Extra Credits takes on F2P again - some thoughts on value

Unknown · September 2014

For those not in the know, Extra Credits is a show that talks about video game design from various aspects. The writing is done by James Portnow, a professional games developer and consultant, and they're usually pretty much on-point when it comes to what they're talking about. If you're at all interested in games design, these guys are worth watching. So with that in mind:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwI0u9L ... ploademail

This episode is all about how the Free to Play market has become corrupt and broken, relying almost entirely on whales, with games that make it impossible for a simple $5-$20 purchase to get you anywhere.

I'm going to go ahead and buck the trend here and say that MPQ is not one of those games. Why? Because in MPQ, you can get everywhere with just time and effort. You don't have to spend money; spending money only really helps speed up the progression.

That said, the issue with MPQ is still mentioned there. It's not as big of an issue for us as players (although it probably did lead to some of the nastier design decisions), but might become an issue for the game itself. Specifically, purchase value. What do you get for spending money in this game? What will $50 (and for a F2P game, this is not an unsubstantial purchase) get you? 8,500 hero points, or 37,500 ISO8. Enough for almost 7 covers (out of 13 max), or a few levels on a high-level character. Or, a few fight boosts and shields.

...Wow. That's not much. And that's $50 - the price of a full, almost-brand-new AAA game. Below that, the purchases become more paltry. This is not really an issue for us, as you can get far completely F2P (I just bought my first 3* cover ever, a 5th yellow Patch cover, off of hero points I earned entirely from alliance and placement rewards). But this might be something for D3 to consider if their bottom line seems lacking. And for anyone interested in game design, this video is pretty great.

Unknown · September 2014

thank you for posting this episode i always watch them and i have yet to check them today and i agree about all the points you brought up

M C K · September 2014

It's interesting because, in MPQ at the very least, goods received per dollar spent is a moving target. For instance:

Buy ISO-8 - Pretty much unchanging. Provides the "currency" required to level the character of your choosing.
Buy HP - A little more flexible, as you can use the HP to buy:
- Tokens
- Covers
- Shields
- Boosts? I don't remember.

Now here's the issue...the value of what you can purchase has fluctuated over time:

Once upon a time token purchase was useful by way of the guaranteed cover. Now it's a much poorer investment.
Like it or not, cover value has varied. Folks who bought 8 Rags covers to max him before the nerf probably would agree that his covers were worth much more before than after. And that will continue as long as they buff/nerf characters.
- This one even changes the value of ISO-8, as leveling a character only to see him/her nerfed is pretty discouraging. Suddenly you could think of a dozen other places that ISO would have been better spent.
Who gives a rip about boosts? Nobody's spending HP on boosts. Right? Right?

jojeda654 · September 2014

M C K wrote:

Who gives a rip about boosts? Nobody's spending HP on boosts. Right? Right?

Did you mean health packs?

Unknown · September 2014

If $50 gets you something of 'value' that's the definition of P2W because then $500 will definitely get you something with a ton of value and you wouldn't be able to beat someone who spent that much money if what they got was actually valuable.

It's because most things in MPQ don't have much value that the game is not that P2W. And this isn't one of those games where $50 doesn't get you much value because it takes $1000 to get value. Assuming you started with 1 cover each of some 3* then it's 12500 HP to max him out, which is probably somewhere around $75 (less than that if you buy Stark Salary but maybe you don't want to commit that much money) plus the iso 8. Yes buying the iso 8 would be prohibitive but that's why the game gives you ample opportunity to earn iso 8, and if you still want to shortcut that yo'll have to pay a lot. Realistically you're going to have some HP saved up from just playing and covers show up as progression rewards in PvP/PvE, so maybe you get a 33% discount so that figures out to $100 for maxing 2 characters and that's pretty cheap to be able to compete with the highest level of PvP and fairly competitive at PvE (which needs 3 guys).

If anything the pricing structure of this game is a problem for the developer, not the players, as the only thing you can't do is pile up insane 2XXX scores in PvP without spending money so a rational player might not need to spend any money regardless of what he feels about the game. But that's not a problem on the player's end that the game is too generous, and realistically it probably doesn't matter anyway because very few players are rational.

BearVenger · September 2014

One disagreement, Phantron: "Value" doesn't necessarily equal "winning," at least, not by Extra Credits' standards.

I haven't watched the above-linked episode, but the previous F2P-themed episode put "value" in the context of game enjoyment and a feeling of "money well spent."

In that context, "value" could be extra storytelling, alternate costumes, an enhanced Alliance man-cave, or demo-ing prototype characters, in addition to the usual covers/levels/boosts/healthpacks.

EC mentioned a Korean MMORPG that had "money bombs," which a user could detonate and enrich everyone around him, but not himself. People spent hard cash and had a good time using them. That was an example of "value."

Now, if D3 had a "heroic target," where the next 5 players who beat my lineup got a gold token, would I drop HP on that? Maybe. Would top alliances coordinate that to enrich themselves? Possibly. But it's an alternate idea of "value."

Contrast that to the cost of HP/ISO for building up characters. With about $250, I could max out my Sentry in 3 minutes and likely improve my average finish spot. That could be P2W (or P2W more), but at least it's not blatantly P2W. I don't think I could keep this game up if I could be overrun by fat wallets.

Unknown · September 2014

Well, this game clearly has nothing in terms of purely cosmetic so all 'value' is going to be something valuable toward winning. It's perfectly fine if someone perceives $1000 for a super awesome costume as value but this isn't an option in the game. If I can get good 'value' for $50 in this game, it follows $500 should get me 10 times the 'value' and if this 'value' makes any sense, whoever spent $500 should be able to easily beat me into submission and then it's P2W. People always complain about how the stuff is too expensive but if they're not, all that's going to happen is you get your good deal and the whale says, "I'll take 10 of them!" and then you lose horribly.

I'm all for adding things that are not related directly to winning but it seems like there's literally zero effort being made toward them at the moment.

Unknown · September 2014

I think that purchasing cover packs beyond the 100 HP daily pack are bad value, and purchasing ISO is bad value. I have done both, and aside from the summer sale have regretted both.

I just bought a Simulator 10-pack foolishly hoping for a Beast cover and got 10 2* covers. Unlikely to happen, but it happens -- I had only ~55% chance of getting a beast cover out of it all. My ~$25 netted me

0 Usable covers 2500 ISO A bad taste in my mouth
My problem: I spend money on this game to support it and generally don't mind dropping $100+ a month, but I don't want to buy useless things. I tend to buy covers for heroes outright as the only purchase of real value, but as someone who now has nearly all covers for all heroes except the 4*'s, there is almost nothing of value for me left to purchase. Cover packs are horrendous value when you only have ~6% chance of getting something usable (2 or 3 3* heroes not max covered or a 4* hero) and purchasing ISO is laughable given how little you can actually boost a character from it. I did buy some ISO during the Google Summer Sale, but even at 30% off I am not sure I would again.

BearVenger · September 2014

Phantron wrote:

Well, this game clearly has nothing in terms of purely cosmetic so all 'value' is going to be something valuable toward winning.

Part of why I replied was that everything that cash can be dropped on is limited to character improvement or one-off enhancements. That's great and all, but every great character is going to he eclipsed by another one or nerfed when overutilized, and one-offs are impermanent. At the same time,.they've stated they don't want money to create an unleveled playing field, so that effort and skill will trump money (which I applaud them for). My options are to spend on limited value, wait for an advantageous sale, or not spend.

Maybe it would be beneficial if d3 would find noncompetitive revenue streams.

SunCrusher · September 2014

I was just musing on this issue recently - the 'value' of money spent in a game like MPQ.

(long post ahead, sorry!)

I've spent enough to buy a full-priced major console game back when I was having more fun with MPQ. I would argue that though there are no cosmetic purchases in this game, that extra roster slots could be considered less of P2W purchase and more of a collector's purchase... especially coming from someone who seldom participates in PvP and someone who hasn't had much luck in collecting new characters (me).

I'm pretty past the point of needing 1* heroes, but my original MStorm, MBW (love these girlies), IM, and YES, Hawkeye (amazingly, he held his own in the Venom Heroic; I was astounded) still have their original roster spaces. Yes, I have Daken, Bullseye, Moonstone, Yelena, Venom, and Juggernaut and yes, if I can't open more slots without spending, I won't hesitate to nudge one of the lesser-used 1* characters out to make room or even the 2*. But given this roster, it's pretty obvious that I collect to collect because who in the world wants to use some of these characters unless everyone else is forced to use them?

That said, the fact that I see my roster slot purchases AS a 'collector's item' as opposed to a 'this is going to get me further along in the game' purchase is one of the few reasons I haven't ragequit this game when considering the whole, "Have I gotten my value?" question.

I started this game a few weeks pre-Ragnarok nerf and originally and despite some of the things that had happened, I thought I was doing okay in terms of progression, building my roster, etc. This eventually led to me buying a bunch of HP to unlock my roster slots because ultimately, I had made the decision that the game would be worth it to keep to play for a long-ish while.

Though I didn't and don't regret the decision to open slots to collect characters and covers, I have since questioned and continue to question if the game is 'worth it' in other ways and it's an uncomfortable question.

As someone who started a bit later than the veterans but didn't start late enough to be a 'newbie' and reap the later-implemented 'newbie benefits', I got mired in both 1* and 2* star 'sinkholes' (getting stuck in 1* and 2* land, currently stuck in 2* land) and once I got unmired and started collecting more characters, I was faced with what has now become a continuous series of nerfs.

- I entered the game pre-Ragnarok nerf (less of any kind of deal; but it set the tone for my future experiences).

- I was just building my Wolverine and Thor to usable status when they got nerfed (okay, this one was ouch and because of it, I struggled more through the Prologue and had trouble getting the rest of my 2* covers).

- I had just built OBW to usable status and then she got nerfed in the wave of change involved with True Healing (another ouch).

- I was just getting able to play more competitively in LRs... only to have the covers removed.

- I am just building Mags and he's getting the nerf bat - and not just a nerf bat, THE nerf bat of nerf bats to the point of completely changing his character (what are they doing? are we in the House of M canon, now, or something?!).

I guess you can say that I've been consistently 'late to the party' and where I didn't really see how 'bad' it was when I originally spent my money, I see it clearly now and it's enough to make me seriously reconsider the concept of 'value'.

I spent enough to buy a AAA title on launch... and yet my experience with MPQ from start to finish has mostly been 'frustrating' with my log-in count echoing my frustrations.

I fell behind, got stuck in transitioning muck twice, got started using decent characters only to have them nerfed, and then patiently 'worked' through nodes and refreshes in PvE only to get bowled over by other people taking advantage of insane rubberbanding while gaming the MMR and scaling - an issue that's old, yes, one that one supposes might have been addressed before because, like people say, the other PvE events aren't always this bad.

Worth the price of a AAA game?

Not really, because this wasn't the experience I thought I was signing up for when I first dropped that money.

Or maybe, my expectations were wrong and that's another uncomfortable possibility but one I am completely willing to entertain.

I didn't expect a perfect game, but I expected things to make more sense than they do now and one of my expectations in particular was that when it finally came time for me to build my own characters, I would be able to build them according to both my play style and the characters' unique niches and according to what kinds of characters they are in canon and how they were originally introduced into the game.

This expectation, I have come to realize, is one that I shouldn't have had and if I had known before I had dropped my money that characters are not stable and changes to characters should be expected at any moment, I probably wouldn't have spent what I did.

As a timely example because he was part of the reason I ended up dropping the money to expand my roster slots, I wanted to eventually earn my way - and I was OKAY with 'earning my way' - to a character like the 'real' Magneto - the character that everyone else was playing with and the character that D3 originally released. Not... someone who doesn't even resemble Magneto anymore.

So... yeah.

Ice once said that he/they hoped to be doing fewer nerfs and not more. I guess that didn't work out too well.

atomzed · September 2014

Suncrusher, I empathize with your points.

The amount i spent would be near to the price of an console. So I understand how you feel about spending the money.

I still find the money worth it though bec it provide great entertainment value for me.

SunCrusher wrote:

Ice once said that he/they hoped to be doing fewer nerfs and not more. I guess that didn't work out too well.

If you have been surfing the forums, you would know that the nerf to cmag has been talked about for months. Months. In fact I have postponed levelling him for 2 months bec I know that he would be changed.

If you are talking about Ldaken I can understand since it's quite sudden, but there's no excuse for cmag actually.....

atomzed · September 2014

On the topic of value, I personally think that MPQ value is great, because you can choose how much or how little you want to spend on it. If your impulse control is good, you can spend abit more time (count in months) and you will end up being able to compete. I have friends who are f2p and they have max 3* to compete.

SunCrusher · September 2014

atomzed wrote:

Suncrusher, I empathize with your points.

The amount i spent would be near to the price of an console. So I understand how you feel about spending the money.

I still find the money worth it though bec it provide great entertainment value for me.

SunCrusher wrote:

Ice once said that he/they hoped to be doing fewer nerfs and not more. I guess that didn't work out too well.

If you have been surfing the forums, you would know that the nerf to cmag has been talked about for months. Months. In fact I have postponed levelling him for 2 months bec I know that he would be changed.

If you are talking about Ldaken I can understand since it's quite sudden, but there's no excuse for cmag actually.....

Sorry I didn't clarify and I hope what I say next makes sense.

In regards to Magneto in particular, it's less about the fact that Magneto/insert character here was nerfed (and yes, we knew it was happening, I just wasn't expecting something quite this major) and more of the simple fact that not -only- is he getting the nerf but his 'character' is also completely changing along with a major color - his purple.

Given how everyone else has been nerfed with 1* MStorm aside (because of the introduction of Team Ups and the removal of Environmental Tiles and Hot Dog Stands), the other characters emerged still more or less the characters they originally were but tweaked.

OBW was still OBW even after the True Healing. Thor was still Thor and Wolverine was still Wolverine and Ragnarok was still Ragnorok. Yes, a bit tamed, but still mostly 'them'.

In regards to LDaken, it bothers me that so soon after a character's release, there is a need to nerf and rebalance. Why? It isn't that I necessarily disagree with the whole, "Okay, this character needs to be reconsidered," business. It's more of what the 'nerfing so soon' implies.

The same applies with Sentry whom I already figured the devs might be looking out for.

To me, discussions of 'we need to nerf!' coming so soon after character or feature or game mechanic releases implies lack of stability which leads to questions such as, "How well-prepared were the devs in releasing XYZ character or ABC feature?"

Were the changes not beta-ed thoroughly enough? Were the devs somehow unaware of what was going on in the upper tiers of PvP where people were having problems? Etc. In regards to Mags going blue instead of keeping purple, why THAT particular change? Was Psylocke not getting enough love? Is Loki next in his board-shuffling ability? Etc.

And I do have to agree; my gripes and personal challenges with the game aside, I enjoy having my truly rainbow roster of all the different star characters I've managed to collect so far and I enjoy working with the various teams and their unique synergy and for me, I can do this because I spent some money to expand my roster.

GuntherBlobel · September 2014

What bothers me is that Demiurge_Al notes in his two-entry blog how HearthStone is interesting because it is not expensive and wonders if It will make money (it does).

Demiurge should be ripping off HearthStone by now, but they aren't. I know they occasionally throw out cheap, experimental "buy in" tournaments now and then, but these are so uninspired. It's sad. They operate exactly like any other PvP mode, so why would anyone be super-interested? I'm not.

Here's what would interest me:

1. Make a $2 Arena mode. The point of this mode is to be a new kind of PvP experience, which gives players temporary access to the coolest MPQ content.

[*] Players build a single team from a number of random cover pulls and 10,000 HP.
[/*][*] Rewards are based on win/loss ratio after 10 matches (or until 3 losses, whatever). No stupid tournament end times. No shields needed.
[/*][*] Opponents are picked from other user created teams.
[/*][*] Teams start with full health each round. No health packs needed.
[/*][*] Rewards are small (Herioc tokens), but the mode should be a fun way to buy your daily token (and possibly win big).

2. Make a $10 Days of Future Past or GotG campaign/expansion.

[/*][*] Recreate the Prologue experience (it was fun and hard!) with new 1*/2* characters that can only be played within the campaign (no need for deep play testing and PvP balancing this way).
[/*][*] Create a couple of well-balanced 2*/3* characters as campaign rewards that can be played outside the expansion. Players walk out of the campaign with decently covered versions of new characters.[/*]

FierceKiwi · September 2014

SunCrusher wrote:

Were the changes not beta-ed thoroughly enough? Were the devs somehow unaware of what was going on in the upper tiers of PvP where people were having problems? Etc. In regards to Mags going blue instead of keeping purple, why THAT particular change? Was Psylocke not getting enough love? Is Loki next in his board-shuffling ability? Etc.

The trouble with games like this is the end user tends to become the beta-tester.

Unknown · September 2014

Comparison to stuff like Hearthstone is dangerous because things like Hearthstone could've been utter garbage and still make a ton of money. After all even if Hearthstone is only 10% as good as it currently is, it'd still be better than a lot of F2P games that make a ton of money so why shouldn't it succeed when it has the Blizzard IP? I don't think there's anything particularly awesome about Hearthstone's gameplay or the overall monetization model, but an Arena mode would be pretty interesting addition. For the mini campaigns, there are plenty of people who's been saying for a while they'd pay more for a standalone PvE thing, so it's not like there's anything special about Hearthstone. Why they didn't do something that seems like easy money I have no idea. Maybe they just don't have enough resources to do everything, but honestly wouldn't a PvE campiagn just be the Simulator except there would be some cutscenes that features a guy saying something?

For purple abilities, I think purple is apparently the stealth/spy color so Magneto lost that for not being a spy. Not even Psylocke who uses a purple psionic katana gets purple, because she's closer to a ninja than a spy. And yes Escape Plan seems pretty stealthy, other than the fact that Nick Fury shot someone twice while escaping.

GuntherBlobel · September 2014

Phantron wrote:

I don't think there's anything particularly awesome about Hearthstone's gameplay or the overall monetization model, but an Arena mode would be pretty interesting addition.

I agree. I was just using theIr buy-in options as a template. I would pay a small fee just to unlock a Custom mode, like that in any arcade fighting game. Something, anything different from the current PvP and PvE formats.

homeinvasion · September 2014

On the converse side, I'm a whale, I am successful in life, sorry $300 on a Saturday night is still only 10% of a night out on the town full of cocaine. I spent $3,000 very early, but really wish I hadn't. Not because of the monetary value but because of the business model. I will try to explain.

With MPQ when you drop a large amount of money the only real thing is 42 packs. Which I bought masses and masses of. Even to me iso-8 is a massive rip off, like $100 for half of one max character, no thanks. All those 42 packs then got me a whole ton of covers, I think I have 18 max cover 3* and all the 4* covers (basically covers for everyone bar Cmags, cap Marvel and deadpool, oh I missed beast but meh).

The reason it was a bad investment is I basically removed my reason to play. Say there is an event with Patch as the reward, I look at my roster and say well I have him twice with max covers, there is no reason to play this event. The next event is LDaken, oh I have him max cover there is no reason to play. I''m sort of stuck running lightning rounds and PVE which is impossible being Australian, purely for iso to level all these covers. Seriously even if they tripled the amount of iso I wouldn't buy it. But if I did, again it would remove the reason to play. Say I was Bill Gates rich and I can inject an unlimited amount of money to the point I have all characters in triplicate, max level unlimited shields and health packs, there is a massive diminishing return on investment. The more money you spend, the less game there is to enjoy. I kind of wish I could go back spend $100 on roster slots, maybe 1 X 42 pack to get started and then knew what I was getting in to. As is I paid money to NOT play the game.

BearVenger · September 2014

That does explain the marketing pitch:

"Marvel Puzzle Quest: A 10x better value than a coked-up Friday night in Australia!"

wymtime · September 2014

homeinvasion wrote:

On the converse side, I'm a whale, I am successful in life, sorry $300 on a Saturday night is still only 10% of a night out on the town full of cocaine. I spent $3,000 very early, but really wish I hadn't. Not because of the monetary value but because of the business model. I will try to explain.

With MPQ when you drop a large amount of money the only real thing is 42 packs. Which I bought masses and masses of. Even to me iso-8 is a massive rip off, like $100 for half of one max character, no thanks. All those 42 packs then got me a whole ton of covers, I think I have 18 max cover 3* and all the 4* covers (basically covers for everyone bar Cmags, cap Marvel and deadpool, oh I missed beast but meh).

The reason it was a bad investment is I basically removed my reason to play. Say there is an event with Patch as the reward, I look at my roster and say well I have him twice with max covers, there is no reason to play this event. The next event is LDaken, oh I have him max cover there is no reason to play. I''m sort of stuck running lightning rounds and PVE which is impossible being Australian, purely for iso to level all these covers. Seriously even if they tripled the amount of iso I wouldn't buy it. But if I did, again it would remove the reason to play. Say I was Bill Gates rich and I can inject an unlimited amount of money to the point I have all characters in triplicate, max level unlimited shields and health packs, there is a massive diminishing return on investment. The more money you spend, the less game there is to enjoy. I kind of wish I could go back spend $100 on roster slots, maybe 1 X 42 pack to get started and then knew what I was getting in to. As is I paid money to NOT play the game.

First thank you for your post it is very insightfull, I hope you can enjoy the competition of PVP and PVE more and don't worry about the prizes so much. Also if you can enojoy the alliance chating with your team you can help them earn great rewards too!!

Second I have not paid anything in this game so far for a couple of reasons. I will say I am not opposed to paying $50-$60 for a quality game that I will play. Before I had kids I used to do it all the time. When I started 255 days ago I didn't know if I was going to play the game for a long time or if It was just another match 3 game I would play for a week. If I had spent some $$ then I would have really been able to buy a lot of 3* covers and really transition right away into 3* land. It would have been a very good investment as 3* only cost 500HP at the time. After I got into 2* land and really enjoyed the game I though about putting a little money in for roster slots but I have found is that once you start paying for the short cut it is too easy to keep using the same shortcut. So if I paid $20 here for a couple slots, I might say I really need that extra cover and choose the shortcut again. Now instead of investing $20-50 on a game I am spending $100+. For my personally that is more than I personally want to spend on a game so I have stayed FTP rather than trying to drop $20-$40 into the game to help me along.

As far as this post goes I think this game is set up to allow you to be F2P. I am and I have a very deep 3* roster with lots of 3* covers. I am able to shield hop to negative HP when I want, I manage to buy covers on occasion, and I have placed in top 25-5 in PVP. I think this is a very fun game and you deffinatly don't have to be P2W and I think most games that are FTP that have purchasing options can be free as well you just have to have the patients to play and have fun. As I paraphrase Hommieinvasion the more you pay for the less there is to play for.

Unknown · September 2014

I haven't spent anything on this game because there isn't anything of value. The lack of value is both a good thing (hard to P2W if you can't buy useful stuff) and a bad thing (no reason to pay in the first place). I'm more likely to spend money on value that's not related to winning, like the cosmetics or a stand alone PvE campaign, but there's been no effort to do anything in that type yet in this game.

Extra Credits takes on F2P again - some thoughts on value

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