Introducing the All-New Cover Exchange System!

entrailbucket

I bet the price is set so high because they don't want people using it too much.

They've actually talked about this sort of thing before -- ISO was a terrible value for years because they didn't want people to buy it (and, shocker, nobody ever did). They charge for health packs because they want you to take breaks, not because they make any significant money off them (they don't, nobody buys packs ever).

KGB

@meadowsweet said:

@Aweberman said:
Here's a real world use for this system...
...But if this system had been in place a year ago, I could've swapped out all those extra covers...
...Of course, the 1250 HP cost is too much; something like 100-200 would be more reasonable in my mind...

So... the "real world use" case is that you'll never, ever use this? That's not much of a use case.

@KGB said:
Actually this policy was sucking up a lot of Customer Service time ... So it makes sense it would be one of the things they'd most want to change to reduce Customer Service usage which costs them money.

But... your argument is that the devs were spending money to manually process user requests. The simplest solution to that problem would have been to give players a tool that exactly replicates what their customer service employees were doing (allow them to top off the three current five-star Latest Legends to level 550, then choose to swap covers with any other five star character for free.)
That is NOT what they chose to do. Now we are charged exorbitant fees - per cover - and cannot select characters in Latest Legends.
Claiming this was merely a necessary, rational, cost-saving move by the devs is confusing two separate issues:
1. Did something need to be done? (Yes.)
2. Did it have to be this? (No.)

Sure but the most obvious thing (and definitely the most simple solution) to do was what Entrailbucket stated countless times. Simply stop doing it entirely. Therefore no more CS time spent on cover swaps.

If they did that, would you be madder or less mad than the current solution? Or what if they said they'd only do CS swaps if you bought a stark or more in the last month? How would you feel about that solution?

It's LONG been suspected the unofficial policy was put in place for whales who were spending real money to 550 character immediately. Since they were spending that money they were getting an unofficial VIP treatment of courtesy swaps in latest. Makes sense from a business standpoint to treat your best customers better than everyone else (virtually all businesses do this). But over time word got out and eventually non spending or virtually non-spending players were also taking advantage of this policy.

KGB

KGB

@Painmonger said:
I don't know that I'd ever be in the position to use the old system, but I do have 550 Okoye & SC currently. I never put any effort into it, but I have a dupe for Okoye at 496 now. If I'm doing the math right that means I could have spent 73,750 HP to convert those excess covers had this new system been in place.

Is that worth it? I definitely don't think so. I would much rather spend the HP on another roster slot 1 time & have the extra source of income from that dupe personally.

It makes for interesting math.

Right now you have a 500 Okoye and a 496 Okoye. How often do you use the 496? I imagine you use the 550 all the time unless you've run out of health packs (does that happen?). If you had spent that 73500, instead of a 496 you rarely (if ever) use you might have 550'd another 5 good star (say MThor) with all those extra covers.

BTW, the extra source of rewards doesn't compute. There are no extra rewards. Whether you got a dupe Okoye to 496 or just created a dupe Wasp and took her to 496 the rewards are exactly the same. It's only the 73500 HP spent to swap that's the difference.

KGB

justsing

I'm just one data point, but the old swap policy was what got me spending closer to whale levels as I was building my hoard. If it weren't for the swap policy, I definitely wouldn't have joined as many buy clubs as I did.

(I later cut back on spending when I got disillusioned with all the bugs... but I was still buying VIP and random offers monthly.)

entrailbucket

@KGB said:

@meadowsweet said:

@Aweberman said:
Here's a real world use for this system...
...But if this system had been in place a year ago, I could've swapped out all those extra covers...
...Of course, the 1250 HP cost is too much; something like 100-200 would be more reasonable in my mind...

So... the "real world use" case is that you'll never, ever use this? That's not much of a use case.

@KGB said:
Actually this policy was sucking up a lot of Customer Service time ... So it makes sense it would be one of the things they'd most want to change to reduce Customer Service usage which costs them money.

But... your argument is that the devs were spending money to manually process user requests. The simplest solution to that problem would have been to give players a tool that exactly replicates what their customer service employees were doing (allow them to top off the three current five-star Latest Legends to level 550, then choose to swap covers with any other five star character for free.)
That is NOT what they chose to do. Now we are charged exorbitant fees - per cover - and cannot select characters in Latest Legends.
Claiming this was merely a necessary, rational, cost-saving move by the devs is confusing two separate issues:
1. Did something need to be done? (Yes.)
2. Did it have to be this? (No.)

It's LONG been suspected the unofficial policy was put in place for whales who were spending real money to 550 character immediately. Since they were spending that money they were getting an unofficial VIP treatment of courtesy swaps in latest. Makes sense from a business standpoint to treat your best customers better than everyone else (virtually all businesses do this). But over time word got out and eventually non spending or virtually non-spending players were also taking advantage of this policy.

KGB

At the time the policy was put in place, hoarding wasn't a thing. Anyone in a position to 550 Latests was spending, and spending A LOT. Like an objectively dumb amount of money -- thousands of dollars, repeatedly.

It wasn't until much later that some folks developed the hoarding strategy and used it for that.

However, once swaps became much more of a non-whale thing, they never changed the policy (well, except for the times when they randomly applied it to tokens besides Latest, without telling anyone).

I think it's probably fair to say that the original policy was meant for megawhales. It's been a long time and they never changed it, though, so who knows.

meteor0905

Thanks for the new system ,I would NEVER buy offer like "Repeat Perference" that would get 1500 wildcard shards again.
And every offer which target for CP/LL

Monthly game funding for MPQ from $350 USD to under $100 is what you want ,isn't it ?

ThisisClemFandango

Let's all agree that some people will view this differently and that's OK.
Its only a game and theres no need to exacerbate things
Now lets all head to the winchester have a nice cold pint and wait for this whole thing to blow over.

Painmonger

@KGB said:

@Painmonger said:
I don't know that I'd ever be in the position to use the old system, but I do have 550 Okoye & SC currently. I never put any effort into it, but I have a dupe for Okoye at 496 now. If I'm doing the math right that means I could have spent 73,750 HP to convert those excess covers had this new system been in place.

Is that worth it? I definitely don't think so. I would much rather spend the HP on another roster slot 1 time & have the extra source of income from that dupe personally.

It makes for interesting math.

Right now you have a 500 Okoye and a 496 Okoye. How often do you use the 496? I imagine you use the 550 all the time unless you've run out of health packs (does that happen?). If you had spent that 73500, instead of a 496 you rarely (if ever) use you might have 550'd another 5 good star (say MThor) with all those extra covers.

BTW, the extra source of rewards doesn't compute. There are no extra rewards. Whether you got a dupe Okoye to 496 or just created a dupe Wasp and took her to 496 the rewards are exactly the same. It's only the 73500 HP spent to swap that's the difference.

KGB

I actually rarely use Okoye now, once I got her to 550 I got a little bored & tried to find other teams to shake things up. I did the same when I got SC to 550 as well. My current default is ascended 4* Juggs & Agatha.

As far as the extra rewards, I was referring to the HP cost. Obviously the reward tree for any given 5* is the same for applying the covers. My roster slots cost 1200 HP, swapping 1 5* cover costs 1250, so for 50 less HP I have access to an entire reward tree rather than just 1 reward. Sorry for the confusion.

I don't think the costs at the lower tiers are any more reasonable, especially with ascension. I could spend a bunch of HP to convert my 4* covers to Jugg but it doesn't seem worth it considering you'd have to spend that HP 4 times to go up one level.

Again, nothing to be mad at. I think the concept is good just vastly over costed.

meadowsweet

@Aweberman said:
But, yes, I would probably find myself spending the 1250 more often than not. Two relevant points:

• I feel I will get more utility out of another champion level than out of an undercovered or low-level dupe.

But that's my point - you will always get more utility out of another champ level of your primary copy of an effective character that you regularly use (say, increasing the Shang-Chi you sometimes use from level 533 to 534) than you'll get from having a duplicate at 1/0/0 or level 453 (why even bother wasting a roster slot when you already have a 550 copy?)

The reason I was re-framing your statements as absolutes is because that's how players discuss strategy in this game: never open covers you can't roster, always hoard Latest Legends tokens for the next meta, etc. If a strategy is optimal and leads to better outcomes, you're going to want to stick to it as much as possible, right?

meadowsweet

@KGB said:
Sure but the most obvious thing (and definitely the most simple solution) to do was what Entrailbucket stated countless times. Simply stop doing it entirely. Therefore no more CS time spent on cover swaps.

If they did that, would you be madder or less mad than the current solution? Or what if they said they'd only do CS swaps if you bought a stark or more in the last month? How would you feel about that solution?

I'm not mad. This change doesn't affect me. I've never hoarded tokens, and I don't have a single character over level 500. I've been burned out on this game for a while and just play the bare minimum now & then.

I just find it fascinating watching this process play out from the sidelines, and am trying to offer my perspective on why others are mad. There seem to be a few camps:

• people who have used the "unofficial" customer service cover swap loophole in the past, and are mad it's suddenly being taken away from them
• people who had planned to use it in the future, but are now having the door slammed in their face, preventing them from ever "catching up" to those who have
• people who are upset they never knew about it before, and are now mad because they feel like it suddenly explains how the people at the top of the leaderboards have managed to stay there - by "secretly" (in their minds) rapidly 550'ing the latest & greatest characters
• people who seem to be mad at their fellow players for acting like they're entitled to the generous policy that used to exist, who are defending the devs for essentially throwing in a brand-new paywall (while hypocritically claiming it was the only and/or best solution to their problem of over-burdened customer service employees...)

entrailbucket

@meadowsweet said:

@KGB said:
Sure but the most obvious thing (and definitely the most simple solution) to do was what Entrailbucket stated countless times. Simply stop doing it entirely. Therefore no more CS time spent on cover swaps.

If they did that, would you be madder or less mad than the current solution? Or what if they said they'd only do CS swaps if you bought a stark or more in the last month? How would you feel about that solution?

I'm not mad. This change doesn't affect me. I've never hoarded tokens, and I don't have a single character over level 500. I've been burned out on this game for a while and just play the bare minimum now & then.

I just find it fascinating watching this process play out from the sidelines, and am trying to offer my perspective on why others are mad. There seem to be a few camps:

• people who have used the "unofficial" customer service cover swap loophole in the past, and are mad it's suddenly being taken away from them
• people who had planned to use it in the future, but are now having the door slammed in their face, preventing them from ever "catching up" to those who have
• people who are upset they never knew about it before, and are now mad because they feel like it suddenly explains how the people at the top of the leaderboards have managed to stay there - by "secretly" (in their minds) rapidly 550'ing the latest & greatest characters
• people who seem to be mad at their fellow players for acting like they're entitled to the generous policy that used to exist, who are defending the devs for essentially throwing in a brand-new paywall (while hypocritically claiming it was the only and/or best solution to their problem of over-burdened customer service employees...)

Also remember the forum/discord/reddit/line (especially) are not representative of the greater playerbase. Your group 3 is probably the largest, by far, followed by 2, 1, and 4. Of course the forum etc are far more likely to be group 1 or 2.

(There's also a group 5, consisting of... probably just me, who thinks anything that makes groups 1 and 2 angry is hilarious and also probably good for the game).

BlixTheFrog

My take on this (personal opinion, not "think like me or you suck") :

• It will be nice not seeing 550s of the new release two seconds after it’s out.
• we’ve all paid more than 1250 in vaults for a CHANCE to get a specific cover.
• Classic Legends can become a very interesting place. I mean, once I’ll have the LLs at 550 (which was the plan of a lot of us so-called "big guns" once Namor joins I guess), why not switch to the place where a pull is 20CP with a 1:6 drop ratio instead of 1:7? I know I might work my way down for those toons I have nearing 550 by swapping the covers of toons I already maxed. Every excess cover you get can become whatever cover you want after all.
• and yes, it’s nice that swapping isn’t exclusive to people "in the know", that was just completely unfair.

killahKlown

@entrailbucket said:
(they don't, nobody buys packs ever).

Well i do.

KGB

@entrailbucket said:

@meadowsweet said:

@KGB said:
Sure but the most obvious thing (and definitely the most simple solution) to do was what Entrailbucket stated countless times. Simply stop doing it entirely. Therefore no more CS time spent on cover swaps.

If they did that, would you be madder or less mad than the current solution? Or what if they said they'd only do CS swaps if you bought a stark or more in the last month? How would you feel about that solution?

I'm not mad. This change doesn't affect me. I've never hoarded tokens, and I don't have a single character over level 500. I've been burned out on this game for a while and just play the bare minimum now & then.

I just find it fascinating watching this process play out from the sidelines, and am trying to offer my perspective on why others are mad. There seem to be a few camps:

• people who have used the "unofficial" customer service cover swap loophole in the past, and are mad it's suddenly being taken away from them
• people who had planned to use it in the future, but are now having the door slammed in their face, preventing them from ever "catching up" to those who have
• people who are upset they never knew about it before, and are now mad because they feel like it suddenly explains how the people at the top of the leaderboards have managed to stay there - by "secretly" (in their minds) rapidly 550'ing the latest & greatest characters
• people who seem to be mad at their fellow players for acting like they're entitled to the generous policy that used to exist, who are defending the devs for essentially throwing in a brand-new paywall (while hypocritically claiming it was the only and/or best solution to their problem of over-burdened customer service employees...)

Also remember the forum/discord/reddit/line (especially) are not representative of the greater playerbase. Your group 3 is probably the largest, by far, followed by 2, 1, and 4. Of course the forum etc are far more likely to be group 1 or 2.

(There's also a group 5, consisting of... probably just me, who thinks anything that makes groups 1 and 2 angry is hilarious and also probably good for the game).

I think group 5 is more likely players like me. Ones who don't care at all about the old unofficial policy being replaced by a new official one. Mostly because they've never used it nor were they ever likely to use it.

That puts you in group 6 which might be just you. Or maybe you and a few others who just like to see others suffer for their amusement.

KGB

trenchdigger

@BlixTheFrog
Completely agree.
1. This will increase the anticipation for the new shiny 5, which will no longer be accessible until 4 and a bit weeks after reveal.
2. If there was a lightning vault for 5000HP containing 2000 5* shards, I wouldn't hesitate to buy, so maybe the pricing isn't so bad, and we shouldn't keep using the mega vaults of the last 12 months as the benchmark for every comparison.
3. This certainly furthers the appeal of classics.
4. Embrace the change. Who wants to play the same stale, old, forever.

Daredevil217

@KGB said:

@entrailbucket said:

@meadowsweet said:

@KGB said:
Sure but the most obvious thing (and definitely the most simple solution) to do was what Entrailbucket stated countless times. Simply stop doing it entirely. Therefore no more CS time spent on cover swaps.

If they did that, would you be madder or less mad than the current solution? Or what if they said they'd only do CS swaps if you bought a stark or more in the last month? How would you feel about that solution?

I'm not mad. This change doesn't affect me. I've never hoarded tokens, and I don't have a single character over level 500. I've been burned out on this game for a while and just play the bare minimum now & then.

I just find it fascinating watching this process play out from the sidelines, and am trying to offer my perspective on why others are mad. There seem to be a few camps:

• people who have used the "unofficial" customer service cover swap loophole in the past, and are mad it's suddenly being taken away from them
• people who had planned to use it in the future, but are now having the door slammed in their face, preventing them from ever "catching up" to those who have
• people who are upset they never knew about it before, and are now mad because they feel like it suddenly explains how the people at the top of the leaderboards have managed to stay there - by "secretly" (in their minds) rapidly 550'ing the latest & greatest characters
• people who seem to be mad at their fellow players for acting like they're entitled to the generous policy that used to exist, who are defending the devs for essentially throwing in a brand-new paywall (while hypocritically claiming it was the only and/or best solution to their problem of over-burdened customer service employees...)

Also remember the forum/discord/reddit/line (especially) are not representative of the greater playerbase. Your group 3 is probably the largest, by far, followed by 2, 1, and 4. Of course the forum etc are far more likely to be group 1 or 2.

(There's also a group 5, consisting of... probably just me, who thinks anything that makes groups 1 and 2 angry is hilarious and also probably good for the game).

I think group 5 is more likely players like me. Ones who don't care at all about the old unofficial policy being replaced by a new official one. Mostly because they've never used it nor were they ever likely to use it.

That puts you in group 6 which might be just you. Or maybe you and a few others who just like to see others suffer for their amusement.

KGB

That’s just called trolling lol. Which if that’s where you derive joy in life is fine. To each their own. It doesn’t make you unique and different or special though. Believing that is the real comedy to me. Our boy Hound was a masterclass in “Group 6” for example. And there’s plenty more on every social media platform.

BobDucca

@trenchdigger said:
2. If there was a lightning vault for 5000HP containing 2000 5* shards, I wouldn't hesitate to buy, so maybe the pricing isn't so bad, and we shouldn't keep using the mega vaults of the last 12 months as the benchmark for every comparison.

Generally agree with your point but 5khp for 2000 5* shards would be over triple the value of the 750 shard vault for 6k hp, and that one is actually one of the better lightning vaults.

SuperCarrot

Something that hasn’t been brought up much…but what are the chances that this will have a negative effect on new players? They get HP think they are making a good choice making a swap instead of saving for a roster slot, now they are even further behind without knowing.

Just curious about thoughts on this as many new players in my alliance quit because of roster pressure. Happens often after I tell them about the new players guide and they discover they wasted resources (often iso character leveling that gets them in trouble).

Codex

@BlixTheFrog said:
My take on this (personal opinion, not "think like me or you suck") :

• It will be nice not seeing 550s of the new release two seconds after it’s out.

It is really that bad? Can't ppl cheese wins against those with multiple man and coulson or darkveil and kang. I have been hit many times with these cheese teams. I also sat through quite a few mthor riri teams with green supports. What is the issue with seeing 550 new release teams?

• Classic Legends can become a very interesting place. I mean, once I’ll have the LLs at 550 (which was the plan of a lot of us so-called "big guns" once Namor joins I guess), why not switch to the place where a pull is 20CP with a 1:6 drop ratio instead of 1:7? I know I might work my way down for those toons I have nearing 550 by swapping the covers of toons I already maxed. Every excess cover you get can become whatever cover you want after all.

I debated this all weekend. I decided against it, the bonus shards rate it 50% lower on 5* in classics. That makes a meaningful difference to me, that I reconsidered pulling from latest again. I might flip flop again before the weekend is done lol. The main reason for me to pull from latest is to not/minimize getting a dupe character started. While this feature prevents that I am not paying a tax to convert it to another 5*. I would rather build a dupe if that were the case. If 5* ascension happens it will be better to have a dupe.

meteor0905

The only result is almost ALL whales stop spending again ,that they buy everything for CP/LL and keep 550 train rolling ,something like 1000 dollars per month lol

@trenchdigger said:
@BlixTheFrog
Completely agree.
1. This will increase the anticipation for the new shiny 5, which will no longer be accessible until 4 and a bit weeks after reveal.
2. If there was a lightning vault for 5000HP containing 2000 5* shards, I wouldn't hesitate to buy, so maybe the pricing isn't so bad, and we shouldn't keep using the mega vaults of the last 12 months as the benchmark for every comparison.
3. This certainly furthers the appeal of classics.
4. Embrace the change. Who wants to play the same stale, old, forever.