Introducing the All-New Cover Exchange System!

IceIX

Just to confirm, we'll be honoring the current methodology of swaps through the release of R317. Once that launches, this new system comes into effect.

WilliamK1983

Haven't read the actual post yet, but read all the comments. Have no opinion of it either way right now. Don't know if it'll benefit me or is not for me at the moment.

The thing that pisses me off is the time wasted on this when all we ever hear is engine engine engine for things the base is asking for, like a new pve. I wish they'd just run pve's and pvp seasons and then do engine work and nothing else.

Zifnab0

Replacing a service that only allowed swapping of covers/shards of maxed LL characters with no extra cost for a system that enables swapping of all maxed character covers EXCEPT those in LL's that has a significant cost is a real head scratcher. Yes the requirement to contact CS for the swap process was a little awkward and a system built into the game would better. But creating a system to do the opposite of what existed previously is baffling to me.

If this new system stayed as is cost wise for all characters not in LL and those in LL could ONLY swap for other LL (or the newest like currently) at no or minimal cost that would make more sense.

BriMan2222

Will this really cause a huge outcry? Shardmas effected a large amount of players. There were plenty of players who had 4 stars at high levels that would lose out on shards from retro feeders not being honored.

How many players were in a position to be able to 550 every latest legend character and then have excess covers?

The devs said in a previous q&a that only the top 10% of all players have even a single champed 5 star. I'm guessing it's only like the top 1% that have 550's and the top 1% of the top 1% that were able to take advantage of the CS policy. I'd also bet that most of those players were doing so by hoarding CP and LL tokens through free game play and weren't spending ludicrous amounts of money.

I kinda doubt the small group of players that will be upset by this change will make a huge impact. Id actually imagine there are many more players in 3 and 4 star land that will be glad to be able to exchange covers of mysterio or whoever for polaris.

entrailbucket

@Tony_Foot said:
I don't have a 550 May, so cannot compete but was working on a hoard to get one. It will now cost me 100k or £500. Can you get more pay to win than this, so from that respect I agree this is a spenders advantage more than any before.

I cannot hope to complete in pve ever if that was a goal.

By the time you got enough resources to 550 Aunt May, they'd have released someone stronger/faster, and the whales would have that person maxed out.

You were never going to truly compete -- the game is just stringing you along by teasing the possibility. They sell the chase.

Timemachinego

@entrailbucket said:
By the time you got enough resources to 550 Aunt May, they'd have released someone stronger/faster, and the whales would have that person maxed out.

You were never going to truly compete -- the game is just stringing you along by teasing the possibility. They sell the chase.

In theory, yeah, but what's faster than a turn-0 two button press win in 90% of cases? Are they really going to debut the character that at 550 sends you straight to the win screen on node start?

BriMan2222

@Tony_Foot said:

@entrailbucket said:

@Tony_Foot said:

By the time you got enough resources to 550 Aunt May, they'd have released someone stronger/faster, and the whales would have that person maxed out.

You were never going to truly compete -- the game is just stringing you along by teasing the possibility. They sell the chase.

I have got enough resources, I've been saving for years. I was ready to pull for the next rotation and overpull for omega and/or May. They won't release anything faster than May because that would just require starting a match and insta auto win.

They said they would still honor CS swaps until this goes live. You could still crack open your hoard now and take advantage. You'll just 550 nova instead of namor.

WhiteBomber

This could have been a cool feature if not for the cost. It feels very clearly like a way to tax the people abusing the CS swaps, which is fine by me since that seemed like a silly thing to do to begin with. The costs are way off though, they could have taxed the rich and still gave those with smaller rosters a good way to level their favorites without being so harsh.

On the flipside, the vaults are also so bad lately that this almost feels like an on par way to spend your HP.

Omegased

To be fair, the current cover swap process is hideously broken. A back end swap, meaning if you hoard right you can get everyone to 550 instantly. They obviously want to change that.

I also wonder the volume of people who use the current system. It can't be many.

Timemachinego

@WhiteBomber said:
This could have been a cool feature if not for the cost. It feels very clearly like a way to tax the people abusing the CS swaps, which is fine by me since that seemed like a silly thing to do to begin with. The costs are way off though, they could have taxed the rich and still gave those with smaller rosters a good way to level their favorites without being so harsh.

On the flipside, the vaults are also so bad lately that this almost feels like an on par way to spend your HP.

I'd love it if you could explain how the old system was "abuse". It was certainly hard on the CS team, so building a system in like this COULD be awesome if it weren't for the built in costs, but nothing about that old system actually hurt anyone. Players that were able to 550 every new 5* character day 1 will still be able to accomplish that over the time that character is in LL, it's just going to take more micro-management. If anything, the old policy helped players like me who came in to the game "late" (4 1/2 years now) have some sort of catch-up mechanic.

My read is that if they cut (or at least heavily slash) the costs and allow swaps within LL this would be a huge plus for everyone involved, but for some boneheaded reason they designed it in a way that is actively punitive to anyone that makes use of it.

Hammer3001

Well I like what I’m seeing here.

Going to allow targeted promotions to go into Ludicrous Speed!

entrailbucket

@Timemachinego said:

@entrailbucket said:
By the time you got enough resources to 550 Aunt May, they'd have released someone stronger/faster, and the whales would have that person maxed out.

You were never going to truly compete -- the game is just stringing you along by teasing the possibility. They sell the chase.

In theory, yeah, but what's faster than a turn-0 two button press win in 90% of cases? Are they really going to debut the character that at 550 sends you straight to the win screen on node start?

I mean...that does seem to be the next logical step, doesn't it?

More likely, there'll be a new difficulty level in PvE, with higher health and better rewards. They have to keep moving the goalposts -- winning everything forever seems interesting when you're trying to get there, but once you do, it's a recipe for boredom and burnout.

entrailbucket

@Timemachinego said:

@WhiteBomber said:
This could have been a cool feature if not for the cost. It feels very clearly like a way to tax the people abusing the CS swaps, which is fine by me since that seemed like a silly thing to do to begin with. The costs are way off though, they could have taxed the rich and still gave those with smaller rosters a good way to level their favorites without being so harsh.

On the flipside, the vaults are also so bad lately that this almost feels like an on par way to spend your HP.

I'd love it if you could explain how the old system was "abuse". It was certainly hard on the CS team, so building a system in like this COULD be awesome if it weren't for the built in costs, but nothing about that old system actually hurt anyone. Players that were able to 550 every new 5* character day 1 will still be able to accomplish that over the time that character is in LL, it's just going to take more micro-management. If anything, the old policy helped players like me who came in to the game "late" (4 1/2 years now) have some sort of catch-up mechanic.

My read is that if they cut (or at least heavily slash) the costs and allow swaps within LL this would be a huge plus for everyone involved, but for some boneheaded reason they designed it in a way that is actively punitive to anyone that makes use of it.

It hurt me. This is a competitive game. Every mode is a competition.
Anything that helps one player necessarily hurts everyone else.

Guarantee the swappers don't show up on leaderboards in PvE, and can't attack me or clog up my queues in PvP, and I'll agree that it doesn't hurt anyone.

dazzer86

Hi Devs. Whale here. I quit. Well done 👍

Timemachinego

@entrailbucket said:

@Timemachinego said:

@entrailbucket said:

I mean...that does seem to be the next logical step, doesn't it?

More likely, there'll be a new difficulty level in PvE, with higher health and better rewards. They have to keep moving the goalposts -- winning everything forever seems interesting when you're trying to get there, but once you do, it's a recipe for boredom and burnout.

I'd hope that a higher difficulty would be the case. The problem with nerfing May (other than driving away some more of the end-game playerbase, mostly "newer" players at that level to boot) is that there are a number of other similarly broken character/support combos at 550, they're just ones that fewer/older players have access to at that level.

skittledaddy

I LOVE this!!
My only complaint is that we couldn't have had this added years ago when I was struggling to fully-cover my Classic 5s. Now that that journey has been completed for a while I will simply use this to better manage my mangled 2* & 3* roster situation from getting too many pre-ascended versions. And to better focus on some lagging 4*s by doing something more productive with those covers than making dupes of bad chars I will never use (or even worse, selling the cover).

Seph1roth5

This seems WAY too expensive. Like someone pointed out on the official forum (and ice responded to), the average HP per 5* cover is 200. Their math seems to think every cover is the equivalent of 1k, so they're charging a bit more for a swap.

Now I only have a 5* at 550, and it's a 1-5 iron man. But someday I want to have a real 5 at 550. If I unhoard and get, say, agatha to 550, and then get more covers while pulling for the LL, I'm not paying 1250hp to turn them into another 5.

Same with a 4*. If I have a maxed 4, my future covers are going to get that 4 ascended. If it were FREE I'd still probably be iffy about it. I'd only swap a 4 for another 4 if I have one at 12 covers and have a bunch saved and just want to champ them. Charging HP for it is ludicrous.

This system should be super cheap and something to just sink stuff into. Like 10k iso or 25hp for a 5 or something. Not a gigantic impedement meant to drain a ton of resources.

(from Droogie4Ever)

Timemachinego

@entrailbucket said:

It hurt me. This is a competitive game. Every mode is a competition.
Anything that helps one player necessarily hurts everyone else.

Guarantee the swappers don't show up on leaderboards in PvE, and can't attack me or clog up my queues in PvP, and I'll agree that it doesn't hurt anyone.

That's certainly one way to look at it, though I'd argue it's a wrong one. If something is available to all and only some take advantage of it, aren't you just creating your own problem? That's a you issue.

You chose to use your resources in a different way than other people did and you'd rather be "right" about the way you used them than have used them "correctly". I was only able to make cover swaps during one particular set (May's, was saving for actual years at that point) and the excess of those were mostly applied to second-use characters, I had already taken the most pertinent characters close to 550 without swaps.

SuperCarrot

At the end of the day they took something that was free (the 550 swaps) and monetized it to put pressure on HP to force more spending. They had attacked the bottom levels with increasing the number of 2 and 3 stars. Now they are coming for the top end.

As stated before, if you make me feel like I am getting something I value…I spend money. A roster slot per cover essentially, in the five star range…that is some interesting pricing.

entrailbucket

@Timemachinego said:

@entrailbucket said:

It hurt me. This is a competitive game. Every mode is a competition.
Anything that helps one player necessarily hurts everyone else.

Guarantee the swappers don't show up on leaderboards in PvE, and can't attack me or clog up my queues in PvP, and I'll agree that it doesn't hurt anyone.

That's certainly one way to look at it, though I'd argue it's a wrong one. If something is available to all and only some take advantage of it, aren't you just creating your own problem? That's a you issue.

You chose to use your resources in a different way than other people did and you'd rather be "right" about the way you used them than have used them "correctly". I was only able to make cover swaps during one particular set (May's, was saving for actual years at that point) and the excess of those were mostly applied to second-use characters, I had already taken the most pertinent characters close to 550 without swaps.

Sure, but what about players who had no idea the "old system" even existed (because it wasn't documented in game, or on the forum, or even officially acknowledged anywhere)?

It wasn't "available to all" -- that's the point, and that's the problem I've had with this since Day 1. If it was documented and publicized, that'd be a different story. This was kept secret, and only shared with folks who were in the know.