Discussion on retro rewards policy in regard to character ascension

DeNappa

@meadowsweet said:
I'm not sure why so many people are so invested in carrying water for the devs and defending a dumb, arbitrary, unfair, anti-player policy (that either doesn't affect them, or they're using to justify why they will NEVER Ascend any characters, and anyone who does is reckless or stupid?):

Sir this is a Wendy's...

You're wrongly (and judgingly) mischaracterizing most of that part of the player base. As more people in this thread have said, the issue is not that they're defending what policy the devs chose, but that they actively made decisions on that policy.

There's multiple types of perceived unfairness here:

• Players who knowingly put off ascending character(s) for an indeterminate amount of time, placing them on a roster disadvantage compared to players who did
• Players who knowingly actively ascended character(s), placing them on a disadvantage in covering some new character releases faster or with less resources.

You are advocating for a policy change to mitigate the second category, while offering nothing for the first.

KGB

@entrailbucket said:
Of course, they are 100% going to cave and reverse this policy, but still...

I dunno about that. Doesn't seem to be nearly the level of anger that other decisions have had in the past (as you know those generated 30+ pages of posts plus review bombing etc) given there was an official policy statement about this twice (original and then after Nico). There are a handful of players here posting about this but overall doesn't seem to be enough for them to consider reversing this policy.

Now in the long term, I can see them ultimately fixing things so they can track ascended characters to new characters as part of their code rewrite. So maybe in 6 months or a year things may change.

KGB

entrailbucket

@KGB said:

@entrailbucket said:
Of course, they are 100% going to cave and reverse this policy, but still...

I dunno about that. Doesn't seem to be nearly the level of anger that other decisions have had in the past (as you know those generated 30+ pages of posts plus review bombing etc) given there was an official policy statement about this twice (original and then after Nico). There are a handful of players here posting about this but overall doesn't seem to be enough for them to consider reversing this policy.

Now in the long term, I can see them ultimately fixing things so they can track ascended characters to new characters as part of their code rewrite. So maybe in 6 months or a year things may change.

KGB

It's really hard to evaluate this, because this forum gets a lot less traction than it used to and a lot of the most hardcore vets interact with them through Discord or Reddit or whatever else. I'm not in those channels either though, so who knows.

bluewolf

This was posted on Discord yesterday. The issue is something they are looking at; it will be some time yet before an official change occurs. It seems to me that they will issue retro covers in some fashion to people who ascend characters on an automatic basis at some future date. I assume there is some backend difficulty vs stinginess at play here when it comes to the retro covers.

I don't care what they do, to be honest. I have ascended 2 4s and have a few I am considering, but haven't done because....rewards. Should I max/min, should I max/max (and wait like another year or more), etc. But it's also...just a game. There will always be people you are further ahead than, and behind, and whatever. The goalposts will always advance and ascension just moved all the goalposts into infinity as you would never be able to ascend and max everyone without, I suppose, making buying HP and purchasing tokens a multiple-hour-per-day-endeavor. Especially if you aren't already a massive whale and/or player who's played for 10 years and have 2-3 copies of each 4. There are thousands and thousands of covers you would need to collect to ascend every character and each month they add another 3 and 4 you could favorite for a very long time, and probably not finish up without plowing lots of money into the game. Certainly not every single one.

Also note that the focus is rightfully on the 4 tier. There are 143 (including MM) 4s in game. There will be 11 more 5s in 2024. This means that 7.6% of the tier will become new/revised feeders (assuming no brand-new 4s feeds a new 5) or, if you ascended all of the 4s, you would enjoy 92.4% of them without any annoyance under the policy of "no retro rewards for ascended 4s" - which again seems to be temporary. Just trying to put some perspective on "I shouldn't ascend this character because I might miss some covers" and "this sucks because I ascended this character and am missing out" while for the vast majority of the characters you ascend, there will simply not any who feed a new 5 for the remainder of this calendar year.

People really hate losing the opportunity to get something later, don't they? (Note: I do too.)

DrClever

@MegaBee said:

@DAZ0273 said:
I don't understand how ascending a roster doesn't empower a roster or increase playability? Those things have nothing to do with getting free covers of a completely different character surely? Coulson is still an awesome 5* regardless of whether he does or doesn't give out covers to Turner D Century.

Your signature is delightful. Just wanted to say that.

Wait, what? This board has signatures?

How do I unhide those?

Daredevil217

. > @revskip said:

Some folks ascended early and reaped the benefits of that by being able to use those characters. I did with Medusa, my dupe was baby champed but I wanted at least one ascended in each power tier so I bit the bullet and eschewed the extra rewards for a more powerful version. And it has been great. I have used her and she has helped me get better rewards.

I also knew that if her feeder got changed I might not get those covers and certainly would miss out on a few Black Bolt covers if I just waited. It's just a couple of covers and I figured the benefit of having a 5* Medusa outweighed any rewards I might get down the road.

Anyone who has ascended a character has gotten a benefit from it already in having additional boosted characters available for both PvE and PvP leading to easier climbs and placements. I'm not going to riot if they go back on their stated policy but I do really feel like the entitlement is over the top for those who want to both have their cake by ascending immediately and eat it as well by receiving covers they were already told were off the menu.

Don't want to ascend characters out of fears that you might miss out on a couple of covers at some indeterminate time? Awesome, don't. Those that do ascend will have it easier than you will but you'll get the extra covers.

See this point is interesting to me and I’d love to know more about it. I actually opened thousands of tokens to max/max dusa before ascending. And guess what happened? My PVP/PVE performance is exactly the same as it was before ascending her. She made no difference. She’s level 485 currently but gives no real competitive advantage. That said I have a very diverse roster and lots of options. Is Medusa one of your first fives? What rewards are you able to reach now that you haven’t been able to obtain before ascending her? I don’t think I’ve ever seen an ascended Medusa in my MMR. Not one. That’s why I’m curious about this bounty of rewards that was reaped. And this is Medusa. I REALLY can’t imagine people were breaking into the end game and netting T20 rewards on the regs thanks to early-ascending X-23. But since I haven’t ascended her myself yet, I really can’t say.

Daredevil217

@meadowsweet said:

>

They're acting like professional economists who are worried about real problems: inflation, unemployment, or foreclosures that affect real people's lives. But this is a silly, make-believe, match-three mobile game. Why can't you just say "That's a real bummer; I could see what that would be upsetting for a player like you, even though it doesn't affect me. There's really no reason they can't update their bad policy and give players retro rewards."

I think at the end of the day this game serves two functions. 1) silly super hero match 3 toilet game. 2) strategic roster-building/collecting game. People who view the game as a match-3 first and foremost are likely ascending early because it’s more toys to match gems with. I believe people who view it as a strategic deck builder or catch em all are less likely to ascend early (or at least more cautious) and are more likely to be trying to min-max. Either way, the amount of salt/judgment one group has towards the other is just… weird to me. Because I don’t think either side is wrong based on how they view the game. But it often feels here that everyone wants to believe their way is the right way. And… they REALLY want to feel that they gambled and made the “right decision”… even if it means upholding a bad policy that if reversed would benefit all players. Cutting off your nose to spite your face.

People are complaining that the policy is player unfriendly and a bunch of folks jump from the treetops yelling “you made your choice! The devs were clear!” Yeah… that’s not the argument being made but… thank you anyway?

revskip

@Daredevil217 said:
. > @revskip said:

Some folks ascended early and reaped the benefits of that by being able to use those characters. I did with Medusa, my dupe was baby champed but I wanted at least one ascended in each power tier so I bit the bullet and eschewed the extra rewards for a more powerful version. And it has been great. I have used her and she has helped me get better rewards.

I also knew that if her feeder got changed I might not get those covers and certainly would miss out on a few Black Bolt covers if I just waited. It's just a couple of covers and I figured the benefit of having a 5* Medusa outweighed any rewards I might get down the road.

Anyone who has ascended a character has gotten a benefit from it already in having additional boosted characters available for both PvE and PvP leading to easier climbs and placements. I'm not going to riot if they go back on their stated policy but I do really feel like the entitlement is over the top for those who want to both have their cake by ascending immediately and eat it as well by receiving covers they were already told were off the menu.

Don't want to ascend characters out of fears that you might miss out on a couple of covers at some indeterminate time? Awesome, don't. Those that do ascend will have it easier than you will but you'll get the extra covers.

See this point is interesting to me and I’d love to know more about it. I actually opened thousands of tokens to max/max dusa before ascending. And guess what happened? My PVP/PVE performance is exactly the same as it was before ascending her. She made no difference. She’s level 485 currently but gives no real competitive advantage. That said I have a very diverse roster and lots of options. Is Medusa one of your first fives? What rewards are you able to reach now that you haven’t been able to obtain before ascending her? I don’t think I’ve ever seen an ascended Medusa in my MMR. Not one. That’s why I’m curious about this bounty of rewards that was reaped. And this is Medusa. I REALLY can’t imagine people were breaking into the end game and netting T20 rewards on the regs thanks to early-ascending X-23. But since I haven’t ascended her myself yet, I really can’t say.

There are plenty of times of the week when I'm playing Lightning rounds plus a PvP plus have to do clears in PvE. I rotate my 5s during those periods because I don't have every 5 champed (just over 2/3rds with my highest in the 490s). So while Medusa hasn't done heavy lifting during every event I definitely use her every time she's boosted and sometimes even when she isn't for LRs depending on what I'm hitting. She saves health packs and lets me keep playing longer which in turn leads to more rewards and especially in LRs more 1* covers to feed the reward factories. I'm sure that is true of anyone who doesn't just power through with the same 3-4 teams over and over which would be mind-numbingly boring to me. Having more tools in the toolbox is beneficial. In PvE she has not been featured yet to the best of my memory but I'm fairly certain that shaving off a second or two there thanks to improved match damage on what ever she's tanking would also be beneficial in a mode that rewards the folks who end quickest. Anyone who ascended and used X-23 when she was featured a couple of weeks ago did so for exactly that benefit.

The underlying tone of your post seems to be mocking or sardonic but I figured I'd answer anyway.

entrailbucket

Yeah, "every character is awful/useless because I can do everything with 550 Thor/Shang-Chi" is certainly a take.

Anybody who thinks that should seriously just not bother with ascension at all -- if you don't want more options, the feature is not for you.

Codex

@bluewolf said:

This response, makes me want to ascend everything now.

jp1

@Codex said:

@bluewolf said:

This response, makes me want to ascend everything now.

Exactly, as it should be.

MegaBee

@DrClever said:

@MegaBee said:

@DAZ0273 said:
I don't understand how ascending a roster doesn't empower a roster or increase playability? Those things have nothing to do with getting free covers of a completely different character surely? Coulson is still an awesome 5* regardless of whether he does or doesn't give out covers to Turner D Century.

Your signature is delightful. Just wanted to say that.

Wait, what? This board has signatures?

How do I unhide those?

Should be under your account settings. Not a lot of people have them set up.

Daredevil217

@revskip said:

@Daredevil217 said:
. > @revskip said:

Some folks ascended early and reaped the benefits of that by being able to use those characters. I did with Medusa, my dupe was baby champed but I wanted at least one ascended in each power tier so I bit the bullet and eschewed the extra rewards for a more powerful version. And it has been great. I have used her and she has helped me get better rewards.

I also knew that if her feeder got changed I might not get those covers and certainly would miss out on a few Black Bolt covers if I just waited. It's just a couple of covers and I figured the benefit of having a 5* Medusa outweighed any rewards I might get down the road.

Anyone who has ascended a character has gotten a benefit from it already in having additional boosted characters available for both PvE and PvP leading to easier climbs and placements. I'm not going to riot if they go back on their stated policy but I do really feel like the entitlement is over the top for those who want to both have their cake by ascending immediately and eat it as well by receiving covers they were already told were off the menu.

Don't want to ascend characters out of fears that you might miss out on a couple of covers at some indeterminate time? Awesome, don't. Those that do ascend will have it easier than you will but you'll get the extra covers.

See this point is interesting to me and I’d love to know more about it. I actually opened thousands of tokens to max/max dusa before ascending. And guess what happened? My PVP/PVE performance is exactly the same as it was before ascending her. She made no difference. She’s level 485 currently but gives no real competitive advantage. That said I have a very diverse roster and lots of options. Is Medusa one of your first fives? What rewards are you able to reach now that you haven’t been able to obtain before ascending her? I don’t think I’ve ever seen an ascended Medusa in my MMR. Not one. That’s why I’m curious about this bounty of rewards that was reaped. And this is Medusa. I REALLY can’t imagine people were breaking into the end game and netting T20 rewards on the regs thanks to early-ascending X-23. But since I haven’t ascended her myself yet, I really can’t say.

There are plenty of times of the week when I'm playing Lightning rounds plus a PvP plus have to do clears in PvE. I rotate my 5s during those periods because I don't have every 5 champed (just over 2/3rds with my highest in the 490s). So while Medusa hasn't done heavy lifting during every event I definitely use her every time she's boosted and sometimes even when she isn't for LRs depending on what I'm hitting. She saves health packs and lets me keep playing longer which in turn leads to more rewards and especially in LRs more 1* covers to feed the reward factories. I'm sure that is true of anyone who doesn't just power through with the same 3-4 teams over and over which would be mind-numbingly boring to me. Having more tools in the toolbox is beneficial. In PvE she has not been featured yet to the best of my memory but I'm fairly certain that shaving off a second or two there thanks to improved match damage on what ever she's tanking would also be beneficial in a mode that rewards the folks who end quickest. Anyone who ascended and used X-23 when she was featured a couple of weeks ago did so for exactly that benefit.

The underlying tone of your post seems to be mocking or sardonic but I figured I'd answer anyway.

There’s a difference between gaining more rewards due to having an ascended Medusa and getting the same rewards but having a more enjoyable and varied experience doing so due to having alternative options. The latter I totally get but it’s not quite the same as the former and don’t want to conflate the two. If I’m gunning for rewards and playing my best most competitive teams, Medusa isn’t on those squads and thus doesn’t impact my earning potential. If I need healing to sustain play I have other option (Shang is the most obvious candidate) so she’s not a necessity for that either. Now if I’m just playing to experiment and not really caring about rewards, having Medusa can absolutely help with that.

I do appreciate you actually responding in the way you did because our situations aren’t the same and you named two things that are different in your play style. One, she is seemingly most useful in lightning rounds. I typically play one for the milestone reward and am out. So that’s a whole section of the game where she may indeed be a BOSS and because I don’t play it I don’t see her. Second, I have every 5* champed with an insane amount of pulls ready to champ whatever is next. So it seems I have way more options. I don’t want to minimize her impact on a roster without other options to net those rewards or play longer. That’s the exact context I was looking for. I know of all the characters I ascended none have resulted in more rewards for me personally. Even Polaris who I pretty much played exclusively in Hulk PVP. Had I had not hat her I have enough other options that I could’ve played something else and gotten the same rewards I always get.

As a final note I did see my first ascended Medusa today ironically enough! Paired with Polaris she attacked my BRB/Polaris combo. Easy retal, but the point is I saw it.

Daredevil217

@Codex said:

@bluewolf said:

This response, makes me want to ascend everything now.

I don't think they’ll go back and give retro rewards for already ascended toons. I’m guessing it’s a “once this goes live, any ascended toons made feeders will be rewarded retro covers moving forward”. Though it’d be cool if it worked the way I’m thinking you’re reading it.

I’m set to get 9 covers. For my two X-23. If I get another 9 for ascended X-23 on top of it, that would be pretty sick.

Zalasta

I wish that I could say that I’ve rarely seen this level of entitlement on the forums. The devs told us what the rules were, people ascended, and still they complain. It’s all so tiresome.

That said, I’m set to get max covers for my level 367 X-23. 😎

Codex

@Daredevil217 said:

@Codex said:

@bluewolf said:

This response, makes me want to ascend everything now.

I don't think they’ll go back and give retro rewards for already ascended toons. I’m guessing it’s a “once this goes live, any ascended toons made feeders will be rewarded retro covers moving forward”. Though it’d be cool if it worked the way I’m thinking you’re reading it.

I’m set to get 9 covers. For my two X-23. If I get another 9 for ascended X-23 on top of it, that would be pretty sick.

You are wrong about the retro rewards.The mpq Karens will not allow it.

ThaRoadWarrior

The only reason I could see for not just giving a 6-cover reward retroactively to someone with an ascendant 4* is if they someday plan to sell pre-ascended 4-to-5 characters, at which point those rewards would not have been previously earned and it might be hard to programatically distinguish how it got on someone's roster vs doing it the long way. though again, this would have been the direct result of a purchase, so what would then be the harm? Not for me to say really.

Daredevil217

@Codex said:

@Daredevil217 said:

@Codex said:

@bluewolf said:

This response, makes me want to ascend everything now.

I don't think they’ll go back and give retro rewards for already ascended toons. I’m guessing it’s a “once this goes live, any ascended toons made feeders will be rewarded retro covers moving forward”. Though it’d be cool if it worked the way I’m thinking you’re reading it.

I’m set to get 9 covers. For my two X-23. If I get another 9 for ascended X-23 on top of it, that would be pretty sick.

You are wrong about the retro rewards.The mpq Karens will not allow it.

I think it might be a coding thing honestly. The “Karen's” are upset now but if the techs not there then the techs not there. I think it’d be hard to know which ascended toon already got paid out and which ones didn’t. And if there’s not a way to tell then you’re just out of luck.

Honestly, Devpool’s post means a lot to me. I believe that they understand that the system as it currently functions is player unfriendly and for a lot of players is discouraging ascending. Not only do they get it, but they are looking into a fix. I get it’s not feasible to manually give out retros every single time, so until they figure out a way to automate it, you just have to roll the dice. Once I ascend Rockett I don’t really have anyone else close to max/max other than I think Miles who is pretty safe lol. So hopefully they’ll fix it before I hit that point and I’ll just take the L when non-ascended 5* Grockett becomes a thing.

BlackBoltRocks

@entrailbucket said:
Oh, also: I don't understand people saying 4->5* X-23 is bad/worthless. Her healing passive is great, and both actives are worth casting. In a dedicated strike tile team, she can really shine. She's definitely better than a bunch of the dreck 5* floating around, including plenty of recent ones.

I'm not sure how she compares to this new character because I haven't used this new character, but she's FAR from useless. If you're only interested in using the most powerful unboosted characters for everything, or you're generally not interested in trying out boosted characters and finding combos, why ascend anyone at all? This feature really isn't for you.

Yea 4asc5 X-23 is fun. I had a lot of fun using her when she was boosted recently, especially because Samurai Daken was boosted alongside her and she totally showed him up. Weapon Hex has a much better Green, but as you said 4asc5 X-23's healing is great, and if she were boosted this week I would be spamming her over dreck like Miles and Odin, especially with boosted Low-Level AI Ultron.

KGB

@Codex said:

@Daredevil217 said:

@Codex said:

@bluewolf said:

This response, makes me want to ascend everything now.

I don't think they’ll go back and give retro rewards for already ascended toons. I’m guessing it’s a “once this goes live, any ascended toons made feeders will be rewarded retro covers moving forward”. Though it’d be cool if it worked the way I’m thinking you’re reading it.

I’m set to get 9 covers. For my two X-23. If I get another 9 for ascended X-23 on top of it, that would be pretty sick.

You are wrong about the retro rewards.The mpq Karens will not allow it.

The problem with the way you are thinking is that it may be many months (or a year) before they implement the new system. By then there will be no way to keep track of who ascended what and when. By that I mean if you ascend at 370+270 you should get 6 covers (from the 370) but in 6 months time you may have your ascended character at +10 more levels. So if they tried to go back and award retro feeders they wouldn't know whether you ascended a 370+280 (7 total covers) or 370+270 (6 total characters). Plus they'd have no idea whether you waited to ascend until after the feeders were announced and had already gotten 6 feeders so you'd be getting an extra 6.

So I think Daredevil has it right. Once they implement the long term fix it will be for all characters going forward and won't be retroactively applied to anything that's happening between now and then. That's what they have always done (ie if you sold a max champed 370 X23 last week you aren't getting 6 feeders because you sold her. The same applied when feeders first debuted many years ago and many players had sold tons of max champs over the years and they never got anything for that).

So if you ascend everyone now, do it with the knowledge that you are VERY unlikely to be retro rewarded for that in 6 or 12 months time when they roll out a new system that fixes this issue.

KGB