DAZ0273 said: entrailbucket said: dianetics said: Are they providing whale tier customer service? I would say they really aren't.Tens of thousands in a lifetime doesn't sound crazy to me really knowing other games life Fifa or NBA 2k. It is not out of my price range if I perceive the value. As to your point there is no real benefit to buy hand over fist with no sure jump in power level.Even if you buy into the special deals you might get 1 5* cover per month for 30-40 bucks, and you can only buy in once.This is beneficial for the community at whole though, so I accept and appreciate it.I'm not a games economist but I imagine getting a wide net of low to mid tier players paying lower amounts consistently may be more profitable, and should be more steady and easier for the devs to manage monthly income than hanging on to a few big spenders who may leave at the tip of a hat. The "whale tier" customer service we were talking about is a special, unadvertised service that they provide if you have the 3 latest 5* at 550. When you have that you can trade their covers in for any other 5* cover of your choice.Initially, they offered these swaps to players who had any character at 550. Eventually they discovered that players would spend big once to get a 550, then exchange covers forever without spending any additional cash.The policy was changed so that cover swapping was only available if you had the current 5* maxed out. This was done to encourage continuous spending. Is this still the case though? A lot (a lot!) Of your posts are in "the past" and you clearly have "issues" with certain players presumably through Alliance nonsense. What was the case in 2017 is not necessarily the case now! I don't know but then I don't claim to know - you do so - evidence?
entrailbucket said: dianetics said: Are they providing whale tier customer service? I would say they really aren't.Tens of thousands in a lifetime doesn't sound crazy to me really knowing other games life Fifa or NBA 2k. It is not out of my price range if I perceive the value. As to your point there is no real benefit to buy hand over fist with no sure jump in power level.Even if you buy into the special deals you might get 1 5* cover per month for 30-40 bucks, and you can only buy in once.This is beneficial for the community at whole though, so I accept and appreciate it.I'm not a games economist but I imagine getting a wide net of low to mid tier players paying lower amounts consistently may be more profitable, and should be more steady and easier for the devs to manage monthly income than hanging on to a few big spenders who may leave at the tip of a hat. The "whale tier" customer service we were talking about is a special, unadvertised service that they provide if you have the 3 latest 5* at 550. When you have that you can trade their covers in for any other 5* cover of your choice.Initially, they offered these swaps to players who had any character at 550. Eventually they discovered that players would spend big once to get a 550, then exchange covers forever without spending any additional cash.The policy was changed so that cover swapping was only available if you had the current 5* maxed out. This was done to encourage continuous spending.
dianetics said: Are they providing whale tier customer service? I would say they really aren't.Tens of thousands in a lifetime doesn't sound crazy to me really knowing other games life Fifa or NBA 2k. It is not out of my price range if I perceive the value. As to your point there is no real benefit to buy hand over fist with no sure jump in power level.Even if you buy into the special deals you might get 1 5* cover per month for 30-40 bucks, and you can only buy in once.This is beneficial for the community at whole though, so I accept and appreciate it.I'm not a games economist but I imagine getting a wide net of low to mid tier players paying lower amounts consistently may be more profitable, and should be more steady and easier for the devs to manage monthly income than hanging on to a few big spenders who may leave at the tip of a hat.
entrailbucket said: DAZ0273 said: entrailbucket said: dianetics said: Are they providing whale tier customer service? I would say they really aren't.Tens of thousands in a lifetime doesn't sound crazy to me really knowing other games life Fifa or NBA 2k. It is not out of my price range if I perceive the value. As to your point there is no real benefit to buy hand over fist with no sure jump in power level.Even if you buy into the special deals you might get 1 5* cover per month for 30-40 bucks, and you can only buy in once.This is beneficial for the community at whole though, so I accept and appreciate it.I'm not a games economist but I imagine getting a wide net of low to mid tier players paying lower amounts consistently may be more profitable, and should be more steady and easier for the devs to manage monthly income than hanging on to a few big spenders who may leave at the tip of a hat. The "whale tier" customer service we were talking about is a special, unadvertised service that they provide if you have the 3 latest 5* at 550. When you have that you can trade their covers in for any other 5* cover of your choice.Initially, they offered these swaps to players who had any character at 550. Eventually they discovered that players would spend big once to get a 550, then exchange covers forever without spending any additional cash.The policy was changed so that cover swapping was only available if you had the current 5* maxed out. This was done to encourage continuous spending. Is this still the case though? A lot (a lot!) Of your posts are in "the past" and you clearly have "issues" with certain players presumably through Alliance nonsense. What was the case in 2017 is not necessarily the case now! I don't know but then I don't claim to know - you do so - evidence? Yeah, it's still the policy. (And: you're correct! But old issues with old players aren't related to this topic -- if they were I'd be dead-set against those players getting any customer service.) I'm curious about why it's still the policy! I'm really not trying to put anyone down here, but when they put this in place it was exclusively used by insane people who were spending the equivalent of a decent used car or so every month. Now that it's mainly used by people who've spent relatively little but hoarded for a really long time, I don't get why they'd keep doing it.
entrailbucket said: The "whale tier" customer service we were talking about is a special, unadvertised service that they provide if you have the 3 latest 5* at 550. When you have that you can trade their covers in for any other 5* cover of your choice.
Daredevil217 said: Players have been predicting the game shutting down for years because they think they know how to run the business better than the developers (heck, I’ve probably done it once or twice in my 7+ years in the game myself). I assume the game is making money with their current practices, as I watch them outlast mobile game after mobile game.Bottom line is hugely important for a company but how you get there is also important. Spirit airlines is cheap as hell, but I’ll never fly with them again because their customer service is horrendous. I will give Costco more of my business even if I spend a bit more on their products because their policies and customer service is top notch.This is like saying, “I don’t understand why the developers gave out retroactive milestone rewards. They would have made a ton more money if they charged for them instead”. Really they could monetize anything they want, but that doesn’t mean they will make more money. They did something that was of a benefit to the players and the servers didn’t come crashing down. Good companies do this kind of stuff often. I don’t even know if swaps are considered “whale tier service” or just good customer service. Back in the day, people used to pay for their 550s. Now people pay, hoard, or some combo of both to get there. The game has changed SO much (I mean look at all the al a carte pop up offers we get now, VIP, etc.), that it’s hard to base todays game and economics on one where the landscape was so drastically different.I say, let the developers decide if it’s good for their business. Why are we trying to armchair exec? Is it really because we care about the health of a game?I’ll say this. If I was a 550 player who didn’t hoard, opened classics as I went, and I had a bunch of maxed old school characters whom power creep had LONG passed by, I could see being a bit perturbed that people with discipline could hoard for years and essentially leapfrog me by also having 550s, but theirs are WAY better than mine. THAT would be an incentive to rally for the developers to shut down swaps for anyone who doesn’t spend exorbitant amounts of money (which basically means shutting down swaps altogether because you’ve stated that tier of whale no longer exists). I’d probably couch it as caring about how much money the developers make, but really I’d just be mad that I have to face a sea of maxed Wanda, Colossus and Apoc. I imagine that must be brutal.
DAZ0273 said: So anyway, that Knull guy, he sure is a healthy fella.
entrailbucket said: I'm really, really confused now. Are you saying that customer service doing 550 swaps is a benefit to new players, that allows them to get "a leg up?" Which new players are taking advantage of this policy?
Timemachinego said: entrailbucket said: I'm really, really confused now. Are you saying that customer service doing 550 swaps is a benefit to new players, that allows them to get "a leg up?" Which new players are taking advantage of this policy? It's my fault for distilling a dozen replies down to a blanket statement, sorry for that, and while I was referencing your words to some extent there's another another good lot of you encompassed in these thoughts.550 swaps are of course not a new player nicety, it's something they instituted in the past for the real whaley whales that you reference, however discontinuing that would be a disservice to anyone who came after and as such they've kept doing it, possibly opening the door for more players to creep up? It's a service to new players to keep offering them what old players relied on.Maybe in the same way the "premium" customer service you talk about is now available to a player like me who definitely doesn't qualify as a whale in your eyes but does still spend... I've yet to reach the mmr guy in the janitor's closet, but I've received nothing but prompt, exacting care for my stupid petty concerns and until I hear otherwise, I'll assume that's the general experience.You've said no one should be interested in what you want, but I am. It'd be a lot easier to bounce ideas off/through you if it wasn't just what you hated but instead what you wanted? Even after reading hundreds of your replies I don't know what you actually want from this game other than for it to keep continuing (I'd like it to go on forever too!) but if your every reply is a rejection we can't even begin to talk together about what's next. That usually begins with statements such as "I'd like..."
Daredevil217 said: entrailbucket said:When it was put in place, it was meant to be an incentive for high spending players to continue to be high spending players, not to be used once or twice in a players' career.Can you point me to where this was stated by the developers?
ThaRoadWarrior said: When saved covers went live, there was a thread Brigby put in that CS would no longer honor 1:1 swaps, but I haven’t found it yet.
ThaRoadWarrior said: https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/comment/811800#Comment_811800