New Feature in R191: Shards

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Comments

  • Omegased
    Omegased Posts: 556 Critical Contributor
    What I'm wondering is why shards have to be tied to specific characters.  Can't there just be a shard "pool" that they get dumped in regardless of how you earn them (earning, buying, gifted, etc) and then just getting covers for your desired character through the roster page or something, with different costs per rarity of course?
    Problem with that is potential abuse - hoarding shards then max champing a new character the first day they appear. they want us to continually open tokens, not hoard.
  • Kahmon
    Kahmon Posts: 625 Critical Contributor
    I like the idea behind this of shifting bonus heroes from a randomness to a grind, but as this thread shows, the implementaion has problems. Mainly about what happens when you change your mind about which character to chase.

    The solution I see to this is to instead of character shards, have separate pools for each tier.
    This way if you manage to pull what you are chasing shards for, your progress does not get/feel wasted.
    Obviosly they wouldn't be usable for new or limited characters. Fair enough.
    Worried about abuse? Limit how often shards can be used on a particular character. 7 day lockout maybe?
  • PiMacleod
    PiMacleod Posts: 1,716 Chairperson of the Boards
    Personally looking forward to this.  

    Ive been playing this game for far too long and have only pulled MAYBE 3 5* bonus heroes tops.  My 3* BH luck is obviously better, but i cant help but think id take the trade for a color for a 5* of my choice.  After all, i have only 1 black cover for Okoye to date.  Just a single example, mind you.
  • Daredevil217
    Daredevil217 Posts: 3,894 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited November 2019
    Omegased said:
    What I'm wondering is why shards have to be tied to specific characters.  Can't there just be a shard "pool" that they get dumped in regardless of how you earn them (earning, buying, gifted, etc) and then just getting covers for your desired character through the roster page or something, with different costs per rarity of course?
    Problem with that is potential abuse - hoarding shards then max champing a new character the first day they appear. they want us to continually open tokens, not hoard.
    This just incentivizes me to hoard more. I’ll be stockpiling heroics until I have at least 133 and LT/CP until I have 166 (though I was hoarding those anyways). Basically will be opening in those increments so I get the character I want right then and can mitigate the “**** I changed my mind!” effect. 

    PiMacleod said:
    Personally looking forward to this.  

    Ive been playing this game for far too long and have only pulled MAYBE 3 5* bonus heroes tops.  My 3* BH luck is obviously better, but i cant help but think id take the trade for a color for a 5* of my choice.  After all, i have only 1 black cover for Okoye to date.  Just a single example, mind you.
    My overall 5* pull rate has been below average since I started tracking but I believe my 5* BH rate has been well above. I know every pull is independent, but I can’t help feeling that those who have pulled well are getting out before given the chance to “regress to the mean”, while people with luck like yours so far are missing out on that same opportunity (though for you it’d be a huge plus). Just a different perspective I guess. 
  • Wontonz
    Wontonz Posts: 4 Just Dropped In
    Kahmon said:
    Oh, and this should be implemented for supports too as a way to chase which one of them we want!
    SECONDED
  • Xair
    Xair Posts: 77 Match Maker
    it looks like the shards are per a specific character.
    will there be a way to move shards from one character to another?

    example: i set a latest char as favorite (5* carnage), i start pulling Latest tokens, and gain 400 shards for him, but then lucky manage to champion him without needing to use the shards i have collected. i no longer want to keep the recently championed char as favorite, i want to move the favorite to a different unchampioned 5*, can i pass the shards i collected on him to the new favorite somehow?
  • maguirenumber6
    maguirenumber6 Posts: 457 Mover and Shaker
    So we have a new system to help us find specific covers. I know a lot of people are complaining already, but let's wait until it is released and see how it works in practice.If it can help me to hunt down some missing covers for a few of my 5*s, then all to the good.
  • Chameleon
    Chameleon Posts: 183 Tile Toppler
    edited November 2019
    ... 

    Where I believe that this will be IMMENSELY frustrating, is when players change their mind on who to favorite.
    Because when doing so, you reset the progress to zero again.
    And I've done that numerous times in MPQ.

    Here's the best way I can think of to describe the problem.

    If you know in advance which character is going to be the most important character to have two months from now, then the whole system is great.

    But that absolutely is NOT the case. We don't know who's going to be in SHIELD training. We don't know who the "next great character" is going to be, or when it will show up. There's absolutely no way that we can set these favorites, and expect that this will still be the most desirable character by the time the shard progress is finished.

    And that is going to lead to TONS of regret, and wasted shards. This is the part that is going to cripple progress at a time where it needs to be improved.
    I've only read this far in this thread so the point I am about to make may have been stated already.  However, this seems like a good post to reply to with my concerns added.

    With Bonus Heroes one can change their choice if they draw the character they need.  If I pull and get the character I have marked for shards then the shards become all but useless.  So, I don't like how it makes you save for a certain character, though it's nice to not be restricted further by being one colour.  I'd much prefer that these shards go towards that tier and then I could apply them to whichever cover I needed in that tier when I had gained enough.  At least, this would be preferable for the 4 and 5 star tiers because those will still take longer to acquire enough shards, which means an increased time frame for me to pull that cover naturally.

    Edited to reduce the quote to the part I was replying to.
  • Chameleon
    Chameleon Posts: 183 Tile Toppler
    Kahmon said:
    I like the idea behind this of shifting bonus heroes from a randomness to a grind, but as this thread shows, the implementaion has problems. Mainly about what happens when you change your mind about which character to chase.

    The solution I see to this is to instead of character shards, have separate pools for each tier.
    This way if you manage to pull what you are chasing shards for, your progress does not get/feel wasted.
    Obviosly they wouldn't be usable for new or limited characters. Fair enough.
    Worried about abuse? Limit how often shards can be used on a particular character. 7 day lockout maybe?
    Ok.. So someone else did think of this. Good!!

    As it looks right now, we can hoard tokens to get the shards for a new character immediately.  I can see why that would be bad for a business.  So, I say having tiered shard pools (a pool for each star level) solves a lot of the problems players have posted about regarding this new system.  To help with the business model of this, new characters can't have shards applied until xx days after the release.  This would be akin to how the new characters aren't available in legendary tokens until xx days have passed since they were released.
  • DeNappa
    DeNappa Posts: 1,368 Chairperson of the Boards
    Didn't read through the entire thread yet so forgive me if this has been answered already, but what happens with leftover shards once you maxcover/champion a character?

    Suppose you have a 5/2/5 Okoye with say 300 (out of 500) shards towards that 3rd yellow. Then a special store comes up, and you pull a yellow cover directly. Are those 300 shards now wasted?  (If so, that's hardly an improvement)
  • pezse
    pezse Posts: 8 Just Dropped In
    Maybe would be a reasonable additional feature that pulling a cover for favorite hero would give a choice to unlock the shards binding to it and transfer to another one.
  • Chameleon
    Chameleon Posts: 183 Tile Toppler
    edited November 2019
    ThaRoadWarrior said:
    @IceIX
    What happens if you set nothing to favorite? with BHs, you currently get a random one any time one would show up. Is there a generic holding pool for shards if you don't have anyone selected?
    Seconded

    crackninja said:
    Thinking about the revelation that feeders were held back while this was being put into place...if they add more feeders, only insead of covers they give us 500 shards in those places, that would be a nice positive.
    Seconded

    wymtime said:
    i think I will like shards for the 5* world and would prefer bonus heroes lower tiers. Again the lower tiers are more of a farm and should be on auto pilot not something I have to pay attention too.
    Seconded


    Third edit: attempted again to fix formatting
  • Mattjimf
    Mattjimf Posts: 139 Tile Toppler
    @IceIX The only thing players have consistently asked for is a daily crash awarding that character as a reward and a new 5 day LL/5* node (Gods vs Men or something like that) node.  
  • Chameleon
    Chameleon Posts: 183 Tile Toppler
    Can we opt out?  Leave the bonus hero icon there and if you have bonus heroes selected you don't earn shards for that tier.

    I don't understand why you can't just release a replacement system that is objectively without a doubt better than the current system.  You should never have a details post about a new feature that was teased for weeks only to have your most dedicated players thinking "yeah, is it possible for me to opt out of this new system?"

    And why are you constantly trying to fix problems that have already been solved?  "Colorless covers" was basically granted with the ability to save covers.  Sure it sucks to to have a 0/5/0 with 10 saved covers, but eventually those saved covers get applied as champ levels and so there is never any waste.  It's no longer the same pain point as selling covers used to be.  We don't need this.  We'd have been better off if you had someone working on a new sparkly victory banner instead of this.
    Seconded.

    Fwiw, I actually liked the sparkly victory banner. 🤣
  • St1nkf1st
    St1nkf1st Posts: 126 Tile Toppler
    IceIX said:

    Past that, we will be updating several other places in the game to include Shards. Places like Event Rewards, S.H.I.E.L.D. Clearance Levels, Champion Rewards, and more will be seeing these additional ways to gain characters getting updates. We’re still finalizing a lot of these various rewards and we’ll be sharing that information with you as it comes on line.


    Somehow I have the feeling that this might be a turn away from "full" covers as rewards but giving us shards instead in general. Whether that will be a good or bad thing we will see once the entire plan is revealed.