Broken Rewards Cycle (concerning Electro)

JHawkInc

I'll give the super short version.

Normally, a 5-star character is released, available in placement rewards, available in the following event's progression rewards, and available a second time in placement rewards prior to their first Essential event. This gives competitive players ample opportunity to earn a cover prior to the new character being Essential. Further, the new character is available for a second set of progression rewards DURING that Essential event, allowing players who fall short a chance to earn a few more shards and roster the new character prior to their first Essential event ending.

Electro is listed in-game as Essential for part of Odin's release cycle, Webbed Wonder. Electro will be required, and Odin will be rewarded in progression in her place.

This is Electro's first Essential event. She was rewarded once in placement (Strange Sights), and once in progression (Unstable ISO-8). Now she is about to be Essential without the second set of placement rewards (Odin being awarded in placement for Lost in Time, since it is his release cycle), nor the second set of progression rewards (again, Odin is available there in Webbed Wonder, as part of his release).

Basically, players who play competitively to earn new 5-star characters before they are Essential are getting shortchanged with Electro, as she will not have the same amount of shard rewards available prior to being Essential, as compared to any other new 5-star, and will manipulate players into spending resources they wouldn't otherwise (for every player who might acquire a cover via those shards who will now be forced to open Latest Legends tokens to acquire her prior to her Essential event).

It's not quite as bad as Profe$$or X's release (at least Electro is already in Latest Legends...), but it's kinda reminiscent of the same bad taste.

Simply swapping Knull or Ronan for Electro would be more fair, and would let Electro get the full reward opportunity in an event or two, preventing this problem entirely.

TheEyeDoctorsWife

While I am also in the same situation without an Essential 5* for the event , I MADE THAT CHOICE to ignore her in her vault . The devs gave me the opportunity to get a cover , I decided to ignore it for more favorable covers . I’ll live with the choices I made, I’ve played this long enough to know I’m entitled to nothing from the devs and I play solely at their whims. And now I’ll be ready next time if the eventuality recurs . 

Borstock

As a competitive player, I always roster the new 5* from their vault.

HoundofShadow

I think you are aware that 5* essential runs on a fixed/automatic schedule with 3 Latest followed by 3 Classics. As you mentioned, she is the first 5* that got the short end of the stick after the roll out of shards/SCL 10, Prof X aside. Alliance events also somewhat affects 5*shards reward, I think.

Unless you and other players are able to proof that the dev deliberately switched  the essential schedule of Electro with another new 5* so that players are forced to spend CP/LTs, else I would put it down to probability, rather than manipulation.  Those who track the 5* essential order will know whether such manipulation did happen. 

Also, way before shards/SCL 10 exists, players were pulling LTs or new 5* special store (?) before they became essential. As you see, being perfect about virtual resource optimatisation makes people unhappy and cloud their judgement.

Anyway, it's too late to change the schedule because the Webbed Wonder preview is already up. I think some maths expert can try to predict when such "incident" will happen again and let the dev know in advance so that they have enough time to change the course.

TheEyeDoctorsWife

Isn’t it 3 Latest and 2 Classics cycle?

JRYUART

Here's the solution - play Electro's featured event non-optimal, play the event afterwards for full prog and then hopefully it's enough shards for you to get finish out one Full cover .  

The alternative is for you to pull a bunch of LL's that you have been saving just to get Electro, most likely more LL's spent than you would even be able to win if you had placed T1 (2 LT for personal rewards, 1 LT if your alliance placed T10), thus *still* winding up with a net loss of LL's.You seem to perceive this scheduling as some nefarious way the devs are trying to force people to pull - it's more likely that you are annoyed because your expected earnings cadence is being disrupted and you don't like the thought of playing one event for prog only. 

Not sure of what your goals are. Maybe you are really needing top placement Knull shards or are hoping that you'll get lucky with the special Odin store tokens?  Whatever the case may be, it's not that big of a deal if you can't play optimal optimal for one event when you know that there will be many future opportunities to get at least one cover finished and rostered before electro is out of LL.  No one is forcing you to spend your resources at this very moment.  Who knows, maybe skipping full prog for this event might wind up being the most economical strategy in the end.  

HoundofShadow

Probably he's aiming for 550 latest 5* in the future. For those who hoard, want to 550 Latest and play SCL 10, it's a blessing that they can get one cover of non-meta 5* via only shards before their essentials. They won't need to pull anything at all and they can continue to hoard for meta 5*.

I find it strange that on the one hand he wants the dev to practise a bit of micromanagement/good will/whatever suitable adjective is for this request, but on the other hand, he's demonising the developer. It's like someone come up to me on the street asking me for donation and explaining to me the purpose of the organisation he's representing. Before I could do anything, he calls me selfish and unkind and expects me to donate after what he said about me. It's like he believes all humans are inherently evil and unkind, just like how all game developers are scheming and greedy.

JHawkInc

Well this conversation was a lot less productive than I expected.

I don't appreciate the incorrect assumptions made about me or my intentions. By happenstance it doesn't actually influence my experience. I only even noticed it because several other players were asking questions about it, and expressed concern/disappointment when they realized they would be at a disadvantage due to the pattern (and not a change in their playstyle). Maybe instead of making assumptions and then talking negatively about them you could try asking in the future.

I posted because I believe this inconsistency is an unnecessary oversight, and wanted to see what others thought as well as raise awareness of the issue. I believe a consistent game experience is good for player retention and spending, both of which are instrumental in allowing us to play the game in the first place.

I disagree with the defeatist attitude that we should not express concerns and simply be glad to be subject to the whims of the devs. The hope is to improve the situation to both our benefit and theirs. (nevermind that I think it's incorrect to classify this as the "whim of the devs" to begin with, that's an entirely different discussion I was trying to avoid starting again)

TheEyeDoctorsWife

It’s not a defeatist attitude it’s knowing my place and I am not a software developer nor working for their accounting department. To them relatively I’m an idiot . So they can run the game however they want without my unqualified input . When my husband’s patients express concerns about his knowledge , skill , or diagnosis , he always says “ I’ll tell you what , let’s do it your way and when you’re blind in a few years you can sit in the dark the rest of your life thinking, Maybe I shouldn’t question people much smarter than me “. I’m simply here to play a game I enjoy  , if it evolves into something I dislike I’ll quit. 

shardwick

Yeah, I was short 75 shards of a shard cover. If she was in placement rewards then I would have gotten the 75 shards that I needed to roster her and not needed to pull from tokens. Luckily I got her on my fourth pull and then got a couple legendary tokens from champ rewards to even out the losses a bit, but it would be nice if they could avoid this from happening in the future and give people more time to get placement shards for her before she's featured.

TheEyeDoctorsWife

shardwick said:

Yeah, I was short 75 shards of a shard cover. If she was in placement rewards then I would have gotten the 75 shards that I needed to roster her and not needed to pull from tokens. Luckily I got her on my fourth pull and then got a couple legendary tokens from champ rewards to even out the losses a bit, but it would be nice if they could avoid this from happening in the future and give people more time to get placement shards for her before she's featured.

All these people replying “I rely on shards to get a cover “, so for the first 6 years of the game how did you get a cover ? I don’t think the shard system was introduced just so you could circumvent using CPs. If that were the case it would have been impractical financially for them to put in such a counter -profit system . Since the game began covers were awarded in a cover vault / store . And I read a lot of responses “ This character the devs created sucks so I’m skipping and going to hoard my CP” . These are the same people who would complain I didn’t get a shard cover . You can’t have  your cake and eat it too. Hopefully this latest event is a wake up call, I know I got their message .

vudu3

HoundofShadow said:

As you mentioned, she is the first 5* that got the short end of the stick after the roll out of shards/SCL 10, Prof X aside. Alliance events also somewhat affects 5*shards reward, I think.

The same thing happened with Wanda. This is becoming a pattern. 

shardwick

TheEyeDoctorsWife said:

shardwick said:

Yeah, I was short 75 shards of a shard cover. If she was in placement rewards then I would have gotten the 75 shards that I needed to roster her and not needed to pull from tokens. Luckily I got her on my fourth pull and then got a couple legendary tokens from champ rewards to even out the losses a bit, but it would be nice if they could avoid this from happening in the future and give people more time to get placement shards for her before she's featured.

All these people replying “I rely on shards to get a cover “, so for the first 6 years of the game how did you get a cover ? I don’t think the shard system was introduced just so you could circumvent using CPs. If that were the case it would have been impractical financially for them to put in such a counter -profit system . Since the game began covers were awarded in a cover vault / store . And I read a lot of responses “ This character the devs created sucks so I’m skipping and going to hoard my CP” . These are the same people who would complain I didn’t get a shard cover . You can’t have  your cake and eat it too. Hopefully this latest event is a wake up call, I know I got their message .

Why would I not want to play more efficiently than I did six years ago? And why would anyone want to pull mindlessly from a cover store in the hopes of getting a cover to use as an essential for pve when they could just roster a character with shards if given the ability to? By the way, you do realize that when people say something like "I'm going to skip so and so and hoard instead" that they mean that they're still going to roster them for pve but not focus on putting a lot of levels on them, right? So in that instance people can "have their cake and eat it too" because for a lot of people a character like Cyclops sucked so many, myself included, essentially skipped him. 

HoundofShadow

I don't know about that with Wanda because I always pull my tokens. I cross referenced with another thread in reddit about this problem and I quote:

It has always skipped someone every month, but it had yet to skip them in thier first rotation. Not horrible though since you still have options to get her but annoying nonetheless

I don't know what kind of disadvantage they are perceiving because all along, players have been spending LTs and CPs to roster latest 5* until shards and scl 10 came along. As a matter of fact, it became an advantage for those players who are very tight with their resources because they can cover latest 5* without using their CPs and LTs.  it seems like they have been taking these advantages for granted until today or until Webbed Wonders skipped Electro.

Funnily enough, a few months back, some was not pleased that classic 5* shards got skipped for new 5* shards.

https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/84910/another-classic-character-denied

Now, we have another problem where newest 5* in LT store is skipped for latest released 5*.

And it's not about having a defeatist attitude. 5* rotation has been pretty predictable and consistent, save for some unusual events. In order to solve both problems, this will require the dev to micromanage the shards progression rewards just to appease a very small group of players who micromanage their resources. Regardless of how much they micromanage, someone out there will be unhappy with their choices. For competitive players, choosing trash 5* as sacrifical lamb is the clear choice. For others, they might be the one who need the shards of those "trash" 5*.

Again, players in Line usually have some kind of privy information sourced from somewhere. So, it might be true that skipping newest 5* in LT store for latest released 5* might be a norm in the future. But, think about this, someone has to be skipped for the latest 5* release. It's either Classic 5* or Latest 5*. Either way, someone will be unhappy. 

Wonko33

It’s just bad this time because Santa Claus is soso and we were trying to get covers for Electro

Bad

That issue actually happened to me with knull as I didn't pull from his score and I didn't have luck with him in LL. I solved that just playing less optimally sub2 and then I had the shards for the cover, without posting that devs are manipulating players.
They are doing their bussiness, and what if they are inducing players to waste cps, tokens, or money.
Each one is free to follow the flow or not, and any decision each player takes is  perfectly fine.
However I think nobody suggested, induced or manipulate devs for giving a lot of fury, capbeard, and peggy shards plus a new skin totally for free, so the image of the evil and greedy devs seems to appear and disappear at some players will.

entrailbucket

I'm sure their first thought when laying out a schedule or making a change is "how can we appease eternally-angry vets who expect to dominate every mode of the game despite spending $0."

Has everyone started review bombing them over this yet?

Ares76

This is not the first time that this has happened. Perhaps some people haven'nt noticed in the past because they already pulled the essential five-star from their release store.

First time I remember was the release event of Yelena Belova last year where immortal Hulk was essential. I hadn't pulled for him yet and had nothing to pull so...meh.

Last time must be the release event of Colossus? Cyclops just arrived in tokens and hasn't yet bean featured a second time. I had to pull 52 Latest Legends to get one cover for him:-(

This time I felt uncomfortable because I am hoarding and wanted to skip Ronan...but I tried my luck: After 19 pulls I got my 1st 5-star. And it was Electro.

Since I pulled an Odin in his 1:250 store I am now prepared for when he is an essential a bit too early the next time.

My best strategy in the future might be to pull from each release store till you get the new character when the other two are not bad/not champed yet. Or to wait for the new character when he arrives in Latest and the previous two latest are not bad and could need some champion levels. If all other characters in the stores plus the new release feel so bad that you don't want to pull...you have to consider quitting this game:-)

HoundofShadow

I see conflicting reports: Either this is the first time the newest 5* of the three, in this case Electro, got skipped for the latest released 5*, or it isn't, which means it happened before in the past. I think it's possible that it might have happened before, given that there's a 1/5 or 1/6 chance of that happening. Again, I don't get their first cover via shards.

I'm not sure why quitting the game is an option for such a trivial matter, but to each his own. You can still make full progression in SCL 10, and from the looks of things, I don't think you play for T10 in SCL 10. Each latest 5* is featured approximately 5 times, so you can get up to 1250/2.5 covers of the latest 5* before they leave LTs.

Loosie

This isn't the first time. It happened with Knull I think (possibly Ronan too). In fact I think it's becoming more common. I've been lucky enough though that I've had at least one cover when this happens. (Electro is 1/1/1)

HoundofShadow

I'm not sure how players expect this "problem" to be solved without upsetting other players. 

Since a rotation consists of 3 latest/3 classics, assume that:

L1/L2/L3 represents the latest 5* in LT store, where L3 is the latest 5* to enter LT store and L1 being the earliest, and C1/C2/C3 represent Classics.

In order to ensure that players always get to earn 500 shards before L3's essential, the developer has to plan in advance and manually move L3 out of the equation so that its 250th-500th shards won't get replaced by latest released 5* shards. On top of that, they need to keep track of the manual changes that they made.

However, by doing the above, it will also increase the probability of other 5* getting replaced.

One solution suggested is to move L1 or L2 forward and let their shards be replaced instead.

My question is: 

1) What if either L1 or L2 is a meta 5* and L3 is a trash 5*, will players be unhappy about them getting replaced? 

2) Since Latest essential run in a specific order of L1/L2/L3, what if L1 is a meta 5* and L2 is a trash 5*, is the dev expected to manually move L2 forward instead of L1?