Week 33. BW , Hela, Knull, Heimdall

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  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 5,828 Chairperson of the Boards
    I really don't know why they still do that.  It started off as customer service for huge whales, who were, y'know, *actually customers*. 

    Why they'd continue to provide cover-swapping services for players who spend nothing at all remains a mystery.
  • atomzed
    atomzed Posts: 1,753 Chairperson of the Boards
    entrailbucket said:
    Knull gets helped out quite a bit by the boost, because when boosted, his stuff actually does acceptable damage.  Super slow characters like him can be viable, they just have to hit commensurate to that speed.  On defense he's still just a big ol bag of health that does nothing, though.

    Hela is sort of the same way.  I used both of them together, and they're both unusably slow without the boost.  When boosted, they're still ridiculously slow but they do enough damage that they're usable.
    I agree. They have slightly more value in their boosted week. If the opponent don’t use boosted 5*, then Hela and Knull health pool and match damage becomes significant to tip the scale. If they are using hela or knull, then both sides are equally slow, but it favour the human more. 
  • Sekilicious
    Sekilicious Posts: 1,766 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited January 2022
    entrailbucket said:
    I really don't know why they still do that.  It started off as customer service for huge whales, who were, y'know, *actually customers*. 

    Why they'd continue to provide cover-swapping services for players who spend nothing at all remains a mystery.
    I think I know which one he was talking about, or at least someone who did a similar thing was on Reddit at the time. Though likely not a whale he talked about spending to get the necessary hp to acquire 6 infinity stones, which he claimed was about a Stark Salary each. If that is not an ‘actual customer’ I don’t know what is. Considering only whales as ‘actual customers’ kind of devalues the rest of us, yourself included according to you. There is no game without the players who do not spend to that level since the very few whales are only here because we are. 

    Also people playing the game with that level of commitment are valuable since they track everything we do and sell the information for marketing purposes. 
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    I think there are different tiers of whales. There's one whale who is able to max champ or close to max champ a newly released 5* before they hit LT store, or when they were available only in their HP store. He's pretty well known among the top players, and those don't know him probably think that he hacked the game.

  • dianetics
    dianetics Posts: 1,641 Chairperson of the Boards
    Of course there are different tiers of whales.
    You have beluga whales and blue whales.
    A beluga ain’t much bigger than a dolphin and a blue is the the biggest animal on the planet.
    :P
  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 5,828 Chairperson of the Boards
    Sekilicious said:
    entrailbucket said:
    I really don't know why they still do that.  It started off as customer service for huge whales, who were, y'know, *actually customers*. 

    Why they'd continue to provide cover-swapping services for players who spend nothing at all remains a mystery.
    I think I know which one he was talking about, or at least someone who did a similar thing was on Reddit at the time. Though likely not a whale he talked about spending to get the necessary hp to acquire 6 infinity stones, which he claimed was about a Stark Salary each. If that is not an ‘actual customer’ I don’t know what is. Considering only whales as ‘actual customers’ kind of devalues the rest of us, yourself included according to you. There is no game without the players who do not spend to that level since the very few whales are only here because we are. 

    Also people playing the game with that level of commitment are valuable since they track everything we do and sell the information for marketing purposes. 
    When they put this policy in place, they limited it to players who had all 3 of the current latest at 550.  That costs something like $20,000 to buy, if you're lucky and you do all the buying in buyclubs.  It is absolutely understandable that they'd provide a higher level of service for customers like that.

    It is not at all understandable that they'd provide the same level of white-glove customer service to someone who spends $600 over the course of 6 months, or to someone who spends $0.

    They don't make money from selling our information for marketing purposes.  They make money from people spending money on MPQ.  Games with incredible, vibrant communities shut down all the time because of a reduction in revenue.
  • ThaRoadWarrior
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,454 Chairperson of the Boards
    Whales need krill to stay alive and get so big. Fremium games need armies of f2p players to give whales people to impress or lord over. It's pretty well documented. Would it be nice/desirable if everyone spent a little? Sure. But if you lock the game behind a paywall of any size, i think you'll see the player population drop by a staggering, perhaps even a terminal degree.
  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 5,828 Chairperson of the Boards
    ThaRoadWarrior said:
    Whales need krill to stay alive and get so big. Fremium games need armies of f2p players to give whales people to impress or lord over. It's pretty well documented. Would it be nice/desirable if everyone spent a little? Sure. But if you lock the game behind a paywall of any size, i think you'll see the player population drop by a staggering, perhaps even a terminal degree.
    Who's talking about a paywall?  I'm confused about why they're giving white glove, whale tier customer service to players who spend nothing at all.
  • Sekilicious
    Sekilicious Posts: 1,766 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited January 2022
    entrailbucket said:
    ThaRoadWarrior said:
    Whales need krill to stay alive and get so big. Fremium games need armies of f2p players to give whales people to impress or lord over. It's pretty well documented. Would it be nice/desirable if everyone spent a little? Sure. But if you lock the game behind a paywall of any size, i think you'll see the player population drop by a staggering, perhaps even a terminal degree.
    Who's talking about a paywall?  I'm confused about why they're giving white glove, whale tier customer service to players who spend nothing at all.
    I want your salary if you think that $600 to drop on pixels is nothing at all. It seems that we go out of our way to value the contributions of the mega rich over those that majority that put the actual work into turning the game into a success. 

  • Bad
    Bad Posts: 3,146 Chairperson of the Boards
    In the current state of worldwide crisis I think the game or devs will welcome any amount of money players can support without looking at how high actually it is. 
    If all players would whale so much I think devs would shut down and go buy a caribbean island.
    Top whales sure can impact revenues but sooner or later they will lose interest, or at least they don't whale all characters( I don't imagine that magneto or ultron were).
    If there are 50k active players, and 20k are buying vip/bundles, imo that's a better and safe revenue source.
  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 5,828 Chairperson of the Boards
    When you're running a business, the value of "an exorbitant amount of money" is significantly higher than the value of "years of your life dedicated to a mobile app." One shows up on your balance sheet and the other does not.

    This game isn't fair -- it's not the Olympics.  You can spend money to directly buy success.  It's important to maintain some illusion of fairness, I suppose, but that's all it is.

    Maybe you guys just aren't aware of the sort of money the top players were spending?  I've watched players in my alliance drop $1000 or more in a few minutes without thinking twice about it.  $600 over a few months doesn't even register on that scale.  I don't claim to understand what allows or motivates someone to do that, but they do (or rather, they did).


    So why shouldn't people who spend to that level get better customer service?  If you ran a business, wouldn't you take better care of your best customers?
  • Sekilicious
    Sekilicious Posts: 1,766 Chairperson of the Boards
    entrailbucket said:
    When you're running a business, the value of "an exorbitant amount of money" is significantly higher than the value of "years of your life dedicated to a mobile app." One shows up on your balance sheet and the other does not.

    This game isn't fair -- it's not the Olympics.  You can spend money to directly buy success.  It's important to maintain some illusion of fairness, I suppose, but that's all it is.

    Maybe you guys just aren't aware of the sort of money the top players were spending?  I've watched players in my alliance drop $1000 or more in a few minutes without thinking twice about it.  $600 over a few months doesn't even register on that scale.  I don't claim to understand what allows or motivates someone to do that, but they do (or rather, they did).


    So why shouldn't people who spend to that level get better customer service?  If you ran a business, wouldn't you take better care of your best customers?
    Your position changes on this subject quite consistently. After all, it wasn't long ago you made the point that 'NO ONE' whales anymore. Frankly, if no one whales then your best customers are those that come in every day. Regardless, even if a few do whale then, based on the actions of the developers, it is obvious that the 'white glove treatment' they get is to be able to play with champed or max champed 5* characters literally months to years before everyone else.

    Besides, to the point you make here, not considering someone who comes in every day one of your 'best customers' is a good way to lose that customer.
  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 5,828 Chairperson of the Boards
    No one is spending thousands of dollars in a sitting anymore, because they figured out that they don't have to.  Getting cover swaps is a huge part of that.

    The most competitive players will find a way to win, whether that's massive spending or hoarding or whatever else.  Initially the devs offered cover swapping to whales as a customer service.  Once the top players found that they could get this service without spending, the competitive players just stopped spending.


    I have no problem losing to someone who drops $10,000 on this game.  I *should* lose to that person.  Their spending is keeping the game afloat.  They deserve to win because they're paying for it, and the game is not fair.

    But when players who spend a few bucks here and there, or nothing at all, become dominant, that's a problem.  F2p players love to talk about the community and the health of the game, and those things do have some value.  But in games like this, revenue is the single most important metric.  When f2p players drive spenders out, revenues take a hit, and revenues are the only reason this game still exists.
  • Daredevil217
    Daredevil217 Posts: 3,966 Chairperson of the Boards
    entrailbucket said:
    When you're running a business, the value of "an exorbitant amount of money" is significantly higher than the value of "years of your life dedicated to a mobile app." One shows up on your balance sheet and the other does not.

    This game isn't fair -- it's not the Olympics.  You can spend money to directly buy success.  It's important to maintain some illusion of fairness, I suppose, but that's all it is.

    Maybe you guys just aren't aware of the sort of money the top players were spending?  I've watched players in my alliance drop $1000 or more in a few minutes without thinking twice about it.  $600 over a few months doesn't even register on that scale.  I don't claim to understand what allows or motivates someone to do that, but they do (or rather, they did).


    So why shouldn't people who spend to that level get better customer service?  If you ran a business, wouldn't you take better care of your best customers?
    You didn’t answer my question. What’s the cutoff for someone who deserves white glove cover swaps versus those that don’t?
  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 5,828 Chairperson of the Boards
    Daredevil217 said:
    entrailbucket said:
    When you're running a business, the value of "an exorbitant amount of money" is significantly higher than the value of "years of your life dedicated to a mobile app." One shows up on your balance sheet and the other does not.

    This game isn't fair -- it's not the Olympics.  You can spend money to directly buy success.  It's important to maintain some illusion of fairness, I suppose, but that's all it is.

    Maybe you guys just aren't aware of the sort of money the top players were spending?  I've watched players in my alliance drop $1000 or more in a few minutes without thinking twice about it.  $600 over a few months doesn't even register on that scale.  I don't claim to understand what allows or motivates someone to do that, but they do (or rather, they did).


    So why shouldn't people who spend to that level get better customer service?  If you ran a business, wouldn't you take better care of your best customers?
    You didn’t answer my question. What’s the cutoff for someone who deserves white glove cover swaps versus those that don’t?
    Ok, sure.  I'd define a whale, based on my experience, as someone who spends $100 or more per week.  That's pretty conservative, a lot of people I knew as whales spent significantly more than that, but that's about the lowest cutoff you could set.
  • Bad
    Bad Posts: 3,146 Chairperson of the Boards
    First point, no one is forced to spend that amount of money, so (second) no one deserves a special treatment, or it should be like that.
    If devs stablished that over 550 levels there is a cover swap, they cannot call it off without people getting angry, because how do you prove that you payed a big amount for that? By bank tickets or Google tickets or anything like that.
    It's easier to just look at a maxed character and just swap covers, because the player owning it, surely knows how to play and has paid his good share, be it a high or a middle amount. Hardly anyone gets that tier without paying anything for so much he can say it's like this.
  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 5,828 Chairperson of the Boards
    ThaRoadWarrior said:
    As someone who has been in the business of performing development work as a service, there is a very real danger when you have a product that favors big spenders who want you to create features specifically for them and how they use your application. You don't want to tell them to pound sand necessarily, but if you go ahead and allow your product to be molded around them and what they need, it pushes out a big chunk of your wider userbase. So I can definitely understand not catering exclusively to your big spenders. but someone who is donating years of their life to your game is still attracting others to the application, helping younger rosters in their alliance bootstrap up into getting hooked on the game loop, there is a huge, though hard to quantify, value to having players like that in your game's ecosystem to encourage spending in others even tacitly. It may seem counterproductive to treat non-spenders well, but I don't know that it is actually.
    So, would you say it's a good idea to cater exclusively to those non-spending players, if it causes whales to quit and other players to never start spending?
  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 5,828 Chairperson of the Boards
    Bad said:
    First point, no one is forced to spend that amount of money, so (second) no one deserves a special treatment, or it should be like that.
    If devs stablished that over 550 levels there is a cover swap, they cannot call it off without people getting angry, because how do you prove that you payed a big amount for that? By bank tickets or Google tickets or anything like that.
    It's easier to just look at a maxed character and just swap covers, because the player owning it, surely knows how to play and has paid his good share, be it a high or a middle amount. Hardly anyone gets that tier without paying anything for so much he can say it's like this.
    Customer service staff can see exactly how much you've spent in your MPQ career (ask them -- they'll tell you!).  You may not like it, and it's not fair, but they do treat customers differently based on their spending.

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