Buy a 1x Heroic Cover Pack in the shop

Pat1985

BlackBoltRocks said:

Wil88 said:

Maybe off topic for this thread, but what is the point of hoarding that many heroics?

One reason is to wait for a particular 4* to enter tokens, so you can sharget them.

Exactly, when a good character such as a Polaris, Juggs, Grocket or Morbius comes out and is available in shards I can target them and champ them much faster than otherwise waiting for their tokens in various events/vaults.

entrailbucket

Srheer0 said:

JHawkInc said:

It's dirty.

It's shifty as hell to attack milestones to spending to begin with.

But it's also common knowledge that the best use of HP is to buy roster slots until you have ALL characters rostered. Which means meeting that milestone is directly against the best interest of players. You're using milestones to trick people into making their play experience worse.

Not cool.

I will only agree with that statement when they give us a milestone which is something like "do a 40 pull on a new character  release vault / event". You know the ones I am talking about, the ones which are 1:250 odds for a single pull of a new 5star.

What, exactly, would be the problem with the devs choosing to offer completely optional, extra rewards to players who spend their money buying these packs?

They're a business and they exist to make money.  Encouraging people to make purchases isn't "dirty," it's literally the entire reason they made a game in the first place.

Bad

Oops. When you realize this game it is a gacha game with real money buy-ins it will be shoking. 
And if you realize there are hundreds games more like this one, oops, the world will be doomed.

JHawkInc

For the record, I don't care that it gives 100HP, or that the deal is essentially "free."

I care that it is teaching new players bad habits that is financially beneficial to the devs.

Everyone knows the first thing you tell a new player is "Only spend HP on roster slots." (the second being "don't open tokens unless you have roster slots to roster any new characters you get") A Milestone targeted at new players, designed to get them to spend HP on daily deals, when that's the opposite of what a new player should be doing, it's dirty.

Yeah, it's a freemium game, where the entire game model is designed on pressuring you into spending money for a better experience. I actually like when they have smart ways to spend (like the Shield Resupply bundles that people consider to be a good value), and try to be pretty vocal about the bad methods they use ($75 costumes), because I actually want this to be a good game where people WANT to spend, because that keeps the game alive and well for everyone.

You know what would be a vast improvement? A milestone for buying a roster slot, or X roster slots, make it valuable to a new player, and encourage them to get more roster slots. A significant part of this game is building a broad roster so you can cover Essential nodes, and encouraging new players to do THAT is how you prepare them to become long-lasting players. Encouraging them to waste HP on daily deals so they have a harder time gaining roster slots? That slows them down, and is going to make them more likely to quit the game when they get to a choke point and decide it's too much of a pain to keep up with.

I want them to monetize the game in a way that helps create and encourage veteran players, so there are more people to play with/against, and so the game is more profitable, and a better experience for all involved. Not by teaching new players habits that can make their game experience worse.

entrailbucket

Not every player aspires to play this game as a match-3 adjacent exercise in optimally allocating resources.  Some people just want to smash a few tiles with Wolverine. 

Very, very few new players will ever reach the point where they can have a roster that's competitive (and as vets, this is the way we want it to be).  Most will drop the game within a short period of time, hopefully after spending a few bucks.  That's their business model, and it's successful and has kept the game going significantly longer than other games of this type.

entrailbucket

I'm having a premonition that someone is about to challenge my notion that vets don't want every player to become competitive.

The fact is that every single mode in this game is competitive, and the more players there are at your tier, the harder the game becomes for you. Most players want to build a strong roster to elevate themselves above the pack, because that confers certain advantages.

Think about pve now.  If you play competitively, when you make a mistake on your grind, how many placement spots do you lose?  20?  50?  100?  What if that number was 800, and one mistake dropped you from t10 rewards to a single standard token?  Would you like that more or less than the way things are now?

In pvp, what percentage of other players are able to successfully beat your best team?  If you have a strong 5* team that number is probably in the single digits.  If you have a strong 4* team, I don't know, but I imagine it's fairly low.  What if that number was 100%?  What would the game look like then?

HoundofShadow

That's an idealistic way of expecting how f2p should work. If the dev did what you think they should do in the first couple years, it would have folded (either Marvel pulls the plug or they do it themselves) due to poor/unsatisfactory sales. 

First of all, you are expecting all players to play optimally, when most of them don't bother to do so. Try jumping into different top 5000 or 10000 alliances and try teaching/educating them on how to play the game. Most of them are going to ignore your advice and continue to do things they see fit. As for the casual filthy rich players, they dont have time to play optimally. 

Secondly, most players are adults and they should be able to make decisions for themselves. They don't need the dev to teach them how to use their money. If they have poor decision making skill in life or they succumb to temptations easily, then they have to figure it out themselves or seek help from professionals.

Thirdly, whether a deal is good or bad depends largely on those players' financials situations. It's subjective. If a player is poor and use those money saved up to buy SCL bundles instead of what's necessary, it's a bad deal. Likewise, if a player has disposable income and wants to spend $75 on constume, who is to dictate how they should use their money?

Fourthly, most companies have different pricing strategies to target different segments of their market base. Obviously, those more than $50 (costume) deals are targeted at whales or those who have disposable income. There's nothing wrong with companies coming up with deals targeting at the "richer" clients segment. Can you imagine you run a company selling products and someone tells you that you are not allowed to target the wealthier market segment? 

Bad

entrailbucket said:

I'm having a premonition that someone is about to challenge my notion that vets don't want every player to become competitive.

Your spider sense was right. 
No, actually you are wrong and I will tell you why.
Its simply about diversity. You as the majority of vets possibly are running the same meta teams. 
And players like me are running what we can. It would not be the most effective but it will be the best of the modern 5*s. That is a fine experience to fight for you.

HoundofShadow said:

Secondly, most players are adults and they should be able to make decisions for themselves. They don't need the dev to teach them how to use their money.

Agreed with all you said but that sentence is just great. Use your money like you want and let others use theirs on same way.
Perhaps some people think to waste money on a mobile game it is crazy/vile/sick.
And perhaps other people are working like crazy to rise their families and the only bit of  money they address to themselves is the game they like to play for to relax.
And by the fact people like these is what makes happen the miracle of f2p.

shardwick

entrailbucket said:

I'm having a premonition that someone is about to challenge my notion that vets don't want every player to become competitive.

The fact is that every single mode in this game is competitive, and the more players there are at your tier, the harder the game becomes for you. Most players want to build a strong roster to elevate themselves above the pack, because that confers certain advantages.

Think about pve now.  If you play competitively, when you make a mistake on your grind, how many placement spots do you lose?  20?  50?  100?  What if that number was 800, and one mistake dropped you from t10 rewards to a single standard token?  Would you like that more or less than the way things are now?

In pvp, what percentage of other players are able to successfully beat your best team?  If you have a strong 5* team that number is probably in the single digits.  If you have a strong 4* team, I don't know, but I imagine it's fairly low.  What if that number was 100%?  What would the game look like then?

They're 1,000 player brackets in pve. If someone in the top 10 screws up then it's not like they're going to plummet from t10 to t1,000. The guys that are ranking at the very bottom are there because they don't play optimally and they don't care about playing optimally. Hell a lot of them probably don't even play more than one mission or they just join the event before they decide that they don't really want to play the event. And even if you were to expand brackets to let's say 100,000 people, the guys in the top 10 are still going to be playing hyper competitively so one mistake isn't going to drop them to the very bottom of the bracket. But the easiest answer is that I want more people playing because that extends the life of the game.

entrailbucket

shardwick said:

entrailbucket said:

I'm having a premonition that someone is about to challenge my notion that vets don't want every player to become competitive.

The fact is that every single mode in this game is competitive, and the more players there are at your tier, the harder the game becomes for you. Most players want to build a strong roster to elevate themselves above the pack, because that confers certain advantages.

Think about pve now.  If you play competitively, when you make a mistake on your grind, how many placement spots do you lose?  20?  50?  100?  What if that number was 800, and one mistake dropped you from t10 rewards to a single standard token?  Would you like that more or less than the way things are now?

In pvp, what percentage of other players are able to successfully beat your best team?  If you have a strong 5* team that number is probably in the single digits.  If you have a strong 4* team, I don't know, but I imagine it's fairly low.  What if that number was 100%?  What would the game look like then?

They're 1,000 player brackets in pve. If someone in the top 10 screws up then it's not like they're going to plummet from t10 to t1,000. The guys that are ranking at the very bottom are there because they don't play optimally and they don't care about playing optimally. Hell a lot of them probably don't even play more than one mission or they just join the event before they decide that they don't really want to play the event. And even if you were to expand brackets to let's say 100,000 people, the guys in the top 10 are still going to be playing hyper competitively so one mistake isn't going to drop them to the very bottom of the bracket. But the easiest answer is that I want more people playing because that extends the life of the game.

I think you've misread what I asked.  I was asking if you'd prefer a game where all 1000 players in the bracket were hyper-competitive, with rosters to match.  I think most veteran players would not like that very much.

About the "life of the game," there is one factor, and one factor only, that determines how long a game of this type will last, and that is sales.  The size or vibrancy of the community, the number of veteran players, or how fun the actual game is are completely incidental to the amount of money it generates.  Games with playerbases much larger, and communities more passionate, have been shut down due to lack of sales.  Creating more veteran players who don't spend money does absolutely nothing to keep the game alive.

If you're currently not spending anything, the game is surviving despite you, not because of you.  If you teach new players not to spend you're actually directly contributing to the game's death.

Akoni

Srheer0 said:

JHawkInc said:

It's dirty.

It's shifty as hell to attack milestones to spending to begin with.

But it's also common knowledge that the best use of HP is to buy roster slots until you have ALL characters rostered. Which means meeting that milestone is directly against the best interest of players. You're using milestones to trick people into making their play experience worse.

Not cool.

I will only agree with that statement when they give us a milestone which is something like "do a 40 pull on a new character  release vault / event". You know the ones I am talking about, the ones which are 1:250 odds for a single pull of a new 5star.

Even then, I would only consider milestones on a 40-pull dirty if the reward for such a thing was so phenomenal that it dwarfed the other rewards. Since the milestones, for the most part, can be optional ignored, it is not necessary to fulfill the requirement of reaching the milestone. I currently have milestones that I could achieve, but choose not to at this time because it benefits me to wait.

JHawkInc said:

You know what would be a vast improvement? A milestone for buying a roster slot, or X roster slots, make it valuable to a new player, and encourage them to get more roster slots. 

This is a great idea that I and, I think, other players would really appreciate. Many of the milestones provide rewards for doing something the player already does anyway. Milestones for roster slots would be no different.

Ethically, I agree with you. Ideally, we should be trying to encourage good behaviors. We should encourage others to adhere to speed limits or respect others' privacy. In reality, companies sell sports cars with commercials showcasing their speed. Companies use algorithms that collect data and sell that data to third parties. Neither of those are illegal, nor are they that much different from the milestones in MPQ. I am a huge advocate of free choice. I'm fine with it as long as 2 things are true:

1. Engagement in the behavior is optional. Since the behavior of claiming the milestone or fulfilling the action to obtain the milestone is up to the player, this one's good.
2. The company is open and honest about the process. The milestones are clearly described and displayed with a big, bright CLAIM button, so this one's good, too.

HoundofShadow

I hope no one counters your point by saying engagement in milestones is not optional because they are locking rewards behind them. I expect some to laugh at you calling them open and honest. 

If players don't complete them, they won't be able to claim rewards. If they don't claim those milestones rewards, their progress slow down. Therefore, milestone quests are necessary to progress faster, which means they are not optional.

Why is progressing faster important? It's because players' time are precious and they should not be spending too much time on games.

The core argument, generally speaking, in this forum, is that players' time and money are precious; therefore, they shouldn't spend too much time nor too much money in order to progress or catch up.


The thing is, how each individual spends his time or money is personal and subjective. The moment an ethical or moral frame is placed on it, nothing gets moved because it will be the business frame vs ethical/moral frame. If the dev and publisher are nonprofit organisation, instead of being a listed company or LLC, the moral/ethical frame would fit well.

entrailbucket

I've always thought it was funny that players want to spend as little time as possible playing the game, in order to earn rewards *that can only be used to play the game.*

fractalvisions

HoundofShadow said:

Why is progressing faster important? It's because players' time are precious and they should not be spending too much time on games.

I'm not convinced that 2nd sentence really answers the first. One can avoid spending too much time on the game and progress slowly. There's no end to the game so I don't see that there's necessarily a requirement to progress quickly. Surely the main thing that is important to the player is whether or not they are enjoying playing the game? Yes, some players obviously derive most enjoyment from progressing fast. But some are just happy to play.

St_Bernadus

entrailbucket said:

I've always thought it was funny that players want to spend as little time as possible playing the game, in order to earn rewards *that can only be used to play the game.*

That is a funny way to put it, but I think it is more accurate to say we don't want to play too long. Occasionally we have to fit other things around MPQ.

entrailbucket

St_Bernadus said:

entrailbucket said:

I've always thought it was funny that players want to spend as little time as possible playing the game, in order to earn rewards *that can only be used to play the game.*

That is a funny way to put it, but I think it is more accurate to say we don't want to play too long. Occasionally we have to fit other things around MPQ.

I know of quite a few players (and I suspect there are many, many more) who view "playing the game" (ie actually matching tiles) as sort of an annoying inconvenience that sits in the way of earning rewards.

Which...is funny!  They're not giving out tropical vacations or brand new kitchen appliances, they're giving out iso and covers, that only have use within the game.


Think about this one: if they offered a (hypothetical, free) option to skip an event, meaning you couldn't play it at all, but you'd still earn the top placement/progression rewards, as well as alliance points, how many events would you skip?  Would it just be the ones you found less fun, or would it be most events, or would it be all of them? 

If your answer is "all of them," what would you do with the rewards you earned?

Bad

entrailbucket said:

Think about this one: if they offered a (hypothetical, free) option to skip an event, meaning you couldn't play it at all, but you'd still earn the top placement/progression rewards, as well as alliance points, how many events would you skip?  Would it just be the ones you found less fun, or would it be most events, or would it be all of them? 

If your answer is "all of them," what would you do with the rewards you earned?

All that is about the greed that games like this one incentivates in their continual progression, along with the envy possibly some players could feel towards the few in top ranks, finally merged with the stress of doing it efficiently and the boredom of always using the same meta team for to achieve it.
Can all of this be avoided in some way? Nope.
Except taking a vacation and losing the phone.