Lurkers: You know who you are, step into the light!!

Sharding: Veteran players got pushed into groups with other players who are even with their levels. We know that the deep 3* rosters represent a small portion of the subscriber base, so in unsharded groupings we often found ourselves one of the only big fish in the pond so taking first was pretty easy to do, which was fun. My wife thinks sharding is great, she has a 2* roster and takes top 5 with a score in the 6-700 range, so it is working great for her. My brother in Law is grouped with guys like me, and he stopped playing because it is a brutal slog and he feels he cannot progress anymore. Personally I think Sharding is garbage when implemented without some sort of risk vs reward structure. Intermediates and Veterans feel like we are being crapped on for progressing in the game.

METRICS I believe are going to show that Sharding is a great thing, the newer players are having an easy time placing in the tournaments.

PERCEPTION is that veteran players are being punished for being successful in the game. (Allow me the opportunity to plug the idea of risk vs reward)

REACTION People on the cusp of 3* who get lumped in the Veteran shards will walk away like my brother in law did because he feels like he hit a wall he cannot progress past. Veteran players will get bored because it is too much work just to maintain.

Lack of perceived value in In Ap Purchases: I bought covers for my Daken to max him out. I wanted to buy a 10 pack and see if I could get more than 3. Odds would have been good if they were at 20% like they were for Falcon, but when D3 moved the odds down to 6.1% it left a SERIOUSLY sour taste in my mouth.

METRICS are showing that people are willing to buy, and spend money worse and worse deals. The money is coming in so all is well.

PERCEPTION is that we no longer want to support the game when the focus is changing from game play improving to being purely profit driven.

REACTION is the erosion of good will from the player base. What I have seen in these forums is a super loyal player base that would support this game indefinitely.

I think D3 should make fewer events count toward Season totals, ideally I would like to see only new character events count toward season standings, or events that have new character rewards count toward season standings.

Make Falcon events crazy competitive and have them count toward season standings. Make a Daken event count toward season standings, that is cool, lets go nuts over new covers.

It is driving me crazy to have to compete at such a high level for Ragnarok and Loki covers which are desirable to "Almost" no one. (There is a crazy SOB in another thread that lied and said he likes Loki... but I digress). Having to push this hard in order to maintain our season score is making no one happy.

New and intermediate players are finding themselves unable to get new 3* covers... the very people that could imagine a use for Loki or Ragnarok are the ones who have no chance of getting them. Not when the veteran hardcore players are forced to play hard to maintain their season scores. My friends who are not in S.H.I.E.L.D are not enjoying the fact that you have to have 1150 points to come in to top 10. And every one of the top 10, have the covers in the first place.

Veteran players are having to spend resources in a soulless grind in order to maintain placement for a 25 day event. I feel bad every time I have to grind to 1st ahead of some guy that could use the 4* cover. I feel even worse that I have to spend HP shield hopping because myself and every other poor bastard out there is trying to preserve their season ranking.

The worst thing is the burnout, It is terrible to have to play hard on events you don't care about. It makes you start to get sick of a very fun game. Couple that with the feeling that I am doing harm to the intermediate players and you have a recipe for resignation.

The other though that I am having on this is that they probably did not change placement in brackets, more that what we are experiencing is the change in motivation of people to play hard and place in order to maintain their season ranking.

First I will share my observations on each. Bear in mind I do not claim to speak definitively, only from my own perspective. Second I will explain the vital role each plays in the success of the game. Finally I will share my opinion on what needs to change and why.

Veterans/Hardcore: These are the people like myself, admittedly not representative of the population of the game, we represent the top 1-5% by my own estimate of the player base, but we are the ones that are watched more than the rest of the 95%. We are the ones who dominate the leader boards, whose alliances show up at the top. We are the people who have 10-11 Maxed out 141 toons and are not heartbroken over the nerf to Spiderman because we can take it. We spend money, and lots of it. Take a look at how many Dakens have almost all their covers and are in the 100's.

F2P: The F2P ones who have 5+ 141s that they earned through blood sweat and tears are the one that demonstrate that you can win at this game without refinancing your home to do it, they are the truly hardcore. These are the ones who do a lot of research on their characters and make sure they spend their ISO effectively. F2P are hybrids of the four groups I identified, they are Veterans/Hardcore, intermediates and newbies alike. The F2P eventually transition to paying, or hold onto their F2Pness like a badge of honor.
On a lighter note, some of our self identified F2P are like Celibacy club members who hook on the weekends, not everyone is honest about their spending habits, and really it doesn't matter.

Intermediates: are the working class of MPQ, these are the ones that are working toward their transitions, they have the full range of rosters, 1* Storm maxed out, 2* Thor/OBW/Wolverine working on Ares. You name it they got it. These are the ones that are the most likely in my opinion to make the tip and start spending money on something other than Roster Slots... Just hopefully they did not use their first IAP to buy Spiderman's last blue, or C Mag's Red.

Newbies: These are the guys that just came out of Prologue and want to see what the fuss is about, they are in no way vested in the game and want to see if it is fun enough to keep playing, they have not made up their minds about IAP, but they are curious to see how stupid the exchange rates are for currency. They want to try PVP and see what their 17+ 1* roster can do.
Who is most important of these groups? The unsurprising answer is all of them are important. Veterans/Hardcore are the people that the Intermediates and F2P look at and want to join the ranks of. Without the Veteran/Hardcore population being strong and vibrant the Intermediate and Newbie population get wary of the future and decide to keep their money in their pockets. Veterans/Hardcore burn out and fade away all the time, but what is important is why they fade away. If they leave because they are bored, found something else to do, wife left them etc. Then no harm no foul, new intermediates graduate into the hardcore and the cycle continues. If the Veteran/Hardcore population starts leaving because they become disillusioned then things get bad. The Veteran/Hardcore population is small, but it is vocal and it is influential. (I know, what a bunch of Divas right?)

Intermediates are the lifeblood of the game, these are the ones the Devs need to convince to start spending money. The Hardcore/Veterans already do, they are deeply involved in the meta-endgame where they spend 3-4X as much ISO in shields and boosts every PVP just to take first place. Those guys are already spending money, hell I have my Daken ready for the 1100 point reward and 3x covers from the next PVP featuring him and he will be maxed out.

But the intermediates are still on the fence, they have fun with the game, but they are not sure it's worth the cash. Is the game going to be fun enough in the future to warrant the investment? The answer to that question lies in the vibrancy of the Veteran/Hardcore population, and it also lies in the accessibility of events for them. Moreso the events than the Veteran/Hardcores of course.
Next we talk about the Newbies. These are the most temperamental of all of them, they might have downloaded it just because someone recommended it and have no idea if they want to even play more than a couple of matches before they go back to Clash of Clans. These are the ones that will be the future of the game if they get hooked.

Finally a note about F2P: Everyone starts out F2P, even if they never spend a dime they keep the population up and give targets for PVP, their contribution matters even if it is not a direct monetary gain.

Challenges: The challenges I see facing the game now are the aging population, the Veteran/Hardcore group is growing and getting deeper, this is good, but they are demanding as hell and vocal. They are also determined to find ways around controls set in place to limit the things they do not like.

This growing population however feeds brutally on the intermediate and newbie player base. It is common knowledge how to tank your MMR down to the level 6 1* MMR range and beat on people who just started the game because it is the fastest way to gain ISO.
The devs have figured out ways to protect the newbie's by sharding the brackets and putting all of the intermediate and Veteran/hardcore players together and leaving the newbies in relatively protected brackets. Sure they still get preyed on by the higher levels because of MMR but they have the ability to take first with a low level roster because of bracketing. I think this is a good thing. The new players need to be protected, but then again so do the intermediates.

So, the newbies are happy, the intermediates are pissed because 10th place requires over 1000 points to attain and those point spots are all filled with 141 rosters. The veteran/hardcores are pissed because all they really want is more ISO to level up their 40 slot rosters, and now there is much harder competition for that ISO reward in the tournaments.

Every one of these groups is very important and interdependent. Even the elite/veteran/hardcore/A-holes are necessary even though they do not spend as much as the rest of the 95%. Don't forget they were part of that 95% before they broke away from the pack.

If you have had the patience to read my other posts you already know my personal opinion of the direction the game should go. Change is needed because the player base is maturing, and it will be REALLY loyal if it is nurtured.

We need a risk vs. Reward structure. once you hit the top echelon of the game you should be making more ISO per fight than newbie and intermediate players. There needs to be an incentive not to hit the weaker rosters and more incentive to hit harder targets that take longer to kill.

2 tournaments with different reward structures where a player can pick only 1 but not both. One tournament with lower level rewards and lower ISO per fight, but with covers that help you transition to 3*. And one that has a higher ISO per fight with better covers and then only let the player choose one. Let players decide which brackets they enter. It will go a long way to stave off people feeling like they got screwed by the Hogwarts sorting hat.

I also think we need to have fewer tournaments count toward the Season goals, allow people to take breaks from their alliance obligations and reduce burnout.