net (after the 4* champ level rewards were added) a little over 2,000 CP to get there. Under BHs, I might have had to blow much more. Now I'm working to get my 1/3/1 Okoye to 5/5/3, sharding away and hoarding waiting for a special store.

In today's age of dilution and with clear differences in the effectiveness of certain characters, if you don't already have the meta characters I'd suspect you're in goal 2 or goal 3 as well.

Now I'm still waiting for them to deliver on the remainder of their promise which said they would include other places to gain shards including "places like" event rewards and S.H.I.E.L.D. Clearance Levels. I bet it's coming soon (tm).

KGB

helix72 said:

My level 300 Kitty was 2/3/3 when a Kitty special store was offered. Thanks to shards I got her to 5/5/3 with 2 saved covers and only spent net (after the 4* champ level rewards were added) a little over 2,000 CP to get there. Under BHs, I might have had to blow much more.

How much of going from 2/3/3 was from pulling Kitty covers from the Kitty store? At 2K CP you only made 80 pulls. That's not even enough for 1 shard Kitty (it's about half way there). So clearly you pulled a lot of Kittys in the store and maybe bought 1 more from Shards you had already saved or bought in a Shard sale. Shards did virtually nothing for you here other than perhaps the final cover.

Vhailorx has it right. It's a bad deal for players. In your example you only talking about 5*. But the problem is shards are now in 3 & 4* too and reducing your BH rate there AND removing valuable resources in the 2/3/4 champ rewards. As a 4* player I don't need 3 and 4* shards because I already have all those characters covered so it's a really bad deal for me in those tiers. The only place where it has ANY value is on 5* characters you haven't fully covered which is as Vhailorx said, an edge case.

To make up for the lost resources, shards have to be MORE available than BH were, not less available.

KGB