Patch Notes - 11/27 - DISCUSSION

IronyMan

Spoit wrote:

IronyMan 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?)

I'll field that one. Similar to cover slot pricing, we're testing price ceilings.

And while I think that you've done a great job speaking to everyone on here and while I love the game, this attitude really screams "we're not quite sure what we're doing so we'll see how much we can gouge you before you get too pissed" This is kind of the way I've felt it's been like from the beginning, which is why I don't put any more money into it. I just dropped 7 bucks into Lords of Waterdeep for iOS and for that I get an extremely polished full game. For the same price on this app, I get 2 (more than likely completely ****) cover pulls. So instead of feeling like I'm investing, it feels more like a rigged carnival game attached to a pretty fun game but you won't do as well in the main game until you throw money into the pit and even then, won't usually get much.

Or if you don't have a free slot, only 1 pull

Exactly. Now cover slots is an entire different ball of wax too but I think that the problem is the developers are looking at the in game currency in relation to itself rather than to real money, and that's the problem. If the guaranteed covers are 1100+ HP, that's close to 10 freaking dollars! That is more than most complete apps cost. (Xcom is 10 bucks right now on the App Store which is essentially a full AAA game)

Instead of hiking the prices up and up, they need to come way down to sensible levels.You'd get more transactions (at a lesser amount) and much happier users, in my opinion. I can't speak for everyone, but I'd never put in another dollar the way it is now. And it's definitely not because I don't love the game

Unknown

IronyMan wrote:

And while I think that you've done a great job speaking to everyone on here and while I love the game, this attitude really screams "we're not quite sure what we're doing so we'll see how much we can gouge you before you get too pissed" This is kind of the way I've felt it's been like from the beginning, which is why I don't put any more money into it. I just dropped 7 bucks into Lords of Waterdeep for iOS and for that I get an extremely polished full game. For the same price on this app, I get 2 (more than likely completely ****) cover pulls. So instead of feeling like I'm investing, it feels more like a rigged carnival game attached to a pretty fun game but you won't do as well in the main game until you throw money into the pit and even then, won't usually get much.

This times 1000.

Unknown

Ranzera wrote:

Logically they'll jack up manual upgrade costs next. I'll probably uninstall when they do. Tinykitty that tiny **** kitty tinykitty.

This is actually a pretty good idea...

Unknown

IronyMan wrote:

Exactly. Now cover slots is an entire different ball of wax too but I think that the problem is the developers are looking at the in game currency in relation to itself rather than to real money, and that's the problem. If the guaranteed covers are 1100+ HP, that's close to 10 freaking dollars! That is more than most complete apps cost. (Xcom is 10 bucks right now on the App Store which is essentially a full AAA game)

I don't think it's fair to compare to a traditional video game. I do think it's fair to compare to traditional CCG. Anyone who's played a CCG knows how expensive it can get. However, I don't think 300 is worth it. 150 was barely even worth it.

Unknown

ihearthawthats wrote:

IronyMan wrote:

Exactly. Now cover slots is an entire different ball of wax too but I think that the problem is the developers are looking at the in game currency in relation to itself rather than to real money, and that's the problem. If the guaranteed covers are 1100+ HP, that's close to 10 freaking dollars! That is more than most complete apps cost. (Xcom is 10 bucks right now on the App Store which is essentially a full AAA game)

I don't think it's fair to compare to a traditional video game. I do think it's fair to compare to traditional CCG. Anyone who's played a CCG knows how expensive it can get. However, I don't think 300 is worth it. 150 was barely even worth it.

Then should we compare it to M:TG Planeswalker 2013 or 2014? The base cost (to unlock the real game) is fairly high for mobile ($10-15 as I recall), but the additional card packs are $3-5 each. You can fully unlock a deck by playing or by paying $1.

Are the cover packs worth 300 HP? Maybe. Is $5 for 600 HP a good deal? No. The pricing on HP is getting as bad as the pricing on ISO.

Unknown

Just a reminder that you can update your reviews in the app stores to reflect your opinions.

Unknown

I think in their defense it IS fairly easy to earn HP if you're already ahead in this game (top prizes have some HP invariably and it'll accumulate over weeks). Plus HP is mostly used for covers and the giant limiting factor for progression is still fairly largely dependent on ISO.

They need to reduce the gap between those who have and those who don't. It's just not fair to the people already behind if their solution to things being too cheap for the people who are already ahead is to keep raising price ceilings. I'm not sure if I would have even begun playing this game a month back if I felt that there wasn't a way for me to catch up with the people who started earlier.

Unknown

Let's see what these rubes will stomach.

Spoit

Sooty wrote:

I think in their defense it IS fairly easy to earn HP if you're already ahead in this game (top prizes have some HP invariably and it'll accumulate over weeks). Plus HP is mostly used for covers and the giant limiting factor for progression is still fairly largely dependent on ISO.

They need to reduce the gap between those who have and those who don't. It's just not fair to the people already behind if their solution to things being too cheap for the people who are already ahead is to keep raising price ceilings. I'm not sure if I would have even begun playing this game a month back if I felt that there wasn't a way for me to catch up with the people who started earlier.

Yeah, am I crazy, or did the lightning round rewards used to be different? Also, the disappearing 500 HP progression at 1.2k

Unknown

Spoit wrote:

Yeah, am I crazy, or did the lightning round rewards used to be different? Also, the disappearing 500 HP progression at 1.2k

The only ways that they've changed is buffing all of them during all rounds and that they added Magneto, Ragnarok and Loki. Prizes are the same.

Unknown

The biggest problem for the broader player group, and F2P in general, is that whales are not very price sensitive and since they make up 80% of the revenues, spiking the price points increases that 80% and only potentially hurts the 20%. But overall, it's better for the bottom line.

I too would spend more if the value were there, but right now the cost for ISO and HP in return to what you get in gameplay is totally out of synch with my perception of what is good value. And that perception is the relation between money spent and a title on a console. So spending about 60$ for a game I really enjoy and spend a lot of time with, is fine. As such, I spent about $60 in the first two weeks, then gotten to know the game and found that the value per $ is really low and that it's more value to just grind and be content with lower level heroes.

Now, what I think should happen is that, fine, keep your ISO and HP prices high for the price insensitive whale to got nuts on, but do some decent sales now and then for a very limited time where you actually give 50% more (and not the insulting 5%). Limit these purchases to 1 sale (i.e. subsequent purchase no longer at 50%). This way you'll seriously bump your 20% spender base and slightly dent your 80%, BUT everyone is happy and your 100% base its loyalty increases.

Just my two cents...

Unknown

Sooty wrote:

I think in their defense it IS fairly easy to earn HP if you're already ahead in this game (top prizes have some HP invariably and it'll accumulate over weeks). Plus HP is mostly used for covers and the giant limiting factor for progression is still fairly largely dependent on ISO.

They need to reduce the gap between those who have and those who don't. It's just not fair to the people already behind if their solution to things being too cheap for the people who are already ahead is to keep raising price ceilings. I'm not sure if I would have even begun playing this game a month back if I felt that there wasn't a way for me to catch up with the people who started earlier.

I think one argument made by IceIX is a lack of money sinks and inflation. I don't think the solution was to increase prices on heroics. Rich players don't need these packs and probably won't buy them even @ 150. They need new things to spend their money on. I think increased prices on storage and health packs achieved this. I think changing boosts to requiring HP instead of ISO would be profitable. Heroics don't make sense to me because they're generally for newer players.

Unknown

Yup indeed. They are actually very good value for the people just starting out. I did drop money on heroics too when I first started out (when they also gave a generous sale for gold back then, so lucky stars were aligned). Getting the Thor and Storm covers really helped secure my constant progression ever since, and I couldn't imagine rising up that quickly if I didn't buy the initial bunch of heroics. Beyond a certain point though, heroic packs just don't make economic sense to buy since you can only sell duplicates back for 125 ISO.

I certainly don't care even if the heroic packs were raised even further. I'm not sure I'd buy them even if they cost 50 now unless I was certain it was probably to need me enough 3/4 stars of the correct sort, and based on the dude who who documented his heroic purchase this doesn't seem to be the case.

Looking at the bigger picture, I think they need to be careful with these price increases because making it hard for the newer players to catch up means that the game is less likely to attract new money. Certain price increases won't make sense at all. Boosts requiring ISO simply means that people will stop buying them, period. I'm not sure why there even needs to be "sinks". Since there is no trading in the game, having people with too much good stuff won't drive the overall value of things down. Having a constant stream of new characters and tourneys which forces players to make use of these characters guarantees that people will shell out the cash to buy these characters if they're allowed to (and cover slots) so I doubt they'll run out of profits for a while.

I suspect that the real problem is that they realizing they've begun this game allowing players to progress too quickly (case in point: lightning rounds). While they do want to keep the players playing with interesting tourneys every week, everyone is progressing too quickly compared to the rate at which they're churning out new content. Which means they're between a rock and a hard place - either they sharply bring down the progression and risk alienating the newer or less hardcore players who will feel like it's unfair to punish them, or they leave it as it is, which means that the entire player base will soon lack reason to spend any money. Strictly speaking, there's nothing wrong with them nerfing progresssion. If they never offered 500 gold threshold prizes for tournaments they would never have had the complaints of "where did the 500 gold prizes go?" It just feels sucky for us that we get less for our effort - but maybe we were getting too much for it in the first place.

Unknown

ihearthawthats wrote:

I think changing boosts to requiring HP instead of ISO would be profitable.

If you mean the generic boosts, then oh HELL no. That would completely transform how the game works and hurt free players terribly. The heroic boosts? Who cares?

Unknown

Misguided wrote:

ihearthawthats wrote:

I think changing boosts to requiring HP instead of ISO would be profitable.

If you mean the generic boosts, then oh HELL no. That would completely transform how the game works and hurt free players terribly. The heroic boosts? Who cares?

Of course it hurts free players, but free players don't pay the bills and I was talking from a perspective of profit.

I am f2p and never use/buy boosts and still am able to land 1st places. If less people use boosts, then less people will "need" them to win. Besides, you get quite a lot of boosts from regular play. It wouldn't be uncommon to farm a weekly for boosts, saving them for the final hour. Farming boosts can also benefit those who want high progression rewards because there is more activity during the week.

Unknown

I think if heroics had started at 300 it wouldn't be too big of a problem, but it's a pretty big change to be making. I agree in reference to the problems this causes for new players and all that.
But I'll reiterate that I think the real problem to me is that the changes like this are indicative of a lack of planning for the money aspect of the game in general.

Unknown

I dunt pay. But I got that 500 gole a few times. And other gold prices alot. I upgraded my storage but put a lot in the heroic covers. At 150 gold the cards I got strengthened my believes in not paying for a game. At 300 gold with those odds it is simply not worth it. I had the feeling with the great game you set up I was kinda entitled to put some real money in it. That feeling is fading.......

Spoit

ihearthawthats wrote:

Misguided wrote:

ihearthawthats wrote:

I think changing boosts to requiring HP instead of ISO would be profitable.

If you mean the generic boosts, then oh HELL no. That would completely transform how the game works and hurt free players terribly. The heroic boosts? Who cares?

Of course it hurts free players, but free players don't pay the bills and I was talking from a perspective of profit.

I am f2p and never use/buy boosts and still am able to land 1st places. If less people use boosts, then less people will "need" them to win. Besides, you get quite a lot of boosts from regular play. It wouldn't be uncommon to farm a weekly for boosts, saving them for the final hour. Farming boosts can also benefit those who want high progression rewards because there is more activity during the week.

What's your secret to pushing out the wins quickly during the last half hour without boosts?

Unknown

Spoit wrote:

What's your secret to pushing out the wins quickly during the last half hour without boosts?

Don't tell him! He's in my bracket I rely on [insert name of buffed character]'s [insert color] ability to get as many wins as possible in the last few minutes. That, and boosts. What iheart said is true. You can usually farm enough boosts during the week to push at the end of tournaments. You may have to spend some ISO to have the right color boost for the last few matches.

Unknown

I was given a $25 Google Play gift card a couple weeks ago, and actually blew the whole thing on Hero Coins /points to build my library and get more covers. At 150 per cover, they still went very quickly. It was a struggle enough to get to 150 without ponying up cash.. At 300, you're essentially forcing players to pay to progress/ grow in the game.
Bad enough that the covers we pay for are random, I wasted money on at least 8 covers I didn't want... Now that the price has literally doubled, getting an unwanted cover makes that sting even worse. If we want to directly upgrade a specific ability, the cost is 2-10 times as expensive!
I really enjoy this game, and am extremely disheartened that my growth in it has been so drastically dampened due to this cost increase.
Perhaps an increase to 200 wouldn't have hit so hard? However, based on your reply to this thread, you basically said that you jacked the prices because you know that people will eventually pay it. That's a really disgusting response to give your customers.
If I said I would stop playing this game, it wouldn't mean anything to you - I'm a just a drop in the bucket.. But I would urge those that share my concerns to speak up, and let your wallets do the talking.
Happy Thanksgiving!