Patch Notes - 11/27 - DISCUSSION

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  • Unknown
    Unknown
    IceIX wrote:
    Currently waiting to board a large metal tube and hurtle through the sky.


    I knew it, Ice is an astronaut.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    Doubled? Not up 50...but DOUBLED? You know who used similar business practice when thier income wqs hurting? Blockbuster. You know what they've been doing for last few weeks? Right, going pit of business.
    Now there is almost no reason to buy the packs at all with hp. I'd Miuch rather spend @1250 or whatever it is on a 3*** skill up and guarantee a level in what I want than buy 4 packs and MAYBE get (3) 2** stars and a (3)*** at random. Only issue is grabbing that first cover.

    What this does is stop you from bringing in New customers because the high Lvl players are so high and got such an advantage from playing before the price gouging that new players say "nope...I am not spending that Mich for that.". On the flip side though...this pricing falls in line with pricing in other pay to win freemium card related games. That said, most of those games are a monsterously bad choice to buy. As a final note on that though...I'm always free to play in games like this. Ruins the fun to spend money and just frustrates you to throw down 50 to 100 dollars, an hour or two pay and more for others, to pull things without ever being required to give solid drop rate data to us. So, maybe my opinion is invalidated and ppl actually spending money will still do so at the DOUBLED price point.

    As for sue storm....wow, at a glance she looks kinda awful... Especially when you consider all matches are fought against a mildly stupid but omnipotent machine. 4 star bagman lol. The yellow looks cool, but 19-21 yellow to activate is anywhere from 2-4 uses of someone else's yellow...which I guarantee would be enough to knock out an enemy. Maybe she will combo her yellow with a character later on, but for now the ability cost is simply too high to be useful. The other two abilities are clearly support moves to help out countdown tile characters but her solo ability seems low, which means she NEEDS the other characters to help her. That said, the force bubbles might be the type of thing that you have to try it to really grasp its usefulness so ill say my judgement of them are reserved for now.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    if the force bubble explosion generates ap, then its god damn game over for ppl if she gets one combo off
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    IceIX wrote:
    forgrim wrote:
    i do have to wonder why it was raised to 300 hp. is it because with tokens, there's just an abundance of covers going out? there has to be some arbitrary reason, even if its to make more money (more hp as prizes, from random things?)
    Currently waiting to board a large metal tube and hurtle through the sky. Until then, I'll field that one. Similar to cover slot pricing, we're testing price ceilings. We think we know what the game will bear without losing sales over it and go from there. For example with the Cover Slots, we monitored transactions post patch for a while. After the initial dip from users that were (rightfully) annoyed at the change, they went right back up to what they were before compared to our number of users. Retention of users didn't dip. No other alarm bells. To put it basically in the Middle School econ lesson I had way back in the mists of time, we were selling our pens at too low a price. Sure, people were fine with that price, but they were, as a whole, just as fine with the same product at a higher one.

    I think the other thing you need to take into account with the cover slot change is that after the price increase you guys started making HP much more readily available. I held out for a while but then started winning lots of HP and needed the slots so spent it. When 200HP took a week to earn it was a lot of HP to spend on a slot so making it 350 was painful. when I found I could earn that 350HP faster than I used to be able to earn the 200HP then the value became more acceptable. I assume the same applies to the 150HP cover slot - with the HP more readily available it was under priced. I hate games of chance so I really don't partake in paying for covers no mater what the cost so 150 or 300 is the same to me. Heck - I even get angry when getting junk for free covers tokens that I pick up along the way icon_e_smile.gif.
  • IceIX
    IceIX ADMINISTRATORS Posts: 4,328 Site Admin
    forgrim wrote:
    IceIX wrote:
    forgrim wrote:
    i do have to wonder why it was raised to 300 hp. is it because with tokens, there's just an abundance of covers going out? there has to be some arbitrary reason, even if its to make more money (more hp as prizes, from random things?)
    Currently waiting to board a large metal tube and hurtle through the sky. Until then, I'll field that one. Similar to cover slot pricing, we're testing price ceilings. We think we know what the game will bear without losing sales over it and go from there. For example with the Cover Slots, we monitored transactions post patch for a while. After the initial dip from users that were (rightfully) annoyed at the change, they went right back up to what they were before compared to our number of users. Retention of users didn't dip. No other alarm bells. To put it basically in the Middle School econ lesson I had way back in the mists of time, we were selling our pens at too low a price. Sure, people were fine with that price, but they were, as a whole, just as fine with the same product at a higher one.

    its also a somewhat dangerous game to play. if retention of users does dip after one of these changes, regaining them (and their trust) is incredibly hard. See the battle cable companies have to do after losing so many users to increasing prices. Lowering the prices back again will regain some, but not the majority of those who left.

    but we're all in the business of making money (i work in oil for chrissensakes), and money is needed to operate. i might not like the 300 hp change but i accept it.
    Agreed, it's dangerous. In this case, the reasoning at its base is fairly sound however. Our 300 HP packs in events for 2* plus heroes have been doing just fine since they were first introduced. Players, both old and new, continue to find value in these packs when gaining 2* characters. This leads us to believe that characters at that tier are worth that price and we are undervaluing them at the current price. Is the price for that generic pack really worth 300? We can't be 100% sure. But our data and indications show that this is the case. If that proves untrue, we alter our course. We may lose goodwill in the short term, but we believe that the work that we continue and will continue to put in to the game will bear that in the long run.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    Logically they'll jack up manual upgrade costs next. I'll probably uninstall when they do. Tinykitty that tiny **** kitty tinykitty.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    edited November 2013
    I really regret blowing my HP on the Venom packs for Spidey now that there's a guaranteed pack icon_e_sad.gif
    forgrim wrote:
    if the force bubble explosion generates ap, then its god damn game over for ppl if she gets one combo off
    It ends the turn.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    Does the force bubble essentially work the same as bag mans sticky web?
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    IceIX wrote:
    forgrim wrote:
    IceIX wrote:
    forgrim wrote:
    i do have to wonder why it was raised to 300 hp. is it because with tokens, there's just an abundance of covers going out? there has to be some arbitrary reason, even if its to make more money (more hp as prizes, from random things?)
    Currently waiting to board a large metal tube and hurtle through the sky. Until then, I'll field that one. Similar to cover slot pricing, we're testing price ceilings. We think we know what the game will bear without losing sales over it and go from there. For example with the Cover Slots, we monitored transactions post patch for a while. After the initial dip from users that were (rightfully) annoyed at the change, they went right back up to what they were before compared to our number of users. Retention of users didn't dip. No other alarm bells. To put it basically in the Middle School econ lesson I had way back in the mists of time, we were selling our pens at too low a price. Sure, people were fine with that price, but they were, as a whole, just as fine with the same product at a higher one.

    its also a somewhat dangerous game to play. if retention of users does dip after one of these changes, regaining them (and their trust) is incredibly hard. See the battle cable companies have to do after losing so many users to increasing prices. Lowering the prices back again will regain some, but not the majority of those who left.

    but we're all in the business of making money (i work in oil for chrissensakes), and money is needed to operate. i might not like the 300 hp change but i accept it.
    Agreed, it's dangerous. In this case, the reasoning at its base is fairly sound however. Our 300 HP packs in events for 2* plus heroes have been doing just fine since they were first introduced. Players, both old and new, continue to find value in these packs when gaining 2* characters. This leads us to believe that characters at that tier are worth that price and we are undervaluing them at the current price. Is the price for that generic pack really worth 300? We can't be 100% sure. But our data and indications show that this is the case. If that proves untrue, we alter our course. We may lose goodwill in the short term, but we believe that the work that we continue and will continue to put in to the game will bear that in the long run.

    Touche, and from your involvement on the forums, there's alot of good (and bad) will being generated randomly.

    but besides the point, go enjoy your vacation and happy thanksgiving. maybe when you come back, u'll see a fire set (or most likely things operating normally)
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    Perhaps company pricing strategies might warrant a dedicated thread?

    As for the new patch:

    Can someone rationalize the change to Loki's skill? I'm assuming it's still random. If so:
    - Before: randomly change colours of random tiles
    - After: randomly rearrange random tiles
    Are this this change that different? In practice, it seems to me it'd be essentially the same...

    I was really hoping for a change to Loki that would bring him up to par with his other 3* counterparts...
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    MrMeer wrote:
    Perhaps company pricing strategies might warrant a dedicated thread?

    As for the new patch:

    Can someone rationalize the change to Loki's skill? I'm assuming it's still random. If so:
    - Before: randomly change colours of random tiles
    - After: randomly rearrange random tiles
    Are this this change that different? In practice, it seems to me it'd be essentially the same...

    I was really hoping for a change to Loki that would bring him up to par with his other 3* counterparts...

    cept the amount of tiles being changes is vastly greater. so you have a higher chance of cascading things. let's see how it shakes out.
  • IceIX
    IceIX ADMINISTRATORS Posts: 4,328 Site Admin
    greggray24 wrote:
    IceIX wrote:
    forgrim wrote:
    i do have to wonder why it was raised to 300 hp. is it because with tokens, there's just an abundance of covers going out? there has to be some arbitrary reason, even if its to make more money (more hp as prizes, from random things?)
    Currently waiting to board a large metal tube and hurtle through the sky. Until then, I'll field that one. Similar to cover slot pricing, we're testing price ceilings. We think we know what the game will bear without losing sales over it and go from there. For example with the Cover Slots, we monitored transactions post patch for a while. After the initial dip from users that were (rightfully) annoyed at the change, they went right back up to what they were before compared to our number of users. Retention of users didn't dip. No other alarm bells. To put it basically in the Middle School econ lesson I had way back in the mists of time, we were selling our pens at too low a price. Sure, people were fine with that price, but they were, as a whole, just as fine with the same product at a higher one.

    I think the other thing you need to take into account with the cover slot change is that after the price increase you guys started making HP much more readily available. I held out for a while but then started winning lots of HP and needed the slots so spent it. When 200HP took a week to earn it was a lot of HP to spend on a slot so making it 350 was painful. when I found I could earn that 350HP faster than I used to be able to earn the 200HP then the value became more acceptable. I assume the same applies to the 150HP cover slot - with the HP more readily available it was under priced. I hate games of chance so I really don't partake in paying for covers no mater what the cost so 150 or 300 is the same to me. Heck - I even get angry when getting junk for free covers tokens that I pick up along the way icon_e_smile.gif.

    Sorry for the nested quotes, typing on a chiclet and it's difficult to edit out. We account for the fact that people are organically using generated HP as opposed to purchased HP. That's actually something we took into account when deciding on the change to start. We knew we were going to try making more events available at all times, which would inject X HP into the economy. Without sufficient sinks, we'd run into an untenable position, so we crunched numbers and the Slot pricing change was born. We're trying to run without overall price inflation like a lot of MMOs run. We don't want a sword that went for 5 plat today to cost 20 tomorrow because users simply have way more plat than they did the day before.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    @IceX
    Thanks for making event (Unstable ISO8) appropriate for europe, it finishes 9pm on Sunday which is great icon_e_biggrin.gif
    Also, I hope you guys fixed banding points, they are going rapidly high already
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    Waitaminute, Spidey guaranteed pack is actually more expensive than training directly? lol
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    ihearthawthats wrote:
    Waitaminute, Spidey guaranteed pack is actually more expensive than training directly? lol

    Nice if you don't have the first cover yet. I'm considering it to get the blue Spidey cover that has evaded me thus far.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    @That crazy not applicable post IceX just wrote.

    This game has no player economy.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    You can blame me for screwing up the economy. I've been hoarding my 'organic' HP like a doomsday prepper.
  • IceIX
    IceIX ADMINISTRATORS Posts: 4,328 Site Admin
    Ranzera wrote:
    @That crazy not applicable post IceX just wrote.

    This game has no player economy.
    It still has server economy. If you look at vendor costs of a "max level" item across expansions of most MMOs, they go way up. We're trying to avoid that.
  • Bainee
    Bainee Posts: 139 Tile Toppler
    Blue Shoes wrote:
    ihearthawthats wrote:
    Waitaminute, Spidey guaranteed pack is actually more expensive than training directly? lol

    Nice if you don't have the first cover yet. I'm considering it to get the blue Spidey cover that has evaded me thus far.

    Go for it, you will not regret it.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    edited November 2013
    IceIX wrote:
    Ranzera wrote:
    @That crazy not applicable post IceX just wrote.

    This game has no player economy.
    It still has server economy. If you look at vendor costs of a "max level" item across expansions of most MMOs, they go way up. We're trying to avoid that.

    Did you read the patch notes? You already failed.

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