Week 33. BW , Hela, Knull, Heimdall

entrailbucket

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 crazy 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.

Daredevil217

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

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.

That is fair enough and I respect your honesty a lot here. I am not anybody who has ever had a 550 (I barely have 450s!) but I can understand how things go at a higher level. I don't know what the situation should be with regard to spending - I have spent on this game, way more than I would have figured for a  free to play game but not for a while now. Maybe the issue is a lot of these guys with the zero spend have benefitted from Alliance mate's who have spent? This game seems "broken" around Alliances sometimes. My best friend and I made an Alliance lots of years ago and will never split so maybe I don't understand the bigger picture.

Bad

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.

I don't see nothing odd here, from a logical view.
Players hoarding to max 3 latest 5*. All that time and commitment invested. If devs say this rule only applies to people whaling on the hp store, it's like you are killing the reason to play the game for a lot of players( and remember hp store is on hp and many players could been saving it. If they give that service to some players because "they spent money " and others not, there would be less transparency and a lot of complaints).
And finally a lot of players could hoard that huge amount of cps and tokens, but following that rule they finally do spend some money extra to get some classic covers for sure. It's a win-win for them.

entrailbucket

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. 

Who's rallying anyone to do anything?  Even if I was lobbying for them to make some kind of change, why on earth would they listen to me?  I (absolutely deservedly) have no influence whatsoever, and I don't pretend to.

I'm not a competitive player these days, because I don't care to participate in the things one is forced to do to be a competitive player.  I assure you that I'm not secretly pining for those days and scheming out ways to get back to the top by taking other players down. 

I asked a question, after someone else brought up the policy (a policy which many people here were unaware of).  I don't think this policy will cause the game to shut down, and I didn't say that.  I don't think they're losing money, and I didn't say that either.  I have no idea what's best for them financially.

DAZ0273

So anyway, that Knull guy, he sure is a healthy fella.

ThaRoadWarrior

I’ve actually found Hela to be a lot of fun now that she has numbers that are material. I’ve been running Polaris/Knull/Hela in PVE, and targeting the enemy with lowest health while trying to match strikes as often as possible. In PVP I’ve been using Hela/Polaris with the same strategy. Actually Dock Ock has too low health to get strikes out before he goes down, so I kind of reserve him until I have at least a couple in play and then kill him to start pumping the specials.

Timemachinego

I had a big old nested replies and **** response going, but I erased it because I think DD217 hit the nail exactly on the head.

I've not been here terribly long, under 2 years, but all I've seen the game design trending towards is making the upper reaches of the game easier to get to and I make suggestions along those lines, looking at more "walls" and how they could be more smoothly approached through the given play experience. In response, I usually get a handful of OG prolific posters telling me how the game had always been and why it's a bad idea, either gloriously looking past "recent" changes in apparent game philosophy or suggesting that I and people like me are asking that we get top-meta 550s for simply signing on in bizarre slippery-slope arguments and what-abouts. Those guaranteed, some likes or insightfuls from players who are smarter than me than to fully engage if I managed to say something smart.

Now, the dev team could outright state that they want the game to be more approachable for new players and state the various changes that they made that fed that. They could say all of that and I suppose massively turn-off the last bastion of old-school maybe not even paying anymore players? I'm not saying that was the intent of milestones or shards or anything else, but having been a newer player that benefited from those things they did seem to make it much easier to raise myself out of the muck than what ya'll describe as the good old days, so I'm thankful for those changes.

Within my own alliance family I still see lots of people spending, many of those at what can be understood as the very top of the game, so they must still feel that their dollars are being spent well? I also don't see them complaining about changes that aid the new player becoming a functioning member of our strange society, so it can't possibly be that bad that they're getting a leg-up now, right?

If you're no longer competing, I don't know what sense there is in even registering complaints to any changes at all, especially those deemed positive for the player.

Is it an inability to deal with change? fwiw, I had a panic attack when my neighbor cut down his mature tree that shaded many of "our" lawns earlier this week, so I do understand that. It screwed up my idea of our block and very possibly some of our resale value but after talking to him, I learned the roots were encroaching on his foundation so it was literally the tree or his house. Fair enough, I still hate it but do at least recognize it as for the greater good of our neighborhood. We're having actual surveyors in to deem if any of our yards can support an old tree without similar damage.

If you are competing, Are you just mad that someone with less time put in can fill "your spot"?

Life is full of people that can steal your spot if they're actively working for it. This game is still alive enough to have people that want your spot and that's a wonderful thing! That's what keeps the updates coming!

entrailbucket

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?

Sekilicious

DAZ0273 said:

So anyway, that Knull guy, he sure is a healthy fella.

Stupid health pool slowing my climb. I’m not sure I can make it to 1200 to get to progression and I’m blaming him. I guess I will have to learn to shield hop

Timemachinego

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..."

entrailbucket

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..."

Don't misunderstand -- their customer service is pretty good as far as these things go, and when you put in a ticket, they'll respond to you in a reasonable amount of time and do their best to resolve your issue.  The "white glove" service I was talking about is CS doing cover swaps.

If the swap policy is meant to help players catch up, why does it only apply under such limited and outdated conditions?  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.  If it's intended to do what people think, wouldn't it also apply to the other 25cp stores?  Why can't lower tier players make use of it?


If you've read hundreds of my posts without putting me on your ignore list...my condolences.  Sometimes I forget people are reading this stuff.  But I've been pretty clear about what I want, I think!  I want balance, or something approximating balance.  There's always going to be a best team, but the best characters should not be +200 levels ahead of the worst characters. 

New players should be able to succeed with any 5*, not just the best of the best.  They shouldn't have to hoard and wait for a good set of 3, they should all be good enough.  If someone's favorite character is Iron Man or Magneto, they should be able to champion that guy and do well.

Daredevil217

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?

entrailbucket

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?

Where was anything about this policy ever stated publicly by the developers?

Anyway, how do I know why they did it?  Many, many years ago, players I knew with multiple 550s (not me, mine are recent) had been using CS to swap covers for some time when the policy was suddenly changed.  They were told that they could no longer use CS in that way unless they had the 3 latest championed.

ThaRoadWarrior

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.

entrailbucket

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.

That's different -- before saved covers, if you had, say, Iron Man at 0/3/5 and you pulled another yellow cover, CS would exchange it for a red or a blue (your choice).  That service was also never really publicized but was widely used by folks who knew about it.

I don't think they've ever publicly acknowledged doing the 550 swaps, or publicly stated what that policy is.

ThaRoadWarrior

https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/comment/811800#Comment_811800

entrailbucket

ThaRoadWarrior said:

https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/comment/811800#Comment_811800

There's a lot going on in there.  It sounds like initially Brigby said they weren't doing any cover exchanges for anyone, and then at some point they reversed course on the 550 thing, probably after whales objected.

That is a public acknowledgement though!  Even though it's buried in a 4 year old forum thread.  If they offer this service, why doesn't everyone know about it?  It's not listed in the in-game help.

ThaRoadWarrior

It’s an interesting artifact from what I consider the “good old days” of forum communication, when Brigby would give us at least some kind of party line about what was happening with a reasonable degree of lead time.

TheEyeDoctorsWife

I recall playing one week recently ( anniversary week?) where all my metas were 550 like whales have every day . It was my  worst gaming week here in 3 years . Boring , monotonous victories over all teams in 3 to 6 moves . Play time cut by over 50%.  Why would you spend 8 years in something with zero challenge or thought needed to succeed ? To me that game would be a living hell. 

  On a different topic of Ultron, I’m finding the Valtronaris ( can I coin that ?) team can stun lock usually in 4 moves . ( Unless I ever saw a Surfer some day ).