R199 New Feature: Bonus Shard Forced Timer

IceIX

Wanted to make everyone aware of a new change that we managed to data patch into R199 this morning. Being a data patch, this means that our UI change ability is limited, so for now, there's no player visible change.

Basically, the game now tracks each of the pack pulls (of each type, so one counter each for 1x, 10x, 40x). It then starts up a counter that ramps up the odds of getting a Bonus Shard pull as the player pulls more of that type, which resets when a Bonus Shard is pulled. This ramping gets extreme around the time a totaled shard pull rate would be around 100%.

Ex: Heroic 1x pack has a ~2% chance of a 3-Star, ~1% chance of a 4-Star. The chance of a Bonus Shard goes up in the background as you pull. By about 34 pulls, the chance of any pull being a Bonus is close to 100% and will be forced if it doesn't happen soon after that. Once Bonus Shards have been procced, the timer reverts to zero.

For you math people out there, an easy way to think of this timer is as a logarithmic function but one with a cutoff that just pushes it to a set limit instead of approaching infinitely.

Jormagund

Sounds like another positive change frequently requested in the old days of bonus heroes.  Glad to see it come in and hope to see it in evidence when I do my weekly pulls tomorrow.

Thanks for the update.

tonypq

Seems like a nice tweak to me, good news.

marshall

Thanks for this @IceIX !

Fun methodology, so you keep the rush of beating the odds and resets for new hope of shards.

A few questions:
- What are the possible bonus shard outcomes? 50, more up to full cover?
- Is this counter based on token type? Star type? Should I only pull legendaries after 20 or so pulls without bonus?

jackstar0

IceIX

marshall said:

Thanks for this @IceIX !

Fun methodology, so you keep the rush of beating the odds and resets for new hope of shards.

A few questions:
- What are the possible bonus shard outcomes? 50, more up to full cover?
- Is this counter based on token type? Star type? Should I only pull legendaries after 20 or so pulls without bonus?

1) Depends on the rarity and the pack being pulled, but generally, it's a round number portion of a cover in Shards up to a full cover, or more than one cover in the case of 10x and 40x packs. So think 50, 100, etc up to 300 for 3-Stars or 400 for 4-Stars, 500 for 5-Stars. 10x and 40x packs can pull more than that since the pull is essentially 10 or 40 1x pulls, so you have the chance for more there anyway if you would have pulled individually.

2) The counter is for each individual pack. Standard has its own. Heroic 1x has its own. Mighty has its own. They are not linked to one another. So waiting on a Latest Legends pull because you want to pull Standards till chances are high won't work.

DAZ0273

Well I got my first Bonus Shards today so this can only better news, thanks Devs!

Vhailorx

This is a great change. 

It's ~2 years later than when first requested by the players (pointing to the use of this mechanic in what seems like just about every other major freemium game).  But that snarky caveat aside, this is an unambiguously good change for players and I have no criticism.  Thank you!  Can't wait to see the crowdsourced data on how this is impacting player's subjective and objective bonus shards experience.

tupacboy

Awesome

Borstock

Can't say I understood all of that, but sounds all positive. Thank you for this. It is appreciated.

axmoss

@IceIX
Will the counter reset with the rotation of Latest Legends? i.e. If I pull to 95% and wait til Immortal Hulk is in Latest, will my counter for bonus shards reset to 0 when Immortal Hulk is in?

IceIX

axmoss said:

@IceIX
Will the counter reset with the rotation of Latest Legends? i.e. If I pull to 95% and wait til Immortal Hulk is in Latest, will my counter for bonus shards reset to 0 when Immortal Hulk is in?

Currently, no. Right now, Latest Legends would roll over as well as any other event or pack that is possible to gain more tokens/pulls for if re-run. No plans to reset counters, although that's technically possible.

Vhailorx

IceIX said:

marshall said:

Thanks for this @IceIX !

Fun methodology, so you keep the rush of beating the odds and resets for new hope of shards.

A few questions:
- What are the possible bonus shard outcomes? 50, more up to full cover?
- Is this counter based on token type? Star type? Should I only pull legendaries after 20 or so pulls without bonus?

1) Depends on the rarity and the pack being pulled, but generally, it's a round number portion of a cover in Shards up to a full cover, or more than one cover in the case of 10x and 40x packs. So think 50, 100, etc up to 300 for 3-Stars or 400 for 4-Stars, 500 for 5-Stars. 10x and 40x packs can pull more than that since the pull is essentially 10 or 40 1x pulls, so you have the chance for more there anyway if you would have pulled individually.

2) The counter is for each individual pack. Standard has its own. Heroic 1x has its own. Mighty has its own. They are not linked to one another. So waiting on a Latest Legends pull because you want to pull Standards till chances are high won't work.

Thank you for outright stating the second point.  This will prevent some heated discussions about the optimal pull strategies. 

gahcior2

(in the case of heroic packs) does the timer of both 3* and 4* resets when you get either of those or is It just from the tier you got the bonus shards from ? Also thanks for the update , this is a very nice change.

Anon

Excellent news!

IceIX

gahcior2 said:

(in the case of heroic packs) does the timer of both 3* and 4* resets when you get either of those or is It just from the tier you got the bonus shards from ? Also thanks for the update , this is a very nice change.

The timer is combined for any/all pulls. Past analytics of knowing *what* is pulled after the fact, the game doesn't really differentiate between pull "types", so it'd be difficult to make it know to avoid or weight specific pull types.

pheregas

I think the only negative to this was that it happened just after pulling over 100 latest and getting zero bonus shards.  Wish I would have waited.

jredd

this should be done with 5* pulls as well

DarthDeVo

Nice little bit of news. Especially since I believe I haven't gotten any bonus shards at any level yet. 

It's entirely possible I got some and clicked past so fast I missed it, but I usually don't go fast enough to miss that sort of thing. 

Projectus2501

Great news. Small change but a good one! 

MoonKnight

IceIX said:

gahcior2 said:

(in the case of heroic packs) does the timer of both 3* and 4* resets when you get either of those or is It just from the tier you got the bonus shards from ? Also thanks for the update , this is a very nice change.

The timer is combined for any/all pulls. Past analytics of knowing *what* is pulled after the fact, the game doesn't really differentiate between pull "types", so it'd be difficult to make it know to avoid or weight specific pull types.

So if a player pulls from an LL and get a bonus 4* shard, your 5* shard bonus will reset? Am I interpreting that correctly? If that’s the case, it will be extremely extremely unlikely to get a bonus 5* shard, as the 4* rate will just be higher.