Shang-chi

DAZ0273

@entrailbucket said:

@DAZ0273 said:

@entrailbucket said:
Ah, now that we've got confirmation that we're a tiny minority, we've reached step 2 in this argument -- "sure, casual players exist, but they just don't matter like we do, therefore we can safely ignore all of them and focus only on us."

This game has survived precisely because it doesn't depend on whales. They get a ton of low level players to spend a bit of money each, and that's how it's survived -- long past the time when whale-focused games have died.

They don't need us. Veterans are just freeloaders, taking ranking spots we don't deserve from those who actually pay to support the game. If the top 3% magically disappeared, the game would go on exactly as before.

Isn't this a logical fallacy in so much as you are counting the 97% as all acting the same? That 97% is made up of all sorts of different players. For all we know 90% of those players may also never spend a single dime. I doubt we have anywhere near the information available to us to start making any sort of definitive claims about who does what.

Interesting! Wouldn't it be just as fallacious/unfounded to assume that the game financially depends on the 3% to survive?

It would which is why probably both positions don't represent the actual full picture? But to say the 3% don't matter to the Devs has also been demonstrably proven incorrect - I present to you the last Alliance Event which had a separate Event that ONLY the elite, not even the full 3%, benefitted from. They even rewarded merc-ing which presumably the 97% have zero knowledge exists. I am in the 3% and received no benefit so it was actually for a group even smaller than 3%! Pretty shocking really to pander to them but that is what happened and it sounds like it may happen again.

entrailbucket

That event gave rewards to the top 1000 alliances, didn't it? Why is something only "for" the players who can complete and/or win it?

DAZ0273

@entrailbucket said:
That event gave rewards to the top 1000 alliances, didn't it? Why is something only "for" the players who can complete and/or win it?

Oh please. As if those rewards were even close to being distributed in a proportional manner. That event was for the elite. The Devs on Discord even told players who weren't going to get anywhere that is was OK not to even bother playing.

Vhailorx

@entrailbucket said:
Ah, now that we've got confirmation that we're a tiny minority, we've reached step 2 in this argument -- "sure, casual players exist, but they just don't matter like we do, therefore we can safely ignore all of them and focus only on us."

This game has survived precisely because it doesn't depend on whales. They get a ton of low level players to spend a bit of money each, and that's how it's survived -- long past the time when whale-focused games have died.

They don't need us. Veterans are just freeloaders, taking ranking spots we don't deserve from those who actually pay to support the game. If the top 3% magically disappeared, the game would go on exactly as before.

Other than you, who has said that any particular segment of the playerbase "doesnt matter"?

I think it is incredibly foolish to assert that cutting the 8-10k regular cl10 players out of the game would have no impact on MPQ. It would be similarly foolish to claim that new/casual players don't matter so CLs 1-5 could also be removed without impact.

I'm also really intrigued to learn that you know mpq's financial details and can declare that it is not whale-dependent.

entrailbucket

@DAZ0273 said:

@entrailbucket said:
That event gave rewards to the top 1000 alliances, didn't it? Why is something only "for" the players who can complete and/or win it?

Oh please. As if those rewards were even close to being distributed in a proportional manner. That event was for the elite. The Devs on Discord even told players who weren't going to get anywhere that is was OK not to even bother playing.

The rewards in regular PvE aren't distributed in a "proportional manner" and tons of players seem to play that. Is it only "for" those who can hit top 10, or top 100, in CL10?

Me and a few others in my very casual alliance grinded out every single refresh of that thing, for fun, and we finished like top 1000. Are you really so sure that nobody outside of the .01% of players played it?

entrailbucket

@Vhailorx said:

@entrailbucket said:
Ah, now that we've got confirmation that we're a tiny minority, we've reached step 2 in this argument -- "sure, casual players exist, but they just don't matter like we do, therefore we can safely ignore all of them and focus only on us."

This game has survived precisely because it doesn't depend on whales. They get a ton of low level players to spend a bit of money each, and that's how it's survived -- long past the time when whale-focused games have died.

They don't need us. Veterans are just freeloaders, taking ranking spots we don't deserve from those who actually pay to support the game. If the top 3% magically disappeared, the game would go on exactly as before.

Other than you, who has said that any particular segment of the playerbase "doesnt matter"?

I think it is incredibly foolish to assert that cutting the 8-10k regular cl10 players out of the game would have no impact on MPQ. It would be similarly foolish to claim that new/casual players don't matter so CLs 1-5 could also be removed without impact.

I'm also really intrigued to learn that you know mpq's financial details and can declare that it is not whale-dependent.

Hey cool, I'm also interested in how you know MPQ's financial details and can declare that it's whale-dependent.

DAZ0273

@entrailbucket said:

@DAZ0273 said:

@entrailbucket said:
That event gave rewards to the top 1000 alliances, didn't it? Why is something only "for" the players who can complete and/or win it?

Oh please. As if those rewards were even close to being distributed in a proportional manner. That event was for the elite. The Devs on Discord even told players who weren't going to get anywhere that is was OK not to even bother playing.

The rewards in regular PvE aren't distributed in a "proportional manner" and tons of players seem to play that. Is it only "for" those who can hit top 10, or top 100, in CL10?

Me and a few others in my very casual alliance grinded out every single refresh of that thing, for fun, and we finished like top 1000. Are you really so sure that nobody outside of the .01% of players played it?

I never said they didn't but they didn't get the rewards equal to their efforts and many of them said on this forum and elsewhere on Reddit, Discord etc they won't try again. Why not? Because The Devs specifically said you don't need to bother and that turned out correct. So there were no illusions here. PvE has SCL which lets you choose your path and has progression and placement - the Placement only event handed out top tier rewards on top of top tier rewards ds and only the top guys got them because of course they needed them the most? The event was for the elite. Oh but of course, sorry, they don't matter at all, lol! 🙂

entrailbucket

So...the tens of thousands of casual players who don't use this forum and definitely aren't on Discord heard that this event wasn't for them...where? If they all realized that it wasn't for them, why did so many of them play it anyway?

Events in this game aren't "for" anyone, especially not the elite. If they did that, the event would be locked to a certain CL or something.

meadowsweet

I'm not even sure why or how this argument devolved into what percentage of players champ how many 5★ characters or how much revenue they contribute...

The same logic applies to 2★ characters feeding 3★ characters (who feed 4★ characters.) The only difference being that you can't favorite or use shards on a 2★ character.

Feeders are useful information. Useful information belongs in the game. Again, there's a reason that so many versions of the feeder data exists, and thousands of users have bookmarked them and refer back to them on a frequent basis. That this information comes in handy to players is not really up for debate.

I for one would have much preferred the developers prioritized adding feeder data to the game over several of the other quality of life or user interface changes they've rolled out in recent years.

entrailbucket

Either it's too much effort for them to do it, not enough players care about it, or both. It's probably both.

Vhailorx

@entrailbucket said:
Either it's too much effort for them to do it, not enough players care about it, or both. It's probably both.

Or they don't play the game linearly like players and don't appreciate how useful feeder info would be. I can totally understand why a dev may not want to play their actual job for fun, but it has caused problems in the past. demi pretty clearly had a big knowledge gap and never really understood daily play in the "elder game" as they called it. Presumably BCS is, or will eventually be, in a similar position.

meadowsweet

But that's just circular logic: "It hasn't yet been done" does not automatically mean "It is incredibly difficult to do" or "It is not worth doing." Maybe none of the devs had thought of it, maybe it's on a roadmap for next year, maybe they're addressing it in a different way, maybe it's a low priority to them, maybe users hadn't thought to ask for it yet even though it's an annoyance (that they've already solved by other means), maybe the devs are only allocating resources to what they think drives in-app purchases, etc... there's lots of other possible explanations.

"My son never put the trash cans out like I asked him to."
"Well, it must have required too much effort, or not enough people cared whether he did it or not."

Vhailorx

@entrailbucket said:

@Vhailorx said:

@entrailbucket said:
Ah, now that we've got confirmation that we're a tiny minority, we've reached step 2 in this argument -- "sure, casual players exist, but they just don't matter like we do, therefore we can safely ignore all of them and focus only on us."

This game has survived precisely because it doesn't depend on whales. They get a ton of low level players to spend a bit of money each, and that's how it's survived -- long past the time when whale-focused games have died.

They don't need us. Veterans are just freeloaders, taking ranking spots we don't deserve from those who actually pay to support the game. If the top 3% magically disappeared, the game would go on exactly as before.

Other than you, who has said that any particular segment of the playerbase "doesnt matter"?

I think it is incredibly foolish to assert that cutting the 8-10k regular cl10 players out of the game would have no impact on MPQ. It would be similarly foolish to claim that new/casual players don't matter so CLs 1-5 could also be removed without impact.

I'm also really intrigued to learn that you know mpq's financial details and can declare that it is not whale-dependent.

Hey cool, I'm also interested in how you know MPQ's financial details and can declare that it's whale-dependent.

I said that the standard freemium model since forever has been that a significant portion of revenues come from a very small minority of players. I don't see any reason to think MPQ works differently than just about every other gacha game ever.

MPQ may not be back in the 2016-18 heyday of buy clubs and every uberwhale having a direct line to Demi, but if the veteran game was truly unimportant now (rather than just one of several essential elements as i argue) then i would expect the direction of BCS' development to be even more aggressive in terms of reinvigorating the early game (more 1s, more 2s, revamped rewards for lower cls, etc).

entrailbucket

@Vhailorx said:

@entrailbucket said:
Either it's too much effort for them to do it, not enough players care about it, or both. It's probably both.

Or they don't play the game linearly like players and don't appreciate how useful feeder info would be. I can totally understand why a dev may not want to play their actual job for fun, but it has caused problems in the past. demi pretty clearly had a big knowledge gap and never really understood daily play in the "elder game" as they called it. Presumably BCS is, or will eventually be, in a similar position.

Exactly! Demiurge talked about this openly. They did play the game constantly, but would reset their accounts every few months. They were completely focused on the early-game experience.

Why? If we matter so much, why weren't they playing late-game accounts? Why weren't they delivering obvious, requested-every-month QoL improvements (like the feeder thing) for us? And why is the game still going, and still successful, despite very little attention paid to our concerns?

Vhailorx

@entrailbucket said:

@Vhailorx said:

@entrailbucket said:
Either it's too much effort for them to do it, not enough players care about it, or both. It's probably both.

Or they don't play the game linearly like players and don't appreciate how useful feeder info would be. I can totally understand why a dev may not want to play their actual job for fun, but it has caused problems in the past. demi pretty clearly had a big knowledge gap and never really understood daily play in the "elder game" as they called it. Presumably BCS is, or will eventually be, in a similar position.

Exactly! Demiurge talked about this openly. They did play the game constantly, but would reset their accounts every few months. They were completely focused on the early-game experience.

Why? If we matter so much, why weren't they playing late-game accounts? Why weren't they delivering obvious, requested-every-month QoL improvements (like the feeder thing) for us? And why is the game still going, and still successful, despite very little attention paid to our concerns?

Demi focused on getting players through the new gave and on to spending asap. They played elder game accounts plenty (with the notable exception of boss rush). They didn't build them though. They could just create a roster with whatever characters they wanted to test at whatever level. They had little idea how roster accrual happened beyond looking at their backend data (X character in Y % of matches etc). And they often had the wrong ideas about what choices players were making and why.

As for catering up or down, demi went from 3* to 4* to 5* to champion to support endgames in rapid succession from 2025-2018. Each step increased the financial pressure on players who wanted to spend for endgame power and, except for supports, each step dramatically increased player engagement (a proxy for game's profitability?). They also added shield ramk, cls, bonus covers, release stores, and of course created buy clubs (by accident?). During that time they added fewer than 10 1* - 3* characters to the game. Uberwhales had direct lines of communication to devs and used them frequently. Who were they catering to again?

I think the record is pretty clear that demi squeezed the whale-stone as hard as they could for as long as they could until the blood ran out with supports. Then they foundered for while because of all the problems with 6*s, and eventually wanted out. bcs was brought in to right the ship. They have shifted away from only focusing on the elder game revenue stream. But that doesn't mean that veteran spenders are no longer important to the game.

entrailbucket

My point is that we (the top 1% of all rosters, which is just about everyone who's regularly posts here), matter a lot less than we tend to think we do, and that our requests, even ones that seem easy and obvious, are probably not as high-priority as we think.

When I say "we don't matter," that's hyperbole -- of course we matter, as much as any other player does. But we're not special, and we're not keeping the game alive more than any other group is.

I'm not at all convinced that any of the middle section you described was done on purpose, btw. I don't think they ever actually understood us to well enough monetize us in that way. Most of that stuff seemed haphazard and disorganized at best, and I bet they were surprised to have made money on it.

Vhailorx

@entrailbucket said:
My point is that we (the top 1% of all rosters, which is just about everyone who's regularly posts here), matter a lot less than we tend to think we do, and that our requests, even ones that seem easy and obvious, are probably not as high-priority as we think.

When I say "we don't matter," that's hyperbole -- of course we matter, as much as any other player does. But we're not special, and we're not keeping the game alive more than any other group is.

I'm not at all convinced that any of the middle section you described was done on purpose, btw. I don't think they ever actually understood us to well enough monetize us in that way. Most of that stuff seemed haphazard and disorganized at best, and I bet they were surprised to have made money on it.

A little of both maybe? Cranking up the monetization with each new endgame tier was intentional, but I do think that the amazing success of things like buy clubs was beyond what demi/d3 expected. Either way, my point is that they were focusing on monetizing the elder game almost to the exclusion of all else for several years.

Bowgentle

Once again I see this weird monetization idea.
Monetization is all publisher side - neither Demi nor BCS decide that.
D3 sets the targets.

My conspiracy theory is that D3 wanted to monetize MUCH MORE, and Demi didn't want to comply anymore, so the crew was changed to BCS.

Hence, daily offers have gone into overdrive over the last 18 months.
Could be a coincidence,sure.

DAZ0273

@entrailbucket said:
So...the tens of thousands of casual players who don't use this forum and definitely aren't on Discord heard that this event wasn't for them...where? If they all realized that it wasn't for them, why did so many of them play it anyway?

Events in this game aren't "for" anyone, especially not the elite. If they did that, the event would be locked to a certain CL or something.

The in-game pop-up said the same thing as far as I remember in the sub text of Re-Mastered- this is a placement only event so don't worry if you can't compete or are not in an Alliance, it is totally OK to skip this event. It is the weirdest thing I have encountered since playing this game because I have never seen the Devs suggest that playing every single minute of every day is not vital. I fully expect if we get another run of placement only that the Devs will have lots of data available that tells them where more accurately they can land a sweet spot to encourage as much participation as possible but on this occasion this event was for the big guns - it wouldn't surprise me if it was done that way because they knew those top alliances would be the most reliable to supply the data they were presumably looking for as long as they coated their hook with tasty enough bait. It worked.

Anyway - none of this has anything to do with Shang Chi so I think this thread has drifted far enough so I won't be steering it any further off the cliff.

About those 10 rings though! Marvellous!

DrClever

I don't know, man, ten just seems a bit showy, know what I mean?

Like the only reason he stopped collecting rings is that he ran out of space, he never thought "maybe that's enough rings".

He's probably contemplating a raid on Doc Ock just for the ring expansion possibilities the tech would bring.

Shang Chi and the Ten.. tacles, and So. Many. RINGS!