Week 33. BW , Hela, Knull, Heimdall

1235

Comments

  • Daredevil217
    Daredevil217 Posts: 3,894 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited January 2022
    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.
    There’s plenty about the game that they don’t announce.  It’s pretty common knowledge that most information is found on FB, Line and buried in these here forum threads. I’d venture to say that the reason it isn’t plastered all over in-game help is 2-fold. 1) It affects .01% of the playerbase who let’s be honest, if they reach that level of hoarding/spending, probably already know about the policy. I want to know why leveling up 5*s wrecking MMR isn’t a thing that players are told about up front. That’s way more useful information that effects way more people (as an example). 2) Going through all those swap tickets took a lot of time and resources from CS.  So they weren’t shouting it from the rooftops, but still willing to help players out in that situation. 

    Yes, it’s a 4-year old thread, but you have been referencing players (old school whales) and policies way older than that thread and talking about developers providing this special service only to big time whales as an incentive to spend. I still don’t know where that was posted and am waiting for a source. I know you say there’s a lot going on in that thread. I personally found it pretty easy two follow, but the two big posts from Brigby relevant to this situation are: 

    “This was a temporary service that Customer Support provided through Support Tickets. We wanted to help alleviate the concern of unusable covers, but it quickly grew to consume a significant portion of their CS efforts. This was one reason why the team developed an in-game feature instead, that accomplishes the same goal, with the added benefit of applying to 2-Star, 3-Star, and 4-Star characters as well”

    and

    “Update: For players that have a Latest Legends 5-Star character maxed out at level 550, we will still be offering cover exchanges from the maxed out Latest Legends character to another Latest Legends character. The same is true for if players have all 3 of their Latest Legends 5-Star characters maxed out, and wish to exchange their extra Latest Legend covers for any other character cover of their choice.”

    Nothing in here about this only being for whales, spenders or anything else. Just that people who max champ all the LL can exchange covers to alleviate concern about those rare unusable covers. He names both who it’s for (anyone in that situation regardless of money spent) and why they’ve done it historically (goodwill to the players and again, nothing about money spent). 

    Thank you @Road_Warrior for finding this and putting this issue to rest!  It answers a lot of my questions. I think there has been a lot of assuming going on here, and we have been postulating answers to questions without asking whether the context is even accurate. I questioned whether this was ever a whale-only service and there’s nothing from the developers mouths that seem to indicate that was the case. Obviously whales are more likely to have 550s than non whales, so they’re more likely to take advantage of that service, but it doesn’t mean it was just for them, even if they were the prominent benefactors initially.

  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 4,806 Chairperson of the Boards
    In 2018, hoarding for 550s was not a thing.  Players with 550s were, universally, massive spenders.  It would've been understood from that thread that those were the only players who'd benefit from the policy.


    Let's try this -- if this wasn't originally an incentive to spend and continue spending, why does it only apply to the latest 3?  Wouldn't it also apply to anyone else who hoarded and unloaded on any 25cp store?  If it's meant to reward hoarders, why aren't those stores covered?
  • Daredevil217
    Daredevil217 Posts: 3,894 Chairperson of the Boards
    I’m not going to pretend to know their reasoning but my guess (since it was stated in the Brigby quote I posted) was to cut down on all the support tickets they’d get. Everytime a OML store pops up that’s a free cover for whoever you want and another ticket submitted. Since I’m sure every character is close to a 550 by someone that’s a lot of tickets to submit. They had to draw the line somewhere for the good of their team but didn’t want to take everything away from the player at the same time. Felt like a good middle ground to me honestly. You disagree?
  • shardwick
    shardwick Posts: 2,121 Chairperson of the Boards
    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 ). 
    I mean nobody is forcing you to use meta characters. Use more characters on your roster that aren't meta or boosted if you want more of a challenge from the game. 
  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 4,806 Chairperson of the Boards
    I’m not going to pretend to know their reasoning but my guess (since it was stated in the Brigby quote I posted) was to cut down on all the support tickets they’d get. Everytime a OML store pops up that’s a free cover for whoever you want and another ticket submitted. Since I’m sure every character is close to a 550 by someone that’s a lot of tickets to submit. They had to draw the line somewhere for the good of their team but didn’t want to take everything away from the player at the same time. Felt like a good middle ground to me honestly. You disagree?
    You're assuming I'd do that.  I wouldn't.  I don't pull on those stores and I wouldn't even if they gave cover swaps.  They're a bad deal.  But besides that, how many other 550 OMLs do you think are out there?  I know of about 2 or 3 among active players.  That's significantly less than the number of swap tickets they had to handle during the SW/Colossus latest 3.

    What I know about this is that at some point well before 2018, a player with a 550 character could convert covers of that character to any other character of their choice. 

    One day they stopped doing those, and told players who requested it that they'd only do exchanges according to the policy posted in that thread (latest 3 only).  This was done during a particularly bad latest 3 that very few people wanted to buy.  The whale community's assumption at that time was that they were being forced to buy bad characters.  (Many of them did anyway, though)

    That change wasn't posted or announced anywhere that I know of.  In fact, if you read that thread, the latest 3 policy significantly predates it.  Where was the announcement of that policy?
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited January 2022
    I remember that cover swap was actually done for a few players and words spread (in Line). The CS did say it's a temporary service or goodwill and you don't need 550 to do cover swap. I remember they did cover swaps for those latest 5* with poor cover distributions like 6/6/1 to 5/3/5 etc. It was stopped when Saved Covers were introduced. This was pretty memorable because I can't believe how ungrateful and entitled some of the players are when cs decided to stop 1:1 cover swap. :D

    I didn't know such thing exists until some players mentioned it in the forum (before Saved Covers). Now, cover swaps are only done for 550 in only Latest store. If you 550 in special store, they won't do cover swap.

    Besides, non-spending or low spending new players will need to hoard for over 2 years to 550. By then, are they still even considered new players when they have been playing competitively for such period of time? 

    So, cover swap was done out of goodwill for a small number of players and they decided to spread their experiences around and overloaded cs. 
  • TheEyeDoctorsWife
    TheEyeDoctorsWife Posts: 829 Critical Contributor
    shardwick said:
    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 ). 
    I mean nobody is forcing you to use meta characters. Use more characters on your roster that aren't meta or boosted if you want more of a challenge from the game. 
    Yes because in an entire year of 5* tier PvP NOT ONCE did I ever face a team without at least 1 meta character. (average 2.2 metas per opponent). It’s a shame every other player hasn’t had this idea . Or maybe I’m just the only player that enjoys challenges.
  • Bad
    Bad Posts: 3,146 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited January 2022
    That was a good search!
    Now we have in there acknowledgement, reasons, and how it will work on future. 
    I'd rather believe that, and the goodwill of CS, than other rumours talking about spenders hoarders and white glove service.
    I think CS doesn't  deserve all that bad publicy, don't help to spread those kinds of rumours.
  • dianetics
    dianetics Posts: 1,379 Chairperson of the Boards
    I wonder if we can get the mods to branch this discussion off into a different thread. Since it has very little to do with the boosted discussion.
    I don’t know who to tag for this though.
  • ThaRoadWarrior
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,125 Chairperson of the Boards
    Furthering the “steakhouse analogy,” this is more of a “secret menu item” with all the ingredients that they will prepare if you know to ask for it. This is fun and novel when it’s a small group of local diners asking, but once it gets published in the local paper and 30% of your customers start asking for it, you probably want to think about shutting it down. The narrative seems pretty clear in that thread it wasn’t intended to be widely utilized, then it was, so a feature was rolled out to replace it.
  • ThaRoadWarrior
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,125 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited January 2022
    dianetics said:
    I wonder if we can get the mods to branch this discussion off into a different thread. Since it has very little to do with the boosted discussion.
    I don’t know who to tag for this though.
    Anyone with a green name banner is a mod, but @fight4thedream seems to be the most (only?) active mod these days.
  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 4,806 Chairperson of the Boards
    I’m not going to pretend to know their reasoning but my guess (since it was stated in the Brigby quote I posted) was to cut down on all the support tickets they’d get. Everytime a OML store pops up that’s a free cover for whoever you want and another ticket submitted. Since I’m sure every character is close to a 550 by someone that’s a lot of tickets to submit. They had to draw the line somewhere for the good of their team but didn’t want to take everything away from the player at the same time. Felt like a good middle ground to me honestly. You disagree?
    You're assuming I'd do that.  I wouldn't.  I don't pull on those stores and I wouldn't even if they gave cover swaps.  They're a bad deal.  But besides that, how many other 550 OMLs do you think are out there?  I know of about 2 or 3 among active players.  That's significantly less than the number of swap tickets they had to handle during the SW/Colossus latest 3.

    What I know about this is that at some point well before 2018, a player with a 550 character could convert covers of that character to any other character of their choice. 

    One day they stopped doing those, and told players who requested it that they'd only do exchanges according to the policy posted in that thread (latest 3 only).  This was done during a particularly bad latest 3 that very few people wanted to buy.  The whale community's assumption at that time was that they were being forced to buy bad characters.  (Many of them did anyway, though)

    That change wasn't posted or announced anywhere that I know of.  In fact, if you read that thread, the latest 3 policy significantly predates it.  Where was the announcement of that policy?
    I didn’t mean you specifically (though I find it odd you wouldn’t want any cover of your choosing). Like I said, anytime ANYONE is in a special store, that ANYONE  has completed, that’s a ticket. Versus one ticket for a customer every two years when they unload a hoard- which seems much more reasonable to manage. Idk what the whale community assumed but they were clearly wrong as the service still exists today for anyone who wants it and many have taken advantage with excellent characters in LLs. As Hound says, and I totally forgot this, it was a temporary goodwill thing done by CS. So of course they wouldn’t post the “policy” as it wasn’t a black and white policy. 

    Bad said:
    That was a good search!
    Now we have in there acknowledgement, reasons, and how it will work on future. 
    I'd rather believe that, and the goodwill of CS, than other rumours talking about spenders hoarders and white glove service.
    I think CS doesn't  deserve all that bad publicy, don't help to spread those kinds of rumours.
    This is more or less what I was saying too. But any actual evidence posted seems to be dismissed in favor of these conspiracy theories that I’ve yet to see any evidence of actually being true. 
    Bottom line is X used to spend to get a service. Y found a way to qualify for said service without spending. EB thinks that means the service used to ONLY be for spenders and other people are “taking advantage” (steakhouse analogy), but none of that has been proven true. If they wanted to shut down swaps completely, they could have done so during the introduction of the saved cover era as they were changing up how they do things left and right. They chose to keep the service. Probably because like I said, it’s so rare when someone busts a LL hoard that they can deal with the once every two years ticket. Or, we can continue to create these unfounded accusations. 
    Conspiracy theories and unfounded accusations?  What are we even talking about here?  What exactly do you think I'm accusing someone of?  What is the conspiracy?
  • Srheer0
    Srheer0 Posts: 510 Critical Contributor
    edited January 2022
    shardwick said:
    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 ). 
    I mean nobody is forcing you to use meta characters. Use more characters on your roster that aren't meta or boosted if you want more of a challenge from the game. 
    I disagree.

    If you want good rewards for placement in PVP and PVE, you have to use meta teams. They are faster and more efficient than non meta teams. Hence being Meta. 

    --

    Back on topic. Knul is very fun when boosted. Now have an excuse to use my kitty.  

    Hela... haven't even tried when boosted. iirc the green or red don't scale well?
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    Knull + Apocalypse +4 yellow/red/black ap boost is the winner for this boost week. 
  • ThaRoadWarrior
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,125 Chairperson of the Boards
    Srheer0 said:
    shardwick said:
    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 ). 
    I mean nobody is forcing you to use meta characters. Use more characters on your roster that aren't meta or boosted if you want more of a challenge from the game. 
    I disagree.

    If you want good rewards for placement in PVP and PVE, you have to use meta teams. They are faster and more efficient than non meta teams. Hence being Meta. 

    --

    Back on topic. Knul is very fun when boosted. Now have an excuse to use my kitty.  

    Hela... haven't even tried when boosted. iirc the green or red don't scale well?
    Hela's passive tile strengthening is what you want her for. The green is okay, the black can be brutal depending on how many blues are in play. at 5 covers, boosted, mine is strengthening ALL friendly specials on the board by 851 each whenever you down an enemy, so you want a high volume of them in play when you drop somebody if possible.
  • Daredevil217
    Daredevil217 Posts: 3,894 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited January 2022
    I’m not going to pretend to know their reasoning but my guess (since it was stated in the Brigby quote I posted) was to cut down on all the support tickets they’d get. Everytime a OML store pops up that’s a free cover for whoever you want and another ticket submitted. Since I’m sure every character is close to a 550 by someone that’s a lot of tickets to submit. They had to draw the line somewhere for the good of their team but didn’t want to take everything away from the player at the same time. Felt like a good middle ground to me honestly. You disagree?
    You're assuming I'd do that.  I wouldn't.  I don't pull on those stores and I wouldn't even if they gave cover swaps.  They're a bad deal.  But besides that, how many other 550 OMLs do you think are out there?  I know of about 2 or 3 among active players.  That's significantly less than the number of swap tickets they had to handle during the SW/Colossus latest 3.

    What I know about this is that at some point well before 2018, a player with a 550 character could convert covers of that character to any other character of their choice. 

    One day they stopped doing those, and told players who requested it that they'd only do exchanges according to the policy posted in that thread (latest 3 only).  This was done during a particularly bad latest 3 that very few people wanted to buy.  The whale community's assumption at that time was that they were being forced to buy bad characters.  (Many of them did anyway, though)

    That change wasn't posted or announced anywhere that I know of.  In fact, if you read that thread, the latest 3 policy significantly predates it.  Where was the announcement of that policy?
    I didn’t mean you specifically (though I find it odd you wouldn’t want any cover of your choosing). Like I said, anytime ANYONE is in a special store, that ANYONE  has completed, that’s a ticket. Versus one ticket for a customer every two years when they unload a hoard- which seems much more reasonable to manage. Idk what the whale community assumed but they were clearly wrong as the service still exists today for anyone who wants it and many have taken advantage with excellent characters in LLs. As Hound says, and I totally forgot this, it was a temporary goodwill thing done by CS. So of course they wouldn’t post the “policy” as it wasn’t a black and white policy. 

    Bad said:
    That was a good search!
    Now we have in there acknowledgement, reasons, and how it will work on future. 
    I'd rather believe that, and the goodwill of CS, than other rumours talking about spenders hoarders and white glove service.
    I think CS doesn't  deserve all that bad publicy, don't help to spread those kinds of rumours.
    This is more or less what I was saying too. But any actual evidence posted seems to be dismissed in favor of these conspiracy theories that I’ve yet to see any evidence of actually being true. 
    Bottom line is X used to spend to get a service. Y found a way to qualify for said service without spending. EB thinks that means the service used to ONLY be for spenders and other people are “taking advantage” (steakhouse analogy), but none of that has been proven true. If they wanted to shut down swaps completely, they could have done so during the introduction of the saved cover era as they were changing up how they do things left and right. They chose to keep the service. Probably because like I said, it’s so rare when someone busts a LL hoard that they can deal with the once every two years ticket. Or, we can continue to create these unfounded accusations. 
    Conspiracy theories and unfounded accusations?  What are we even talking about here?  What exactly do you think I'm accusing someone of?  What is the conspiracy?
    Dude (dudette?), read my entire posts.  The answers you seek are all there.  I’m talking about this notion that swaps were only meant for the whales or people who spend X amount. Or that it is there only to incentive super heavy spending. Or that that it’s some special “white glove service”. That’s the premise you were operating from. We then have a post with someone from the company who basically explained the why, who, what, of cover swaps and that’s still not good enough (there’s a lot going on in that thread, why is it only LL that get swaps, old school whales used to think…). It seems everyone can see this but you. Every time I ask you for proof that this was a policy only for whales to incentivize them dropping 10s of thousands, you have never provided me anything. You say, “well if that isn’t the case then why…”. I feel I’ve answered every question you’ve posited to the best of my ability (I don’t know the EXACT why they do anything but at least tried to posit reasonable explanations as to why given actual sourced communication we’ve received). But I still haven’t received anything from you answering the very simple question i posit time and again.  It feels like no matter how many people post facts counter to your beliefs, you will continue to create a narrative that supports your position. Knowing that, I’m going to no longer feed it and get back on topic (sorry to everyone for enabling this and allowing it to go so far off the rails). 

    Hela and Knull have been my combo of choice this week as well. Heimdall is great, but I think he’d be better served supporting a glass cannon 5* or high cost nuker where he can tank/heal for them, fuel them, and lower their costs (someone better than Widow who is a kick me sign). He doesn’t really have “that partner” boosted with him this week. Hela and Knull have really good synergy despite both doing low damage. They do small tics of damage that ramp up over time as they populate the board with specials. I expect Hela to be even better this PVP (haven’t started it yet) as low covered Doc Ock’s will get murdered quick thus procing her one time buff to all specials. 
  • dianetics
    dianetics Posts: 1,379 Chairperson of the Boards
    Heimdall just doesn't have "that" partner yet. He needs somebody like Odin, Shuri, or Lizard who is focused on fast DPS not just as a support. Heimdall is in a funny spot as a support tank, so it is hard to find somebody who will synergize with him.
    He will work well with a lot of characters or teams, but they don't really make him better.
    The best uses for Heimdall I have found have been what I dub "airlift" builds, just sending his teammates airborne and getting damage reduction and AP increases on landing.
  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 4,806 Chairperson of the Boards
    I'd let this drop too, but I still have the sense that we've just been talking past each other this whole time.  I was talking about the origins of this and you're taking about what's happening now. 

    The historical origins or initial goals are completely irrelevant to what's happening today -- I think that 6 years ago or whatever, they did this to reward spenders.  That's ancient history.  It's interesting in the way that the rest of the game's history is, but that's all.

    The policy is still on the books, and it's rewarded tons of non-spenders since then, so if it was meant to reward whales 6 years ago, that is obviously no longer the case.
  • ThaRoadWarrior
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,125 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited January 2022
    Shuri is also boosted this week, I recommend giving her a shot with Heimdall in pick 2. Use her red first, maybe always, because boosted her fort matching damage is quite high.

    Odin was nearly the other have of whatever Heimdall is doing, but his fort spam mechanism isn’t on purpose enough and doesn’t work beyond the first hit he takes on a jump in front.